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Monday, August 22, 2016

Critter Tales Smokey Vs Skunk

Happy Monday Lovelies!

    It's been awhile since there has been a critter tale so you're in luck!

    Saturday we had a BBQ. It was Fight Night where so we decided to have Wings and Potato skins with various other good food items. Now I'm not much into the UFC but any reason to have them together works for me. Saturday was upwards of 30 degrees so it was way too hot for the oven to go on so I figured it would be a good idea to cook them on the BBQ. That being said I have never cooked either item that way. It turned out good though, the only thing I have to remember next time is that I'll have to spray the tin foil so things don't stick.

    After everyone left I waited until about 11pm and went to have a shower and get ready for bed. Part of that ritual is letting the dogs out for their last pee of the night. As usual Smokey went down first and I had to go back in the house for Whiskey because he's close to deaf now and doesn't know it's time. Yet I still call him like he can hear me and get frustrated when he doesn't come until I remember he can't hear me and almost can't see me either as he loses his eyesight...but I digress. When I came back out on the deck I saw Smokey in pee stance and helped lead Whiskey towards the stairs.

    Whiskey went down and Smokey came up, again as he normally does and he went and sat down in the kitchen on the rug I had no other indication that there was something wrong. That's when the smell wafted past me...but it was too late...he had been in the house, 3 feet away from the back door for under 30 seconds...

    ...and it was all over.

    As I got Smokey out of the house and was dry heaving while trying not to touch him, Whiskey came in for the very first time triumphant that he wasn't the one that had instigated the Fart Squirrel as Lo calls them. But the damage was done and Smokey was oblivious. For almost 2 hours I  debated on whether to bathe to dog right then or wait until morning while I sat on the front step with the door wide open. the back door had to be closed and locked because Smokey is smart enough to open the closed door but not smart enough to realize that a skunk isn't a cat. I knew that if I bathed him that night I would smell like skunk for days and it was bad enough already. I'll smell it for days and I could even taste it so even though Smokey had never stayed outside all night since we've had him ( because he's a whiny baby ) he had to stay outside. thank goodness Lo was in a drunken coma because her room faces the deck and her window was open and grand baby boy was passed out too.

    They escaped the thick of it.

    So frustrated and angry mainly because I had just had a shower. I wrote a note for Lo knowing that she might wake up in the middle of the night and see him out there thinking that someone left him by mistake when they went to bed, and if it wasn't for my note she almost did exactly that.



    I went to bed where Choo had lit probably every scented candle we had in the house so the hallway smelled like Cake and... well skunk but the bedroom was pleasant. Still it took forever for me to fall asleep. Well, then I wanted cake. Finally I drifted off and woke up in the morning with a plan. As soon as the store opened I was going to buy some Skunk Be Gone. Not perfect but better than trying the household remedies because I just wanted something that worked, not something I was going to have to see if my proportions were right and possible the Internet would be right. plus it was cheaper than buying the ingredients for the home remedy.

    Off to Bosley's we went and I instead found a spot treatment spray called Odor Out where you only spray the area that has been fouled...yes fouled. It would be one thing to douse and bathe the boy but the oils would spread and he would just smell everywhere so for my back and my sanity I decided to spray him.

    Have you ever seen a 60-65 lb Pitbull with a spray bottle aimed at him?

    Biggest scaredy cat ever.

    Trying to hold said Pitbull in one spot while trying to not let him touch you for your own fear of getting any foulness on yourself and spray him with it. A fight for sure. If it was something else I could have just sat on him and forced his submission to treatment but the rubber gloves and the spray bottle had this dog trying to back peddle between the bars on the railing if he could have fit his fat butt through them.

    I attacked him 4 times throughout the day because the spray had to dry completely and after a while he smelled better but still smelled. Judging by the spray pattern he must have been practically right on top of it because the skunk got him under the front left leg. In his leg pit. Is that a leg pit? I'm calling it a leg pit. After his traumatic night outside, his lonely whining sad self, and after trying to eliminate the smell from the house, (Hello Pine Sol!) I decided that I could let him in as far as the kitchen and he didn't smell too bad...you know...unless he moved.

    So although it tore my heart a little bit...last night I took Cali's bed and put it in the kitchen next to the gate so he could lay on something soft. I put it down and he sniffed it did a circle or two and laid down facing me, looking pathetic and sad with his big brown eyes looking up and me while Whiskey stood next to me, sniffs him just to turn his back and walk away.

Little does he know he's getting attacked again once I get home because if he ever hopes to leave the kitchen an re-enter the rest of the house he'll have to deal a bit more torture.

Smokey vs Skunk...

The Skunk always wins

Have a great week!

See Ya
S

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Monday, August 15, 2016

Yet Another Lesson To Be Learned

Hmmm.

For once I don't have much to say!


The weekend was hot... that's all there was to it. By the time the heat went down we were too drained to really do anything. As we sat on the deck though on Saturday the news feed came through about bear attack just on the other side of town from where I live. A 10 year old girl was dragged off by a bear.


Bystanders saw it happen and rushed in to save her. She was in Critical condition, now Serious but Stable condition and despite also people blaming humans for leaving...what did they call it...bear attractants they said that it was a case of the wrong place and wrong time. I feel for that child and I feel for the bear. A Mama bear and its cub that is now left motherless because the bear had to be killed and at the same time a father almost left without a child because of that bear. What I'm about to say next will seem so wrong to some in their outrage at the gall of the BEAR...oy.


In the face of what happened...where we live, especially on the North Side of Port Coquitlam...there...are...bears... this is not new and now it's even being rumoured that the father had been warned about the bear before he took his walk with his daughter. If that's true then the guilt he must be feeling is tremendous.


In Alberta they are to the point of killing wolves for the same thing, looking for human food and if you know me then you know how I feel about wolves.


My own daughter B has been cornered twice by a bear, thank goodness it didn't have cubs. Once she even had to call the police and fire dept. at 11 or 12 yrs old because they couldn't get past it, but that time the bear didn't care about them, just sat there, eating leaves or berries. All I remember is her coming home in a patrol car and I thought she was in trouble. Walking into my own fenced back yard one night, B tried to call me and warn me that a bear was eating the pears off of our tree, it never bugged the neighbours dog that was tied outside barking at it. I never got the message and it was dumb luck that I came through the back and he was gone but, he came back and Sese was stuck in her boss's truck for about 20 mins or so until it went away.


I know it's awful and that little girl will be scarred for life in more ways than one and in a place where their habitat has been stripped away piece by piece people need to be even more careful. Between the bears and the coyotes protection is a must. My only other question is that in a place where young kids use bear spray on other kids in fights because as far as I'm concerned they're dumbasses is why aren't people in our area more protected?  Or any area where bears are frequent. We live next to a river that if you follow the trail leads up a mountain to Crystal Falls. Then you have the city about to charge fines if...


 Infractions include leaving out garbage bins outside of designated hours and failing to pick up fruit that has fallen from trees or bushes on properties.


or 


bylaw officers will also hand out fines if the fruit is still attached to the plant but is ripe enough to pick.


and


The city says it has handed out nearly 60 fines worth $500 each this year to residents who have left out 'bear attractants.'





Yes making sure you're safe is the most important but how do you repel  something that is essentially just hungry and in that bears state of mind it was hungry AND protecting it's cub? It's a mixed bag and this came up when we were talking about all of the animals and insects that we don't see anymore that used to be prominent here (Grasshoppers, Catapillers, Deer...) and the ones we never used to see but see a lot of now (Squirrels I do not remember seeing so many squirrels growing up then again they had more trees and distance to live in).

Either way there was ALWAYS the bears...and the raccoons...and the skunks. Everything is forever expanding and for now anyway the bears will still be there.

2 Black bears shot in PoCo and 4 between PoCo, Port Moody and Coquitlam, a Conservation Officer was transferred because he refused to shoot a bear cub and all because they're hungry and have no place. Now I'm not saying feed the bears that would be stupid. Take precautions though and be educated about where they've been seen and where they frequent and as I've just been reminded, if you're a woman it's probably best if you don't go for a stroll on the trails or in the woods if it's that time of the month.

You Miss will be asking for trouble and not just from bears.

Well so much for not having much to say today and different for me. I was going to take out that first sentence but I rarely remove anything I've already typed. 

Another quirk.

Ok guys have a great week!

See Ya 
S




Monday, August 8, 2016

Maybe The Crazy Is Real?

Hello Lovelies!

This Monday is a little bit relaxed as much as the week was. Things were quiet except in my head as usual but at least it wasn't a chaotic tornado of thoughts. They were all orderly with a problem and hopefully a solution. I say hopefully because I haven't actually tried to put the solutions into action yet to see if they will work.

I'm always thinking about a life change because I'm still in a place that I don't want to be and fantasizing ( which I do very well ) about where to go and how to get there. What I want to be doing and not doing has a constant place in my brain. I always do what I have to but not necessarily what I want to. Yesterday I did literally nothing, I could have... should have... but had no urge to. The house was practically empty so no riding, and with no one home to distract me, my thoughts were like tendrils of smoke twisting around each other and merging in some places while flying free in others. Maybe that was the point, to be left alone with my thoughts and try to wade through them.

None of it was bad or depressing, all of it had a level of impatience and yet patience at the same time. I'm not in a rush at all and yet I feel rushed to progress in so many things but there are boundaries and that keeps me solid and grounded in my mind most of the time. But there is order and no order at all, it's like I can't win but I'm not trying to or trying hard enough so maybe...just maybe the crazy is real.

That quiet crazy I've been told I have.

2 steps forward and 1 back right? Except that I'm not going backwards... some of it takes a courage that I have to build up to and I'm ok with that because the reward will be so much better for me if I can take the fears that I have and can push past them to get to what I want because the only person that can push me to do something...is me. I tell myself at work that I should take it one thing at a time and really that works for like an hour because I'm a multi-tasker.

So now that that is out of my system...or not, we can move on!

Oh! I did see Suicide Squad with the brood on Saturday and I don't care what anyone says I loved it. DC still had some randomly placed things...like the plot, but the ensemble cast was worth it for me and I thought they worked well together. The critics were ruthless with the movie as they seem to be with DC but from the ones I've seen from the DC Universe, although I do like most of them for their dark side, Suicide Squad was the one I have enjoyed the most. I also enjoy that there is a Superstore right there so I could get a huge bag load of candy that I shouldn't eat, which is actually 4 bags of candy thrown into one bag and making about a five pound bag. Woooooo!

So it's a short one today so I'll leave you with this link to a Scottish man roasting DT it might make your day!

Have a great week!

See Ya
S


Tuesday, August 2, 2016

The Show Never Ends!

Hello Lovelies,

    How was your weekend? Here we had a long weekend because of BC Day and that's why my post is on a Tuesday this week.

    Sitting here and thinking about the past few days, coffee in hand  while I wait for the rain to start I'm trying to filter through everything that's happened. A lot between young life drama's, older life drama's and getting off the couch and out of the house, writing and of course me learning to ride.

Not necessarily in that order.

    The young drama...oh how simple it is...but you know not for them while they're in it. I think back to when I was 21 or so and the things going on with my group of friends was very similar to what's happening for the girls and yet all on completely different levels. As logical as they can be sometimes the wrong choices are made, sometimes the right ones even though they seem wrong but none of them treat things like it's the end of the world in that dramatic fashion most girls have. Sometimes I'll listen to the 3 of them talking. They'll be on the deck or downstairs having their sisterly chats and I'll just stay back and listen to them make each other laugh as they talk about things going on for them and then they will get into more serious discussions that they won't all agree on but they listen to each other's points.

     I've been playing with a post in mind to give you more insight into the crazy zoo that is my life. Hopefully to give you a better picture of the diverse personalities in that world and how every one of them can bring a smile to my face even when they're being ridiculous. They are my heart, my soul and my life and the others around me are my universe, always in motion and yet keeping me steady, keeping me whole. And...sometimes slightly crazy and frazzled.

    And then there's you guys, you're there all the time and you deal well with my ramblings no matter how crazy or random they are, you support me when bad things happen even though I never see you, you remind me that I'm never alone. Not that that's possible because to be alone I would have to lock myself in the bathroom and really that doesn't work either because I'm Mom. In truth when I am alone I have no idea what to do with myself and wonder where everyone else is.

Ok well... that was not where I was headed...

    In other weekend news I did more riding this weekend that ever and it was as I would say a complete and utter gong show and in my defense I was utterly unprepared so some of the things that happened and there's so much that happened that I don't even think I can spit it all out here so let's go to the bullet points.

  •  Even though I know how to not stall my bike it seemed to be all I did. I can pull away from the curb with no problem but get me to cross traffic or turn into it and my brain apparently forgot everything. Choo was super patient with me while I cursed and swore at myself.
  •  My girl was seriously hard to turn on Sat. It turned out I only had half the tire pressure I should have had in the front tire and the back was low as well. Once that was fixed she was easier to maneuver.
  • Know a guy, owns a bike shop,  apparently my pegs weren't set properly so he fixed them. You wouldn't have thought that something so small would make such a difference but then my footing was different and that was something I had to familiarize myself with too on top of wearing proper riding boots for the first time.
  • Leaned my bike over because of an asshole trying to rush me out of the way but yay me that I held her enough to gently put her down and afterwards I was told by every single person there to not let the pressures of other people on the road get to me.
  • Another friend there took me out to show me how to shift gears and again I stalled continuously, again angry with myself and all he said over and over was that I had all the time in the world. Now when your trying not to slow down traffic it doesn't feel like all the time in the world that's for sure.
  • At one point I forgot I even had feet because I was moving and they... were not on the pegs. I have no idea what happened there...at all. That was a first. 
  • We're not going to talk about what I realized shifting gears.
    I scared Choo to death a couple of times but hey...I survived and so did he. With the help of everyone I had been around that day I thought back to all of my mistakes, especially about the ones I shouldn't have been making. Everyone is super supportive and telling me not to worry about those things and that I'll get them in time, that I just need more seat time.

    Well great and I get that but it doesn't stop me from dissecting every second of it.  I didn't feel well when I first went out, getting frustrated with myself made things even worse and feeling pressure where there wasn't any all contributed to my loss of focus in trying to learn new things while holding on to the ones I had practiced so much but couldn't make work, so the next day I asked Lo if she would go out for a little putt-putt with me. Just a circle, only right turns because I needed the room to shift, to turn and to get over my apparently uncomfortable view of traffic so I chose an area that had two roads with frequent traffic and 2 cross streets where traffic would be at a minimum. We both went about riding in a different frame of mind. She was not open to it when she learned 9 years ago where it's all I want to do right now so I'm confident in riding with her that regardless of the difference in our mindsets that she knew where I was at and how I was feeling.

    After the first time around I saw simple mistakes I was making. The next time around I would correct them and then notice others like why 2 of the roads I was turning onto for some reason I would turn wide, so wide I would be in the other lane. Thank fully those were on the roads with no traffic and yet in the main roads I would still turn wide but end up riding the yellow line. After a couple of hours of repeating the patterns in my head I could see that "Look where you want to go" was in full play there. The main roads had the lines and although I was looking at them so that I didn't veer into the other lane I should have been looking further forward in my own lane.

    On the other 2 streets I was looking at the far side of the road because there are no lines on those ones so my turns were wider. At least that's what I think it is...I hope that's what it is because I'm definitely much harder on myself that those guys are. Then came soreness in muscles that are not used to it but whatever...they'll toughen up.

   On writing...I maintain that this is my baby, that I write for the personal satisfaction. I saw somewhere that an author decided he was a better reader than a writer so he gave it up. I have a story that I'm telling and who know how long it will go on? In my mind it's a series and it's Continuous ( see what I did there? ) I'll keep writing it and I'm glad I've found a few that stick with me each week.

I have now rambled enough! You should go back to you regularly scheduled programming and get on with your day!

Have a great week!

See Ya
S