"Grama's House" to swim!

Ginger is poolside and I was helping Mom in the Garage.  Ginger doesn't like to be separated but unfortunately, she doesn't fit through the old doggie door.  She did keep a constant eye on us the whole time though!  Shockingly, not too long after this, we ran an errand just down to Lowes and were gone like 30 minutes.  We'd left the girls in the backyard (because they were both wet) and when we returned Ginger greeted us IN the garage!?!  She'd somehow pushed herself through the door and her poor little belly was rubbed raw!  She'd also bit around the side of the cutout (no doubt trying to make it bigger).  Next time Wayne came through town we planned to put in a slightly bigger doggie door to cover up the gnarled parts and make it so she fits through!   

Backyard Summer Fun...June 26th, 2011

Baylie's favorite part of yard work comes after mowing the grass because that is the time I empty, clean, and re-fill her pool!  This thing has become a permanent fixture in our back yard year round!  I like knowing that the girls always have a way to cool down and enough water to drink (even in the cooler months).  In the summertime when we play fetch in the back yard it only takes Baylie a couple of runs before she's taking cool down breaks in the pool.

 Ginger has yet to ever lay down in the pool but she will walk through it and drink out of it...so overall it is pretty integral item for both girls (especially in Bakersfield's hot summer months)!!!    :-)

New Plaster in Mom's Pool!

There has been a few reoccurring rust stains that keep appearing in the bottom of the pool and it was getting so rough especially on the edges of the steps that the only solution was to re-plaster.  Most of the work was done from February 7-10 but due to rainy weather some of it had to be postponed and it was finally refilled on the 25th.  They were also able to fix/fill a couple of spots where the cement had lifted away from the tiles (thanks rogue tree roots) with a special grout--now you can hardly see the problem spots! Anyway, after the pool was drained I had gone over to see the progress...the sandblasting part had already been done. I was a bit afraid of what the dogs would do because they normally sprint to the back yard and immediately jump in the pool...I'm not sure they'd even notice the water wasn't there, so this day I kept them on leashes just in case! Once I led them down the steps I let them play around in the empty pool--I think they were rather confused about the whole thing! The worst part was that all this work kept the girls from being able to swim until spring break (April 2011) because after the new plaster was done it had to be submersed in the water to cure for over a month and I didn't dare risk claw marks in it! This made going to "Gramma's" house a challenge because they would stand at the door begging, barking and whimpering to go out to swim and we couldn't let them! O-well, they've been spoiled (admittedly) and they lived through it obviously! The pool looks brand new again and the steps are no longer pumice stones for feet and swimsuits! :)

Pool Side Relaxation!

Ginger is strangely human when it comes to how she handles the pool! She doesn't jump in, she'd rather enter and exit the pool by going up and down the steps. Ginger has also learned to push off the wall or steps to take off quickly and that combined with her expert low profile swimming skills often allows her to beat Baylie to the desired toy!

Baylie on the other hand, LOVES to jump in the pool from off the side and then whenever she gets tired she claims a perch on the "love seat" step in the pool. I think Baylie would literally sit in the pool all day long if I'd let her...as it is, her really white hair on her belly and hind quarters is tinted green from the chlorine!

If Baylie ever beats Ginger to the toy...she promptly steels it right out of Baylie's mouth!

Ginger has a thing for going under chairs and benches...not sure if it is a technique for trying to dry her back or simply a quirk. Ginger has never had an issue going under anything which is lucky for me because Baylie is a big chicken when it comes to duck under things so they balance each other out perfectly! Baylie loves to "put" toys or balls under beds, tables, and couches but then refuses to get them and incessantly barks until I fetch. Instead I lift and Ginger military crawls to the rescue!

Baylie likes to keep her face dry and whenever she does decide to get out of the pool immediately after a good shake off she proceeds to rub her face along the couch to dry off...she makes quite a scene of it!

This is a picture of Ginger's secret passageway she uses in games of "keep-away" because Baylie rarely braves the close quarters to follow her!

The plam tree photo was to highlight gigantic seedpod that popped...really pretty but really messy!

Ginger kills a rat!!!

My mom has been fighting a few rats that have been living in either her palm trees or her sagos and she has caught one in her rat zapper about a month ago but she hasn't seen once since. About a week or two ago, I had taken the girls over for a swim on a Friday. Mom was working late that day for a football game and it had been really windy so I knew the pool would be a mess and that she'd be home too late to clean it up so while they swam I swept and skimmed the pool. Usually when Ginger is tired of swimming she roams the yard sniffing around the sagos no doubt searching for the elusive rats, until today to no avail. Today however...she scared one out of the sagos and it took off running and hid under the spa steps. She pinned it under there and then she dove under to get him...drug him out and continued to "play" with him until he was pretty much limp...it was gross and of-course I had to deal with the carnage! O-well...one less in the rat population I guess...nature hard at work...Go Ginger! :)

Pool days...summer is almost over!

I really think these photos are a medley of a couple of different days but I'll consolidate them for y'all in hopes of preventing monotony! For those of you who know Baylie and have seen her reactions around a pool already know that she has some serious issues with the diving board...specifically people on or near the diving board especially ME! So on this particular day I was sitting on the diving board chatting with mom who was putting chemicals in the spa and Baylie wouldn't leave me alone! She will bark and paw at anyone who's around the dumb diving board and I'm not sure if it's because she's scared of it and thinks she's saving you or what!?! Today though, she kept throwing herself over my lap perhaps an attempt to prevent me from falling or something (who really knows what's going on in that crazy little head of hers)??? Mom thought it was funny and preventing her from taking photos is next to impossible...so I'm putting up some good ones she captured! On another day Carter (My sister's little one) came over for a swim and although he was slightly unhappy at first he quickly got comfortable in his little float and was looking super laid back in his shades!

Gigantic Sagos!!!!

So my Mom has these 2 GIGANTIC 25-ish year old Sago Palms that flank the front entry to the house and had actually become so overgrown that you'd have to bob and weave to get to the front door without getting poked and stabbed by the big needle-like limbs! My Mom had called a tree trimming company to come and chop out the big torpedo-like seed pods from the queen palms in the backyard that make such a mess in the pool and thought that she might have them do the Sagos in the front the same day. They were supposed to show up at 8am so I showed up a bit after 7am because I wanted to scope out the sagos for big "pups" that I could pop off and re-pot before the guys came and chopped them up. I got started around 7:30 and once I got a couple popped off I could then see what I was doing and was able to make progress much more quickly. With a lot of elbow grease and sweat...I had one full sago stripped by the time the tree trimming service FINALLY showed up which was somewhere around 10am! I must have gotten more than 30 good pups off, ready to re-pot but there had to have been more than 50 total that I popped off. I already had a good blister in the center of my right palm and my poor arms looked like I stuck them into a fire ant hole...those pokey sagos are MEAN! I told mom I'd be happy to attack the dual headed gigantic sago next weekend once my hand healed up a bit but we'd saved enough of the big pups that we'd run out of pots so she decided to have them prune it up. Once they were done and cleaned up I drove home to get my girls and the 2 big bags of potting soil that I had left over in my garage. The girls went swimming while mom started cleaning all the debris out of the pool that were left over from the palm pruning and I began potting the pups...both MAJOR chores! In the midst of all this, Sherry needed a sitter so that she could do some back to school shopping without Carter his diaper bag & stroller! It gave us a much needed break...he got to have a quick swim with "grandma"...then a quick diaper change and bottle later he was down for the count! We went back to work while he slept and just checked on him every 10 minutes or so...the little guy slept 'till Sherry got back around 4pm. They went home but we kept working...I was determined to finish even though by this time sore was an understatement...you name it, back, arms, shoulders, hands...EVERYTHING hurt!!! Once mom got the pool in check she began helping me water the newly potted pups and arrange the numerous pots around her yard. Finally we finished up a bit before 8pm...it was a rough day but like they say, no pain-no gain and we CLEARLY got a LOT done in that 12-ish hours!!! Now I just hope that most of the pups live so that the hard work was not done in vain! Fingers crossed!

Ginger and Dakota Swimming

So in all of this nasty heat and with the closest dog park covered in fertilizer and mud we are running out of places to exercise the pups in the middle of the day...so the other day Leah, her 3 kids, Dakota, Ginger, Baylie and I invaded my mom's back yard and went swimming for a couple of hours (after asking of-course). This is fantastic exercise for the dogs and kids too! The funny thing is that the first time Dakota and Ginger went swimming together it was Dakota who was jumping on top of Ginger and now the tables /'have turned...I swear they almost drown each other! Dakota is really good at fetching toys in the pool...Ginger is not so good so instead, she just waits for Dakota to get it and then jumps in to steal it from her! If they have a big enough toy they'd both grab hold of it and swim it in together.

Dogsitting Dakota

So Leah and her husband had a wedding to go to out of town on the 5th of July and rather than crate Dakota for hours I watched her for the day and WOW...she and Ginger played ALL day, only napping for an hour or so. They played in my back yard for hours and then in the afternoon Baylie began to get really irritable from having to "watch" the two puppies who purposely bugged her. I then decided to take all of them over to my mom's house to go swimming mostly for Baylie to get some exercise with Kailey before she and Wayne moved up north . Although, the fearless Dakota who is only 5 days older than Ginger and barely 4 months old loves swimming and JUMPING in off the deck to swim just like Baylie does! Ginger will only jump off the first step unless she falls in...baby steps I guess! By the end of the day I think I was as tired as they were...just observing their constant energy was exhausting...that and making sure that they didn't drown each other in the pool! For whatever reason...they don't swim side by side but rather on top of each other sinking one another! Wayne and I kept pulling them up and out to the steps but we all laughed so much because the pups are just silly and clumsy!