Remembering Shady our Lab

This photo of Shady, our Lab, was taken at 3:30 pm May 6 2006. Shady joined our family from the SPCA on September 11, 2004 at age 3 1/2.

This is how we will remember her.

Loving and protective of us, always ready for a walk, a dog cookie or scruffies, Shady was uncertain and avoided anything unfamiliar. But she accompanied her 'pack' anywhere they led her. She was clear about what she would and would not tolerate to the very end.

Her liver disease progressed so rapidly. Too rapidly..... so destructively....

Our last trip to the vet with her yesterday October 11, 2007 was one of the most difficult decisions we have had to make. We miss our dear loving companion. We will carry wonderful memories of her with us forever.

In a crate with walnut handles

He finished her chair sometime ago. But she lives in the Seattle area. Now our roof and skylight are fixed. So he's building the crate to ship her chair. A custom crate designed to hold the walnut comb-back Windsor chair. How to crate it? How to hold it still inside on its journey? It needed something to hold the plastic wrap that will serve as a tie down across the seat. Hmmm. He found just what he needed! Leftover walnut from the chair, turned into handles inside the crate!

Men on the Roof

Our skylight broke during the October 2006 Surprise storm. It has been wrapped in a blue tarp... still leaking .

Today it is over 90 degrees and sunny. And the men are on the roof. I'm told they won't finish today. Hopefully the outside will be done so the expected rain doesn't get it.

But the orchids are still inside. The forecast is for temperatures below 50 over the weekend. This is the strangest time of the year.