Ann’s Weblog

Not that there’s anything wrong with Saturdays. On this particular one, I’m driving my darling daughter Susan out to Jasper for her job which starts tomorrow. It’ll be another nice visiting time, and the day looks beautiful.

In spite of having dog grooming on Thursday and Friday, I’ve got almost all the perennials potted! Some plants are in pots that are too small to “present” to the public, and need to be in larger pots when I receive shipment of those. I don’t charge my customers for extra DIRT, but some of the baby plants and roots that I bought this spring are quite “dear”: the items cost more wholesale than I can get for them in a little pot. It’d be hard to convince people that a special variety of plant is worth a premium price, if it’s sold in a 4″ pot! Did all that make sense? I’ll have some repotting to do during the summer, but for my spring sale May 14, all that most of the plants need to do is GROW and NOT FREEZE.

In our growing area, we can expect some nightime frosts right up until mid-May. We often have surprise frosts even later and have to replant some tender vegetables and flowers. It’s a challenge, but we like where we live, and there seems to be a huge variety of species that really do well. I guess you can say that about everywhere except the extremely cold areas.

Now I think I’m just being boring. Susan doesn’t have to leave right away, so I’m going to venture into McBride to do laundry (we have a washer and dryer, but RUSTY water).

Take care, everyone, of yourselves and your loved ones.

~ Ann

We are back in McBride (population: about 600) from Vancouver! Although Vancouver is a beautiful city, full of excitement and culture and lovely parks and things to do, I was only there long enough to be reminded of the traffic. The SMOG wasn’t bad the day that I was there, but sometimes it is.

We’re really tired today, but the weather is BEAUTIFUL, and Susan has unpacked and sorted most of the load already (it’s about 9:30 am). I’ve designated a storage area of my kennel and grooming building for her. After we get things put away, I’m going to get potting again!

I had the idea that I wanted to buy some wholesale pots when I went to the Coast. However, it’s a good thing I didn’t stop for pots or soil, because I don’t know how we could have fit them in. There are a number of bedding plant growers around here who might lend me some pots, and wouldn’t feel threatened if I asked. At the end of the season, I always am offered “recycled” plant containers, but I’ve used almost all of them! I would have loved to ONLY use a pot that is my “signature” perennial container, but I ran out of them, and getting some sent to me adds a frightful amount of freight. I’ve ordered some anyway, to be delivered by a salesman who comes through here, but they don’t arrive until May the 6th or so! If I keep doing this work, I MUST plan better!

At any rate, I’ll borrow some pots just to get the poor plants out of their bags and boxes, and if I have time later, they’ll all get transplanted into the bigger signature pots. In so many small or home businesses, a person can’t really “count” their time, anyway!

Okay, time’s a-wasting, and daylight’s burning, as they say! I’ll add to this blog later today if I have time.

Thank you, dear reader, for visiting.

~ Ann

It’s been a beautiful day in the Robson Valley, but the mosquitoes have had their first hatch!! Yikes, they found me while I was outside potting plants, and there wasn’t enough wind to even challenge them. They are so irritating, though I find I don’t get the “welts” that I used to from the bites.

Tomorrow I travel to Vancouver to pick up my middle daughter Susan. She has been attending Capilano College, taking her Bachelor of Science in preparation for vet school. Susan will work in Jasper for the summer, and then move to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan for University there.

I went to University of Saskatchewan as part of my Animal Health Technology course, in 1976! I’ve told Susan she will enjoy the city and the campus. I have a cousin in Saskatoon, and I’ve asked him to keep Susan in mind someone he knows has a suite for rent for the fall.

My youngest daughter Kim called last night from Calgary. She recently achieved her license for Massage Therapy, and has been very busy at that and a part-time job at a fitness club. She is just about to turn 23 this week.

Shelly, my oldest, called today. She turns 27 this week and has booked a “spa” day for herself. Shelly has the common stressors in her life of too much work, which goes with too much mortgage and truck payments. It brings tears to my eyes to hear in her voice how tired she is. Shelly works with adults with developmental disabilities, in Calgary. There is no shortage of work, but it’s a very stressful occupation.

I’d better try to get to bed (after, of course, checking in with my beloved Garden Chat friends). It would be fun to leave for Vancouver by 6 AM: I don’t know WHY I should leave so early, but I want to!

Take care, all. Take time to smell the roses, or jonquils, or tulips, or whatever is in bloom!

~ Ann

I can’t BELIEVE the speed at which the weeks go by. It’s like an assembly line at which I can’t grab all the great moments because they fly by so fast. It’s GOOD to “live life with a Capital L”, but I keep getting the feeling that the WHOLE THING is too short a time, on this earth.

Yesterday marked 13 years since I “left the farm”: a long marriage, 300 acres, a house that I enjoyed for its unique character. I even insisted, at that time, that our three daughters remain “at the farm” because their school and friends, 4H and familiar HOME, I thought, shouldn’t change. I’m not going to explain in a public diary WHY I felt I had to leave, but surviving the separation, and the judgement of community and family was, for the most part, HARSH. The reality of SURVIVING such a choice was many-facetted. I thought for many weeks that I would literally die, if not by my own hand, by my heart physically, literally, breaking in two. For YEARS I had lived with the sensation of great WEIGHT on my chest, tension, longing and loneliness, except when alone with my young daughters.

How can a person pine for by-gone days when the passage of time is inevitable and normal? My “new” husband, Gary, says to me, “Ah, but they’ll ALWAYS be your little girls. I would say that I have few regrets in my life, but sometimes it seems that I simply did NOT appreciate the time when I had the company of my children ENOUGH! That time is so precious, and I wish I could remember MORE.

I can’t remember if I’ve written anything since Wednesday, when Gary and I went into the city of Prince George, a teeming metropolis of 90,000. I’ll check my weblog, and will add something later. I’m off to groom a fairly large border collie cross who gets completely shaved twice per year: I LOVE my job!

Later, folks!

~Ann

We are well pleased with the shopping in our little town. We hardly have to THINK of going elsewhere to shop for usual necessities or even special items, appliances, etc.. However, Gary wanted to find a certain few items of clothing NOT available in McBride, and I went along for the ride, to Prince George.

For my perennial project, I had run out of potting soil, and though in the past I have purchased these mixes at our local farm supply, it was unavailable at this time. So I bought several bags at Home Depot, and when I’m not grooming dogs in the next few days, I hope to make some REAL headway with my potting! Why do I keep buying grower mix for the perennials that I sell? Because now I have a nice reputation for NOT passing on WEEDS with the plants in pots. I just have to figure it into the expense of doing business.

Gary got a very nice pair of black pants, shirt, belt, and a couple of other shirts not meant for his niece’s Bat Mitzvah. I didn’t feel like shopping or particularly spending money. At least we had a “date” out of town… hadn’t been out of the “valley” together for more than a year!

Yesterday was a lovely day, and so was today. I hope this weather holds because it is certainly doing those baby plants some good (and consequently, my mood). I’m going to spend a few minutes chatting in my beloved Garden Chat in Yahoo and then get to bed.

Take care, everyone. Thanks for reading this blog. ~ Ann

Our 75 year old friend who ordered a G5 iMac has been the victim of a serious fuckup. First, her computer was not even sent out until after her “expected delivery date”. Then she happily received it (her husband was complaining in the post office that he’d heard ENOUGH about how WONDERFUL it would be…).

THEN, her iMac worked for about 30 seconds, then quit. She’s a real sharp cookie, as you might have gathered, PLUS she had had some help setting it up; it’s the consensus that the machine be considered DOA (really called “Dead On First Use” I think). She heard this from Apple support too, and is sending it back. THEN, Helen discovered that Apple had charged her credit card TWICE, for a total of more than $4000, and the bank told her that THEY would see it got straightened out.

We know this could happen with any computer, indeed, any merchandise, but I just HATE that it happens to be any Apple product. I can hear my friend Susannah saying, “Ha ha, and it’s an Apple…”. At any rate, what do I care if Susannah gets an iBook or ANY computer? But, as I wrote to Helen… this kind of major hassle doesn’t do our Apple evangelism any good!! Even if Apple fixes the problems immediately, it’s an unfortunate occurrence.

Things are pretty quiet at the Pet Hostel again. Several boarders have gone home since the weekend. We still have Molly, a border collie, and Sheilagh, a petite shepherd cross, and Tigger, a convalescent cat. These pets are all from one family.

The dogs are delightful, as is the cat, but Tigger has been the biggest challenge. He has just survived hepatitis (bless his owners’ hearts for getting him treatment). He had pills to be taken on an empty stomach, and pills to be taken with food. It broke my heart to withhold ANY of his food, because he was eating very little as it was. After a couple of days in which the poor old dear cat hardly ate and didn’t use the litter box once, his health started to improve. Now, he has finished all of his pills, and daily has his choice of real canned fish, roast chicken, lean ground beef, premium cat food, and whatever else I think will tempt him. He’s very thin, but acting quite alert and friendly; I’m glad to have been part of his recovery.

Welll… my taxes are done (I really did TWO year’s worth in one sitting last week), but I still have HUNDREDS of plants to pot. I put the covering back on the greenhouse, and it’s lovely and warm already in there. I’ll have to talk to the plants to get them to “catch up” after so much cold weather in April.

Will also make time to do laundry in town, I think. Susannah has just phoned and asked if I had time for coffee this afternoon (I usually DO!).

Stay well, my dear friends. ~Ann

I’m a little embarrassed I’ve neglected to write in this blog again. When I “get to it” I always find making an entry a source of relief if my day has been “trying”. It IS still early today…

Day before yesterday was stormy all day, and as I fed and watered and walked and made the dogs comfortable, I noticed a couple of plant pots rolling around the driveway. THEN, I noticed the colourful TAGS that usually adorn the perennials strewn on the lawn! Many of my potted plants (that I have in and near the greenhouse) had blown over.

So… I noticed that the wind was buffetting the greenhouse and, though the plastic covering was violently billowing, nothing had torn. I ran over to tighten up the ropes that we were using to lash down the entire structure, when I realized that some parts of the pipe frame had come apart. The strong covering had been pulled out from under the heavy rocks, asphalt and railway steel that Gary had laid along its perimeter. The whole structure had moved a couple of feet. Many of my planted perennials had been blown over and dumped out in the freezing wind, and I realized then that my little greenhouse was NOT going to survive much more time in the storm.

In order to keep the whole thing from being thrown into the ditch by the gales, I ran around releasing ties from the frame, and as I held the edge of the plastic, that wind picked up the covering and wafted it ‘way up and over to the other side of the greenhouse. So I saved the pipe frame (which is dreadful to reassemble, especially now that each piece is slightly bent from this happening in the past), and must try to get the covering back on the greenhouse soon.

The bottom line is that I’m starting to wonder if we’ll have enough warm weather to “encourage” lush growth in the potted plants for my sale in MAY! I felt discouraged already, as much more potting is waiting to get done, but it has been SO COLD this month. Not everyone is like my dear friend Barb, who realizes the POTENTIAL in every bare root or division that I’ve placed in the soil and labelled.

Why stew so much about something that may turn out well in a few weeks? Because I’m HUMAN. I don’t think I’m an extreme “worrier”, but I do like to think ahead, especially when I’ve invested a fair bit of money, time and heart already. I try to envision “worst case scenarios” without being pessimistic; in fact I consider myself an optimist.

So now that I’ve vented, I see that today is not too windy, and the temperature is supposed to be as warm as Victoria today (unusual for this area). Gary will be back later from horseshoeing, and he’ll be happier to HELP me put the greenhouse covering back on than he’d be if he discovered I’d done it by myself.

I have a little Shih Tzu dog to groom today; it is the one who bit Gary very hard while I was away in March. The dog and I get along just fine and I think the trick is to “make no sudden moves”. In twenty-one years of business, I’ve only been bitten “hard” by one dog, a cocker spaniel, who I inadvertently “surprised” (I grabbed him as he headed for the grooming shop door and freedom.). That was more than 15 years ago.

Stay well, dear reader of my web log. Thanks ever so much for visiting. Tineke and Smoked Duck, I appreciate your interest especially, and anyone else who checks every day!

Okay, well, I didn’t REALLY catch up. However, I DID get to the laundromat with my clothing and with dog blankets and towels. While the washing washed and the drying dried, I got groceries and mail, and Sears parcels. I also had tea with a friend.

I also managed to get another 20 plants potted. That hardly makes a DENT in the work that needs doing. I’m supposing that I’ll have to get a couple of cases of pots shipped to me. I’ve been using a clay-coloured plastic pot (approximately quart size) that people around here recognize as “mine”, but I’m almost “out” of them. I’ve now used up quite a few of the pots that people have kindly donated.. but I’d rather use my “signature” type. I think if I get the little plants and roots into soil even in a 4″ pot, I can repot later. SIGH.. just another step.

The weather today was sunny in the early morning, but quite crisp all day. I’m getting worried that the perennial plants won’t “flourish” in their pots in time for a sale in May.

That about sums up my day. There are six dogs boarding, so the feed/water/walking/cleaning/petting cycle continues!

Thank you to whoever cares to read this blog. Take care, too.

~Ann

I feel blessed to have so much work, especially of the kind that I can get paid for. But oh, how my joints and muscles ache tonight. I’m thinking that if I keep moving briskly (daily), I’ll get in better shape for the rest of the spring and summer.

It was beyond me to actually TELL the owners this, but a dog that I groomed today had the dubious honour of being the GROSSEST animal I’ve handled or clipped so far this year! I’m quite confident that this dog’s loving people won’t be reading this; at any rate I do KNOW that they love their pet, but I do NOT know how they let her get so bad. I’ve explained at other times that, if they bring the dog more often, we don’t have to do such a short clip, and she will be able to stay warm in any weather (not that she’s required to be outside any length of time). This cocker spaniel is about twice the body weight that she should be. Her coat was matted, with urine and feces soiling much of her hind end. The dog all over smells like a heavy smoker, AND she has extreme halitosis because of the condition of her teeth and gums. Her toenails were getting so long that they nearly cross over each other.

I guess you get the picture. I was pleased to be able to provide some relief to this “little” fat dog. I think I really earned my OWN kibbles today!

I groomed two other little dogs today: one is a very beloved regular, Snoopy, and one is boarder, Misty. Neither animal presented any problem to me technically or behaviour-wise.

How did I manage NOT to do any potting AGAIN today? I managed to splash some water on a few of the perennials that are waiting in boxes, and on a few that have been lovingly planted, and on some seeds that I’ve started.

The technician for our internet service came by today. His boss, back at the office in Valemount, has me in tears almost every time we have to speak, but the guys who does all the LEG WORK is very diplomatic, decent and kind. He replaced our antenna, and I think, the router; at any rate, our internet signal strength seems very impressive compared to the last few MONTHS. It never seems straight-forward to have this technician visit when we have problems. Even if it’s “just” us in trouble, SOME service is warranted! Our problems have not ONCE been cause by tampering with the equipment or our own software. SIGH… it’s all a learning experience.

Gary, bless his heart, suggested ordering something from the local Greek restaurant for our dinner tonight. We’d occasionally brought home pizza from another place, and sometimes Chinese food, but this is the first time we’d brought a “fancy” meal home. So, Gary had Lamb Souvlaki and I had the Lemon Chicken, and it was delicious.

Tonight I ordered the newest operating system for the Mac computers, OS10.4 “Tiger”, but had it sent to Gary’s brother, Steve, who has been an unfailingly patient tech support person for us. Surely I couldn’t say in a public blog that we might end up with a copy for ourselves, anyway.

I’m anxious to visit in the Garden Chat room; I couldn’t even get IN last night, and went to bed early, in disgust. Today, I learned that several others had trouble with Yahoo, also.

Stay well, everyone!
~Ann

I’m just “beat”. Groomed two smallish dogs and one very large golden retriever today. I really don’t know how other groomers can groom 6 to 8 in a day, even WITH a dog bather!

We had SUCH a nice birthday party at the Chinese restaurant for our friend Dale’s sixtieth. Actually, his wife, our friend Susannah, held the party and we just went. I did bake the birthday cake though. A good time (and a lot of food and wine) was had by all!

I didn’t get any potting done today, and I have already two dogs to groom tomorrow. One is a matted cocker spaniel, and one is a little fox terrier cross.. cute as can be.

It was cool and overcast most of the day, and then there was rain and snow too! I guess Spring will come for good one of these days. Am going to try to join my chatting friends in the “Garden Room” chat; I couldn’t get in earlier.

Love to all, Ann