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Ginger, that must be such a shock. But your research has saved the day - so don't be hard on yourself. It's not like you're out there buying a dog every week, that's pretty much how these operations run, most people don't have any experience/prior knowledge and so they can get away with it.
As much as I love looking at the schnoodle-doodle-beagloodle puppies at the pet shop, the RSPCA is where I go when it's time for a new pet. We watched Marley and me last night and it was a good reminder of why it was so excellent getting a 1 year old dog (ie not having your house/garden/shoes destroyed for a year LOL). If it's got 4 legs and a waggly tail, they all love you just the same. :)
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Re veggies - if you can start with a raised bed of some sort (either a purchased one, or sleepers or bricks, whatever) it's easy enough to just come along with a few bags or a trailer load of compost, it will give the whole thing and amazing start. Dig it over and pull out any weeds, chuck on some claybreaker if you have clay soil, level it out then off you with planting. It's a good time of year to chuck in some pumpkin seeds (but give them room to trail). Tomato seedlings will give you results a long time before seeds, if you can get a grafted tomato even better (more tomatoes = fewer plants needed). I've got sugar snap peas in (on a frame), they have grown really quickly and we are starting to get loads of peas. Leafy lettuces etc are good, but you will need to feed & water them lots and pick early while still tender. We also have carrots in but TBH the seedlings are a pain in the bum, much better to get a seed tape for them.
Oh and how can I forget sweetcorn. I'm still waiting for DH to move a pile of dirt, but corn has to be the Best Ever Homegrown Veggie.
ETA LOL Cass about your Monster Child LOL. Agree with the zucchinis, most excellent summer veggie. But whatever you do, resist the temptation to plant all four seedlings in the punnet...unless you want to be eating zucchini on toast every day for breakfast :rofl:
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G, definitely steer clear of 'breed' puppies. The RSCPA is the best place you can go to find a dog with a great temperament for kids because their testing is so rigorous. I'm glad you found out in time though and didn't lose your money or get a dog with health problems.
Bugger Cass about the thrush. I had an information sheet about it from years ago and like regular thrush it can be a PITA to get rid of. Get yourself some kick-ass probiotics too.
Arte, I have no idea how I managed to luck out LOL. But some of the subjects i have next year will have exams.
last night we had Little A's and it was a late finish - 7pm and by the time we got home L was covered in 22 mozzie bites that were all the size of a 10cent piece! They were massive. he hasn't reacted like that to them in a long time but I think it was because he had so many. So we get home and bath him and i gave him some phenergan and he thought he was going to stay up and watch the movie (it was 8.30 by then) and I said 'Dude! in half an hour you are going to be out like a light' LOL, so I sent him to bed and sure enough, not 20 minutes later he is snoring his head off in a deep sleep. I hate giving phenergan, but he just had so many and stingose wouldn't have cut it.
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Trill, polaramine works well without the same level of sleepiness. I use paraderm plus on mozzie bites, it's a first aid cream which has antibac + anti-inflam + local anaes - which is great to sort out the itchiness. The bites usually go down overnight just with the cream. Agree, stingose alone definitely wouldn't have been enough.
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I have claratyne for use during the day, but Polaramine doesn't agree with me, so I'm not keen to use it on the kids JIC. If it wasn't bedtime anyway I would have given him the claratyne instead. the phenergan is my last resort LOL.
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omgoodness trill those mozzie bites sound nasty. they just love attacking the young ones don't they?
cass- oh no about the thrush. can you take the oral tablet? hope it clears up soon
md- thanks for your veggie advice. i'm excited about it but dh not so much. he of little faith told me that he would spend a weekend making me the boxes and then i would let everything die. geez, just cos i let a couple of hanging baskets die. he has the memory of an elephant. i'm still working on him and have printed out the info from you guys. he's just such a party pooper sometimes!
re the puppy situation. i know i know about the whole rspca thing but i have to be honest and say that we have had a bad experience with a rescue dog before. i know i sound like such a horrible person, but we had a really hard time with it all and he ended up escaping and being killed by a car just a couple of weeks after my mum died. the whole thing was a really horrible experience for us. i was traumitised. my dad's dog is a purebred from a registered breeder and is an absolute delight. we had her from a puppy and i took her to puppy school etc. please don't think i'm a bad person, it's just that from my experience i would prefer to get one from a breeder. definitely not a horrendus puppy factory though :(
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G: trauma is trauma, so i totally get it :hug:. do you like your dad's breed of dog? could you get one from his breeder?? (cause doggies are the best!). and a pup is a good idea considering cats etc in the home...
oh and thought to mention that i too have killed every hanging basket i put my hand on...but i can grow vegies! they are so much easier lol.
Sherie: wowsers on the bites :o. my cousin also used to react like that with mozzies...itchy!!
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cass- glad to hear you have killed hanging baskets too :) dh stole my watering can that i used to keep underneath them all so it just became too hard LOL
i love my dad's dog but she is a bit bigger than i wanted...i am thinking now that that might be the way to go though. i might wait till next year and then make a decision from there. i think the whole puppy farm thing has put me off the whole idea for the timebeing!
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Hanging baskets are easy to kill, they are surrounded by air and dry out a lot quicker than other plants. If you're going to grow veggies, definitely start now, summer veg is soooo much easier to grow & less prone to getting eaten by bugs than winter veg. Plus it gives you a good excuse during the evening pandemonium to go outside into the peace & quiet of the garden while you stand there with the hose in your hand. :)
Your doggie experience sounds awful :hug:. A friend had to take one back to the rescue place once because the creature was INSANE and ran the entire length of their street by jumping from garden to garden over the (high) back fences :o.
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yep- our rescue dog was insane as well. we perservered, but he was half-mad and ran head first into oncoming traffic. the poor lady driving thought that she had hit a wombat. he's buried in our back garden now. :(
right, i'm going to work on dh tomorrow about the veggie patches. he's going for a weekend away soon so that might give me some leverage.
do i want a full-sun spot in the back garden (we have a huge backgarden so it's just a matter of picking a spot iykwim?)
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Yep definitely full sun, although late afternoon shade is not a bad thing in summer. Some veggies can get a bit sunburnt. But you definitely need good morning - early arvo sun.
I forgot to ask before - what sort of poochie do you think you'd like. We have a malteseXdaschund which sounds like a horrible fluffy yipyip combination, but he's like a hound dog in a small fluffy body, so you can't judge by appearances LOL (not that you can in most life situations, anyway LOL).
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G, I certainly don't think you are horrible for not wanting a rescue dog. I wouldn't get one. Maybe a puppy but I wouldn't get a grown dog - for me if they already have a developed personality then I think it would be hard for us all to adapt to each other. Any dog I have I would want to raise from a pup so I can shape/train it to fit in with our household. I don't think I could ever trust an adopted dog around my children like I trust my old girl. Sounds like terrible timing with your rescue dog, the last thing you need at a time like that.
Long weekend here and the weather has been amazing! So good to get outside and do all the little jobs that have been building up over winter.
I am just going to have a little celebration of William. He is turning into such a nice, well mannered and confident boy! I am so amazed at how much he has blossomed over the past few months. Sure we are still having tantrums, but more and more often I can talk him down before it gets too bad. He asks to leave the table, he compliments and encourages A when she is learning something new, always says please and thank-you (only occasional prompting). After being a velcro baby for his whole life, you could have knocked me over with a feather when his kindy teacher commented the other day that he was very social! But he is now, it just happened all of a sudden - he is the leader in groups of kids all bigger and older than him. He just seems to have developed a heap of confidence in himself lately. It is just incredible how quickly they grow.
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yeah that's why we got a rescue puppy that was with it's mum. we wanted a pup that had a mum so that there was a bit of socialisation from that end too. some pups when taken from their mum too early just never learn proper dog socialisation (this goes for breeder puppies too...i once walked past a pet shop that had 6 week old pups :o).
Arte: that is soo amazing about Will. what a beautiful young boy he sounds like you should be proud :hug: (meanwhile in the house of Leila the three-nager rules)
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Arte, I kind of agree re getting grown dogs, but I think there's a sweet spot just after blantant puppydom but before real doghood. Our BFC was one and a bit when we got him, still young enough to imprint to the family, but not so young that it was a constant cleanup exercise LOL.
Arte - yay for seeing W blossoming into his own little self! Do you think it has something to do with the increased socialisation of kindy? It's great when they start to have their own little band of mates, isn't it. When you describe W he sounds so similar in many ways to one of my dearest friend's eldest, he really came into his own when he started kinder.
Ginger did you see some action on the veggie patch front? We picked a heap of baby carrots on the weekend, Missy E was very impressed.
Cass, yeah we're still having a bit of three-nagerness here, stimulated no doubt by the ongoing display of twelve-nagerhood from the older sister :lol:. Unfortunately, while I've been recuperating, Dh has taken over the reins and the more man just doesn't the meaning of "compromise" or "choose your battles" *sigh* So there have been a few moments of conflict around the house.
Meanwhile I'm waiting to hear whether DH needs to get his wedding ring cut off (!!) He injured it playing touch footy at work (hmmm nearly wrote "he injured it playing touch at work" but realised that sounds like all kinds of wrong :rofl:) - and didn't take his ring off straightaway. He didn't show me until late last night ("look how swollen my finger is now" :wall:) so umm yeah too late to do anything about it then. Which is kinda great because it's a little miniature drama to take my mind of the fact that he saw his dr yesterday re a foot injury & they found increased levels of some hormone in his blood, but he can't quite remember what the dr was telling him :wall: so now I have no idea of whether they are doing a MRI on his foot, or on his HEAD (read = to check for a pituitary tumour ?!!!).
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Flark! Yes, got ring cut, and yes, needs MRI to the head to check for pituitary tumour. Right, I'm going out to get me some cake.
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Oh dear MD, sounds like cake is well needed! DH did a similar thing with his finger, luckily didn't have the ring on and it didn't go back on for 9 months by the time it healed. Hope the MRI is all right.
Halloween dress up day at day care on Friday. I don't really like Halloween, an American tradition that is kind of spreading here, but don't want her to be the only one not dressing up.
Went to Kindergym this morning - DD had a ball! Will see how it goes, typical country town, there were only 3 littlies there (2nd week running) so we'll see how long it lasts.....
Arte - glad that Will is turning into such a sweetie. Meanwhile Miss K is a complete devil at bedtime. The simple act of asking her to sit on the toilet before bed ends up with massive tantrums (and wees on the carpet in the spare room last night - wouldn't have happened if she'd sat on the toilet when I asked!)
Ginger - good luck with the vegies. We have some herbs in and capsicums which may be interesting. My sister has had massive success with the raised vegie bed idea.
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Cally, that's what it would be like here with something like Kindergym, only you'd get a heap at the start and then the novelty wears off and it folds because no one goes. But i really hope it continues for you because it would be a lot of fun for her. I'm totally with you on Halloween, but yeah, makes it hard when you don't want them to miss out.
MD, so that's what he did to his finger! I hope the MRI comes back with the all clear for him, last thing you need is health issues for him :hug: And was the cake good?
G, we are growing out tomatoes in pots this year because the earwigs keep eating them when they are in the ground. If you're not game to set up permanent beds just yet, just grow a few things in pots and get a feel for it first before making the commitment to a full-on vege patch.
Arte, that is great news about W making friends. maybe all he needed was for you to not be there kwim? Often we're their security blanket when it comes to social settings.
Well the fight with my sister continues LOL. I blocked her on FB just so she can't keep sending me childish messages, and now she's realised I've done it, she's calling ME immature for doing it! This was via txt LOL. So I'm just ignoring her messages on there too.
All is well here. The hay baling contract is finally done so we will still get paid for it which is a relief! We might be able to get the boys their bunk bed now. Oh and we've finally ditched the dummy too! I worked on a 'don't offer, don't refuse' plan and it worked! he only got it if he asked for it, but he hasn't asked for it the past few days so he hasn't had it. Not that he needed it anyway, it was purely for comfort if he was a bit sooky.
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MD, I really hope your DH is alright - that must be a worry! And bummer about the wedding ring, I hope there is some way to fix it.
Trill, bummer about your sister. Hopefully she will get the message and stop texting. Can you block people on phones?
Cally, that happens with groups around here too. A new playgroup has started and I am supporting it, but there were only two of us there today.
