Our day at the beach

Although the worst of the summer heat has thankfully passed, we were still keen for a break and so on Saturday packed up the dogs for a day-trip to the Southern Coast, about 2 hours' drive away.

We always go to Tomakin Beach, which is a great off-leash public beach that has sand-dunes to protect the dogs from the main road, a beautiful stretch of regular beach and a lovely inlet area that tends to be more like a wading pool than a beach. Its always a great day, and one of the nicest things about it is that we're always close enough to pack up at the end of the day and sleep in our own beds at night!



Our Day at the Beach in Pictures:

Before we went swimming we had a picnic lunch at the overlook area adjacent to the carpark. The views from here are lovely, and it would have been worth the trip just for the picnic!  Rory blew up a big, huge float that he bought on sale at KMart for $20...it ended up being a ton of fun to play with in the waves.  It looked a lot like this one, except possibly not quite as fancy:

After our picnic, we headed down to claim our spot at the beach (see the floatie in the background):

Within seconds of sitting down, Alfie had begun to dig his hole in the sand, which he does every time we go to the beach.  He's not so much a fan of the water and can't quite figure out the waves, but he LOVES the sand.

 

Harry is pretty much indifferent to being at the beach, and treats the experience in much the same way as he treats every other thing that happens in his life-- as an opportunity to be on somebody's lap.  

Lilly, though, really seemed to love the beach and the water, which surpised me because she really didn't seem to like it last time we went.  In fact, we almost didn't take her but decided she'd bark all day if left alone at home.  We even had a swimming lesson, which she actually seemed to enjoy!

 

 

After the swim lesson, with Harry in front trying to 

steal the attention, as usual! 

After we'd swam, read and gotten suitably sun-burned we decided to take a walk to the far end of the beach to the inlet.  

This is the inlet, but it is not my picture.  It was shamelessly stolen

from elsewhere on the internet.

And then, after a fabulous day, we arrived back home, tired and a bit pink, but having had a ton of fun. 

The problem with white dogs is they get just as sunburned as you do!!

Droolworthy

Our dogs are lazy.  And I do mean LAZY.  When we're home on the weekends, they're pretty much happy to lay around on the couch all day long, and they're totally excited when we get home from work each day, but only really because we provide access to the beds. 

They can also be a bit disgusting.  I call this picture 'the world's longest drool':

She actually managed to get it to touch the ground and start to form a little pool of wetness before the flash to my camera startled her and she moved her head, breaking the fragile links of drool.  In case anybody's wondering (and I don't blame you if you aren't), that's a 2 1/4 ft dribble of drool. 

This week, I'm going to try to raise all of the couches... see if we can get that drool dribble to three feet!

And here's another thing that's totally droolworthy:

 

I'm wanting to get a fancified digital camera to be able to take more professional looking pictures.  Not that I don't love my camera, I do, but I want to be able to do more manual focusing and mucking around with settings and such.  The camera that I have is awesome... it takes pictures underwater and in the snow (not that I've ever really tried it out in the snow, but the function is there), it can take a drop from several feet... its a trooper.  But I would like something a bit more high-tech to mess around with.  

SO, does anybody out there have any camera recommendations? I'd love to hear which cameras you use. 

Lilly's Adoption Tail

Friends of the Hound (the greyhound group we 'fostered' for) contacted us and asked us to write an 'Adoption Tail*' for Lilly to use on their website and I happily obliged.  You can view the Adoption Tail here or you can just read it below (but you really should check it out on their website).

If you're an Australian reader, you should have a look at the Darlings who are still waiting to be adopted.  Don't you want one?  Or two?  Or three?

* This is not a typo.  It really is Adoption TAIL instead of TALE.  Get it?  Like a dog's tail?  For some reason (possibly cause I'm a dork) I didn't get that right away and it really, really annoyed me that they'd spelled it wrong. 

Lilly is enjoying her new life and the veggies!

In November, I contacted Friends of the Hound to become a temporary foster carer.  We already had a greyhound (Alfie) and smaller dog (Harry), and although I wanted to help the organization out and trial having three dogs around the house, I didn’t want to make a long-term commitment to having a third dog. 

Until we met Lilly.

From day one we had sneaking suspicions that ‘temporary’ might become ‘permanent’ in her case.  While some dogs are wary of strangers and new surroundings, Lilly seemed to find her place in our mould immediately.  In fact, by the time we had driven home from picking her up Lilly had her head snugly fit in my lap.  And it just got worse (or better) from there!! 

 

Lilly is the first to greet us in the morning with an enthusiastic kiss, and is always at the gate waiting when we arrive home at 5:30.  She can fit in the smallest of places… no cushion is too small or couch too full!!  She’s even worked out how to get up into the hammock in our backyard—there’s nothing like trying to watch a greyhound maneuver herself into a swinging object… especially when you’re already in it!  There’s also nothing quite like watching a greyhound try to sneak oh-so-quietly up onto the bed after she thinks you’re asleep.  Once you tell her no she gets down with a great big sigh, giving you this look like ‘well, I had to try!’

So… my tomato crop may be failing (Lilly eats them right off the vine!), our dog food bill is growing, and its not quite as easy to walk three dogs as it was to walk two, but we couldn’t be happier with this new quirky, unexpected addition to our family!!

 Kinda cute,  huh?  Even though that last picture kinda makes them look like the Dogs of the Corn.  

The frosting's worn off of this love affair, though.  I'm totally returning Lilly after our most recent vet bill.  We took Alfie and Harry to the vet for their yearly vaccinations and it was a whopping.... actually, I'm not even going to tell you.  Its too earth-shatteringly shocking.  Suffice it to say that I'm seriously considering the possibility of seeing how it goes next year.  And that wasn't even Lilly's bill!  

How do people without vet-dad's cope?!  In the past, I've easily slipped into the 'finders, keepers' mentality when it comes to animals... with my love for great deals, combined with the knowledge that there's a vet-dad around to fix anything if the deal turns out to be a bit frayed around the edges, its mighty hard to pass up those sharpie and cardboard 'Free Puppies' or 'Free Kittens' ads you see on the sides of roads.  Even better if the handwriting's a bit bad or the spelling's off.  A 'Free Kiten' or 'Free Pupee' ad is a god-send, cause you KNOW you're saving whatever little bundle of cuteness you pick from an almost certain hell.  

But these days, I can't adopt everything I see on the side of the road.  Some of you might be saying; "But Jessica, don't you have three dogs already? Isn't that enough?" Yes.  I do.  But trust me, with our big backyard, if I had a vet-dad around, we'd have a whole heapin zoo full of animals.  Most unfortunately, we don't.  And I have to pay my vet bills.  I guess this is all just part of growing up.  Blah.*

*The vet DID tell me, though, that I can legally bring meds and vaccines for animals over from the States.  Which means that I'm loading up in April. 

Ten Reasons Why We're Keeping Lily

1. Alfie wants a girlfriend. Or possibly, he's not so interested in having a girlfriend... but I want him to have a girlfriend.

Look at him rolling his eyes in this picture... totally playing hard to get!

2. She loves to cuddle and almost (kinda, sorta, in a way) fits in the bed between Rory and I, which Alfie definitely does not.

Aren't they cute?

3. We're all about non-discrimination in our household. If we're gonna have a black dog, we need a white one, too! 4. Now I can buy a Dog Powered Scooter. Because, frankly, Harry just doesn't have the horsepower to get us where we need to go. 5. Alfie needs manners and Lilly has them. I'm hoping she'll rub off on him. Editor's note: So far, this has not eventuated. But give it time... 6. She fits under the bed, but needs help getting out from under it in the morning, which is pretty freakin adorable. 7. One can never have enough face-licks! 8. 3 dogs = three times as many blog stories. Cause I know everybody else wants to hear about them as much as I do! Rory asked me not too long ago what I'm going to write about once we have kids. Probably still the dogs. 9. We need more estrogen in this house, even if it is just of the Canine variety. 10. Now that we have 3 dogs, getting a 4th won't be such a big deal. Then a 5th, then a 6th... I'll rent them out to Santa and he'll be good to go! Seriously, though. Its official-- we're keeping Lilly. I emailed the foster coordinator today to let her know, and, somehow, she didn't seem all that surprised. She says it happens all the time.

Usual Ramblings...

We got our gravel delivered this weekend and Rory and I spent a back-breaking Sunday spreading it into the areas he had tilled up the week before. But it was worth it, and I think we have the best looking yard on the street now! We also spread mulch into all of our flowerbeds in a desperate bid to get things to GROW. It was the first real hot weekend we've had, and I came away from the gardening experience with a back like a lobster's. Rory celebrated our finished (for now) landscaping by buying a birdbath. The neighbors have one, and birds treat it like a real Roman Bathhouse, flocking to it in droves. Unfortunately, those same birds have yet to discover ours... maybe the bird population on our street can only support one bathhouse? The bath is positioned so that we have a perfect view of it from our sitting room, so I'm hoping they come soon!! I've this idea in my head that its going to be fabulously peaceful to sit and watch these birds in the mornings. Keeping in mind that I can hardly drag myself out of bed in the mornings and tend to fall back to sleep if I sit down for any length of time, I don't know how often I will actually take advantage of this blissful peace. But I at least want the option to watch them, if I so choose! Do you notice Harry's haircut? He got his summer buzz last weekend and he feels fabulous. He might not look the greatest... as you can see, I'm not the best doggie hairdresser, and his buzz goes from very short to quite a bit longer in no particular pattern. He wouldn't let me get his tail, legs or very close to his head, and I decided not to push the matter too far... for a little dog, he's got a vicious streak that I don't particularly want to cross!! He looks fairly pissed off in his 'After' picture, below. Before: After: But, like I said, he feels a lot better. You could tell he was getting very hot underneath all his hair! Alfie also got a paddle pool in preparation for the summer heat, and he spends ages on end just standing stock still in the water. When Harry comes near it to have a drink Alfie sometimes paws at the water and splashes it everywhere, making Harry growl and sulk away. I'm not sure if Alfie does it out of protectiveness of his new toy or just to piss Harry off, but either way, its hilarious. Getting Alfie his paddle pool has also taken his interest away from the veggie patch, which is really beginning to thrive! The picture below is of our salad bar, which we should be able to start picking next week or so! Here are a couple of pictures of some of our other projects... The first is our gas heater, which was an ugly fake brown color that was driving me crazy. I painted it gray to match the rest of the house and it looks so much better! Its amazing what a coat of paint can do! And our bedroom. Rory did this for me when I was gone to Brisbane last week... it was an excellent surprise! Our bedroom was painted a light eggshell blue color that I really disliked... one of those looks-excellent-on-the-paint-chip-not-so-good-on-the-walls type of things. But I really, really like it now. Most of the walls are still the eggshell blue, but this 'focus wall' somehow makes them look much less blah. Very happy with it! And in totally unrelated news, I got my $500 Myer Gift Certificate!!!! I bought a fancy new ipod touch that doubles as a KINDLE, which is another thing I've been coveting. I took it with me to Brisbane and read Phillipa Gregory's The White Queen on the trip. I didn't finish it, actually... but the ipod's really not to blame for that, the book was just a bit crap. I was actually quite surprised how enjoyable it was to read the book on the ipod screen as I tend to dislike reading things on computer screens. It didn't strain your eyes, and it wasn't the least bit annoying to only get to read a bit of the book at a time. Plus, it means you can take several books with you on vacation-- on your ipod. No lugging around big, heavy bags. Technology, eh?

The Shutterbug Returns

I got the camera charger from ebay yesterday, and spent the evening taking pictures of anything and everything. Here's a few winners: PART ONE: Gardening Improvements Remember that big pile of dirt we had delivered several weeks ago? Alfie does: Its out of our front yard now, and our flowerbeds are looking fabulous! We bought a park bench for the front yard as well, and we've been enjoying sitting on it in the evenings, enjoying the warm weather. Look how well our rose bushes are blooming! There are five of these bushes altogether, marking the boundary between our house and our neighbor's yard. We had a rose-related surprise last weekend... there's a bush growing behind the shed, in a part of the yard that we rarely venture into. As it happens, its a climbing rose bush that's gone wild... and hundreds of the most beautiful pink roses are blooming on it. Here's some I picked and put into a champagne-glass-vase... later, I added some lavender that is growing behind the house, and it smells fabulous! Here's another one of our flower beds out front... as you can see, while Rory is quite adept at making the flower beds, I'm not nearly as good at keeping the plants we put in them alive. But, whatever. The sun-crisped plant look is totally in. Our veggie patch: We're growing peas, spinach, several types of lettuce, herbs, tomatoes, an eggplant, and peppers. And we cannot keep Alfie out of it! This is our latest project... Rory has tilled up the dirt in the front of the yard and by the driveway (which you can't see). He's going to gravel it all and make a path and parking place. I think its going to look perfect!! Do you like the brick path he's laid through the flowerbed? That's so you can get from the parking spot to the lawn without going through the beds. Part two: Messing around with the dogs This is a very silly picture, but I like it. I was holding the camera away from me trying to get a picture of all three of us, but no luck... Alfie started biting at my hair at the last moment, and Harry looked around to see what he was doing. But this is a cute picture of Alfie. I turned it into the "Pet of the Month" contest, and hope to win a $50 gift certificate (see my new obsession with contests). One more cute shot: And a close up of Harry. Harry had to go to the vet on Wednesday... he was hurting and wouldn't let us pick him up or even touch him. The vets did an ultrasound and decided he has Pancreatitis... so he's on a low-fat, no-treat diet from here to eternity. And its not cheap. That's all for today!!

Alfie's Story

A while back, Mommie Jo and Dad said I should write a children's story about our dogs, a-la-Hank the Cowdog. I doubt I'm going to become the next JK Rowling (especially since I've written two pages and am almost out of ideas), but here you go. The first Chapter of "Alfie's Story": Alfie's Story Its quite rough, and alot of the bits need to be ironed out/ added to.

All in a Dog's Day

I know I post a lot about the dogs, but, what can I say? I guess I'm going to be one of those people who pull out fifty pictures of their kids to bore guests to death with. "And this is little Junior burping"... but, I don't have any kids, and my dogs are cuter and more intelligent than most people's kids anyway, so I know you want to hear all about them. Alas, without further ado, I present another post about..... The dogs. Sunday was a big day for Dogs In Canberra. The local dog park, down by the lake, hosted a fabulous event called "Dogs Day Out". Alfie loved it. He met, sniffed and licked hundreds of dogs, big and small, waded chest deep in the lake, got checked out at the free vet stand, almost stole somebody's egg sandwich off a picnic table (oops), and drank as much water as he could possibly hold in an attempt to mark every tree in the park. Harry just growled the whole time, but that's beside the point. Everybody else had a blast.

Alfie at Dog's Day Out, meeting his first friend.

I even bought both the dogs a Doggachino from a fancy gourmet, organic dog treat company. Classy, huh? All the other dogs at the park lapped up the stirred-soy-milk, liver-treat -sprinkled, Starbucks-inspired goodness like it was the last treat on earth, but not our dogs. Alfie and Harry sniffed it and turned their noses up, totally un-interested. Trust my dogs to have no class. Look at these dogs lapping up their Doggachinos: Our dogs' pathetic interest wasn't even worth a picture. In honesty, though, I think Alfie was just really, really interested in everything else that was going around him. Sensory overload. We also had a nice chat with the Canberra Greyhound Adoption Service, who are going to come out to our house to do a house check this next week. If we pass, we'll get to become foster parents for greyhounds through Friends of the Hound, an adoption group in Sydney. They were impressed with Alfie's outfit... Rory made him wear St.Kilda's uniform all weekend, in celebration of their AFL win on Friday night. But he was very, very cute, wasn't he? Now, do you want to see a picture of him burping?.....

Harry, on his way back from Dog's Day Out. He hangs his head out the window like nobody's business.

After the Dog's Day Out, we spent Sunday afternoon gardening. We mowed the lawn, which had gotten so bad that the Mommie Possum who made a home in the front had to send out search parties to find her young in the tall, tall grass. It tickled Alfie's belly, it was so long, and was definitely getting to be a snake hazard. I also made a flower bed in the front yard, up under the front windows. We are now growing jasmine, Lady O (a native shrub that has red flowers), and some ornamental cabbage. Its been a week now since I planted my pansies, and they're still alive, which I think is probably a good sign. Generally speaking I have a thumb blacker than coal when it comes to gardening.

See? Still alive.

Cool lettuce thing I bought at Bunnings. It was half off, apparently (according to dad), cause we're ending the lettuce growing period around here. Ah, well. Looks like I'll be having a nice salad soon!

That's the flower bed I made this weekend to the right. Obviously, its not very established yet. And we badly need to paint the outside of the house... we're hoping to get some small shrubby things to border this landing.

In the backyard, we planted lemon and lime trees and some native trees. Alfie was quite funny... we've very nearly won the Battle Of The Digging Dog in the backyard, and neighbours probably hear more of us sticking our heads out of windows saying 'No, Alfie! Alfie, that's a No!' than they would like. But he's a good dog, and he's almost broken the habit. So seeing us digging big holes without any yelling at all threw him for a HUGE loop. 'What?' his expression seemed to say. 'I thought this was a No.' But he got into it pretty quickly, and helped deepen one of the holes. We put the tree in, and, much to Alfie's confusion, started filling in the hole. When we were finished, Alfie looked at us, looked at the tree, and, very slowly, lowered his paw to start digging it up. "NO, Alfie!" we both yelled. But the seeds have been sown, and I'm willing to bet the trees won't last the week. Oh well, who likes lemonade anyway?