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Category: dogs

Wednesday, 22 June 2016

09:33 – We got several hundred containers filled and labeled yesterday. More of the same the rest of this week. And another 3,000 bottles and caps showed up yesterday, just in time.

We’re getting a bit concerned about Colin. He turned five in February, which makes him a young middle-aged dog. We’re playing a lot of frisbee with him, and I noticed the other day that he was sometimes running with his back feet together. That may be just the way he chose to run that time, but it may also indicate hip problems, which Border Collies are prone to. The other night when I took him out last time to pee, instead of lifting his leg on the well casing as usual, he squatted like a girl dog. It may be nothing, or something minor like a muscle pull, but we’re going to keep an eye on him.



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Wednesday, 25 May 2016

08:14 – Barbara has been gone for three days, but Colin and I are making do. She called around dinner time yesterday. She’s relaxing and having a good time, which is the important part. Also, Colin is behaving much better than he usually does when Barbara’s away for a few days. He’s still pestering for attention, but not as much as I expected.

He’s a very needy Border Collie, and Barbara recognized that the first time we visited him in his litter. All the other puppies clustered around our feet, playing and nibbling on each other’s paws and ears. Colin, then named Eddie, was off by himself. Barbara recognized immediately that unless someone who was very familiar with Border Collies adopted this puppy, he was very likely to end up in BC Rescue. So she picked him and he picked her. As it turns out, we agree that Colin is the smartest BC we’ve ever had, which is saying something. People think I’m kidding, but I’m entirely serious. A smart dog uses deductive logic. All of our BCs, Colin more so than the others, also uses inductive logic. It’s obvious from watching his decision-making process.

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Sunday, 15 May 2016

10:23 – As usual, Barbara read the paper this morning and then had breakfast, while Colin pestered me mercilessly to throw his toys for him. Then Barbara came into the den and asked what we were working on today. The two of them are a lot alike, wanting to work constantly. I told Barbara we both deserved a day off, so we won’t do much work on kit stuff today.

When I walked Colin, there were two or three dozen cows and calves near our back fence, including one calf that was lying right up against the fence. Colin did his usual, stalking toward them, staring at the calf as he approached it. Then he did something he does frequently when stalking squirrels, but never with the cattle. He apparently thought he was close enough to pounce the calf, so he made a dash toward it. Naturally, the calf went instantly from watchful to alarmed. It sprang to its feet and took off running away from the fence. Its mother and several other cows took off running with it. It wasn’t exactly a stampede, but there were several cows moving very quickly away from the threat. Those cows may outweigh Colin by a factor of 10 or more, but they know they’re prey and they recognize a wolf when they see one.

I didn’t yell at Colin. I can’t blame a herding dog for being a herding dog. But I really don’t want him bothering the cows, both for his sake and for theirs.

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Wednesday, 4 May

09:31 – Forty-six years ago today. Four dead in Ohio. Allison B. Krause, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, William Knox Schroeder, and Sandra Lee Scheuer. Kids minding their own business. Murdered by the government. Never forget.

Barbara is spending the day in Winston-Salem, running errands and meeting the HVAC company tech at the old house so they can do a system check and replace the central filter. Colin and I are on our own for today. He’s watching the cows. There are a couple dozen along our back fence, including several babies who aren’t much bigger than he is.

More science kit stuff today. I’ll be running more labels for bottles and making up solutions. Barbara labeled about 1,000 bottles yesterday while she watched House of Cards on Netflix streaming.

It now looks pretty certain that it’ll be Trump vs. Clinton in November, two candidates whom almost no one likes, including the rank and file of their own parties. My guess is that Trump will beat Clinton. A lot of voters hate him, but the same is true of Clinton, so it’s a matter of voters from both parties holding their noses and voting for whichever candidate they hate less. How did we get to this point?

12:16 – Colin just took me out to get some exercise. For me, not for him.

As we went out the door, I threw the Frisbee as far as I could toward the treeline on our southern boundary. Colin ran after it and caught it in the air a few yards short of the tree line. He then lay down and waited for me to walk over to him. When I got about five feet from him, he grabbed the Frisbee and ran over to the north side of the property, 150 yards or so away. He lay down, dropped the Frisbee, and waited for me to make my way over to him. When I was about five feet from him, he picked it up and ran back over to the south side of the yard. Rinse and repeat. This dog has the shittiest play skills, not just of any dog I’ve ever had or known, but of any dog I’ve ever heard of. What other dog, ever, doesn’t know that when his human throws a toy he’s supposed to go get it, bring it back, and drop it to be thrown again? Colin absolutely demands full participation. He does the same thing in the house. I’ll throw the ball. He runs and picks it up momentarily, drops it where it was, and runs back to demand that I go get it and bring it back for him.

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Wednesday, 23 March 2016

10:35 – Since Barbara was taking Colin to the vet for his damaged claw anyway, she decided to have them do his annual checkup, which was due next month. They did the checkup, gave him boosters of his vaccines, and otherwise did everything that needed to be done. The total bill? $28. At our vet in Winston, it would probably have cost five times that.

Email from Jen. Her husband had lunch with one of the other vets in his practice. She mentioned her concern about the state of the world and the country, and the conversation shifted toward being prepared for emergencies. Jen’s husband was noncommittal, but did say that he and Jen were also very concerned about the state of things. The other vet and her husband are early 30’s and have two young children. They’re also Mormons. She said that her primary worry right now is that they live in-town in a condo, and don’t have space for the supplies they’d like to store.

Jen and her husband have of course socialized with this young family, and they all like each other. Last night, Jen and her husband talked about letting the other vet know that they are serious preppers, and inviting the other family to store supplies at their place, with the idea that if things do get really bad the young family could relocate to their place for the duration. Jen says they see a lot of upsides to such an arrangement, not least that it would add another medically-skilled person and boost their adult count to at least eight people and potentially more with the other family that Jen already has made arrangements with. So they’re going to talk it over with the other family about inviting the young vet’s family to join their group.


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Tuesday, 22 March 2016

10:09 – A little excitement this morning. Barbara was trimming Colin’s claws and got a bit too deep on one. We didn’t have any styptic powder available, so at the recommendation of the vet, Barbara used some cornstarch. That didn’t stop the bleeding, so Barbara just took Colin over to see the vet. I’d actually thought about taking him to the vet last week, so Colin could meet them and they could meet him. We need to get a relationship set up with them anyway.

The electrician hasn’t returned my call yet. It’s not urgent, but if I don’t hear back from him in the next day or two, I’ll call a different electrician.

As I watch the level of civility between the Democrats and Republicans continue to degrade, I’m afraid we’re reaching the point where the two are no longer opponents, but actual enemies. We’re already seeing political violence, and we’re still in the primary season. How much worse is it likely to get in the run-up to the general election in November? We’re not at the point where Weimar Germany found itself in the late 1920’s, with street battles between gangs of Communist thugs and gangs of Nazi thugs, but with BLM leaders and other prog proxies calling for actions like the wholesale slaughter of cops and white civilians, we’re not all that far away from it, either. The inner cities are tinderboxes, and it wouldn’t take much of a spark to set off an inferno. I’m very happy that Barbara and I are well away from the Triad, with its population of 1,000,000+, many of whom are underclass. And if the November general election is widely perceived to have been stolen by one or the other party, things may get lively.


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Tuesday, 15 March 2016

11:05 – We bought a new Whirlpool washer/dryer set yesterday at Blevins, the local equivalent of Home Depot. We drove straight home, and the delivery truck showed up about half an hour later to install the new ones and haul away the old ones. The washer is HE, but top-load. I’d heard enough bad things about front-load HE washers that I wouldn’t have one on a bet. The user manual was full of warnings that we could expect a completely different experience from using our old agitator-based washer. Certainly, it makes a lot of different sounds than the old one did, and it takes two or three times longer to wash a load. That’s not an issue for us. I can run a load of laundry any time. Both the washer and dryer did the job, which is all I care about.

Colin has been a PITA the last couple of nights, walking around whining and whimpering. I finally yelled at him about 2:00 this morning. I scared him and Barbara. She thinks he hears deer or whatever outside at night. We do want him to be alert and warn us when there’s an intruder, so we need to get him to understand that deer don’t count as intruders. This morning, there were about 30 cows along the fence at the back fence. Colin stared at them. A couple of them kept an eye on him. He is, after all, a wolf. But mostly they just ignored him standing 20 or 30 meters away on the other side of the fence.

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Thursday, 10 March 2016

11:53 – We had some excitement overnight. About 1:50 a.m., Colin started whining and pestering, so I got up to let him out the front door. Ordinarily, he’d just run out into the yard, do what he had to do, and coming running back to the door. This time, he went around the house, out of sight. After a couple minutes, I called him, but he didn’t respond. So I grabbed a flashlight and went looking for him. I walked around the perimeter of our 1.5 acre yard two or three times looking for him, but he was nowhere in sight. I finally went back in and woke Barbara, who was terrified that he was gone for good or had been hit by a car.

I drove around looking for him for about 15 minutes. Barbara called finally to say he was back home. She remonstrated with him and he promised never to do it again until next time. My attitude was that a dog’s gotta do what a dog’s gotta do. I was worried, too, but as I told Barbara he’s a very smart adult, and he knows where he lives.

Incidentally, I was using one of the Feit Electric LED flashlights from Costco. They use three C-cells and are rated at 500 lumens. At their tightest focus, the beam goes from circular to the square shape of the actual LED, and reaches out a long way. I got a three-pack of them, and I’m thinking they’d be excellent for night-time use on a rifle or shotgun. They provide a useful amount of illumination out well past 100 yards.

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Monday, 7 March 2016

10:55 – Barbara is down in Winston today for a dental appointment. Colin will be wandering around the house, whining and barking, until she gets back this afternoon.

Barbara originally called the unfinished area in the basement just that. As we piled more and more stuff in there, she started calling it my “natural area”, implying that there were things growing wild in there. Which, in all fairness, there might have been. But now that it’s pretty well organized and de-cluttered, she’s started calling it my lab area. Eventually, we need to do something about the lighting and the sink. Right now, there are four incandescent fixtures to cover the whole area. That’s 400W of incandescent right now, which is sufficient for what people normally use a basement for, but not for using it as a work area. Also, the sink is small and pathetic. It’s a cheap enameled metal cabinet with a small, shallow sink and a cheap faucet with little clearance.

I’d originally thought about installing four four-foot double fluorescent fixtures, but LED lighting has gotten cheap enough that I may install the equivalent LED fixtures instead. Those long tubes are a PITA to store, install, and dispose of, while I should never have to touch the LED fixtures again once they’re installed.

As to the sink, I’m still thinking about it. I may get a carpenter in to build a sturdy workbench at a good working height for me with half or so its length being a drop in shallow sink with a high-clearance faucet and storage shelves below.

Colin had some excitement yesterday. We heard a woman shouting out in our yard. She was chasing one of those little chee-hooah-hooah dogs around. They may be small, but they’re fast. Barbara took Colin out on leash, and of course the little dog immediately approached him. Fortunately, Colin is a very gentle dog. The chee-hooah-hooah stood up with its front paws braced on Colin’s face. Colin not only didn’t kill and eat it, he didn’t even growl.

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Sunday, 5 July 2015

08:19 – Poor Colin had a bad time of it yesterday evening. Barbara was out with friends for dinner and to watch fireworks, so it was just me to protect Colin from the noise. We shared roast beast sandwiches for dinner, and then Colin curled up next to me on the sofa while we watched Heartland re-runs with the sound turned up loud to drown out the noise of the fireworks. When a particularly loud one went off, he’d crawl up in my lap and snout me to beg me to make it stop.

Barbara and I worked all day Friday and yesterday filling chemical bottles and making up chemical bags for science kits. More of the same today, along with doing final assembly on new batches of kits. And again during all our free time until about mid-September.

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