Living on

The other day somebody from work mentioned she had been checking out Rory's blog and in particular the pictures from Kika the Ridgeback's birthday party. She said that she couldn't tell any of the Ridgebacks apart, that they all looked the same to her. I didn't give it a lot of thought - to me each Ridgeback I come across is unique and distinguishable in some way from all the others.


But sometimes, there are striking similarities. And I don't just mean coat colour. Or the ridge. This morning at the dog park we came across ridgeless Loo and wheelchair-bound Milo. Even from a distance Milo reminded me of Seth, and I said as much to Norm. As we got closer the resemblance grew stronger. It was more than 10-year-old Milo's greying muzzle. It was the overall look. The same curious but calm eyes and expression. Same broad chest. And the disposition - unfazed by all the hoopla Rory and Loo were creating with their chasing and crashing. Milo was in a dog wheelchair because he has degenerative myelopathy and although he wasn't running and wrestling (which an older Ridgeback wouldn't do anyway) he was standing his ground and taking everything in. As we soon found out through conversation with Milo's owner, it turns out Milo and Seth were from the same breeder, same dam but different sire (though Milo's sire was also Seth's half brother so I wonder if that makes Milo and Seth 3/4 brothers?). Whatever. I was happy and in awe and I spent a considerable amount of time petting Milo and simply staring at him. Norm and I did of course continue to make polite conversation with Milo's owner, but our attention was on Milo until I figured we should probably keep moving. As we walked away, both of us were in need of something to dry our eyes. Spending that time with Milo was so exactly like being with Seth that it was like he came back to the park to check up on us. Thanks for that, Old Man. We miss you. And thank you Milo for putting up with two total strangers who wanted nothing more than to spend the entire day with you at the park.

Curly-Q

Trying to find a balance between dog stuff for some of you, and renovation stuff for others is tough. I did a quick scan though and realized that the last few posts were weighed heavily in favour of Rory. Not a bad thing in my book, but not so good for those of you jonesing for a reno fix. The roof isn't terrifically fascinating fodder because other people did it. At least until we get to the part where we cut the drywall out of the living room ceiling to reveal the new skylights, now THAT's going to be interesting. In the meantime, I spent some time last weekend putting a few of the finishing touches on the hub room. Poor thing was sorely lacking baseboard and casing. Norm had kindly repurposed some of the mahogany from the dining room into 3/4" strips in order to bring the hub room door jambs to the proper depth after we added the drywall. He did such a good job you can barely see the line in this photo that divides the new strip and the previous edge of the door jamb.

But, since life is more real than a photo I can tell you that the strips were just a touch too wide.

Which meant I got to plane them down before I could do the casing. The best part was the pile of wood curls on the floor afterward. This is what the salon floor looks like (minus the planer) after I'm done getting my hair cut. I hated sweeping these up they were so cute.

The obligatory dog shot. I had to put a baby-gate up at the front door since I was going in and out
because the wood and the saw and other tools were in the driveway. Rory spent his time in the living
room doing his best to look entirely put out because I was wasting a perfectly good Saturday morning
making wood curls.

Here is the end result on one of the doors. Norm and I picked this style out at a millworks place quite
some time ago. I went back there last Friday to see how serious they were about the sign on the door
that read "Sales to Contractors Only". Apparently, all you need to qualify as a contractor is red hair and
a willingness to pay for the materials. And maybe a wink.

Lest you are busy snubbing your noses or yawning, I want you to know that
I used up two feet of the top casing in practice trying to figure out how to make the angled cuts for the ends. I suppose I could have just cut the ends of the top piece straight back at 90 degrees, but I like this look much better. A little wood filler and some paint (Behr's Bleached Linen for those of you who want to know) and this will look like one solid piece of wood. By the way, once I figured out how to make these cuts, I cut an entire supply of left and right sides. If anybody needs some....

Roof! Roof!

I'm just a dog y'know. When my momma goes to work in the morning, I fully expect to nap until my internal clock tells me she'll be home soon. Then I wait at the front window for her. Today I didn't get to sleep AT ALL. There were men on the roof. Scraping, hammering, walking, stomping, nailing. The roofing guys were here! Brad didn't come with them. I like Brad, he came to look at our roof when momma said we needed a new one. And he came back after the roofing guys were done. I've never seen the roof, so I'm not convinced we needed a new one, but I am sure glad it's finished. What a racket!! I can tell you that the crew from Supreme Roofing Solutions Inc.was very nice to me. Momma says they were very good at their job. They cleaned everything up after they were gone, and even ran a big magnet thing around the yard to make sure there were no little bits of metal that I might step on. The other thing is that now when I sleep upstairs it's not hot anymore. Before we got a new roof, if the daytime temperature was anything over 24C it was hard to sleep upstairs because the heat was trapped in the attic. Now that the old two layers of shingles are off and the new roof is on, it's nice and cool for sleeping.




This is the skylight at the front entrance. I loved when the glass was off, because then I could hear more of what the guys on the roof were saying. And I was kinda hoping that they'd drop some of their lunch down to me.



These are the two skylights over the living room. Brand new ones. The old ones were boarded over on the roof and then drywalled over on the inside (who does that, you ask? yeah, we don't know why either). You still can't see these ones from the inside yet, but there are nails marking the corners on each unit and I'm waiting for the day when the peeps cut through the drywall on the inside. LET THERE BE LIGHT I say!



These are some of my new friends. The still didn't share their lunch with me though.



Here's what the front yard looked like from my vantage point at the front window. It's all clean now. And now we have a nice steel roof that looks like cedar shakes and is supposed to last forever. That should make the insurance company very happy since they didn't have to pay for it (but they did tell us we had to get a new roof RIGHT NOW). And it should keep my momma from saying bad words whenever she talks about the insurance company.

Kika's 2nd Birthday

Whew! Busy weekend for me. And it was all about me too. Well, not really, but I got to do lots of stuff. Including going to my first ever birthday party on Sunday. It was really hot outside and there were a ton of mosquitoes. But there was cool drinking water by the bucketful and treats too. Kika didn't look anything like I remembered her. Last time I saw her we were in a photo shoot together, with Raimi and Seth. She was just tiny. And now she's two and I could actually play with her. Odin is my younger brother and he lives with Kika. You'll see him in the photos. He has the same smile as me. In case you can't tell us apart, he has the blue collar. The mosquitoes really liked him. So did I. Kika has the pink collar. There were other dogs and more Ridgebacks there too. Thanks Jim and Barb - it was great fun! Oh, and those vanilla thingies? They're on top of the fridge and making me crazy every time I walk by...





Hard to tell, huh? Apparently it's hard to take a photo of bouncing Ridgebacks. That's me on the left.




























I think Odin was sticking his tongue out AT ME!















OOOHMPH!
























That's Emmy (or maybe it was Emma?) and her periscope ear running toward Ivy. They're girls, and not quite as much fun as Odin.

















I hope I get to go hang out with Odin again.

Tracking Class #3

I've been assured that it won't take much longer before Rory clicks and actually knows what I'm asking him to do when we're out tracking. Right now he likes socializing with the other dogs, and following whatever they're doing, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't realize that the entire point of the thing is to find the person whose 'scent pad' I'm wafting in front of his nose. Fun times though. And certainly, there are worse places than Canmore to be on a stunningly gorgeous Saturday morning in June.

Here's Rory. I'd like to tell you he's deciding which fork to take, but alas, no.

After we found the person we were looking for (well, okay, after Rory followed the other dogs to the person we were looking for) it was time for a break and a drink.

In the middle of the stream, Rory discovered a tree with a muzzle.

Trying to remember that show on TV and how the bears caught salmon in mid-air. I didn't tell him
that there weren't any salmon here.

Yipes!

On the calmer side.

"Hey! You guys comin'??"

doG's Country

Today we went to Canmore for my third tracking class. I lost my harness, but I think that wasn't today, it was a while ago. I made a new best friend named Abbey. She's only 8 months old but she's bigger than me, and can that girl wrestle!



We did a lot of wrestling before we tracked. See the other dog on the right? Most of 'em kinda made a big circle when they went past us.







Abbey has pretty pink lips, and pretty sharp teeth.











I was tired before it was even my turn, so I plopped down and took in some of the mountain air.









Actually, I didn't track much. I learned a secret though. If you follow Abbey, she knows where to go. She can wrestle AND she can track!










I can't remember these guys' names but mostly they were the fun police anyway.








Here's Abbey testing her brakes.










And one of the fun police deciding not to police so much.