Missing Ginger

4/21/09 Tuesday
It’s going to hit the nineties today and will be warmer tomorrow and probably the rest of the week. I guess it’s time to clean out the evaporative air conditioner now. Was going to do it earlier and then it got cold so put it off. Cleaning it basically entails washing out all the sand that built up over the winter. I’m sure there will be a lot of it. Then I’ll run some of the de-scale stuff through it that is supposed to dissolve the mineral deposits that build up so fast.

The other day, while at Pet Smart, Cherie saw Spot, the other puppy we wanted to keep out of Gretchen’s litter. I know he has another name now but that’s what we called him. He was going through obedience training. I told Cherie that she should have called me for I would have jumped in the truck and run up there to see him. She said he looked real good, which I knew he would. I had asked Laura to contact the family, whom she has a good relationship with, and ask if we could at least get some pictures to see how he’s turning out. She never got back to me. Anyway, seeing Spot brought back a lot of memories of Ginger and Cherie said she cried on the way home. I cleaned out the refrigerator yesterday and found the ham hocks we use to make beans with. This too brought back the pain of losing Ginger as I remembered how crazy she would go when I would give her pieces of the ham hock after we took them out of the now cooked beans. Oh how we loved her, the little puppy sure made her way into our hearts. But that’s the way of nature. It’s the babies, the little ones that touch something deep inside. Not just with us humans but with all life to one degree or another. There are constant pictures and tales of animals of one species adopting babies of another and raising them. What makes these compelling is they are often species that dislike or prey on each other in nature.

So we miss Ginger and always will. Cherie said “No more puppies” after losing her and I must agree. Until we can insure they won’t get out on the highway it would just be inviting more heartbreak. I can sure relate to Janie, who had her sweet puppy run over right in front of her. She keeps a picture of Zoie, the puppies name, with Zack on her blog.

It will be another busy day. Yesterday I decided to work on Paco. That project has languished too long so I must make it important. I keep thinking I’ll work on it at the end of the day but by then I’m exhausted and just go to bed. So I pretty much worked on that most of the day and didn’t get much else done. It’s a tedious process. I’ve taken Paco apart and am going through it piece by piece. I force glue deep into the cracks and follow that up with wood filler, also forced as deep as I can get it. On many areas I put the wood hardener on to fortify where it’s rotted. Today I plan on starting the recarving process where I basically shave minute amounts of wood off the surface, carefully following the original carving cuts. Fortunately I have wood carving tools that are the correct size and shape for most of it. When I get that done I’ll reassemble it. I plan on soaking the whole thing in the wood hardener but don’t know if it would be better to do that before or after I reassemble it. I do know I must stain it before I put the hardener on because the hardener will seal the wood and prevent stain from penetrating.
Here are some trenches I'm digging for the irrigation system for the house. As always my helpers are there to supervise and get in the way

Then there’s finishing installing the drip irrigation for the house flower beds. That’s a rush now because we have all the plants and roses Cherie bought at the Master Gardener’s sale sitting in pots. The last thing I want is to see them die because I didn’t get to it. I’ve killed enough plants and trees since we moved here.

Another important thing on the to do list is to get seeds planted in the flats prepared at the seed starting station. Then prepare garden beds, irrigation, fencing, and all the rest required to grow a farm. Being overwhelmed is a daily thing with me.

Today is a poop scoop day so I’ll be running into Midland. We still haven’t gotten our stuff back from Beau Berman of channel seven. I keep forgetting to call him and actually can’t find his number though I know I wrote it down. I’ll have to call the station and leave a message. And I will as long as I remember. We know the odds on that, or at least I do.