down time

What a relaxing weekend, hard to believe it’s over, if this is what retired life is I’m all in!  Of course, since it is retired life, we will just continue it tomorrow…

Checking the previous blog, we had returned from our second outing in the Falcon Ranch and were going to have a celebratory bourbon. Always a good idea!  The weekend weather was rainy, windy, and unsettled, so we decided to just hang out and do stuff on the boat.  I got the cockpit area cleaned up (removed years of dirt and grime).  I never think about taking a “before” picture but the after picture sure looks pretty good!

Got a lot of rain on Saturday night, and Sunday was both rainy and windy.  Monday is also looking ugly, so we are making plans to have a good outing on Tuesday.  We hope to go north and get through Lock #3.  We tried to get through twice last year and were stymied by barges and my own impatience.  The locks give priority to commercial boat traffic, which makes sense.  I will use my new app, MarineTraffic, to help us get through without too much wait time. 

This next item is probably normal to everyone except us and our York neighbors.  Wal-Mart delivers, and so do restaurants!  Dang!!  Out in our neck of the woods we are so far outside of town that no company would ever deliver.  Heck, even the U.S. mail doesn’t get closer than 3 miles to our house.  But we have now received grocery delivery from Wal-Mart twice and have a list going for the next batch.  I had planned on just taking a cab to the store in different towns where we stopped, but this is great! 'MURICA!!

Biscuit and Roscoe met and played on Sunday.  Roscoe is out on weekends with his family, who have a houseboat berthed across the dock from us.  Biscuit has, of course, alerted everyone in Red Wing that there is Another! Dog! Right! There! for the past several days.  But I could tell he wanted to play, and Roscoe’s owners Adam and Vickie were willing to give it a shot. 

Backstory on Biscuit.  Biscuit was born in Idaho to a border collie breeder/cattle rancher.  He had been purchased by a family who loved him, got him some good obedience training, but then realized that a border collie needs more room to run and doesn’t want to be penned up all day when the family is at school and work.  So they took him back to the breeder, who thought he could get Biscuit re-homed.

Unfortunately, Biscuit’s dad, Wizard, hates all male dogs and beat the crap out of Biscuit.  Wizard wouldn’t even let Biscuit eat with the family, so the breeder had to take him into the house and feed him separately.  Our neighbor Ryan has Biscuit’s sister, Hailey.  She was meeting with the breeder to see about getting another border collie and saw Biscuit there with his face all torn up and looking downcast.  She immediately called Julie and said, “I have a dog you need to see.”

We met the breeder at the Idaho/Montana border on Easter weekend in 2020.  When he pulled up, six dogs bailed out of his truck and started running around, but Biscuit stayed off by himself and wasn’t included in his own pack.  It broke Julie’s heart, so we took him home and have cared for him ever since.  Julie was working from home by then, so she and Biscuit became bestest snuggle buddies!

Because of his treatment by Wizard, he has had a hard time getting comfortable with other dogs.  He tolerated Harper and Hailey, his sisters, but barely.  Among our friends, he did better with females, but still didn’t want to have anything to do with another dog.  He felt threatened and stressed, even with friendly dogs.  He didn’t know how to “play” with them.   Our closest neighbors, John and Deb were ready for a new dog, and Deb got a Newfoundland – making sure to get a female – and named her Willow.

It took Biscuit a few months to warm up to Willow, but eventually they got to be best friends.  Julie and Deb went on a lot of walks together and the dogs were part of that.  Our houses are about 200 yards apart and we have worn a good path between them.  Biscuit has no problem with heading up to see Willow, playing for a while, and then he comes back home. 

One day Deb was cleaning house, it was spring, sunny and a beautiful day so she had the doors open.  Biscuit walked in like he owned the place.  Deb said, “Hi, Biscuit!”  He ignored her, snatched Willow’s newest toy, and went running out the door with Deb chasing him.  Willow sat in her bed and watched the show…

So Biscuit and other dogs has always been a concern for us.  Over the winter we traveled to North Carolina and Biscuit had to live a house with different dogs twice.  When given a lot of time to make introductions, he did just fine.  It’s like he is finally learning how to play (with other dogs’ stolen toys!)

Blessings to all ya’ll!!