5C's Que Pasa

Mazatlan and in particular the Isla survived the hurricane. Lots of standing water and flooding in some homes. I have been told that our palapas look good. Of course that is from a distance so we will have to check for holes and leaks once we return, whenever that will be.

I saw Carlie munching on one of the fossils and saw that she was chewing on something. She had managed to get this tiny piece off. It must have been a sliver hanging off a part of the main fossil.

Last Wednesday, September 1st, we had a bit of rush trip to the vet. I kept telling Colin that Ciela had bad breath. That particular morning it was horrible. We checked her teeth and there was what looked like a piece of dental floss ( it wasn’t ) sticking out. I pulled it out, smelled it and almost passed out. Putrid! Just three weeks earlier Ciela had had two baby teeth extracted when she was spayed. The vet did put in dissolving stitches and this piece of ‘string or ?? ‘ was next to stitches in a tooth. Or course we both thought abscess. As an RN I should have put the smell together with the tooth extractions.  Her breath only started to smell about ten days after the surgery. I was convinced she had an infection. I was heading out for some appointments but we made contact with the vets office and found out the he was operating until 1PM. Colin called again at noon and actually was able to speak to the vet and he had Colin come in right away. Dr. Bimal spent a good deal of time examining each tooth and her gums.  He said it was not an infection but that she needed her teeth brushed twice per day. So we are trying that. Somedays are better than others. The thing is that her stitches have still not dissolved, perhaps there is bacteria around them.

As I was away, Colin took both girls and left Carlie in the car on her own. He was in the office with the vet for close to thirty minutes so when Ciela got back to the car Carlie sat right on top of her. Ciela was exhausted and maybe stressed a bit and slept right away.  Carlie missed her so very much and wanted to protect her.  We had been told earlier in the morning that the vet was booked solid until 5PM but the vet took Ciela in at 1PM and delayed the rest of his appointments for the afternoon. Colin said that he was very thorough checking her mouth.  Impressive.

You can see several fire extinguishers on the floor below the passenger seat in the photo above. As he was already in town he took all of our extinguishers in to be checked. Turns out that two were garbage. The insides had hardened and were of no use. One was exchanged for another that they had already serviced and they serviced the other two. So we are down two extinguishers but we feel we have enough with the three that we do have.  It only cost $48.00 for peace of mind. So go get your extinguishers checked. Someone here in the park had a stove top fire last month and neither of her extinguishers worked. Fortunately she had a neighbour who came to the rescue. The fire trucks were very prompt as well.

This drain across the road from us ( and in front of our last home ) was set too high. So when it rained the water never went down the drain and simply created a mini pond that we had to traverse when walking.

Yeah it has been repaired by lowering it and the system works very well. Lots of brute strength was involved. Thank you Chris.

I’m sure that many of you are as tired as we are of hearing “its because of Covid”. That could pertain to some empty shelves in the grocery store, delays waiting for a small purchase like extra freezer baskets, waiting to see a doctor and just having to hold longer online for whatever reason.  Covid has become the excuse for everything including not having enough staff anywhere. Our lawn guy ( Norma used to call hers her lawn boy which I love ) told us last week that there are only so many brass irrigation connectors left in all of the city. His supplier has a box full and you are only allowed to buy two per visit to the store.  Difficult to get jobs done. Colin needed to get new tires on the Jeep as per the incidents we had in July on our small vacation. He called around and no one had tires. Apparently they stopped making tires sometime in 2020. They just started making them again this year. He finally was able to order some in ( made in February ), again all Covid related. Even worse for a neighbour, he really needs new tires for his RV.  Turns out that they are sill not making truck nor RV tires. I ordered a bra and it took four months to come in. My vein appointments are being stretched out over a year because of you know – Covid 😯

I requested mail in ballots for our Federal election. We live in a hot spot so the less we go out and mingle, the better. I was rather surprised  to see each of our envelopes addressed by hand. We have voted and the ballots are in the mail. Hope that Covid doesn’t delay their delivery.

Our tomato patio garden is looking weary because of the heat but we have been very pleased with it. Sadly we have rats eating the tomatoes in our garden. I guess the rats, like the bears, are searching for food. We can blame this on the wildfires.

It seems that they are wrestling every hour. Very often you hear a high pitched yelp. Someone bit or pulled the others ear. However Ciela loves to bite and pull the skin under Carlie’s neck and then she can’t breath and squeals. Ciela is the instigator to these sessions but Carlie can give back if she chooses but she is pacifist for the most part.

Ouch, biting the muzzle. Point to Carlie for this one.

After all the wrestling comes break time. Carlie likes to burrow in the crate.

Ciela chooses the chesterfield.

So many election promises 🙂

The month passed so quickly. The seasons are changing more quickly the older we get.  How I wish to rewind the clock. I have said this so many times, be sure to enjoy each day to the fullest.

Our August calendar photo, taken in 2018. This was our first trip to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Colin had been to the South Rim years ago. I wrote about that trip here and there are more photos. Despite the cold it truly was a great trip. Hope to get there again one day.

Monday, August 30th.  The girls are doing their thing after the morning walk. They love sitting on the top step. Every so often they do their twin thing as they move about. It was a nice morning. Our temps are now between 72F – 77F during the day.

However that night, it got down to 51F and it had also rained overnight and was damp. Hard to see but there are two of them. It is a real challenge to get good photos because of how dark they are.

We gave in and turned on the fireplace. They loved and so did I.  Colin prefers it to be cooler.

They kept moving from bed to bed. We did use the fireplace from when we picked them up in February to spring when it was warm enough to shut the pilot light on the fireplace. However they were very tiny and we did hold them most of the time.  We don’t know if they remember the fireplace, likely not.

Ciela let us know that there was no way she was going out into that dampness.

I think this is one of the best photos that I have taken of them.  Hope it makes it to the 2022 calendar.

They did let us know when it was time to shut off the fireplace. “We are warm enough now, thank you Mom and Dad.” The pilot light remains on and we are turning on the heat to warm things up first thing  in the morning.

The sky is opening up, much less smoke, and we had a wee sunset.

Main course that night was veggie turkey cutlets with gravy plus steamed rice mixed with quinoa. All six veggies, Swiss chard, green beans, beets, tomatoes, cucumbers and raw carrots were from our garden. Six vegetables in one meal. You might say that despite the extreme weather, our garden did well.

We have been sending healing thoughts everyday to sister number three, Sequoia. She was spayed this past Tuesday, exactly three weeks after our girls. We hope to reunite the triplets within the  month.  I think it is as hard on us parents to have our babies go through this procedure as it is on them.

We even made some money.

We had ( yes, past tense ) five of these stools. I could never ever sit on them. They were too difficult for me to get on and to me, not comfortable at all. So I never used them. Then I got tired of not being able to sit at the counter.

So we sold them for $15.00 each. I think we paid close to $200.00 each back in 2012. These are heading down to Mexico.

Meanwhile I had begun to look for replacements. We decided we really only needed two and that would give us more room for dog stuff and of course guitars! These swivel and are perfect for me. They were asking $20.00 each but we offered $15.00 each and now they sit in our kitchen. The only thing they don’t do is move up and down. They are in great shape and I called back and asked if she had another two to sell. No, these were the last two.

Colin like them but decided that he wanted height adjusting stools as well. We checked out a few but they were actually badly damaged and selling as if new. I saw this pair within an hour of being advertised and we were first in in line. They were in really good shape and very light to move around and comfortable as well.  Sold for $20.00 each.  Had I been there I would have offered $15.00 each. So now we have his and her stools.

We made $75.00 on our five stools and now have four more that we really like ( I can sit on all four ) and we still have an extra $5.00 in our pocket. We don’t usually do that but of course like everything else in the world, nice new quality bar stools are hard to come by. Happy with our purchases. We also sold a huge fan that we never use and a carrier that we used only a few times when the twins were small – gosh I wish they were tiny again. That $95.00 is burning a hole in my pocket 😎

How very yucky. Glad we have our girls on monthly tick meds. If we don’t go to Mexico this winter we can stop in October. They would be on tick meds twelve months a year when we travel south.

So very very true.

It seems that people are no longer checking in on a daily basis. So be sure to go back to check the posts that you might have missed.

Where to start? BC Wildfire Service has listed the Skaha Creek ( Penticton ) wildfire as a “wildfire of note,” and updated its size to 212 hectares as of 1:10PM today. The winds have been light but are slowly picking up. Hopefully everything will calm after sunset. Meanwhile the City of Penticton has activated its Emergency Operations Centre.

In travel news there have been some strong changes because of increased Covid cases. In case you missed it,”the European Union recommended today that its 27 nations reinstate restrictions on tourists from the U.S. because of rising coronavirus infections there”.

Not only that, but the US itself announced  just a few hours ago…..

….The U.S. State Department is now urging Americans to “reconsider travel” to Canada due to what the Centers for Disease Control call “high” levels of COVID-19 infection.

The new Level 3 travel advisory, issued today, marks a quick end to a three-week period when the warning to would-be travellers to Canada had been eased to “exercise increased caution.”

So it looks like we just might be worse off than we were a year ago.  When I read that, I immediately think that it sounds that the border to the US from Canada will not be reopening on September 21st.  Will Canada now close the border to the US? Oh, so very complicated. If everyone wore their darn masks and got the vaccines we soon would be back to just travelling between the two countries as we have been doing for hundreds of years.

Perhaps not!

We have blogger friends that we have yet to meet in person but no worries that will happen in the years to come. They really wanted to come into Canada last summer and travel  to Alaska.  As you know know Canada only opened the border to Americans wishing to travel to Canada just a few weeks ago. Barb and Jim never miss a beat and were ready to head north on a moments notice. In his recent blog post, Jim specifically goes through the many complicated to do’s that one needs to accomplish before an American is allowed into Canada. I have heard so many Canadians saying ‘why are those Americans allowed into Canada and why can’t we go to the US’ and further south. Jim’s post is very informative and after reading how much they had to do and then what happened when they got to the border, I went, okay, it is safe to let them in. Yet now, today, the US is saying that we here in Canada are not safe.  What are you going to do Jim?  I bet I know the answer, he is just going to keep on fishing in Ontario 😎

These are photos from Mazatlan. FYI the airport in under several inches of water on the inside.

The Isla had over 15 inches of rain and it rained a good part of the day today. The roads have become a river or a huge lake. This is Mazatlan, not the Isla.

Again this photo is in Mazatlan. The Isla has some homes with flooding but I have yet to hear about the damage to the restaurants on the beach and of course to the RV parks. I, of course, am concerned about our palapa.

15 inches of water on the Isla. Sadly the Isla ( and I think Mazatlan ) lost power between 2:30PM and and 9:30PM yesterday. Fortunately the storm brought cooler temps and it only was about 75F. Good thing since the power was out. Of course stores and most everything on the Isla are shut down.  I have not heard of any injuries which is a blessing. However I am sure that many are suffering, especially if you are living in a lean-to in the dirt.

Sadly the road up to Wendy & Budd’s. Not pretty but it could have been worse.

We did not get dinner until later 10PM last night so I really need to cap this off now.

I just have to leave you with some doxie love.

They love to rub their faces with their paws.