2021 Life Logs, Day 153: Gardening and Dog Training
Date: Wednesday, June 2, 2021
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 70, Low 54 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Turning a patch ground covered in briars into a tomato patch is harder than I thought. I spent my morning pulling roots and digging holes for 16 tomato plants. Then it was time to go pick up Sam and his friend Robert who had agreed to do an hour of gardening work for my friend Olga. She has lost her longtime handyman who used to do weeding and raised bed preparation for her, so I offered Sam and Robert who had a half day of school today. Unfortunately, an hour was not nearly enough time. They worked on weeding two flower gardens and made great progress. But there is more to be done. Since I was there with them, I helped Olga prepare three of her raised beds to plant tomatoes. I hope we will have time to return to finish our jobs on another day. Olga is at least ten years older than me, lost her husband of 64 years this winter, and lost her handyman. She is struggling a bit to get going again. I hope our work today helped a little. Sam really enjoyed seeing her airplane that she still flies and does aerobatics. Olga lives in the Falmouth Airpark and the plane is kept in her huge garage along with her Mercedes convertible. When she showed Sam and Robert the Mercedes, that did it. Sam said he hated to tell me, but he wished Olga was his grandmother! I can’t blame him. She is quite a woman. And on top of all that, Olga paid them and gave each of them a Magnum ice cream bar. She is a hard act to follow.
We had to leave Olga’s in time for me to pick Ollie up after school and then go pick Shadow up from day school. His training program has turned my life upside down. I am just hoping that the results will be positive. Right now, I feel like I live in a jail. Shadow is not allowed to be on any furniture, so all bedroom doors have to closed and I have one sofa fenced off and the other one has cardboard boxes stacked on it. If I want to sit on my sofa, I have enter my fenced in living room. But when I do that, Shadow simply jumps over the back of the sofa to join me. Then I have to put him in his crate. So, I find it easier to just sit at my dining room table until bedtime. Shadow has to be in his crate or in structured time (tethered or walking and training with me) 80 percent of the day. Not sure how long I can continue this. If anyone has experience with trying to calm an exceptionally exuberant dog, I’d love to hear from you.
