Doesn’t he look like a primate? He’s always been agile with his paws and he is found in many videos reaching out to drag a human hand toward him to pet him, even if that human hand is literally in the process of petting another dog at the time! He’s quite a character and I’m so glad to have him in my life, especially after he and I both only had each other after that horrible day at the fire, which took his five canine siblings.
Attended my tobacco control activist friend Tehra’s housewarming. What a cool home in Vallejo from 1915 with a huge backyard with lots of features and amazing plants. She’s a cool lady (pictures with her thumb up in one of the pictures) and a great public speaker with a story to tell about Big Tobacco and its targeting of the LGBTQ population.
I estimate 99% of my indoor belongings were incinerated or damaged so much by the fire, and not too much of that was able to be professionally cleaned (mostly some clothes).
Just recently while moving my outdoor plants behind the retaining wall to keep them out of the way from the construction crew one of my mom’s ceramic pieces (signed by her with her name carved into the bottom) became another casualty of the process. It had a plant in it, so I thought it was best to leave it on the premises and leave it outside, but it still broke and the plant survived.
While it was a long shot, because of the four pieces it was left in, I was able to gather the three biggest pieces. I glued them not realizing a gap would be remaining in the bottom. I will no longer put plants in it, but I might come up with some kind of band-aid solution for the gap that remains (or not). This is the result. It’s still pleasant to look at, and I’m glad at least I have some of the things my mom painted and touched. She had her own kiln and used molds, of course, but she hand-glazed and hand-painted thousands of pieces like this one.
We still have a way to go, but almost three months after her eye areas were shaved for her bilateral enucleation, Bonnie sure is looking cute with her brother Snoopy.
I think these are the first pictures of the dogs and me together in the backyard since the fire.
I stopped by the house and was pleased to see the tarp over it since the roof is still incomplete. Sadly, plenty of rain still got inside, but hopefully, it won’t cause too much damage or set us back significantly.
I was also pleased to see a new skylight kit for the family room. Hopefully this skylight is even bigger than the one I had installed.
More pictures from the garden. I noticed some of the trees had been pruned. I suspect this is because they were in the way when they put the tarp on.
View to front yard from foyer:
Halloween night Snoopy and Bonnie joined me at Children’s Wonderland Park in Vallejo for a huge GVRD event. We were there representing Humane Society of the North Bay (where I’m on the board and from where I adopted Bonnie). It was very well attended. I was skeptical when they said 2,600 people showed up last year, but at least that many were present this time.
We had a slightly early Halloween party on Mare Island with friends from the Humane Society of the North Bay, so Ernie and Bert (which I accidentally called Bernie and Ert at one point) made another appearance.
These are more or less the “before” pictures of the windmill trapped by overgrown foliage and way too much bamboo that has taken over the second tier of the garden.
Spending more time than I have since the fire itself, Shea and I bought new gardening tools to remove a ton of bamboo manually, pruning other bushes to free a bunch of plants. We determined the lemon tree was not completely dead. I watered plants and took a bunch of things home to neaten them up. I organized my gardening area and cleared lots of burned-out gardening supplies. I created a large pile of debris that is just not worth keeping. It’s amazing so many months later to not have touched so many things that have been outside all this time.
Godmother Mei comes to visit:
Mid-October dog wrestling with Bonnie and Snoopy.