Yesterday evening was our first weekly dog walk. We're meeting peole and their four-legged canine companions every Thursday to go for a walk. Yesterday we were out for about an hour.
The store was open until 9 due to a girls' night out event in Ada. Vicky worked while Andrew and I walked so that we could both participate in the first one. Nancy walked with us and brought along Alice. I ended up walking her and Nancy went without a dog, but she did have her coffee mug.
Two others joined us with dogs - a volunteer (with a VPC dog) and a VPC supporter. Annette, the volunteer had Yu, a shepherd mix dog that's just about done weaning her litter of puppies. She and Haven seemed to have a competition going on who could pull the most and be out in front. They would have been a good sled dog pair.
Lois had Fiona. Andrew hadn't seen Fiona since we fostered her. She was only witih us for a few hours. She ended up being put with a litter her age and size so that she could learn socialization from her peers. It was obvious that she was taken away from her mom and siblings too early. She would growl at our dogs for no reason. Fiona's all grown up now and doing well. Not a mean bone in her body. She had fun trotting along all of us.
Although the group was small we all chatted and watched the dogs. It was a nice evening weather-wise for the walk. Hopefully we'll continue to get interest in the walk. Even if it ends up being just Andrew and I with one of our dogs each week at least we're getting some exersice!
After the walk Andrew and Haven stayed at the store with me until our 9PM close. Haven had fun greeting all of the people that came in. She of course was hamming it up.
Andrew and I worked on getting 18 photos that I've taken made into blank notecards. We worked with a local printer to have them made and they were delivered yesterday. They look awesome! They're exactly what I was hoping they'd look like. On the back of each card is an image of our sticker and a copyright with my name. And today the first card sold!! And it's fitting that it's a photo of our dogs. You can see the rest of the photos that were made into cards here. Depending on how they sell I'll add more images to the collection over time. I need to think of a good way to add them to the business website so that they can also be purchased there.
This past Sunday I went for a walk to the river. It was a crisp early morning (I left the house a little after 7) with fog lurking.
There wasn't much activity at the river. I'm waiting for when I'm able to see babies swimming around. I did see a few things left behind though.
This past Friday there was a "girls' night out" event at a local greenhouse. I was there with Vicky, Nancy, and Annette, a VPC volunteer. I took a few things to sell. Vicky brought some puppies and kittens. It was nice seeing some familiar faces and also get some interest from some new people. We're starting a weekly dog walk next week, which was given good feedback at least for the idea. We'll see what the turnout is like for the first week.
I walked around for a few minutes to get some food and look at the other vendors. I missed the table with The Move About. A paper about the product ended up in the stuff that we brought back to the store. Annette mentioned that she saw someone demonstrating this product and that it looked neat.
My thoughts on this thing come from looking at the website. I'm not sure if they'd change if I saw one in person or better yet, in action. But I'm thinking that this is more house clutter than being the next greatest gadget to have around. Of course I could be totally off too, but I'm not willing to give it a try.
I just don't know about having a stool that looks like a plunger with a seat on top attached to my butt is something that I would enjoy and find convenient. I'd wonder if it would be more of a hassle, especially if you're doing a task that required moving around quite a bit.
Imagine if you're painting baseboards or pulling weeds. You're constantly moving from one area to another. It doesn't seem like you can just stand up and sit down with this thing. I'd feel like I have to put the plunger looking thing down on the ground or stable it with a hand as I sat down. Then I'd wonder about sitting down too fast and falling over or not having the thing actually balance before weight is put on it.
And if you're working on something that's below knee level when you're sitting down (such as the aformentioned painting baseboards and pulling of weeds) it seems like it would be harder to do these tasks. You'd have to bend over even more from an odd position.
On the website there are photos of a hunter using this product. I'm not sure if that's even practical. What if you got off a shot but for some reason had to chase an animal. Would you really want something danging and bouncing around "back there"? And this is certainly not good if you have a blind in a tree unless you've built a treehouse (which Andrew's uncle has done).
And finally there's the price. Perhaps for $20 I'd think about trying this product if I thought it would be useful. But for $69.95? No way. Especially not for a product I wouldn't be surprised to find on QVC or some infomercial.
One of the goals of 2 Feet 4 Paws is to be as eco-friendly as possible. We carry toys which are made with recycled materials and organic treats. We sell corn based biodegradable poop bags (for dogs of course!) Andrew and I also try and live our lives so that we're friendly to the environment. We put out more items for recycling than we do trash. We purchase organic and locally made or grown items.
One of the blogs that I read is Raise a Green Dog. Many of the products advertised on the side of the blog we sell at our store! On Earth Day last week there was a post of tips on how to have your dog live a more green life. One of the tips was a link to Ideal Bite. You can sign up for a daily email consisting of easy eco-living tips. I've only received one email but I hope to get some more ideas on living green.
I originally thought that we were too far north to feel this morning's earthquake. But maybe not. Andrew and I didn't feel anything. Perhaps we slept through it.
Haven on the other hand did whine this morning and was wandering around our room. This isn't that unusual for her though so I didn't think anything of it. She will often whine and wander when it's getting close to getting up time. Who needs an alarm with Haven around.
But I've been emailing Andrew and the timing of her whining is when the earthquake happened. So maybe she knew something was going on. Beacon didn't react at all. Neither dog acted differently after we got up.
It's finally looking and feeling like spring here. Early spring flowers are blooming. There's a hint of green on the trees. I suspect that we'll see leaves in no time. The river is flooding, another sign of spring.
We've also been seeing rabbits. Haven loves rabbits. She watches out the sliding glass door to the backyard for them to appear. If she sees one she whines and paws at the door until we let her out. She likes chasing them away from the fence. We say the word rabbit, or raaaaaabbiiiiit, and she gets excited looking to see where her friends are outside.
There have been a few times that rabbits have been inside the fence. Unfortunately the dogs killed two of them. We didn't even know they were inside the fence when we let the dogs out. There have been others inside the fence that have been able to escape.
One of the first ones inside the fence a few years ago Haven played with. She chased it around. The poor thing kept jumping at the fence trying to get out. Eventually it got tired and just sat there. Haven sat there too watching, letting the rabbit rest. Eventually it found a spot big enough to escape under the fence.
On my way to work this morning I saw three interesting things:
- An osprey flying over the river
- A guy in a red truck pull over in front of me to stop and look at a roadkill deer on the side of the road
- Cows and their calves wading it pretty high flooded areas
Another weekend is here. Andrew's got a race in the morning. I'll be working once again at the store. Monday Vicky is working for me. Andrew's taking the day off. It should be nice out so we're planning on doing something fun, which will probably include the dogs.
I picked up a puppy named Gail on my way to work this morning. She was adopted at the Pet Expo over the weekend but wasn't getting picked up until today. I got to spend a couple of hours with her at the store before her new family came to take her home. Her new name is Daisy Nightingale.
Vicky is calling this litter "brussells" since they're mom is a beagle and it looks like dad could have been a Jack Russell Terrier (with a stool?!). Out of the seven in the litter all but two were adopted over the weekend. This group of puppies is one of the cutest around. They were a hit at the Pet Expo.
In addition to Gail going home two of the cats at the Critter Cottage also went home today! One of them was Bentley who had been in the program for almost a year.
Andrew was off on Friday but worked at the store while I went and set up our things for the Pet Expo, which is today and tomorrow. We had the Today Show on in the background and saw that New Kids on the Block were on. Andrew always makes fun of me for having a couple year "boy band phase" when I was in 8th grade and the first year of high school during the Haning' Tough and Step by Step albums.
I loved NKOTB. I even went to two or three concerts (I can't remember which). I even won front row tickets from a radio station!!! [I also won front row tickets to see MC Hammer with Vanilla Ice as the opener!] Apparently I had never told Andrew that while at the concert where I had front row seats that all of the New Kids touched me.
Andrew, having never been to a concert, asked if I just held my hand up, if they shook my hand, or what exactly you do. Somewhere in our basement I also have photos from this concert because I snuck a camera in. They are crappy photos but photos nonetheless.
Also in our basement are all of the fan crap that I had to have. I've been meaning to give the stuff away for years but it still sits there. I might have some good timing now with the group making a reunion album. I even looked on eBay and a bunch of stuff that I have is actually selling for a fair amount of money. I looked years ago and it wasn't going for anything worth the time trying to sell the stuff online.
Andrew also laughed at me on Friday when the crowd was shown on the Today Show during the announcement that New Kids were making music again together and I saw people holding old "vintage" items that I have. "I have that!" resulted in laughter from Andrew. If I sell this stuff we'll see if I share any of the proceeds with him. My short boy band craze could literally pay off a little now.
I've had a long list of things to do this week. It seems like as the day progresses (and then the week) something happens so I'm not able to do as much as I'd like.
The beginning of the month is typically busy. I have to make sure certain month end things are done in a timely manner. The last day of March was Monday. This was also the last day of the VPC food drive, which meant a busy day answering the phone taking orders. The dogs eventually rallied enough supports to chase off the cats but the winner wasn't determined until almost closing time!
We finished our taxes over the weekend. But I still have to make the good copies that we're sending off. We ended up doing them by hand again this year. Turbo Tax wasn't figuring things correctly. And we both like reading about how numbers are figured out rather than answering questions and trusting a computer program to do things correctly. Even with the business thrown in they weren't too bad to do. Finding time to do them was the issue. This is the latest I've ever filed taxes!
The first week of every month I send out an email called Tails from the Critter Cottage. It goes out to VPC supporters as well as those who come into the store and want to be informed of different things Critter Cottage related. This is the third monthly email that I've sent out. They're fun to work on and have gotten a lot of good feedback. I hope to add more VPC email addresses when it's announced in the next paper newsletter that a monthly email is sent out.
The Pet Expo is this weekend. Two full, busy days. I've been working on getting things together that we'll be taking. Signs still have to be made. Things have to be set up tomorrow. I'll be doing that while Andrew uses a vacation day and works at the store. I'll man (or woman) the store Saturday and then head to the expo for the last two hours. Andrew and I will both be there on Sunday.
In what little spare time I have (actually I've had none, I've just put off things on my list) I've also been helping Vicky with processing some applications and trying to set up adoptions. I also set up a PayPal account and put a donation button on the VPC website to hopefully help generate more donations. Another step in making VPC more technologically sound.
Most of the time I don't look forward to Mondays because is means our one day weekend is over. But this week Monday means that it should be the start of a slower week.
It has been a while since I've posted here! Andrew and I have been pretty busy. We'll continue to not have much free time. Next weekend is the Pet Expo. I will be working at the store on Saturday and will head to the expo to meet Andrew for the last few hours. Sunday we'll both be there all day.
I've also been working on the business blog. We decided to discontinue posting in Why Dogs? and move that content to the business blog. I spent some time recreating all of the old posts so that there was something for people to read. Since then I've been posting from time to time there. We hope to have at least one blog post a week. Andrew has some ideas for articles to write about. We'll be posting things about cats, dogs, wild birds, items we sell in the store, and even what's going on with Beacon and Haven. Hopefully it will become a place that people check out on a regular basis.
My voice is finally just about back to normal. There's still a hint of rasp in my voice but for the most part it's back. It's about time - a month!! I can tell that it gets a little worse if I'm talking more throughout the day. At least the worst is over.
We got more snow last night. We've already made the record books for having the second snowiest winter in history this season. They were calling for 2-5 inches but we ended up with an inch or less here. I think further south there was more snow. I'm ready for spring!! Temps should be in the 40s next week. It'll feel like a heat wave.
I stopped by the river today on my way to work and took some photos. I saw some mergansers and buffleheads but didn't get any good photos of them because they were too far away. There was lots of bird noises and movement on the river. All of the geese and mallards are fighting for mates and the best territory to lay eggs. This means lots of commotion.
A swan swam by and stopped at the boat launch for some early morning preening. After feathers were zipped back into place it was off for a swim.
There were also quite a few gulls circling in the sky and floating in the river. These two reminded me of Finding Nemo.
