Hi,

Da gerl went to the vet this week to have her stitches removed.  Still no walks and limited movement and to her chagrin the vet said she needs to keep the cone on for another week, she was so bummed.  She cried in the car coming home.  ):

 

When I’m in the kitchen and can watch her, I leave it off.  When I go out or leave the kitchen for chores, she gets the cone. I take if off so she can eat comfortably.  One evening, I forgot to remove the cone and put the food down for them and she just looked up at me pitifully, “Dad take the cone off!”  🙂

My good friend Arlen, the owner of City Books right down the street from me, sent me an email two weeks ago telling me I had made it in Forbes, it was an article on Pittsburgh talked about attractions, restaurants and lodging in the city.  He mentioned three lodging options and I was the only one with a picture.  🙂

I think I hate fall more than winter, it’s the harbinger of things to come.  I took the elephant ears out last week and did a great job this year I might add.  It’s important to get as much dirt off the rhizomes as I can so I don’t tease the tubers and they start to grow.  The bins I put them in were pretty light this year, so I must have done a good job.  I took little blankets and tucked them in when I put them in the basement and told them good night and I’ll see you in the spring.  (Just kidding).  Also, I normally take all the vegetation out at the same time.  But you should leave some of it in so the bugs and winter birds have someplace to hide from predators and as a food source with any seeds left.  So this year, I am gradually removing items.  Leaving the banana plants makes the courtyard look less barren.

I’ve been feeding the song birds for several years now.  About six months ago some pigeon found out that there’s food in the courtyard, so she invited her friends to the feast.  I was having 15 – 20 pigeons in my yard.  Yes, I’m prejudiced pigeons have never done anything to harm me, I just don’t like them or want them in my yard.  So I started throwing tennis balls at them and they would scatter and come right back.  I decided to up my game and went out and bought a pellet gun.  $20, you get what you pay for in life, I could watch the pellets wobble and fall short of the pigeons, I then bought a BB gun that used a CO2 cartridge to shoot the BBs.  It worked OK, but again you get what you pay for in life and it wasn’t tremendously accurate.  One day, the pigeons were ignoring me and I walked down the brick sidewalk along the front of the carriage house and had the stance aiming for the pigeons (at 6 am) and some lady was walking up the street saw me aiming in the general direction of the street and screamed.  I told her not to worry, she’s not a pigeon.  Luckily she laughed.  I wasn’t making enough progress with the BB gun and decided I needed to up my game again.  I went back to Dicks and was looking at a BB rifle.  A young guy working there came up and asked if I needed help and I explained my problem, I didn’t want to kill the pigeons, just chase them away.  He said the rifle would send the BB right through the pigeon and kill it.  I don’t want to kill them, I just don’t want them in my yard.  He suggested a sling shot, he said that’s what he uses.  I have the oak tree in the courtyard and so I have plenty of acorns.  And that’s what I’ve been using and that seems to be working pretty good.  I have that obnoxious one that first discovered me, she’s pretty persistent and I guess it’s her boyfriend and another pigeon.  Generally these days I have less than five pigeons, if any.  Some days they don’t come by at all.

How about that horrendous massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue here in Pittsburgh?  I blame this hatefulness in our country on YOUR commander in tweet for his divisiveness rhetoric appealing to his base. His idiotic statements during the 2016 campaign that made no sense like he knows more about ISIS than the generals and other such idiotic statements drove me crazy (and still drives me crazy-I ignore most of it).  Then his ranting about a wall is why we have that caravan of peoples coming up from central America.  His hateful comments about sh*t hole African countries and ban on Muslim country visas and entry into our country has empowered these nut cases like Robert D. Bowers here in Pittsburgh in their twisted views on life.  I watched a fair amount of Kavanaugh’s nomination hearing.  With his tears, anger and other emotions, I felt I was watching a scene from the Apprentice.  Yo budd, this isn’t some TV series that needs higher ratings, this is my country and we deserve better.  You can be an idiot and in charge of the country (with checks and balances hopefully), but please stop this hateful divisiveness.  It’s bad enough how much your are degrading our environment and giving more and more money to the top 1%, but please stop making us hate each other.  My friend Peet corrected my description of DJT to his divisiveness, I trusted spell check and should have known better.   Damn after reading Peet’s comment, I think i could write a book here, what an idiot (not you Peet-but DJT).  I don’t want to degrade the “conservatives”, but we need to learn to understand people other than us.

I’m planning my winter trip to Florida, my normal person is not available to baby sit the kidz and mansion.  My blog automatically posts to Facebook and won’t put the dates in here.  Anyone interested in living in a mansion for two weeks with two adorable dogs?  My dates aren’t in concrete yet, if you are interested send me an email ed@theparadorinn.com

OK guys, that’s it for today, have a good one,

ed