Dylan’s Happy Ever After

My stalker at the back door

I’ve been holding off writing this in case I jinxed things, but it’s been over a week now and all seems to be going well.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of a friend saw Dylan on Facebook and asked about him.  She came up and met him, accompanied by her two sons and their cousin.  The kids were a little awestruck by his size, but he was everything Tracie was expecting, and more.

My stalker at the patio door

We agreed that once he had recovered from being neutered, she would take him home on a trial basis, so last Wednesday she arrived to pick him up, along with her sister, whose car had a dog barrier fitted.  Dylan was coaxed into the car, we gave whatever advice we could think of, handed over the last few scoops of dog food and his micro-chip registration card and watched, fingers crossed, as the little hatchback drove out our gate, with Dylan’s big goofy face looking out at us through the back window.

It sounds like Dylan is in the home from Heaven!  Tracie (being a big softy) couldn’t bear to hear him whining when he was put to bed in the utility room, so he has ended up sleeping in her room.  The boys play ball with him until they’re all just too tired for any more fun, or until he has burst all the balls they can find – whichever happens first!

Dylan loves tennis balls!  He eats at least three a day!

They live in a house in the country, with half an acre of garden, so he has loads of room to run around, and plenty of company during the day, as there are a couple of older children too.  The only problem is cats.  Tracie’s daughter has two kittens, and Dylan thinks they’re fair game, but hopefully he will soon learn they they’re part of his new pack.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed, but when you see a picture like this :

Dog & Boy in perfect symmetry

you kinda get the feeling Dylan has come home.  He’s got two boys to play with, plus two older sisters, PLUS Mum, who he is now shadowing as he shadowed me.  It’s as close to doggie Heaven as you can get!

A tired dog and his boy

Best of luck, big guy!  Aero and Cookie miss you – and I’ll be thinking of you as I clean the paw-prints from around the back door!

Dylan keeping Aero company during hot-tubbing 

Paints and Preserves

I’ve been growing vegetables for a couple of years now, with the help of my friend and sidekick, Denis.  Before I left for France last December, I managed to get garlic and onions down, then I went away and forgot about this place for nearly five months.  Since I’ve come back, the weather has been truly awful – this has been one of the wettest, coldest summers on record.

I planted salad leaves, courgettes and broad beans.  The salad bolted – produced seed heads, with just a couple of tiny leaves clustered at the bottom.  The courgettes sat in the rain, practically shivering, in shock.  I’m sure if they were capable of rational thought they would have been thinking “What a stupid woman – she planted us in the Winter!”  The broad beans were planted in the remains of the muck heap at the back of the arena – out of sight and out of mind – and they were quickly swamped with weeds, as I was distracted by the many other things going on in my life.

But the garlic, onions and my now well-established strawberry bed saved the day.  The strawberries have been turned into jam, which we are slowly working our way through.  Denis will inherit what we don’t eat before departure day – he has a real sweet tooth!  I pickled the shallots and I’m working my way through the rest of the onions.  But the garlic, oh the garlic – what to do…

There’s enough garlic for at least one household for a full year.  I could have made a big fat garlic plait out of it and brought it to Provence with us, but that seemed so wrong – just like bringing coals to Newcastle!  So I researched a couple of recipes for preserving garlic and set Denis to work :

Denis, hard at work
I’ve tried three recipes, one from epicurious, one found by a friend via google.fr which is so simple it can’t possibly work (peel garlic. put in jar. cover with oil. Voilà!) and one for pickling in balsamic vinegar which I adapted slightly.
Garlic pickled in balsamic vinegar, waiting to be bottled
They need to sit and wait for a while, now.  I’m looking forward to trying them in a couple of months.
Left to right, strawberry jam, French pickled garlic, garlic in oil, giant stone jar of British pub-style pickled onions, pickled onions from a very old Irish cookbook and more French pickled garlic
In between pickling and preserving, I’ve been painting.  And packing.  And tidying.  And, dare I say it, the house is READY!  Anyone want to rent a house?  Here’s a few photos, just to give a flavour :
Our Incredibly Tidy House
Now, perhaps, I might actually be able to ride one of my horses…
Oh yes, horses.  
I remember, once upon a time, this used to be a horse blog, before dogs and house stuff took over!  Maybe there will be something horsey to write about tomorrow.

Hello, Emergency Services? My Dog is Stuck up a Tree…

Well, no, thankfully it didn’t go that far, rescue was accomplished by means of a 15ft ladder and a 6ft LSH.

But I’ll start at the beginning… Granny had been press-ganged into helping us this weekend, and was just leaving when Cookie spotted the open door and darted out.  After a brief search of the back garden, she tracked down Skinny Cat and followed him straight up the tree.  Barking coming from about ten feet above my head made it easy to triangulate her position, and the yowling and hissing noises from about three feet above her made it obvious where Skinny was, too. Eventually, he made a leap for freedom, launched himself to the ground, and a few seconds later Cookie followed suit, with a crash and a thump and a few broken branches.  She raced off in the direction the cat had gone, I reassured Granny that she was fine and we said our goodbyes.

I decided to leave Cookie run off some steam before I tried to catch her, so about twenty minutes later I went outside again to find her.  Normally, you just stand still and she whizzes past you after a few minutes, or at least you hear her tags jingling as she runs around.

Nothing.

I called.

She whimpered.

From somewhere above me.  Sigh.

I peered into the tree top and called again.  Branches rustled, the top of the tree waved backwards and forwards, and a little face peered out at me for a moment.  From about as high up as she could possibly be, short of perching on the tree-top like a blackbird.

The white patch is her hind leg

I tried to entice her down, calling her, feeding Cinnamon treats and pretending to find a cat under the car.

No joy.  Apparently, a hyper-terrier will only launch itself from a tree if it’s aimed directly at the tail of a retreating cat.

The LSH was on a conference call.  I sent him a text  “YOUR dog is definitely stuck up a tree.  At least she’s not killing hedgehogs.”

Somehow, he excused himself from the call and appeared on the scene.  The ladder was leaned up against the tree and I held it while he climbed.  Well, I held it until I took this photo, anyway.

Reaching for Cookie

(I was still holding it steady with my foot, though.)

I think Cookie was very happy to be rescued.  He caught her easily and tucked her under his arm while he climbed back down.

Yes! I can see her bum under his arm
Safe on the ground

I’m not sure how I’d describe Cookie’s expression.  Relieved? Chastened? Embarrassed? It’s not her normal look, anyway.

For perspective :

She was just above the highest point of the ladder
Fingers crossed I never have to dial 999 and try to explain that my dog is stuck up a tree.  
Or, worse still, try to explain it to the Reillanne Pompiers in French.  They’d think I was barking mad altogether.
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