Kaylee is 6 Months Old

She hit 26 weeks over the weekend and as of the previous Tuesday weighs 60  pounds. She is a big puppy. Currently I am treating her for her second urinary tract infection, she's doing better, hopefully 2 weeks of antibiotics will clear it up. Otherwise she is bouncy, adorable, naughty, chewing all sorts of things, including my mahogany entertainment center, but she is a wonderful pup. And most of the time Ziggy likes her, too. I took a couple photos of her in the rare sunshine we had Saturday and here they are.

So dignified in her new pink collar. 

 I can barely believe I got her to sit still for so long because as you can see, Ziggy and Lyra were not cooperating at all!

Speaking of Christmas Trees..

So I mentioned a few moments ago that my sister and I looked at balsam trees on our first walk yesterday. Of the hundreds out in the swamp, from 3 inches tall to 40 feet and up, we found 3 that would do including the one I had selected in November.

First up, the tree I picked out last month and was approved by my brother. This one is the farthest away from the house unless we put on waterproof boots and drag it through the swamp, As my boots leak badly it would have to come back along the trails, about half a mile.

The Original Choice

Second is this nice little tree right by the driveway, it's cute, it's small and probably isn't strong enough to support some of my heftier ornaments. Perhaps next year assuming we are still living here.

Perhaps Next Year

And now there is this third tree we discovered in the apple tree clearing out in the swamp that I probably ignored on my initial scouting trip in November. It's tall, probably close to 15 feet and nicely shaped. We have chosen this one, we shall cut it down today. This ought to be interesting as the last time we did this with a shorter one it sort of fell on me. Wish us luck

THE CHOSEN ONE

Back for the Holidays

My younger sister, boyfriend and pup Lyra, Luna's niece came back to the swamp for Christmas on Friday. Lyra had her head out the window and was making all kinds of noise, she knew where she was going, it was funny. And when Ziggy heard her he started doing the same thing, running about like a maniac like his long lost friend had come home. Here is a video of the insanity when they met.

The next day we went out on our first walk and surveyed possible Christmas trees including the one I had originally picked out a month ago. And then Lyra found a good spot to sniff. and Kaylee had to join her.

On our second walk, later in the afternoon while Lyra ranged ahead, Kaylee found a stick and Ziggy decided he wanted it, too.

It is Snowing

And I have a puppy.

Took me a minute to get my phone camera activated, but upon encountering the initial small accumulation  on the deck, Kaylee decided to eat it and ate her way across. She has since run in and out of the doggie door and jumped onto my lap. Presently she is chewing on things next to Ziggy. The forecast is for 3-5 inches. Walking in it with her ought to be fun.

There was a dusting the other morning, but nothing as puppy entertaining as this. More photos will be forthcoming assuming she doesn't just ignore it.

Kaylee is 5 Months Old Today

It's hard to get a decent photo when she's wrestling, as she was this afternoon with Seamus, the new dog next door. But later this evening I did manage to get this while she was sleeping. She is so cute, and getting so large!

5 months old and sleeping with her tongue out

Seamus and Kaylee slightly paused in wrestling

Seamus is a border collie, blue heeler mix adopted by my neighbor from the local shelter nearly 3 weeks ago. Ziggy and he became fast friends and wrestled like maniacs, keeping Kaylee from joining in due to her size. In less than 3 weeks she is big enough to keep up and poor Ziggy's bad back is keeping him sidelined.

Building Is Done for the Year

Hal has said "enough". I can't blame him because it's only 39 degrees outside and it's gloomy, we've had sleet today, winds are up and down, and this sort of weather has been on and off since the 2 sheets of steel we put up last month. However, we did manage to get two more sheets up on the north side of the house on November 1. Certainly not what we hoped to have done by the end of the year, but you can't control the weather.

A Doggie Door!

It only took us 18 years, and after putting the house up for sale to get around to it, but today Hal built an insert for the sliding door for the doggie door that arrived yesterday. We had to build an insert as the door is not standard so none of the premade ones would fit. It's not pretty but it should do the job assuming Ziggy and Kaylee figure it out. (And just after I typed that Ziggy came to the door and we called and he pushed through! YAY, Ziggy.) We've gotten Kaylee to go through a few times with much encouragement but it needs to become a way of life.

measuring

test fitting

thinking

preparing the space

the door with the cover plate

The finished doggie door

A Couple More Small Pieces of Roof

Sunday and Monday we managed to get 2 more pieces onto the bedroom wing, aka the reverse gable. Sunday was chilly and breezier than the forecast but the first piece was small so we managed. Much nicer weather the next day, 55F and sunny. It made working outside so much nicer. Hopefully we can get 2 more on tomorrow. We have one already cut and drilled and the second one cut and marked for drilling.

Monday one piece in that corner

Hal preparing the roof for more

That Blasted Piece of Steel is Finally Up!

Only 9 days of poor weather had to pass before we again attempted to put on the steel to cover the insulation yesterday. Heavy rain, wind, over and over, it's been a really miserable autumn. And though the forecast was supposed to be lower winds and hot, it did reach 83, the winds started picking up before we were finished, But at least it's up there now. Going to wait for a minimum of 2 good days of weather in a row before we attempt the next 2 sheets. There may not be many of those left this year.

the piece over the front door

Rain and Wind

Day after day. If it isn't raining, it's too windy, but generally it's doing both. Thunderstorms right now and we're just on the southern edge of the storm. As the house is being built 17.5 miles to the northeast, it's a little worse there. Yet even if it dries out this afternoon the winds are supposed to hit 20 mph. Tomorrow is the only partially sunny day in the next 10 days with no rain predicted whatsoever. Tomorrows winds could be 30 mph. we can't win.

Since my previous post, this is all we could accomplish, one piece of steel, couldn't even get the second one up to protect the radiant barrier. Hal screwed a couple of 2x4's along the edge in hopes it will keep the wind from tearing it. I haven't much hope.

Roofing Continues When Possible

The weather has not been cooperation much in the last few weeks. It's either raining or too windy to move large sheets of steel that act like sails that fly away. In fact a few days ago we had a storm that not only knocked the power out at home for 21 hours and 11 minutes but lifted one of our 21 foot sheets of steel off the stack and knocked it around enough to make it unusable so now we will have to buy another. Since then we have placed 2 x 4s on the stacks to hopefully prevent this from happening again.

But within the last few weeks since my house update post on August 31st, we have managed to put up a few sheets of steel on the bedroom wing. We even managed 2 of them yesterday though there was a bit more wind then we were comfortable with.

First Hal had to install the valley flashing between the gables. This is the south side that runs over the bedroom wind and front porch. There is a matching one on the north side.

 After the flashing he had to cut the steel at the appropriate angel and length for each side. Again this is the south side over the bedroom and porch. We still haven't done the other side of the bedroom wing. This we refer to as the steel from hell as it just was not fun to do at all for various reasons, most of them because we had never done this before so there was a steep learning curve.

This is Hal installing steel on the main roof of the north valley. This went very smoothly.

This is how the roof looks as of yesterday afternoon. The only angled pieces left to cut are the ones on the bedroom wing on the north side (see above photo). Hal thinks even with the winds forecast of 10-20 mph we might be able to do these pieces because they are smaller and therefore more controllable. We shall see.

Closeup of Hal securing yesterday's steel.

More Kaylee and Ziggy Photos

Here are a few photos from the past week.

Kaylee loves Duckworth, Luna's toy she got last Christmas and the last toy she carried around (she loved to carry stuffed toys around) the day before I had to let her go. I am so glad Duckworth got adopted. Kaylee sleeps with him every night, too.

Since Ziggy became extremely unhappy being left alone when I took Kaylee to the build with me (she cannot be trusted to stay home alone uncrated yet.) I started taking him, too. When I am not helping Hal I try to pay attention to them and take them on short walks. They still get very bored.

 After a swimming retrieve at Bliss Lake yesterday, relaxing in the shallows.

We're done now, mom, we can go home.

Kaylee Learns to Swim!!

Kaylee and Ziggy have become friends. I'm not saying that she sometimes drives him a little nuts. She is only 13 weeks old and he is closing in on 8 years and is a bit grumpy at times, but for the most part they are getting along great. Lots of wrestling, chasing around, a little tug of war, and yesterday she watched Ziggy swim in the pond. I can only imagine what went through her head was that Ziggy was a magical friend.

Yesterday afternoon my friend Tom took Ziggy, Kaylee, me and his dog Joe to Bliss Lake which turned out to be only 10.5 miles or so from my house though I've never been in the 18 years I've lived here. It was in the deep woods, down seasonal sandy roads and was a lovely place with no one around. The whole idea was to teach Kaylee to swim.

Joe is an English cocker spaniel and he LOVES to retrieve and he LOVES the water. In fact he loves them best together and just charged into the lake over and over. The idea was for him to encourage Kaylee, I think he intimidated her more, instead she splashed around in the shallow parts and waited till he charged back out then jumped on his head.. We kept throwing the stick though and eventually she went out far enough to suddenly find herself off the bottom then panicked and turned around and came back. She was adorable.

Today Ziggy, Kaylee and I went back alone. I figured without Joe's distraction and with me actually wading into the water I might have better luck. I was right. I also brought a floating dog toy with a squeaker she had never seen before. Causing it to squeak got her interest, I tossed it, waded in and here is Kaylee's second attempt at swimming.

After this I just kept tossing and she kept retrieving. At one point Ziggy swam rather far out and she followed, then she seemed to realize where she was and abruptly turned about and headed back to shore.

And one last fairly far toss as I saw she could do it.

If the temperatures weren't dropping back from the 80s into the 60s we could go swimming again. OF course, I do have to also work on the house. Ah well.

Iceberg Ziggy is Melting

Yesterday morning Ziggy finally relented and suddenly he and Kaylee were rolling around on the floor like best pals. Must have lasted a good 5 minutes. It hasn't happened since but he lets her lay next to him and he licks her, lets her lick him. SHe likes to clean his ears the way Luna used to clean Rocket's. It's just great!

I managed to take some video of it.

Short House Update

It's not that Kaylee has caused work to stop on the house. For me there is nothing to do but mow the grass there. Hal has been on the roof of the bedroom wing joining the small gable to the main roof. Plus it's been raining a lot and it's hard to get anything done. He is hopefully getting some good work done today because the next 10 days show nothing but rain or thunderstorms every single day! It's usually dry in August but not this year and so far September is looking worse.

Here are closeups of the purlins and blocking he has been installing this past week.

blocking where the flashing will attach

the many short purlins attaching the gables to each other

Ziggy Plays Rough!!

He decided to chase Kaylee around today and this time she didn't run far away, but it was really one sided. Every time Ziggy caught up he flipped her. Must have happened 3 times or more before she had enough and hid between my legs. He's got close to a 50 pound weight advantage so it's going to be a couple months before she has the confidence and the weight to enjoy that game.

But she's really good at entertaining herself. I fill the little ball with puppy food and she rolls it around eating her way merrily around the room, or in this case the hallway. But when no more comes out, she lets me know it!

A little more Tolerant?

Just snapped these photos tonight. There was no growling though there has been a lot all day long, as usual.

A Pup Update

Took Kaylee for her second set of shots yesterday. She now weighs 18 pounds, almost 6 more than when I got her and she's getting taller. She still has a bit of coccidia and  now has a urinary tract infection, so she's being treated for both. Sometimes I get to sleep 4 whole hours before she want to go outside. Potty training is going well. She rings jingle bells hung on the front door knob when she wants to go out though for some strange reason she's decided to pee on the deck 3 times today rather than go down into the grass. I did find a small puddle by the front door tonight though, the main door was open so the bells were not obvious to her. I'll have to hang some from the storm door now.

Ziggy took a nip out of her this morning when she tried for the bone he was chewing on, though they've been trading it back and off for 3 days. I had to intervene, Ziggy knows he did wrong. (No, I don't beat his butt, but he knows I was unhappy with him. I took the bone away for most of the day.) Tonight though he was eating that bone and she sidled over to him and started cleaning his ear and he did not take offense. Photo isn't great as they were facing away from me, but hopefully the tide is turning.

didn't quite catch the actual cleaning, but they are close

More Kaylee Photos

Not much new to report. Kaylee has been going to the front door and whining or ringing the bells I have hanging there to go outside. But sometime tonight neither Hal nor I noticed he making the giant pee spot in the same place in the kitchen she used a few days ago. Apparently, the odor eliminator stuff I have is too old and is ineffective. I couldn't find anything at the local Meijer grocery store last week so I will have to check Wal-Mart next.

In the meantime, Ziggy is barking at her now more than growling at her. I hope that is a good sign. She is still trying to get him to play and wants to lay next to him, sometimes he allows it, within reason, whatever his reasons are. Here are some of the latest photos.

She digs holes under the deck like Ziggy does

Kaylee in her hole

Kaylee has been discovering water is her friend. Here she is in the front half of what I have named "Rocket's Pool". He used to lay in the back half and Luna in the front. (There is a small downed cedar tree spitting the pool in half.) After Rocket died she took over the back half and Ziggy the front though he never laid in it like my Rocket and Luna did. I wonder how long it will take Kaylee to decide to lay down in it, too. Probably as soon as she discovers she likes mud.

Kaylee has discovered the swamp

She throws herself against the door when she wants in

This last picture happened tonight. Kaylee was there first. I wasn't watching but when I looked again there was Ziggy, too. She was still there when he lay down so maybe there is hope they will be friends eventually.

Under the deck yet again