puppies – Mermaid on a Raft

06/30/2015 A day of leisure has managed to evade us for quite some time. For the last 2 months our lives have been sheer pandemonium with puppies. Sunday June 21st was the first time before pups, without guests from the states and without a puppy sitter that we dared to leave home together.

I got up and visited with the puppies at a decent time this morning, it was Bill’s morning to get up at 5:30 and let them off the porch, I got to sleep until 7:00. I covet sleep, not having gotten much of it in 8 weeks.

After some smooches on the 3 remaining pups and feeding them their breakfast with yogurt, I made myself breakfast. I decided to wash our bedding so I enjoyed my cup of tea on the deck looking out over the north and south shores while the washing machine did it’s thing.

The pups all went down the steps to the yard to potty so I followed, tea cup still in my hand. I was greeted by umpteen numbers of dog poop piles, 4 big dogs plus 3 pups=massive poop. I chugged the rest of my tea and grabbed the shovel. It’s funny but these boys are like a chain reaction, one poops, they all poop, sometimes in two different spots per poop. Let’s spread the poop around. I am obsessed with cleaning up the poop IMMEDIATELY. I decided against training the pups to poop on the shovel after I considered the emotional ramifications for them so I am still following their hunched over backs and puckered poopers just waiting for the next pile to be expelled.

I got the yard all cleaned up, they had played and were passed out so I came back inside to do some chores. I threw the sheets in the dryer and washed the dishes, dried them and put them away, just in time to make another mess. I had to make rum balls for a party we were going to. I realized we were running late after I got the rum balls ready so while I was making the bed, I used a depilatory on my legs. Except I forgot to time it.

I am the queen of multi-tasking. I got the bed all made, jumped in the shower to wash the stuff off my legs and use a quick razor where I missed..

I still had to feed the puppers before we left, dry my hair and brush my teeth. I got the pups fed and by then I was sweating like a chased pig. I managed to use my Sonic Care toothbrush and my hair dryer at the same time. I was semi successful with both. Do you know you can’t stand a Sonic Care toothbrush up and hover your mouth over it? It DOES NOT work. Trust me.

All of a sudden it was noon and we were leaving with our friends to go to a party, boat access only, and they have a boat!! We had our cooler with some beer and wine and rum balls and we were ready to go.

We made it there in just a few minutes from Oak Ridge, tied the boat up and walked over to the party. There are 2 couples who live in 2 pink houses on this spit of land and it is a perfectly pink paradise.

We got to see friends, ate some fabulous food, had some drinks and enjoyed the surroundings. It is absolutely gorgeous over there and I will be headed back soon with my fins and camera for some serious snorkeling..resident eel and octopus here I come.

This was a superb break from all the hectic things that have been going on in our lives and while I would like to say everyday spent on this glorious island is this tranquil and this much fun, it would be a lie. However, amongst all the pain in the butt things, the difficulty of doing somethings, we are still surrounded by beauty and calm in each direction we look. How we chose to appreciate it is up to us.

On Monday the 29th I went with Nidia and many of the ladies who will be preparing the food for the first ever Senior’s Luncheon to celebrate the residents on the East end of Roatan. It will be held in Punta Gorda, on the grounds of Spy Glass Hill, a beautiful but unused, vacant resort. We met today to have a look at the kitchen, assess what will be needed, plan the menu and figure out how much of everything they will need to buy, down to the spices, sugar and salt. One of the major things is determining if the big gas stove still works, nobody knows how long it’s been since it was last used. Cooking for 400 people is a big job for these ladies who are volunteering to help out.

Each of the different communities represented will have a prize for the oldest person in their community. I’m very confident that a room full of senior residents will have some fabulous stories to share and the amount of island history that they have stored in their heads will unfortunately never be recorded in any history books for generations to come. Many of these people don’t get to see their friends who live in other communities because of the travel involved. This will be a significant social event for all of them, and for all of us fortunate enough to be involved.

The people who built this place did it right, it must have been a fabulous retreat for the guests who stayed there. It was purchased by someone else and nothing has been done with it since.

Our main concern is, does this stove even work?

Soooooooooooooooooo, we still have 3 puppies and for the most part they are good dogs. Still a few accidents on the porch but not too bad considering there are 3 of them and I’m not sure that some of the puddles don’t belong to the Princess of Pee herself. Speaking of Lola, she and Frito are having “these puppies are mine” fights and it is getting out of control. I’m afraid the pups will get in the middle of them. I’m so tired of separating dogs, Lucky hates the pups, actually I think he is terrified of them because he won’t even walk past them so we have to keep him away since he previously grabbed them a few times, then Frito and Lola sparring daily; it’s a little much..and frankly, I’m ready to be done with it.

I’ve been trying to walk the pups, what a circus. These photos really need no captions, they pretty much tell their own story.

I finally have some Heliconia growing, or Lobster Claws, only one flower so far but hopefully I’ll have more soon.

That’s it for now folks, off to see Nadia @ Glam Salon and get my roots recolored to the color they should be and not the color they continually grown out as…What is up with that??

06/06/2015 I am a puppy mother, Lola is the babysitter from hell. SHEER HELL. Holy sheepshit, these pups are getting big and W I L D. And OMG, we love them so darn much it’s scary. Never before have I had this many puppies. Highway was this small but there was only 1, and Lola was small too and thank all the stars in the sky, there is only 1 of her. She is showing them how to dig holes, eat rocks, pee on the porch and chew on anything and everything. The digging holes is the worst, well, that and the fact she is peeing on the porch again. Death becomes her.

529583_10151337457598533_1562466932_n — Highway 6 weeks old Jan. 2013, Roatan

1604875_10152766076218533_7947708875549484009_n — Lola, 7 weeks old, Dec 2014, Roatan

We still have 4 almost 8 week old puppies to care for and let me tell you, this is a game changer. Four is easier than 7, much easier, but. UP AND DOWN THE STAIRS 3,978,645 TIMES A DAY. omgomgomg. Sometimes coming up the steps I actually think I am going to pass out and face plant on the ground, puppies in hands (pretty sure my boobs would envelope them and protect their heads from traumas.) But still. They are heavy. They eat a lot. And they shit a lot too. Add to that 4 BIG dogs. That’s a shitload of dog shit. And we try to clean it up immediately. I usually stand, shovel in hand behind a squatted puppy butt. I actually thought today that I should just train them to shit on the shovel and I wouldn’t even have to scoop. Oh the places my mind goes. I won’t take you there, I promise.

The pups are weaned. Frito still has milk. I read conflicting info and was told conflicting info re the milk still in Fritos’ boobs. I know that with nursing, supply=demand; no pups nursing, no milk being made. However, she was HUGE. Bill made the comment he was afraid they (boobs) were going to self destruct. I assured him it wouldn’t happen but went down to check. Umm, Dolly Parton X’s 8. I milked her. Yes, I damn did. What else could I do? Watch them explode?? Milk was even squirting out of boobs I wasn’t touching. Frito is still in her food obsessed mind set and was bound and determined to lap up all that milk. I tried like hell to stop her but you try and milk a dog AND keep her from drinking the milk. Go ahead. Try it. Hence, there are no photos of this. I didn’t want her to get the milk because it has lots of protein in it and that encourages more milk. I have stopped giving her yogurt during this drying up stage for that very reason. So we are 12 days into it and she still has some milk. I made the HUMONGO mistake of taking her with me for a few quick errands the other day. Well, now my car smells like sour freaking spoiled rotten dog boob milk. The back trunk area where she was now looks like this:

IMG_20150606_150436 — No, it’s not cocaine, it’s baking soda..to absorb the gross milk smell.

So, TERMITES. Yes, we recently had an abnormally insane infestation. This is what a termite nest looks like. Photo courtesy of the Australian Museum.

I have seen termite nests while walking the dogs, I thought they were, well, I don’t know what I thought they were. We have had termite hatches before, a few hundred wings, call it good, go to bed. This time they started early and got progressively worse. Worse to the point I was ready to lock myself in my car to get away from them. Obviously our windows are not sealed well or we would not have had 11 zillion of these things. INSIDE.

So they hatch, swarm, drop their wings, (each have 4) find a mate and nest. Hopefully not in our furniture!

I took the crib/playpen to Miguel last Sunday, he and Estefany were thrilled with it.

Last post I mentioned Eddy and his brothers, they are really sweet boys who have such a grim future. They live with their grandparents who are quite poor, their mother works in Coxen Hole and is gone during the week. They don’t know who their father(s) are. Eddy, the oldest said most mornings they go to school hungry because there is no food until their grandfather gets paid again. The boys didn’t get TOMS shoes when they were distributed at their school because Eddy was ill and since he’s the oldest, if he doesn’t go to school the younger ones don’t either. They have to hitch a ride in the mornings and if they don’t get a ride in time, they go home. Sad state of affairs in the school system here. I talked to Nidia about them and she said we could give them shoes. I measured them and she and I went and got shoes. When I got home today from my volunteer airport greeter gig (beats WalMart greeter hands down) they were here at the house. Bill got them to try on their shoes but he was afraid David’s were too small. David is the one who comes up through the jungle in his bare feet to get wood for his grandmother to cook with, he is 8. Eddy says his grandparents don’t like David. When I got out of my car Eddy came over and hugged me and said thank you for everything. He is the boy we bought a soccer ball for with the money Walt and Judy Kaiser sent to me. I checked David’s shoes and they are fine, tight but room for his toes and they stretch. Each of the boys came over and hugged me and said thank you.

Eddy fell at school and scraped his face on the concrete, looked nasty so we gave him Vitamin E. Today Marcus took a chunk out of his finger cutting a papaya, they had wrapped a piece of cloth around it. Bill put antibacterial creme and a band aid on it and I taped the band aid on. Poor kids. The new TOMS shoes made them extremely happy boys!!

We have both been exhausted, me so tired that food is meaningless. Food is never meaningless to Bill though. He lives to eat, I eat to live. Friday night we had home made potato chips, last night Bill made corn bread, That was dinner. I’m thinking we need to get our act together since next week at this time we will have guests, Bill’s sister Kathy and her granddaughter Jen. We are really looking forward to them visiting so we can show them our island and help them to understand the variety of reasons that we love it here.

We can see the mainland quite clearly today, this doesn’t happen very often.

Boob update: They all seem to be milk free finally. We’re still going to keep her separated from the pups for a few more days in case they try to nurse, give them time to really dry up. YAY for no more milk.

I’m off to puppy sit downstairs, hope your Sunday is half as exciting as mine.

P.S.S. It wasn’t boob milk in my car that smelled, it was urine. She PEED in my car. Damn Damn Damn. Think I got the smell out using Nature’s Miracle Pet Odor Remover. Last ride for the 3 legged dog..

Tag: puppies

Walking the 3 stooges

I milked my dog….