Keeper

 

 

Keeper 8 weeks old

We are unashamedly animal people in our house. We have Otter the Chihuahua (4 years old), Tasha the half Burmese (8 years old), Delphi (half Burmese 8 months old) and Diego (black short hair 9 months old), and Ashlea's two rats, Heidi and Audrina. We love each and every one of them with all our hearts. 

When we suspected we might have prowlers it was the only excuse we needed to consider getting another dog. A big one. Not to raise as a guard dog, but just because big dogs are often just a deterrant in themselves due to their size. Because Otter is tiny and is prone to knee dysplasia we can't have rough and tumble games with him. Heck - he's only half the size of the cats!! But in order to get a big dog that would not be unmanageable for Otter we decided it either had to be a mature dog that is good with other dogs and cats and past it's puppy exuberance so that tiny Otter didn't get trampled....or, it had to be a puppy that we could teach how to be social with Otter without hurting him.

Firstly, we tried an adult dog. We found a beautiful neutered male Huntaway who belonged to a single mother of a little girl and a baby and who was finding having a big dog a struggle to look after. Chase was beautiful and loving and very receptive to commands and learning new things. We took him home on a two week trial.

 Chase was so lovely, and appeared to settle in well. After 3 days we were starting to make long term plans. He'd freaked out poor little Delphi on their first meeting but she was coming right. Otter nearly had a coronary and did nothing but bark for 24 hours until he virtually lost his voice. But then he started coming round too. We took the two dogs for walks together and things seemed good. But Chase bonded with us a little too well. On Day 4 he started preventing Otter from coming to us and by the end of the day his dominance was becoming stronger. 

We had made a pact that our existing pets came first and if whatever we took home had a negative impact on any of them, then it would be back to the drawing board. And, since that was the whole point of a trial period, Chase got returned to his owner -  who had missed him so much that she decided to try harder to make it work with him and two children.

At this point we were very interested in two other dogs who lived together and whose owners were moving overseas. One was a speyed female border collie cross, the other a neutered male boxer cross. Both had beautiful natures, but the owners wanted them to go to a home together and we could only take one. The owner's friend took them both on trial with the understanding that if it didn't work out we would take one on trial. It worked out, which was the best result for them.

We would have loved to find a rescue dog and had checked out two local animal shelters and the pound but found nothing suitable. They were all either too old or unsuitable breeds or temperaments. 

Back to the drawing board. We decided to go with Plan B which was to get a puppy to train to get along with Otter and the cats. And we found Keeper. His mother is a purebred Golden Retriever named Meg who got out while on heat. I fell in love with Meg's sweet personality when we went to see the puppies. The suspected father is the purebred black labrador who lives down the road from Meg. The vet is almost 100% certain that the puppies are Black Labrador and nothing else.

The litter of four - 3 boys and 1 girl

Keeper was the puppy who stayed to play when the others had tired of us and wandered away. He was the one who wanted cuddles. And he was the one we came home with at 8 weeks old.

9 weeks old

10 weeks old

Delphi 8 months and Keeper 10 weeks

12 weeks and determined to still fit on that sheepskin

12 weeks post dew claw removal - they stuck out badly!

14 weeks old with Otter 4 years old

Only 3 and a half months old, but not looking like a puppy any more

He is working out beautifully. He is respectful of Otter, sometimes forgetting himself but if Otter barks at him he remembers the pecking order and backs off. Two of the cats love him - older Tasha has always kept her distance from other animals. Keeper and Delphi have developed a special bond and smooch and play together. Of all three cats, she is the most kitten-ish in her behaviour, and I think this is why they get along so well. Keeper has finished a puppy obedience course and passed with flying colours. He has just begun an  adult obedience course and I expect he will do well at that too. He seems to catch on to commands quickly. He's been fully housetrained for a month now, and started sleeping outside in his kennel without a murmur. He is already a full part of our family and we wouldn't be without him. Even after he chewed my cellphone ha ha. Fortunately still operational - just not very pretty. 

So, welcome Keeper. We love you.

"Live without pretending.

Love without depending.

Listen without defending.

Speak without offending." 

 

A friend posted the above quote to my FB wall. She didn't know who created it, unfortunately, but it struck a chord with me as it pretty much sums up how I try to live my life. Does anyone know who said it? 

Some plants for the garden

Well, I suppose I have to start somewhere. I planted an ornamental cherry tree last week and then had to tie it three ways to secure it against the gale force winds that have been hammering us for days now, off and on. Today I went and collected the Katherine Havermeyer lilac bush from the garden nursery that had ordered it in for me. And I have bought the following plants to make a small flower bed - just to put some prettiness into the garden.

Bergenia Bressingham Ruby

 

Michelia - Mixed Up Miss

Penstemon - Blackbird

Penstemon - Firebird

Purple Honesty

Salvia - Mexicana Limelight (which grows to about 5 ft or so tall)

Winter flowering wallflowers

Obviously the above photos are the advertising photos. None of them are in flower yet, and won't until spring here at the earliest. The wallflowers are seeds - they are an experiment to see if they grow as it is already winter here and really they should have been planted in autumn. I've also got some nasturtium and forget-me-not seeds which I am going to scatter and see what happens.

So far we are having a gloriously mild winter. Yes, we have had wind and rain, but we have also had many days of beautiful sunshine and the temperature is very mild. I have high hopes for these seeds - but the winter may still kick in with severe frosts and put paid to those hopes. We will see.

The Garden (dun dun DUN)

To be honest, referring to it as a garden is a misnomer. What we actually have is a section filled with overgrown jasmine and a lawn that has been thoroughly neglected and looks as though it belongs in a paddock. I regret not taking photos before we started pruning and removing trees that were hard up against the house. The "garden" looks pretty awful at present, but by comparison it looks much, much better. So, here is what we have to deal with:

The side of the house - the window above the grotty spa pool is the side window of the living area. The ranch slider at the end is to my bedroom. The spa pool has, thankfully, been taken away to reveal paving beneath.

A closer view outside the ranch slider window into my bedroom. What you see in the "garden" is a completely knotted twisted tangle of roots and leaf litter from the trees that had, unbelievably, been planted into this small space.

 

One of the massive tree stumps which are impossible to remove. My plan was to make a beautiful flower garden in this nicely laid out piece of section. The reality is that the mass of roots make it impossible to weed or dig over properly. I have some thoughts on this area, but any suggestions gratefully received.

This very attractive tomcat is becoming a nuisance. He apparently lives two doors down but thinks he has part ownership in our home. Even three cats and a dog do not deter him, and there have been some nasty catfights as he will not back off.

Standing on the other side of the spa pool and looking down the "garden". Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. The swathe of dead brown is the weed-killed jasmine that has taken over. As you can see, an enormous amount of jasmine is still thriving, untouched by weedkiller. We have had several piles of wood just like the one on the lawn, from all the pruning.

We do have a little wooden deck of the living area. The table is the landlady's and has now been removed, so we have put more of our pots and ornaments on the deck now. I'm still working out where to put things though.

The little deck from the other side.

No photos of the front of the section yet as I've been concentrating my efforts on the bits where I live the most. But this picture through the kitchen window shows some of the jungle which is still to be tamed.

See that big tree planted directly outside the window? It is deciduous and the leaves have  blocked the guttering. That tree is on my hit list to be removed. And the very big trees in the front garden need to be thinned to allow more sun through because, at the moment, the lawn is patchy and damp because of low light. A strange phenomenon in a small  urban garden.

We still like it here though. I just hope that after investing a lot of time and effort into making it nice, that the landlady does not then decide to either sell it or move back into it. There is no security for renters. We have been promised a long term rental, but at the end of the day we can only pray that it is so.

On a brighter note...

We are thoroughly enjoying our new home. It has taken us a little while to get it to where it feels like home, i.e. painting bedrooms and section clearing, but now it does. Apologies for the following pictures - I never think to style a room before I take photos, so what you see is how we live :-)  

Bear in mind that all the Before and After photos were taken at the same time of day - the darkness in the rooms in the Before shots is due to the overgrown foliage outside the windows blocking natural light, and with the room lights switched on. In the After photos, the room lights are not even switched on and the light in the rooms is purely due to sunlight.

My daughter's room Before:

and After:

The walls are actually white, but the sun has reflected the red duvet cover around the room

I covet the throw on her bed every time I go in there. And can't help stroking it because it's sooo so soft

My bedroom Before:

And After:

Spare room Before:

 and After:

The landlady says she will paint the window frames in summer

The landlady came round this morning - the first time since we moved in - and was delighted with how good it is looking. She even thought the yard looked great. I guess compared with how it was, it does. But to me it still looks pretty awful with a great deal to be done. More on that later.

Sadly...

R.I.P. BEAUTIFUL SOPHIE

Sadly, one month after moving into our current abode, we lost our beautiful Sophie. She was 15 years old and had made the transition to our new home very well. She was relaxed and obviously contented - alternately snoozing in the sun in my room, or outside in a little 'nest' she had made beneath the living room window. It was in her nest that my daughter found her, curled up. She had had a stroke and was badly affected down one side, so we made the decision to have her put to sleep. She was not distressed or in any pain, so we kept her with us overnight to say our goodbyes and I took her to the vet the next morning. It was over in seconds, and she remained calm right to the end.

  

I wasn't intending to plant anything in the garden yet because it simply isn't ready for planting, but I brought her home to bury and needed to put something over her to mark her place in our lives. I found a lovely small evergreen magnolia hybrid called Fairy which only grows to 2 metres.

 We have bought some solar-powered fairy lights to lie on the ground around the base. When the tree is larger, possibly we might thread them around the branches. 

Sophie was a part of our family for so long. She was my daughter's 7th birthday present and so has always been in her life really. The other cats and dog obviously missed her. As my daughter held Sophie before we buried her, Diego came up and sniffed her and very gently touched her face with his paw, the way he and Delphi often reach up and touch our faces.

Goodbye, Old Sophie. Gone but never forgotten.

What a month it has been.

It's been an incredible month. We have been through the stress of packing and moving, dealing with the landlady and trying to make some headway in our new place. Add to that our being struck down with the worst chest infections and cough that I remember ever having and which took a good two weeks just to start feeling normal-ish again, and it gives an idea how overwhelming this month has felt. 

There is no particular order to this post, just pictures and words that encapsulate moments.

Tasha trying out the boxes for size

 

 

 

 

 

In a weird kind of a way these two little ones, Diego and Delphi,  have kept us grounded. Throughout all the stress, packing, moving, they have remained completely calm and relaxed.

In a very surreal moment I looked across the fence at the neighbour's back garden after some heavy rain to see it under water. It felt as though a bayou had sprung up overnight, seeing the trees rising from the water.

My daughter's bedroom-to-be at the new place. See the pile of debris on the floor? The carpets were so bad that the debris had to be swept into piles and then onto a dustpan before a vacuum cleaner could be run over them. In all fairness to our new landlady, she was intending to do them but we were keen to get in and start painting the bedrooms as quickly as possible.

This is the smallest bedroom. It will be our guest bedroom, plus house our bookcases. The blue on the wall is much darker and not bright at all in reality. The room isn't as light as it appears at all.

The aubergine coloured room that was to be mine. There is my Dad, paint roller in hand, just beginning to paint the ceilings. The lights are on because the foliage canopy outside the windows was obliterating most of the light. It has been cut back now and the room gets filled with sun.

Our old, almost 15y old, Sophie. She has always been an outside cat. Since moving here I initially started keeping her inside just until she became used to the new place. Now she seems to prefer sleeping in at night on my bed. And she has taken the move unexpectedly calmly.

 My bedroom and my daughter's have now been painted, the foliage cut back, and a lot of clearing of the overgrown section is taking place. I haven't even stopped to think about taking photos yet, to be honest, but I will.