sad times at seven dogs ranch

This spring we had to put Tugger to sleep because of lung cancer. On July 5th we took Sam to the vet for accupuncture because of his arthritis. They discovered bone cancer in his rear leg; on the people's equivalent of the calf/ankle area. The only real solution other than chemo was amputation which doesn't solve the problem, only delays the inevitable by maybe a year at best. We decided not to do that since he had just turned eleven. Well, a week and a half later, the tumor broke his leg and we decided to peacefully end his suffering. Fast forward 8 days later and his sister, Ella, is experiencing troubles. Without going into the long story, she is currently in a spot which will probably require euthanasia tomorrow. I am sad, however, not distraught. Rich and I have been preparing ourselves for a while now of the inevitable sorrow that having 6 of our 7 dogs within 1 year of each other in age. Rich and I are thankful for Sasha (although I curse her for every chewed up bra, panty, and shoe - an average of one every week) because her juvenile actions reminds us to laugh when we feel like crying.

new post

Wow! Its been April since I posted last. Life really hasn't slowed down here. I have a few updates to relate. I will post pictures at a later time. We used the leftover stone from the fireplaces to build a raised flowerbed in which we are attempting to grow and sustain plant life in a Texas drought. This is especially hard when we are already in stage 1 mandatory watering restrictions. This can only get worse as the summer wears on. The new grass is a greenish brown since it has been watered and the other grass is a lovely shade of burnt brown. We have not done too much to the barn aside from adding another walls worth of siding. Eventually the siding is going to wrap around the whole barn and man cave, but we took a couple of months off from these things as we were working on landscaping, and were, quite frankly, a little burnt out after 7 months of seeimgly nonstop work.



Last week, Rich got motivated again and we did some work in the game room. We tore down old wood paneling (to discover a layer of moldy sheetrock which was also removed). You see, we have this fabulous tree growing right up against the rear corner of the game room. Its roots are causing the foundation and cinder block walls to crack, which in turn, allowed moisture to penetrate the walls. New sheetrock was put up and taped and floated. We painted two walls a red color (Cranberry Zing). Rich also put up trim and stained about half of it. Today he built two sets of shelves to display his old (almost certifiable antiques really) karate trophies and more recent pool trophies. See, this is what Man Caves are for. The red walls need some more touch up painting and now we need to repaint the two walls that are an off white. I think I want to find some other interesting color and will hunt that down this week. We also took out the tile flooring (sorry Jack) and intend to eventually paint the bare concrete with some kind of epoxy and paint.



One item worthy of an "arghhhhhhh" is I think we have a slow leak from the hot water heater between the bathroom and water heater closet. I noticed some water between the tub and toilet for the second time. This was after a kind of longer than usual shower. I was hoping Rich was right when he said (you can laugh) that maybe it came from a cat that fell in the toilet. But then, yesterday, after running the dishwasher, I noticed water coming from under the sink cabinet area. There was no water from the sink in the actual cabinet. This water caused a little bit of damage to the kickplate under the cabinet (no biggie) and the caulk under the baseboard behind the toilet seems to be vanishing, for lack of a better word. I think we caught it in time, and I don't think its happening every time we use hot water, so hopefully its a quick fix. I am not however anticipating with any sort of glee whatsoever the fact that some sheetrock will have to be knocked down and all the work rebuilding it will entail. Luckily the house is still under warranty, so other than scheduling workers into our lives and putting up with some mess, there's no more sweat off our backs.



Triathlon season is progressing, although I need to kick up the motivation a notch or three if I am going to be prepared for 7+ hours of work for the Half Ironman in October. I am not worried about anything other than the bike, because its hard for me to go on a 40 mile bike ride when I worry about lose dogs on the prowl, out for blood.



Stay tuned.