Sandbox Training the Cat.

Andrei was here Thursday afternoon and using our electric chainsaw, helped Tanya cut down a dead apple tree and trim up a number of others.  I worked on my report so I could ship a chunk of it out Friday.  I have used chainsaws but they terrify me.  Along with pressure cookers and deep fat fryers.  When you make Clumsy Carp seem like Rudolph Nureyev, you should avoid things that have potential to wreak grievous harm to yourself and others.

Friday morning I helped Tanya clean up all the branches and haul them to a burning pile over on the abandoned lot because it was threatening rain and could have turned to winter before it dried out enough.  The burning pile will still wait for spring as most of it is too damp.  There was a barrel of garbage in the dogs' yard that hadn't been burned in two years.  Mostly dog hair and food bags but likely other stuff too.  I didn't tell Tanya but dumped some BBQ starter on it and lit it just before I went in the house.

It caught and burned as I could see smoke drifting by our north window.  In a couple hours the sky cleared up and the day brightened.  We were both upstairs on our computers when we heard this awful "BOOM".  I said it must be thunder.  Guess there was something in the barrel I didn't know about.  Good thing the dogs were gone.

I had let them out in the morning for a run and they disappeared until this morning.  They were happy to come home and were so tired they could hardly wag their tails.  They are still young enough to stay out all night.  

And such a nice night it was.  The temperature had gone up to +15C (60F) Thursday night and the wind howled all night.  Friday and Friday night it stayed +15C which broke a more than 100 year record in Ukraine.  There are actually lilacs blooming in southeastern Ukraine near the Azov Sea. Crazy weather.

So the flower garden is all ready for winter, if it ever comes.  Earlier in the week we banked loose soil around the bases of the rose bushes and raked most of the leaves and dead flowers off.  I was allowed to help though I almost wrecked it and cut off one of the small stems of a clematis.  Normal for me.

Kuchma is getting old so we will try to keep him in the house most of the winter instead of booting him out at night.  Which means we have to train a 12 year old cat to use a litter box.  I locked him in the passageway between the house and outbuilding with the litter box.  It worked.  He used it.  And didn't use one of Tanya's boxes of dirt covered bulbs and roots.

So I tried it again some time later. He used it again; but only half in the box and half over the edge on the floor.  This presented him with a problem as to covering it so he dragged a floor rag to cover his deposit in box and on floor.  Not very accurate but can't fault him for neatness.

No Shaggy Dog Story

Yesterday the dogs got a haircut.  I had been combing them out all spring to get the soft winter insulation hair but it was still pretty thick.  Tanya felt sorry for them being so hot.  She had clipped them once before a couple of years ago and thought she would try it again. 

Scissors in hand, with  me helping hold the dogs when necessary, she started in; Bobik first.  He is easiest because his hair is all one colour.  It took too long and he got bored with the process but didn't mind it otherwise.

Volk was next.  When we laid him down to clip his belly and legs, he promptly closed his eyes and went to sleep so I guess it didn't bother him too much. 

The cutting was a little ragged (in the goat-chewed category) but as Tanya said, they are village dogs.  And it didn't cost $120 like it used to in Canada for my two little dogs.

Masha is here this evening so I got pictures of her and the dogs.  And a few of the front flower garden as well for good measure.  To take your mind off the haircuts.

Bobik

Volk

Masha

 

 

Front flower garden

Front end of side flower garden

March Winds

Today would have been a perfect day for flying a kite, if I had such a thing.  March winds are howling.  It is +12 and warmer in the sun.  The sky is clear and blue as the top half of our flag.

There is still a few spots of snow on the north sides of things but most of it is now gone.  The creek/river by our place is spread out into the hayland but not like it could have been if we had a fast melt.

Sunday, Tanya pruned the grapevines while I held/moved the big ladder for her.  Masha who had been here for the night, helped clean up the vines after. I got a picture of Tanya dressed for pruning in her teenage jeans with the store-bought raggy holes and patches and wearing her "Goodbye forever, young girl" black felt zipper boots with white fluffy band around the top.  A contradiction in fashion statements.  She said if I put it on the internet she would compost my corpse to grow flowers. I will put it on her computer as wallpaper.

Tanya is itching to get into her flower beds and has started working on anything she can reach from the sidewalk. There are hundreds of shoots coming up in tulip beds, crocus beds, hyacinth beds and daffodil beds.  I have no idea how many bulbs she planted last fall and neither does she.  Lots.

Yesterday we went into town and bought 33 twelve inch square patio blocks, three square meters worth, for under a dollar a block.  These are going into the flower beds in strategic locations so she can work in muddier conditions than last year.

Today she transplanted into individual little pots, 30+ geraniums from seed she saved last fall.  Said it was easier to start new ones than try to keep last years plants alive over winter.  We also picked up her seed order from InterFlora at the post office.

The dogs have stayed in their yard like good boys though they are dying to get loose.  Their yard hasn't been cleaned for months thanks to nice fresh snow falls that saved me the trouble at the time.  Today I went out to clean it and it looked like I had kept cows in there over winter or maybe elephants, instead of Fox Terriers. Fibre soaks up a lot of moisture and the cheap ($30 per 20 kg bag) dog food I buy them has a lot of fibre. Shoveled and swept everything into piles.  Maybe I can hire a corral cleaning contractor to spread them in the fields.

Kuchma has been banned from the house because he stinks up the place something fierce with Tomcat smell. But we made up a soft bed for him mostly in the sun and he can invite the neighbour cat over for meals once in a while.  He sure is lonely for human companionship though.  When we go outside he is meowing and rubbing all over wanting to be petted.  But just don't pick him up.

Andrei hit a huge badger on his way home from Krivii Rih two nights ago and wiped out the front of his Lexus.  Bumper, grill, headlight on one side.  So he borrowed our car.  It needed washing anyway.

Steps have been taken?  No, placed.

Houdini Hounds

It is spring.  Tanya's tulips,  crocuses and hyacinths are up.  The yard, which is all flower garden is a sea of mud.  Bobik and Volk were out of their yard again this morning, mud to the hocks, waiting by the front door  and quite pleased with themselves for being there.

They were not getting out the high window, after all.  Blocking it had no effect on their escapades.  They were getting out at the gate.  But how? I thought they were climbing out over the top between the gate and the house.  I tried blocking the gap with a pipe but that only worked for a day or two.  I wired a metal mesh to the gate to block the gap.  That didn't work.  They couldn't go under the fence as there was no room.

Masha was here last Saturday and she and Babushka were outside enjoying the sunshine.  The dogs apparently saw Masha and immediately Volk was out looking for attention.  Tanya turned to see Bobik in the act of escaping and the puzzle was solved.  If they put their front feet on the foundation ledge at the base of the house and stuck their nose between the gate and the angle iron it was latched to, they could pull the bottom of the gate back towards themselves and squeeze between the gate and the house.  Solution - wire the gate half way down too.

The reason they were out this morning was that I had forgotten to wire the gate yesterday after I fed them. They were hungry this morning and came looking for me.

The gap wired shut

Close up of the solution

Another hard day at the office

Normal rising time is 9:00 am in winter. By 10:00 I was showered and dressed. No idea why - sometimes that doesn't happen until 4:00 pm. Tanya made a pot of tea and I did up yesterday's dishes. There weren't many.

Looked outside and my dogs were on the street. The two dogs live to run on the street for a while, go and visit other dogs in the neighbourhood and then come home and be duly bribed back into their yard. Three days ago Volk discovered how to escape over their high yard fence. Next day Bobik figured it out too. He is a bit slow on the uptake. Not the first escapes. We had to knock down a couple of piles of things that they learned to use to escape over the fence. Last escape was over a year ago.

I tried to find the escape route but no obvious places. Fresh snow yielded no tracks along the fence. Snow along the top of the fence had not been disturbed. There was some old steel fencing leaning against the old outdoor privy about a meter from the fence. No tracks to it but I moved it anyway. If they are still in their yard tomorrow morning, I will know the escape route but not the methodology for covering tracks. Are they reading Westerns?

We went into the city (sometimes I say into town, sometimes into the city, same thing) for dog food, groceries and to pick up a dress Tanya had at the sewing shop. Tanya says she needs a simple sewing machine. Simple. Like her ideal microwave: two buttons - Make Hot; Open Door.

White sugar was $1 per kg. Brown sugar was $10 per kg. I declined the honour until next month. No brown sugar, no desserts. Don't need them anyhow. Anyone coming to visit? Bring brown sugar.

So tonight Tanya is downstairs watching TV and I am upstairs on the computer. Decide it is time for another coffee and start thumpingly down the stairs. Thumpingly because our floors are cold and I have to wear old man slippers aka mules, which I have not yet mastered. Tanya catches my eye and quietly goes "Sssshhh"...long pause...points to sleeping cat and cracks up laughing. Groan.

Gnus and Vous

Tanya went with Andrei to Dnipropetrovs'k today in his Lexus.  He had to go and adjust the seat for her.  The seat adjusts 16 ways to breakfast with a whole collection of buttons.  Too complicated for Tanya, she of the two-button microwave (Make Hot; Open Door).  Tanya would like only one button for seat adjustment "Make Comfortable".

Tomorrow is Tania's birthday.  Masha got some materials from her Babushka and is making her mother a hand-made birthday card. See what you started, Dana, with that lovely card you made? We will be going for ice-cream and cake sometime tomorrow, not sure when yet.

Masha went to school Thursday and Friday and then was home sick Monday and Tuesday.  She told Tanya that she thought she was allergic to school.  Good try. 

Kuchma Kot sits outside the bathroom door in the morning, waiting for Tanya to come out and feed him.  This morning she took too long and he clawed the door open and meowed at her. When we are eating, there is one chair by the table that he jumps up on to wait and hope we feed him something good.  When Masha is here, she sits on that chair.  Kuchma jumps up behind her and tries to push her off the chair. That is HIS chair.

The hounds have been running free for a few hours each day.  However that has ended.  They started collecting girl friends and bringing them home.  Last night, they came home quite cheerfully when I called and I locked them up.  Thirty minutes later they tried to kill each other; serious, no-holds-barred murderous fighting.  This time, I left them to sort it out themselves.  Apparently they did, because a few minutes later they were all best friends again. Their girl friends hang around at night hoping the gate will break or something.  We can hear Bobik and Volk howling pitifully several times during the night.  Tough luck, boys but you can stay home.

The Hard Facts of Life

A big reddish yellow female dog had been hanging around our place for about a week.  I never saw her but Tanya said whenever anyone went outside she would run away through the back garden.  She was sleeping in our yard.  Two days ago, our neighbour from whom we buy milk, Victor, had all his ducks killed and eaten, he assumed by this dog.  He wondered if we had a rifle.

Tanya locked the dog out of the yard.  She dug out the hard path under the gate until she could squeeze herself back into the yard.  Last night, Tanya and Roman found the reason.  Nine little puppies in a nest in our garden shed lean-to. Good sized, healthy little black or brown puppies with their eyes still shut.

No wonder Victor's ducks were eaten and one of our neighbour's rabbits this morning.  She was ravenous trying to feed nine puppies.  And they were still little.  There was no way she could scavenge enough to feed them as they grew and they would simply starve, one by one.Roman would have taken them all home.  Lena would have left him if he had. So he moved them to another spot and put them on a blanket while we debated what to do.  We already knew the answer, we just didn't know how. 

The veterinarian in Zhovti Vody does not euthanize unwanted animals.  There was no way I was going to drown them, or put them in a sack and leave them in the brush to die.  I wished I had a .22 rifle.  We talked about trying to find homes for them.  Yeah, right nine homes?  And it is no use waiting until they are older to put them down. We left it for the night.

This morning Tanya went out to check on things and the mother dog had moved the puppies back to the nest in the corner of the garden shed.  Tanya didn't touch them or speak to the dog.  She started phoning people.  She remembered our neighbour Valerie had a rifle and called him.  He said he would come over in about two hours.

When he arrived, he and Tanya went to where the puppies were.  They were gone.  The mother dog must have felt something was wrong and did everything in her power to keep her babies safe. She is a good mother and is doing her best as she sees it.

It doesn't solve the bigger problem - can she feed them?  Will they starve?  Will there just be  more homeless dogs roaming the country?  Dogs and cats are not neutered in Ukraine.  It is considered unnatural.  And since there is no way to dispose of unwanted pets unless you do it yourself, most people just abandon them. 

People always treat and respect animals just slightly worse than they themselves are treated and respected by society.  it is a hard life.  For man and beast.

A Quiet Easter Sunday

Saturday morning three guys from the gas department were going door to door along our street telling everyone they needed an inspection certificate for their gas furnaces and chimneys every two years or they would be cut off. New regulation, I guess, but Easter weekend???

Tanya called our gas man who couldn't come on Saturday but was Sunday morning at 9:00 OK?  Sure, why not?  He was here for three hours.  Our furnace had not had regular maintenance for a year or so.  It didn't work well most of last winter and we had no hot water, no matter how hard we DEMANDED it for several days.  We need a new connection pipe to the chimney and we may need a new furnace or a very expensive repair to get the hot water heating to work right.  But we don't have to heat water on the stove for dishes, at least.

I had two naps, which is a good Sunday in my books.  Tanya had one long nap.  No gardening yesterday and no business plan writing. We took the dogs and the next door kids for a long walk up to the lake and then had Easter dinner of poached salmon and Salad Olivier.

Today Tanya was up at 6:30 setting out bedding plants.  Over 100 Astors, I think she said.  It is warm and looks like rain so she is anxious to get things in the ground. Two days until we leave does not give us much time. She came in at 9:00 to hot biscuits, fresh coffee and a clean kitchen.  I can do some things.

Kuchma is all happy.  Our neighbour Victor has a new cow so we have farm milk again.  With lots of cream.  There was a litre of store-bought milk in the fridge.  I gave it to the dogs.  They are too dumb to know the difference anyhow.

Here is the picture of the Easter baskets Tanya and Masha made.  I didn't think the picture turned out very good but Tanya said post it anyhow.

Never eat a dead chicken on a windy day

Today was nice enough to do some yard work.  No sun but no wind either and about +5C.  I held the ladder while Tanya pruned the grape vines around our front door.  There is a timing for all this.  Trees are pruned in February.  Grape vines in March.  Last year was our best crop of grapes ever.

Then Tanya gathered winter detritus off the flower beds, while I swept the walks and cleaned up the dog run.  The other day Volk brought home a dead chicken from our neighbour's manure pile and proceeded to eat it.  Bad enough, but in a Force 7 Gale Wind, there were feathers EVERYWHERE.  Especially in the flower garden.

Something to look forward to again this fall .

Not Nureyev

Two more trees gone today.  An apple tree by our neighbour's fence and the cherry tree in our front yard.  I'll do a before and after of our house next time I am out with the camera.  Yuri cut them into stove length blocks which will in a couple years make for very good shashlik fires.  I sure wished I could have turned that cherry tree into usable material for building or turning as the wood grain was just lovely.  As an aside, the nutritionist at Brooks Feedlot said years ago that horses chewed corral rails because they were after the grain in the wood...but I digress.

Yuri was here at 8:30 this morning, so we all went outside to help. The trees were huge and had to be cut down small section at a time to avoid too much collateral damage.  Tanya's flowers took a beating but the fences and windows are still intact.   It was a damp day with a strong west wind and it felt COLD.  No Chinook (Foehn, for the uninitiated) but the temp did go up 10 degrees to to +5C (41F) and it was cold if you worked up a sweat then stood and waited for the next batch of stove length blocks or bunch of branches to haul.

I dressed warm.  T-shirt under my shirt and then dug out my long underwear which I put on about once a year.  They are local bought black tights, (with no feet, thank God).  They fit like a second skin.  Not so much poured in as painted on.  Not a sight for the public but better than white Speedos (gotcha).

Bobik and Volk wanted to help so I let them run.  They played like puppies, wrestling in the deep snow, chasing around and in general, having a wonderful time.  Masha built a snowman and Bobik went over immediately and expressed his approval.  When I finally put them back in their run, they were tired out and glad to go.

I have to bribe them, of course, with treats.  I buy "Studentka Sausiska" at $1 per package of 9.  These are half fat, half milk powder and the rest meat. I cut three up into 18 pieces (3x6) which I feed them one piece at a time as reward for going home.  They are 6 times happier with the 18 pieces than if I gave them the same amount as 1 and 1/2 whole wieners each. I don't know if this is because they are dogs or because they are males.

A Sun Shiny Day

Three days of sun this week; spring must be coming.  Tanya was into the on-line seed catalogues again.  Temps in the -5C range (23F) so it was a good day for walking.  Ronald, the neighbour's dog, has been allowed out of his yard to play when Bobik and Volk have been out so today he went with us on our walk. He likes the company; they mostly ignore him.  Unless I pay attention to him, then they play a rough game of tag in which Ronald is "IT" and tag consists of a nip on the rump. I hope it never gets rougher than that.  Watching the two dogs work together and Ronald defend against both is very interesting.  Smart.

Today we were quite a ways from home when they started this tag game.  Ronald finally got tired of it and ran for home with Bobik and Volk in hot pursuit.  Ronald is all legs and can out run them easily on the straightaway.  They chased him all the way home, then came back to me.  With Ronald right behind them. 

Bobik and Volk are now three years old.  Ronald will be one year old in couple of months.

Bobik and Volk on the front step

Ronald at about 10 months

C ool Paw Bobik

Bobik does not know when he is beaten.  From when they were little puppies Volk has always been top dog and Bobik has always resented it.  When they were little it was good fun for them to be always wrestling and fighting because that is what puppies do.  Then they got older and it got serious.  Bloody serious.

Most of the time when they got into a death struggle, I have been there to sort them out and put them in isolation until the mad wore off.  This fall not so much.  Sometimes when I don't take them for a walk, I just let them run.  One day they didn't come home as they usually do and finally Bobik limped home with one front leg badly chewed up.  Taking out a front leg to cripple is a good fighting trick that dogs use but Volk had never before done that.  At any rate Volk finally came home also looking the worse for wear but certainly not too badly chewed up.  And in a week, Bobik was good as new.

We went for a couple walks and then one day, I let them run again, thinking Bobik had been beaten badly enough maybe he learned.  Nope.  He came home several hours later with the other front leg chewed to ribbons.  I couldn't find that it had been broken, so left him to heal himself (I should have called him Physician).  For two weeks it was pretty swollen and it dangled from the first joint like it was broken.  I figured I would have to put him down. 

Like that was going to happen.  Tanya and the boys would have put me down first, I think.  But at least I stirred things enough that we took him to the vet tonight after 6:00 so if we needed an X-Ray we could get one at the ER as the vet clinic doesn't have a machine. Reminded me of Baxter Black starting out as a vet.  He said a steam roller ran over this lady's dog so he put it in a suitcase and ran it through the airport luggage scanner.  But I digress.

In the mean time, the two mutts got at it again in the yard, Bobik with a bad leg and all.  Too dumb to quit.

So Andrei the veterinarian examined his leg thoroughly and said no it wasn't broken but the tendons were badly damaged in that knuckle joint and it was hot.  Antibiotic injections three times three days apart. antihistamines daily for five days and a compress on the joint daily for 30 minutes for five days.  Bobik is now living in the passage way to the out building and I will be taking him outside for bathroom duty fairly regularly as he has no clue about house training.

Sad to watch him try to lift one hind leg to pee when he only has one front leg.

Are there any News? Not a New.

Tanya decorated for Christmas today and the house looks quite festive.  Pictures to follow when our handy-dandy ISP works again. 

Today we are back to the old and slow one.  Groan.  Volodya, our tech who set up the new system, tried to get us running again Saturday but gave up.  He will come back tomorrow and do something. 

It is actually 0C as I write.  Maybe it will get cold tonight.  It has been so warm, a great many seeds have sprouted in the flower garden so Tanya dug up the seedlings and potted them inside for the winter.  She now has a head start on petunias and phlox for next spring.  The crocuses are even up.  Not good.

Friday I let the dogs out to run about 10:00 and they never came back as they usually do.  Bobik came limping home at 4:00, worse for the wear, bloodied from a gash on his front leg and a chewed ear. No Volk.  I went looking for him and this dog came running up to me and barked at me steady for a couple of minutes. 

Saw Volk briefly yesterday.  He had found himself a paramour.  The dog who barked at me.  Guess she was telling me to mind my own business.  Volk would come home when he was ready.  Or hungry.  He came home today.  Muddy and starved but if dogs can grin. . .  Now instead of Bobik sitting at the fence and crying to go out, they are both being mournful.

I'm trying to write an article for a Ukrainian livestock magazine and have had severe writers block.  I know what I want to say but HOW to say it in a fashion that won't get me deported or shot, yet will still have the desired impact. . . and not be 10 pages long.

Fall Flowers

The last rose of summer

Blooming Idiots

Another week of warm weather and this one will be covered in blossoms

The Constant Gardener

These survived the dogs' diggings

Ronald looks on while Tanya works

Still a few bravely blooming

Windfall apples

Lots more where they came from

Two more dog stories

When Tanya and I were at the train station to go to Kyiv on our way to Turkey we noticed a dog lying on the walk, just resting.  We stopped top talk to her, a two to five year old Beagle-German Shepherd cross of some kind with a beautiful intelligent head.  She was quite friendly. What we didn't notice until we walked on and she followed us, walking on her two front legs only, was that she had lost both back legs about half way up.  Perils of living in a rail yard, I guess. 

Anyhow, she was pretty mobile on two legs, with massive chest and shoulder development.  Tanya immediately worried about who would look after her in winter, but she was obviously well fed and must have had a warm place to sleep.  Not a great life but a life;  making the best of it.

********

About three Februaries ago, I was sitting in the car at the insurance office, waiting for some documents.  Nearby, an old babushka was cutting the small flexible branches from a weeping birch, maybe to weave something, I don't know.  Five or six dogs were playing nearby and one came over to see what she was doing.  She yelled at it and swiped at it with her twigs.  The dog ran off.

A few minutes later it was back with another dog.  the two of them stopped a safe distance from the old lady and proceeded to bark a strip off her hide.  They barked and barked and barked at her.  When they were satisfied that they had told her off sufficiently, they then went about their business.  What sort of names do dogs call people?  "You spawn of a cat"?  "You Mail Delivery Person"?

Kids, Cats and Horticultural Hounds

There have been a few families here with preschoolers.  They are always fun to watch. In one family, the boy, about 5 thinks he is so cool and his sister about 3 agrees totally. He swims pretty good and the girl tags after her mom using water wings to help.  No fear.  She found an friend - another three year old and the two of them had a most wonderful time running, shrieking and splashing around. I love the sound of children laughing.

There were a couple of boys maybe 18 months old. Sun hats and sandals mandatory, swimsuits optional.  Neither had any fear of the water, cold as it was, until you got used to it.  One of the boys loved to wander down the beach with his mom and collect rocks.  Last week there was a maybe 9 month old in an inflatable version of the Walker (remember them when they had wheels and your kids rode them down the basement steps?).  This version was like a life buoy with a seat that allowed the kid's legs to stick out underneath.  This little guy loved the water and would paddle like crazy to reach his mom or his babushka.

***************

The hotel seems to support a number of beggar cats.  I counted at least 10 different cats and kittens that show up at meal time and beg food from the guests. They are very friendly and playful and very accomplished at winning hearts and free food.  Not sure how they will fare this winter when the place shuts down.  Maybe they just move down the street to the big hotels that stay open and cater to Germans who come for the winter.

The dog that hangs around the beach can live off its fat for a few months at least.  And the big orange tom I think mooches from the fishing boats as I never saw him at the hotel.  He was up a tree one day stretched out in the sun sleeping peacefully until he was seen by the guests who all stopped to pat him. Two meters up is not enough to avoid being annoyed.

*************

A week or so before we left, Tanya bought four perennials at the market, took them home and transplanted them.  The dogs promptly dug them up.  Tanya had a bucket 2/3 full of manure which she then  filled with water and left for a few days.  She mixed the manure in the soil around the plants and watered them with water from the pail.  The dogs must have figured anything that smelled that good on top must have buried treasure underneath.  Maybe even a dead goat? Hence the digging.

Tanya tore a verbal strip off their hides.  Half an hour later she found all her shoes and slippers from around the front door in the middle of the street.  I expect it was Volk, He never touched mine, just hers. And you think dogs can't give you the finger?

Volk is the next dog going on Ebay

Volk was being his obstreperous self last night and refused to come home when called.  So I left him.  He treed a cat in the walnut trees across from our bedroom window and barked.  I went out to get him; he ran off. By the time I was back in bed he was back barking at the cat.  After several repeats, I gave up.  Thirty minutes of barking at the cat later, so did Volk. 

At 1:00 am, I went outside and he was huddled on the front porch in the corner behind the door, where he usually waits when he has been bad.  I picked him up, patted him (he is so dejected and woe-ed when he is bad) and carried him to the dog run.  I saw a shoe on the road.  Not a good sign.

We have a basket outside the front door to keep our yard shoes and spare slippers in, along with other tidy-up stuff that accumulates around doors.  After barking at the cat and before hiding behind the door, he hauled my runners, Tanyas runners and a pair of slippers out onto the street.  I found my runners, one of Tanya's and one slipper along the block.  Tanya's other runner showed up this morning in the grass and the slipper is still missing. 

May-B has the right idea.

A Gift of Love

Tanya let the dogs out yesterday for a run.  In appreciation they brought her a chicken.  A dead chicken.  A very very dead and sun-ripened chicken.  Since she seemed less appreciative of their gift than they had perhaps hoped, they kept it themselves and played keep-away at top speed through her flower beds.

I am always happier when Tanya lets the dogs out.  When I let them out and they break her flowers, it is my fault.  When she lets them out it is just the dogs being playful.

Barking Up the Wrong Tree

I've heard the expression all my life, know what it means and where it came from but had never actually seen it until today.  Tanya let the dogs out for a run.  They headed to the marsh for some hunting and flushed a big yellow tomcat, likely a distant relative of Kuchma.  The cat made a run for it across Lucia's garden patch and up one of our three big walnut trees.  The dogs were very excited and pleased with themselves, jumping and barking around the tree.  Then we noticed Volk jumping and barking at the tree beside it.  No cat up that tree.  We looked.  Seems he had forgotten up which tree he chased the cat.  Dumb as a hammer, that boy.

Saturday Night Supper

Tonight Andrei, Tania and Masha went with Tanya and I to Krivii Rih to McDonalds for supper.  Just for something to do.  We had a good three hour visit; Masha got a new pair of shoes to start school and I had my fix of recognizable food.

I like McDonalds.  I realize that the Chardonnay Socialist crowd look down on it but to them I say "Pffft".  The food is good, the restaurant is clean, even the washrooms are spotless.  The staff are friendly, even to each other, they are well organized and they hustle.

While Masha nibbled at her McHappy Meal (she only wants the "free" plastic happiness ) the four adults inhaled 8 Royal Cheeseburgers, two large fries, two large and two regular drinks and we all had McSundae's to go.  For $35.00.  Oh, and $15 for gasoline.

As to the high fat content, one does not eat there every day so what is the big problem? I can go to "Chez Garcon's Bistro", pay three prices and get just as much fat but everyone thinks it is OK (because it is a higher class of fat?).

In other news, the romance seems to be over. Hot weather makes for short tempers.  After several lovers' spats, Masha is spending her time in the house and Maxim has a new squeeze.  Yulichka, the little girl who rode her bike up and down our street all summer, snagged him on the first bounce and threw for home. 

Bobik decided to take a round out of Volk again and got well bloodied for his efforts.  Maybe he will learn.  He has also decided Kuchma is a cat and should be chased up a tree.  This morning Kuchma was up our big apple tree and Bobik was perched about five feet off the ground in the first set of branches.  No one had a camera of course.

It would have been funny except the dogs broke three of Tanya's flowers.