Ann’s Weblog

After my glib comments about winter in the earlier blog post today, it was decided that we needed to go into town after all. The highway is just awful, the wind blowing the drifted snow and the falling snow into a moonscape. It’s hard to see, turn safely or stop. I worry about customers and others who have to brave the conditions on a day like this.

Gary bought diesel for the tractor and has gone back out to plough; the driveway had drifted back in so much it just looked like a luge track.

Well, okay.. it doesn’t look so bad in this photo. There is blowing snow on the highway, but that’s not very visible. Gary on the tractor is just a dot in the “distant” bottom of the driveway. The sun is shining and that makes the weather seem not so nasty, and besides, it is WARM… barely freezing.

Gary’s truck is “in the shop”, so we went to get my older truck out of the parkade of the garage where some work was done on it. Perhaps if Gary is driving my truck around the valley for a day or so, people will see how cute and handy it is… and someone might BUY it!

We are babysitting the little dog Murphy for a few days:

We are also boarding the other dog in the family, Louie, who is a handsome border collie. I’ll add a picture when I can. Our friend Sharon is travelling to Regina to be a “Writer in Residence” at the university for the rest of the school year, and her husband Zev is helping her get there.

A friend who has been intensely involved with the Renshaw horse rescue has shared an article and an editorial, this time from the Jasper newspaper:

Renshaw Horse article

Editorial…

I have my own opinion about the “owner” of the horses who almost died on the remote Renshaw mountainside. Although some articles describe public opinion as “divided”,  I don’t believe there are many who sympathize with the owner. His attitude speaks of a unique brand of “class”.

Okay, on with my day. ~ Ann

I’m relieved that blog.com is working today; yesterday it wasn’t. I always worry that it’s something I’ve done wrong…

Millard came over with the mirror on Tuesday night. It is our “old” bathroom mirror which was purchased from Canadian Tire about 15 years ago when I bought this house. Some of the silvering was deteriorating on the edges, so we asked Millard to add a frame which would coordinate with the cabinetry:

Now we’ll wait until the new window arrives and Art will install that. We’re hoping that some wood can be found to finish the frame of the window to look nice with what Millard used, though I think I understood Millard to say that he had used every bit of the material he had there (for this project).

Gary was in Jasper skiing yesterday and Tuesday, and I took over the ploughing of snow in the driveway. It’s a bit of a learning curve… at the farm I used a John Deere with a blade on the back and so far, at this place, we have a tractor with only the bucket for snow removal. I used a lot of diesel and quite a few hours pushing snow around, sometimes very inefficiently, but it felt like fun. The temperature has not been too low.

I’m waiting for a dog whose toenails I’ll trim, and then a little shih tzu who needs a haircut. Today is our 8th wedding anniversary, so later we’ll go to the local Pub for dinner.

There has been some interest in adoption for the little dog I took in on New Year’s Day, including friends of the family who left him behind. I hope for a better life for the animal. There is some potential for conflict… how long do I keep such a dog before I can adopt it out? On whose authority do I go ahead with this proceeding? In this case and a few others in my years of business, there has been no opportunity for official “surrender” of an animal.

I just got a note through Facebook that one of my “old” favourite customers had to be euthanized in December. She had a great, long life with loving family. Rest well, Maggie, dear gal.

I received an email about some other dogs needing adoption*, and included in the message was a link to continuing updates about the abandoned horses which I wrote about in December:

Horse Rescue

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*If anyone wants to know about the other dogs which need homes:

3.5 year spayed female lab/ boxer/ pit cross

3 Month old Chesapeake Bay Ret. Female. Vet checked, vaccines up to date, needs to be spayed

the phone number for these adoptions: 250-566-0166 (leave msg)
or email mountain-me@hotmail.com
contact: Chris

Normally my blog wouldn’t be a forum for pet adoptions, but that’s the way it is today.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here’s a picture of my lovely daughters, and me of course. I’m not aging well, but then I’ve whined about that before. This is from November ‘08, when they were in the Valley for the occasion of their paternal grandmother’s birthday.

Gary was wanting to upload a photo to Facebook this morning, and it occurred to me that I have never put even one picture except a profile pic, onto Facebook. THEN it occurred to me that our “iPhoto” Application on our Mac computer is a morass of uncategorized photographs which even includes pictures that have been downloaded from other peoples’ cameras (which is fine, but adds to the great numbers). And then it also came to my attention that the file handling on our Mac is in an appalling state… files and pictures and even applications “saved” in the most unlikely albums and folders and even in NO folders.

Sometimes it doesn’t seem like the winter (hibernation time) is even long enough to catch up to the bookwork, deskwork, website upgrading, file handling, sewing, crafting, reading and all other indoor projects. We have “weathered” more winter this year than usual, or maybe I don’t remember well, but I still appreciate the time to rest and regroup. Gary does almost all the work of the actual heating of the house and also snow removal, making life a lot easier in the last winters.

I’m going to go back to sorting on this computer. Take care everyone! ~ Ann