We spent the morning playing at the Cabana while the house was being cleaned and in the afternoon we waited until the tide had dropped enough for us to enjoy a thin strip of beach and some surf. 

 

   

   

It continued to rain on and off all day but we made the best of it. Perhaps there will be a little sunshine tomorrow. 

Monday, the third day of soaking rain which has been a tremendous benefit in bringing most of the fires under control here in Nova Scotia. The South Shore fire is still not tamed but it has been slowed down. 

Beinn   and Robbie   want to say a big hello to their humans and to let them know they are having fun, in spite of the rain.The rest of the gang would rather stay inside where it is dry but Mary and Stephanie insist on them spending time outside. They figure if they can't get back in the house, they'll stand on the veranda or wait in the mudroom for the rain to stop.  

   

After dinner the wind really began to roar , driving the heavy rain into the east side of the house so that the noise was deafening. There were cracks of thunder thrown in for good measure and it wasn't until nine-thirty or so that there was a brief let up and that's when Mary herded us outside so we could take care of our personal business. 

Saturday brought us some much-needed rain.  It also brought us our favourite Australian Shepherd, Remi, for a day of fun.  We said so long to Hazel after breakfast and later Glory Bee was reunited with her owners after her very long stay. She was over the moon when she spotted their car. We suspect she will probably go home and sleep for a few days. We did play outside with Stephanie for a while in the morning while she did poop patrol, but we were not too keen on going to the beach in the cold rain. We just wanted to curl up on a dog bed and have a nice long nap so Stephanie went and ran a few errands in the afternoon and we hung out with Mary. We were a bit miffed when Stephanie came back to prepare our dinner and she didn’t have any special surprises for us, from her trip into the big city.

Sunday morning, we welcomed Tilley for a sleepover after breakfast. It was a bit drier compared to Saturday, so we were keen to get to the beach once our Border Collie friend, Briar Rose, got here for her play day. The high tide had just started to fall so we couldn’t cross the channel and we didn’t have a whole lot of beach to play on but we made the most of it and had a grand time. Felon   was very happy to join the fun today and we enjoyed having her along for the ride. 

We returned to the house just in time to say a fond farewell to Annie as her human arrived back from their trip to collect her. We hunkered down for a nap after we had a nice long drink, while Stephanie did some photo editing and boring computer stuff. Mary was busy making a few loaves of bread and boy did they ever smell good.  Stephanie left just before noon to enjoy an afternoon off, but Desi pulled up the driveway just as she left, so we were soon outside with her playing some games and having good times.  

Another Doodle friend, Rusty, arrived for a little vacation and he was happy to see his pal Mary but is always a little shy of new people. He gave Desi a wide berth but later they became besties. The rain started to fall quite a bit heavier, so we had more naps while Desi and Mary did some things around the house. Desi vacuumed and washed the floors and bunch of dog bed covers.

Shamsky went home mid-afternoon and soon it was time for our dinner. The last arrivals for the day were our favourite Cairn Terrierists, Robbie and Beinn.  They enjoyed being back in Seaforth, despite the rain, and spent a while outside roaming and sniffing everything in sight.

Please enjoy the slideshow, just Click on the link below. 

Rainy Weekend June 3 & 4 2023

 

Oh yeah, Bee   wanted to let everyone know that the silly, drooly dogs didn’t have a clue that she was in the basement for the last few days. It was quite an adventure but she's happy to be going back to her house tomorrow with her big brother, Charlie.

It was very busy at the gate this morning, welcoming our day-visiting friends and making sure that everyone got their bum sniffed. This was the Grimes Gang's    Friday so they got things started with Opal's whip around the yards, totally ignoring the introduction etiquette. They hardly took time to say hello to Hunter  , one of their distant cousins. who was busy in the pool. They just wanted to smell every thing that happened in the preceding two weeks and when Obi                             got tired and wanted to rest, Oak   was good enough to  sit with him. 

Our afternoon trip to the beach with Stephanie was the highlight of the day and we never tire of all that splashing and chasing. Sula and Emo   are really getting into the whole beach experience with us and letting their inner dog loose to act silly.  Drake, Lulu and Oliver did their best to show off the wide variety of diversions.

   

Once we returned to the house, there was a lot to talk about and more to explore as friendships began to be forged. 

    

It started to shower in the late afternoon and it seemed like everyone let out a big sigh of relief as the weather forecast was calling for rain over the next two days which will go a long way to bringing the wildfires under control. The more it rained, the more it seemed that it was washing away what felt like a bad dream although the reality will soon be hitting home for a lot of people who don't have a home anymore.  

In follow-up to our previous DogBlog, we were very pleased to receive a report today that Lucy   took delivery of a new Red Ball. This will help her deal with the loss of Redford who disappeared beneath the waves last week after surrendering to his old war wounds  , inflicted by some overly zealous critters. You can probably appreciate, from her side eye expression,  the thinly veiled threat regarding any attempts to play with her, as yet un-named, new friend. 

So, this news helped take our minds off the continuing wildfire situation, now into its fifth day. Today was the hottest June 1st most of us could ever remember, reaching 33 degrees away from the coast. Fortunately, it didn't get that hot here in Seaforth but it did get up to 27 degrees and we were able to cool off at the beach.   The smoke from the fires continues to be a real stinky issue and it makes our eyes sting so being at the beach takes our mind off it.

    

   

In addition to cooling off at the beach, we enjoyed several romps through the East Pasture and pretending to be crafty hunters. The pump is working in the pond and spraying the water into the air to keep it fresh for the hundreds of goldfish and it also look pretty . 

   

   

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We had a busy day in Seaforth with thirteen day-visitors joining us by nine-o'clock and thinking of lots of ways to enjoy themselves. Bee, our feline visitor downstairs, is keeping a very low profile so much so that no one even knows she's there. We spent some time saying hello to our fellow critters    before Stephanie was ready to escort us to the beach and there we all enjoyed a swim, in spite of the cool temperatures that the wind created. 

    

   

    

You can see from this last photo that the smoke is with us and as the day progressed the haze got thicker and the air quality diminished. 

When we returned rom the beach, we found our favorite napping spots and stretched out for a rest after getting a long cool drink. Throughout the afternoon we found lots of things to keep us amused and we posed for many photos. 

      

 

 

Some of you are probably wondering what Mary was doing all day so you will be happy to know that she has her plate full with lots of general maintenance jobs to tackle with the help of her handyman, Bruce. First, the grass behind the barn and in the McGuinea pen needed to be mowed, so Bruce got busy with that while Mary got the whipper snipper geared up for use. Unfortunately, it didn't cooperate so there will be more work needed to get any weeds whipped. Then Bruce and Mary inspected the back veranda where certain short, but adventurous, little, brown critters have found some access points and one of them managed to crawl under the veranda and needed to be rescued on the weekend. Bruce worked for a couple of hours putting a barrier in place to prevent any further access. 

After lunch, the annual task of setting the pond pumps in place and getting the pond water moving was begun and things went smoothly as Bruce donned his hip waders and got the wharf positioned with the pumps in place. Desi arrived while this job was ongoing, and she added her helpful suggestions before she and Bruce had to depart. Unfortunately, Mary determined that the GFI outlet for the pumps would not reset so she couldn't get the water moving so tomorrow she'll investigate this set-back and see if she can't solve the problem. 

While all this was taking place, many of the day-visitors were picked up and the month of May was fast coming to a close. Tomorrow is forecast to be sunny and very hot so it will be interesting to see if the additional heat plays havoc with fire-fighting efforts. The good news is rain in the forecast for Friday. 

The fire is still creating havoc and more people are being evacuated tonight as it spreads in search of more fuel. Tonight, the change in wind direction has brought us the smoke which is very unpleasant and makes our eyes water. Two of our good buddies, Karter and Charlie, the Golden Boy arrived to stay with us today due to the fire situation. Karter's neighbourhood was extensively damaged and he didn't adjust very well to living in a hotel so his human brought him to stay with us until they figure out what they will do. Tonight, Charlie's human could feel the evacuation call for his neighbourhood getting closer so he decided to leave before the window of opportunity started to close. The bonus was that their cat, Bee, needed to have a place to stay so Mary offered to put Bee up in the lower-level bedroom where she would not have any interaction with dogs she didn't know. 

Now, it will be interesting to see if any of the canines even realize there's a cat downstairs. 

So, the day was sunny but not warm here in Seaforth. It was also house-cleaning day so we moved over to the cabana until  Lavie, Ocean and Maple, arrived to go to the beach with us. Tuesday is Golden Day so we had the usual crowd of seven Goldens here to make merry and do a lot of splashing.  

    

     

   

   

Later, after the house cleaning was done for the day, the folks that mow the grass arrived so Stephanie escorted us to the house and Mary departed with Owen for a vet appointment. We hung out until the grass cutting was all done and Stephanie had some lunch and soon, Mary got back just as most of the day-visitors had departed. Time for dinner!  

Tonight, the plight of so many animals caught up in the fire emergency is really starting to heat up as people have taken to numerous social media platforms in an effort to find their dogs, cats, birds, horses, pigs, chickens  and so on and the desperation is growing by the hour. Many people haven't seen their critters since Sunday and they fear the worst. We're hoping for the best.

It was a cooler day with less wind so, the fire outside Halifax has slowed down, but there are still sixteen thousand people who can't return to their homes. It was a typical Monday, with the usual day-visitors, and Finnigan and Harry joined us to liven up the day. 

Taking advantage of the low tide, we headed down to the beach with Stephanie and had our usual adventures. 

        

   

   

Nikku   arrived to fill his three week obligation as Sheriff of Seaforth and he took a couple of strolls around the yards with us before settling down on his favorite mat. 

  After lunch, Desi arrived and we joined her as she did a major Poop Patrol, expecting the lawn mowing crew to arrive and cut the grass. They didn't arrive, as it turned out so,  we relaxed in the sun and played with one another. Rosie got pick-up by her human and soon all of the day-visitors had found their way to the gate.   

It's Sunday evening and a fire has been burning out of control just west of Halifax in an area of subdivisions. All day a wind blew from the south west and the temperature barely got above fifteen degrees but tonight it is twenty degrees and the wind has shifted out of the north. We watched the huge cloud of smoke move steadily toward the south east but it was high up in the atmosphere, so we couldn't smell it. As dusk approached, the sun was a red ball in the west and evacuations were being announced every few minutes. 

Of course, the evacuations affect people but it also has an impact on so many animals, domestic as well as wild. There are a couple of large riding schools in the area and one of them had to move fifty horses with only a few minutes notice. We hope that any domestic pets, who could not be evacuated with their humans, will be okay. It must be a scary time tonight and we hope the news will be better in the morning. 

We had a couple of hikes to the beach and on Saturday, two of our buddies arrived, Shamsky and Harrington. 

Reggie took his two Golden Girls, Rosie and Glory Bee for a stroll along the edge of the water. 

           

Lucy went out to see if there was any sign of her red ball as Hali directed the search operation from her rock on the beach.  

  

    

Sunday was pretty much the same as Saturday but today our Golden Girl, Molly, arrived just in time to join the fun of an early beach hike which Shamsky   and Harrington   thoroughly enjoyed.

The rest of us took full advantage of the lovely sunny day before returning to the house to stretch out in the warm sun while Mary planted her Beets, Yellow and Green Beans, Cukes and Radish.  

     

   

We followed the usual routine this morning, starting off with a trip to the beach and Lucy, following her customary form, took her best friend along with the intention of having a refreshing swim. Redford has been taking something of a beating lately   showing signs of abuse by some other critters, who shall remain nameless.

This is Redford when Lucy first met him   , a vibrant and Jolly companion. Lucy doesn't want to admit that his time is running out. We think that Redford was her favorite and some of her earlier friends just didn't measure up. 

Navel was a close second but over time he grew pale and he didn't have much bounce. 

    

  

Then there was Blueboy  but Lucy found him too needy and eventually the relationship soured when she discovered he didn't like to swim. 

The gimmicky companions         couldn't hold her interest and the competition for sticks   was too fierce for her liking.

So, today's trip to the beach, just like yesterday's, included Redford   but today Lucy took him into the surf and when she let him go, he filled with water and sank out of sight. We watched as she turned and came back to the water's edge without him and we could see how sad she was but we figured she was giving him a proper burial at sea.  When we returned to the house, we scouted around and got her a prime piece of lumber   to call her own and, while she thanked us for our gift, we knew it couldn't come close to filling the void left by Redford. 

There was lots to do during the remainder of the day as we got to know some new friends and gave Stephanie some good photo ops.

What are you two up to?                                       Who us? Nothin, we're being good.   

   

Lululemon and Lulu Bear enjoy a game of chase.      

 

Hazel and Charlie patrol the veranda and listen to the two Frenchies even though they don't understand a word of French.  

    

There were quite a number of critters to send on their way at four o'clock and, once they were all gone, the rest of us could enjoy our dinner without interruption.