Boat

Part of the plan in moving to Washington was to use some of the proceeds from the house in Florida to purchase a boat. Regis has been wanting to spend some time on a boat for over a decade and has put those plans aside numerous times, mostly to travel in an RV instead. He is now making his dream come true. He is in the process of purchasing a 36-foot Grand Banks. During the recent inspection, he took the photos that are in this post. He will be taking possession near the end of July.

While he was inspecting the boat, I was taking pictures of bees visiting the hummingbird feeder. I love pollinators. When I go to a nursery, I select the plants that have the most bees visiting. I’m trying to add more pollinator friendly plants to the yard to make these little bees as happy as can be.

While Regis was going through the boat purchase process, I was missing the motorhome. I would not have been comfortable traveling in our last motorhome by myself. It was too big. I was interested in finding something that was big enough for three dogs but small enough for me to feel comfortable traveling by myself.

The process started with me thinking I did not need two cars if Regis spends a lot of time on the boat. We have a Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk and a Tesla with a car payment. As much as I love the Tesla, especially because it does not need to visit gas stations, the Jeep is the best solution if I only have one car. It can do anything including haul my kayaks. I wondered if I could swap the Tesla payment for a motorhome payment. Long story short, we wound up getting $10,000 more for the Tesla than we paid for it, so my motorhome payment is significantly less than the Tesla payment and the insurance is also less. I now own a Thor Four Winds motorhome that I am very comfortable driving and should nicely fit all the dogs. We will be going on a test camping run in two weeks. The cool thing is that I am going to a campground that we had to cancel some reservations two years ago and the credit was still available, so the future trip is nearly free.

I signed up to give a life-long learning class at Flagler College in St. Augustine and will likely do it for the January to February schedule. The course will be about identifying birds in the St. Augustine area. A wonderful friend of mine is letting me and my pack of dogs stay on her property for the duration. Regis may have the boat in St. Augustine, allowing me and the pack to take some boat rides.

Dart turned 12 today. He has lung disease and can barely walk, so life is tough for my favorite little sheltie. He plays with the collie pups when he is up to it. We are working with the vet to make his life as comfortable as possible. He brings me to tears since he was an amazing agility dog and can now barely walk.

The puppies are growing like crazy and they are surprisingly good. It appears they are both housetrained, but I am still watchful just in case. I am working on their basic skills and they are doing well. I have found it very difficult to train both at the same time and would not do it again with two puppies at the same time. We are making progress and Dart has been helpful in the teaching process. I’m fascinated that Clover, the female, is very much like Tekoe, the female collie we used to have. Clover is friendly, but not a cuddler. Sometimes, she will visit me while I am at the computer, looking for attention. What is really happening, is she wants me to pet her so the male collie, Raven, will drop his chew toy and come to get affection also. When he leaves the toy, she leaves me to get it. Tekoe did the same and Copper (our male collie) never seemed to catch on. I am so happy to have Clover be cuddly that I forget she is using me. Duh!

Between training the pups, Regis buying a boat, me buying an RV, and doing house related tasks, we have not carried the cameras around to get pictures to do blog posts. All my puppy pictures from the cell phone shows their feet up in the air while sleeping. When they are awake, I’m too busy to take pictures. Anyway, i hope that they are now better behaved so we can start getting back to normal on the blog posts.