OT: IvyJane Update

Hi Y'all,

This is a smattering of what happened to us between Dec. 26/08 and Dec

Well Air Canada and Westjet screwed up our Christmas but I wasn't going to let them screw up our New Years Eve. So..... loaded up the van with blankets, food, coffee, spare tires, chains, shovels, candles, and made sure there were plenty of ZZ Top tapes on the dash and Zoooooom! Off to what I thought would be a reasonably enjoyable trip winter or no winter. Cold as h... for first 175 km. Stop for gas, ask for directions. After going nearly 250km realize the idiot gave us the wrong directions. Swear and adjust temper level, schedule now a disaster. It warms up a bit and fog rolls in. Next 300km max speed 50kmph. Visiblility drops to 100 meters. Next 60km raining so hard windshield wipers can hardly handle the job, max speed 40kmph. Rain stops, more fog and visiblility drops to 50 meters, max speed 30kmph. Swear and adjust temper level, most vehicles that pass us disappear into the fog and we can't see them because they don't have their lights on. Saving their batteries I guess. Arrive at destination a day and a half late. Hmmm.. How come everyone is spreaking what sounds like French? Ah, relief, The locals realize that we are Gringos. No Room at the Inn. Been on the road 48+ hrs. Spend a few hours with the people we were supposed to meet rather than a few days that we had planned. Weather closing in again so we decide to load up the new puppy and leave early. Low fog but not too bad for a few 100km. Temperature drops and it snows for 50 or 60km. Temperature rises and we got thunder, lightning, rain and a small tornado. Stop to let storm pass as 8' and 12' signs and trees are flying thru the air in all directions. Temperature drops and it starts to snow again, big time. I just know that it is time to get off the hwy. We can drive but too many nuts passing, you guessed it, they got no lights on. Find a motel somewhere between "nothing and nowhere" and check in. About 75 people follow our example - hah - Ontario Provincial Police have closed the hwy.

Fred

Now I _know_ we are right when we wouldn't dream of going away from home at Christmas and New Year!

Luck I don't need! Eyes in the back of my head would be handy though. Puppy proofing the house was quite easy, puppy proofing my shop is another matter altogether.

Fred

Driving more than half way across the country at Christmas or New Years isn't that much of a problem. One just prepares for the cold and or the snow and you go for it. I didn't plan on it but in the past weather has come up that has made some trips a bit testy. I have driven around tornados in Montana, through vicious thunder storms with tennis ball size hail in North Dakota, through heavy/thick rain in St. Louis that was so bad that if you tried to take a big breath of air one could have drowned, through snow so thick in British Columbia that the avalanche gates came down in front and behind me and I spent the night at the top of a mountain pass, through fog in Campbell River B.C. so thick that my companion had to walk ahead of my vehicle with a light pointing out the edge of the hwy. till we could exit the hwy. safely. I'm not bragging, it just happened that way. I can say without any hesitation, I have never ever had to manipulate my way through ALL of these weather conditions on one supposedly short trip. On the other hand it beats h... out of airport security (officials?) and their searching your extremities with a metal detector! LOL

Fred

There are no rules on how many albums a person may have - the more the merrier, in fact it is maybe better to have more, smaller albums. We could have stitching albums and pet albums.

I believe her !

Sounds like you need to invest in a coffee maker that plugs into the cigarette lighter for your next trip and a small container of coffee for the car; at least you'd have coffee when you need it!

Glad you made it through safely.\

-- Carey in MA

Just looked, very nice Fred, Casey's momma's walker is cute too :)

PAX, Tia Mary >^;;^< (RCTQ Queen of Kitties) Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their whiskers! Visit my Photo albums at

People like that don't suffer from "EFD" or even "ECD" (for Canines). Those people suffer from terminal stupidity! I was beyond my limit at seven cats and as the kitties went to the Rainbow Bridge, I got down to three kitties and stayed that way for about 10 years. That was manageable but when one of those kitties went to the Rainbow Bridge several years ago, I decided that two kitties was plenty. That way each kitty would have a human to love on them and no one would go wanting. The ONLY sane and humane way to keep lots & lots of cats or dogs is to have some sort of kennel set up. Even at that, I don't think the babies get the amount of personal human attention many of them need to become people friendly pets (IvyJane being a good example). If done properly, the babies are kept safe and properly fed and cared for but it's a LOT of work and takes oodles of $$$. I wonder if the elderly woman in the article had bothered to have any of the cats spayed or neutered? VBS -- don't get me started on people who take in loads of stray animals! Better to give your time and $$ to an organization that has a feral animal trap, spay & release program! CiaoMeow >^;;^<

PAX, Tia Mary >^;;^< (RCTQ Queen of Kitties) Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their whiskers! Visit my Photo albums at

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Wow, Fred! Sounds like you're lucky just to make it there & back. Amazing that you had such a wide variety of weather. That little guy had better be worth it. :) He is absolutely adorable!!!! Good to hear you're making progress in the potty-training area...always a good first step. :)

How's your weather? We had record cold temps last night...-34 (-36C)! At least it's not very windy...right now (10am) it's still

-29 (-33C) with -46 (-43C) windchill. YIKES!

Joan

Called a gate - for the time being! Don't have him in the shop. Of course, last time I had a puppy - and had him hanging with us in the framing shop, it was a hard time keeping him out of the framing area with all the glass, etc that would end up on the floor. And then, we'd gate him into the rear office area - still in the work place - but he could see into the LNS. Would look up - while helping a customer, and the guy was climbing the gate like a cat. Oh, well. Fortunately as that continued, although he could get over anything, he learned to just respect the barrier idea. So, now, we can just lean a gate in an open doorway, or the like - and even when it's not really a full blockade, Puckster will just not go there. He ends up sitting on a landing for a lot of big dinners - gate leaning at the base of the stairs - for whatever reason he learned that, and it works.

Good luck with the puppy proofing. My friend - owner of the LNS/Frame shop

- has a gorgewous dainty (hah) Malamuate female. Her son bought Sasha as a puppy when graduating from college - about 4 years ago - uh huh. The dog is definitely here - not with the son and his wife. Lovely dog, and great conmpany - same problem. Store in a different location - so when needed can be sent to the office - which has carpeting and window out front - but keeping her out of the rear workshop can get a little tough. Fortunately this shop is much more open spacewise, and she hasn't knocked over any of the more delicate or elderly customers - she's a big girl. It's really fun when both dogs are in the shop!

Ellice

All I can say is it made me tired just trying to read your adventure! Glad you're all fine, and with puppy!

Ellice

How's your weather? We had record cold temps last night...-34 (-36C)! At least it's not very windy...right now (10am) it's still

-29 (-33C) with -46 (-43C) windchill. YIKES!

Joan

Hi Joan,

We are basking in the throes of global warming again!!

-45º to -50º with the wind chill. My father used to say, "It's winter, get with it".

To a degree - no pun intended, if the temp dropped to -50º it would actually feel warmer because there would be less likelihood of any wind.

Fred

Sounds like you had a great time :) Trips to h.... are always the best ones in retrospect because they make such wonderful memories and stories. You and DS will be talking about this one for years.

MargW

That's what we are having in Ontario as well - it's -23C (-33C with the wind chill) here right now, and it's worse farther north. We get some moderation effect from Lake Ontario.

MargW

In Alaska an editor for a mag. that Marjorie used to write for told her an interesting story about an Alaskan Malamute. It is well known that they get bored very quickly, less than 5 minutes when not sleeping. Anyhooo... A doctor locked up his big mal in his office in his home and he and his wife went out to a restaurant for supper. When they returned home the big mal was sitting on the front step of their house. They thought at first that their house had been burglarized and the thieves had let the big mal out. After finding no signs of a break and enter the doctor went into his office. His big mal had chewed his way out through the wall of the doctor's office. Apparently the big mal suffered no ill effects from chewing through the stone board, wood and aluminium siding.

RCMP will tell you that the natives up north used to knock the teeth out of their mal puppies to prevent them from chewing their wooden sleds, harnesses and canned food supplies, then they used to feed those same dogs frozen fish and seal fat. Knocking the teeth out didn't always prevent the mals from chewing a sled to bits.

Chilkoot could chew a soft drink can to bits faster than you can wink an eye. He liked to go after anything sweet that was left in the can. There were quite a few times when I would notice bits of soft drink can in his stool yet no chewed up can could be found. I guess he must have buried the rest of the can for a snack later and forgot about it.

Marjorie had a giant female mal (Mazie) that would get bored very quickly. I put Mazie in a cage made from 4" x 4" timbers and took Chilkoot for a 1/2 mile walk. When I returned to take Mazie for her walk she had already chewed her way out through the 4" x 4" timbers and was waiting for her turn.

Chilkoot never chewed wood of any kind, Mazie must of had a few Beaver genes in her somewhere, anything made of wood would get turned into chips in minutes. From my experience they hate boredom. Both dogs were well behaved in my van as long as I left the tape player running and didn't leave them for more than 3/4 hour.

These critters like women can be very demanding but you gotta love them!LOL

Fred

Good job you qualified that last statement !!

Wow. That's some dedication to not being bored.

Makes Pucksters penchant for used Q-tips seem harmless (except when he's either throwing them up - or as DH refers to it "BLURFFF"). Our vet was concerned that he likes to eat things that don't pass easily, and that when we catch him quickly after eating something with edges - should make him BLURFF with a dose of hydrogen peroxide. The cans - pretty amazing. The most Puckster has done is styrofoam boxes that had held some baked goods.

Puckster definitely doesn't like to be bored, so we leave him with music on

- sometimes new age, sometimes jazz. And plenty of toys.

Ummm - how to take that? They are lovable. I think that my friend worked really hard with training their Mal, and Sasha is pretty well behaved but definitely wants a visit when I'm there. Which is fine if there aren't other customers. She's quite large, and silver/gray - much like yours. I haven't had any dogs as an adult that didn't require something to do. The BC/Lab would drag his security blankie (towel) around with him, and always herded anything. He was the chewer.

I thought the blue-eyes went with the smaller Huskies, not Mals? Anyhow, thanks for the info - I can tell you're already in love with the new baby.

Ellice