#photoadaymay #hashtaggingblogtitlesmeansnothing
I kinda failed on my April Photo-A-Day challenge.
In my blogging defense it was my first and I got over halfway there but once I got so far behind I gave up the fight. Not to mention being without a schedule and often staying home for long periods of time the muse would often escape me. Now that I am part timely employed and out of the house more often the muse may come and find me and I shall photograph for your enjoyment. Both here and on my stupid Facebookery.
Source: FatMumSlim
Day One: Peace
Peace…of mind. Nothing like a little Seuss to calm and remind you that you should hug life daily.
Day Two: Skyline
Not a building in sight, isn’t that grand?!? The brown dot, kind of behind the tree, is my Sugarbaby have a little afternoon snooze. I went over to him and gave him a little hug and he was all groggy and yawned. Thousand pound pets are such cuties.
Hatorama
” Look at me! Look at me! Look at me now! It’s fun to have fun but you have to know how! ” – Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat
I needed to pick up some bingo dabbers before our Monday night and because I am both fun and only part-time employed I spent some time in the Dollar store Monday. For some reason the party/children’s aisle was packed and I was loitering in hopes they would all vacate for my photo shoot but then I just gave up and started snapping. I had no idea Dollarama had such a stellar collection of bother affordable and adorable head wear.
Surprisingly comfortable. I have begun, as possibly an ode to Daphne Blake, using little vintage scarves from my grandmothers as tied neck apparel. It’s joyful, Monday as you will notice was polka dot day.
There was a canine version yet no feline. Surely if there was a feline version I would have certainly purchased said item so I could properly embarrass Boyfriend with as we stroll out in public.
My personal favourite. Always been a visor kind of girl and in hindsight I should have actually bought this. Not only does this tout function; obviously a winner for keeping that sun from beating upon one’s forehead but also goes with everything.
Everything! Black tie and casual totally covered!
Trail Walkin’ Dawg
Evan and I went for a hike a couple of weeks ago with Har. I am purposely partaking in activities I could not complete while gainfully employed. I refuse to waste this unexpected vacation lounging but instead taking advantage of a beautiful day with a beautiful dog on beautiful trails.
Uxbridge is some sort of trail capital…of course I’ve never been. I was slightly concerned Harley would bolt and/or hurt himself in some way but he was quite well behaved. As well behaved as a huge spazzy dog could possibly be anyway.
He can be relaxed…like this morning…
Lazy late morning bed cuddles.
Of course the ancient leash I took with me ended up being chewed (sad eyes, guilty look on face) when I left his canine highness in the car for ten minutes alone while I was getting cracked at the chiro. So, not letting such things defeat my dreamy day, a quick stop in to Pet Valu was required. I bought the Kurgo Quantum Leash, totally reasonably priced and a nice manly red and blue for Harley. I LOVE IT.
Not only can this leash be used as a three feet training leash but also as a six foot leash, which is great for trails because with other dogs and people on the trails I wanted the option of keeping Har closer to me just in case the other party wasn’t a fan of having 130 pounds of drooling idiot leaping towards them. AND the leash can be used as a tether, two dog leash (will come in handy when Coyote and I adopt several dogs), courier style (around your body like a messenger bag) and belt style. How cool is that?!? And it has a 12 month guarantee! WIN!
I reco the trails. They are well kept and winding, it was good exercise for everyone involved. I should have eaten something or at the very least brought a Clif bar but instead we just walked and chatted and Harley peed on…everything. Twice.
Feline Depression Hurts Everywhere
I am going to rampage blog post today because I am a little behind in my interwebs sharing.
Snow happened just a little today and yesterday but that’s just fine because it came with rain and I really needed a car wash anyway. That and it was kinda lovely to see everyone out with their pretty umbrellas walking along the streets. Little old biddies have great umbrella taste but poor umbrella maneuvering. That was my big observation of the day.
Not. Pleased. Two very sad kitties who are used to a good five or so hour a day tour outside to hunt, otherwise maim and eventually murder little woodland creatures. To which they then consume half of and as a gift/ritual sacrifice, leave the offending uneaten half mouse/rat butt on the front stoop. Thank you for the kibbles…please accept this field mouse ass in thanks.
Presents! Disgusting presents!
Even after all these happenings, the rogue supermouse who lives in the pantry, and is the size of Jabba the Hut, happily eats through box after box of cereal untouched. Occasionally one of the meowies will set up surveillance on the little guy but mostly otherwise that vermin struts around untethered, like he owns the place.
BIG MEOWIE SIGHS.
Scrappy
Caution: This post has close to 150% more adorableness than usual.
After our epic day date of yesterday we retired back to Casa de Coyote for some house cleaning, bed changing and Booster Juice related bloating. Coyote was washing his bedsheets and came up with the laundry hamper full of clean and warm sheets containing also a small animal who belongs to the downstairs tenant…
Scrappy is 11 weeks old and something called a Niagara Terrier. He has a rough coat but most importantly is so adorable you could actually die.
It was love. We went puppy crazy.
I wore the Maple Leafs shirt of Coyote’s to further his pain and anguish that the playoffs are currently on and no Leafies in sight. Unless of course you worked for a high end golf course. Then you would see them a lot.
Lord knows I adore a Terrier. I also love a rescue though, of any kind and would certainly, if I was going to obtain a pooch of my own, rescue a canine in need. Puppy breath and playfulness is uncomplicated joy. You can’t help but laugh and swoon at their little goings on.
Everyone was in love. I badly wanted to keep him for longer but after only a little bit of time together we were becoming too attached. He’s one third the size of Marty the cat, would have loved to have seen his feline highness get an eyeful of this little guy. Not to mention Chili who is pro-Coyote to the point I am rendered old news as soon as he walks through the door.
I’ve wanted my own dog for years and years. Mother is too practical to allow such things and quickly talks me out of it. In saying that Rocco was handpicked by me and paid for by myself in full yet Mother has a long history of brainwashing pets so they only love her. Rocco was an equal opportunist but was much more attached to mom than me always. Rocco was/is her favourite child. Another shining example of her handiwork; Daisy was procured to be my brothers hunting dog. Mother somehow arranged it so she is terrified of guns and therefore now spends her days thinking about her love for Mom and building small alters to worship the ground she walks on.
Well played Mother. First the rabbit and now the dogs.
First I move in, then one day Coyote goes to work, then I make some calls, then I get in the car, then I obtain several dogs, then I go home, then I worry about his reaction, then he comes home as asks why there are so many dogs, also asks why we didn’t discuss this, then I flash him and then they all live happily ever after.
Or something to that effect.
Thumper
Today my April #photoaday challenge was; Childhood Memory.
So let us pay tribute to Thumper, a kicky little rabbit gifted to me at aged 5. Thumper, all gray and full of adorableness was my pride and joy. I spent many hours chasing him around the laundry room with great joy. Thumper was a master lock picker and extremely intelligent for just a wittle bunnykins. So often he would jailbreak his cage and hop around the yard with great joy.
One day Thumper did not return.
My father, being especially sensitive towards my sensitivity with animals then spun a great (tail) tale, pardon the pun. Thumper had spoken to him shortly before he left. Dad has witnessed Thumper packing his worldly belongings in a handkerchief which he then tied to a stick and had told him to give me his best regards. He explained to my father that he wanted to meet a girl bunny to start a family. Thumper wanted to be a father himself, he wanted a 9-5 and a wife and kids.
I cried.
Dad felt terrible but continued to Who was I to hold back his life for my enjoyment only? He wanted to be free and to live his life. Go out in to this magical world and find love. It was selfish of me to want to squash Thumpers very life ambitions and goals. We all have goals, even bunnies. Everyone has a path in life, Me, You, Thumper. I became empowered about Thumpers venture from then on.
Until I was about 16 and was then told in actuality my Mom’s dog brutally murdered my bunny.
Mom you owe me a bunny. Seriously.
Childhood of lies!
(One day I will also tell you the story of my pony Alex who went for training and NEVER RETURNED.)
Easter Retriever
At this house we have canines delivering gifts of candies, not hares.
Happy Easter everyone! Love, Daisy the Bunny.
And from a less willing participant…
That picture is the best of several attempted. Harley is so not a hat or fascinator guy, never has been.
Also, check these out…our Easter pots for 2012…
The end result of a half hour of my mother and I traipsing around local ditches for the yellow and red branches and the pussywillows. Special thanks to Dollarama for the eggs and bunny egg sticks, all was not lost for that shopping trip it seems.
BAD CAT MOVE
The thing about cats is they like to play with their food. And, in turn, thanks to evolution and the intelligence of our tiny woodland friends we share this earth with, their food sometimes knows how to play with the feline.
Which is why this happened last week;
(You can click on that to make it larger mmmkay?)
Do you have an idea how fast those little guys can move?!?! Alvin was bounding from the bed to the dressers to the curtains to the bathroom and back again. He used the shoe rack like a jungle gym. It was epic!
So, armed with a box of cereal and after I removed all felines and canines from my mothers bedroom…I spent about an hour on the floor trying to make friends with Alvin, the newest house guest. I also had the inclination he wouldn’t just jump in to my hand so I could return him to the great outdoors and safely let him scamper from my grasp up the nearest tree. Which is why Alvin got launched out the window with a pool skimmer.
Everyone survived. :-)
I’ve Got my Eye on You
DD gave this to me a couple of weeks ago. It’s from his international travels, a Nazar, charm to ward off the evil eye and envy. The envy is the thing that really gets you, but you can’t help that. I hope I never need it but this little gem is going from my former cube to my new luxurious bright pink desk at my home office. Home of the empire. Just working on that now, announcement sooners kids!
Cause that’s how these eyes roll.
Hey Har
A couple of evenings ago I read message on the Adopt a Dog blog regarding stigma and the misconceptions sometimes attached to rescue animals.
As someone who spent their childhood in a home that often was filled with strays and once neglected horses, dogs and cats I cannot fathom this type of intolerance. Ignorance is a plague and the only way to overcome this is educate. To share stories of triumph and light and wonderfulness.
You think a rescue dog or cat will maim your children, ruin your home as it’s not housebroken and will have deep psychological wounds stemming from a rough puppyhood?
Really?
Meet Harley.
He’s 130 pounds and the product of a love affair between a Bull Mastiff and a Lab but we have termed this new breed ‘Attention Hound’. His original owners thought it would be fun to get a dog. They found and subsequently purchased Harley as a pup and brought him home to their itty bitty townhouse. And he got bigger and bigger and never faltered on his high level of energy. He jumped up and knocked over their toddler and was crated for bad behaviour.
For hours and hours and hours and hours and hours on end. Because sticking a huge dog in a crate for hours will teach him a lesson.
Upon his release Harley would continue to bound out of the crate and jump up and run run run his big heart out. Someone wants to PLAY! Someone loves his toys so much he meticulously takes the stuffing out of each and everyone of them. Smacks on the nose, cuffs on the head. Don’t chew because you’re bored! Don’t act out because you have energy, suppress dog!
Needless to say Harley found himself homeless. He went to a rescue.
Now I could wax poetic at no end about how people don’t do their research and end up with a pet that is way more than they can handle. I could say the breeder was obviously not thinking of the well being of the puppy he/she sold. But the bottom line is they threw Harley away like trash for their own poor decisions. Can we condemn Harley to a miserable, short and lonely life because of the stupidity of humans?
This is 2012 right?
The fact is perfectly lovely and non-traumatized dogs get abandoned everyday for some reason or another. And although Harley was just a mutt from a rescue and had a shitty puppyhood I’ll have you know he has yet to have an accident in the house and is a dream on a leash. He is careful with my one year old niece and knows in return she will give him a rice cracker she’s softened up with drool to him. Harley and the horses play together, he barks and they run after one another. He swims in the pool and sleeps under the covers with his head on the pillow like a people on a king sized pillowtop.
And he was a rescue.
Whenever we pick up a broom he backs away from us (not sure why but it’s likely he was hit with something alike a broom or a broom itself as ‘discipline’) and he really hates his ears being cleaned. But otherwise we’ve got ourselves a rambunctious and hilarious companion. People ask us constantly where we got him, how unique and handsome and interesting he is. How can he be so well adjusted for a rescue?
Cause he fits our life and we fit his! We spent time with him, we gained his trust and loved that dog up and he got over being a total spaz all of the time. With someone home the majority of the time Harley didn’t spend hours locked up in a crate and we disciplined him the proper way without raising a hand. Now he’s just a total spaz some of the time. Our lives would not be the same without 130 pounds of Harley barreling towards you when you get in the door at night.
If you cannot conquer your misconceptions and you then attach unknown fear to adopting an animal what are your basis of stigma? Animals wind up at shelters for a variety of (not often good enough) reasons. Some yes are unfortunatly abused and mistreated and those are the ones who need us the most. The need us to restore their faith in humanity and require an experienced dog or cat owner.
Dude honestly.
Make educated decisions, do your research and know that this is a commitment. I find it excessive and almost offensive to spend thousands on a dog or cat from a breeder or puppy mill and then pay for microchipping, altering, shots. It’s not half as rewarding as spending a couple of hundred dollars on a beautiful animal who thought their life was over. Marty and Harley thank me everyday for the second chance.
Oh yeah he has huge issues just look at him! 