My new favorite place...

A little corner of the shop! I've been spending a lot of time here!

Making tons of beads...these are from last week.

My first attempt at a floral bead, done a couple days ago. It kinda worked!

My first hearts.

A bunch o' focal pendants, probably for chocker style necklaces.

This butter yellow is hideous in the plain rod, but I really like it once it's melted and annealed!

If I can't have snow....

I'll take water!

The ice is off the smaller lakes now and the Carolina is back on the water. The Eclipse is still hanging from the shop roof cuz there's just no way I can get it down by myself. Oh, well, the Carolina is more comfy anyway! My Dad will be happy to hear that it's more stable too.

Some kind of record...

I probably shouldn't even think this, let alone put it in writing.

This must be some kind of record...the only vet visit in just over two weeks has been to get Kayleigh's stitches and staples out. Stitches I could have removed myself; I have some practice at that! I don't have one of those little tools for getting the staples out though. Kayleigh has healed remarkably well. Even more remarkable--she let the vet tech take out all the stitches and all the staples without so much as a hard stare! Tech still has all her fingers! Kayleigh will be keeping Anvik's giant crate. She seems to like sleeping in it and at least in there the worst she can do is rip up a blanket!

Going to find some wood to knock furiously on now!

A Slightly late tribute to Mom....

Just like the Mother's Day present, that I swear is on the bus, this is a little late! But it's never too late to say thanks. I could say thanks to my Mom for all the usual Mom stuff--support, love, and that remarkable ability Mom's have to do 50 things at once and stay sane through it! But my Mom did a few out of the ordinary things. So...

Thanks Mom, for letting my high school friends think you were just mean! It would have been social suicide for me as a 16 year old to say "I'd rather skip the party and stay home to watch the Stampeders game with my Dad." It was much cooler to say "My Mom won't let me go.". Thanks for always knowing when I wanted to you to say No and letting me save face.

Thanks for giving me the belief that I could do whatever I wanted and that I could do it on my own. That even when I was tripping over them, I was capable of standing on my own two feet.

Thanks for letting me go. It took me a while to realize how difficult it must have been for you to let my wandering spirit take over, without ever questioning me(At least not to my face)! I am the only one of four siblings that my parents don't see daily. They see my sister more often in a day than they see me in a year! (She lives across the street from them, not across the country!)And there has never been any guilt about that, no suggestions that I should move back to Saskatchewan or at least the Prairies. A few tears have been shed in the Edmonton International Airport, but that's it!

Thank you for the prayers you never mention, but I know you send up regulary.

For all that, and all the more mundane Mom stuff, Thanks.I love and miss you.

Happy Cats...

There's still some snow in the shady parts, but the cat enclosure has been reopened--during the day at least. Not sure I trust Boots enough to leave it open at night yet....that whole bat in the bedroom incident was a little traumatizing!

Felicia is a happy little girl. Nothing like a nap in the sun!

Even Ol' Beau has been out. He's holding his own lately, despite multiple health problems. Nice to see the old boy enjoying himself!

Kayleigh is home...

Kayleigh got to come home on Thursday night. So far so good! She's sedate, but eating well and enjoying going outside a little bit. She's been great about leaving the incision alone. She's even been getting some collar free time. She's not a fan of the bite-not collar, but she is a fan of the crate! Kayleigh has never been crated before so I was a little worried about that. She loves the giant crate and will put herself in it when she gets tired. She likes her little indoor den!

Could be because she digs her own dens outside. As soon as she was allowed out she had to go make sure her digging spot was undisturbed. She's not feeling up to digging yet, but she would have been ticked if some other dog had touched her tunnels!

Continuing misadventures..

It's not Tehya this time, but there's more trouble! Kayleigh is one of our first dogs; I think she was number five when she arrived a little over five years ago. She's a malamute mix, big, beautiful and troubled. She had a pretty awful start in life and had some pretty major issues when she first arrived. "Get any closer and I'll take your hand off" kind of issues, along with an out of control prey drive and extreme dog aggression. If I had known then what I know now, I probably wouldn't have adopted Kayleigh, but all I saw was pleading brown eyes and those gigantic white paws trying to reach me through the chain link of her shelter cage. I loved her immediately.

Kayleigh has always been a handful, but she's come a long way. She no longer shows any aggression towards any humans, although the dog aggression is unchanged. She has her own pen, attached to the shop. She can't come in the house as she hates the other dogs and likes the cats way too much in all the wrong ways! So she gets her inside time in the shop, which is often a busier place than the house!

Last night she slept in the shop as she does most nights. We thought all the potential hazards had been moved out of her reach or out of the shop entirely. Kayleigh isn't a chewer. With the exception of a couple porcupines, she's never chewed up anything that was off limits. Last night, she found a package of toothpicks. I have no idea where they came from or what they were doing in the shop. She found them and ate many of them!

Stuart found Kayleigh this morning covered in blood, lethargic and still vomitting up more disgusting stuff! So off to the vet again at 8am! Kayleigh is still at the vet and will be until at least tomorrow evening.

X-rays and bloodwork showed some abnormalities so an exploratory surgery was done. Turned out to be the right call. Kayleigh had a bunch of toothpicks in her intestine and stomach along with a small shard of metal. I have no clue where that came from, but it was about to cause a major problem! Fortunately, it was removed before her intestine was fully perforated. That would have only further complicated things! As it is her recovery will be quite long and potentially complicated! The incision on her stomach is at least a foot long! That's a lot of stitches!

She also has a massive laceration under her tongue. That's where most of the blood was coming from. I'm actually fairly impressed that Kayleigh let anyone look in her mouth. A few years ago, that wouldn't have happened on a good day and trying it when she was in pain back then would have led to loosing a finger or two! She has come a long way!

She will be on crate rest for a couple weeks. Anvik is loosing his giant sized crate. It's the only one Kayleigh will fit in!

There will be no killing innocent tennis balls for awhile, but if all goes well, she should be able to indulge herself again!

Whoever had cursed my dog yard lately, could you please stop now?