I forgot my sister's birthday. It's November 2. I never forget her birthday, but did so this week. My sister is 14 months younger than I am. It lead to a tumultuous childhood--that's just too close in age! I'll blame it on my cold. Now my son has it. My husband never gets this stuff--but he did get chicken pox as an adult when my kids got sick with it (prior to the vaccine) about 15 years ago. I think that was revenge enough for all of the other ills that I and the kids' have come down with that he escaped.
It's one of those lovely Fall days. I have a few pictures to share. The first picture is the fence. It might as well be the Great Wall of China! I've shared with you our trials on this fence. We live on a private road, which you see here. There are only three homes beyond ours--the cul de sac is just beyond. The area to the left is our garden area. The fence is in front of our "yard". The area beyond the telephone pole is woods. There's a path just beyond there, where you see the first of the longest tree shadows. Daisey happened to be in those woods and jump from that path onto the road. Yes, the wire you see with the little orange flags is electrified. We extended 3 strands of electric wire to block the path. We had to switch out the electric charger, for dogs, to something more powerful as the dogs did not seem to be phased by the smaller charger. My neighbor let us borrow his. We've had a lesson or two already. It does create a very effective psychological barrier.
So far, all has gone well. I also have been using my "training" collar. It is part of an invisible fence system. We felt that we needed a more "solid" boundary, which is why we put up the board fence. Because of the drought, the ground has been too hard to consider putting an invisible fence wire into the ground around our 6.5 acres. Nevertheless, because Daisey was getting adept at getting around the fence, and because she does not listen well, I elected to put the collar on her for "training". The training part is a hand held device that administers a tone or shock. The *minute* I put the collar on her, it was evident that she had been trained with a remote collar. She turned into a very attentive and obedient dog. All she has to do is hear the tone. I've not shocked her. The last couple of days, I've had her outside without the collar, and she is attentive and listens. It is important for me to (1) give my dogs as much freedom as possible and (2) be responsible for both their safety and that of others.
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A dog and her ball. Macy has an obsessive compulsive disorder with her ball. I use this obsession to gain control over her--Now that she is older (16 months old) she is doing a better job listening. She is the evildoer that taught Daisey to chase motorcycles. My neighbor's Harley is a loud, obnoxious bike. Macy is so quick, she can outrun it in short distances. Bad, bad, bad. (But she is so cute!)The fence, then, was originally for her. She's not gone beyond the side boundaries. Without the fence, she could triangulate very effectively--and dangerously. But in fairness to obnoxious HD's, the UPS truck, and other diesel trucks--really, anything loud and or strange--has been a target for her. As the vet told me, she is all muscle, and if the HD had hit Macy rather than Daisey (Ms. Bony Legs), the outcome for the HD would have likely been worse. Daisey is mostly fully healed, though I suspect that she will have a bald spot or two for some time to come.
I've never been home much. Now that I'm home more, I realize how much I've missed. I have a modest goal in my trading account to at least make as much money to cover what is taken out in bills. I've been successful in doing that--but I'm mindful that if I were working, I'd be making exponentially more! But, having this space in my life has been far more valuable than dollars. I see, too, that my family is more relaxed. I can actually take care of them rather than just provide money without care. That may sound weird to you, or perhaps you can relate. But truth be told, without that money, I wouldn't have had this "luxury". I know that this is "incubation" time.
In general, I think that I've made good use of this time. However, I have this great shame that for so many years--really most of my adult life--I was so ignorant of all of the *stuff*. My father would talk about the Fed, inflation, market stuff and the like, and I always thought that he was a little nuts. But the more that I read, and the more that I come to understand, is that he's not and wasn't nuts. And when we think about dangerous people and dangerous ideas, these are really not dangerous to anything but status quo. And status quo is merely a stupor that we too easily lull ourselves into.
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