Horny Dog

Balloonacy (AKA teasing a herder)

Having a little fun (at Boris' expense)

Baby's got a new set of shoes!

Made it through the monsoons

The day after I weatherproofed the deck, the rains started. It rained for almost 2 days straight.

I was afraid that the deck sealant did not have enough time to dry, but it appears to have worked out OK. The water is still beading on the deck.

Deck Maintenance 2010

Its that time of year again... deck maintenance.

Time to slather on the water sealant in an effort to protect it from another year of torture by the elements. These products claim to give 2-3 years fo protection, but it seems that I need to reapply every year.

The biggest problems are greying due to the sun or mildew from the moisture. Depending on the area (shady or sunny), I have to deal with both.

This year, I decided to forgo the pressure washing and take my chances with just sweeping and spot cleaning where needed. We shall see whether this works out.

This weekend, I only worked on half the deck, mainly because I could not start until Monday morning (Labor Day) since it needed at least 48 houes to dry after rain on Friday morning.

So, after about 4 hours of prep - sweeping, spot scraping, and mostly picking or pushing leaves from the cracks - and about 3.5 hours of application time, HALF of the deck is done.

Really makes me consider hiring someone to do the other half.

Before:

Diving Dog

Boris is getting pretty good at diving into the lake. OK, its more of a belly flop!

He's Back!

It appears that my next door neighbor has made bail!
He's back at home. Still not sure of the details, but I do not think the trial has take place.

Bitchy Neighbor: Continuing Story

I was bothered about the incident yesterday so much that I had a sleepless night. It really bugged me that a neighbor could be so ornery toward me and my dog, who just wants to play. I am not accustomed to getting verbally attacked and it did a number on me.

This afternoon, I saw Chuck (Lacey's owner) and he told me that the bitch (neighbor) also went to his door last night to bitch him out as well. It sounds like he handled it better than me, because he did not let it get to him and he actually managed to aggravate her more by directing his responses to her boyfriend instead of her. I was so shocked by the verbal assault that I went into pure defensive mode.

Anyway, after he told me his version, we decided to just ignore her threats and continue letting our dogs play on the front lawn unleashed. However, from now on, we will do it on my lawn, which is further from her house and gives us more time to react if we see her coming. Ideally, it would be to prep piles of dog crap to throw at her, but realistically it is to ensure the dogs are properly restrained when she goes by.

We are over it now (for the most part). But I doubt she is. Stay tuned....

Boris: Time for the boys to go?

It might be close to snipping time! That's right, the "N" word. Neutering!

Lately, I have noticed that Boris is playing much more aggressively(rougher) with Lacey and Doogie. At first, I thought this was just a little extra exuberance, but others mentioned it as well.

Then, this evening, there was a bad scene with a cranky neighbor who walked by with 2 yappy rat dogs and a lab-mix puppy. Boris (off leash, playing with Doogie and Lacey) went after the puppy twice as she walked by, ignoring my commands to come back. In my view, it was an attempt to play; in her mind, it was an attack. The question still remains as to why this bimbo was walking her dogs in the MIDDLE of the street and why she stayed in the middle of the street after the first encounter. It's almost as if she wanted something to happen so that she could bitch at me (which she did).

There is a little history to this - we have encountered her on 3 other occasions (over the past 6 months) and all have been nasty (human) encounters due to yappy dogs. Later in the evening, she came to my door with her husband to bitch me out some more.

Regardless of Boris' motive, it was a display of aggression and it superceded his usual obedience to commands and reluctance to run out into the street.

I think the boys are in full mischief mode.

Time to call the vet!

Not so cool - fried lizard, $900

On Sunday, I discovered that my air conditioner was blowing warm air. Going outside, I noticed that the compressor was not running. I immediately called my home warranty company to send a service man to check it out.
On Monday, the service man discovered that a lizard had shorted out the compressor unit, frying both himself and the motor. Sadly, this "act of nature" is NOT covered by the home warranty.
$900 in repairs later, I have cool air again. Plus a cool fried lizard!

Happy Birthday Boris!

In honor of Boris' first birthday, my neighbor Dianne (Doogie's mom) bought a birthday cake for Boris. So I decided to have a party, correction, Happy Hour, to celebrate.

You touch my bone... I keel you!

Devil Eyes!

Boris First Thunderstorm

Puppy Love: Boris and Lacey

Boris's girlfriend - lives 2 doors down and they play almost everyday.

Dock Jumping

Boris Learns to Swim

Boris and cousin Molly

Boris wants to play, but not so sure Molly wants to.

Boris' Dog-mitzvh - Peeing like a boy (dog)

The little puppy is growing up - today he lifted his leg to pee, instead of squatting like a girl.

They grow up so fast! ;-)

June 2010 Critter Count

Updated Critter count:

Squirrels : 9 hits, 7 confirmed kills
Raccoons : 3 captured and relocated
Possums : 1 (captured/relocated)
Rats: 1 (found dead, presumably poisoned)

Last year:
Squirrels : 24 hits, 12 confirmed kills
Raccoons :3 captured and relocated
Possums :1 captured and relocated
Rats:0

Adventure race: Spread Your Wings

5th year doing this race. Took 3rd place

Another branch bites the dust

A large branch broke off of one of the old trees in back - right over the house!

Luckily, the branch got wedged in a V formed by a branch of another tree, so it did not fall onto the house. However, it hung just over the roof, waiting to fall.

So I called a tree trimming service. For $100, they dislodged the branch. chopped it up and even trimmed a few other long branches.

Got another raccoon (updated critter count)

Caught another one this morning.
Also shot 2 more squirrels last week (but they crawled away).

I saw a huge rat 2 weeks ago, so I started putting out rat poison again. It gets eaten every night. Dead bodies must be piling up somewhere.

Updated Critter count:

Squirrels : 5 hits, 3 confirmed kills
Raccoons : 3 captured and relocated
Possums : 0
Rats:0

Last year:
Squirrels : 24 hits, 12 confirmed kills
Raccoons :3 captured and relocated
Possums :1 captured and relocated
Rats:0

Boris meets Frisbee

Introduced Boris to a frisbee today. He took to it immediately. He is now psycho about it as well as any ball. He caught on quickly - after about a dozen or so throws, he even caught one in the air.

Whispering Springs GreenBelt

Shoulder Surgery: 5 months later

Its been 5 months and the shoulder is doing well. There is very little (if any) pain and I feel like I have full range of motion (I am sure a PT measurement might dispute that). The only thing remaining is to regain my strength.
Regarding strength, I have sufficient strength for common day-to-day activities and everything seems back to normal. I only notice the lack of strength when doing physical activities that require strength, like climbing or weight lifting.
I started weight lifting again 2 weeks ago, but that is going very slowly (and light). That will take some time to ramp up.
But its ALL GOOD!

Money into the gutter(s)

Finally got a gutter guy to come out and add a gutter over the garage. Before that, whenever it rained, water would cascade down over the garage door, which was very annoying. I also had 2 sections replaced - those were old galvanized sections, probably original.

Its pretty cool how continuous aluminum gutters are formed - a machine in the back of a van.

House Painting - Finale

I just paid the painter- $4000. I was expecting to pay a lot more!

The breakdown:
$3000 for all the painting (wash, prep, masking, 1 coat primer, 1 coat paint)
$ 800 for the labor to replace all the rotten wood (almost 3 days of labor)
$ 200 - tip (kinda low, but don't think I needed to tip; however, the crew was good)

On top of that, there was $1256 for the lumber costs which I paid for at time of purchase, so the grand total comes to $5256.

Based on the research I did, I think I got a pretty good deal, especially on the wood replacement labor. They did a lot of work on the wood.

And, on top of it all, they even touched up the varnish on the front door. Just a light sanding and restain/re-varnish. It doesn't look like new, but it's much better than before and I don't have to deal with it for another several years.


The leftovers (all the rotten wood that was removed)

House Painting - Before and After

House Painting - End Result

House Painting - Day 5 : Color me buckskin!

The painters are done with the majority of the work. Just a few finishing touched to be done tomorrow.

Buckskin - thats the color I picked. Funny how different it looks in indirect light vs sunlight.

Boris at 9 months

Boris is 9 months of age today.

He seems to have stopped growing, since he has been at the same weight for the last couple of months. He weighs about 38 lbs, which is a good bit short of the predicted 50 - 60 lbs that the breeder expected.

At the dog park today, I saw another aussie who was 10 months and weighed 60 lbs. He looked just a little taller than Boris, but definitely "thicker". His owner called Boris a "mini". Hah!

House Painting - Sneak Preview

West side - before, during, after (almost done)

House Painting - Day 4 : Primed and ready to go!

Finally! No more wood being replaced. They applied the primer coat today. It already looks better!

After the primer...

A sample of the new color (I wanted something different from the light green).

House Painting - Day 3 (Make it stop!)

Day 3 and still more wood is being replaced on the house. Lucky for me, they have run out of wood surfaces to replace. So I think we are done with the wood work. A good indication of this is that they are now masking all the windows with plastic sheeting.

Just about every window frame had one or more rotten boards.

Even some of the soffit work was rotten.

The beginning of the masking work. Looks really eerie from inside!

Some good news - the carpenter was able to repair the gable vents, which were custom made and would have been difficult to replace. The one on the right had been severely chewed up by critters. Unfortunately, he did not replace all the louvers (only the really bad ones). By the time I saw it, it was already sealed up. But it is functionally sound.

This is what it looked like before.