Farmerhood

Hello, beautiful people! 

I know it's been so long since I last posted and I apologize! So much has been going on, and that's no excuse to not blog (on the contrary, that's exactly why I should be blogging!) The real reason why I haven't been updating this online diary is because I've been too lazy to upload my iPhone photos. So I've had no pretty pictures to post. And what's a blog without pictures? Boring. That's what that is. 

BUT I have finally forced myself to upload those pictures and here we are. Gather 'round, kids, it's story time.

So a couple weeks ago, in preparation for the colder months, we purchased a whole lot of hay to keep our horses fed over the winter. Now, prior to our hay delivery, I had spent a night in Urgent Care due to uncontrollable pain and persistent vomiting (more on that later). So as you can imagine, I wasn't ready to haul around 60 pound square bales. So instead I enlisted my boys to do the heavy work for me! 

Our dear farmer friend Brad supplied the hay- he grew it himself on his own land and believe you me he's very proud of this. He got the boys to load up the trailer and then drove it over to my place. I sat atop the hundreds of bales and watched the men do their sweaty farmer work and I liked it too much. 

Farmer Brad tossing a bale

Brad and my boyfriend- I told boyfriend that I like him as a farmer *wink*

Among my crew of manly hay-fever struck muscle men were brother (not so muscle-y) and my two long-time friends Joel and Gerrit. They're brothers and we grew up together, and as far as the four of us are concerned, we're all siblings. 

Brad and I are supervising the boys.

My boyfriend and Gerrit are stuffin' hay in the shed.

Gerrit!!! Hold the wall!!!

The boys filled up the hay shed (with some minor difficulties) so the next step was putting the remaining bale in the barn. I was having way too much fun taking pictures of the boys (especially my boyfriend... *wink wink*). I wasn't much help anyways because I was high as a kite and I had a serious case of the giggles.

Dear Boyfriend, you make a hot farmer. Let's investigate this further.

My brother had fun standing on the bales while Brad drove through the paddock.

My cozy barn was filled with hay by the time the sun had sunk over the mountains.

I'm really enjoying my journey into farmerhood, and I love watching my boyfriend take his first few tentative steps along with me. 

I'm really loving this new lifestyle, and I feel like perhaps I'm turning into a real farmer. Why? How? Well the other day at work, this little girl came into the store with her mom. She was so cute, asking questions like "Where are the animals in here?" She was quite upset that my shop doesn't sell live animals and she was continuously asking for different animals. 
"Excuse me, are there any kitties in here?"
"Excuse me again," (she actually said this, it was adorable) "are there any cows in here?" 
Finally she got it that there were no animals in my store, so then she asked: 
"Excuse me, are there any farmers in here?" 
So of course I said: "I'm a farmer!" Well she looked at me long and hard and the look of befuddlement on her face was so cute. She had nothing else to say so she grabbed a bison tendon dog chew and declared that it was her magic wand. Ha!

Cheers!

Winter is Here

Hello, Everybody. How are you guys? 

Let me tell you something. Winter has arrived in my province. Seriously. We skipped fall, and full on just launched into winter. And I'm not fibbing or exaggerating. I can prove it! 

This is a photo of my yard. In September. Early September.

See? Snow. The leaves haven't even turned yellow yet.  

We literally skipped the most beautiful time of year and just started this bullshit we call "winter". 

Seriously, what is this witchcraft? I'm a bad Canadian and I forgot to keep a snow brush in my car, so I had to use my fucking sleeve to wipe four inches of snow off my car after work yesterday. As the week went on the snow got worse and everyone in the city including the news papers were referring to this month as "Snowtember". In all honesty it looks like some tree-hating giant went through the city and just trashed all of our trees. There are branches and broken tree limbs littering the streets. ALL BECAUSE OF SNOW. FEET UPON FEET UPON FEET OF SNOW. This is why I take happy pills. 

So work at a Pet Store (thus my name, The Cranky Pet Store Girl). Because winter had reared its ugly head, it's time to start stocking up on doggie booties and coats and shit like that. Which means that I had to re-merch an entire section of the shop. It took six hours, but I'm rather pleased with the result. Allow me to share pictures because I'm proud.

I stripped this display wall of chuck-its and dog booties...

I like making messes!

Isn't it gorgeous? Doggie booties and apparel all arranged by size!

A close-up of my beautiful work. *sniff* so amazing.

It took a while for me to get the chuck-its organized to my liking.

SO MANY PRODUCTS!

Leashes and collars all arranged neatly. I win!

Among the new stock were these adorable little doggie rain coats by RC. They're seriously so cute that I had to buy one for Clancey. Of course I got him the rubber ducky one. 

I love my dog.

These rain coats are so fantastic for a number of reasons, so I can't help but share why I love them. I mean first and foremost they're adorable. They come in a number of patterns and sizes to suit any dog and owner. Here are some of the patterns that we ordered for the shop: 

 

photo from www.rcpets.com

    

photo from www.rcpets.com

photo from www.rcpets.com

Another cool feature is that they fold up into these little waterproof packets that clip right onto your leash. 
I'm pretty thrilled right now because I've been working my ass off, cleaning the shop and making it look good. I've been re-merchandising piece by piece, and recently re-did the back room and even organized our raw freezer. Now if only I could keep my own home that clean...

-Captain Lakie 

Castle Lakie and Chicken Dinner

Good evening Liebens!

How is everybody? I'm in a good mood today! I had a really nice relaxing day off. To wrap up the evening I decided to play outside! 

I absolutely love when we get an Indian Summer here in Alberta. Today was one of those most beautiful autumn days... Picture big blue skies, green grass, golden leaves, and all the wonderful smells of autumn. I was sitting on the back deck with my little Clancey, who might I add, made a full recovery. 

I decided that I would love to go ride my horse into the sunset. It was a weird feeling, riding my horse around my own back yard! It was surreal and blissful. I rode my horse up to the living room window 

and giggled as I spied on my mother and brother in the kitchen. My little dog Clancey is very very protective over my family and I, and he wasn't particularly happy that I was perched bareback atop a big horse; far too high off the ground for a little yorkie dog to do any protecting. 

The curious Clancey watches Scooter and I through the window

Off into the sunset we go!

What a beautiful evening. And I can honestly say that this whole Farmerhood adventure is going over quite well! Dinner tonight is roasted chicken with mushroom rice, asparagus, and garden salad. Puppy supper is Merrik's Wingaling with fresh chicken mixed in. Right now I'm relaxing with a glass of wine while dinner cooks. Oh, bliss. 

First ever eBay purchase

My first ever eBay purchase- the story of the ugliest boots you've ever seen.

The title of this post really does just explain it all. I went shopping on eBay for the first time in my life and I bought the cutest/ugliest pair of boots ever created. They're like uggs but they have deer on them. I think they're insanely cute but I can also understand how some would find them ugly as sin. Let me show you a picture so you can decide for yourself!

see? simultaneously the cutest and ugliest booties ever.

This is the colour I got

I am (not so patiently) waiting for them to arrive. I figured at $10 it was a relatively risk free experiment.

My Chronic Illness, a Visual Journey

When my gynaecologist tells me he wants to do a physical:

When Tramadol does nothing to relieve the pain: 

When I see the doctor bring out the speculum:

Waiting for my pain killers to kick in like: 

When my bladder is full and I'm waiting for the ultrasound to start: 

When my doctor tells me to smoke weed: 

Waiting for the water to boil for my hot water bottle: 

When I'm hooked up to an IV at the hospital and the morphine hits: 

When I hit a 10 on the pain scale: 

When my bowel endo caused me to bleed out of my butt:  

When girls complain about their cramps: 

The night my dog almost died

Good evening Liebens!

Tonight I'm worried sick because my beloved yorkie dog is very sick.
My family and I have just moved into our new home, Castle Lakie. In the moving process we were too distracted and irresponsible to notice that our new home wasn't yet puppy-proofed. Some time Sunday, Clancey managed to eat three harmful things.

Harmful thing #1: Dump mud. Yeah, you heard me right. Dump mud. After a visit to the dump, my brother and father tracked their muddy boots into the house. The same dirty boots that recently trod through the city Landfill. Glorious. Clancey got it in his puppy mind that he wanted to lick up those muddy footprints, because you know- he's helpful around the house, that was his way of washing the floors.

Harmful thing #2: Unidentified object. My brother walked into the living room just in time to see Clancey crunching away on a mystery object. Lil bro ran over to the dog to try to pry this item from his mouth, but Clancey saw it coming and quickly swallowed.

Harmful thing #3: A vinyl basket handle: Clancey meandered into the guest room where he stumbled upon a glorious new chew thing: a vinyl basket handle! Clancey consumed a chunk or two of chewed off material before my mother discovered his new victim and interrupted his snack time. Might I add that all of this occurred while I was at work.

Mom noticed him acting funny, unable to get comfortable and obsessively licking himself. He later collapsed and proceeded to quiver and shake. When I got home from work I was very worried about him. I knew right away that I was taking him to the vet. In the car we went, and half an hour later we in the 24 hr pet hospital. The lobby was absolutely crammed, full of people and their pets. Clancey was seen by a wonderful woman named Dr.F. The vet gave Clancey a physical exam before I decided that I wanted an X-Ray done. He was hooked up to fluids and pain killers, and did the X-ray like a good boy. Results showed that his body is filled with gas. His colon and tummy were distended with gas, and a slightly concerning bubble in his small intestine. I brought Clancey back home, and watched in horror as his condition began to deteriorate. Clancey was given too high a dosage of pain killers, and he was unresponsive and unable to hold himself up. My poor puppy was drooling profusely and didn't have the strength to hold his ears erect. After midnight, while writing this post actually, I looked over at my sleeping buddy and felt my heart stop and my blood run cold. He looked dead. He was so still and he wasn't warm. I freaked out and began to shake him, saying his name and trying to stimulate him. Nothing. Seriously, he was nearly catatonic. I panicked and got my bro to wrap him up in a blanket and we rushed him back to the vet. The vet kept Clancey over night and gave him drugs to counteract the opiates that had him so out of it. I really feared for my little buddy's life. I got four hours of sleep then returned to the vet a few hours later to pick him back up.
After bringing him home he started to have diarrhea with blood in it. My father and I proceeded to take Clancey to a different vet hospital (we're not so happy with how Clancey was taken care of at the first location).

We've been at the vet's all goddamn day and I'm absolutely beats they're keeping Clancey over night and administering fluids and antibiotics via IV.

He's behaving like such a good boy

Clancey hasn't been showing many signs of improving, we went to visit the little guy at the vet's today. He perked right up when he saw us, and even began to eat (which he hadn't done his entire stay at the hospital). We were so thrilled that he consumed a bit of chicken baby food (Clancey is a chicken fiend) that dad went to Safeway and bought a whole rotisserie chicken and brought it back to the vet's. Clancey's glee over his gourmet dinner was beyond adorable. He sat that cute little yorkie bum on my leg and allowed my mom to hand feed him fresh, warm rotisserie chicken. He then got a good drink of water out of a cup, and was ready for a nap. 

Pictures of roasted chicken dance in his mind

When it was time for us to go home, Clancey started to have a bit of a meltdown. He absolutely didn't want to be separated from us, and began to shake when he was handed back over to the tech. That was so hard for us, and I grew a lump in my throat as the tech took him away. 

Tonight Clancey will have a test done to check his cortisone levels, and he's staying another night at the hospital. We're sincerely hoping that we will be able to take him home tomorrow.

Please keep my beloved Wolf Kitten in your thoughts!