Dear Ernie

I am so sorry I have not written to you before now. It has been a wild ride these last 10 months!! I will tell you what has been happening, but you might want to grab a coffee or tea for yourself and get comfortable! You will be in for the long haul! 

Starting Jan 4/11, I went into a plastic surgeon’s office and had a cancerous skin tumor ….the size of a pimple…..removed from above my left eye. I had six stitches and a black eye for two weeks!! It was bi -oped and it came back as a blastoma which is a good type of cancer!!! I guess if you are to get one, this is the mildest type to get.

Then on Jan 14/11 I started to write a novel. Well, actually, I started to write two novels at the same time. You know me….multi tasking everything! So, I have almost completed one book now and my other one is about halfway complete. I am more into my Vampire themed novel at the moment. And it will eventually be about 4 or 5 books….a saga. I really like it because I am making it different then the ones that are out there.

My fluff novel is about a rock star and it is kind of a love story that takes place over 30 years. It is based on someone that I have admired and have met and it is a fantasy that I have dreamed. So it is my fluff novel….mostly for fun and honing my writing skills.

Then in Feb we ran out of firewood and gas from our gas well. It happens every winter…the gas thing….but the wood is supposed to be cut and stored all summer. Garrett has a problem with this and this year, he really got it drove home.

Because we were so cold in the house,, we both got sick in March. I got pneumonia and Garrett got the flu. We do everything together, so he got the flu at the same time I got sick. We were coughing so much that we had to stand up together, wrap our arms around each other’s ribcages and cough. We both thought we had broken ribs from coughing so much!!

I have had pneumonia for over thirty years, so I was armed with all my meds, and inhalers and whatnot. But Garrett was off work for a month and he never misses work. It knocked him for a loop. We didn’t do much during March and thank goodness for our neighbor. Rick cut wood for us to burn in our fireplace and we were able to keep the house warm. It was very cold here this winter and the wind was blowing in a strange direction that kept our house cold for long periods of time. It was hard to heat.

Our girl that cleans for us, did some grocery shopping for us, but we had very little appetite. We were a mess for a long time.

After three weeks of coughing and fighting the pneumonia, I was starting to recover and then on the fourth week, ,I woke up blind in my right eye!!!!!!!!!!!!

I went to three doctors in one day and was told that I have Optic Neuritis. It is inflammation in the optic nerve at the back of the eye. I had a MRI done the next day….really couldn’t believe how fast I was able to get into that,,,,,and was told that I don’t have MS.  I didn’t even know that was on the menu!!  I was told that my eyesight would come back and that to give it time.

During all this, Garrett is feeling very weak from the flu and goes to see his doctor. They do all sorts of blood work on him and he is phoned and told to come into the office. He drops me at the hospital for the MRI and goes into the doc office. He is told that he has Hepatitis C and that is all. He has an appointment with a specialist in a YEAR!!

Can it get any better???

Now, I am dealing with blindness in my right eye and trying to keep the house and farm going in the winter time. We have chickens and dogs and pups. I am breeding other female bulldogs that people are wanting bred and selling hay and renting out our barn for storage. It is busy around here on a good day, but now it is all a pain due to the fact that we have health issues. Man this is getting strange.

So, now after 6 weeks of letting my eye try to heal itself, my good, left eye is losing sight. I get back to the specialist and he confirms that yes, I have inflammation in my other eye and he now wants me on meds. He orders IV for four days and then 5 days of oral pills. This is Prednisone and it knocks heck out of me. I have the IV in my arm for 4 days and a VON coming to the house and administering it. Then the pills are started and stopped on the long weekend. I end up with half of my left eye without sight due to the fact that I didn’t gradually come off of the meds. I am back at the specialist on Tuesday and he gives me another course of meds to gradually come off of.

I am telling you Ernie, this has been a strange journey that I have ever been on. I will never take my health for granted again and never my eyesight. I have appreciated so much in everyday life and I always say thank you for gifts…be they lovely sunsets or playing butterflies or running pups. Since we live out in the country, I relate to country things and I find them beautiful.

During all of this, I have forgotten about Garrett and what he is going through. Or really, what he is worried about and not going through. We are sitting and talking in the living room one evening and he says that he is alone in his disease and I am taken aback by that. I have been going through my own thing and really didn’t think about what he was going through.

So, I got onto the net and look up all I can about Hep C and make him sit and read a bunch of things on it. It helps with knowledge and he is a little calmer about it. But I still have him go and see his Doc about it and try to get a sooner app with the specialist. He is okay now with it and I am looking up more info for him.

It seems that a lot of people have Hep c and don’t know that they have it. You can get it so many ways and it is just a part of our make up, I guess. I haven’t been tested for it yet, but I am not worried about if I have it or not. I am dealing with this eye problem first and then I will see to the other.

So, ok, we are in March and April now and we have found about those problems and are dealing with it.

One of my female bulldogs comes into heat and I have a male that is living with a family that I ask to be returned here. Her name is Karen and she is a dog groomer in the city. They have had my bully male since Christmas and he is a year old. He is gorgeous so I want him to live in a home and eventually they will buy him from me when he is no longer needed for breeding.

I figure since she deals with dogs on a daily basis, she knows about disinfectants and keeping a clean place………………..wrong!

I have the male here for 3 days and then 5 days later, I have an out break of Parvo!! That is  a desease that kills pups and it is a nasty thing. They get blood in their poop and they go to skin and bones. I lost 3 pups due to it and I am freaking out. Not only am I blind and can’t see if the poop has blood in it, I have to keep them separate from the others in a closed up house and it becomes a nightmare.

I have Julie come here and help clean everything. We have to constantly disinfect the floors, the towels, the backyard, the kitchen…..and everything. I am doing laundry three and four times a day, I am running to the vet with dying dogs and buying meds that are a fortune.

I consider sueing Karen for the loss of the three pups because two of them were mini females valued at $5800.00 each. But not only that, it is what they would have gone on to produce in litters and sales. So, she agrees to pay for my vet bills, which were $1150.00 but not to cover any other damages. I like her, and I don’t want to cause her any grief. Again, I am just wanting to get back to my old self and I guess I am feeling generous these days!!

Julie costs me for the two weeks that she was here cleaning and helping. She is my driver now for doc appointments and a good friend. I am feeling a little out of sorts with all of this and not liking the spot that I am in.

Ernie, it is one thing to be sick with pneumonia and another to be blind. I say blind, but I can see a little bit. I am seeing a weird world right now and the doctors have told me that I will have my normal sight again. But they don’t know how long it will take. I liken it to living in a twilight world and not being able to tell color or distance.

Oh, speaking of distance…..I thought I broke my thumb! I was trying to get a Cocker puppy inside out of the rain and he ducked when I went to grab him by the scruff of his neck. He was playing the dreaded game…..catch me if you can….and I was running around in the rain. Not a happy camper!! Anyways, I catch him, but not before I power drive my thumb into the ground. I think my neighbors heard the few choice words that I said!

For a few days my thumb just kept getting stiffer and larger. Then, Garrett drives me to the hospital for xrays. It is not broken but very sprained. I have to wrap it up and try not to use it……yah right!

The pup finds a new home…..thank goodness and when I go onto steroids, my thumb is the first to heal!!  Finally, a bonus!

So, 2011 has not proven to be a stellar year, so far! We are sick, injured and receiving rotten news left, right and centre. I am starting to think that there is something more to this and start to do some research again online.

I find a Ghost removal team and call them. They are able to rid or cleanse a home and property of spirits that are causing harm or blockages. It was really neat Ernie. I don’t know if you believe in such things but it was interesting.

Over the phone in the first conversation, Wendy asks me if she can send her Spirit Guides here and look around. They don’t interfere with anyone or anything. But I told her to tell them to make their presence known to me but she says that they will not.

She calls me back in 15 minutes and tells me that I have a lot of Indians on the land and that there are also 3 dark entities here. The dark ones are not a good thing to have around and they seem to be obstructing things that are happening around the place.

Well, a couple of days later, Wendy and her husband Mike come here and all 4 of us sit at the dining room table. She talks with the Indians and they capture the dark three that were in the house with us. We had to wait for the Chief Indian to go up to the barn and get about 15 more woman and kids.

I have these timer/sprayers around my house, Ernie. When people are coming over, I turn all 6 of them on, due to the fact that we have so many dogs in the house. And the sprayers smell great. They are not motion sensitive, they are on a timer. Well, as Wendy was sending them into the light, the kids were walking past one of the sprayers and pushing the little button on it. It sprayed about 8 or 9 times in a row and then Wendy said they had all left.

I thought maybe the batteries were going on it, but Ernie, it has been on since that day and it has never done that again! I have left it on and it sprays every 30 minutes around the clock. But it has never sprayed 8 or 9 times in a row again. It was so funny! I was sitting there laughing, thinking that the kids were all walking by it and pressing the button as they passed it. Too funny!!

I don’t know if you believe in stuff like this but it does seem to have worked here. We sold 4 pups the weekend following the visit. We hadn’t had sells like that ever. The air seems clearer here now and not so oppressed. We have money coming in again, and it was at a standstill for over 5 years. That is why I did this…..we were sick on not making any money on ANYTHING that we did or pursued. It was awful. So I thought it might have been something other than us. And it looks like that was the way to think.

I am a believer of many things. This world is a large place and there is room for a lot of things. So, why not?

So, now some happier stuff. I need to have happy in my life!

We are no longer hay farmers. Last year we were talking with our neighbour from out back and he is a pig farmer. He wanted to lease our land and plant corn, wheat and soya on it….over three years. He also injects his pig manure into the ground as a fertilizer.  ……what a stink!!!!

Last fall, Frank and his brother came here and plowed under all our hay. They fertilized and left huge ruts in our laneway from their huge tractors. They are going to send over some truckloads of stone to fill in the trenches and repair it as best they can.

I purchased an incubator a few months ago and raised 6 new chickens out of it. Our friend Jim gave me some eggs to try it out with, but the duck eggs didn’t hatch or the Checkers.  So now we have two month old chickens out with the rest of them.

By the end of May, we are picking up 23 more chickens. I have a running ad on the computer for unwanted chickens. I get emails every once in a while from people that are not wanting their chickens anymore. I will take them as long as they aren’t too old and that they are still laying eggs. Our girls are about 3 years old now and still going strong!  We want to have about 200 -300 chickens here eventually and sell eggs.

The old chickens are supposed to be gathered up and taken to the meat packer plant that we took our rabbits to. But I like them too much to do that. They would be dog food here, as they would be tough old birds!!

So, we are going to keep one rooster and make a breeding area in the kennel for him and his ladies! The girls will be changed out every few weeks. I can hold 42 eggs in the incubator and they hatch every 21 days or so. That is a lot of chickens!!

That is the plan anyways. We will see how it goes. But it is like everything else in life….the best laid plans….

Still on a happy note….I have a lot of material for new books from all of this. I have a book that I am adding short stories to.  It is about the everyday life of a dog breeder,,,,,me,,,,and my pack. I am just adding funny stories when they happen, explainations as to why I am in this life, and funny things that people email or phone me with. Again, it is just a fluff book that I hope to publish…get my feet wet.

Then I have another book idea about the stuff that I am going through with the sightlessness. But of course it will have a spin on it and I go down a different path with it.

All in all I think I have material for 15 or 18 books now.

I have asked Garrett to build or have built, a deck on the back of our house. We have French doors that lead out to a grassy hill and then the yard. I would love a deck that I could go outside and sit with my laptop and write. I don’t write these books by hand, they are all done on the computer.

I really feel a calling to do this now Ernie. I wonder why, at age 54 I am taking it back up. I was writing when I was 10 – 17 years old and then stopped. It is strange how things come back around.

I am having Julie paint my office a gold color instead of the terracotta color that it is right now. And we have a green bedroom that we are both sick of, so it will be painted a grey color. Now that I am writing, I want to make my office comfy and inviting, since I spend a lot of time in there. And I don’t know when I will get the deck built.

Julie likes to paint, so she has said that she will do the painting in here. It was done almost eight years ago, so I guess it is time to refresh.

Well Ernie, I think I have covered a lot of different subjects and maybe put you to sleep in the process. J 

I hope that you are doing well and that you like your new place. I understand about you wanting to move up in the world. I think it was the first place that you choose when you arrived in BC and then you had time to scope out other residences. You took your time looking around for a better place and found it, by the sounds of it.

I hope that you are ok and that you are filling your days. Would you be interested in proof reading my books when I have some drafts put together? I was hoping to have one done by July 1^st, my birthday, but this sight thing sort of put my plans back a bit.

I will send you as soon as I print it off my computer if you are interested in reading it.

Take care, my friend. 

Dear Ernie May 17/11

Dear Ernie

Well, it has been a while since I have sat and written to you, my friend. I appologize to you for that. I have been meaning to get to you, but ......  life got in the way.

I have had a rough five months with health issues and also with medications. I know this is something that you deal with on a daily basis with your own life. So you can understand what I am saying.
I have been battling Optic Nuritus. It is blindness in my one eye and then it started to go into my other eye. The specialist has put me on steriods and they are knocking heck out of me now. Thank goodness I only have to be on the pills for five days but it was the IV for four days that got to me.

I will never take my eyesight for granted again, Ernie. It is like looking out into an alien world right now. Nothing is clear or has color and it is very dizzying.

This started at the end of March for me and it has been a journey.

I also started to write a novel in January. I say A novel, but actually it will be about five books in all and I have started on three more with two in the wings. You know me, Ernie, I don't do just one thing at a time!! I have to multi-task everything.

So, not being able to see properly right now, sucks. I have the farm to run, raise up baby chicks, sell eggs, sell puppies and all the rest.

I guess you could pass the cheese with all this whine, eh?!!

Take care my friend

Dear Ernie 5

Hello Ernie

It has been raining cats and dogs here over the past two weeks! I have been cold in the house and worried about the kennel dogs. When the weather changes as quickly as it has, it is not a good thing. I have had to take all of the kennel blankets down to the laundramat in town and wash them all. Boy, what a mess I made of the machines! I cleaned them out as best I could, but they still needed to be rinsed out again.

The kennel, as you know, has a gas ceiling heater, that pumps out a lot of heat. It is an industrial heater and it heats our 60 foot kennel with ease. But the doors are open to let the dogs in and out at their whim so it does get chilly. And on rainy days, a couple of the dogs like to go in and out a lot and whip their feet on their blankets. Garrett is pretty good about taking their blankets up off the floor on wet days so that they have nice warm, dry blankets at bedtime. 

Not only do I have to clean up after all the dogs, but on rainy days, I also have to clean up after the chickens!! With them going in and out of their hen house, they track mud into their nest boxes and all over their eggs! So, I have more muddy eggs on days like today that need to be scrubbed!  It just never stops around the farm!

This is Cara

I think we are going to have to fence up the chickens. They are wandering far and wide and driving the dogs crazy! They seem to know the edge of our property but they are coming down to the house and walking by the kennel. Our house dogs have a fenced in half acre yard, and groups of chickens come up to their fence and stand there! The dogs then lose their minds! When I go to the back door to see what all the commotion is all about, there is a group of chickens…..playing chicken with the dogs!! They don’t understand that one of the dogs, Cara, can scale the fence with ease. She is a small Cocker Spaniel and the fence is only a suggestion to her! But she has never bothered the chickens…thank goodness. I think it is due to the fact that I take her up to the hen house with me when I am locking them up for the night or when I am gathering eggs. She is very gentle with them, just stands and looks at them.

On a personal note Ernie, I hope that you are coping alright. I can imagine that it must be very lonely there at times for you. I know you have your son there and your grandsons as well, but there are a lot of hours in the day that can be boring or lonely. You have given up your car, and there went your independence. You are a proud man Ernie and I can imagine that it bothers you to no end to have to ask to be driven somewhere or have something picked up for you. So, you go without or find another way.

I hope in some small way, that my letters to you and my enclosed pictures, bring you a bit of laughter. If nothing else, I enjoy writing to you and re-living my funny or cute moments with you! When I tell my family about the daily life at the ranch, they sometimes get it! I guess you have to be here, in order to see the humor in situations!!

Garrett and I moved to the country for the peace and quiet. It is far from that!!

We had a pack of Coyotes go through our west field last night about 11pm. They were yipping and howling and having a great time. There might have only been 5 or 6 of them (I am guessing, because it was pitch dark here) but it sounded like there was 20 or 30 of them! At one point, when they got close to the barn, there was a fight over something. There was a lot of growling and snarling going on. I guess they caught a mouse or rat and didn’t want to share!

So, to be able to write to you about all this stuff is kind of fun. I hope you enjoy the letters and I hope that you are well.

Take care, my friend.

Dear Ernie 4

Dear Ernie

I had a little laugh today, as most days, watching the pups running outside first thing in the morning! I have 5 Cocker Spaniel pups that are 10 weeks old and we keep them in a 4 X 10 foot pen in the kitchen. They are confined in there during the night and allowed to wander the kitchen and hallway during the day. They are pretty well house trained now, so it is nice to be able to let them all out with the big dogs!

When I lifted the edge of the pen, five little fur balls came racing out. I have to catch one of the males before he makes it to the back door with everyone else. He usually stops right at the door and pees in front of it! And than everyone runs or slides through it on their way to the outside! So, I have to grab him on his way out and let the four others run in front of us down the hallway. But, as they are running shoulder to shoulder, one is holding onto the pup’s ear beside him, another is biting the guy’s tail that is a few inches ahead of him and they are a blur of blond and chocolate swirls.

As I am trying to open the door, ten paws are hitting me, the door, the door frame and each other in their hurry to have the door opened sooner! It always makes me laugh. It doesn’t matter how hectic, or insane the previous few minutes have been, when I get to the puppies in their pen, they just make me laugh. If I can’t catch the one guy that pees at the door, even he, makes me laugh, until I have to get the mop from the laundry room!

The first hour of my morning is insane here, Ernie. I have crates all over the kitchen, the back hallway and the laundry room. You have been here, and you probably remember that this is a ranch styled house (all one floor) and the dogs are crated at night. I have to open all their crates and let them out into the one acre fenced back yard. They are running around like crazies, looking for that perfect spot to pee! The yard is covered with toys of all sorts of shapes and descriptions. As they destroy them, we chuck them, and replace them with more. I have friends that give us toys that they pick up at garage sales and Amity stores.

Then the food is cooked and dished out and everyone is let back in to eat. That sounds easy, right? Wellllllllllllllll……….. it is anything but easy.

The pups get puppy food and if they are still little, they get a soft mix on top of it or mixed in with it. That is sitting in a bowl or two in the fridge. It is a perpetual bowl that is always full of puppy food during those first few weeks of puppydom.

Since we have chickens and they lay eggs, the dogs get a few eggs mixed in with their food everyday. I mix up soft food (after soaking their hard kibble for 10 minutes in the microwave) and they get a mixture of items that have been cooked in the crockpot for them. It could be chicken, beef or sometimes a small amount of pork to be mixed in with their food. They love it!

(Two pups are airborne!)

I have one Cocker Spaniel girl that jumps up and down beside the counter for 15 minutes (if I let her) just letting me know that she is there! She looks like a Mexican jumping bean, going up and down, her ears flying in the wind!! I have another dog that is not able to eat with anyone else, so she has to go into the laundry room with the door closed. She usually is waiting for me at the end of the hallway, while I am still in the kitchen. My Bulldogs eat in different areas, but they are usually finished before anyone else and I have to put them outside as soon as they are done.

Then I wash the kitchen floor from front to back, change papers in the pen(s) if I have two litters of pups, like I do right now, and wash all their bowls. In the mean time, I have put a pot of coffee on for Garrett  (did I mention that I HATE the smell of coffee??) and opened the entire house up to let the sunshine in. This all happens usually before 8 am and I have the rest of the day ahead of me.

I try to get the puppies started on their house training, so they are let outside every hour  to begin with. As they get the hang of it, I than can go and let them out every hour and a half.  I set the timer on the stove to remind me, and when the timer goes off, all the dogs now run to the back door!! It is so funny!

When a new family comes to pick out their new family member, it is nice to know that their puppy is well on it’s way to being house trained. If they are able to keep up with it, they can let the pup run around their house within a few weeks. I usually get a couple of phone calls telling me that they are so happy that their new pup is doing so well in that department.

My sister helped me out with a pup a couple of weeks ago. She lives up north and a nice lady wanted to purchase one of my Chocolate Cocker Spaniels. The lady, Susan, lived 6 hours away from my sister’s place, but would have been 9 hours one way to my place! So, after numerous emails and phone calls, it was worked out that my sister would be down visiting and she would take the male pup back with her.

The only problem with this idea, was that my sis would be housing the puppy for 3 days before Sue could make it down to pick him up. Doesn’t sound too bad so far, right?

Wrong!

My sister gets very attached to anything living!! If she has to mother it, feed it or bath it,,,,,, she is hooked on it…big time!! Well, let’s just say that the morning she met with Sue and handed the little guy over to her, it was not a dry transaction!

I received a phone call from said sister, saying that she was not doing this anymore! It was too tough on her and that she couldn’t keep them for that long.

I am sure she will volunteer to do it again, but not right at the moment. We are animal lovers, but I am used to the coming and going. I feel it is an honor to help bring these little beings into the world and find them great homes! I love the time that I spend with them, even the work and the clean up is ok. I love it when they finally get something, like not messing in their crate, and they come out of it in the morning so proud of themselves!!

Take care my friend !

Dear Ernie

 

I hope that you are doing well. We are both fine, over worked and underpaid….but what else is new?

You know that we have the barn and it is huge and empty at the moment? Well, a girl named Elizabeth bought some hay from us in June. She called a few days ago and she needed some more. We got to talking and she is unhappy with the barn that she is renting in Burlington. She decided that she would come the next day and look at our barn.

She came the next day, with her friend and the two of them walked around looking the place over. They were here for 4 hours, before I noticed that they had a dog in the truck! They than preceded to take 4 dogs out of the truck and let them get some air. It was warm, not hot outside but they should not have been in there that long……geeez..

As we were talking about all the stuff that she wanted to do and all the stuff that she could do, there developed a theme!  Les, do you know someone that I can pay, and he can build the stalls for my horses? Yes, I did know someone and he charges $10.00 an hour.

Les, do you know where I can get cheap wood or free wood?  Yes, I do know someone down the road and he has wood. You would have to pull out a lot of nails, but it would be cheap.

Les, I would like to put up another building that would be an arena. I would give riding lessons and clients could exercise their horses all year round. I can only pay $1000.00 a month for now, but I will give you a percentage of the stall rentals and we can talk about increases on paper.

Well, Garrett and I talked it over later that evening and it seemed like a lot of work that we would be doing and not being involved in the horse business. We were providing her the building, we were hiring our friend to build her stalls, we were getting the building permit for her arena, we were bothering our friend for free wood. She was running around getting money from this person to pay for that and so on. I thought this is not going to fly, besides, I didn’t want to run a horse business! She figured she could put up 40 stalls and rent them out. After a while, I thought that would be a lot of people coming and going from here and the thought of that was enough to stop me. I moved to the country for the peace and quiet, not the comings and goings of a lot of others!

So, when she called the next day, I talked her out of thinking about this place and it was over the money….that she didn’t have!

But we are going to rent out space for storage in the barn. I will have people drop off their trailers, motorcycles….whatever on a certain date, pay for the months that they are here and pick them up at the end of the time. That way, I am only dealing with them at the beginning of the time and the end of their time and they are out of here. It will be quiet during the day and I have the barn locked all winter. I am planning on taking pictures of their vehicles when they arrive and that way, if they say that this was broken or damaged while here, than I can show them the pictures and say it came like that. I will get them to sign the pictures on the back to prove to them that I didn’t take the shots after they left.

But now, we have to figure out what is a good price for storage. I am going to call around some other places here and see what they are charging.

It never stops Ernie, the thinking, the plotting, the planning. Especially living out here on the ranch. We have to cut firewood, although Garrett gets a lot of free wood from work. But there are a lot of things to do before the cold weather sets in. You, living in B.C; you don’t have to prepare for the snow and ice and short cold days! Remember those???  They will be upon us soon, and we are only 75 % ready at this point.

Take care my friend. Talk to you again

Dear Ernie

I am having so much fun with two new batches of puppies. One litter is 10 weeks old, and the other is 7 weeks today. The 10 weekers are supposed to be out of here, but I have 3 that are still waiting for their new homes. You know that I raise American Cocker Spaniels, English Bulldogs and occasionally Pugs. I have a female Pug that is the cutest little thing and she is still here. I don't know why. I also have the two litters of Cocker Spaniels that I mentioned to you and they are just adorable. They are merles and when they are born, it is like a box of chocolates.....you never know what you will get!! I can have merles, blacks, blonds and chocolates all in the same litter. It is so exciting.

I have a large female that is due next week, and she is black and tan. I breed her to my merle boy and I am excited to see if she will have a mixture. Her last two litters have been all black and tans and she usually has 9 pups or more!! I am hoping that she will have a few that are different colors this time. She is our largest girl and she is the best mom.

I was watching at my backdoor, out onto the fenced yard where all the dogs run. I have a mixture of all different sizes at the moment...both adults and pups. The 10 weekers discovered their mom in the group and they were chasing her all over the yard. It was cute to see how she handled them. She was gentle with them, pushing them down when they were jumping on her and than turning and running away from them when all of them were at her. It had rained today, and they were leaving muddy paw prints all over her blond sides! I hate rainy days! I have done 2 loads of laundry already because of the dogs. I put towels down the hallway to the kitchen for the dogs to walk on. This way, they are dry faster and my floors aren't too much of mess.

Our backyard is fenced and it is half an acre in size. When there are all sizes of pups and adults out there, there always seems to be something interesting happening in one corner or another. Today, some Bulldog pups were trying to jump on a plastic table that had been tipped over. They were running and trying to jump up on it, only to slide down it! It was funny just watching them. I was thinking....where are they trying to go? But their big butts were flying all over the place and I was getting a chuckle out of the goings on!

Sorry, Ernie for all the fencing in the shot, but I couldn't go outside and take the picture. If I had, they would have stopped what they were doing and run over to me. But you get the idea of what was happening.

Well, I will write you soon. Take care my friend.

Dear Ernie

They always say, write about what you know! Well, I live on a farm, that we call the Ranch here in Ontario. We raise dogs and chickens, not necessarily in that order. We have the chickens to provide fresh eggs, for us, our dogs and the rest are for sale. The dogs are our loves and we breed them to spread the love around!

Our friend, Ernie, is living in a retirement home out in B.C. He is missing his late wife, whom died a year and a half ago. He is miserable to talk to over the phone so I decided to send him letters with pictures of my everyday life here at the ranch.  As I was compiling the letters, it seemed rather interesting, so I thought I would try my hand at blogging! Maybe you will find it interesting too!