Kevin's Ramblings…

Hera gets her stitches out today. The recovery from her surgery is going well, I guess I’ll get confirmation on that this afternoon. I put her cone on her last night before I went to bed, she hates it. I promised that it was the last night that she needed to wear it. I don’t think she cared. She looks so sad wearing it, it was likely unnecessary, but I wanted to be safe.

I got some bad news on my proposed business yesterday, a minor snag shall we say… The business is no longer for sale, makes it tough to buy. So, I’m going to be looking elsewhere for work. I think I’m going to get my class 1 or 2 license and go from there.

I am planning on visiting Ontario once more while flights are still cheap. I’m planning on a late October trip. I still need to iron out some details, but it should be a great time. I’m not going to drive all over hells half acre this time around, I’ll be spending time in Toronto and St. Catharines. I’ll see a few people I wasn’t able to see on my last trip.

We are having a nice dose of late summer weather here in SW Alberta. The weekend was gorgeous, temps were in the low 20’s all weekend, almost unheard of for this time of year. This week is supposed to be very nice as well, I think it’s supposed to be 23 or 24 (that’s Celsius, not Fahrenheit). The warm weather continues all week, cooling off to 19C for a high on Sunday – I can take that, in fact, I can take that all year round.

I wanted to head to the lake with the dogs yesterday, but Hera is not supposed to get her leg wet while she has her stitches in. So, no lake trip, just a slow walk. She gets her stitches out on Wednesday afternoon. I won’t be bringing Blondie and Twix this time around though, it is supposed to be 26/27C on Wednesday, so, far too warm to leave them in the car for sure.

I need to go and change the ownership of the trailer over to my name today or tomorrow. I am bringing it up to Calgary with me on Saturday so I can stay in it on Saturday night. I have rented a spot to park it in South-East Calgary, $50 a month. I will use it until I am done umpiring Fall Ball and then bring it back home and store it at a friends property for the winter. I am looking forward to Fall Ball, it should be a good time.

I am making some headway on my new career path, should find out more today. I met with both Community Futures and my real estate guy last week. Hopefully something does materialize along these lines, would be great. If not, I have a few backup plans.

Well, after the holiday yesterday (Labour Day), it’s the start of a new week. Have a good one.

It’s Labour Day Weekend, the unofficial end to summer. I live in SW Alberta, in the mountains of the Crowsnest Pass, summer sort of ends in the middle of August when we begin our sometimes short Autumn season. The Labour Day Weekend is often quite cold and we also often have snow at ground level.

This LDW, the weather has been gorgeous. Friday and Saturday, the highs were in the low to mid 20s, which is awesome for this time of year. Last night it didn’t even get that cool out, it’s a balmy 16C right now, pretty good.

The dogs and I went to our old walking place down by Emerald Lake in Sentinel on Friday. Hera was on leash and we took it slow. So slow in fact that Blondie and Twix came back a couple of times to see what was keeping us. We didn’t walk too far, maybe a kilometer in total, but Hera was limping when we got home, so it was obviously too much for her. We took yesterday off, no walk at all, we will go back out today, he limp is gone now, thankfully. I guess I will need to slow the pace down even more and perhaps make it a shorter walk. She is getting stronger though, using her back leg more and more. She goes back to the vet on Wednesday to have her stitches removed. Progress, for sure.

Yesterday, I had a bonfire in my relatively new chimenea. It was a perfect night for it, still warm with a bit of a breeze which kept the fire going. The dogs and I sat out until about 1030, listening to music and me drinking a Mike’s Hard Lime, not a bad Saturday evening for sure.

Today, as I mentioned, we’ll got for another short hike. Hera will need to be on a leash for a while still, another month anyway. She doesn’t really mind, which is great, she’s a great dog. She’s still wearing her cone at night and will do so until she gets her stitches out. She reluctantly wears it and is very happy when I wake up in the morning and the first thing I do is remove the cone.

Enjoy your Labour Day Weekend and hopefully a day off of work tomorrow.

This past Wednesday was a week since Hera’s surgery, so we had a follow-up appointment with the vet. We didn’t go to Calgary to my regular vet, instead, we went to Pincher Creek to a newly opened clinic, Peak Veterinary Hospital and met with the owner who looked over Hera’s stitches and removed her bandages. Hera is progressing very well which is great news. She was cleared to go for on-leash walks to help to strengthen the leg. All is well on the road to recovery.

Hera will have her stitches removed next Wednesday, again, at Peak. My vet up in Calgary sent Peak all of the dogs medical records, I plan on using them as my back-up vet. It’s not a bad drive to Calgary, just over 2 hours, but if I have some sort of emergency, I can get to Pincher Creek in just over 30 minutes. The vet met Blondie and Twix as well and all of the dogs liked her, in fact, Hera even gave her a kiss which is rare for Hera to do, maybe she’s turning into a softy as she gets older.

So, I am hoping to take the dogs for 2 walks a day to help Hera strengthen up. I am sure I won’t get any complaints from the dogs in doing that. It’s good for me as well.

I am meeting today with my realtor/friend to discuss the business that I am looking to buy here in the Pass. I had a phone meeting with Community Futures and they gave me a lot of information. There’s some work to do, so this is sort of step two, I hope it goes well.

Umpiring starts next weekend and I am looking forward to it. I have scheduled myself for 18 games leading up to the first week of October. I have 4 games every weekend for 4 and then I took two Wednesday night games as well. I plan on doing some playoffs and Fall Ball should wrap up by the middle of October. Now, we just need to have decent weather. I plan on using the umpiring money to head back to Ontario for a week at the end of October. I didn’t see some people that I would have liked to have when I was there in August and didn’t see some people as much as I would have liked. The flights are still insanely cheap, $222 return, so I want to take advantage of that for sure, they will go back to “regular” prices, sooner or later.

Well, the weekend is here, or just about anyway. Enjoy your weekend.

Yesterday morning, I went and picked up Blondie and Twix. They were very happy to see me, and I was happy to see them as well. They had a good time but Twix was a bit stressed without Hera for a day or two, she destroyed a blanket, which is very rare for her. I guess she missed Hera more than Hera apparently missed her.

We got home, I went inside to take Hera’s cone off and Hera made it difficult since she was pushing, trying to get outside to see her sisters, her tail was going like crazy. She was VERY happy to see them and they were very happy to see her. Both Blondie and Twix examined Hera’s leg, sniffed it a couple of time and they danced about a bit, although I kept telling Hera to calm down – she was good, she didn’t follow Twix off when she ran into the upper yard.

Hera has still been eating all of her food, so that’s great, she’s been getting all of her doses of medicine. She and I will be visiting Peak Veterinary Hospital this afternoon in Pincher Creek for a follow-up appointment. It was good that our normal vet, in Calgary, supported us going to another vet to have this quick check-up. It means a 30 minute drive as opposed to 2.5 hours. We have another appointment next week and Hera will have her stitches removed. She seems to be on the mend, which is great.

Blondie and Twix might not like me going out with just Hera, but, it’ll be easier than bringing those two as well and then having to leave them in the car.

Fall Ball for Babe Ruth is right around the corner. I have signed up for all of my games for the Fall season, I get back onto the field on September 11 for a double-header on the Saturday and another on the Sunday. I am looking forward to it. I will be bringing my trailer to Calgary and storing it there. Storing it will save me a boatload of cash over hauling it back and forth.

It’s hump day, the weekend is almost here for those who care when it’s the weekend. Have a good one.

Hera finally ate dog food for the first time since her surgery last week today. I didn’t even know she had gone into the mud room and eaten until I came up from downstairs and saw her bowl was empty. That’s great news for me, I was getting a little worried, although she was eating biscuits and human food and drinking lots of water.

Tomorrow morning, I am picking up Blondie and Twix from boarding. I have really enjoyed spending some one on one time with Hera this past week, I wish it could have been for reasons other than having surgery. I don’t think Hera really misses her sisters, I think she’d be perfectly happy being an only dog. When she’s wanted attention, she’s gotten it for as long as she wanted it and no un-named blonde dog barged her way in to get her own attention.

I am pretty sure that Blondie and Twix have missed Hera and will be very happy to be home tomorrow. I am going to leave Hera at home while I go to pick them up, I think it will be easier to manage a reunion here, as opposed to in the car. I think I will stop for ice cream for Blondie and Twix to make up for the ice cream that Hera got yesterday, we’ll do that on the way home.

Hera is doing well. Her stitches look good, no swelling at all, no redness. She goes into the vet on Wednesday for her one week checkup. We aren’t going all the way to Calgary, we are heading to Pincher Creek to our “backup” vet, Peak Veterinary Hospital. She then goes a week Wednesday to have the stitches removed, again, back at Peak. In the middle of the month, all of us head to Calgary for their annual check-ups.

I am back to umpiring for the Fall Ball season, starting on Saturday, September 11. I am looking forward to getting back on the field and hope that we have good weather for Fall Ball which runs until Thanksgiving or so, weather dependent. I will be using the trailer for sleeping overnight. I am also going to store the trailer in Calgary so I am not dragging it back and forth to the Pass, it will save me on gas money – a month of storage is only $60 and I am pretty sure I’d spend more than that on a round trip. I will be doing 2 double-headers for Fall Ball and the temps will be far better than some games this past summer, that’s for sure.

So, Fall is looking good. I am looking forward to it.

I’ve been looking on Facebook Marketplace for the last few months for a trailer. I didn’t want anything too big, something I could pull with my truck, easily. I also didn’t want to spend an arm and a leg.

I saw an ad a few weeks ago for an older trailer, fully renovated though. I decided I’d go and look at it, it was about an hour away. So, off I went.

The couple selling it were great people and they spent quite a bit of time showing me everything the trailer had to offer.

When they originally posted the ad, they were asking $6000 for the trailer, after a week they lowered it to $5500. I negotiated with them and got it for $5000. I was happy with that amount. I went to pick up the trailer on Friday evening.

They went over the furnace, fridge and AC and various features. I didn’t have the correct ball size on my hitch, so he towed it to Pincher Creek for me so I could get the correct ball size at Walmart. Job done, I connected to my truck and headed the 50km home. One thing is for sure, my fuel economy will drop towing my trailer, but that’s ok, it was expected.

My main purpose for the trailer is for a place to stay when I’m umpiring in Calgary. It’s going to save me $70-$100 a night in hotel charges. I’m thinking about finding a place in Calgary to store it, shouldn’t cost me any more than $50 or so a month, that’ll save me $$$ towing it back and forth. I will do some camping in it as well, but camping with 3 dogs will be tough.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the adventures in sure you have.

I left around 6:15am yesterday to get Hera to my vet in Calgary to be examined. The plan was to put her under sedation and do an x-ray to see what damage had been done to her rear-right knee. We had some slight delays in getting to Calgary so we were a few minutes later than I wanted to be.

I had a long talk with the specialist about our options. He showed me how Hera’s knee joint was moving side to side where the left knee was not. For Hera’s size, there was really only one surgical option. If Hera was an older dog, 11 or 12 years old, we likely would have kept her on pain meds, but seeing as she is only 6.5 years old, she hopefully has another 7 years of life left, so surgery was the best option for her.

I was given information on possible complications, although they are rare, they did not sound like fun, at all. Luckily, there were no complications, the only thing that was found was some arthritis in the knee joint. The surgery went well.

I picked her up just before 6pm, she had a bunch of meds to take for a few weeks, of course they all have to be taken with food and Hera doesn’t want to eat today, so the meds have to wait for a bit… She got some rest overnight, she was wearing her cone so she’d leave her leg alone. I got some rest as well, but woke up several times in the night. I have temporarily moved my mattress into the living room so I can be close to Hera.

The next 10-14 days will be the hardest on both Hera and myself. She’s a good dog though and one of the smartest dogs I have ever met, I think she knows not to bother her leg, she’s been good this morning without the cone on. She’s getting around on 3 legs pretty well.

Thanks for the well-wishes on Facebook for a quick recovery. It’s greatly appreciated.

I received an email via LinkedIn from a headhunter looking for a candidate for a position very similar to what I was doing at BDO. It’s a 1 year contract position with IBM. It’s also a remote job, which means I can work from home. The job description looks pretty darn good, so I decided to reply to the email and see where it goes. Working from home is awesome. I know a lot of people have been doing that for the past 12-18 months and some don’t like it, but I worked from home for 6+ years and I love it. We’ll see, can’t hurt asking for additional information at any rate. I have a friend in Ontario who’s worked for IBM for more than 20 years now, so I presume it can’t be too bad.

I got my new Weber BBQ setup and I did my first cook on it yesterday. It has far better even heat than my old one has, that’s for sure. I will admit, I didn’t assemble it myself. I have little patience for such things. The guy who cuts my grass (yes, I have someone who does yardwork for me, I also hate yardwork) assembled it for me. Anyway, it cooked my steak very well, I will need to watch the heat it produces for sure, I could easily burn things. Thus far, I am very happy that I picked it up. I am selling the old BBQ, which is just a year old. It’s in really good shape, so I hope it goes fairly quickly.

I will be dropping Blondie and Twix off at boarding today, sometime this afternoon. Hera will probably wonder where her sisters have gone, but, if any of my dogs will enjoy being an “only” dog, it will be Hera. I think she’ll love it. Now, I am fully hoping that she won’t need to have surgery, but that will be determined tomorrow. My Vet has made me feel comfortable with the specialist that will be examining her tomorrow and if surgery is required, will be performing it. I am heading out tomorrow at 5:30am to get to the clinic for 8am. I should know what’s going on by 9/930am. Hera will be sedated and will have her knee x-rayed. They will be able to determine what’s going on based on the x-ray. If she doesn’t need surgery, we will be able to go home after she comes out of the anesthesia, so likely by noon. If she has surgery, it will be around 5pm. Regardless, Blondie and Twix will be in boarding at least until Thursday morning, or if surgery is needed, for 10-14 days, depending on how Hera’s recovery goes.

I am hoping it was just a strain and surgery isn’t needed, but I will do whatever is best for Hera. Give her some positive thoughts if you would. We appreciate it.

I went kayaking yesterday morning with my across-the-street neighbour. We went to Island Lake as Crowsnest Lake was a bit rough, I wasn’t sure I was quite ready for kayaking in white-capped water as yet. I have to say, I really like my new (to me) kayak. It isn’t quite as long as the one that I had borrowed the last time I went out, so it didn’t seem quite as stable to begin with, but I quickly got used to it.

The winds were rough, coming out of the West, kayaking in that direction required a little extra effort for sure. You also quickly discover the currents on a lake that doesn’t look like it has any currents, at all.

We were out for about an hour, the sun was behind thick clouds and it got rather cold with the wind, so we decided to call it a day. It was my companions first try at kayaking and she loved it. All in all, a good morning to be sure.

We returned the borrowed kayak and headed home. My original plan was to take my dogs back to the same lake so they could go for a swim while summer still held on, sort of anyway. Shortly after I got home it started to rain though, and although I was planning on going to a lake where the dogs would undoubtedly get wet, “rain wet” is different, I can’t even get them to go outside when it’s raining. So, we watched baseball instead. Well, I watched baseball and they napped. It’s a pretty good life for them, I think.

I also went out last night to the Twin Butte General Store which has an amazing Mexican restaurant in it. I had Mexican lasagna, which is basically layers of tortilla shells with refried beans, Mexican rice, salsa, cheese and chicken, all baked with cheese on the top, absolutely amazing meal. If you leave hungry, it’s your own fault because the portions are huge.

So, all in all, it was a pretty good Sunday. I hope you enjoyed yours.