We have a winner

The contest entries were excellent! Every one of them.

Thank you all for playing.

The names were:

Ozzie- Mom/Grandma

Saylor-Jackie

Angusor Achilles- Andrew 

Harley or Buddy- Amy

Popcorn-Mel

T-Bone- From the breeder

Julie and I debated about the merits of each name.  

As much as the name Popcorn might be appropriate for a high energy animal, but I could not picture myself calling a dog by that name and still keep my man card.

I liked Harley, but I have a friend who calls his dog that. I also call Andrew and Titus,  Buddy sometimes, I don't know exactly why.

Angus is what you call beef. Achilles might have been a great warrior, but his name implies weak ankle muscles today.

The dog didn't really respond to Saylor.  

The dog did respond to T-bone, but we wouldn't want him to be confused with steak.

So, the winner for two very good reasons is Ozzie.

One, because of his lineage, Oz- Australia and two, while we were out in the yard today, I found him playing with a dead bird, so Ozzie ( as in Osbourne) it is. 

Thank you all again for playing along.  

BTW: The dog is learning "Come" "Sit" and "Fetch". 

He is a very quick study and gets along well with Titus and sometimes Zoe.

We're Having a Contest!!!!!

The prize is naming rights to our new pup. It's an Australian sheepdog, like what Amy and Jason have. We figured we might as well let the whole family in since don't have a name for him ourselves. The breeder called him T-Bone, which I guess should go on the list also, in case no -one comes up with a better handle. 

We picked him up this afternoon.  He's getting comfortable quickly with Titus and Zoe, although he does whine when he's in his cage. We think he will make a fine addition to the family and a decent work dog, maybe he can teach the old dogs a thing or two. 

So help us name our dog, please. We'll announce the winner in the next blog entry. 

T3

Winter is still with us. Darn!!

Hello family,
We were beginning to think that spring was starting to come into our area. Not really. We expected 4 to 6 inches of snow Wed. night into Thurs. morning. Well Wednesday night the snow did start but sometime during the night the rain joined it and by morning the snow was a terrible combination of slop. Then during the early hours of Friday we got 5 1/2 inches of snow, and it was a plowable amount of white, fluffy stuff. Now we are at 3:30 Saturday afternoon and they are expecting a lot of snow Sunday afternoon. Again snow to rain on the coast and as much as 12 inches inland and into the mountains. That doesn't sound a bit like springy weather. Oh well this is Maine remember. I forgot to add that the snow is blowing around like crazy and it is drifting all over the place.
We got our first harbinger of spring. A seed catalog. If we had a couple acres I think we would have a huge garden. There is a whole bunch of really neat seeds out there but I guess it's the dollar store for seeds. Green beans, carrots, zucchini, tomatoes. The seeds will be planted one of these days to be ready for the planting season. Read somewhere that you start the seeds 4 weeks before planting. So why have I planted seeds the middle of February in past years? By the time it's warm enough here in Maine to plant them out they are very tall and leggy. They don't usually supply a large quantity fruits for the labors. Oh well, maybe this year.
Guess I'll get out the planting boxes and get ready to plant, only have one more week.
Take care everyone, let us know what you are doing to prepare for the spring, besides going out and buying spring clothes. What you going to plant.
Let you know how fast the veggies grow.
Love you all,
Mom and Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, and Great Grandma and grandpa

Hello from the North Country

Winter has continued to keep its grips on our little corner of the world. In fact, the roads and driveways are ice covered. We could actually skate in the driveway. The sun is getting warmer everyday.. so that's a good thing.

Mel and I took the two dogs for a long walk on a logging road Sunday. The road climbed up into a mountain -- it was gorgeous. The dogs loved it and it tired them out.. Lots of signs of moose and coyote on the road.

Two weekends ago, we got a chance to see Amy, Jason and Cameron. Mom and Dad joined us. We all had a great visit.... The baby is growing leaps and bounds.. and has quite a little personality now.

It's like riding a bike

Julie and I cashed in some frequent flier miles after the holidays to purchase two mountain bikes.

I got her a Schwinn and myself a Trek. The logic behind this decision was that I would spend more time in the saddle than she would, therefore could use any leftover miles to buy something that she would like. It turns out the bikes were more fun than anything else in the catalog, now I wish I got her the upgrade. 

The bikes were shipped to the house about a week apart, and we assembled Julie's in the living room. I am very fortunate to have married someone who has a high tolerance for this type of foolishness. I assembled mine in the barn. We took them out together last week down the road.

We got about 1 1/2 miles from the house and Julie was having trouble shifting and keeping up with me.  So we traded bikes for the ride back to the house. When I seated myself on her bike and spun the handlebar to turn the bike around, the front wheel maintained it's forward facing direction while the handlebars twisted 90 degrees...Uh Oh, it was a good  thing this happened while we were stopped. Apparently, the assembly directions did not include this vital piece of information.  It would have been painful for Julie to go (OTB) over the bars on her maiden journey.  

I rode her bike back to house very carefully and made certain the collar holding the handlebars was tight for the next trip. 

Saturday, I had a list of projects that needed attention, but the weather was perfect for another ride. It had just finished raining and it was overcast.  Julie was going to finish reading a novel she was working on so I went by myself. I had planned on going out for an hour, but I wound up going the 11 miles into town. The ride through the woods was incredibly quiet, except my huffing and puffing to  clear the hills.  The back roads are mostly gravel until you get about 5 miles from town and then it is a paved two lane road and the cars fly by really close to the white line on the edge. I wound up hitting the mud more than a few times to avoid having someone drive up behind me, talking on a cellphone knocking me into the woods.  I also discovered several dogs along the way that wanted to either chase the bike or bite me, it was difficult to determine their motive. So I hopped off the bike, keeping it between the dogs and me and this worked. 

I called Julie right before I got to town. I realized that riding back the same way was going be more challenging than the ride out. Not so much because of the hills, but the dogs and drivers and the fact that I hadn't riden this far since Reagan was President.

Julie met me at Wal-Mart. I loaded the bike in the back of the truck. We drove to the bike shop.

I needed to pick up a tool bag and water bottle holder. Julie and I spoke to the store owner for awhile, Mike Palmeri has been riding in the north Georgia mountains since the 70's. He has been instrumental in building several trails for mountain bikers in this area and is fighting developers to maintain access to these places. He invited Julie and I to join the Ellijay Mountain Bike Assocation. We accepted his invitation and are looking forward to the next ride with this group,

well, I am, Julie wants to make sure her bike won't fall apart. 

I have to go and re-check her bike so I don't have to ride alone. 

Take care family, when you are out driving and see a cyclist, give 'em some room. 

Hi everyone,
Got some really great news. I saw my oncologist yesterday and he was thrilled with my CT Scan results. My blood test was very good, the tumor marker was well within the right range and the CT Scan found nothing. I will have another blood test in 3 months and see the Nurse Practitioner and in 7 months I will have the bloods tests again, a CT Scan and then see the Oncologist. This will probably go on for 10 or more years. Monday I start my 3rd year being cancer free. My new birthday.
Today is cold, windy which makes it even colder. The brilliant sun doesn't do anything to make it feel warmer. It does look pretty though. Nana will be 96 on Sunday. Guess I got good genes.
That's all for now. Just wanted you to know the good news.
Love you all,
Mom, Grandma, and Great Grandma

Back home to BRRRRRRR weather

Hi everyone,
I thought the weather in Ferndale was miserable. In the 5 weeks, the first 3 days were snow, the next 3 1/2 weeks were rain with part of that being heavy, heavy, HEAVY FOG, only about 5 days with some or very little sun and 2 days mostly sunny. As I said I thought that was bad. Then I got home to cold, cold COLD. This morning it was -1 degree and now at about 12:20 it is only up to 13 degrees.
Poor Oreo is still shaking with the sound of the 1 1/2" of ice still making it's wasy down the roof to the lower roof and then to smack the iced up snow on the covers for the small shrubs in the front of the house. We don't think that will ever be resolved. He is just a noise spooky dog.
Dad, Grandpa is working today. and I am here trying to catch up on things. It isn't as easy as I thought it would be with the stuff I have to catch up on. OHH WELL.
Nana and Auntie Judy are doing pretty good now. Nana has to be reminded to drink her water so she doesn't wind up in the hospital again. We were able to get a hospital bed for her from a party that was just wanting to get it out of her house. A very nice bed and for free. A young lady called me to tell me about it because the Option Care group had given her our name. We thought that was really great.
Nana has excercises that she has to do in order to give her better range of motion and she also has to be reminded to do that. There is Abby, a care giver that comes in 5 days a week to help Auntie Judy with housework so she can keep up with her own work of sewing for a laundromat, a sports company and private parties that want to have alterations done. Abby also gets Nana to do her excersizes and drink her water. Nana likes Abby and has become quite conversant with her. She also gets downstairs via a chair lift that is in the stairwell and makes it a whole lot easier than walking and worrying that she will fall down the steps. There is a very hard concrete at the foot of the stairs.
Grandpa and I have been keeping busy, especially grandpa. Shoveling and chipping ice takes a quite a while.
I have my 7 month CT Scan tomorrow. and the doctor will see me the following Friday. I am feeling great, tired but as my Prime care doctor told me, "Don't forget you are working with 76 year old parts. I just have to remember that. I may think I'm 20 or 30 in my head but the rest of me keeps saying FORGET IT. My head still tells me I can do almost anything but evidently that message hasn't gotten to the rest of my body.
Well, this is about it for today. Will check in later. Have to eat lunch and get ready to see Dr. Mosiello my physical therapist.
Be back a little later.
Love to you all. By the way those in Georgia and the vicinity. Try to stay warm.
Mom, Grandma and Great Grandma.