Days And Nights Mixed Up Like A Baby

 

Here's an update on our little newest household member, Nicholas.

If you read my last blog, you would know about how he came to be in our home.  

So we now made it through the first week and we are adjusting to "Life with Nick".

He's been under strict vet care and meds and has been on a special diet to help him regain some weight and rehydrate himself. 

If you recall, he had been in the woods and roaming the first time for 8 days, and then the second time for 15 days! All on his own --- a little 11 month old pup in the woods. Trying to figure out how to eat and drink and find a safe place to sleep.

At one point, he had been trapped by a dragging leash for about 5 or 6 days, starving and dehydrated with no ability to get food or water. Then he chewed the leash in half to free himself. This was right before we recovered him from the woods in a live trap on Christmas Eve! 

He has been adjusting really well to life in our house. He knows where his food dish is, he knows where his water dish is, and he's learning all of our signals and routines and lessons. 

We also came to realize, that his days and nights are mixed up! Just like a baby!

Because this was his second time on the loose, he became very wary of being seen during the daytime. So he must have been holed up somewhere, sleeping during the day. The only times we caught him on the Wi-Fi cameras near the live traps or the feeding stations was at night. So this little guy learned to only roam around at night to get food. 

Since coming here, he needed to be acclimated to sleeping at night. The first few nights we kept him in a dog crate just to be sure he wasn't wandering around our house or getting into mischief.

Then we advanced to buying him a "big boy bed" and letting him sleep next to Binney and her "big girl bed" at the foot of our bed in our bedroom.

That did the trick! He seemed to be so much more at ease when he wasn't in the dog crate for the night. He isn't wandering around, and he is sleeping all night.

This picture was from the first night. By the second night they decided to switch beds! Binney took his new bed, and he took her old bed.

We have been extremely careful with him around any open doors. All of our exit doors are locked, so there's no chance of accidental escape. Any time either of us wants to leave, he is double leashed and harnessed to be sure that he doesn't sneak out.

So far, he doesn't show any interest in wanting to sneak out of the doors. But we aren't going to take that chance! We don't know if he's going to continue to be an escape artist, or once he bonds to us and wants to be with us.

We are working on coming when called, name recognition, and basic obedience. We have walked him around the outside perimeter of the house multiple times on a double leash so he can get his bearings and realize that this is his home. We have gone around the block once, and then back to the house again to sit on the front porch. Yes, even in winter, I want him to know to come to the front porch if for some reason he ever got loose!

We've invited over some of the grandkids, one at a time. We are working on kid-proofing him with children to be sure that he is rock solid around them. It took Claire a little while to get him accustomed to her small size and quick movements. But he did well and soon she had him literally eating out of her hand!

They became "pack buddies"  and took their nap together... 

Next up on the list was Chelsea. She would like to be a veterinarian someday. She soon had Nick eating out of her hand too!!! She is extremely interested in Nick, because she was helping us the first time that he was caught, after his first escape. 

Now it was Clayton's turn. Nick had him figured out in no time flat. And soon they were cuddling up on the love seat and enjoying their time together.

Soon we will expose him to the rest of the grandkids, as well as more and more people. Our neighbors came over today and spent some time with him. At first he seemed a little protective and barky, but soon he was relaxed and by the time they were ready to leave, he allowed them to pet him. Slow and steady wins the race! 

Each evening, it's a barrel of laughs around here. Both dogs want to be on my lap or on Steve's lap or just taking turns. They've discovered the taste of freshly popped popcorn being tossed to them as treats. Oh joy! 

All in all, he has really fit in and Binney absolutely adores him. She has never once yet asked us "When is he going to leave???"

This morning we woke up to a wonderful surprise of some snow. Being a dog that was imported from down South, this is a whole new experience for him. 

They had a wonderful time playing in the snow... What a great way to start off the weekend. 

His housebreaking is rock solid. Not a single mistake in the house. We take him out often into the secure fenced in potty yard. 

He has differentiated between what is a toy and what are our shoes or socks.  He is comfortable with carrying toys around the house from room to room and taking them where he wants them to play with. 

Today he decided five different times that he needed to jump up on our very tall king size bed for his nap! Five times I took him back off. We will see what happens tomorrow.

We do notice that between 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. seems to be his most active antsy time. He has a lot of energy now. So we figured out how to take him out in the fenced in potty yard and wear off some of his steam:

We are so happy to see him healthy and energetic. What a far cry from two weeks ago when he was this frail weak little skeleton with a thin layer of skin and fur. There was absolutely no flesh on him and he was a mere shadow of the dog he is today. Looking at his sparkling eyes and smiling face with his wagging tail, we are grateful that he is here in our home and a part of our lives. 

To wind this up, so it's not just all about the dogs, we would like to wish everyone a happy and healthy New Year for 2024!

~~~~~~~

Stay tuned for my next blog, because we are starting a solar installation on the roof of our cargo trailer to haul along behind the motorhome. So finally I will have a blog post about RVing!!! 

Christmas Decorations at Our House This Year 2023

Oh my, I started this blog post two weeks ago and never got around to posting it! For some reason (conducting a certain little sheltie dog hunt) I never got around to finishing it up...

So better late than never!! 

Here was the finished product, but I will go into the step by step with some quick paragraphs, mostly pictures!

The day after Thanksgiving the some of the grandkids were off school and decided to come over and give us a hand. The weather was warm and we were able to get up a lot of the outside decorations. We are outside in light jackets and sweatshirts. 

Clayton was in charge of our electrical connections and was figuring out everything to put up the lights and the garland along the front porch. 

When the kids were all done unloading the decorations, they even carried all the empty boxes back into the garage for me. 

Chelsea arranged the bows and Claire helped hang up the stars and tie the strings. Pretty soon we had everything back into place just the way it was the year before. 

Our skinny little Rudolph is standing guard between the two dining room windows.

The red tinsel bristle brush tree is set up in the corner. It's quite vintagey looking and really cute in the corner of our red and white farmhouse. 

The stars are made from dollar store hangers and wireties as connectors and glued on sequins.  

Chelsea balanced out all of the swag garlands and arranged the bows. 

Some bouquets of silk flowers were plopped into the ceramic planters by the she-shed windows. 

The grandkids wound velvet ribbons around the columns of the pergola. After we were done, we realized one side was wound in the same direction as the other. We wanted them going in opposite directions! I tried to leave it the original way for that one day. It drove me nuts. The OCD in me had me go back out and unwind it and put it in the opposite direction!! 

Tah dahhhhhh all lit up at night!  

The little tree is really red, but in the photo it shows up as pink.  We found this at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore a couple years ago.. 

Inside, I had cleared all of my dishes out of the china hutch. This is where the grandkids help to set up the Christmas village on all three glass shelves. 

Everyone pitched in and helped. Each child took a shelf and they added all of their extra little delightful statues and trees and clumps of batting for snow. 

And here is the finished Christmas village for 2023.

All lit up at night for dramatic effect. 

Now it was time to haul in all the parts of our artificial tree. Littlest Claire made sure she knew which part went first second third fourth and 5th. With her handy dandy tape measure, she had it all figured out! 

Chelsea and Clayton took care of assembling the tree section by section. The tree is actually taller than this when it's up in the main part of the house where the ceilings are 9 ft tall. But this year we decided to put it together down in the She Shed where it's closer to maybe 8 ft tall at this end of the vaulted ceiling. So we had to omit the bottommost section to make the tree shorter. 

Way up up to the tippy top! Sure is nice to have grandkids to do all this assembly for us. 

Claire helped figure out the light sets and evenly distributed all four sets around the tree. We gave her a little help. And she got to do the final plug in and have another "tahhhdahhh"  moment. 

The ornaments went on a little bit at a time. The grandkids had to go home so I finished arranging them here there and everywhere. Each one has sentimental value and has a story behind it. There's a lot of great memories included on this tree. 

At night, Steve plays with the remote control for these LED lights. He can make them flash or alternate between white or colored etc. 

Upstairs in the living room, I finished hanging the little snowflakes from the open arch doorways. The stockings were all hung by the chimney with care... 

Last year, Chelsea measured out the exact distance of the openings and then divided by the proper number of snowflakes. We made tiny spots with push pins so we know every year now we can evenly spread out the snowflakes. She is a little OCD like Grandma!

I added a few more things to the top of the buffet. Steve changes the light bulbs into flickering flame bulbs in both of the light fixtures. The candy dish was filled with treats, waiting for the next visit from some of our grandchildren. 

Bit of decor here and there really makes the house feel festive and bright. 

Across the top of the mantle I have pine garland with little colorful lights woven into it. Along the front edge I have my wooden rocking horse collection. Every year I look for a few more. My "stable" is just about full. 

The stockings are all hung, as well as the little teddy bear is waiting in the sleigh with a stack of Christmas story books. 

The silly little metal tree with magnetic ornaments we fondly call the "Grinch Tree". It looks like something straight out of Dr Seuss. There are tiny seed lights that flicker and flash in alternating patterns in strands strung around the tree for at night. 

Tiny little plastic Rudolph has made it through all seven of my grandkids chewing on it from baby on upwards. If you wiggle his tail his nose lights up!

These adorable little wine bottle cork deer were made by my friend Vicky. Totally adorable as well as the cork pine tree next to them on the shelf. 

My mama's little toy soldier nutcrackers that I got after she passed away. These are the gold and silver ones.... 

And these are the more colorful traditional ones.

Some cute little reindeer made from pine garland. I forget where I got these or homemade them but they sure are adorable. 

Stained glass holly and berries carefully hung on the mirror in the center of the dining room. I love stained glass! 

This delicately cut out tree was made by a fiber friend in my weaving guild about 25 or so years ago. It's made out of stiff cardstock cardboard and she cut the entire thing out with an exacto knife. If you look close at the top it's the partridge in the pear tree, and each row down is from the 12 Days of Christmas. I folded it up flat every year and store it away carefully. Such a treasure. 

Steve hung up our mistletoe. We don't get fresh mistletoe every year, so this little artificial one does the trick just as well. I still get kisses----

These silly jump up toy ornaments are made out of wood in an old fashioned manner. I know they are newer but they are really cool. I used to try to hang them on the tree but they wiggle too much if you try to pull the bottom knob to make them jump. So instead we put them on these command hooks for the grandchildren to play with for the season. Someday they will get back on the tree again if there's nobody around yanking on them. 

On the kitchen table bar top we have to have a scraggly old Charlie Brown Tree. Doesn't everyone? It has little teeny tiny ornaments and the kids like looking at it if they come over to eat a snack. 

The last tree in our house is a fiber optic one. We had this one for in the motorhome when we lived in full time for a period. On this tree there are stuffed ornaments each one personalized with the name of all of our family members and extended family. Of course, we call it our "Family Tree".  We keep this one right up in the front of the house by the dining room windows and turn it on and off each night. Since the main tree is down in the she shed, this is the only one that can be seen from the road. 

Before Christmas, I spend time painting all of the grandchildren little village houses of their very own. I've been doing this for years. Every year they get a different village house and I have to make sure that I never give the same one to the same child. I keep a spreadsheet. Lol. 

While I paint, I have some of my most favorite music playing. I remember this album cover when I was a child in the 1960s.

Well, that's it for my belated post on Christmas decorations around the house.

It still seems like "before Christmas"  here, because everyone was sick on Christmas .... we did not have a family gathering yet. So instead, we are all going to get together when we have our epic bowling day in January with all of the kids and grandkids. We will exchange gifts then.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

As an update on our newest family member, Little Nicholas is fitting right in. We had our newest vet appointment on Monday, which gave him great results. We have a neutering appointment set up for early next month. He is recovering from his ordeal. He was severely starved and dehydrated during his time alone in the woods. 

Our house is now filled with the joy of another canine family member. (Look how skinny he is!)

Binney is absolutely delighted to have him as part of our pack. 

Happy New Year!!!