Fire in the potty

It might have been a slow day for news on Friday, July 20, 2012 for the Grand Forks Herald. This little diddy was on the second page of the B section. Things like this give North Dakota a bad name...sigh.

Police: Portable toilet fire was result of arson

BISMARCK — An arson suspect is on the hot seat in Bismarck.
Police say someone set a Spiffy Biff portable toilet on fire near a construction zone shortly before noon on Wednesday.
Firefighters put out the blaze, which melted the plastic and caused an estimated $950 in damage.
The Bismarck Tribune reports that police believe the fire was started intentionally, because there was nothing in the area that would have ignited the plastic.

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Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

 

Alycia's commentary: Personally, I wonder why they would have thought it was started by anything other than arson. How many times have you been concerned to go into a port-a-potty due it's potential for combustion? There are many other reasons I've been concerned about using them, but now do I need to worry about catching fire?

The GF girlfriend emerges...

Hello, Alycia (the GF girlfriend) here. Now, before you immediately surf away from the blog because it's not John writing, hear me out. John is starting a new job this fall (more on this in a later post - he promises) and with the new job, he will have much less time to devote to the blog. Due to this lack of time, he gave me an ultimatum: either I contribute or the blog shuts down. Now, who knows what the future will bring, but I thought I should at least try to contribute to the blog instead of just preemptively quitting on all of our faithful readers.

Long story short, there will (hopefully) be more posts by me in the future, as John and I start to share the Deaf Dogs blog load. If any of the readers have any burning questions for me regarding John, the dogs, the garden, or even myself, please feel free to post and I'll do what I can to address them.

More Deaf Dog Antics

Since everyone seemed to enjoy that last puppy video I posted, and since I'm swamped with work as well as life changes (much more on this in a later post) and have no time to write right now, I'll just put this video out there to sate your appetite.

Shadowfax chewed a piece off of her rubber toy (if you listen closely you can hear her scronching on it) and ran around with it, chomping it repeatedly, throwing it in the air, and just generally thinking it was the greatest thing in the world.  The piece was small enough that if she ended up ingesting it (which she did) that there was no worry about it getting stuck in her puppy innards.  For the record we usually fish the toy/fuzz/string bits out of her mouth before she has a chance to gulp them down.

Go Fighting Sioux!!

Awesome (not so) little nephew Jacob shows off his University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux t-shirt.

Deaf Puppy In The Pool

We're big believers in doggy day care here at Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes.  If our schedules dictate that we won't have much time to play and pay attention to the puppy, we take her to doggy day care for the day.  This really only happens when I'm out of town for work (this will change though...more on this in a later post) and Alycia is left to be a single doggy parent.  The puppy always returns home from doggy day care a tired heap of pup, but on warm days she is frequently wet and her "report card" talks about how much fun she had in the pool. 

Seeing as how she allegedly has so much fun in the pool at doggy day care, we figured we'd get her a pool of her own and fill it up on hot days for her to enjoy.  Since the pool was just a cheap plastic disk, it wasn't much of an investment. 

As you can see she wanted nothing to do with the pool (in spite of Alycia's Dad and his coaxing) except to have a bit of a drink. 

Unbeknownst to us we were simply using the pool incorrectly.  It's not supposed to be right side up and filled with water, it's supposed to be upside down and empty, that way you can chew on it and get a running start and jump on it like a sled. 

I try not to malign Alycia very often, mostly because there is no occasion to do so.  I love her very much, and she is a very smart lady with an enormous array of skills and abilities and talents.  Unfortunately for you, video recording is not one of them.  On the one hand, it was impressive of her just to capture this scene at all, but on the other hand, you can barely see the puppy getting a running start, jumping on the pool, and sliding under the temporary fencing we have set up to protect our new not-yet-established plants from puppy related carnage such as this. I just feel like a more accomplished videographer would have captured the scene better...

And just for fun, one more puppy video of her tearing around the house, trying to get Tito to play with her (Tito is just out of frame to the right, probably glowering with anger). 

Update on the New Ads

They are gone.  They were annoying.  They were links to sketchy sites that simply incorporated the name of our blog, and not really to any sites of substance.  They were annoying to me and I didn't want to subject my wonderful readers to these crappy/shady ads. 

So the good news is they're gone!  The bad news?  I replaced them with a few more Amazon.com ads.  But at least the Amazon ads are selling cool things like books and music and crossbows and garden gnomes.  And as always, I encourage you to click on the ads and buy things from Amazon.com, all proceeds from sales go to help deaf dogs in North Dakota.

Hand Built 3-Bin Compost System

Here's the great unveiling, the new Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes 3-Bin compost system extravaganza.  Yes it is hyperbole to call a compost bin an extravaganza, but this sucker has been quite a while in the making.  Like, a year in the making. 

Why the heck did it take so long? Well I did build it by hand, and I mean literally by hand, using only hand tools - hand saws, hand drills, screwdrivers, hammer.  So that certainly added to the time it took to construct it.  It also just sort of lingered in the garage for months in various states of semi-assembly.  Since my garage isn't climate controlled (not heated or cooled), there were many times in the summer when it was too hot to work on it, and in the winter when it was way too cold. 

3-Bin Composting system with removable front slats, which make working and turning the compost much easier.

So it ended up that the compost bin became a rainy day project, something to do indoors when it was rainy and I couldn't play in the garden.  Thus it took close to a year to build.  And yes, there was a healthy dose of procrastination involved as well.

When The Sunbeam Attacks

It's best not to fight it.

In fact, the best course of action is just to roll over and let it warm your tummy.