Schnoodle near the window well outside

Last night it was my turn to let her out.  I imagine taking care of old Schnoodle is sort of like caring for a newborn baby. So I let her out and she ran around in the fresh snow in the backyard.  I wait until she barks to be let back in and in a few minutes she did bark.  She wasn’t at the back door though.  She was about 10 feet off and standing near the window well.  I could sense what was about to happen.  She thought that the edge of the window well was the back step.

I put my slippers on and started to go outside to stop her.  Sadly there was no way I could have gotten to her in time.  She fell straight down into the window well.

She hit with a thud and then let out a yelp.  I ran inside and downstairs as quickly as I could.  I wasn’t sure how bad a 3-4 foot fall would be on our poor old Schnoodle!  I called for Cassie and opened the window in the basement. She had already gotten up so I figured she wasn’t too bad off.  I got a towel and wrapped her up and took her inside.

When I saw her fall head first and heard that thump, I really though that was the end of poor ol Schnood.  Amazingly, though she is doing just fine today like nothing ever happened.

Britton with Schnoodle-Doo in the kitchen

Schnooter Mcgavin has lost most of her teeth, she’s partially blind and mostly deaf. She also has some sort of tumor growing under her arm. But she’s still a happy dog. She sleeps all day long. Looks forward to her food and loves her walks. So, quality of life, I’d say is pretty good for old Noodle.

But one thing she hates is hair cuts. We think maybe our foreign exchange student, Kosei, from a few years ago traumatized Doody when we left him alone with her to bathe and shave. Ever since then she hates scissors. Nickerdoodle hates even being in the same vicinity as scissors. She runs away and turns her head a lot anytime she sees the choppers coming by. Which makes it practically impossible to cut the hair on her head! (Don’t believe me? Try trimming someone’s hair as they wiggle around every time the scissors come remotely close. Seriously, running with scissors is probably safer!)

Schnicker’s not like most dogs who shed, which is a good thing, but also means that her hair just keeps growing, and growing…and growing. Until she looks like a big rastafarian with a mess of matted hair and crusty eyes. So, we finally gave old Doodle a shave. We sat in the greenhouse where it was all warm and the air was still. The chickens were a little mad that we were in their space, and Kitty was very interested in us. Strudlemeister wasn’t happy about it, but she let us cut her after a lot of work. But in the end after a huge pile of hair, she now looks and feels so much better. Schnooters was running around like a happy little puppy with all that hair off.

Still a little shaggy for Snoodles, but mucho mejor!

I boiled some water this morning and took it out to them and they were just fine. They were not moving much to conserve energy and the black one had frost on her feathers. I think the leghorn has frostbite on her comb, but they were happy when they heard the ice crack as I poured the hot water into their dish. The high today is only supposed to reach about 10 degrees, so the water will freeze again soon!

When I was bringing water to the chickens, Schnoodle ran out with me to go to bathroom (our yard that is). As I was walking back to the house, she just stood there on three legs. I thought maybe she was standing awkwardly as she peed, but she wouldn’t move. I had to coax her back in, but she was slow and looked  like she was in super pain. I think she might have arthritis in one of her back legs, and they say arthritis is more painful when it’s cold (low pressure). 

As I was coming to work, my car started slowly and the road conditions weren’t too bad until I tried to get up onto “O” Street from 25th Ave. My car slid around and let out a bunch of steam/smoke as I gunned it up there. As I walked from my car into the building, the contents of my nose froze as well as my hair that was still slightly damp from showering. All of this is to describe that it is frickin’ cold!!! Puerto Rico, you are looking especially lovely today!

It’s fun to hang out in our back yard. When it is nice outside, it’s one of our favorite things to do. We had a four day weekend this last weekend due to Veteran’s Day and you start to feel human again with a long weekend. It’s amazing how fast your life goes by when you are not paying attention to it and you are doing the 8-5 grind. I wonder if we will feel superhuman with over 2 weeks off? And in Puerto Rican Paradise! Then moving there?…maybe even magical.

Britton Going to Mount Britton in El Yunque

Our friends Matt, Jamie, Erin and Chad are on a cruise in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean as we speak. I wonder what they will think of it. I also found a cool blog by a couple who run a Bed and Breakfast in the rainforest of El Yunque. We would like to eventually do something similar in Puerto Rico.

Cold Dew on the Roses

Another Cold Rose

Leghorn and Kitty at the Back Patio

Schnoodle and the Mums

Close up of one of the mums

Kitty and the Chickens

Chickens

Schnoodle Begging for Food

Last night after watching the Bush Bailout Plan on TV, we went up to make our dinner of nachos (with beans, cheese, buffalo meat, sour  cream, tomatoes, and jalapenos) -YUM!-  Britton was walking with the plate in his hand, and just as I turned out the light to go downstairs with the food, we heard a crash. I thought he had run into the wall when I turned out the light, but when I turned it back on, he was still left holding part of the plate. The rest of it was all over the kitchen floor. The plate had broken on its own.

This seemed completely appropriate for the moment; a crashing plate with a crashing financial system and economy. But yet we did not get any intervention or bailout (should Taco Bell or other nacho institutions give us free nachos?, or maybe they would like to buy our broken plate full??) and neither did all the families who were foreclosed and/or preyed upon. We cleaned it up, salvaged what we could, learned a lesson and will use a better plate that is hopefully better “regulated” for the oven in the future so it doesn’t just shatter in our hands again. And there is always a silver lining: Schnoodle happily licked the floor clean for us so that all we had to do was mop it afterward. I am sure that the big corporations can find a way other than through our money to clean up their mess.