wildlife

Welcome Back

October 30, 2017 By The Food Lady 7 Comments

No, not ‘welcome back’ to you … or even to me! Although I *have* been MIA for a long time. For a month now, pretty much all I’ve managed to do is wake up, edit, go to work, come home and edit until way too late at night, get a few hours sleep and start all over again the next day. I had a Fun Match in the middle of September and then right after that an entire day of mini sessions, and then on the heels of that I had another day of mini sessions in early October and then I photographed the UKI Fall Cup the following weekend. Just non stop shooting and editing – which I LOVE, don’t get me wrong! If I could make my living doing nothing but photography, I would make it my full time career in a heartbeat. But I remain perplexed about how people make a living out of doing pet photography without a financially comfortable partner picking up the bills-n-groceries slack in the background somewhere. And doG knows my 4 legged partners aren’t pulling in the big bucks to support me! This relationship feels a bit one-sided.

Anyway, as much as I love photographing other people’s dogs, it does have the extreme side effect of having no time at all to photograph my own, much less blog. Plus, we haven’t done anything interesting to blog about, because according to my dogs I am “the most boring person in the world” and “my ass is glued to the computer chair.” They aren’t too wrong either, except they omit the fact that they get to go hiking every day and until one of them learns to drive a car, they can thank me for that perk! And also, blogging about how I’m in my office yelling “stop picking on the damn cat!” and “no we aren’t going outside yet, leave me alone!” isn’t all that scintillating.

However, I am almost entirely caught up on my deliverables and so despite the fact that I have a wicked cold that snuck up on me this morning, I thought I would take this evening to prove that I’m not dead, and have good intentions to blog more regularly again. And also to welcome this adorable little face back to Casa de Food Lady!

Do you recognize that gleeful little snoot? Miss Mini Mama has not been adopted yet :( All her puppies found homes, of course, but Minnie remained at the rescue. And when the rescue posted asking for foster homes for a litany of needy doggos, and I saw her name on the list, I offered to take her back to foster. And here she is! I think she’s pretty happy to be back (although she puked in my van today, so we are going to have to relearn not-getting-carsick) and I am happy to have her back! She’s such a character; I can’t believe nobody has adopted this sweet little thing.

Not sure if my dogs are quite as happy to have her back. They were just getting used to Alfie and Betty finally having gone back to their own home. *I* miss those two, even if my hounds do not. I do not, however, miss Alfie’s drool.

He is such a nice dog, but his copious amounts of drool is not nice at all. You could always tell where he had slept in my house, because he left a Great-Pyrenees-head shaped outline on the floor in a mixture of drool and mud that is harder than cement and could be used to cheaply build affordable housing and maybe even roadways. Even the steam mop can’t get that stuff up without scrubbing! Also, the drool has found its way onto surfaces you would not expect, such as the microwave door and the top of my front door, thanks to the magic of head shaking, which causes the drool to soar higher than a commercial airliner and with a velocity previously only experienced by jet propelled spacecraft. And we won’t even talk about what it’s done to the one window ledge where he would peer out if I left him indoors to go out somewhere (one afternoon he figured out how to push part of my fence down – the shitty one that was already here when I moved in, not the awesome ones I put up myself! – and he went visiting the neighbours across the street, so he lost outside privileges if I wasn’t home to keep an eye on him) – I am pretty sure it’s eating through the wood itself.

However, while Alfie was here I lost exactly zero poultry to aerial predators, while my landlord’s poultry was picked off one by one (I swear he is down to just 5 hens). And since he has been gone, I have lost two roosters (RIP Paquito), a hen and a duck. If I could afford to feed an enormous dog, I would get my own LGD, he was very useful that way! And I know exactly what’s been picking off my birds too.

Can you spot the bugger in my neighbour’s pine tree?

I’m not entirely sure what it is, some kind of eagle I guess. I kinda wish I could catch it in the act and KICK IT, because that worked for the bald eagle that was stealing my chickens, maybe it would work again!

I still get to see Alfie and Betty three times a week because I hike them – last time I went to pick them up Betty was so excited to see me she pulled me inside the door by the string on my hoodie! haha – but I miss having Great White around to protect my birds. But as I say, my dogs were pretty chuffed to have me all to themselves again, when Mini Mama showed up. TWooie just rolled his eyes in exasperation and hasn’t even bothered to snark at her.

(Happy place, counting to five, whatever)

The border collies were and are oblivious to her presence, because she is not a tennis ball. Winter tried to play with her and then remembered that he was above playing with her, and now he and Spring are Mean Girls and leave the room when she enters it. Addy of course made friendly overtures (ie she humped her) right away and remains delightfully pleased to see her all the time. But Fae … oh Fae.

FIRST, Fae made ugly face at her and stalked around after her with Scorpion Tail, then got pouty and emo when I gave her shit for being a bitch, and lay down in her crate with her face to the wall. If she were a human teenager she would have The Smiths or something blasting on her iPod whilst laying in her bed with her back to the door. You know, I don’t need to experience being a human parent, I already own shithead toddlers (Addy), moody teenagers (Fae), and possibly some special needs kids (Dexter, Peetie).

Once she got over her snit, she decided she would make Mini Mama as unnecessary as possible by being The Only Dog I Need. This afternoon she decided to play with Addy – she NEVER plays with Addy and is a downright bitch when Addy tries to play with her. But today she was all flirty and trying to entice (a terrified) Addy into playing chase and wrestle – “look at me! I’m the perfect small dog! You don’t need anymore small dogs!” – and when that didn’t work, she was all “I’ll chase the ball, as many times as you want! Don’t throw it for Minnie, throw it for me!”

But.
Whereas Mini Mama did this with the ball when I threw it:

Fae did THIS when she got the ball:

This is not a posed shot. This is what I turned around to see when I wondered where she and the ball had gotten to. Look at that stinky side-eye! Look at that perfect blend of pouty/emo and possessiveness! She is a master of The Beeyotch! This is why I both love her and want to put her in the blender at the same time.

But I also love her because she makes photos like this:

And also because when I pretend to toss her a cookie, she makes faces like this:

Peetie also makes pretty pictures, but without the lovable bits. She has nothing but super irritating bits.

Whereas Dexter has nothing but weird bits. He is, truly, an odd dog.

Squirrel hunting season is over, and now apparently it’s rabbit hunting season again, so I never see the terriers as they spend all their time thrashing around in the pokies looking for bunnies. I resent this, because they carry pokies home embedded in their skin and then shed them in my bed, where they become embedded in MY skin. However, I can distract the terriers temporarily with cookies, at least long enough to get a decent photo of them :)

The Dirt Duo, on the other hand …

Miss Piper, who will be 15 years old in approximately 19 days (and will be exactly 30 years younger than me, which makes me feel old, especially since as of late I realized I cannot read my kindle with both eyes unless I hold it waaaaay far away from my face) has her good days and her bad days. She has recovered very well from her FCE, except one of her hind legs drags just a little and she falls over very easily so I am forever yelling at the other dogs to stop banging into her. She can’t come hiking anymore though … a couple of weeks ago Michelle and I took all the dogs for a walk out at Pitt Lake and while Piper managed really well, only getting super tired at the last little stretch, she can’t handle being in the car at all. What started out as some mild anxiety and panting/drooling in the car has morphed into a full blown panic attack complete with thrashing around and screaming. So her fun-outing days are over, but on the plus side, when we go hiking she gets to stay home with a Kong full of wet Kangaroo food (gross). Although if Peetie KEEPS EATING THE ACTUAL KONGS, that fun pastime will also have been ruined for poor Piper. Stupid Peetie.

Piper still plays ball though, by which I mean she totters around with her own ball in her mouth while the rest of us play fetch, and she is made happy by the illusion that she is playing ball.

And there you have it, you’re all up to date on what’s going on with us! Now that the weather has mostly turned shitty (we had a couple of lovely days sandwiched between the daily torrential downpours which is now just called The Weather for the next 8 months) there will be less photo-ing of other people’s dogs, and more time for my own. They are calling for snow this weekend, so I bit the bullet and went and bought snow tires, which I could not afford … but I can afford to not-be-able-to-leave-my-house-because-my-shitty-bald-8-year-old-tires-suck-on-regular-pavement-never-mind-snow-covered-pavement even less :( I do have two photo projects for this winter lined up, one being my annual Holiday Photos with a *twist* this year that I am really excited about, and one being a project I am working on with rescue that I am also really excited about. To be successful in the latter venture, I need to master my studio work (which will in part involve selling my current lighting and replacing it with something more suited to my needs – anyone interested in some monolight/strobes?) and to that end, I have begun practicing. In honour of Halloween, I leave you with this image burned into your brain forever.

Finally!!

May 29, 2017 By The Food Lady 9 Comments

I found a use for Winter!

Chuck him in the swimming hole and he makes excellent funny faces when he comes tearing out!

To be fair to me, I didn’t just chuck him in the swimming hole to be a jerk and get funny photos of the aftermath…I chucked him in there because it was HOT and he looked like he was on fire.

Now Fae … Fae I chucked in because it was funny.

She gets the zoomies afterward, makes for great action shots.

I’m kidding, I’m kidding! I tossed everyone who didn’t voluntarily swim into the water because we were walking on a hot, dry, dusty gravel path and everyone had their tongues down to their ankles, so they needed to be wet.

I did NOT, however, toss Gotham in, because Auntie Fiona is a Helicopter Mommy and would’ve beaten ten kinds of holy hell outta me.

He went in on his own. I did not nudge him in with my foot. I swear.

Isn’t he the cutest though?

Almost as cute as my puppy Dexter (who gracelessly splooshes into any available body of water all of his own volition)

Poor Dexter, he is so deaf now. He can barely hear anything at all, unless I’m right up close to him and speak in a certain register (IOW, I sound like I’m practicing my “man voice” when I speak to him). In talking to some of his siblings’ owners, I have learned that several of them are quite deaf as well. It’s called “Adult Onset Deafness” and it’s genetic in border collies. I can tell it’s frustrating for him because he peers very sternly at my mouth, trying to lip read, and then runs through a variety of behaviours in case one of them is what I was asking for. I have misplaced him a couple of times while hiking because he runs off to poop (another family trait – the need for extreme distance and privacy whilst pooping!) and then can’t find us again, nor hear me calling him. Once upon a time we had a vibrating collar floating around my rescue … if I can’t locate it, I’m going to have to look into getting him one I think. I don’t want to lose my baby boy!!

Being nearly stone deaf does not stop him from having fun though. Unfortunately, he has fun with Peetie, so I’m stuck with her. The things I do for love.

We went out to the dykes in Pitt Meadows today because it’s closer and uses less gas, and because I didn’t have any client dogs to walk today. I’m very sad, because my full time client is moving out of an area that I service and I am going to miss him :( If you know a fantastic dog walker in East Van, let me know so I can refer her to someone good.

It also means a good portion of my monthly income goes down the drain. Poop. I need some ideas for marketing me – but the catch is, they have to be pretty much free. I know you gotta spend money to make money, but I can’t spend money I don’t have! Any brilliant ideas to share with me? I have some great clients and they are all super happy with what I do, but I need to acquire several more of them to make a go of this. I just picked up a couple new clients, but I want to pick them up (not to chuck them in the watering hole, I swear!) faster and in greater numbers. So hit me with your best free or cheap marketing ideas please!! You are smart peoples, you must have some hidden gems you’re willing to share.

I shall reward you with photos of my foster puppies at the ripe old age of two weeks. Their eyes all opened on the same day, about day 13, and now they all stare at me like I’m a Bigfoot sighting when I get into the xpen. They aren’t very interactive yet, just eyeball-y.

Sable male remains my favourite because I think he’s the cutest, but all of them are pretty damned adorable. When do you think we should start the naming contest? Like, when they have more personality or sooner than that?

This puppy already has a name; he goes by Warren and he’s the same age as my puppies!

His mom said “Your foster is going to have the puppies on the ASCBC trial weekend” and I was all “Shut up! No she isn’t! You’re gonna have YOUR puppy on the trial weekend!” and she was all “Nuh uh! I refuse to have a baby on Mother’s Day!” And so Mini Mama had her puppies on the trial weekend Saturday, and Hailey had Warren on Mother’s Day. Karma is so cruel.

However, it worked out awesome because then we could get photos of them being adorbz together and being all the same age and stuff.

Maybe I should get into baby photography…I hear that (and weddings) is where the money is! Sadly, I do not have a constant supply of puppies to increase the level of awesome.

It was a good excuse to practice compositing though. Still need a lot more practice, but it’s super fun!

I got some other baby things this weekend too! Handsome Terrence made me some more baby turkeys. I hope they all turn out like him!

And the ducks made me some more ducks.

The dogs have settled into the new farm very well. I can now leave them outside by themselves for short periods of time without worrying about them getting into trouble. They know the boundaries now and they no longer fence fight with the neighbours’ dogs. I still have to pick up all the eggs before I let the dogs out, otherwise they go egg hunting and eat them, but otherwise they just hang out, nap in the shade, steal apples from the chickens, stuff like that. They really are settling in nicely. They still bark at/chase horses along the fence, but not as often and not for as long. They are starting to get used to the idea of horses I think.

Now the Littles have to wear their Coyote Vests again though … not because coyotes, but because Bald Eagles! I learned the eagles have been stealing my ducks and last week I was making dog dinners, saw a huge shadow go past the window and heard a chicken freaking out … I ran outside (with the bag of frozen peas still in my hand) and saw a bald eagle with one of my hens in its grasp. Utterly without thinking I ran across the yard and KICKED the eagle square in the chest!! Who does that?? It let go of my hen and flew off though. Scared the crap outta me. But now I know where my ducks went for sure. So Coyote Vests it is, because my dogs are NOT going to be some stupid bald eagle’s afternoon snack!

Life in the sticks is always interesting, if nothing else!

The weather is supposed to turn tonight and all of our hot sunny days will skulk back into rainy drizzle. It would be great if it didn’t do that thing on Saturday though, as I have a day of mini sessions booked. And the weekend after that is Regionals, also known as “Springs Annual Ring Pooping Event.” BTW, I hear they are looking for volunteers for Regionals still … you get a stipend of I think $50 a day or something. If you’re interested in volunteering, check out their website.

Gotham will be there, so you could meet him!

Hello, My Name Is The Food Lady

March 18, 2017 By The Food Lady 10 Comments

And I inhale paint fumes.

No, not because this is THE SCANDAL you’ve all been waiting for these past 11 years of blogging, but because I spent the day starting to finally fix up this old new house o’mine. I’ve been here nearly three weeks, but as I work, like, 10 or more hours a day, there’s not been a lot of time to do stuff. And also, first it needed to be cleaned. If ever I meet the old tenant of this house, I am going to offer her my condolences on being allergic to cleaning products, sponges, cloths and scrubbing implements, because there is NO other reason for a house to be this gross. I have found dirt caked into places I did not know dirt could even find. It’s almost remarkable. I am the first to admit that my fastidiousness only extends to things I can see and I cannot guarantee that anything is sparkling behind furniture or appliances I can’t move easily, like my stove (actually I can guarantee that it ISN’T), but dear doG in heaven, how do you get dirt INSIDE your medicine cabinet?

We are on well water here too, and the water is hard, and very high in iron. My landlord installed a very expensive filtration system on both houses when he bought the place, but former tenant failed to maintain her system (it’s, umm, super easy to maintain incidentally) so it no longer works. The water smells like it tastes when you bite your lip. It also stains everything it sits in. The other morning I was waiting for my toast and *idly* took an SOS pad to the kitchen sink because the entire thing was stained orange. I assumed I was fighting a losing battle but guess what – 5 minutes later I had a stainless steel coloured sink again. The bathtub is another story – it’s coming off, slowly, but I am using SOS pads at an alarming rate (and WTF does CLR even do? Not clean rust off your bathtub, that’s for sure!). Seriously – had she taken 5 minutes even once a week to give it a quick pass with an SOS pad, it would not be taking me days and days to try and make the bathtub not look like someone murdered pennies in it. Ugh.

So I woke up this morning and had a lie-in because I was feeling sorry for myself. I knew starting a new business would be tough, but I guess I didn’t know how tough. Once I land a client they absolutely love me and their dogs do as well, but I need more of them; I’m not making enough money to survive yet. I work from 7AM – noonish for my other job, which I can fortunately do from home, but it doesn’t pay very well. Then I leave around 12:30 and walk dogs, and get home around 5:30PM, if traffic and such favours me. The nice part of not having many clients yet is that all or almost all of my dogs can come with me, so I don’t need to then exercise dogs when I get home, but the downside is that between gas and bridge tolls, I’m earning almost nothing. I know it will come – I have a full time client, and one part time client that is going full time soon, and one sporadic part time client. Not enough yet. I advertise online wherever I can, and I know it will take time, but at the end of the day, it’s just not enough yet.

My landlord is great and basically will pay for anything I want to do, as long as he himself doesn’t have to do the work as he has own very large farm to run and take care of. So that’s fine, I buy what I need and take it off the rent. But my morning job covers my rent, car insurance and car payments and that’s it, so if I spend too much money on stuff before the end of the month, one of those car payments or whatever will bounce. So that’s frustrating. I also still have not gotten my security deposit back from my previous landlord, which is supposed to be my hydro payment because I have no other spare money. I’m living on tomato soup and toast at the moment and I count every penny before I spend it. It’s kinda of exhausting. Nope, it’s super exhausting actually, and sometimes it’s so scary I can’t sleep at night.

So anyway, I lay in bed this morning feeling sad, and decided that laying around feeling sad wasn’t going to change anything, so I got out of bed and went for a short drive and dropped business cards off at all the local pet related businesses in the area. And I picked up some primer and got to work in the bathroom. Because the bathroom was green. And I don’t mean a happy apple green, I mean an institutional green like it’s the 1940s and my house is a hospital for mental patients and the nation is at war and there’s no money for nice coloured paint for a class of society we want to pretend is invisible anyway. It was mental hospital green and DIRTY. And for some reason, full of nail holes and screw holes. So I filled them all in, and primed the hell out of it. Note: “Second coat in just 1 hour!” is LIES DAMN LIES. It’s bed time and it’s still wet. But now that the bathroom is white(ish) it looks about 3 times bigger than it did this morning. It’s going to look pretty okay when it’s painted a) white and b) not with flat paint. And I am just going to assume that all of the other rooms are going to look bigger when painted too, because most them are ALSO green of some kind, or else some really depressing bargain-bin beige, or – like the room that is going to become my photo studio – an acid trip of insane psychedelic swirls (not.even.kidding). Oh primer, we are going to become very good friends for a long time, I think.

Whilst waiting (futilely as it turned out) for the primer to dry in the bathroom so I could apply a second coat, I decided to paint the dog room. But first I had to prime the door, because all the doors in the place are ALSO filthy. And the dog room walls were covered in what looks suspiciously like snot, so they needed to be cleaned. And then I started painting with a can of orange paint that is supposed to be terracotta with a kick, but looked alarmingly like a pumpkin on ecstasy at a rave when I first slapped it on. I’m hoping it calms the fuck down when it dries! I did two walls and then decided I was just plain old done with painting for the day, because it was almost dinner time. And I grabbed my camera and took the dogs outside in the sun. And this is where you come in :)

“Look Simba, everything the light touches is our kingdom.”

(and yes, I recycled that from my personal facebook page, so here’s my preemptive shut UP to my FB friends)

We started out playing ball in my front field, but that field is ringed with old blackberry bushes (although they are not bushy, just huge tangles of dead and thorniness) but RABBITS hang out in the thorny and RABBITS cause Spring to go berserk. Even the thought, hint or suspicion of RABBITS cause her to go berserk.

And when Springs goes berserk, all the other bastardogs lose their collective minds and then this happens:

And when that happens, it cannot happen quietly. It has to be accompanied by as much barking as possible, as well as the ungodly sounds of Wootie barkscreaming. And since we live next door to, and share a fence with lots of these:

And those are guarded by a couple of – okay I don’t have a photo of them, but let’s just say REALLY BIG DOGS. And I don’t want my new neighbours to hate me right out of the gate. So I have to put a stop to the RABBIT insanity as soon as it starts. So we moved to the pasture between my house and my landlord’s house to play. Because the turkey won’t let us play in my actual yard. Ever since we moved here, the turkey and the roosters have become crazy territorial. They don’t f*ck with me, because I schooled them from the get go (with a shovel), but last weekend Tyrone the rooster attacked my friend Michelle! It was a cheap ass sneak attack from behind too, the asshole.

Anyway, Terrence the turkey scares the little dogs, and also Dexter. Because Dexter’s body is large, but his brain is little.

So we just decided to play in the field. It has a couple of little ponds that my ducks were not using at the moment, and kindly let the dogs splash around in it.

And they raced up and down the hill, because the pasture is … well, pastoral and full of gently rolling hills and other The Sound Of Music shit.

(last weekend my landlord took me and Michelle on a tour of the rest of the 18 acres. Dudes, there’s a LAKE at the back, like a trout lake. where my dogs can swim! And there are cows. And I met my baby goats. This one many of you have seen already; I named him Harvey. He thought my coffee cup was his milk bottle and he was REAL happy to meet me as a result. So I named him Harvey Milk)

harvey

Anyhoo. There was much gallumping and gleeful running around after frisbees and toys to be done, border collie style.

Look at this ole lady dog! 14.5, still tough as nails. She comes hiking almost every day, and though she has to be lifted over logs, and she goes up hills sideways because neither her front end nor her back end has the power to propel her up an incline, she’s determined to do it!

And still the non-border collies found tangles of thorniness to hunt RABBITS in.

They didn’t find any RABBITS though, so at least they came back when I called them.

I really have to get on the fencing and keep them from reaching that side of the field though, because it borders a path that lots of horse riders use, and as my dogs are both OBNOXIOUS and not used to horses, they tend to race over en masses and scare the bejesus out of the horses and riders both. I really don’t want to inadvertently kill some horse rider when it gets chucked off its 1000 lb mount, so I am double fencing, so they can’t reach that fence. Also, I want the poultry to live between those two fences, as when they are in my yard they take disgusting liberties like pooping in my porch. And a while ago I had my kitchen door open while I was doing stuff and came into the house to get something and found like 7 chickens IN MY LIVING ROOM. Impertinent assholes.

Anyway, that was our first real playtime on the property and I think everyone had fun, because they are all now passed out cold, about 80% of them in my office here with me now. Piper favours the closet, while Dexter and Gemma argue over the bed under my desk (Gemma usually wins because she can’t hear or see Dexter’s ugly faces and sounds, and he’s all teeth and no trousers that one).

I think I like it here. I think the dogs do too :)

I will like it just a teensy bit better when the wood stove finally goes in though, because when it’s cold outside, it’s COLD in here. When the temperature drops, I can see my breath in my house.

I will also like it a little better when I can afford it. So please, be sure to tell your friends about The Walking Dog so I can round up some more clients to walk. We walk in some really amazing places with tons of stuff to explore, rivers to splash through, logs to leap over and stuff. The dogs are so pooped when they get home. It’s really awesome! They just love it, and so do I … and I really want to keep doing it! Even if some weirdo sent me a huge long email in response to one of CL ads that accused me and all dogwalkers of destroying wildlife habitat (I don’t EVER take dogs to areas where there is wildlife habitat risk!) and wrapped up her insane rant by suggesting I should want to kill myself for being such a horrible person. Like, wow. Whacko.

Also, you can really help me out by booking a photo shoot, or purchasing a print or two from me. I have a few 18X24 prints ready to go already – if you’re interested in seeing them, contact me and I’ll send photos. if there’s anything I’ve photographed that you’d like to have a print of, please let me know and I can make that happen too. Soon I hope to have my photo studio IN MY HOUSE ready to roll, and can do studio sessions right here at home, which saves you the cost of me renting studio space.

Hopefully tomorrow that blasted primer will be dry enough to apply the second coat, and I can finish painting the dog room, and then get rid of the acid trip in the photo studio room. *shudder*

Then Monday it’s back to work. I have all three clients to walk on Monday, so TWooie gets to stay home because otherwise he beats up the 100lb Lab. Because TWooie is small, but his ego is enormous.

Much love to you all from our slowly-being-improved stixier house in the stix (now with RABBITS)

Weird Week

September 20, 2014 By The Food Lady 14 Comments

TWooie went out hinting* rabbits yesterday (*not a typo: he does not “hunt” so much as he races through the bush barking like he saw something, when we all know he saw nothing at all) and came back like this:

“This,” in case it is not clear, is his leg stuck through his martingale collar. (And in the background, his siblings are laughing at him). I have no idea how he gets himself into predicaments like this.

Pssst … wanna know a secret? Come closer … it’s cuz he’s DUMB.

Well Wootie, I wouldn’t be flappin’ my yap about dumb, if I were you. You are not exactly the pictorial dictionary definition of poise yourself, Pumpkin.

Who sits like that? And who drools mud down their chest hair?

Ooh! OOH! I know, I know!

(^in process of swallowing a walrus, rhinoceros or other really big creature that would require the ability to unhinge his jaw)

In honour of Talk Like A Pirate Day, Dexter wants to tell you the bone-chilling tale of Blacktongue. It’s a story used by parents* the world over to frighten their children**

(*parents= dog owners. **Children = BAD DIGGING DOGS).

It goes like this:

If you insist on digging ankle sized holes in the yard with your itty bitty little feet and pointy little teeth

Your tongue will TURN BLACK AND STAY THAT WAY!

What?

The end.

Is that really for true?

Oh bless Tweed. He was much sharper before age robbed him of his wisdom.

Not that the young ‘uns are all that smart either. If the younger generation were smarter than their elders, then this would not have happened:

Right about now you’re scratching your head and saying in your best Marty Hart voice “I just want you to stop posting odd shit.”

Odd shit indeed. As part of Weird Week, these five sibling adolescent squirrels fell out of the nest like this … with their tails knotted, matted and tangled together. The Hydra of Squirrels, if you will. SCATTER THIS, BITCH!

An ACO tried to solve the Chinese Squirrel Puzzle in the field but didn’t have enough hands. Or gloves. Squirrels bite like fury. So he brought them to us at work.

Where we all grabbed a squirrel and let the Health Tech do her thang.

Free at last, free at last. Oh lordy, we’re free at last!

Took a good 20 minutes. My job is so WEIRD.

Ender is weird too. He looks like someone lit a firecracker under Mr. Burns.

And Dexter is just, you know, Dexter.

What can you do. And anyway, he keeps Tweed young :)

Let’s Play “What’s In Your Tree?”

February 28, 2014 By The Food Lady 11 Comments

For example, what’s in this tree at the back of my property?

I haven’t been to the back of the property in ages and ages – the blackberries have all but taken over our trail that connects the property to the dikes and we couldn’t use it all last summer. Tweed, in his old age and wisdom, fears the pokey retribution of trod-upon blackberries. I’ve been working at hacking away at them with a machete from time to time, and have made progress on about 2/3rds of the trail, but as I am not particularly skilled with the machete, it’s kind of dicey (yuk yuk).

We haven’t gone the other way around, through the Long Grass, because it’s full of spiders and things of that nature that violently disagree with me. But when Mother Nature dumped snow on us last week, it flattened all the long grasses so we have been tromping through there to walk along the dikes in the mornings. And it was on one of these mornings that I noticed this stupid box – which is now driving me OUT OF MY MIND with curiosity – wired into a tree where the end of our property line meets up with the dike.

At first I thought it was a bat house, which seemed pretty cool, but it doesn’t really look like a bat house. Someone else suggested it might be an owl box, which is almost as awesome (who doesn’t love a box full of owls?) I am rather hoping it’s a box full of old coins worth $10 million but high up in a tree seems a strangely visible place to store such a thing.

Anyway, the dogs are pleased at being able to run along the dikes again, and hunt in the Long Grasses.

And tromping through the snow and grass is better for my health than standing around in the dark throwing a ball. I hate Winter (season, not dog) so much … endless days of almost never seeing my dogs in the daylight and it being too dark out to walk on the property. Standing outside in the dark and freezing cold sideways rain, chucking the ball for an hour twice a day is brutally boring; I am so glad it’s staying light out later and in just a few months we will be past the Time Of The Great Mud and the outdoors will be fun again!

I guess I could always be like other hoarders and just not engage with my dogs at all (*insert eyeroll here*) and stay warm and dry all winter long. I just gotta say, it was awfully nice to see all your comments and emails supporting my, errm, unconventional (though clean and cared for) way of life. It’s not that the opinion of said accuser is meaningful to me in any way, because really, if someone I have so little regard for wants to think poorly of me, it doesn’t much matter to me, but making it a public opinion is just vitriolic. This is where social media is teh fail … it makes very unimportant people think their snide, empty-headed opinions have some credibility.

Anyway, it’s nice to know that the people that matter have my back. Which is a good thing, because my back is in danger of being kicked to death by ITALIAN GREYHOUNDS. Did you know that Italian Greyhound owners have a term for the particular activity these little wieners engage in called “The Butt Punch?” Here I thought I just had two fairly ill mannered little dogs, when in fact they are doing is The Dance of Their Tribe, which involves jumping on their owner from behind and – literally – kicking them in the ass. Over and over and over again. Particularly at meal preparation time, but any moment of intense excitement causes them to break into dance.

Ender is starting to settle in a little bit better, though I still think he has a death wish. At agility practice he tried to hump TEMPUS. That’s exactly the same as trying to seduce the Devil. The humping wouldn’t be so bad if he would just back off when told, but he takes exception to any dog rejecting his amorous advances and this is how he causes fights. He doesn’t do any damage to anyone, but it’s pretty stressful for all parties, including me. As he gets used to my own crew, he is doing this less and less, but the damage has been done and they aren’t really sure what to make of him.

Of course, what border collie would be able to understand a dog that wears pajamas outside?

In case the HILARITY of the jammies is not immediately apparent in that sort of shitty photo, here’s another view:

He manages to be handsome even in silly pajamas.

But not *quite* as awesome as this shelter cat in a top hat.

This is my new favouritest cat of all time. Partly because he is very handsome and very sweet, but also because he will wear a top hat.

Whenever I am photographing shelter animals in my “studio” I try to sneak in a few of my own guys here and there. Addy is becoming a pro at posing, but no matter how you take her picture, she’s still a Miggy (midget IG)

Gemma didn’t bite me once during this photo session! That’s pretty miraculous. That she is still alive and biting is also pretty miraculous.

Even though it’s been warm and sunny with snow on the ground, in many places, I have almost no outdoor photos to post today. That’s because the telephoto lens I spent my birthday money on, a new-to-me replacement lens (a Canon f/3.5-5.6 is) for my dead 70-200mm zoom, HAS STOPPED AUTO-FOCUSING! I have had the thing for like, a month. It was inexpensive, as it’s a discontinued lens, but it’s a good substitute and was all I could afford, and now it doesn’t work, unless I focus manually. And I don’t know if you have any idea how hard it is to focus on sighthounds and crazy border collies manually, but trust me … it’s a nightmare!

I did manage a couple of decent shots after spending an hour trying to photograph the dogs:

But by and large I was mostly just totally unsuccessful. And my guess is that fixing it would be more expensive than it’s worth. Although I spent all my money buying it so probably couldn’t afford to fix it any way. And definitely cannot afford another. That’s kind of a bummer, as without a good zoom or telephoto, outdoorsy/action shots are pretty well impossible to achieve.

I guess if I book outdoorsy/action sessions, I can always rent a lens, but now I am paranoid about ever using zooms and telephoto lenses ever again!

Why? WHY CRUEL WORLD?

AND STOP LAUGHING AT ME GEMMA!!

I better go climb that tree and check and see if there is $10 million in that box.

You’re nobody til somebunny tries to kill you

July 27, 2012 By The Food Lady 14 Comments

Have I introduced you all to my wabbit, Mustang Sally?

When I left the DNV shelter I took Sally with me. She’s a great big “meat” rabbit, a New Zealand White. She doesn’t like other rabbits, and she doesn’t like being a house rabbit either, plus she is a ‘boring’ white bunny with red eyes, so I knew she would never get adopted. And I like Sally, as far as bunnies go … she hurls her food dish in my direction when her pellets are all gone, which makes me laugh. So I rearranged the pullet pen and made it bunny friendly, and Sally enjoys hanging out in her outdoor pen, where the WooTWoo cannot grab her by her plush white fur (not for lack of trying).

This morning I was sitting at the computer wasting some time when I heard the most doG awful squealing noises coming from outside. I ran to the sliding door to see what the heck was going on when I saw Sally rocketing around her pen like a pinball on crack, being pursued by what looked like the world’s smallest, pointiest cat.

Weasel. Frickin’ WEASEL!

I ran outside in my socks and jammies, picked up a nearby stick, leapt into the pen and began thrashing the weasel. I am not ashamed or afraid to tell you that I was hoping I would beat the little bastard to death, but he got away from me :(

Poor Sally was more than a little frightened, and missing some fur, but after a cuddle and some fresh snap peas from the garden, she calmed down and hopped back into her home.

Weasels are a menace. I try to live in relative harmony with the wildlife around these parts. Just yesterday on the way home I caught an injured baby Chukar on the side my road and brought it into work today for Wildlife Rescue to pick up and rehab. I use the organic / environmentally friendly method of either a) The WooTWoo or b) flinging tennis balls to deter chicken-hypnotized coyotes. But weasels are a whole other ball of nasty kill-for-fun wax. They can decimate an entire hen house in a single visit, and can kill a rabbit 10 times their size. They are fearless, ferocious little predators and now that I’ve got one, it’s got to go by Any Means Necessary.

Yeah it does.

Later this afternoon whilst cleaning the hen house, I discovered that Killer Bastard Weasel has already begun his reign of terror in my yard. He killed one of my blue egg laying chickens, one of the ones with the twisted feet that is unable to roost, so he probably pulled her right out of a nest box whilst she was sleeping :( I found her under the hen house with her neck and chest stripped right down to the bone.

warning: graffic photo

(oops! wrong graphic photo) (sorry arachnophobes)

This was what was left of my hen :(

I’m so mad!!!

Harumph.

But something that does not make me mad … in 5 days we leave for the AAC Nationals, where Tweed and I are going to defend his title of Most Awesome 10″ Douple Drop Veteran Agility Dog EVAH.

Actually, I have no real expectations of success at Nats. Tweed is OLD, even for a double drop veteran. He’s going to face some stiff competition from younger, much faster, dogs from across the country. But we almost never get to go to Nationals, and after this he gets to retire, and he is, after all, the Regional Champion, so I remain incredibly proud of him. Even if he comes dead last at Nationals, he’s still Number One in my books :)

Spring and Dexter get to tag along again, to be bored out of their gourds (of course if SOMEONE had not come dead last in HIS division at Regionals, SOMEONE might also be competing … DEXTER). Auntie Kim is once again hosting the Fabulous Miss P, and Auntie Jen has bravely offered to house the WooTWoo in my absence.

As long as I have my Jolly Ball, I don’t care where I live.

Wish us luck friends! We’ll tell you all about it when we get back :)