Autumn walks

Best autumn evah! We've had some wonderful walks in the crunching leaves.




This is Southland park. We don't get there very often, but for a change of scenery, we strolled through Carburn park and crossed the bridge to the off-leash park.




It was a beautiful day - warm enough for a dip in the river.












Our perfect autumn was rudely interrupted by a blast of winter, but only for one day. This is the view from my desk at work. Brrrr.




And we're back to Indian Summer...
We've discovered a hidden gem just off Beddington Trail. We used to wander along the bike paths down by Nose Creek there, but that can be a bit busy. Dan works in this area quite often, so he's found a way to get to the trails beyond the bike traffic. We can wander for hours here and only occasionally run into other dog walkers.








There's a little creek about as wide as a large dog.




Yep, just the right size for a little cool down.




Pretty views out over the valley.




We crossed over to the bike path to soak up some sunshine on their bench.




Yesterday was another amazing day, so we headed out to Bragg Creek. One of my Flickr friends recently posted some photos from Beaver Flats and I wanted to see it. Weird - we've seen beaver ponds in Argentina, but not in Canada.
There are a lot of photos, so make yourself comfy.
This is the biggest of the beaver ponds.




























A hot dog.




A cool dude.




A beaver lodge.
























And the road home. Man we live in a beautiful place!




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Bzzzz

Well, who knew that a few wasps would be so expensive?!

Our microwave is 14 yrs old. We inherited the over-the-range model from Bill & Vi when they remodeled their kitchen about 6 or 7 years ago. It worked fine for them, and it's worked fine for us. It probably would've continued to work just fine if it wasn't for the damned wasps.

Because the wasps were getting into the house via the microwave vent, we had to remove the m/w to seal up the hole. We had it on & off the wall a couple of times, and there was a fair amount of shoving and banging to get it back into place both times. While it was down, it also got cleaned like a microwave has never been cleaned before. (at least none that I've owned)

A few days ago, I popped a frozen bagel onto a plate, put it in the oven, turned it on, and it went CRAAACK! I thought the plate had broken, and was surprised to find it still in one piece when I opened the door. The plate was okay, but the microwave was pooched.

So off we go to the appliance store. Note: All of our appliances are second-hand, and in the world of appliances, they're ancient! We bought the dishwasher 20+ years ago from somebody that Dan worked with, and the fridge & stove came from somebody that I work with - at least 10 years ago. So while we're looking at microwaves, we wander through the fridges and stoves and dishwashers too...Do you see where this is going?

While we're debating which brands and finishes we might want, we took a close look at our cabinets and realized that they're dated and starting to look a bit shabby...

So now it's not just a matter of picking up a replacement microwave, now we're looking at a BIG job with lots of BIG decisions. Aaaarrghh!!!

After spending 2 days poring over kitchen make-over sites and getting thoroughly confused and panic-stricken thinking we had to decide everything RIGHT NOW, I finally decided...

Yep, today we went to Lowe's and picked up a cheap counter top microwave, so we can procrastinate indefinitely, and still enjoy m/w popcorn! Ahhh!

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Last minute craft project

The inspiration:

A Colourful Canvas

The ingredients:




The finished product:








The whole thing only took about 2 hours, and that includes the time I spent running around town looking at, and rejecting, about 200 pumpkins. (The ones that looked perfect in the pile all had a lean or a wobble when I sat them on the ground).
Thanksgiving Day is NOT the time to decide to do a craft project like this. Michael's was sold out of all the nice harvest-y coloured ribbons so I had to settle for this wimpy looking one, but over all I was pleased with the result. So was the recipient :)

Thanks to Sue for the idea and the instructions.

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Catching up

I know, I know, I'm a bad blogger. I'm so far behind I don't even remember the chronological order any more, so this is just a random mish mash of stuff.
Taz did eventually end up being a cone head for a few days.




Poor girl was NOT happy about that.




She is perfectly fine now, though. Once the stitches came out, she still looked kind of freaky with bare patches all over, so we shaved her down to try and even it out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Taz & I spent a wonderful afternoon at Big Hill Springs park




It's so pretty there.




Of course Taz's favourite part is the creek.












Then there was a weekend in Canmore. We were puppy sitting Muñeca, so of course there were lots of walks around the pretty paths there, and a couple of visits to the Quarry Lake off leash park.




Had to try out my new shoes.








So we headed to Bragg Creek to hike the Fullerton loop. Unfortunately, we got there at the exact same time as a large group. What are the odds, eh?




We lagged behind until we got to the decision point of the trail, hoping they would do the loop in the clockwise direction, but of course they didn't. I didn't want to listen to them all afternoon, so we went up the steep way. It was a little steeper than I remembered, or maybe I'm a lot older...either way, we were both pooped when we got to the top.




It was worth it though. All the pretty views are on the front side.
















I enjoyed it so much that I went back down the same way.




Stopped at Allen Bill pond for a cool off.








Back in the city. Look at the baby tower!




Sitting at the kitchen table one day, I swatted 4 wasps in about 10 minutes. Obviously, we had a problem. Dan discovered a hole in the outside wall, right by where our microwave vents. He got up before dawn the next day to spray, but it wasn't wholly successful, the wasps were still finding their way in. So, what started as a minor irritation turned into a full scale, 3 day project that involved removing the microwave, cleaning cupboards, plugging the hole, etcetera...




Out for a walk with Taz one morning, I was taking pictures of the sunrise. I turned around and it looked like someone had hung a painting on the side of the Real Estate Board building. Pretty cool. The sunrise pics that I took were crap, but I liked this reflection.




We've had just the best autumn this year. Tuesday we finally got the killing frost, but I grabbed the last of the flowers from the garden just in time.




Couple of cold days this week, but temps are starting to rise again, so the Indian Summer continues :)
It would be good weather to get the city parks cleaned up and ready for winter, but somebody in charge of the Parks Department budget messed up big time, so everybody was laid off early this year. Dan's last day of the season was Thursday - about a month earlier than usual! He's a happy man,! He has a long list of things that he wants to do before we head south.
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This & that

Look what was delivered yesterday - a thank you gift from Enmax!




A beautiful gift basket filled with gardening goodies. Look at this stuff...a planter, a tote bag, a vase, a pail with a ready-to-plant dahlia kit, a bag full of more dahlia bulbs, seeds, knee pads, 3 hand tools, a couple of solar lights, a Welcome To My Garden sign, glow sticks, a roll of twist ties, a nice pair of pruners AND gardening gloves! Wow!




And as if that wasn't enough, there was another little gift bag with this handy dandy mini solar charger for phone, I-pad etc. Pretty cool eh?




Other random stuff...

I usually lose (get trounced!) when playing Lexulous against the computer, But every once in a while I get a good word in. See? I got Cowling(s). Sure, I still lost, but it's always fun to get my name in there.




I actually won a game of computerized Mexican Train. I have a better chance of winning against my computer friends than I do against the real people, but I miss the MEXICAN TRAIN call and the clicky noise of the dominos.




The Smashed Potatoes that I pinned from the Pinterest site were a hit.




But the Hash Brown Casserole that we had for breakfast today was just okay. Unfortunate really, because there's enough to feed a dozen people.




My money laundering experiment.




Remember the big hailstorm that we had a couple of weeks ago? I meant to post this earlier, but forgot. This is 19th street the next morning. Kinda pretty, I thought.




Taz continues to improve daily. The stitches still look like Hell, but they don't seem to be bothering her too much. We're still keeping a close eye on her to make sure she doesn't scratch at them and tear them, but so far, so good.


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BENIGN!!

All of them! :) :) :) :) :)


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Frankendog. Warning- graphic content.

Frankendog! She just needs the little screws at her temples...

We finally took the lumpy old girl in to have some of her many lumps removed.

We know that golden retrievers are something like 60% more likely to develop cancer than any other breed, so even though her vet has been telling us for a while that he wasn't worried about the ones that she had, she's developed more recently, so it seemed prudent to have them checked out.

We identified 7 that were potentially problematic. 2 on her chest, a huge one and a small one on her back, 1 on her tummy, a fair sized one on her right hip, and a small odd- shaped one on the back of her left leg.

She went under the knife yesterday. When we picked her up that afternoon, I almost lost my lunch. My beautiful little girl looks like something out of a horror movie.




The two on her chest were aspirated (needle stuck in and fluid drawn out) and it was determined that they were nothing-to-worry-about lipomas (fatty cysts), so they didn't remove them.

This is the big one on her back. It was also just a lipoma, but we wanted it removed anyway because it was so large. Not that we care about what she looks like, but everybody that pets her kind of freaks out about it and that, in turn, causes me a lot of stress and anxiety.



This little one was also on her back, but it was harder and smaller than the lipomas, so it will be sent to the lab for analysis.




This nasty L-shaped incision is the one on her right hip, it's going to the lab too.




As is this one from her back left leg.




And the one on her tummy.




Poor Taz doesn't have a good side to lie on, so she had a very uncomfortable night last night. She seemed to settle down a bit when we let her up on the bed with us, and even slept for a couple of hours, which means everybody slept for a couple of hours. Albeit uncomfortably. (yawn)

The vet suggested that we put a t-shirt on her to stop her from licking the incisions, beats heck out of those Elizabethan collars, but she doesn't seem to be going at them, so we might dispense with that.




We put it on when we went to the park last night, and this morning, more as a warning to other dog owners that something was wrong, and to reign in their animals around her, but it impedes her movements and catches on the stitches, so I'm thinking it has to go - even if it IS stylish.




Anyway, she seems much better today. She's figured out how to lie down without hurting herself, so she's spent most of the day snoozing.
My co-worker phoned this morning to volunteer to cover my day for me tomorrow so I can stay home with her again. (Thank you, Anne!!!)
Dan will be home with her on Friday, and by the time we have to go back to work on Tuesday, she should be on the mend.

We won't get the results back until next week sometime, but we have our fingers crossed for good news.

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