Adopting out puppies

2/7/09 Saturday
We got Cherie’s car towed to a garage where a mechanic will look at it and decide if it’s worth fixing. The trade in value for a 1998 Prizm in the condition it’s in is only $350. Odds are it will cost much more than that to fix. Friends are letting Cherie use a spare pickup they have so that helps a whole lot. Cherie had to return the church truck she had been using. I tried to explain to the friend that Cherie’s car is old and worn out so isn’t worth putting lots of money into. Even if it had not broken the car is on it’s last legs so we have already set a goal to replace it, this just makes it more urgent. I asked the friend if they would sell us the truck and she commented that we might not want to buy it because of the scrapes and dents it has. Some people would be embarrassed to be seen driving Cherie’s car because of how it looks but at our level of life we are grateful just to have a car that runs. All that pride in appearance gets tossed out when necessity comes knocking at the door.

Gretchen hurt her front leg sometime last night. We can’t see any obvious swelling but the pain level is obviously high. She won’t put any weight on it at all. We were surprised to see she wasn’t waiting at the kennel door to see her puppies. When they ran to the front to see her after I let them out, Gretchen just growled and snapped at them so something really hurts. We’ll just let her lay on the loveseat out there and nurse her as best we can.

Today we take Ben and four of the puppies to Pet Smart to see if we can get them adopted. We can only take four puppies at a time. The lady said that was because of how much poop they produce while in the store. We gave one of the puppies away yesterday to the lady who’s a caretaker down the street. Deciding which one we want to keep is pretty hard as they all are precious. I would love to adopt out both Gretchen and Ben but finding a home for Gretchen will be hard. If we could find homes for both of them I’d keep two puppies to replace them. That way we can raise and train them to fit in well here.

Thursday I ran the tiller till after eleven o’clock that night, just kept going till I finished the area I was working on. Worked late last night as well but not as late as Thursday. My leg gave out so ended that. Now that I’m doing so much outside, partly because it’s warmed up a bit, my pain level is up there so I’m taking more of the pain meds. As much as dislike that I am grateful for them for they allow me to keep going. After three days of tilling I’m not even halfway done. I so look forward to the day we can afford a tractor for this would be done in a day instead of taking a week of painful trudging.