Doggone!
We no longer have a dog here at the farm. A dog needs lots of love and attention, and he wasn't getting anywhere near as much as he needed. This was the reason I was reluctant to get the Kidling a dog in the first place, but I thought that perhaps he was finally mature enough to take care of a dog. It became pretty evident that just like everything else, he really didn't care that much, especially when there was work involved (like cleaning up after him.)
I also came to realize that while I like dogs very much, I like them best when they are other peoples' dogs. I like to pet them, scratch thier ears, ruffle their coats, all that sort of fun doggy stuff, but I don't want one around here, and I particularly don't want to have to be responsible for taking care of a dog that was not supposed to be my responsibility in the first place.
To that end, I placed an ad in the local paper a week ago, offering him to a good home. I got a response within a day, and today the prospective new owners came by. It took me a while to figure out the accent when I was talking to them on the phone, but I finally realized that they were Hutterites from one of the nearby colonies. When they came by today, I found that it wasn't just one young fellow hoping for a dog, but two! This makes me feel a lot better, as I am sure Nash is going to be much happier in his new home than he was here. He was a little uneasy about this new person at first, but as soon as he figured out that he wasn't here as an invader, he was all tail-waggy and happy. Within a couple of minutes he was nuzzling the boy and licking his face, and the boy seemed very happy with him. With two boys to give him plenty of love and attention, I have no worries about his future.
I'm sure the barn-cats will be a lot happier too, not having a great oaf of a dog lunging at them every chance he got! You could almost hear them singing...
Ding Dong! The Dog is gone!
The doggone dog? The stinking dog!
Ding Dong! The Doggone Dog is gone!
Wake up - sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Doggone Dog is gone.
He's gone where the doggies go,
Yo-Ho! Yo-Ho! Yo-Ho! Yo-ho!
Let's open up and sing, and ring the bells out!
Ding Dong the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
The Doggone Dog is gone!
I suspect that the wildlife that used to be so abundant around here before Nash came will start coming back as well. Some of the braver deer would still come around when they could tell he couldn't get at them, but not so many as before. Now that he won't be here to bark at them all the time, I imagine we'll start seeing more of them again. We may see the foxes again as well; we've seen them across the highway in the neighbour's fields, but not here since Nash arrived. My only concerns there are the deer eating the bushes (Nash actually did more damage there than the deer ever did!) and that a fox might try to grab one of the cats. The cats are pretty wary though, so I think they'll be fine.
The power went out for a little over an hour last night, starting at 9:47pm. This afternoon, I could see why; there's a thick layer of frost built up on some of the lines. Thick fog is pretty common here in the winter, and while it creates beautiful Hoar-Frost on the trees, it creates all kinds of problems with the power-lines. Last Winter, it was bringing lines down because it was getting so heavy - several inches thick on some lines! With such a short outage, I didn't bother firing up the generator, but I'm going to have to make sure I have a jerry-can full of fresh premium fuel ready to go!
In other news, I stopped by the bank yesterday to make sure that the Business Accounts Manager got my paperwork, and he had. He said he still felt that the proposal looked really good, and that he should have an answer for me by next Tuesday or Wednesday! Here's hoping that it will be the answer I want! :)