I Love To Go A Gardening
Growing Our Life in Northern Michigan
Irrepressible Hannah Joy
Sometimes when I walk Hannah Joy down the driveway, she goes into what I call her “Tasmanian Devil” mode. She gets a wild look in her eyes and a maniacal grin on her face and she races madly back and forth to the end of her leash. I think she just gets a lot of energy built up and needs to release it. She used to stop just short of the leash, but lately she keeps running so she is jerked to a stop by her leash. I have wanted to take a video of her but I’m too busy trying to grip the leash. This morning I was able to take a video of her racing about. She wasn’t be as wild as she usually is. She was actually quite calm.
Yesterday, when I walked Hannah down the driveway, she went into Tasmanian Devil mode and she jerked so hard that she yanked the leash out of my hand and I had to quickly grab it as it slid past me on the ground. This is a bad habit that Hannah needs to break–especially before winter when she might cause me to fall in slippery conditions. After she jerked the leash, I made her walk quietly beside me all the way back up to the house. Later, when we went for a walk again, I attached her leash to the ring at the front of her harness instead of on her back. The chest ring teaches a dog not to pull, but Hannah hates it. She drooped as she shuffled sadly down the driveway, all the joy drained out of her. At the bottom of the driveway, she lay down in protest and wouldn’t move until I moved the leash from the ring at her chest to her back. She’s such a drama queen.
Hannah is like a toddler: If she’s quiet, she’s up to no good. Yesterday afternoon I found her on our bed eating a paper towel. As soon as she saw me, she turned away from me and started eating it faster. I tried to pull it out of her mouth, but she clenched her teeth tightly together and refused to let go. I was able to retrieve only a small portion of the paper towel. Then last night I walked into our bedroom and saw the toilet paper stretching from the bathroom into the bedroom with Hannah at the end eating it.
Hannah was skin and bones when we adopted her from the animal shelter. The animal shelter had rescued her and two other dogs from an owner who kept them outside and starved them. Hannah eats everything so I sometimes wonder what the dogs ate to survive. Hannah isn’t skin and bones now!
Usually I take Hannah outside in the evening and she doesn’t need out again until morning. However, last night at about 12:30 a.m., she wanted out. She doesn’t take no for an answer. She pawed at me, licked my face, and lay on top of me until I sighed and got up. I wasn’t crazy about taking her outside in the middle of the night. However, when we walked outside, I was almost–almost–glad Hannah had been so insistent because the night was quiet and there were billions of stars in the sky. The Milky Way was amazing. I stood in awe looking up at the night sky before Hannah pulled me back to the house.
Hannah has her bad habits and gets into trouble at times, but she’s such a lovable troublemaker! And she isn’t always in trouble. She comes bounding joyfully to me when I command her “with me” in Hebrew. I’ve taught Hannah to sit when we get to the mailbox so I don’t have to struggle to keep her out of the road while I take the mail from the mailbox. She now automatically sits when we reach the mailbox without being told. And I love her snuggles. And her grumbles. We adore her.
This morning went I went out to the garage to feed the outside cats, I found a pile of internal organs. I have been doing very good at disposing of the creatures Madeline kills, but this made me sick. I asked EJ to take care of the mess because this time I just couldn’t do it. He cleaned it all up when he got home from work. Yuck. I don’t want to think about it.
I mowed the lawn this morning while it was still cool. I could tell where I had watered because those areas were green and lush while the other areas were dry and yellow. When I finished, I looked at the weather radar on my computer because I knew there was a chance of rain beginning this afternoon and continuing through Saturday. When I saw the mass of rain heading our way, I thought, “Whew! I finished mowing just in time.” But it didn’t rain…and it didn’t rain all afternoon. I think we got maybe three drops of rain total this afternoon. EJ said this evening that the meteorologists were saying that the rain was evaporating before it hit the ground. However, overnight we could get heavy rain.
I got to thinking that if the first sign a person sees when they enter our driveway is our Wildlife Habitat sign, they might think the property is a wildlife refuge and not know that there is a house on the hill. That wouldn’t necessarily be a problem except I would hate for delivery people to not deliver packages to us. So I thought it would be better to switch my Enchanted and Wildlife Habit signs so that the first sign a visitor sees when they enter our driveway is the Enchanted sign.
This evening I carried the posthole digger down the driveway in case I needed it. With some effort I was able to pull the Wildlife Habitat post out of its hole, but I didn’t have the strength to lift the Enchanted post out. I was glad when EJ came walking down. He was able to easily pull the Enchanted post out for me and we inserted it in the hole where the Habitat sign had been.
The hole where the Enchanted sign had been had filled in when we pulled it out so I used the posthole digger to remove the sand from the hole. Only everything is so dry that the posthole digger couldn’t hold it and the sand just kept pouring back into the hole. EJ suggested that I use his auger so I went to the garage and got it, but it didn’t work either. It was like trying to auger water of a lake–all the sand poured from it back into the hole. I finally scooped the sand out of the hole with my hands, but with every scoop, half of the sand slid back into the hole. It was awful. I knew it was dry here, but not that dry! I wouldn’t have taken on this particular project if I had known how difficult it would be. I finally got the hole emptied enough to put the post in it and then I heaped sand around the post. I don’t know if it will hold. However, if we do get rain, it will pack in the sand and hold up the post. That is, if it doesn’t wash away the sand first so that the signs fall down. Well, if it does, I will just put them up again!
I Love To Go A Gardening 
Hope you get the desired rain. We may get some over the weekend, but it is not a sure thing, but Monday’s a sure thing, rain/storms through the day. We had so much rain, it was crazy, and now have drought-like conditions with crispy lawns. I would not be able to handle a pile of internal organs either – OMG.
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We’ve had some rain–Yay! I was hoping it would bring cooler temps, but we are back to heat and humidity.
With all the rain you’ve gotten, it never occurred to me that you are now getting drought-like conditions. This sure has been a crazy Spring/Summer.
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Great that you got rain TJ – you got a break from watering as well. We were supposed to get rain both today and tomorrow – no rain yet today and Sunday is now iffy. That will lead to Monday – strong storms. Then a few days’ worth of good “Pure Michigan” weather – thank goodness.
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I enjoyed reading about Hannah, it’s lovely hearing about rescue dogs who end up in good homes. I’d like to adopt a rescue dog one day. ☺️We’ve been having a long heatwave in England but thankfully, where I am, some rain has come our way.
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Thank you,! Welcome to my blog. I’m glad you enjoy reading about Hannah. She’s a joy, that’s for sure! All of our dogs and cats have been rescues of one sort or another. Over the years, we have adopted some from animal shelters or our veterinarian, some have been brought to us by neighbor children, and some have just showed up at our door. They have all been such a joy to us.
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