Showing posts with label dogs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dogs. Show all posts

Monday, August 31

The Amazing Mr. B, canine crew

Bud at the dog park 2014
As active outdoor people, our dogs represent our lifestyle and personality. For the past year we have had to slow down since Bud could not keep up due to his cancer and age. Last year the canine oncologist gave him a few months of life without their treatment, and well over a year later he is still our traveling companion.  We are loyal to Bud as he is loyal to us.

Life with Bud has been filled with funny, frustrating, loving, joyous, heroic, and sad memories. Bud's whole life with us (12 years with me) has been a Bucket List. From hiking in the snowy mountains of Colorado and New Mexico and the deserts of Arizona and west Texas to the beaches of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico Bud has seen more and done more than most.  The funny and loving memories with Bud are the ones that I cling to keep me happy.

Thursday, July 30

Somethin' 'bout My Dog

Jimmy Buffett sings it well in 'Somethin about a Boat'...

"Just a-waggin' that tail
Grinnin' that grin
Somethin' 'bout my dog
Makes her my best friend...
That gives a man Hope"
Bud's spot as JT plays his guitar, 9-3-2015
Enjoying the marina by the water

Tuesday, June 30

I Feel Happy!


Occasionally in the boating community I meet a curmudgeon, 'an angry, surly, mean' individual who wants to make other people unhappy.  People I call a^* holes.  I have met my fair share of them in my life.  I learned to hang up, walk away, and avoid them as much as possible because they seem to thrive on spreading their negative vibe.  I have tried engaging with them to see the positive but they rarely cheer up and make me upset.  So if I ignore them and walk away, I feel better.

I am a naturally happy and positive person.   Seeing the glass as half full helps me cancel out any negative people around me.   Being a rational optimist, I do not understand why some are so negative.

Thursday, November 6

Stop Pooping on my Boat

Cease Bescumbering our Vessel with Avian Ordure. 

In Texas we have lots of birds year round due to the warm weather. I accept them and enjoying their sighting, but just not their poop on my boat or dinghy or vehicles. Come migratory season the drenching of ordure on our pier and boat is unrelenting. We choose not a fimicolous lifestyle.
When Bud was healthier and we were living on the boat more, my morning and evening ritual before walking the dogs for their bathroom breaks was to clean off the bird poop on the pier. I stop at multiple sections and use their hoses to clean off the pier as the dogs waited patiently. I did not want to track bird poo and disease onto our boat and especially not in the cabin.

Tuesday, August 26

Leading New Cruisers to Moody Gardens

Turning into Offatts Bayou channel
Marina at Moody Gardens from the beach

We organized and lead our first cruise to Moody Gardens Marina in Offatts Bayou.  Our other sailboat cruisers had never been to Offatts.  We slowed down and stayed behind another tug to insure that everyone made it under the Galveston Causeway RR bridge together.  We radioed the bridge using their call sign to make sure that all the sailboats will be able to go under before they dropped the bridge for the train.  We all made it with no problems from the courteous bridge tender.  Dolphins greeted us along the way.

The cruise was made so much easier with A Quickie Guide for Sailing Destinations in Texas.

Sunday, April 20

Tuesday, August 6

Tough Choices on Leaving

How much longer?
After much researching, organizing, and updating to cruise to blue water, one of your crew may not be up for the trip.  We apply the daily eye drops or ointment so he can see.  Bring his favorite food and toys which he ignores when he is at sea.  Why, is he motion sick? 

Friday, May 25

Close Quarters and Privacy

So close
Downsizing and living on a boat with someone else can be both pleasure and pain and now add children or big dogs to the mix.

Wednesday, May 9

Time to Let Go

Setting out to Sea
For over nine years, I have kept and protected the ashes of my beloved golden retriever, Natasha, who died tragically at two years of age in MS.  With us setting to leave our home in east Texas and move close to the water, I felt that it was time to let her go.  JT was the one that found her body and returned her to me where I kept her ashes all these many years ('because you never leave a man behind').  She never enjoyed being cooped up in a crate, being left alone, and loved being on the water. Her final resting spot needed to be in the water. 

Friday, February 17

Boat and Smoke Alarm with fried Salmon Croquette

The dogs and I are having a quiet evening on the boat with them praying that I drop something. Fried Salmon in the air, pasta in boiling water, heated up enhanced Amy's Tomato soup, all while keeping mosquitoes at bay. Right when everything is done, the smoke alarm started going off.

All my focus is to get through the dogs to stop the smoke alarm, and to open hatches as I go. Apparently I just reached the smoke point for olive oil. I now remembered the last time that I fried croquettes, the smoke alarm went off too. Next time remove the battery before I fry croquettes, because leaving the stove is far more dangerous.

Sunday, February 5

Two Dogs Are Enough.


Weekly I travel this long stretch of 2 lane highway in rural east Texas with 2 dogs to go to the boat. Yesterday was different. I added a third dog from the Polk-Liberty Countyline.

Flash floods and horrible thunderstorms had torn through this area only five hours earlier. There running by herself with nothing but pine trees for miles was an older looking golden retriever (white around her eyes like my Golden). She was carrying a purple fuzzy slipper along this busy highway, smiling and running across the road.  My heart sank.

Thursday, November 17

Warning: Dog poisonings in BVI

I was going to do my next post on the Texas Yacht Show in Kemah and about Abby Sunderlands lack of appearance, but this takes precedent.

As a warning for anyone in the British Virgin Islands or planning on going with dogs or cats, there have been reported numerous horrific dog poisonings around the islands. Police are investigating. The dogs "ingested a mixture of ground meat and a white powder believed to contain strychnine." Even therapy dogs in people's backyard are being killed and apparently the poison dosage is so high that there is no way to save them. This has been happening since October in Havers, Josiahs Bay, Tortola, and Cane Garden Bay.


If you take them to shore, keep a halti leash around their mouth so that they cannot reach the ground. This is the tropics with more poisonous species of frogs and bugs, than we have here. Place extra caution with your animals when you go to other islands.


For cats, do not let them off the boat. (For us that is good in all cases)

Friday, November 4

Sailing to Double Bayou for Halloween

Double Bayou pasture 2010
Boat Camping in style, generator for TV and coffee pot

Heading out late Saturday morning, we sailed along with a fellow sailor across Galveston Bay to Double Bayou for Halloween party in a pasture. The day was beautiful, and winds were very cool (so we bundled up). The ship channel was incredibly heavy, and had to move fast to get across to the Trinity Bay side. We had heard on the radio of a collision in the Houston Ship Channel, which may have caused some of the backup. Collision in Houston Ship Channel.

Tuesday, October 4

Spring 2011 Texas trip

While I do prefer to remain in the shadows on the Internet, I now feel thrust into this other realm. Our one month sail down the ICW (aka GIWW) last spring with our clan of four was far more than I imagined, and staying connected to TMCA made it bigger than us.