Farmington Valley Golden Retrievers

With all the lawn and pool chores needed to get our yard respectable, I have fallen behind on some of my other hobbies. I have been making wine for about two and a half years now. The whelping box is an ideal place to keep all the supplies together and organized. But at the moment I have nine wines from all over the world ready to bottle, and we hope for Riley to start her mating heat any week now. So I have a backlog of wine making to catch up on. For the first time, today I enlisted my Barbara to help and we were able to get two wines done (sixty bottles).

Of course, I also had the company of Riley and Lucy. Little does Riley know that she will be spending quite a bit of quality time here down the road a few months.

Lucy visited her initial home for the first time since she came upstairs at eight weeks of age. She did quite a bit of sniffing around the box and found one of the puppy toys. She paraded around with it in her mouth for quite a while. I wonder how much of a memory she has of her early days…

Upstairs, when we were doing the shrink wrapping and labels, the girls all settled comfortably to watch from their usual group resting place.

For all those new to our dog family, or awaiting a puppy, one benny is that you get along with your puppy, a bottle of red and a bottle of white to take home and celebrate your new dog. Here are some examples of our dog labels…

Still, seven wines to finish, I may have to start getting up earlier. With three litters planned, once the puppies start arriving there won’t be any more time for wine making for quite a while.

We are planning another medical mission trip to the Dominican Republic for the first week of November. My first mission experience last fall was eye opening and life changing. Click on “Of This and That” to read the post that I wrote after that life event.

For this mission we will be on the coast in a town called Rio San Juan. A surgical team just came back from there, and reported that the tarantulas are texas sixed, along with the mosquitoes and sea crabs. Our mash unit looks to be composed of seven OB/GYN’s, eight surgeons, two podiatry residents, one medical student, assorted nurses with varying expertise, and several non medical helpers. I am very happy to report that my son Brian, will be joining us from NYC, as a helper, as well as his good friend Hilarie who is a medical student. My nephew Mike, who wants to be a physician assistant is also coming along as a helper.

A few nights ago, Tracy, one of our local pharmaceutical reps and veteran nurse, came by the house. With her came Dr. Hal, an OB/GYN from the Seattle area who is visiting family on the East Coast. Tracy and Hal will both be coming as part of the team. I wanted to show them the photo album from the last mission so they would have a better idea of what they are in for physically and medically.

Of course our dogs gave them a golden welcome. Riley still thinks she is a puppy and likes to cuddle on people’s laps. Lucy our pup made Hal feel very welcome as well. Both Tracy and Hal are Corgi owners, and as dog people they felt right at home with our canine family. We usually don’t allow our animals to behave quite so unladylike unless dog lovers come over.

I think they went home feeling excited about the upcoming trip, as well as warm and fuzzy from all the attention they received from our goldens.

My cousin Ron and his Barbara are very good at showing their (our) goldens out in the wilder environments of Connecticut. Here they are at Mohawk Ski Resort in Cornwall, CT. You can really see the difference in our breeding results over the years with Sandy one of our early litters, and Maggie from our last.

It is hard to believe that almost fifty years ago now, Ron and I used to share a tent together at a Boy Scout Camp that our grandfather was in charge of. Located in Hebron, CT, the area has long been developed into a suburb. Still those boyhood memories of good times when we were eight to ten years old are firmly fixed in my mind. If only our “pepere” had had a golden retriever for us to share our adventures with. That would have been really something. Right Ron?

This breed thrives on the outdoors and physical activity. The more varied and wild, the better the dogs like it. From swamp to stream, to your living room, they are very adaptable. They can find adventure anywhere.

When our daughter Kris came home for the weekend, along with her came her ultra- energetic young pug named Pearl. There is always an adjustment in the pack with a new dog on the scene. This time she got along with everyone except Emma who I guess felt that Pearl was not acting submissive enough. So we just kept those two separated and there was peace among everyone else. Pearl promptly fell in the pool while Barb and I were doing yard chores. (Although some would say it probably happened when Barb was scrubbing the pool and turned quickly hitting her with the handle of the long pool broom!). She can swim which is good to know. Not that she liked it as much as our girls.

The golden girls promptly made themselves at home near the edge of the pool. Solo was the only one to paddle around much. I expect that will change as the summer weather continues to heat up.

We should give some air time to our cat, Fievel, who turned twenty years old recently. Still catching things and leaving them on our doorstep, she only weighs in at about four pounds now. Hasn’t lost her zest for life by any means.

Although this is a golden retriever blog, I just had to end this post with a close up of the mug that only a mother could love…

Pearl is very devoted to my daughter. Needless to say she went home to Boston exhausted from all the unusual activity she experienced this weekend.

Going out back midday, a few days after our early morning mouse encounter, there it was again. Sitting on the pool edge it was chased back into the water by the dogs.

Knowing that this was not going to be a good outcome if I didn’t intervene, I picked up the pool basket. Scooping the little thing up, I brought it out to the back fence. This was the first mouse that has survived the pool. Usually they just circle until they drown. This one was smarter by far. Remembering the fable of the “Mouse and the Lion”, I gave it a lift to find a new home on the other side of the fence.

And who knows, maybe someday it will repay my favor…