dogs – Page 2 – Edgar's Page

Cricket, Trekies and Roses

09/01/2014 by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished.

Five wickets fallen for a total of 22 runs. That is abysmal in any language. England is down and Australia is slowly kicking the life out of it. Not good, not good at all – bad for England and bad for cricket in general. But the question has to be asked why England has performed so badly and my view is that they are burned out. They have come to Australia at the end of a fairly hectic tour in India and Sri Lanka whilst Australia haven’t been anywhere yet and are fresh and on fire. Just listening to the comments and no one seems able to believe how bad England are. They are coming up with all sorts of excuses and I feel they are just wandering around the problem – there is far too much cricket and too much is being asked of the players. India and Australia have a lot to answer for in this regard –

The strange people you meet in Adelaide :o)

Australia with the Big Bash League and India with its India Premier League = lots of money involved. And yes many of the Test Cricketers in England don’t play for the IPL but they are still involved in International Tours and England has just finished a tour of India and Sri Lanka, so my feeling is they are burned out – too much cricket. There is no such thing as an “Off-Season” anymore and it’s less of a sport and more of a business venture with the potential for corruption with the serious on-line betting and betting on individual players and ball by ball results. This is already under investigation and corruption has already been an ugly feature of the Indian Games. But that aside. England really has some serious soul searching to do. They didn’t lose the Ashes, they gave them away as a Christmas Gift. Oh and if anyone is thinking ‘Just Sour Grapes” please remember I am Scottish, not English – winning or loosing is not the issue, the game is and this was not a game, it was Play School on a Cricket Oval.

The weather has been odd lately and when I have taken the dogs walking in the mornings I have been wearing a track suit. Same at night, it is decidedly chilly. At the moment it’s a case of half walk half carry with the Man. However, he’s still had full mobility wandering around the grounds and the house and I really don’t mind having to carry him sometimes. But it is getting to the point when I need to give serious thought to a set of wheels for him. On Friday I

head off to Adelaide, returning Saturday. I said I would go down and spend some time with Alan and this might be the last opportunity I get for a while, since the weather is starting to heat up again and should be in the mid to high 40s next week. It means navigation the vagaries of the South Road but it is starting to come together now so it’s perhaps not quite as bad as it used to be.

email, lost mail and Birthdays

26/12/2013 by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

23rd December.

This is the Main Highway to the rest of the world.

Firstly I need to say that I seem to be having strange problems with my email – and it’s only a recent problem. I asked about this and I am informed (not yet verified) that MS Outlook will stop working if you do not upgrade to Windows 8.1. I did the Google thing and discovered that this is a fairly common fault between Windows 8 and Outlook and I found that upgrading to 8.1 really doesn’t help. So please bear with me and if I am not replying to you, or if I seem to be ignoring you, please be assured that I am not and give me some time to get this problem sorted. Just remember “to err is human – but to really stuff up needs a computer!”

I had a word with the Guru and buying Outlook 2013 will not really solve the problem. Microsoft has suggested that we download MS Windows Live Mail, which I did, and that seems to be working. It still means that the mail I have lost on Outlook will still be lost but at least I can start to get mail again and get back up to date with things. What I have to do now is find a way to transfer my Address Book over.

24th December and it is Herself’s Birthday. As a family I made sure the boys and I – even when they were still young – did not merge two things and buy a combined present. We have always kept the two things separate. I set out her breakfast for her each morning and yesterday I laid all her Birthday Cards next to her Cereal Bowl. Over the years we are able to distinguish between what envelopes contain a Birthday Card and what contain a Christmas Card. The boys came round during the course of the day with their cards and gifts. John will be staying with us for a couple of days. In the evening we went to the Watch night Service and were surprised by the number of visitors. The Service lasts just over an hour – enough to take us into the 25th – 11pm to just after midnight but much of the time is taken up by the congregation selecting and singing Christmas Carols. The actual service, with a very short address, takes just about 30 minutes.

25th December and the house is still asleep. I’ve fed, watered and walked the dogs. Now, whilst everyone is still asleep, I am going to make coffee, stick on a set of headphones, and watch Casablanca, which I never tire of, and even if I did, well, we’ll always have Paris :o)

The photographs of the highway is the main highway – No that’s not just a part of it – that’s it, single lane either way for 56 miles. We don’t even have the provision

of a passing lane.

This was a quiet day but sometimes, when it is busy and you get stuck behind a slow moving fuel tanker – or even two in a row – you are stuck there for much of the journey. It is very frustration when you consider the hundreds of millions that are spent by the state government on Adelaide Roads (the South Road being a good example) and the same government cannot find money to upgrade country roads.

The family were here today and it was a very enjoyable Family Christmas Dinner. Afterwards I sat with a glass of wine and watched the Queen’s Christmas Message.

House, Garden and Dogs

13/12/2013 by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

The good thing today is that the Man finished his food and was looking for more – so I gave him more and he finished that as well. I hope this continues. I have decided to take a run through to the Arid Lands Botanic Gardens. I am looking for some native plants and I would much rather get them there that anyplace else. I will also check out the vet when I am here. In my last post, I do not know what happened but I did have tags and they seems to have vanished. Perhaps I didn’t save them as I should have. I also mentioned that December can be an interesting month with regard to weather, and according to the long range weather forecasts we look to be heading towards the mid to high 40+c starting next week. True I’m a

Northern Hemisphere person but I find the heat bearable, except when there is a North Wind along with the heat. When that happens a 44c day is more like a 48c day because the North Wind makes a hot day hotter. For a while I found this difficult to come to terms with because in the UK we had a little ditty “The North Wind doth blow and we shall have snow, and what will poor Robin do then?” Here the North Wind blows off the desert and it’s a hot wind not a cold wind. I suppose it sort of like the Wind Chill Factor – but in reverse…

This, in a round-a-bout way, leads me to say why I have not mentioned a lot about my garden of late. Well, since the storm and the falling down of trees and the subsequent clean up, the place has been a bit of a mess . The wind, to a greater or lesser degree, has never really let up much and as a result, I sweep up leaves on Monday morning and by Monday afternoon you would be hard pressed to measure the work done. Now with a 40+ heat and no wind, I can get a lot done. I can get the place cleaned up and the leaves swept away and I have an idea on how to stop the leaves and bits getting into the covered pergola – and no I don’t mean cutting down the trees (which is illegal anyway). There is a door at the pergola and it’s a wire security door, so yes, I can make sure that it is kept closed and no leaves. Problem – dogs. I don’t need a security door there so I can have that removed and an ordinary door put in its place. The difference here is that I can cut an ordinary door and install a dog door. Simple – problem solved – dogs have access and no leaves and bits.

I read in a post recently about blogging stats and the effect they seem to have on some people. I have sort of followed the old adage on this “There are lies, Damn Lies and Statistics” and to be truthful I have not the foggiest idea on how to use them. I am really not interested and don’t want to know anyway. People come – if they like what they see they will perhaps stay, or at least come again, if not, then they will go – what else is there to know? I think if you start to consider only what other people want then you are no longer doing what you want and as I see it that’s when it’s time to ask yourself if this is really why you started doing this in the first place.

Last week we put up the Christmas Tree in the church. This week – today in fact – we are about to put up the Christmas Tree at home. There is always a family dinner at Christmas – although, there is a Family Dinner every Sunday. John comes over and Andrew, Trish and the girls are here, so we have a full table each Sunday. Not quite sure what the arrangements are for Christmas but I know there will be no one here this Sunday, mainly because I will be on duty with the RFDS at the Carols in the Park. Close to midnight before I get back home. Finish at 10:30 but by the time we clean everything then pack and put everything away. Long afternoon – but fun.

Chienne, Angus and the Road’s End

17/11/2013 by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

WHEN I began writing this I really didn’t know what I wanted to achieve. I joined the old My Place and wrote a blog on there for a few years. I didn’t have followers and in essence the weekly post was a way of talking to several friends who had moved away, keeping them up to date on what we were up to in town and at home. (I still sort of do this on Google+) So it was a sort of public/private letter. A few years ago MySpace changed hands and the blog feature was discontinued. I had an account with WordPress but never used it. Once MySpace closed down, I re-activated it and have been here ever since – well a year or so.

Our house, which we bought some years ago, is right on the very edge of the town. The garden was in a bit of a mess so I thought it would be an idea to write about what I’m doing in the garden. I have two dogs that I love dearly – Chienne and The Man (Angus)– and they would be included, as would comments about the family. I dismissed the notion of writing about church activities because I had this horrible feeling that all that would do for me is fill up my inbox with comments from would-be theologians. Once I started I began to look for other posts that I felt I would like and be of interest – gardens and dogs and some general interest. Some of the blogs I looked at were interesting, informative, funny and serious and I joined a few. Some people even joined me, which I thought (and still do) was great.

“Censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses that you may the better judge.”

Lately, however, I am finding that some posts have become much too serious – almost taking on the dimension of a Dissertation on The Meaning of Life. My other, and perhaps the more serious concern, is that with all I have to do, one post every week, or even every couple of days – which is how many of these started – is quite acceptable – but three – or four – posts from a single site, almost one on top of the other, every single day, is too much and my inbox is just clogged up. Like everyone else they started out as a post every few days but this has changed to a post almost every few hours. So, having said all that, I may have to consider withdrawing from a number of places if only to unclog my inbox for a while. I just cannot handle nor process the volume of traffic. If any I have offended, I am sorry but my continued sanity ( which, to be honest, is not all it’s cracked up to be) demands that I make this change, and the crash gave me an opportunity to do so with the new system – which is still not fully functional as yet. I still have some bugs to iron out and get used to an “All-in-One” system.

Fire, Dogs, Vets and Clothing

10/11/2013 by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

In a recent post I made mention of the major fluctuation of temperatures in this area. This week is a perfect example of what I was talking about. At the start of this week the temperature started to climb up and by Thursday it had reached 39+c. I had some friends that were about to go North and delayed their departure because of the “Catestrophic” fire risk for the area. By lunch time yesterday, the temperature started to drop as a cool change came in from the Great Australian Bight and the Southern Ocean. By late Thursday the temperature dropped to 26 and the rain started. Today is Friday, the temperaure outside is 22c and it’s still raining. I put the heavy quilt back on my bed. Fires still continue in NSW and Queensland.

This afternoon I take The Man back to the Vet. He still concerns me – he seems healthy enough, sleeps a lot but is not eating as much nor as often as I would like. He is still active and although we have not been out since Wednesday evening but he walks well, if a bit slow at times. Chienne gets impatient. However, if the rain stops I will have them both out tonight. We have had a lot of rain over the last 24 hours so what we don’t need is any high winds until the soil dries out otherwise we will have trees down again.

So after scaring the living daylights out of me and keeping me worried for a fortnight, I was told that there was a scale malfunction and that the Man’s weight was quite normal – he hadn’t lost weight – well not a lot – at all. However, we keep with the medication and remain with the puppy food – I still think twice a day because I would like to see him gain some extra weight. Still no real reason for the weakness in his back legs other than age and damage years ago when he was dumped out in the bush. However, I did have them out tonight when the rain stopped and he walked without any problem at all. Difference — Chienne, being the lady she is, delicately jumps over puddles, The Man just walks right through them. I have ordered a Thunder Shirt for Chienne, which should arrive sometime this coming week. I have heard and read a lot of information regarding these items of clothing, so I really want this to live up to what I have heard.

Fires, Dogs and Thank you.

26/10/2013 by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

winmalee — Winmalee after the fire had passed

The situation in NSW is not getting any better. This morning a further 70 firefighters left South Australia to head to the crisis center. There are additional fire units coming from as far away as Western Australia. We are fire free but we are back to Severe Wind Warnings again and at the moment it is blowing pretty bad – just keeping an eye on that other gum tree.

The military are believed to have been responsible for starting of one of the larger fires through “live-fire” exercises. They are being very cagey at the moment. However – as I have said we are not really in a fire area but I also said that the military have taken over several stations (ranches) – not too far from here our emergency services were called out to assist in fighting a bush fire in one of the “training” areas. Anyway, that was put out.

Since starting this the fire situation has improved and the firefighters are starting to get things under control, but it is a concern that we have this kind of crisis and the fire season has not really begun. There is a very strong indication that the military were responsible for the fires at Lithgow.

The dogs have been good. The Man sleeps a lot but he seems to make up for it in bouts of high activity. He’s eating better since I gave up the chicken and rice and started him on “puppy food” on the understanding that this should help to bring his weight back up again. I gave up on the chicken and rice because he just wouldn’t eat it – Strange dog!! He uses a lot of energy during the high activity periods, then he sleeps. I also feed him treats and because I have two dogs and not one, Chienne also has to have a treat – can’t give to one and not the other. They have walks twice a day – morning and evening.

I am humbled by the fact that a number of people thought of us during the height of the fires in NSW. We are one thousand miles away from the fire front ( about 1700 kilometres) but as a friend said, all the rest of the world hears is that Australia is burning. Thank you for your concern – Herself, the Dogs and Me are fairly safe.

History, Fires and Blame Game

19/10/2013 by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

There is always a silver lining in everything – if you know where to look for it. I looked for it in “Revolution” no, not me – the TV Programme. Incapacitation has allowed me to start to catch up on series 1 of the programme, so I can look at Series 2 knowing what is happening. I remember years ago when the boys and I went to see “Patriot” and there were young people sitting in front of us who thought it was all stupid – “I mean, come on, lines of soldiers walking towards each other and standing fifty feet away and letting other soldiers fire guns at you – that’s just stupid, they never did that”. This should have surprised me, but it didn’t. Australian Students know very little of history, next to nothing about international history not all much more about Australian History. History is a dirty word that many schools have done their best to expunge.

There is no one like Mother Nature for putting things into perspective. Here am I in the Arid Lands, complaining and being grumpy about a few miserable trees that have fallen, made a mess that I have to clean up, whilst our neighbours in New South Wales are fighting a desperate battle to save lives and property. Only one killed, thankfully, but the homes lost will number in the hundreds. Already over 80 properties have been lost to the fires. One Hundred firefighters from the MFS (Metropolitan Fire Service) and the CFS (Country Fire Service) have set out from South Australia to take over part of the work from the exhausted NSW Fire Service. Units and people are also setting out from Victoria. Being in a non-fire area it is difficulty to imagine the terror of a bushfire. Of course we could have a grass fire but it’s not the sam thing and if the bush beyond us caught fire then the levy bank that was created for the once in a generation flood, would help to contain any fire that came even remotely close.

I did get The Man to the Vet and we adopted him 11 years ago but the Vet. thinks he is closer to 13 – perhaps older. Difficult to tell because of his background. However, he has lost weight – from 3.5kilo to 2.6 kilo. and there seems to be no reason for that. Yes he wobbly on his rear legs and his joints are pretty slack. There is some pain there but not a lot and apart from the weight loss, he’s in reasonable

shape for his age. When we closed the doors and put him on the floor he ran around without any signs of distress. However, I have to give him 10 ml of Carprofen per day and Pernaease Powder also daily. I have been out this morning and he has been running around with no discomfort, I will, however, take the “Dog Sling” out with me when we go for walks at night – which we have not been for a few days now, but I should be able to get out with them tonight.

Addition: So far reports are that 194 houses have been destroyed, 83 properties destroyed with a further 37 damaged – and it’s still goes on. And although they only took up the reigns of government last week, the Greens have blamed the government for this disaster. ” Don’t know how or what, or why, but let’s just blame the government anyway”.

More winds and faling trees

13/10/2013 by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

I was up early and got the brushes, shovels and rake all ready, as well as the suction/blower. I spent yesterday cleaning up, sweeping up and filling the mean, green recycle bin. I put the dog houses back into place. I had moved them so I could clean up. It was such a lovely day that I broke out the hammock and put up the big double brolly. Had lunch, quick couple of hits with the personal fly spray and into the hammock for a rest and a read, then back to work. For a while, all of yesterday, the place started to look neat and tidy again.

The Severe Wind Warning was slightly downgraded but we still had winds of up to 95kph and the big gum tree on the corner came down. The Council, SES (State Emergency Service) and the Police had the road blocked off because only part of it came down and the other part was none too safe. My son asked me to take some photographs but no one

was allowed near it. All my work in cleaning and sweeping was to no avail and I had two branches from the other tree (small branches) snap off. Anyway, it will have to stay untidy until I get back from Adelaide. The car is with the Electrical people and they believe it should be ready today. If not, then I have the use of my son’s car. However, the mechanic said it should not be too difficult and he would get to it this afternoon (Thursday)

I have just returned from two days in Adelaide and I have come to the conclusion that I am getting too old for this nonsense. I sat in my Hotel Room, shivering – not because of cold -just shivering. Herself says it was probably an adrenaline rush because of the over tiredness. At the moment I still feel washed out.after leaving Adelaide at 2pm and driving 400k back home. My Associates were happy to see me as I was to see them. I do wish I could take one of my dogs to the meetings, that would be nice :o)

Gum Trees, Sawdust and Cleaning

09/10/2013 by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

20131005_110612 — We hates gum trees My Precious – nasty, wicked, tricksy things.

The joy never ceases! We got the tree down from the aviary and out of the other property and that’s good. What’s not so good is that I cannot take things to the city dump for two reasons 1) it’s a long weekend and the dump is closed and 2) the brake lights on the car are not working, everything else is but the brake lights are not. I will have to book it in for a service/repair and hope that I can get it done fairly quickly because I need to be on my way to Adelaide on Friday.This is only part of the mess with the full trailer in the background. I would chance the dump but not this weekend with the police out in force – as they are every long weekend – it’s not worth the risk. Herself wanted to know if I had been hit on the head because I seem to be leaking sawdust- Oh yes, very funny!!

I have not been able to get to see the vet regarding the little man. Things are a bit chaotic at the moment and as it’s the long weekend, most places are closed down. I will make every effort to get him in on Tuesday. I have been taking him out for walks and the other night he just didn’t walk very far and I carried him again. But it’s like the song ” He aint heavy, he’s my brother” I don’t know if I said this before but the little man was a rescue dog that had been beaten and abandoned – chucked out into the bush. He had been kicked and bashed and whilst the vet tried to save as many of his teeth as possible,the poison from the rotting, broken teeth was too much and they were all removed – so I guess you can say that in this case his bark is worse than his bite. After we rescued him from the “Final Cage” at the pound he was in “Hospital” on a drip for several days. Yes, he was spoiled rotten when he came home to stay with us, and yes, he slept with me. Chienne has always slept with Herself.

The dump was open today so John and I took three big trailer loads of debris. How to spend $15 a trailer load. Still the place is clear – not cleared up – just clear. I’ll start the sweeping up tomorrow. The stuff that’s left I should be able to get in the Green Recycle Bin, which I have already started to do.

Just before I close off, it’s blowing a gale and there is a Severe Wind Warning for the region. All the work I did yesterday , sweeping up and so forth, had all been undone. Ah well, it looked nice for a few hours, now it will have to wait until I get back from Adelaide.

Coming and Going

17/09/2013 by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

It’s 3:27 am on Friday morning – the storm has finally passed and Chienne has settled down. Not a great storm as storms go, more a light and noise show than anything else. However, enough to keep Chienne’s stress levels up. There was some rain once the light show started but not as much as I thought there would be. I have switched off the alarms and put the phone on silent. I need some sleep. Trouble is, I am now wide awake although I cannot promise that I will be by lunch and I really have a lot to do including medical appointments for herself.

I should have an early night but that wont happen. I will be too busy crying to be sleepy :o) No, not because my team lost – if they won I would be too stunned to be crying – but because we have a big barbecue in the morning and I will be cutting and slicing onions for a good part of this evening.

Saturday

The Fete went very well and I think we cleared a reasonable amount. Sadly, the barbecue did not go as well as expected but I think we just about broke even on that. Things that were not sold we donate to Lifeline to sell in their shop. Anything we consider to be close to the “Junk” side we donate to the council rubbish dump. Surprisingly enough not a lot is “donated” to Council

Sunday and I headed off to Adelaide again. We will stay overnight and see the Specialist in the Morning and hopefully be back on the way home in the early afternoon.

Harbour-Town-Adelaide — Stock Photograph – mine didn’t turn out.

All being well we headed back on Monday and yes, I did make a slight detour at the Harbour Town Shopping Centre. Spent about an hour there before heading back home – ariving at 17:40. Was a long day and glad to be home to play with my Associates.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: