Those of you who enjoyed watching the Tour de France will enjoy this video.

Booya!

Earth Pets has opened up a second location near the Main Street Publix! We visited the store today and they are going to carry pretty much what they carry at the other store. No more having to go to the mall area to get food. Now, we can easily ride our bikes to the store to pick up the food.

While we were there Miriam met Buster – the resident cat. Buster has a great personality and took to Mir like a fish to water. Neat cat.

We can’t plug Earth Pets enough. They sell great food – you can’t find it at Walmart or the grocery store. If you’ve ever read “The Whole Dog Journal” you’ll know that good food is essential to a healthy pet and Earth Pets sells many of the brands recommended by the journal. Think about it – when we had the food contamination situation involving China – Earth Pets didn’t need to pull any food off their shelves. They don’t sell crap. And I don’t mind spending a little more for dog food because my dogs are worth it.

Earth Pets Organic is located at 404 NW 10th Avenue. Their website is at http://www.earthpetsorganic.com.

So, those of you living on our side of town – get out there and support a local business that sells some really fine products!

I often spend part of my lunch playing fetch with Peanut – it accomplishes two things – it redirects her from anxiousness and tires her out. Peanut is what you call “high strung”. She runs on high idle most of the time. She becomes anxious very easily and doesn’t seem to know how to relax.

I took this quick video during lunch today. Yes, this is the same little Peanut who likes to climb fences.

I have to plug my nephew, Ronnie. He is an aspiring filmmaker. What I found most intriguing about his movies is that he uses his mother’s little Canon Powershot camera and edits his movies with Windows Movie Maker. I love the use of simple tools. Below is one of his movies. His channel on YouTube is here.

We’ve had the RAV4 since 1997 and today experienced our first flat tire. Technically, it’s not flat yet – but it will be by morning. It appears we ran over a screw – it’s stuck right smack in the middle of the tread.

30 minutes and one big hernia later we had loosened the lug nuts. The few extra pounds I’ve gained helped enormously on that last stubborn nut. I placed my foot on the lug tool, gently bounced up and down and slowly the nut turned.

Then the rain came. We decided to suspend tire changing operations until tomorrow morning – partly due to the rain but also due to Miriam exhausting herself getting the darn nuts off.
Stay tuned tomorrow when we attempt to answer the question, “How do we remove the jack that’s attached to the floor board underneath the front seat? Where’s the owner’s manual?”

…And her name is Peanut.

Whenever we let the dogs out we check on them periodically – typically about every 15 minutes. With dogs, you have to be careful because it only takes a minute or two for them get into something they shouldn’t.

Many of you know that one of the reasons we paid mucho dollars to have a 6-foot privacy fence installed was because Peanut had learned to climb our four foot chain link fence. It seems we didn’t spend enough. Perhaps we should have splurged for an 8-foot fence.

I walked outside to do the usual check and called for Peanut. She did not come. I called again. She did not come. Peanut ALWAYS comes when she’s called. Then I heard panting on the other side of the fence. I strode to the big gate and opened it. There she was in the neighbor’s front yard – I called and she came.

Our neighbors have recently acquired some cats that they allow to roam. I’m fairly certain that Peanut climbed out in order to get a cat. From the looks of her, I think I can say with some certainty that she did not catch the cat. That’s a good thing. The bad thing is that now she knows she can climb out and we’re going to have to get very creative in keeping her inside the backyard. This is not the kind of challenge I like – I’m likely to lose a few years over this.

It’s been a lovely July 4. Went to the park and played fetch with Peanut. Then came home and took the big dogs for a walk around the duckpond.

The flag is flying proudly, the yard is mowed and we’ll soon start preparing our buffalo wings for a potluck later this afternoon.

Then, this evening as the locals light their fireworks we’ll hang with the dogs and work to keep them calm.

Have a good one, everybody!

This past week and a half has been particularly interesting and a bit educational.

About a week and a half ago we took Sydney to the vet to get her teeth cleaned. She came back with beautiful pearly whites and an extra gift. We noticed that evening that she was infested with fleas. We immediately began mitigation by taking out our trusty flea combs and vigorously combing the fleas out of her coat. This was a Wednesday night. It was quickly apparent that we would need additional help. We sent an email to our vet and informed her of our situation. She was very obliging and offered to give us samples of Capstar. For those of you not familiar with the latest arsenal against fleas, Capstar is a tablet that begins killing adult fleas in 30 minutes and lasts up to six hours. We received enough for two treatments of all dogs. When treating flea infestation, you treat the infected pet and any pets in the household. So, we spent the weekend de-fleaing our home and pets. We thought we licked the problem, but Sunday night Peanut became the favorite host of the fleas.

I called the pest control company that does our yearly termite inspection and had them spray the yard. Peanut was still getting fleas even after the spraying (which later I learned was normal) and in fact, one evening we tossed her in the shower for an emergency bath. Mind you Sydney and Boxer were essentially flea free and had been for days. We had stopped the rotation of dogs to prevent further transfer from one dog to the other.

I decided to consult my friend, Google. Research taught me about the life cycle of the flea and how one must control the eggs in order to control the infestation. I had known that fleas seemed attracted to white and I learned that is because they associate white with a heat source. There’s a lot more to fleas than I will talk about here – but I decided that the flea infestation brought home from the vet was taken care of.

So, we had a new flea problem and it was in the yard. Since Peanut was the only dog now with fleas I decided to walk the yard in white socks, go to her favorite spots and see what happens. There are two areas of the yard that she particularly likes because of the opportunity for catching rats or mice. One is behind the garage. I walked around there – stopping and starting – nothing. So, I headed to her other favorite spot near the air conditioner on the east side of the house – BINGO! I walked around there and almost immediately fleas were all over my white socks – a big flea even jumped on my arm and bit me! I had located the problem area. I saturated the area with a flea spray I had bought at Home Depot. I know enough about fleas now to understand that this problem is not going to be solved quickly.

It’s kind of funny that as we deal with this problem we sometimes feel that fleas are crawling on us – but they’re not – or that every little itch must be a flea bite – but it isn’t. The mind can be a terrible thing.

Why are there fleas by the air conditioner? Rodents live nearby under the house. Peanut is always stalking and trying to capture them here. It is therefore necessary to rid this area of rodents and then deal with the fleas that are left behind. We are currently working on the rodent issue – I don’t like killing animals but given the current situation I don’t see a viable alternative.

We are also watching the dogs’ poop for tapeworms.

Another worrisome incident – last night Peanut caught a small animal over near the garage – believed to be a small mouse or rat – I saw the tail. Before I could get Peanut to drop it – she ate it. Even as I write this my stomach begins to turn over. Why she would do this when she’s fed some of the best food possible is beyond me. As I admonished her for this despicable act, she looked at me and licked her chops…mmm good! She lives a life other dogs can only dream of and she thanks us by eating a damn rodent?!

Well, the rodents must go – sorry PETA – please understand my predicament.

Christmas in June arrived Saturday afternoon just as the rain began to pour. My task of learning to play the blues now begins in earnest. Not to brag, but I’ve already got a gig lined up at Club Deb. I’ve also got the titles to what will be two new orginal compositions – “The Fingertip Blues” and “The Guitar Widow Blues”. I can’t wait to put the lyrics and chords together!

Anyway, I don’t have a lot of time to blog right now. Dinner is asking to be cooked and after that my new baby wants to be played.

Again, thank you to all my loyal readers! Without your votes this day would not have arrived so soon. You will all receive a complimentary copy of my first CD.