Stay, Good Dog!

Dottie the dog is dead. She stopped eating and wasted away. We took her to the vet for tests but she died before the tests were even done. It was surprising that she lived as long as she did. At least 5 times, I was walking out to shoot her and didn't for some reason. I've never had a dog try my patience like that. She had good qualities. She killed woodchucks and usually offered me the back half of the rabbits that she caught. She had a good heart for a dog. I miss her but I don't think I'll have another dog until I retire. We think Dottie was 16. She had a good run.
The garden is still producing a little. The tomatoes are pretty rough but the peppers are still doing well. The leeks need harvesting and there's a nice stand of swiss chard waiting. I hope we can eat the chard before the frost. I still have to dig potatoes.
I'm reading the last book that I bought at the SF convention. Stacey still remains amazed at the speed that I read. She has to struggle so with her dyslexia. If you're interested in a good zombie book, I recommend Feed by Mira Grant. I enjoyed the method of creating the zombies and the fast paced overall action. The Peshawar Lancers by S.M.Sterling was a good read. I guess you could call it semi-Steampunk alternate history. Stacey worries that I'll run out of books and buy more. This isn't a small worry given the increase in price for even a paperback. Fortunately, there are plenty of free book sites on the net. One little chip and I can store a library. It's a bit harder to read on a netbook than on an actual e-reader but it's worth it.
It looks like I'll be driving even more now. We're picking up service work in Detroit, Columbus and Cincinnati. I'll be working close to traffic on all of them. It's not my favorite type of work but I'm still a long way from retirement.
I need to get back to baking bread. I'd still like to be able to make the kind of crusty, chewy loaf that I can buy in the better bakeries. I can make fairly good breads. My challah is pretty decent. I'll probably have to go to a sourdough yeast to get proper flavor. It should make a good winter project.
That's enough for now. I'll be off to Wauseon in a bit to fix a broken speaker. It's a pretty day for a drive.

October

My Precious! My Precious! My computer is back. I accidentally clicked on an update feature and it locked up. I had to send it in to be wiped and get the OS reloaded. I lost my favorites, some books and some useful info as well. I think I need another 8 gig SD chip to back up a bit more data. I'm glad to have the other half of my brain back. Now I won't have to wait a half an hour for the work computer to load.
The garden won't quit. The tomatoes have large green fruit on them again. Another couple of weeks and I'll harvest again. Stacey is praying for a hard freeze. The big yellow bell peppers are still producing. I've been eating them in my lunch mostly to keep Stacey from throwing them at me. She's had just about all the fresh vegetables she can handle.
The steer has gone to freezer camp and good riddance. All he did was complain. The grass wasn't green enough, the hay wasn't good enough and he was bored. Now he's not. We're going to divide him up 3 ways. I've sold 2 shares so we don't have to eat him all ourselves. We've only eaten half of the last one. Oh Woe Is Us! Forced to eat prime beef day after day. I'm certainly not going to mention veganism around Stacey. My life hangs by a thread now.
The pig is stretching again. I figure he'll be ready around January or February. I've got a lot of beef to eat before then if I'm going to have room to store the pork.
The ducks are only alive at this point because I don't have time to butcher them. Half of our chickens are nearly ready to butcher. I've been thinking about butchering a ewe lamb. The Arabs don't want the ewes. Hunting season is on. Maybe I can fit a deer in as well.
Our great adventure this summer was attending Conclave Science Fiction convention this year. It's been about 10 years since the last one and it was good for me to get back among people that seem normal to me. One of my favorite authors, S.M.Sterling , was there and I got to thank him for his work as well as sit down and talk with him. Stacey attended the artist's forums and bought some items in the auction. All the youngsters ( under 40) were off by themselves gaming. The convention was about a quarter of the size of the conventions I remember. Spacetime Theater is still funny but I thought the Bill and Barry Show was a bit lacking. Maybe it was having to use a Guest Barry. I bought a bunch of books and a cd by Leslie Fish.
The motel was easy to get to and the room was nice but the food in the motel restaurant was lacking. There weren't any good restaurants nearby so we ate there anyway. There wasn't much free time.
I should note that the costumes of choice were Steampunk.
We left early Sunday morning around 9:30. I should say early for Stacey. We headed back to Toledo, had breakfast with the Mom-in-law and hung around until it was time to go to the opera.
The opera was Adrianne Auf Nauxos by Strauss. Frankly, it wasn't the most enjoyable opera I've seen. I've come to like opera because of the projected subtitles. They let me know what the actual story is. This was performed half in English and half in German. I could read the subtitles of the German part but there were no subtitles in the English portion. Opera sung English is hard for me to understand. The performers were good and the music was as well. Stacey fell asleep toward the end giving me a chance to taunt her for a change. I'm usually the one that starts snoring during the dull parts.
Well, that was the fun part of the month so far. Now it's back to shoveling manure. Only 12 to 16 more to go to clean out the sheep pen.