Bogieblog

Rough Morning

This morning, although I had 2 pet-sitting commissions, should have gone fairly smoothly. First I would take Mocha for a walk, feed her and the sheep, then check on the chickens (Deb remembered to leave them plenty of food and water - but I told her I would check on them anyway). Then I would stop at the house next to Debs to take Amos and Rufus for a walk, feed them and the bird, then come home. This shouldn't have taken more than 50 minutes between the two of them.

Mocha and Amos and Rufus, Oh My!

We got the first snow that "stuck" yesterday. Although it isn't much, most of the snow has congregated in the ditches, which is going to cause problems with raking out the leaves. Maybe I'll stick to plan "B"; clean O'Hara's cage and the birdroom floor. Birdies cage was cleaned not too long ago, so I won't have to do anything other than my weekly changing of the papers for him.

If the snow melts today, then I can rake leaves tomorrow.

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As of Monday, I had the whole weekend off from pet-sitting. Tuesday I picked up Mocha and her sheep (and let's not forget the chickens). I started taking care of her last night and that will continue thru Monday night (twice per day). Maybe I can score some chicken and sheep manure for the huge compost piles I have going.

Wednesday, I picked up a cat, taking care of him two nights (last night and tonight). Then Thursday, I picked up Amos and Rufus (dogs) for tonight and tomorrow morning. The cool thing is that all of these customers live on my street, or just off it, so the drive time is negligable.

Birds and Dogs (Not Bird Dogs)

Coming back from my long-term pet-sitting duties last night, I was traveling down a twisty road. Yes, I know they are twisty around here, but I'm just trying to set the scene. It is a narrow, tree lined road, with just a few gaps in the tree limbs where one can glimpse the sky every now and then. Through one of those gaps, I saw a large bird flying just over the tree tops and criss-crossing the road. At first I thought it must be a raven, but the shape seemed odd. However, it was dusk and telling what was bird and what was tree limbs was difficult.

The bird kept criss-crossing the road (or probably more accurately, the road criss-crossed the bird's path. After a few more moments, I realized it was some sort of heron. I was rapidly coming to the point where the road I was traveling met 149, and I knew a moment of dissappointment. I was dissappointed because I knew the heron would be heading toward the swamp to the south - and I would be heading north on 149 (still had more pets to take care of). When I came around the last corner, just before the road met 149, I was amazed to see the heron landing in someone's dirt driveway. I stopped and took a good look and found that I was looking at a Little Blue Heron. I have seen several Great Blue Herons, but never a Little Blue, or at least not that I could get a good enough look to make a possitive identification. Just too cool!

Pet-Sitting Foilies

Before, I was busy pet-sitting. Now it's just plain hectic. I have sent an email to all my customers telling them that I am full up until Oct. 4 and only have weekend openings from Oct. 4 until Oct. 24.

One of my customers really screwed with my schedule. I have known for a couple of months that I would be taking care of a customer's cat and bird for 6 weeks, starting yesterday. Usually, I tend to them twice a day, but she asked if I would bring the bird home and just drop by once per day to take care of the cat. This was a good solution, and I readily agreed. So, I have been scheduling additional pet-sitting duties on the assumption that I would only have to go over to this customer's house once a day, basically when it was convenient.

A couple of days ago, this customer decided she didn't want me to bring the bird home and wants me to go over twice per day. This really buggers up my schedule (did I really type "buggers"? I've been reading Billy too long!) as now I have two weeks (and a couple of oddball days) where I have scheduled two other customers that need twice per day visits. I thought I would be stretching it to do that much when I thought I was going to take care of the cat once per day!

I'll be setting my alarm for extra-extra early and getting home really, really late at times in the next month and-a-half. Damn, foiled again (and you thought that title was a typo didn't you?).

Jumping Around

Don’t most people go to Niagara to see the falls and the rest of the sites? What is up with all the people at work asking me if such-and-such casino has opened, what casino did we gamble at etc. etc.? If I want to go gambling, I could go where most people around here go; Foxwoods in Connecticut – especially considering the difference in drive times.

The purpose of the trip was to see stuff not to stay inside a building with a thousand or so strangers, spending money for no good reason. I personally would only consider gambling as a last resort if I was extremely bored (and then I would rather find a book store).

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While we were in Niagara, we saw license plates from all over. I would say the longest haul for any vehicle was one with Alaska plates (about 4,100 miles if they were from Fairbanks). I don’t think there is any way to beat that driving distance. There was also a bike with an attached trailer that had come from Washington State (that’s a long haul to ride!).

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Have you noticed that it is harder and harder to get a decent sized bottle of salad dressing that is not either low fat or low carb? All I want is some regular Ranch dressing, and it seems I can only find it in a 6 ounce bottle. But I can get a huge bottle of the low fat Ranch if I want – I don’t. This is just plain wrong! Now a 6 ounce bottle of the full-flavor, full-fat, full-sugar variety might be large enough if I just had salad every once in a while, but I have one every day for lunch (and it aint no little wimpy side salad either). One of these days I’m going to storm the walls of the manufacturers and demand that they package the high-octane dressings in the larger bottles.

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I am swamped with pet-sitting customers for the rest of this month and into parts of October. There are a lot of days I have taken more than I should – and will seriously be kicking myself in the ass for doing so. Somebody is going to be plain out of luck if they want any of what time in what is left of this month. Why couldn’t I have been this busy when I wasn’t working?

Back Home

The 94th Military Police Company of the U.S. Army Reserve is back home in New Hampshire. The've been gone a very long time, much to the disgruntlement of family and friends (not that I can blame them much).

Money quote from the article:

First Sgt. Dennis Mawn said some people called the 94th a hard-luck unit when its tour was twice extended, but he said: “The 94th MP is anything but a hard-luck unit . . . 166 soldiers deployed, 166 soldiers returned.”

Glad to see everyone made it back home!

Today's Pet-Sitting Adventure

As I entered the driveway of my latest client, I startled a flock of turkeys. A Tom and 3 hens were wandering about and moved politely out of my way as I drove in. The scooched off about 10 feet away from me, but were just wary, not frightened. They hung out outside the kitchen window so that I could watch them as I made up the food for the kitties.

Lydia, of course, followed me around as I chased Zorro (in slow motion) and finally dragged him out from under the bed for his medication. While under the bed, I startled Tiger. He just looked at me with big green eyes and was happy that I wasn't after him. Maybe Tiger thought I would drag him out from under the bed next - as I took Zorro down to the kitchen, Tiger followed and stayed around while I was putting the food bowls out. He was evidently very curious about me; he was willing for me to get close enough for him to sniff my hand, but didn't want me to touch him. Fair enough, I just let him sniff me several times then he settled down to eat.

I found Sophy under the sofa again - so she is okay which is all I really care about.

The turkeys had moved over towards my truck when I was ready to leave. For some reason it was more scary for someone to come out of the house than it was to have someone drive up as the birds panicked. The Tom and two hens ran to the right and into the field next to the house. The third hen had been on my left and was unwilling to run between me and the truck so she headed to the area under the kitchen window. Once I started out of the driveway, she ran over to the rest of the flock, and everyone settled down.

All-in-all, not a bad start to a cold, wet, dark, gloomy day!

Zorro

I started taking care of my newest pet-sitting customer's cats today. Supposedly I was only supposed to see one of the four cats, Zorro, because the other three are very shy. Apparently I am Lydia's new best buddy though. She came out as soon as I opened a can of cat food and followed me all over the house looking for some petting (which I happily obliged). Zorro did come out, but kept just out of my reach while I tried to get him to take his medicine. I followed him around the main floor, up the stairs to the sleeping areas, back to the main floor and into the basement (with Lydia following me - we made quite the parade). I finally got Zorro to sniff my hand and allow my to scratch his head, then pick him up and give him his medicine.

The other two cats were hiding under the sofa. At least they behaved in the manner I was expecting! I will be taking care of these cats until next Sunday, so hopefully Zorro will get used to me and the chase around the house won't be an everyday thing.

New Customer

I met a new customer for pet-sitting the other day. She has 4 cats ranging from 2 years old to 17 years. I will be taking care of them for a week at the end of the month. Apparently they are pretty much like my cats - when a stranger comes in, they all disappear (except Zorro, the 17 year old). As I like to make sure all my charges are at least still alive, it should be interesting to find all the hiding places the cats hole up in. Fortunately since Zorro doesn't usually hide, I shouldn't have too much trouble giving him his thyroid medication. If the fish find a place to hide, I am in trouble though!

The only way I get new customers is by referrels from my existing clients. I tried advertising in the local paper (actually pretty much a Hillsboro/Deering gossip newsie that is about the size of an insert in the Sunday paper), but I was annoyed to find that most of the inquiries came from 20+ miles away. People wouldn't be able to afford what I would have to charge to go those distances - not to mention it would make working a full-time job a bit tough. Needless to say, I pulled the ad after only a short time.

I also used to post my business cards in some of the local stores, but for some reason most of the calls I got off those were for people looking for boarding kennels instead of pet-sitting services (the wording stated clearly that I took care of their pets in their own home). After I realized that I couldn't make this business into a full-time adventure, and actually make enough money to not have to work a regular job, I pulled my business cards too.

I think I have the best of both worlds now; I can pet-sit and get to interact with all sorts of animals, but still get intellectual excercise at a full time job (when I'm working anyway). I have never had a client stiff me or write me a bad check (which happened at a kennel that I did dog-grooming at on a regular basis). The people that I have for clients are truly concerned about their animals, and that they get the best care - so they tend to only refer those that have the same standards to my services.

I truly like each and every one of my customers - and that goes doubly so for my real clients; their pets.

More Aircraft Stuff

One of my pet-sitting customers just emailed this to me:

In a mistake of enormous proportions that FAA granted me a commercial
pilot's license yesterday. If I were you I would stay out of the skies!

I'm in the process of finding out what airlinge to avoid that he will be working for so I can avoid it can give you all fair warning will know where all the best pilots are.

Congrats to M.A.!