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Being no stranger to the PNW and its wet weather patterns, I was unsurprised (but unimpressed) to awake a couple of days ago to relentless, pounding, whipping, freezing and CONSTANT punishing rain that lasted for days and days. I don't *like it* but I wasn't shocked or anything.

I wasn't even surprised when late afternoon yesterday my power went out during the worst of the windy rain. What did surprise me was that it wasn't the weather that caused the power outage - it was some guy up the road in an excavator who backed into a power pole. How he did that on 25 acres of flat farmland is a mystery to me, but then again, I've never driven an excavator.

Anyway, the pole went down across the road, and with it went our power. And my freedom! As I am at the end of a dead-end road, and there was a pole down across that road, I was trapped on my property, with no way to escape to, say Starbucks for a latte and some wifi, or the drugstore for candles! It was a long, and cold, 6 hours of pitch black silence, let me tell you.

Poor Wootie was freezing cold too, as we had been outside playing just before the power went out, and he'd been splashing about merrily in a ditch. I wrapped up the sad little orange sack of cold-wet in a blanket and sat him on my lap while he shivered. You never saw anything that pathetic in your life.

phhllbbb on crummy weather.


The finer points of living in the stix continue to elude me. I'm making real efforts to adapt, and yesterday somehow convinced my stepdad to drive all the way out here in the pouring rain to help me build a temporary fence. There are no photos of this fence for two reasons.

1) it's invisible.Not really. What it it's made of is deer netting, which is a thin black plastic mesh material that is supposed to keep hundreds of lbs of deer off your property. After lots of painstaking research, I chose deer netting because the temporary fence was going in a place where a fence would look stupid, so being almost invisible was a bonus. Also, it's super inexpensive, and since this is just a temporary potty area, I didn't want to sink any money into it. Real fencing goes in next Spring.

The other reason there are no photos of it:

2) Because it's already gone! How the hell this stuff is supposed to keep a 400lb deer out of anything is a mystery to me, because 40lbs of Tweed didn't see it (cuz, you know, it's invisible), ran into it and split it right down the center. WTF?

The whole reason for putting up the temporary fencing was so that I had a semi-secure potty area to put the dogs in where they wouldn't wander off. Because Wootie has a habit of just ... leaving. And lately, he has started taking Dexter with him.

Who, me?


Yes, you, you little rat! In fact, if Dexter were grown up, the scene would probably look a little like this:


Wootie's not leaving because he doesn't like it here - on the contrary, he is in love. It's just that since we settled in, he has adopted the entire neighborhood as HIS. He must pee on all the neighboring properties, chase other dogs down the road, hide bones in the horse paddock and generally make sure everyone in a 3 mile radius knows that Woo is in da hood.

He loves to go outside and patrol the perimeter of the property.


I'm your friendly neighborhood security patrol. Get that camera out of my face.


And Dexter has no qualms at all about strolling off when the mood strikes him. He is one brave little puppy.

Oh hai, I'm in your horse paddock, pretending I'm deaf.


His enormous ears give him away though! Those things don't want to stand up, but they don't want to lay flat either. They both point forward and fold in half. It makes him the absolute cutest puppy on the face of this earth! Although I might be biased.

No you're not. I am really, really cute.


I thought *I* was the cutest puppy on earth?


Oh gosh, but you ARE Piper! Even with that divot of skin missing from your nose, where you ripped it off trying to "bury" your elk bone in the linoleum.

But also, Miss Piper is no puppy. Why tomorrow (or some time this month) she will be 7 years old! And Mr. Woo (ditto) will be 4 years old! Where on earth does the time go?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PIPER AND WOO!!

Ha ha. You guys are getting older! I'm still 9.


I will assume you have some good reason for never celebrating my birthday.

Fitting in

Listen kid, if you want to be a part of this family, you'll listen to my advice.

First things first - you can't be afraid of Mad Teeth (tm). No hiding.


Face your fears


And give 'em as good as you get 'em.


Ha ha! That's my boy. He's learning the ropes around here pretty good already!

And so am I. I have resigned myself to the fact that muddy feet are just a part of living in the stix, and that I'll just have to become a little friendlier with the mop. And thanks for all your wonderful landscaping suggestions - over time I will definitely implement some of them to make our little space in the country more user friendly!

The dogs are loving it for sure. While we miss our our old haunts, there are some new ones to explore. Yesterday was beautiful, so we went and relaxed at the local dog park for the first time.



We made lots of new friends. Except for Wootie, who made no friends. He has taken on the roll of Dexter Protector, and he beats up anyone who tries to play too rough with "his" puppy.

And if I don't feel like loading everyone up in the car, we just play on our own property, which backs onto the dikes.

In the Jungle


The Mighty Jungle


The Puppy Creeps Tonight


Somebody comes from real sheepdog stock.


Now that he is getting kind of coordinated, like a real dog, he is all crouchy, creepy and stalky. It's very amusing to watch.

And he is getting braver too. He now tumbles merrily down the hills without fear. This is because he wants to follow his big brother and sister into the grass pit. The grass pit is this huge basin flanked by four hills, about the 2/3rds the size of a football field, and full of grasses that are about 5 feet tall. I can amuse myself for eons by lobbing a ball in there from the top of the hill and watching the dogs hunt for it.

Are you sure it's in here, Food Lady?


Tweed always finds it though.


Hours can pass without me seeing more of Wootie than this:


He's usually hunting wildlife. And there's lots of it too!

There are, of course, lots of ducks


Blue herons (this one was standing on my lawn and took off as we approached the house)


Yesterday I saw 4 snow geese circling the farm way up in the air. And two nights ago I could hear an owl "who who-who whoing" in the trees, so I went outside with a flashlight and saw him sitting at the top of a pine right outside my front door. How cool is that?

Yup, we are really liking it out here so far, kind of a surprise to The Food Lady, who likes her city comforts.

I always knew this would be awesome. I'm smart.


Are you just going to let him tell lies like that, Food Lady?


Come on, kid. Let me give you some more advice. Follow me, and you won't go wrong.


Should I be listening to this guy??

This is great

The view this afternoon from my patio door

They all touched down in the big pines surrounding my yard, and sang for about half an hour. The noise was deafening, but amazing. I think they were red winged blackbirds.

This is NOT so great:

That's after ONE potty trip, and right after those mats were freshly washed. The mud out here is so frustrating - no amount of dog paw wiping or floor mats seems to help :( I am a fairly fastidious housekeeper (at least for the visible bits) and I've nearly worn out the mop. The bedroom carpet is already a lost cause and it was pretty well brand new two weeks ago.

*sigh*


It does not help when Wootie decides to surreptitiously bury his knuckle bone in the mud during a potty trip.

I'm so ashamed. Sort of. Can I go get my bone?

I wish The Food Lady was not so grumpy

Home, Home on the Range

We're back! Did you miss us? We are finally all moved in.

That's not the same as being settled in or even the same as being unpacked. But why waste time unpacking when we can be exploring our new neighborhood?

We are located at the end of a dead-end road and surrounded by dykes and farmland that is open to roaming. Makes for a lovely photo backdrop, especially right now in the Fall.

It's got some wildlife, which is simply tantalizing for Wootie.

I'll bet he really wishes he could fly!

There was dense fog this morning, trying to obliterate that pesky sunshine

But it made it easier to sneak up on Mr. In Yo Face

The sun ultimately won the Fog War

And then it was beautiful!

A lovely morning for trying something new. Like a threesome:

And some light bondage.

Piper really enjoys being a dominatrix.

Dexter prefers to watch.

Though Piper is willing to share the secrets of her bossy success!

First thing she needs to teach him: How Not To Tumble Down A Hill

Dexter is settling in well! He can "sit," he can "lay down," he can wait for his dinner bowl to put on the floor, and his recall is coming along nicely!

Coming! I'm coming! Have cookies at the ready!

He is such a charming little bloke. On the weekend I brought him with me to the agility trial and passed him around from person to person. He's completely unfazed by noise and new experiences. Amusingly, everyone said "he's the one I would have picked, if I could have adopted one." It's amusing because I ended up with him precisely because nobody else *did* pick him.

Still, I think it worked out pretty well for both of us.

The dogs are diggin' their new home. Yesterday we played ball in our own yard whilst waiting for the Internetz Man to come hook us up. We found someone snooping around our storage shed and Mr. Woo ran him off the property with some self important Woofing, so he feels very important. House training is going well, now that outside is not 4 floors away :)

I'm a little less enamored with the new house. The set-up is frustrating, as the mudroom/entrance way is just off the bedroom, which we must pass through to get to the main room. This means my bedroom, despite the liberal use of towels, is a constant mess of dirty paw prints. This is the first time I've ever lived on laminate, and it doesn't clean up as nicely as hardwood. And of course, the house has exactly zero closets, and the World's Smallest Amount Of Counter Space. Building a kitchen island is first on the agenda, right after I put in a fence.

On the plus side, it's so wonderfully quiet out here! Instead of sirens and truck brakes, I hear frogs and the gentle "wheeeeeep" or hawks flying overhead. No more earplugs at night!

I think we'll settle in just fine :)

In other news, blogger tells me I've used up almost all of my allotted space for photos. I supposed this means archiving some of my very oldest posts and removing them from the blog. Anyone know how to do that?