Sunday, February 26, 2017

Feb.26, 2017

Well I did have a good start to the day. I had written 3 or 4 long paragraphs here and then I it something when I reached to turn off my alarm and lost it all. Lesson learned - hit the save button from time to time you idiot.

I was earlier than usual for me as I got up to put the dogs out. The rooster was crowing and Nick's dog was barking to out. She barks short high pitched barks at 5 or 10 minute intervals, as if to only awaken one person and not the whole house. The rooster doesn't bother me at all although he does wake me up every morning. Sometimes it is at 4am and sometimes at 7am but he will crow half a dozen times or so and then stop. I always smile to myself when I hear him.
Most days I let Nick get up to look after the dogs mostly because it is his dog who is doing the barking and also because he doesn't put the dogs out one last time before he goes to bed which is often in the wee hours of the next day. I do this before I head upstairs for the night but this is more like 11pm.
Let me mention while I am on the subject that it was I who bought the dog for Nick, specifically for Nick's son. Nick kept telling me that he had promised his son when he was little that he would buy a dog for him, and it was a Doberman that he son wanted. Probably because Nick had owned Dobermans before and I am certain this had some influence on his choice. But his son's mother wouldn't permit a dog in her home and Nick didn't want to be tied down to a dog when he was single.
My Golden Retriever-Lab cross was at Nick's most of the time where I stayed when my daughters were away at university so I told Nick if he was ever going to get a dog for his son he should do it soon as he would soon be old enough to move out on his own. Nick didn't have the money to buy a puppy and because I was so foolishly in love at the time I offered to pay for it. Besides everyone adores puppies.
Nick found a puppy he liked on-line and she was flown down from Ontario - this is quite often done. He started to train her to be an attack dog but I insisted he stop this when my daughters expressed concern for their safety and that of their friends when staying at or visiting the farm. I myself didn't want to be responsible for having such an animal in my home. Being a Doberman she is still aggressive with strangers but if she is introduced slowly and in the right environment she will accept them as non-threatening and will ignore them. This we usually do outside of the house and with treats.
I must also mention that the same summer as we got the puppy I also purchased a second hand car for Nick to drive as the van he had was completely unsafe. He later got himself a new vehicle and I asked him several times what had happened to the car I had bought. I felt we could get at least half of what I paid for it but I never did really find out where it ended up. I am guessing he sold it or gave it to someone. This should have been a red flag but I chose to rationalize it out of the picture. Another lesson learned the hard way. You would think I would know by now that the old sayings about life never fail to be the truth.

I arrived home from work last evening around 6:30 or so to find Nick in the house dressed in street clothes, as opposed to barn clothes. It was also apparent that he had gotten a haircut sometime during the course of the day. I mentioned to him that I had noticed the barn lights were on, which happens quite a bit when he comes inside to get a coffee or use the bathroom and then ends up sitting down at his computer for an hour or so. But this time I found it odd because of the fact he still had street clothes on and had obviously not been out to the barn since arriving home. He replied that 'someone else must have been out there' implying it was this Chris person, up to no good and probably up to stealing. I know this was a lie and that it was Nick himself who had left the lights on, likely all day, as he does quite frequently especially when it is sunny and the difference between being in the barn and going outside is not so stark. I am constantly reminding him to turn the lights off when he comes in - I am never able to pay the power bill in full each time it arrives in the mail. It is for this same reason that I go to bed most nights dressed in two pairs of socks, a T-shirt and a pyjama shirt and a sweatshirt, a pair of jeans, a knit hat and one of those indoor scarves wrapped three times around my neck to stay warm without turning on the electric heat in the bedroom.

I dawdled around for about half an hour or so after Nick went out because I knew he hadn't done the shovelling yet and I felt like being stubborn and letting him do it by himself. The forecast was for heavy rain overnight so after helping to bring the horses in and feed them I closed up the hens and worried about the leaky barn roof which I could do nothing about. By this time it was 8:30pm and as I walked by the tractor parked in the yard I noticed that there still wasn't any plastic or anything covering where the door had been broken and there wasn't anything protecting the dash or seat. I unleashed my frustration about this on Nick, emphasizing that I wanted and expected to recoup as much of my investment in the tractor as possible when the time came to sell it. Again Nick blamed the entire thing on the Chris guy and suggested that maybe it should be he who did something about the missing door. But he did go into the garage to get stuff  to put up a makeshift covering although I haven't been out yet to see what it is. I do know that we got a lot of rain last night as I heard it start shortly after I went to bed and it continued beating on the window for several hours.

I just heard Nick get up and feed the dogs. I have been on my computer now for a couple of hours with my relatively early rise eaten up by having to make this entry twice. I am so happy I have tomorrow off as well.