Maine chapter, puppy night

Last night, members of the Maine Chapter of NEADS met to do some training and get the puppies together. Linda, our leader, is working on building the chapter up again, and we thought that a monthly meeting/training would help to do that. Along with puppies in training, we invited all working NEADS dogs, plus some of my friends who have certified therapy dogs...





This is Deb with Rusty... if you remember dear reader, Chester, Camille and I attended a fund raiser that Deb was doing to get her service dog... and then we went to Deb's graduation when she had received Rusty. It was great to see them again, and all in all things are going well for the two of them.







Suzan and Logan joined us as well. I love having Suzan around, she has so many great tips to share with us, since Logan is her working dog. There are so many things that I don't think about, that Suzan reminds us of. Like, working the puppies from a sitting position... I am usually on my feet, but what if Ginger is placed with someone in a wheel chair???? It would be good for her to see a "human in charge" that is just about at her level.... (can't get over how big Ginger is... almost the size of Logan)

Here is Mindy - Rick's dog - who is a TDI dog working her sit stays with Leo next to her!!!

And Rusty.. Deb's hearing dog....

Ginger doing a down stay.. which by the way, it about the only time that she sits still!!!!! We didn't have as many as we thought for our first night together, but hopefully in the month's to come, there will be more that will join us.. including some new puppies and raisers. We also talked about some training ideas and just having the chance to get together.


I also want to add to my "record" here.. about my Ed... last Monday he took a hard fall on the ice. This has pretty much laid him up all week, and the bruise that he has on his upper leg (and other places) is impressive to say the least. (I thought it might be cool to take a photo, but we decided against that)... he is really sore and hasn't been able to go too far.. though he is hobbling less and less each day... it's been a long week for me, it really take s two of us to run everything around here and I miss his help. Fortunately we haven't had any snow storms that require snow removal, because I'm not so sure what we would have done about that. Needless to say, I have been super careful walking on the ice, and we're just happy that his bruises are the worst of it...

got snow

These photos are actually "old" as they were taken last week, we had another round of snow, and I recall saying something about "just a bit more and my garden horse might be gone for good". Well, it's getting close, poor thing!!! I already know that I will measure spring in how quickly he reappears!!!!









It's been cold again too... cold meaning anything under 20 degrees. I find myself happy to do inside projects on days such as this, and believe me, the inside list is long... there is always something that can be done. On this day, Abbie and I decided that peanut butter cookies might be just the thing. She loves to help with anything... unload the dishwasher, feed the dogs, pick up her toys... and bake!!!





Course, I'm not exactly sure how many cookies I 'loose" before they make it to the oven!!!!!












I was so happy last fall when we moved all those piles of dirt and you could see the front of the house. Now the snow has taken the place of the those dirt piles... at least this will melt and the front will be "see-able" once again...









Ed continues the battle with the snow. He had to take the snow blower and go around the entire fence line. In some places the fence was so buried that the horses couldn't see it, and could easily walk over it. The usually don't stray too far from the barn, but just in case they did want to spread out further, I feel better that they stay inside the fence.

The piles and drifts are so large that from the driveway, you can't even see the barn!!!!

Happily our "little furnace" keeps chugging and is keeping the house nice and warm. As long as we "feed it" twice a day...we had wondered how it would be to rely solely on wood, but so far so good, and this has been the winter to prove it. The tent building has worked out ok.. but we're thinking that a pole barn would work better, so there's another thing on the to do list. All in all, life is pretty average around here, and the winter is on the downhill side...