Well this is a long time coming. For those of you who have been following my blog from the beginning, I used to give updates pretty regular but the longer I am here the further apart they become. This will be a long one so pour yourself a cup of what ever your pleasure is, find a comfy spot and here we go…
I will start with the kids…
Shooter… I think I have said this before but Shooter is the best dog ever! He is very misunderstood with his don’t touch me attitude but he is a very loving sole. He enjoys going for walks everyday but we need to limit him, He doesn’t know when to stop and over does it, ends up spending a day in bed which always scares me…we have learned to leave him behind for some of the longer walks and he doesn’t seem to mind. He came up to the top of the property the other day and barely moved the entire next day… Poor old man! But most days he jumps out of bed first thing with the girls and is ready for what the day brings. He is enjoying his sisters and the life they bring the house. Dinner is as always the highlight of his day. He loves to cuddle with us and get ear rubs and he waits in line to get brushed, he even let’s out the odd bark if I’m taking too long on one of the girls as if to say… Hurry up! Seriously cute and funny! He has a lot more life in him yet … Yay! He also likes his play time still as you can see…
Lily… She has really become part of the family this dog. She is so sweet and kind and full of love! She loves the tennis ball, she will play with other toys for a moment but she will play ball until she can’t anymore, lay down and rest then once she catches her breath, she is asking for more… She’s not as crazy as Hershey (my first JRT) thank gawd!!! Her hair grows and this is something I am not used to. Last summer we took her for a hair cut and she freaked as we left… Wrapped her little legs around Barry’s leg as if to say… Please Daddy, don’t leave me here! I cried as we drove away so I decided I would take over her hair maintenance. Over the winter I brushed her daily and kept her hair so nice but then she started to shed and she matted up so fast I couldn’t believe it. Barry has a really good clipper but the blade is really dull… Trying to find one but in the meanwhile I felt so bad she was walking around all matted up so one day I took the scissors to her and just started snipping away… A HUGE pile of fur and a few hours later, she looked like she had been sheared… Yay! We have almost all the mattes out… Just a few little bits left. Everyday for the last couple of weeks she has had a hair cut. As the mattes loosened, I would cut her more. See the before and after below, I think it’s working out.
Lily sure loves Barry, we joke a lot about how much she loves him and how she is so loyal to him. She is always RIGHT behind him which isn’t always good because her little toes get stepped on sometimes then he feels really bad. She sits in the window the entire time he is gone, she will barely go outside for a pee and I have to convince her to go for a walk, afraid she might miss him I think. She sure is a sweetie and we love her so much!
Mini… The Princess who rules Dragon Mountain with a fuzzy tail! She is the funniest, cutest little dog! She is extremely bossy and she gets away with it because she is so darn cute! She is very smart so she knows exactly what we are asking her to do but she decides on her own if she will do it… BRAT! She is getting better as she grows up mind you, she 2 now. She loves to be outside. Yesterday I brought her little bed back from the studio to put on the deck, now she will never want to come in! She has a bed in my office as well…She can push the door open if it isn’t latched so when she gets tired playing she helps herself in and curls up in her little bed and has a nap. She never misses a walk and loves to be out front, leader of the pack! She also loves to get behind everyone so she can run as fast as she can and buzz past everyone and sideswipe Lily and Shooter… Shooter used to HATE that but doesn’t seem to mind as much anymore. She gives him kisses as often as she can, he doesn’t snarl like he used… They have really grown to love each other. Mini gets special treatment from us and it’s not a secret. She gets special food, clothes, beds, toys (we even got Lily for her to play with), gadgets and privileges. She just does.
Mini and Lily… These 2 are the closest friends. They do almost everything together and when they are separated for any length of time, they have a little “I missed you” ritual. So cute! Mini doesn’t always want the treats that they are getting and she will give hers to Lily, making sure Shooter doesn’t get it. Mini is however the boss of Lily, it’s like she knows Lily is her play toy and she feels she can boss her around. If Lily gets on trouble for some thing, Mini feels the need to jump on her and give her heck. Mini hates it when Lily gets up on the bed and is really mean to her about it. Mini does get in trouble for that, she is getting better and only attacks Lily half the time now. They are loving sisters.
Us… We are in doing great. We defiantly had a little cabin fever this year. I left for 2 weeks for work and we both needed the break. It was a long cold winter and without the added space of the studio, it was a bit of a tough one. I had to work in the house for almost the entire month of Feb because of the cold weather so it was a little reminiscent of our first year here. Especially when we lost water for a few weeks.
We are both travelling to Penticton this summer to take a Terry Isaac workshop. Barry in June doing Landscape textures and mine is in July, animal textures. We are super excited about this! We both have been putting in some hours, Barry more so, he is really developing his style. I have been doing flowers just trying to learn the paint…
Which is a perfect Segway for…
Hyde Creek Gallery…
So not much good news from that end of the property. Even the phone line eventually got torn out when the snow melted and things shifted. We will be getting a new pump for the well but other than that, we won’t be putting any money into that structure so it basically sits until we can empty it and then torch it (so looking forward that). We have chosen a spot for our new building which will be studio/gallery/my office under one roof. It will be across from the shop by the entrance. This makes the most sense because then we can be open whatever hours I am at work which is basically 8 to 5 weekdays. Plus what ever time we are there working in the studio, evenings and weekends. This way at least we will be open fairly regular hours that we can advertise. This year we will get the space cleared (trailer, car, camper and a bunch of lumber), next summer we will start to build… this summer we will not have much time for much else because we have a huge project that will begin this week and look at that, another Segway…
Tree Removal…
This is the year… Month… Week… That the huge trees come down from in front of the house. Ian from Bowron Creek Log Homes is coming this week and bringing his chain saw… Scared? Damn right! If they go the wrong way, my office is squished or the house or the cold storage or the power lines… Aaaaaaaaaaaaa! It is going to take a huge portion of Barry’s summer clearing this mess! Stay tuned…
The Boot Room…
The materials are here, tomorrow construction begins, I will post photos as it develops!
The Fitbit…
I got a fitbit, it is basically a high tech step counter. It has really gotten me moving. The goal is to do 10,000 steps a day. This has got me paying closer attention to the land. As the snow melted (there are only a few scattered patches left) I expanded the area I walked and I was watching the ground… It goes from flat squished like a pancake and then things start to pop up and it starts to take shape. Very interesting. I’m really glad Barry did so much weed whacking last year, I have a lot of space to walk just around the house, I don’t have to leave the area if I don’t want to but I do make it to the studio and beyond a few times a day. This has also allowed me to keep a close eye on the run off. Today the water is down but it was pretty high for a few days there. We are hoping the worst of it is over. The water is still really dirty so we are no where close to being done. There are 3 new huge logs right by the Lost Spade Crossing that weren’t there last year, they have been washed there from up stream. Amazing that we get enough water to carry logs this size. If they make it to the culvert next year, they will be a problem!
The fitbit also records how many floors you climb and it does it by your elevation as well as steps so now everything is equated to floors… It’s 14 to the top of the property, 5 to the old snag. The driveway is 1. 4 floors to the Chinese place in Barkerville. I am so excited to see how many steps / floors it is to Richfield! Waiting for the snow to melt to take that hike. Today we were talking about going to the spot we get firewood for a walk, we will see if we can get up there yet. Love the fitbit and it’s really helped me get off my lazy butt! Yay!
Critters…
The bear we had must have moved on, we haven’t seen signs of him for a while. We do have 2 flickers (woodpecker). One has made a hole in the side of the studio wall about the size of a softball, every time we walk up to the building, he flies away. We don’t hear babies but he does have a nest in there. We have decided to leave him be. We aren’t using the house … Someone might as well take shelter there. The second one is at our house. I’m not sure where he lives but he comes and knocks on my office window, this just started a couple of weeks ago but he’s there almost everyday. I’m not sure what this guy wants. When the stellar knocks on the window, I know he wants me to come fill the seed bowl. The other day Mini and I were heading down the driveway and huge rabbit (probably a hare) came out of the small grove between the driveway and the bat cave… He’s been living there since we moved here but we don’t see him often. He’s pretty big. The grouse are all over the place too… Barry keeps talking about having one for dinner but I’m not sure if that will ever happen. Not too many big critters yet this year.
I think… For today… That is all I have … Stay tuned…
Ain’t she cute…
Both bridges on one of my walks…
