A very blustery night

I could have told you last night would be windy. I have an awesome pink crabapple tree. Ever since I started this bloggity thing, way back in primeval old Blogger days, through a domain that dumped us for excessive spam traffic (hey iPastor, we still need a refund from those guys, we paid for ten years...) and back to Blogger again, I think I should post a picture of my beautiful flowering crab. Every year when it blooms, it is absolutely gorgeous for about ten minutes, then we get wind and/or rain and it's gone. It bloomed Friday. Last night we had sustained straight-line winds of 25-30 with gusts over 60 for about 6-8 hours. This morning at about 7, the dogs went haywire and the wind switched from the south to the east and kicked up for about half an hour before dying down to a stiff breeze. There are trees down all over, but our yard is OK. We have shingles in the yard and a broken window, thankfully one of the old storm windows. A friend at work lost her roof.

I should get out and work on cleaning up the yard a little bit, but I just got done clearing that path in the basement, so I'm taking a little break. iPastor and the Cosmic Junkie are on their way back from the Home Despot with a new washer for Mama Goose! Woot! I'm livin' civilized again!

In other news, iPastor and I went completely insane (again) a couple of weeks ago...



...and brought home Polly, aka Polly Lobster, aka Polly Piddles. iPastor mentioned once that he'd love to have a beagle if we ever got another dog. After we got the cockers mostly settled in, someone posted Polly on Freecycle(tm). We're suckers.


That brings the canine population to three...



See that black and tan boy, Tiger? I started giving them a scissors cut, because I have been too cheap on time and money to get 'em to the groomers, but I wanted them to be able to see and not overheat. Anyway, the B&T is almost the same color as the red now with his coat trimmed. I think he's what they call "sable" but I'm not really certain with the whole Cocker terminology thing. The vet thinks the red is actually red sable as well. I don't care, I'm lovin' 'em, not showing 'em. We're really working on training the dogs and people to a potty and play schedule. I think Polly's got a bladder the size of a walnut. She pees every 20 minutes, but never very much. iPastor dutifully went off to buy dog food, but missed the trusty farm store by a few minutes. So he popped across the street to the Evil*Empire, and came home with a bag of Ol'Roy. I have NEVER smelled anything so vile as those dogs on cheapo food. Blearg!

My new washer is here, and we have to do some strong-arming of a corroded spigot, so I will leave you now and head to the basement. Toodles.