Buster’s Blog

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When we returned from Sharon Thrasher’s wedding we found Buster tangled up with the ladder in a spectacular way.  I put the ladder between the Mahonia bush and the tree to keep Buster from walking around them and getting tangled up.  Normally I have the extension part extended half a rung to make the openings smaller but Steve moved the ladder to mow the grass and when I put it back I must have left the rungs aligned so that Buster could go between the rungs, which he did.  He not only went through the ladder, he also came back through and managed somehow to also wrap the tether around the tree.The ladder is normally on its edge and propped against both the Mahonia bush and the tree on opposite sides so the ladder is stable on its edge.  Buster managed to pull the ladder away from one or the other while he was tangled up so that the ladder fell flat as seen in the pictures. 

 

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They have been moving the garage for the last 3 days and it is ready for the foundation to be laid under it.  This picture was taken before it was at the right height and before it was butted up against the rest of the house.  They didn’t finish until after 6:30. 
 

 

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We took off some of the paneling in the front bedroom to expose the logs behind them.  We are encouraged enough to continue with the rest of the room. [photopress:South_bedroom_wall.JPG,thumb,pp_empty]This is how we hope the rest of the room looks when we get the other paneling off.

This is how we hope the rest of the room looks when we get the other paneling off.

Buster dug up some of Marilyn’s Iris again yesterday.  She cleaned up the mess before I could take a picture.  It was truly a mess because we had a lot of rain which made mud out of the dirt that he threw onto the sidewalk.  Buster is on Marilyn’s short list of bad dogs.
 
On a lighter note - we went to the 4 Bridges Art Festival opening gala last night and the served us dinner in a big tent and showed a Buster Keaton movie (“The Bellhops� I believe) on the roof of the tent at one end and there is an uncanny resemblance between Buster the actor and Buster the dog – not in intelligence unfortunately. Well, maybe if you consider the actor’s role in the movie even their intelligence is similar.  Their mess making ability is certainly the same.
 

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We had a pretty severe thunder storm this morning and it knocked most of the flowers off of the Dogwood trees making it look like snow on the ground. 

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The creek got up too and was quite muddy from all of the construction upstream.   

 

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They have been pulling out the steel for the last couple of days.  This is the next to last piece to come out.  The other piece is just like this one but on the back of the house.  Next they will push the garage in place so the foundation can be built under it.

The contractor for restoring the log house after it is moved kept telling me that I needed an “Easy Button” on the house so I found one at the checkout at Staples last night.

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It doesn’t seem to help much though.

They lowered the house onto the foundation today.  All of the weight of the house is now on the foundation but tomorrow they will come back and check the floors and doors etc to see if some more shimming is necessary and do that while the steel is still under the house so it will be easy to jack it back up if needed.  When they are satisfied that it is resting well they will take the steel out from under the house and move the garage in place so we can build a foundation under it.

I washed Buster today.  Now he smells good and I smell bad.  I’m getting some Front Line at picking tonight because I found a tick on him and fleas can’t be far behind.  I also washed his indoor blanket in hopes that we can stay ahead of the flea problem.

Oh - on our walk this morning we flushed the ducks we have seen before and they are Wood Ducks and not Mallards as I had said they were earlier.  They make a different sound when taking off and I hadn’t paid attention to that before.

Steve left for Washington DC this morning, but yesterday he walked Buster up and down the driveway.  Actually he ran with Buster for some of the way.  I was taking the recycling up in the car and Steve was walking Buster for the exercise.  At the head of the driveway he said that Buster was well behaved and hadn’t tried to pull him along, but when we got back to the house he acknowledged that Buster is a strong dog.