Doody Call

Rain is bad enough, but snow sticks around a lot longer, and the things that get snowed on really get saturated.

I’m talking about dog poo. My dog happens to be 3 times the size of the one pictured, and her poo is also bigger.

Since I live in snow country, and I have a dog, this funny photo made me laugh. I thought I would share it for those who are dog lovers.

Then, I wanted to pass along a few pointers that have helped me over the years.

Soggy poo is the worst. You can wait for a couple of warm sunny days and let it “dry out” before you scoop it up. Most of the time, it leaves poo smears on the lawn because you have to scrape it up.

When snow covers the ground, and it starts melting, you can see poo underneath. It is still frozen. This is the easiest to scoop up. Frozen snow doesn’t stink either. Which can be a big bonus.

Alrighty then. That concludes this public service announcement.

TTFN


Adventures in Norway


We did two tours in Bergen, Norway.  An “overview” of the town by bus for 2 hours. It was pouring rain and windy, so very few took advantage of the photo op stops. I would have, but she stopped in random places where there was not anything interesting to photograph.  In my humble opinion.

I usually got out at photo stops to stretch my legs and breath fresh air. But I just wanted to stay seated so I did not have to get out and back on the bus. My legs were recovered from Paris, BTW.  The buses were a whole new form of torture,  that I will gripe about later…

The afternoon adventure we took a bus over to Grieg’s House & Recital. Edvard Grieg, Norway’s famous composer.  He wrote music, inspired by Norwegian folk music, and sought to raise it’s profile in his composing and performing.

Grieg’s house was unique because his roof(s) were covered with sod and blended into the landscape.  I sure would have hated to mow them!

Hubby in front of a sodded rooftop

Side View of Recital Hall

 

 

 

We were delighted to be invited to a piano recital by a student of the composer’s music. Martha Berit Belt played for us a sampling of Grieg’s compositions. I sat in the upper back row so I could watch her hands and listen. Hubby and the others took seats down closer to the front, but the stairs looked steeper than my balance could handle.

More photos and back to the bus! Now we headed down the road to a medieval stave church. Built out of wood in 1150, then moved to a new site in 1883 to preserve and protect it from local demolition.

Very Medieval looking, heh?

It had a spooky aura about it, which may have been the gravesite in front of the building…

 

The bus ride back to the ship was happy. No more buses the rest of the trip! Or so I thought…

♥  TTFN  ♥

It Was My Turn, But I Didn’t Make It

windshield   First off, my day was going wonderful. That abruptly changed while driving home from the grocery store. I missed the turn onto my street – probably because it was pitch black outside (remember there are no street lights in my neighborhood), the storm was raining down hard on my windshield and I have night blindness, so I could not see much other than raindrops in the car lights. I did not realize that my windshield had fogged up so badly until I opened my window (to shine my little girly LED flashlight on a street sign so I could read it, which did not help at all). I had driven the last couple streets blind. Not a good thing – especially when one side of the road is a dirt wall and the other a cliff.

Still, you may be thinking, “she’s lived there for over 4 years now! How could she miss her own street?”

“That isn’t important. That isn’t even the worse part.”

I needed to stop somewhere safe and get out my GPS. I saw a cement driveway in front of a white garage – perfect! I will pull in there and figure this all out.

Because of the dark and unfamiliar road I had to ease forward, ease backward (a bunch of times) to turn around in order to turn into the driveway. That is the turn I did not make. Then I proceeded to make things worse, by trying to back my car away from the residents lawn, while turning my steering wheel all the way and cautiously gave it gas. My car did not budge. When smoke came from my breaks, it was time to brave the storm and go out (girly flashlight in hand) and see what was going on.

Somehow, my little car’s front end was sunk to the frame in mud. A few naughty words came out of my mouth when I knew that I would not be able to handle this without hubby and his big-assed truck. Gratefully I thanked my guardian angel for making sure I did not forget my cell phone – AND that I caught enough signal to put a call through to my house.

I was able to tell hubby where I was with the map on my GPS. IT knew all the street names I could not read. Too bad I did not remember I had it right away – I would be home drying out by our wood burning stove and not soaking wet and feeling stupid. More like “stoopid”, really. Hubby must have bit his tongue, refraining from calling me that.

I only shut off the engine because I was low on gas. I left the flashers and headlights on so I would not get broadsided by a car going by. Did I mention my car was sideways across one lane on the road?  Anyway, my car remains sideways in the road. When the car was not running, my transmission would not allow me to change gears. It was not running because the battery died.

“You should have turned off your headlights,” hubby said. More than once.

“I should have waited for the morning to go to the store.” I said. Now I have to try and get my car fixed, instead of doing the baking I planned to do in the morning. Baking was the reason I needed to go to the store in the first place.

It’s got conspiracy written all over it.

♥  TTFN  ♥

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