One crazy week down, and another begins

It has been a crazy week - crazy busy. The Cowichan (Duncan) SPCA where I volunteer is gearing up for its HUGE annual garage sale which is next Saturday and Sunday, from 8:30 - 3:00. We hope to exceed last year's total of over $12,000 (yes, you read that correctly: $12,000 from one garage sale!). I'm part of a small team of people who for the past couple of months has been sorting and pricing donations in preparation for the big weekend. Now we are down to the final stretch, and the forty-some volunteers who will help with the set up, sales, and clean up will be coming on board this week as we erect tents and tarps, set up tables, and begin to haul the hundreds of boxes and other items back out from the trailer where we have been storing them. Kudos to Gail B. who coordinates it all. If you live anywhere on the island, this is one garage sale you won't want to miss!

But the work involved has also kept me away from the search for Luger. Karen's family is concentrating on the logging area and the residential section below, where three seperate sightings of a large black dog have been reported over the past three weeks. I can only be with them in spirit at the moment, but oohhhh my heart is out there with them.

And then there is Chinook. Chinook is a three year old dog at the SPCA, who has a serious non-infectious illness and became very anemic and lethargic last Sunday. Rather than leave him unattended at the shelter, he came home with me for two nights. He is a very sweet dog, though he decided he wanted me to himself and warned my critters off whenever they approached us! It was actually quite comical, and fairly easily managed with baby gates and one-on-one attention all round. Just look at this face!:






Chinook is now back at the SPCA, where he has taken up residence in the kitchen there while his new meds begin to take effect.

Speaking of the SPCA, on Tuesday we received a phonecall that we are among the finalists in a local radio contest, in the running for a prize of $25,000 of free media time and another $25,000 to be raised by the station in pledges. But they wanted us to write a one-minute commercial about our project, and to be at the station Thursday to record it. So....writer Jean opens her trap and offers to write under pressure...and opens it again to offer to do the on-air recording. We got it done, and I am going to do a seperate blog post about it a wee bit later today - because now we need the public's vote! Stay tuned!

On the home front, I have given up on the idea of getting a vegetable garden in this year, but did buy four tomato plants which are now thriving. I am also creating a flower-filled sanctuary on my patio with many pots of bright colour flowers, hanging baskets, solar-lit dragonflies, and a water fountain. The centre of it all, of course, is that gorgeous Tuscany-like bistro table I bought last year. When I finally finish the area, I'll post pictures.

And amid all this busy-ness were many, many moments of nature's beauty: a black bear running across the road right in front of my car; a cormorant catching a large fish and consuming it just yards from where I stood; countless deer and fawns that I see every single day on front lawns, beside roads, in parks; rabbits and squirrels and birds of every colour; the many dogwood trees dressed in flowers of cream or pink; and, of course, the dizzying array of spring and summer flowers with which nature gifts us each year. Time to start carrying my camera everywhere again!

Today, I shall walk the dogs, spend a few hours at the SPCA, work on the patio garden, and try to gear up for another busy week ahead. And maybe, just maybe, I'll find some time to take some photos.