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Good
Today was the beginning of another hot spike in temperatures for us. I think it got to 35 C today where we live. At least that’s what the car thermometer said. I had to take the dogs to the vet for vaccinations and a couple other issues and that started at 4pm. We got in rather late due to some emergencies that took priority. It was okay aside from the nuisance the dogs were making of themselves. We finished up just around 5pm and I came home. As it was warm and I was in the right mood, I went out for a bike ride soon afterwards.
It was still kind of hot, so I took two bottles of water with me and put one in my backpack just in case. I got started easily enough and got out onto the bike paths near us. I found today was an easy ride. My heart rate was on the higher side but it wasn’t making me feel ill so I didn’t take any drastic measures to change it. I kept a steady pace all the way to my destination and didn’t struggle all that much with the hills tonight although it was a definite workout.
Once I arrived I parked my bike and went into the shopping center for a few minutes break. I had a banana I’d taken with me so had a bit of a snack and then made sure to drink all the water in one of the bottles. I hadn’t stopped at all along the way. Then I went to refill the water before setting off again. Unfortunately this took long enough that it was just about sunset by the time I got going again. I wasn’t too fussed as it still felt pleasant outside and the bike path is well lit until I get to my neighborhood (where it’s lit but not as well). It did serve as a reminder that I need to get a light installed.
The ride back was even better than the ride there. It was such easy exercise that I didn’t feel as though I was working all that hard. It’s really interesting how that happens some days and then others just the simplest ride can be so hard to get through. The temperature had dropped a bit once the sun set and I found myself riding through pockets of cooler air. But as I got closer to home there were pockets of warmer air that I was hitting. I did stop briefly to take a photo of the pretty night skies fairly early on in the ride back.
Pretty sky during ride home When I got home I was feeling pretty good. I think this sort of exercise releases those endorphins and I felt like they were really flowing tonight. Even hours later I’m still feeling pretty good.
Tomorrow is supposed to be a scorcher with possible high temperatures that we don’t get in November ever. Just another tick in the evidence of climate change, methinks.
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In the thick of it
It seems I am probably a bit further into my journey to menopause than I realised last time I posted. During this time, one period was completely missed and my body is currently trying to play catch up so it’s wreaking a bit of havoc on the body, enough that I wonder at what point I should see a doctor. It’s a bit more complicated than that but it seems likely my hormones have been a lot more off than they had been. Still no hot flashes. :)
Yesterday I had all sorts of problems with my computer and it soon came to my attention that I no longer had Malwarebytes running on my system. It seems to have stopped back in July and after considerable effort (helped immensely by the Scientist) it was apparent my installation was corrupted. Eventually I was able to uninstall it and reinstall. All seems to be running fine at the moment.
The problems on my computer led me to finally getting two step verification on some email accounts set up so that I can access them on the devices I want to use. This took quite a bit of going back and forth between accounts and setting things up but that also seems to be working properly and I can now check the email accounts with frequent use on my current phone, old phone, Ipad, tablet PC and desktop with no issues.
My temporary/casual job finished on the 12th of this month so I am back to the usual day to day stuff. I kind of miss the idea of work as I was earning a bit of money to add to the family accounts. It is nice not to have so many days wiped out at the moment though, particular at those times when I have to take a child to an appointment.
It’s been several months since our old lawn mower died on us and over the winter, the grass had grown rather tall in some areas. The Scientist and I went to a few places to check out potential replacements and after some indecision, we settled on another low-end sort of electric one which is probably a bit better than our previous model. I immediately set out to mow our front yard and after well over an hour, had made good progress. I was mowing along the side of the driveway, back along the side of the carport when the power disappeared abruptly as I accidently mowed over the power cord. We’ve only ever owned electric and I’ve not done this before (although did run over the solar light cord under tree several years ago). Â I discovered that not only had I destroyed the power cord but caused the power to go out in the house. It was too late to do more mowing so I didn’t end up getting a new cord until the next day. By then it was raining so I’ve now had to wait for things to dry again. I did get enough done to make the front yard look much better, much bigger. It’s amazing how much space tall grass seems to take. The backyard is still untouched but I will hopefully get to that in the next couple of days unless we get more rain.
Cutting the grass soon will be quite beneficial for the dogs, who are off to the groomer tomorrow. Little boy dog will get a full clip and finally get all the knotted fur cleared out. It seems to get so difficult to manage once it reaches a certain length. Fortunately it’s now spring so I don’t have to worry too much about him being cold. We had the warmest recorded day in September on Saturday and on Sunday, the high was not much different than the low had been overnight. It’s been considerably cooler the past few days but seems to be warming a bit again. I know to expect changes in temperature but I would prefer to avoid such drastic changes.
I was very happily surprised to find out Neil Finn is playing a concert at a winery down in Margaret River in November. It’s a one-off show and features one support act I’ve not seen but would like to and another one I’ve seen two or three times before. The downside is it’s a 3.5 hour drive to get there, which means a return trip of similar length. We considered trying to stay overnight but it seems there aren’t many options due to this being during a food and wine thing happening during this weekend or week. Anyway, we are going to try to wing it. I suspect it will mean that the Scientist does the driving there and I drive back since I will be more awake.
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Awesome walk
The day started much like most recent days, cold enough that you don’t want to get out of bed even when you know you should. The weather forecast was off by a few degrees for this morning as it was much colder than it was supposed to be, about 3C, based on our closest weather station. Anyway, I dragged myself out of bed eventually and got moving a bit. Ate some breakfast and washed some dishes before starting a stew meant for dinner.
I’ve been quite lax about taking the dogs out for walks lately and I needed some exercise so I packed them into the car and drove to Whiteman Park, which is a few minutes away. I started out next to the dog park and would have taken them there had there not already been some other dogs there. I wasn’t in much of a mood to deal with the mad barker today. Besides, I was rather keen to walk on one of the trails through the park as we did on our last visit. I started off on one of the paved trails and we wandered along, with a couple of stops for doggie clean up along the way, until we reached the village. We wandered around the periphery of the village, in front of Caversham Wildlife Park, and through the parking lot, until we reached the opposite side of the village. From there I went looking for one of the longer trails to walk and eventually did find it. Turns out this one was a bush trail and not paved. This didn’t bother me but I kind of thought all of the trails were now paved. The bush trail was a delight to walk on for both me and the dogs. Lots of soft ground for their little paws made them much happier, especially as our walk became more and more extended.
I had taken my good camera and found a lovely little hideaway under some trees where I wanted to take some photos. I stopped the dogs and pulled out the camera and it wouldn’t come on. Seems I’d left it on the last time I used it or it had been knocked into the on position. It wasn’t working for me so I put it back. I didn’t think my phone camera was going to work for what I wanted. It might have worked but I am still learning quite a bit of how to use it…and mostly just getting used to such a different interface. Later on I did pull out the camera to take some photos of a banksia flower but I only used it in auto mode as it seemed to be doing okay with that. We ran across a bunch of magpies at one point and the dogs got rather excited while I got a bit nervous. It’s not magpie season yet, so I probably shouldn’t have worried. Anyway, many of them flew off, disturbed by the sound of us walking along the trail. It was actually kind of a spectacular sight at that moment, with the sun starting to drop in the sky and the birds all flying together.
We carried on walking and I began to wonder if I’d gotten in a bit deep on the walk. Not so much for myself but for the dogs, who aren’t the fittest they’ve been. They did keep up pretty well although I did slow my pace a bit too. I’d seen a sign saying it was 2kms to the Mussel Pool from there, via Lookout Hill. It seemed to take an awfully long time to get to just Lookout Hill and from there it was supposed to be another 500m to go. We did stop there and climb the lookout platform where we could see the city skyline in the distance. I don’t quite know why this surprised me as we can see it from near our house and we live really close to the park with our neighborhood backing onto the edge of the official park land. From there the path was paved all the way and it surely was more than 500m long. But it was in this section of the park I had the greatest delight, seeing what I thought were wallabies several times. Now I think they might have been grey kangraroos as I think they were a bit bigger than wallabies although not the biggest kangaroos I’ve seen. I tried to take photos a couple of times but they roos had hopped away before I could get anything in a photo. We walked on and I came across more of them, about eight altogether. I tried to get a little closer but then they all bounced away too. I saw one last one in the bush by itself but it was too far away to get it in focus and was surely going to move. But what an awesome sight they were and this was in a state park where we are free to visit.
This was far more impressive than seeing the animals in the wildlife park on the same site. We’d been to the wildlife park before it resettled into Whiteman Park and it was pretty cool to see. But it was so much neater to see the creatures in the wild. The same goes for the many of the birds we’d find there. Although I’ve never been keen on caging birds as pets, I feel even more strongly about it after having seen birds like cockatoos and galahs in the wild here. I don’t even have to go to the state park to see those as many of them fly through our neighborhood and can be seen nearby.
We finally did reach the mussel pool area although it took me awhile to get my bearings there. I eventually found my way past and back to the dog park where I took he dogs for a drink of water and brief sit down before returning home. I have made a mental note to return to the park soon without dogs so I can take it all in without worrying the dogs are tiring.
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Vet visit again!
Yesterday the Scientist and I were out in the backyard trying to clean up some of the messes out there. He was doing poop patrol and I started chopping away at branches on a bottlebrush tree that recently shifted into a low position after the weight of the branches became too much. My intention was to work on a bit of it now and come back to it. The Scientist finished the dirty work and started helping cut branches. Meanwhile the dogs happily were running about the yard, pleased to have people outside with them again. Maromi suddenly came running out of the honeysuckle bush he’d been burrowing into and was yelping in pain. Long story short, he had another grass seed get stuck in his ear. This is the third time this has happened but this time he had to be sedated to get it out. What came out was pretty big and would have been difficult to remove with an awake dog. But the problem we have was they were ready to do this before seeing what was in the ear. The previous two times we had to use an after hours vet and they handled it all on the spot without sedation. I’m sure the local vet is just trying to cautious but I can’t help thinking the sedation can’t be a good thing either. Poor little guy took a lot longer to recover this time and is still a bit groggy over twelve hours after the fact.
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Happy New Year!
Since I last posted, Lego Lover had a birthday and it went well. He woke up very early and stayed up quite late to experience as much of the day as possible. No disappointments at the end. This is fairly typical but it still pleases me every year. Such a contrast to his brother on his birthday too. There’s still a small chance I will write up a post for his birthday, even though it’s been nearly two weeks now.
Christmas went pretty well  aside from it being the first day of a week-long heatwave. We had a family gathering at the Scientist’s mum’s house. We all ate quite well on all the food prepared. I’d made my usual vegetable and chickpea patties for my MIL and a potato salad for Game Fanatic. The Scientist cooked a small turkey and his mum made heaps of curries plus a salad. Plenty of food was eaten. I was last to get my food and I made the mistake of having a couple veg patties and was filled way too soon. Almost as soon as dinner was finished, dessert was on. To be fair, it’s also my BIL’s birthday and the Scientist had made a cake so it was time to serve it and sing happy birthday. But I didn’t eat any of the cake because I knew it would be way too much after all the food. Another BIL’s family had brought along four or five things for desserts and it seemed like they had gone a bit overboard. Later on I remembered she told about several family members being sick and missing out on Christmas at an earlier gathering with her family. I can only assume some of that was meant for the other gathering and had gone uneaten so they brought it to ours. Still it was way too much and it was too hot to enjoy so much rich food. I did have some jelly (gelatin) that my MIL had prepared with a little bit of a couple desserts but could eat no more than that. We’d also taken along some chocolate and raspberry brownies we’d made a few days earlier and they weren’t touched at all…just meant we were eating them for days after Christmas.
The rest of the year was hot and hot and hot. Everyone just stayed in cool places as much as possible…Then it cooled off a bit and became humid earlier this week. Not a lot better, really…then a couple days of lovely mild weather. Meanwhile the heatwave seems to have gone east and they are now sweltering there. It’s heated up again here for the weekend but it seems we will be okay for next week.
We stayed home on New Year’s Eve, which is pretty usual for our family. Our clock was slow so there was some uncertainty when midnight rolled around so our happy new years were a bit delayed. The Scientist managed to stay awake that long and then was off to bed almost at once.
The next day our dog Maromi had to go to the vet to have a grass seed abscess removed from his paw under surgery. He has a bad relationship with the grass seeds…usually, though, they get into his ear…which is a lot less costly to treat than surgery on his paw. :( He’s recovering just fine. Managed to pull the bandage off a bit early and it was impossible to get it back on where it would stay. It’s all fine though and the stitch comes out in a week which means he can get rid of the cone.
We also bought a couple of new gadgets at the end of the year sales. We started off looking at one thing but ended up looking at food processors. We have an older one that I’d been using once a year for my veg and chickpea patties and it pretty much is a piece of junk. I had to hold things together to keep it working this year so it was destined to be removed from our house in the near future. Anyway, all my research turned up that there were really no lower end models that rated well at all. Maybe this is an area where you just have to pay for a decent machine. The one we finally chose was cost $435 on sale. I haven’t used it yet but it seems quite solid and has a lot of attachments that are stored in a separate case. The other gadget is an air fryer that uses very little oil to cook foods in. We’ve used it a few times now and it works wonderfully. Mostly it’s nice for making chips (french fries) and they come out nice and crispy in far less time than the oven takes.
I almost forgot we have another expense coming up in the bathroom. Seems that the light switch is now shocking when turned on so it’s not to be used until fixed. We are hoping to have a couple extra plug points installed in the house when the electrician comes out as that’s been on the t0-do list for a while now.
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Transformed
Our puppies will be a year old in something like two weeks and they are such different creatures from when we first met them eight months ago. I’d guess both are as big as they will get but they are still small dogs. Maromi always looks a lot bigger than he is because he is a long-haired little guy. His fur has been quite a trial with regard to grooming. It was easy to get him to sit to be brushed when he was smaller. Now he gets impatient and I often don’t manage to get him completely brushed. He turned into quite a fluff ball as he grew bigger. But any time we missed a day of brushing, more and more of his fur would get matted and it became more of an ordeal for him.
He was already a mess by the time I went in for my surgery almost three weeks ago. The problem was stuff would get stuck on the underside of him and he wouldn’t tolerate me messing with that area for long and it got worse. Since my surgery I haven’t worked on him all that much and any progress got swallowed up with more mess. A few nights ago he started squealing his high-pitched cry for hurt and came flying to me. He’d been outside and I thought something must have hurt him out there. The Scientist, who’d gone to bed, came rushing out to help out with him. He checked the little guy all over and couldn’t find the problem. It just seemed to be related to his ear. He got Maromi to calm down and with Game Fanatic’s help, took him to the after hours animal hospital. Turns out our little boy had a rye seed stuck in his ear and it wasn’t too hard to get it out. But his fur was in such bad shape that it was suggested we have him clipped and start over with the grooming.
I did work on him a bit over the next day or two and removed lots of knots and fur but it was such an endless job that it would be torture to keep working on him for too long.
Yesterday, the Scientist found a local groomer and took him to be clipped. He’s come back looking nothing like our scruffy little friend and looks a bit scrawny. He’s also feeling a bit cool without his long coat so we will have to break down and buy something for him soon. I never thought we’d be spending money on a groomer or a coat when we planned to have dogs. But here we are. We also didn’t expect to have a long-haired dog requiring massive amounts of grooming. I guess I can understand why so much dog advice recommends the clipping being started from a young age too. Maromi wasn’t the most cooperative of clients but the groomer was patient and completed the job. The good part is he now feels so soft and clean after being a mess for weeks now. And it should be a lot easier keeping him cleaned up now that we are starting anew.
The Scientist also took Fluttershy along to get her nails clipped. I gave up trying to cut them months ago after she became quite aggressive with each attempt. I thought we’d have to have her sedated to get the job done but it seems the groomer had no trouble with her. When she came home she acted as though she’d been traumatised for the rest of the day, but today she has settled down and has become springier with each step. I think it must feel good to be rid of the long nails, except when she is jumping on things where she tends to dig in with her claws. So it seems we might have a regular expenditure on some of the puppies’ grooming as it’s easier than leaving it undone.
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Walking the puppies
Our puppies are now about six and a half months old but we haven’t managed to get into a regular walking routine with them as of yet. I’m not too worried about their exercise just yet because they spend heaps of time in active play inside and out of the house. But I do think there is some sort of boredom factor when they don’t get out of the house so I am working on increasing the number of walks.
To backtrack, we were pretty gung ho about starting walks back when they were first old enough to be taken out. But little girl didn’t like the harness and balked at going anywhere. The couple of times I took her out, I almost had to drag her at times. Little boy liked going out for walks but then he got put off by some really windy days that must have ruffled his fur a bit too much. We attempted to take them to the dog beach but we had to make a quick escape when little boy started barking his head off at every other person and dog. I guess they weren’t quite ready for such an overwhelming experience. We also had several extended periods of rainy days so it’s not hard to see how a little procrastination turned into a lot.
Due to the recurrent knee problems I’m not managing to get out as often as I’d like as it gets too sore to walk very far once I’ve taken both out. I’ve been advised to keep walks to 20-30 minutes so my current plan is to take one out one day and the other out the next. When they are better trained and more well-behaved I will make attempts to take them together although that does reduce the potential exercise I might get once my knee is better.
The good news is that little girl is now mostly enjoying her walks although she still runs and hides when I pull out the harness. Once she is outside, she seems mostly happy and is getting much more at ease while we are out. She does bark occasionally but is not so bad as little boy, who barks at just about everything. That said, little boy is getting a bit better with continued exposure to the outside world. What has been interesting to note is the number of dogs we hear barking at everything as we pass by the different houses. While I don’t think it’s a good thing to hear this, it does make me feel a bit better that our pups aren’t the only ones with this problem. And since they are still young, I’m hoping they will get better with maturity and training.
Little boy really likes going for a walk but he has begun to copy his sister’s behavior when it’s time to go out by hiding. Otherwise, walking him goes quite well aside from the occasional barking. One habit that has started with him is the need to relieve his bowels within minutes of starting the walk. And he often needs to go twice while out so I’ve started taking extra supplies to clean up the messes. The sister never goes while out but she does sometimes stop to relieve her bladder.
Little boy also has the unfortunate ability to collect half the outdoors in his long fur. At the moment the worst problem is the little dried burs from the clover getting stuck in his fur and requiring considerable time to remove. What often happens is we get home and little boy starts trying to get them out of his paws but then gets them stuck in the fur around his mouth. Little girl’s fur hardly collects anything as it’s is short and seems to repel almost everything except water. Even with water, she seems to dry quite quickly though.
Tonight I ended up just taking the little girl out and the brother apparently was quite distressed when we’d gone. Funnily enough he’d also run off when a walk was suggested but changed his tune once he realised what he was missing. It was too dark by the time we returned so there was no chance to take him out even if I were up to more exercise. Tomorrow I will take him earlier in the day as I have to be out in the early evening. It will be interesting to see if the sister has any reaction to missing out.
Next puppy topic is likely to be night time with puppies.