Category Archives: dogs dogs dogs

while i’m reminiscing – scooter and the big bad cows

Posted on by
Reply
http://poodlelane.com/ScooterBook/index.htm

While I was looking over my websites this morning, checking what needs to be updated, changed, making sure links still worked, I came across my links to the book I wrote about Scooter.

Its not that I’d forgotten I’d done this book, its just that I hadn’t looked at it for a long time.

I opened the links and looked at the preview page I’d set up for it, which lead to the Lulu page to buy the book. It was looking at the drawings that got me feeling nostalgic.

I sold all the original watercolours I’d done for this book on ebay after I’d finished the book. They were simple pen and ink and watercolour drawings, but they were so expressive. Now I wish I’d kept a few and framed them for myself.

Oh well. At least I still have a copy of the book.

I miss Scooter. He was such a character. A huge personality in a tiny package.

z

redecorating the casita

Posted on by
Reply
When you come home and the poodles greet you with white nails and white noses it can only mean one of two things:

They baked you a cake.

or

They started redecorating the casita.

I’ll let you guess which one.

Yep. You got it.

The poodles decided they’d put a shelf nook in the hydrobath room for me to keep bottles on.

How thoughtful.

Romeo poses in front of the grooming room door, proudly showing of their handiwork. Pretty neat huh? Almost a perfect square.

Mind you, there are teeth and digging marks all over the place including my fancy dog lead hanger and chalkboard. Sigh.

By the time I took the photo I’d also swept up the piles of plasterboard bits.

So… Anyone want to hire two poodles to do demolition work? They come cheap! All you have to do is drop a small furry critter  (or feathered, they’re not too fussy) into the wall cavity you want removed. They’ll do the rest.

Of course, if someone hadn’t left the casita door open this wouldn’t have happened… I won’t mention any names but it starts with ‘w’ and ends with ‘ayne’.

After the great possum debacle of a few months ago, when we came home to find the contents of my workshop in the casita re-arranged, we decided to keep the door closed when we went to work.

Now, I was very mature about it. I didn’t yell or jump around like a two year old denied a lollypop. Nope. I just laughed and cleaned the mess up.

Then I told Wayne what had happened. The words “Its your fault” never crossed my lips.

They didn’t have to…

z

romeo may not live much past four

Posted on by
Reply

Yep.

I’m not impressed.

Romeo killed another of our ducks this morning.

See, Wayne has been taking the dogs out for a run in the paddocks every morning when he goes out to feed the chickens and ducks.

Normally the poodles have been really good with the feathered critters. They ignore them as they run around sniffing wildlife trails. They’ll run through a flock of them, scattering them and ignoring all the flapping and squalking…

But one duck, acting differently… well, turns out that was too much for Romeo (‘duck f@$ker’ as Wayne affectionately calls him).

One duck has been nesting in the fallen tree branches in the top paddock. We only noticed it when Romeo chased her out of there a few weeks ago but didn’t think much of it.

Till today that is.

When he not only chased her out but caught her.

Sigh.

And she was sitting on eggs.

Double sigh.

Wayne is up there now disposing of ‘cover’ to avert another such disaster.

We are now down to 8 ducks. Lately only 7 have been turning up for feedings, which means there’s another one nesting somewhere.

Did I mention we’re also down to one chicken and one rooster?

Not due to Romeo, he’s innocent of that much at least.

Since our chickens are free range we don’t always know whats going on number-wise. We had as many as 6 isa browns and 2 black hens at one time. One black hen was killed by *guess who* when she landed in the yard. One red hen was found dead, decapitated. Most likely by a quoll. They do that apparently. I found another dead in the hen house the other day… no injuries that I could see. The others have just disappeared. I know the rooster has been very rough on a couple of the hens, so I’m betting they ran away.

So now we need more chickens.

And I’m thinking I may buy a couple of geese for Wayne.

He loves geese. And geese can hold their own against dogs. That’ll teach Romeo some respect.

sigh.

Life on a farm ain’t all rainbows.

z

a day in the life

Posted on by
Reply

Today is Romeo’s birthday.

I’m a bad mother.

If his brother Merlin’s owner hadn’t mentioned it to me, I would have missed it.

Again.

Yesterday I groomed the kids, the poodles anyway. Barney always manages to find ‘important work’ to do on the other side of the property when its time for a clip, bath and blowdry.

Wayne’s not impressed cause this time I left some slight bell bottom bracelets on their legs. I like them like that even if it is higher maintenance than clipping them off all over. But tomorrow the kids are having a visitor. A lady who wants to buy a standard poodle.

I’m like an ambassador for standard poodles in Tasmania. When someone is considering a standard poodle I invite them round to meet my two. If they can survive that, then they know a standard is for them. If they run screaming, well… they might consider a goldfish instead.

Things have been busy around here lately. On the positive side I’ve been on a roll regarding my art lately. Firstly I got a 2nd at the DVRA Art Competition. Then I got 1st Prize at the Salvaged Art Competition, and the project I worked on with some guys at work won 1st Prize in the amateur category. Plus I sold the painting of the quoll from the DVRA comp. I now have either half the price of a trip to Greece, most of the price of a new laptop, or a start towards a new bathroom or kitchen….

Other positives are: The lawn has been mowed. Some plants have been found amongst the weeds. The rain tanks are full. I caught up with the dish washing and the laundry.

On the negative side the dishes keep piling up, another load of washing appeared when I wasn’t looking, the rain tanks are overflowing, I can actually hear the grass growing thanks to the rain we’ve had, I’m sure there is less lawn and more weeds than ever this year, and I was unable to locate some of the plants I put in last year, even once I’d cleared up the weeds around the place they were last spotted.

On Sunday I finally started a project I had planned to do last summer. I hate having birds nest in our roof but I hate the thought of baby birds in nests dying of starvation cause I locked out their parents. So the idea was to put bird wire around the eaves at the end of summer, once the nests were empty.

Of course the end of summer snuck up on me quite suddenly with rain and wind and I put off the wire thing till the weather was better.

Then, this year, spring snuck up on me and suddenly there were birds building nests in the roof again.

Time to try out that new air stapler Wayne got me a few months ago. I already had some bird wire (only 10 metres of it, but that was a blessing in disguise), I had staples, I had the air stapler… I had a friend to help. I had ladders. I was set.

We managed to do the short side of the house plus a bit around the corner. My friend cut the wire, then held it up for me on her ladder. I balanced precariously on my ladder, wielding the staple gun and missing two out of every three shots.

Serioulsy, those staples are SO narrow.

By the time we’d put up 10 metres we were done.

…I mean, we were done. The job wasn’t. I had to get up on the ladder again on Monday and cut and staple bits where the vertical boards on the house left gaps. I had to add a bit of extra wire where I’d totally missed a gap, allowing our feathered friends to still get in an out and continue construction of their mansions in our roof. I also hung up some old cds on string from the wire to further discourage building without permits.

The cds looks kinda ‘redneck’ but I prefer to think of them as a cheap, practical and environmentally friendly way of discouraging birds from squatting in our roof. The downside is they make a lot of noise thumping on the house in the wind. I’ll get used to it. Better than finding our insulation in the driveway, pulled out by birds extending to put in a pool room.

The birds aren’t the only things I’ve evicted this week. Remember Ponsonby, the black possum who moved into the casita? I did love seeing his little pink nose and his tail hanging down as he watched me do stuff in there.

What I didn’t enjoy was the full scale destruction the dogs caused trying to get him. Or the possum poop. Everywhere.

So, we bought a possum trap and trapped him. Then we released him in the bush.

Actually, Wayne released him in the bush.

First he gave me this long lecture about how FAR away I had to release him cause possums come back. Kind of like ‘homing possums’. I was going to take him up the hills opposite our place. About 10-15 klms away.

But Wayne decided he’d do it. And he just drove up our road for about 3 klms and let him go.

If Ponsonby comes back I’ll find it incredibly hard to not do the smugly superior thing…  

I told you so!

Man the weather’s been wierd lately. Strong winds. And rain. Lots of rain. I was woken up last night by rain pelting down and thunder so long and loud the house shook!

Our creek is flowing like Niagara Falls again, and the paddocks have more than one river running through them. Poor Wayne was out there this afternoon with his bucket and spade trying to direct the flow.

Even the ducks are looking water-logged.

z

today was a nice day

Posted on by
Reply
Today was a nice day. 
It was sunny, not cold. No rain. No wind.
I had some dogs to groom in the morning but I was determined to get outside and spend some time with the horses.
Soon as I finished the last dog I took some brushes and a halter and went out and got Cass. We spent some time bonding over some intense back rubbing. I think she loved it more than I did… I was choking on horse hair.
I swear, I’ve never seen a horse shed as much as she does. The other day I was watching her in the paddock after we’d taken their rugs off so they could get some sun… Cass shook and a cloud of white hair rose around her, settling on the ground like snow.
Its still there now! After a whole week and many many inches of rain!
In fact when you walk around the paddock you’ll see spots… “This is where Cass rolled, this is where she shook”…
The view from Cass’ back.
I had to get Wayne’s help to saddle her up. I can’t do up a girth. I’m a weakling.
Then I had to use a milk crate to get on her.  My legs can’t get up high enough to put my foot in the stirrup… And my arms aren’t strong enough to lift my butt off the ground…
Let’s not go there.
After the ride. Sleepy Cass.
Wayne said he wasn’t going to ride. He was just going to hassle watch me ride Cass around the paddock. The aim of the exercise was to just get to know eachother. I haven’t ridden in YEARS. I need to build my confidence. And Cass thought she’d come here to retire. We brought her here, fed her and let her do her own thing for months, what’s a girl to think?
In the end, Wayne got jealous. He got out his gear and saddled up Wally, then we both ambled around the paddocks, letting the horses relax under saddle and with eachother and us on their backs. 
Basically it was a very relaxed hour.
I plan to make this a regular thing. Its a promise to myself. To start doing something we planned to do when we bought Wind Dancer Farm. We bought this particular property cause it has access to good riding areas both on our own property and beyond it. Yet we’ve been here for over 2 years and haven’t ridden together yet.
Now I have Cass, its time.
Meanwhile, its good to be home. Though I when I opened the shed last week to get something, this is what I was greeted by:
I hadn’t left it like that. Believe me.
The poodles were in there hunting a possum. Or two.
One of them didn’t make it apparently. I found a LOT of grey possum fur when pooperscooping the yard that first day… Wayne said he had to bury an ex-possum while I’d been away. The poodles went feral, wreaking destruction to get at the possums… 
You should see the new car’s fender…
I almost came back to ex-poodles.
I also found some red possum fur. That little guy did make it. Though he was stupid enough to come into the yard again. The other night he was frozen on top of the trellis while the dogs paced around below. The poodles were like “I know he’s around here somewhere but I just can’t see him…”
The possum was still as a statue thinking “If I don’t move maybe they won’t notice me.”
Poor little thing… He had quite a few bald spots. Luckily no injuries, just bald spots.
I got the dogs inside and he escaped… I hope he’s smart enough to find another hangout.
z

meet my friends

Posted on by
Reply
Anyone that knows me knows I’m passionate about animals, dogs in particular.
Everywhere I go I see dogs that I just must say hello to. I’ll be walking along with one of my cousins, see  a dog and run off calling “Hello gorgeous!”, leaving them standing in confusion… thinking I’ve seen some long lost relative or an ex boyfriend… only to see me running towards a cute dog making kissing sounds.
Other people go goo-goo over babies. I go goo-goo over animals.
Almost every shop in the Agora (market street) seems to have its resident dog these days. That means I have to go into every shop to give them a pat.
And at the beach… we went to the open air cinema last night and there was a dog there too! 
Cats are everywhere of course. Some people feed the stray cats, other cats live around the smorgasbord of the garbage bins. Generally speaking, stray cats in Greece are fast and very wary. This old tom was sleeping on a fence near our house and went on full alert when I pulled out my camera.
 
Marouso’s kitten, the one briefly known as Roxy, has disappeared. She was a wild kitten we found at the beach and brought home. We fed her, loved her, Marouso had her future life planned out: luxury, pampering, sleeping on the bed, a big fat belly… I guess we needed to find a younger kitten who hadn’t yet learned to fend for itself. Either that or we needed to keep her locked up longer. This is where a dog crate would have come in handy.
Marouso is heartbroken. She’s been looking for Roxy for 24 hours now. I hope we find her or find another kitten for her. She plans to be a crazy cat lady when she grows up and needs to start training for it.
z

i can still do the splits!

Posted on by
Reply
But not in any way that I’d like to repeat any time soon.
I came home from work yesterday and went about doing all those millions of little things you have to do when you live in the country and come home late. In the dark. And cold.
I brought in firewood. I lit the fire. I put on some washing. I groomed a dog.* I fed horses. I fed dogs. I put on some drying. I washed dishes. I folded towels drying in front of the fire and went to put them away.
I took one step into the bathroom with an armload of towels and went WHOOOAAAAAEEEEE!!!!!  SPLAT!
One leg out front, one out back, towels all over the place.
Wayne came running “What happened? Are you alright?…. Where are you?”
Down here. Wedged between the shower and the vanity. I couldn’t get up cause I couldn’t bring my legs together (not a problem I normally have). Wayne tried to help. By then the hysterical laughter didn’t help. He had to drag me out backwards on my butt before I could gather myself together sufficiently to get up.
How embarrassing.
I have bruises in places that never normally meet the hard ground.
Turns out I hadn’t turned off the HOT water tap properly in the morning and it dripped all day, flooding the bathroom floor. 
Good one Zef.
Eh. We need a new bathroom anyway. What kind of bathroom is it when you fall and get wedged between the shower and the vanity and there’s not enough room to get up?
Note to self: add ‘new bathroom’ to the To Do list.
You know, there really is no rest for the wicked… I must have been very naughty in a previous life. Really. I mean it just never ends. And I don’t even have children. Imagine if I did! Mom always warned me that one day I’d have children who’d give me as much trouble as I gave her. The Mother’s Curse. 
Well. I showed her. I didn’t have kids.
But maybe it still got me anyway, cause I sure as hell don’t have one of those easy, selfish, relaxed lives people with kids envy their childless friends for.
Today I thought I had it easy. No grooming appointments and I got home earlier than usual. It was actually light when I got home. So I fed the chickens and collected the eggs (why do we keep chickens… with feed it works out to about $5 an egg right now), pooperscooped the yard (it was time, having stepped in poop this morning), fed the horses, repotted some plants and put them on the porch cause the frost was killing them (to think I picked frost tolerant plants), fed the dogs, lit the fire, brought in more firewood. 
About 1.5 hours later I was able to sit down.
Ah. This is the life.
Surely he’ll drop something soon. He always does…
*Grooming appointments. I’m leaving on Sunday. For six weeks. About two months ago I sent out a newsletter to my customers letting them know I’d be away for six weeks and that they should book in early to get their dog groomed before I go. I’ve been flat out. Which is a good thing, I might add. Regulars as well as new customers. And in winter too when a lot of people tend to let the dog’s hair get long. 
But I’m tired. And I still have so much organising to do before I go. I need a rest. I promised myself I will NOT take any appointments for Saturday. Or Sunday. I won’t. I absolutely will not! Cause you know me… I just can’t say no! 
Besides, I have my own dogs to do on Saturday. I want to leave behind a clean house and clean dogs.
And try not to stress about what I’ll come home to…
z

living with dogs

Posted on by
Reply

Who can relate to that?

Ours don’t sleep on our bed… not for lack of trying…

I would love to allow the poodles on the bed with us. Except for two things: I hate dirty footprints on the doona cover and they’re just so big. With two of them on the bed, and me and Wayne there’s just not enough room to move.

My favourite thing though remains late weekend mornings in bed, coffee and books, poodles cuddle up with us…

When I’m alone I always let the poodles sleep with me. I love the feeling of them next to me. Its kind of a safe feeling. Comforting. Numbing.

‘Cause you see, Montana is content to sleep on Wayne’s side of the bed, her back to mine, keeping me warm… Romeo prefers to sleep on my legs, pinning me down. Between that and their weight on either side holding the covers down, I can’t move at all.

Meanwhile, there’s been a bad development in the canine behaviour department.

I blame Wayne.

Ok, ok, I don’t blame Wayne, that was just habit.

I blame the pills Montana was on for her skin infection. That’s cleared up thankfully, but while she was on them she was ravenous all the time. She took to following anyone with food, staring at them with that hypnotic gaze she has which says “you. don’t. want. to. eat. all. that… you. want. to. give. it.to. me…”

She’d also started going through the rubbish bag. And taking things off the kitchen bench.

Now, you have to understand. My dogs have NEVER done things like that.

I’ve left food on benches their entire lives. I’ve left things on the table….

I don’t leave things on the coffee table unattended. Turns out the temptation defeated them on that one. But generally, they’ve been such good kids that when the bambi incident happened I was taken by surprise.

Last week Wayne took some roast venison out of the fridge, put it on the bench and carved it up. He did what any dog slave owning person does and doled out scraps to the dogs. Then he then made himself a sandwich, sat at the table and ate it while reading his book.

I was in the office when I heard the blood curdling scream.

Montana had eaten all the venison on the chopping block!

Wayne hadn’t seen it and apparently hadn’t heard a thing!

Wouldn’t have happened to me. I have ultrasonic hearing when it comes to dogs chewing on something they shouldn’t.

Wayne’s taken to calling her a “bambi thieving bitch” since then.

She’s in his bad books. I still love her though. I don’t really like venison.

z

avoiding housework

Posted on by
Reply
What can I say?
I’ve had 6 days off work and I’ve successfully resisted the urge to do housework every single day!
I’m so proud of myself.
hmph.
The house is a mess. Not helped by the smoked oyster bath Wayne just gave the hallway when he tripped over Barney while carrying a snack to the living room.
So, what have I been doing you ask?
Well, I’ve been busy. Doing STUFF.
I did some washing. AND brought it in. Mom would be so proud…*
Sorted out things that needed sorting before my trip to Greece. Writing lists of things I need to organise before I go and then trying to organise them. Making piles of clothes to take or not take with me on the trip. Reading Game of Thrones book 3 part 2. 
(Addictive… Did I mention I got a Kindle for the trip? Love it!)
Caring for the poodles who both decided to get some kind of pyoderma at the same time, necessitating trips to the vet and multiple pills, washing poodle areas with Malaseb and other indignities.
Had to take the new car in for a small fix to the seatlbelts (under warranty).
Had to take myself into the doctor for “women’s complaints”…
I always wondered about that expression… does complaining about men qualify?
One thing I haven’t done (well, besides housework), is ride Cas. So much for my new horse!
Tomorrow all three horses get their hooves trimmed and Wayne has promised me that if he finishes his chores we’ll go riding on the weekend. 
I’m not holding my breath. I’ve seen his list of chores. And I did not add a single item to it!
I won’t ride alone. 
Ok, I would ride alone but I can’t saddle her alone. I’m just not strong enough to do up a girth. With my dodgey right arm/wrist there’s no way I can tighten up a girth enough so that when I put one foot in the stirrup the saddle stays put. If I tried it the saddle would slip right under her very round belly and deposit me on the ground. 
I know a lot of people who’d pay to see that… and come to think of it, I could use the money. I have an overseas trip coming up you know!
 z
* That’s an ‘in joke’ which my followers from the early days will recognise as relating to a story from my last trip to Greece. Which brings up another point… what will happen to the blog while I’m overseas? 

Well… I’ll continue posting, but the posts will probably be a lot more about the trip, my experiences, family and other funny stories than about all the wierd and wonderful things I do and make.  I plan to include a whole lot more photos that relate to what the blog has evolved into: thrifting, rustic stuff, rust, old stuff, handmade stuff, etc. However I’ll also include a ton of photos of blue sparkly waters, sandy beaches and things to make you all sick with envy.

You’re welcome.

life in the windy lane

Posted on by
2

We’ve had the worst winds for the last couple of days. Really really strong winds. Lucky for us, everything seemed to stay more or less where we put it. Aside from tarps, rubbish, the garage…

Ok, only joking. Though the poor chickens were pinned up against the fence for most of the day…

Alright. That was a joke too.

But the wind was strong. And this morning while we were out battling with a round bale of hay I spied a tree down in the top paddock.

At first I thought the tree had come down from the neighbour’s drive, down over our fence. Turns out we were lucky.

The good news: It was our tree. On our side of the fence. The fence wasn’t damaged. Neither was the water tank.

The bad news: It was our tree.

More good news: Plenty more firewood.


Notice the deep root system gum trees have. NOT.

A whooping tree came down and there’s barely a hole to show where it was.

The poodles enjoyed running around in the tree. Its not often they get to walk among branches.

And here’s a shot of Wally enjoying a munch on the new round bale.

A friend suggested that rather than just putting a round bale in the stable and letting the horses pull it apart and walk, pee and poop all over the hay, we should surround it with pallets and restrict how much the horses can pull apart at one time.

We’ll see how it works. The way our monsters eat it won’t be long before we need to lower the fences around the bale so they can reach the hay.

z