Here we go

This is not Georgia

On Saturday we met a 10 month old black Labrador named Georgia. This was to see if we liked her and wanted her. She is much loved where she is but the family is away all day every day and have to keep her crated.

Crates are actually cages – but we call them crates because it sounds not quite as bad.

Of course there was never any doubt. Cate wanted her on sight – and so did I – having resigned myself to the inevitable.

She arrives tonite. The family is bringing her over to make sure they like her new home.  I have bought gates (with cat doors) so we can keep her downstairs – except at nite when she will sleep in the bedroom.

I have bought a large dog crate and the family is bringing her bed over to put in this.

On the weekend we went to Petco and bought masses of dog things – including a book about Labradors. I am reading this now. It is astonishing the number of things that can go wrong with a Labrador and I think we will have to move closer to the vet.

We also bought a large dog bed. We put this downstairs and the cats immediately moved in.

In the meantime Cate was walking on Sunday and was attacked by a gaggle of geese. This was a minor setback in her preparations for Ecuador. I have checked – there are geese in Ecuador so she may need to take a cricket bat.

I have many more things to report. Tomorrow there will be the first in an endless series of photos of Georgia. I do not have a photo yet so have posted another Labrador which looks like her.

I just cannot wait

Trevor Traeger

There is so much happening here I just do not have time to blog.

The Traeger arrived  a few days ago but I could not assemble it because I had chores to do. Yesterday I painted the back and side fences the same color as the deck. Well it is supposed to be the same color - but they are close enough.

This took some hours and I was knackered when I had finished but decided to tackle the Traeger after dinner.

As I stared in horror at the manual I tired to remember the last time I bought something that I did not have to assemble. I could not think of anything in the USA that I did not have to put together before I could use it.

The book says you assemble the bottom and attach it to the top burner. I assembled the bottom but it was not going to attach to the top no matter what I did.  I grunted  and groaned and heaved and strained - and re-read the instruction book a number of times. It just did not fit.

Eventually after a couple of glasses of wine I had a moment of clarity and disassembled the bottom and built it directly on to the top. This worked just fine.

I finished today and do have a few bolts and washers left over but most of these are (probably) spares. I am now awaiting my wood pellets so that I can start smoking. I have bought some pork loin for my first culinary experiment.

While I was doing this Cate was sitting outside reading the blogs of the people who are doing the Gobi desert race. This is one she might have done – but she decided to Ecuador instead. Anyway the fastest person is doing the legs in about 5 hours. The slowest is taking 12 hours. Most seem to have decided that they are in fact insane to undertake the race – and many make mention of breaking down and sobbing.

We are inspecting a dog on Saturday. She is a black Labrador named Georgia. I think this means curtains for me and the cats so I am frantically preparing for the event. I just cannot wait.

I will be extra careful

The deck has been finished.

It looks only slightly worse than it did before they started – which is not a bad result for the large amount of money they charged.

At least we now know that I did not do such a bad job last summer – we just have the wrong deck timber and stain.

We have been buying lots of flowers and plants. This is the triumph of hope over experience but I am letting Cate do all the planting so that I will not feel responsible for the plants that pop their clogs.

We have planted lots of flowers around the fountain – in the middle of a grass patch. Logic would dictate that you would kill the grass before planting but that is too easy. I now have to kill the grass without killing the plants – this is much more of a challenge.

I honed my skills by killing the grass – and some hollies – in the front garden. That damn roundup just goes everywhere. I will be extra careful when doing the fountain grass – but there are no promises.

We had our relatives for dinner on Friday and my dinner was awful. I overcooked the chicken – and when I was seasoning the potatoes Bastisi (Not Batasi as I have been calling it) – the lid fell off the seasoning jar and covered the whole lot in a layer of Australian Native Spices.

The potato thingy was barely edible but everyone put on a  brave face and said how delicious it was. I filled them full of wine and after while they forgot about it altogether.

But my goulash soup was OK.