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Friday, July 25, 2008

With The Pleasure Comes The Pain

I love my house. I love owning a house, even if I’m just co-owning with those obnoxious mortgage company people. There are so many reasons I love my house, I’m not even going to bother listing them. I love that I have a yard to take care of (even if the front is mostly weeds). I even enjoy mowing my yard, most of the time. Just not in July, when its ridiculously hot and humid. Last summer wasn’t too bad, because it almost never rained, and Amy’s son was mowing the yard most weeks. Up until the falling out, of course, and then the mowing became mine again. This summer, though, the weather has been against me. When I have time, its raining or 100 degrees with a wall of humidity. When I don’t have time, its dry and cool. I knew the humidity was supposed to go back up today, so I made a point yesterday of getting out of the office at a reasonable hour so I could mow the grass. Both yards had to be done, because the front was looking extremely bad (not much grass, but a lot of really tall weeds), and the grass in the back was getting tall enough that I was worried about losing the dogs. I started about 7:30, and got finished shortly before dark. Tonight I’m going to do the weed-eating, since John was so kind as to fix the weed eater (thanks, John!).

Reyna and I have come to an agreement about mowing the back yard. She gets to bark at the mower for a few minutes and bite the front wheels four times, and then she has to go lay down. I have to put her ball where she can’t find it, otherwise she’ll drop it directly in front of the mower over and over, waiting on me to throw it. Duncan, of course, wants nothing to do with the mower, but he can’t stand to be inside without us, so he tries to find a resting spot that’s out of my way. Sometimes he succeeds, sometimes he has to move a few times. Last night was actually a good night to mow, though. It was fairly cool, and the dogs were feeling peppy. At one point, I stopped mowing (but left the mower running, so as not to distract Reyna), and watched them run around the yard and wrestle for about five minutes. They were having so much fun, rolling around in the damp grass cuttings. Some people don’t think animals can smile, but the expression on Duncan’s face was very clearly a huge grin of pure joy.

In other news, I decided to try a can of pennies as a correction tool to decrease the amount of Reyna’s boredom barking. It was actually moderately effective. She doesn’t seem to think it’s a punishment of any kind, but it does distract her enough that she stops the barking. We’ll see if that continues. Duncan seems to have decided it’s The Can From Hell, which is too bad, since he never actually does anything to warrant the correction. After using it only a few times, Duncan has started flinching and moving away from the can when Reyna barks. Yes, that's right. He has figured out why I’m shaking the can. I'm telling you, he's smarter than he lets on...

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