Tony Soprano has nothing on us

All of our birds are back, including, as you can see, some new ones who are an absolute delight.
Lynn has gotten better at identifying some of them (obviously the ducks didn't require any work)
but we also have some Red headed finches and Snowbirds.

Memories

April 19, 2008
Going, going, Gon
Edmonton cop takes down Ottawa suspect
By JON WILLING, SUN MEDIA


OTTAWA -- When Det. Tom Gon wrapped his beefy arm around a suspected thief's throat and dragged him to the floor of an Ottawa restaurant, it was all over.

"I'm a grappler," Gon, 53, explained yesterday. "As soon as I get a guy on the ground, he's mine."



Good on you Tom, keep up the good work! I hope you didn't have to pay for dinner :)

American Idol soldiers on without Carly

Another one of our favorites is gone, I might have to move my support to David Cook

Hopeful Signs

The Chimney for the patio fireplace is becoming more visible as is the wishing well, so we may well be on the way to spring..we can only hope. As you can see Jake is growing steadily and Odo always waits for me to take his picture to unfurl his tail...sheesh..good thing we don't try and show him :)

We're getting hopeful

It's been a week since we have seen snow, the forecast for the coming week gives us temperatures on the plus side some even into the double digits. We are beginning to think that we may survive winter after all. We can see more and more of our flagpole, the front lights are beginning to show and we can see the almost a foot of the side window on the garage.

Odo's surgery went well, he is now wearing a gigantic wrap-around bandage to keep the pressure on his stitches and he is almost back to being his normal self. We'll see how it goes but we are always relieved when he comes through, surgery is always risky but there was no acceptable alternative to dealing with this particular cyst. Keeping Jake off of Odo's back during the last couple of days has been a chore. Loki has been very understanding for the most part. Jake continues to grow at an exponential rate and has really outgrown the bowl we use for feeding the dogs, his daily intake is way more than his brothers so we are going to have to get him a bigger bowl or feed him three times a day which won't go over well with his brothers.

We are all looking forward to having the fence line back to its normal state so that we can use the new dog door. Putting three dogs out manually throughout the day is a royal pain. If I haven't mentioned it before, I will now, stay away from High-Tech pets electronic dog door(hitecpet), we had nothing but trouble with the dog collars and when that wasn't a big enough hassle the door itself became possessed, opening and closing all by itself, to the point we had to shut it down. The companies answer to our problem was to ship them back the door...that's right...remove the door from the wall, pack it up and ship it back. Needless to say we were not impressed. E-mails to the president of the company, who apparently welcomes emails, did not return any of ours. Needless to say, we are not happy customers and will be more than happy to chat with any other dissatisfied customers or potential customers if they want our opinions of this product.

Musical Hops

Funny how American Idol can spark your curiosity about music. David Archuleta sang a song the other night; "You're the Voice", which I had not hear before. Turns out that it was made popular by an Australian singer John Farnham, it has also been covered by Heart and others. Farnham also played Jesus, in the Australian production of Jesus Christ Superstar. So now I have three versions of this song on the ol 'puter, and a new musician to explore. David Cook, also sang a version of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean", that I had never heard before, which led me to that versions creator Chris Cornell. Even though American Idol is an overhyped reality show, it does have unexpected benefits, such as this. If you want to hear the songs, I have included their links here: You're the Voice and Billie Jean Admitting to liking American Idol is akin to admitting you like Abba but what the heck, I'm retired, I'll do what I want :)

Here we go again

They're predicting yet another 20 to 30 cms of snow thursday and friday. Just when we thought it might finally be over, apparently not. It could be worse, we could be getting 50 cms like Newfoundland did so I am really only complaining a little. Jake is growing by leaps and bounds and now weighs almost 25 pounds. I got a couple of snaps of him looking regal and aloof on his mountain of snow but of course that is all bravado, he likes to know where his brothers or Lynn and I are. He is doing well in the housebreaking, he has learned on his own to use the dog door and has now taught his brothers how to use it. Now we have to keep the bathroom door closed otherwise they will escape until the snow has melted enough that the fence can keep them in. Jake is also getting good with his commands, sit, down, come are all excellent, "watch me' works most of the time, he is figuring out upstairs and downstairs, up and off but is still particularly stubborn with "no".