Fall is in the Air

Well here it is almost the end of September and fall is definitely in the air here at Dogpound North. Other places also, I guess, I see the Bayfield Bunch has already flown the coop heading towards their Congress, Az winter refuge. As well I see Judy and Emma, along with Nurse Ratchet (Kurt) are heading south also. When the Birdlady of Blogland heads south the geese can't be far behind.

We have had a month of interesting weather here, 12-15 inches of snow to begin the month, some 80+ degree days in the middle but things have become more seasonal now. Our own harbinger's of fall are evident also. The other day I winterized my SIL Tricia's motorhome and today my son Paul hove into sight with his trailer all winterized and ready to assume its spot in the back of our Quonset Hut.

Yesterday I ran into the city and had my monthly lunch with my oldest granddaughter. As usual it was a great time and I really enjoy her company. On the ride home I mused about how becoming a grandparent seems to change your outlook on a lot of things. Claire is pretty focussed on a career as a hairdresser and from what I have seen so far she is going to be a great one. Vidal Sasson move over, there's a new girl in town. Back to the grandfatherly mellowing, I know if my kids had come home with green and blue hair I probably would have had a stroke, but all I could really think was her hair really kind of set off her ensemble.

I can only assume that as we get older it dawns on us there are a lot of things that are vastly more important than the fashions that float your boat.

On the way home from lunch I managed to stop in and give a final goodbye to my Aunt Donna Engel, I won't explain our family connection but suffice it to say she was my aunt 60 years ago and although things changed over that time I still think of her as one of the nicest ladies I ever had the privilege of knowing. We'll see you on the other side Aunt Donna.

Along with Paul today came two more grandchildren so I have had a great weekend. Strangely it seems that all the little babies I remember just a short time ago are growing like bad weeds. Luc and Annika are in Grade 8 and Grade 6 respectively. Not sure how that happened, seems like yesterday they fit almost in the palm of my hand.

For those who are following the saga of Brenda's knee replacement. She is recovering from her second surgery and yesterday was her first day back driving. I won't go into a lot of detail but suffice it to say this has not been an easy road. It seems like one step forward is followed by two steps back but she is a trooper and will make it work.

Still Kickin'

Well I see it has been a while since I last put some words together for those few folks who still check in on us from time. It is not that we are doing nothing, just probably nothing that is all that interesting for our readers. I go swimming most weekday mornings and try to average 16-20 (10-12 miles) kilometers a week. Most weeks I make it but last week was a washout,  between a cold, muscle spasm in my back, and a flooded basement I didn't get much swimming in, but I am back up to 16 this week.

Brenda's knee is story all by its own. She has been feeling like she is not making enough progress so we headed down to see the doc a couple of weeks earlier than scheduled. They took an X-Ray and that indicated maybe they should investigate it a little more throughly. Scheduled an CT-Scan, but we didn't like the timing on that so we jumped ship and had a private clinic do one for us. That got us back to the doc a little quicker and with the CT-Scan confirming what he had suspected from the X-Ray he said she is not to use her leg for about 6 weeks. Not a happy camper I am here to tell you. They say she has a crack in her femur and are hoping that keeping the weight off it will allow it to heal as there is no displacement. Now those who know Brenda know that sitting around is not one of her better developed skills so I am constantly nagging her to stay off it, often to no avail. Oh well, hopefully my nagging will help it heal.

June is usually a pretty wet month around these parts and this June is no exception. Over the last few weeks we have accumulated about 7-8 inches of rain and even as I write this it is coming down hard.
 During one of those rain events the sump pump in our basement failed and within a couple of hours we had converted our always dry basement into a wading pool with about 5-6 inches of water. A quick trip to town and a new pump and the incoming water was once again diverted back out. That only left us to mop up. Luckily our insurance covered this type of failure so within a day or two they had the carpet ripped out, all damaged contents logged and hauled out and had stripped away the drywall and a battery of industrial fans and dehumidifiers howling away in our basement drying it out again. We have taken two good sized dumpsters full of building materials and other assorted flood damaged stuff out of the basement so it is looking pretty empty down there right now. Eventually we will replace the carpet and the drywall and things will quiet down around here again as we shut the fans down.

Everything is drying out, at this point the tear down is completed. You can see the maps on the walls, Dad had collected road maps from around the world and wallpapered some of the walls in the basement with them but the bottom half had to go with the wet drywall, to bad but we'll probably keep the top half.

Other than watching the rain come down and trying to keep up with the grass mowing we have really not done a lot of anything this last month. What with Brenda's bad leg and the wet weather it has been a difficult to get up much ambition for a camping trip, but we are planning on heading out next month and at least get a little mountain time in and maybe a ride or two for Blue. Wink and the rest are just hanging out getting fat on our over abundance of grass.

"Who us? Fat?"

But it has not been all rain, we had some great days and these folks came by to make sure Grandma and I didn't float away.

And we have managed to keep the grass from overtaking the house, although that means everytime there is a couple of hours of sunshine we roar out of the quonset with the John Deere's and cut as fast as we can.

And I have been able to keep an eye on the neighbourhood youngsters as I head out in the early mornings to go for my swim as well.