So Good to be Home!

 While last week may have been all about family and friends, this week was all about work, work, work. You know how it is, when you are home working like crazy, you want to get away, but after you are away for a few weeks, you cannot wait to get home and back to work! So, we worked while our motivation level was high. 

But first, we had one more adventure even before we even got home. We were driving west on I-90 just east of Rapid City when I saw a sign for Badland Distilling Co in Kadoka. We have been wanting to stop by here for a couple months. Even though it was 7pm and we were tired and anxious to get home, we stopped to check it out. 

We got a flight of 6 of their spirits. I am glad we stopped, we had a good conversation with one of the owners and learned a few things about how they make certain spirits.

We had two traumatic events this week, both involving woodticks. The mosquitoes were so bad on our summer adventure that we barely mentioned the ticks. Something we did not even consider before leaving home as we have no ticks on our oasis. Oh, they are in the area, but for some reason our area does not have any. So, we did not apply any tick guard to the dogs before we left. Both Minnesota and Wisconsin were thick with ticks. It would be nothing to pull 20 off the dogs and us after a walk. Most of them we were able to remove before they imbedded themselves but all of us had at least a dozen imbedded by the end of our trip.   

The first incident occurred after we got home, and we noticed that Dakota was not feeling well. She was panting all the time and was very lethargic and would not get up to eat or drink. We had to bring her food and water to her bed. 

When it did not get better after a day, we took her to the vet. She had a fever of 103 and yep, lymes and another tick related illness. She is now on Doxycycline for the next 30 days. The fever has broken and she is back to her usual self with no apparent aftereffects. 

The next incident was traumatic for Zoey, Barb and me. If you are having breakfast, you may want to finish it before you read the rest of this. It all started when we were in the camper and Barb "Zoey has a woodtick on her butt". She then asked me to hold Zoey as she tried to remove it. Now, to get an idea how traumatic this was for Zoey, she does not like her nails done or thing picked off her. As a matter of fact, the last time she was at the vet to get her nails done, they said "Don't bring her back for nail trims anymore". 

So, I grabbed Zoey and pointed her backside to Barb. Zoey immediately knew something was up as I had her front side and Barb was holding her backside. She started squirming not liking whatever was about to happen. It was quite the scene, Barb was trying to grab the tick as Zoey was squirming and trying to bite behind her. But here is the problem.... The tick was so close to her you-know-what that when Zoey puckered the tick would disappear entirely! Now that I think about it, it was probably traumatic for the tick as well!

Barb kept yelling at me to hold her still as her fingers tried to hone in on the moving target. But as soon as she got close to grabbing it, Zoey would pucker, and it would disappear. This went on for 5 or 6 attempts, but the results were the same as the tick play peek-a-boo with Barb. I was able to get her to stop squirming but how to get the tick from disappearing? I wondered if I blew on her nose, if that would do it. Then a moment of genius struck me and I told Barb to get ready. With fingers poised on the target, I gave Zoey a quick squeeze, Barb said "Got it!" I am pretty sure Barb went two knuckles deep but, she got that little bugger. Zoey jumped down, ran a few steps away, and gave us both a look at I am pretty sure meant "What the hell?!?!"

If only I would have taken pictures, I know many of you wanted to see a close up of the action. Had I taken a picture, Zoey's face would have looked something like this.....

We also caught up with several of our friends four days this week. First with Kevin who came over for supper on Tuesday night. Cheryl was away in Minnesota, so we had to wait to catch up with her. Wednesday night we got together with Dan and Bonnie at our house for burger night, Friday night we went out to Rushmore Brewing Co. with Jim and Carmen and then Saturday our RV friends, Dale and Ruth came over for Taco Saturday. 

Dale tested a few of our varieties of Moonshine!

Dale and Ruth are in the area for another few weeks so hopefully we can get together with them again before they carry on with their summer adventures. 

In the work department we had (and still have) a lot to do. The first order of business was to jump on the old Ford and cut the grass in the front of the house. It was over 2' tall and poor Zoey could not see anything. 

Then it was time to tackle the rest of the sofit and facia. 4 straight days measuring, cutting and stapling up sofit. I used a circular saw with a metal blade which worked well but resulted in more than one of the hot metal shards landing somewhere on my body burning me. 

Before

I finally got done on Saturday right before Dale and Ruth arrive. Sooooo good to have that project behind us!

Barb has also been busy cleaning and dusting the house after being gone as well as getting the camper clean. So many dead mosquito bodies everywhere! She has been trying to find the right solution to get the body spots off the shades. 

The weather has been wet, wet and more wet with intermittent picture-perfect days in the upper 60's, low 70's. We had two hailstorms last week, nothing too serious but one morning we woke up to piles of pea sized hail outside. 

The cattle are still wandering around our property (and Jim and Carmen's). They have a bull mixed in with the herd, but he seems pretty mellow. We have driven within feet of him in the 4-wheeler and seems more interested in the cows than he does us.

Thats a big bull!

And no post is complete without a picture of Zoey (right Harry?). So, if you can find her, here she is. And before you ask, that is not a fawn pelt, that is an axis deer from Texas. About every non-hunter that comes over asks if I shot a fawn. My answer depends on the person. It is fun to see the horrified looks on some people's faces!