Sweet Suzie

I never wanted to be the kind of woman who posted about her puppy like she was a baby or something. It is with much chagrin and hesitation I make this post.

We have had this little pup in our home for over a week. It has been quite a week! Potty training, leash training, name choosing, whine ignoring, bite teaching, job hunting and more!

We decided to name her Suzie. She is sweet like my mom Susan. After 1 day of calling Suzie consistently she now comes to when her name is called. Good thing we finally decided on a name. She covered her nose in the above shot by chance it is so sweet. Now the picture below is of her sleeping. No lie-mouth open, legs in the air. It was funny.

We got Suzie when she was 4 weeks old. We did not know she was so young when we got her. We thought she was older. Regardless we now have her. I wish she had 4 more weeks with her mom and litter mates to learn more about biting, peeing, etc. We have been trying to be consistent with our training but it gets hard at times. Luckily we dont have carpet right now so all mistakes are easily taken care of. 

She can go up and down the steps outside to the lawn. Sometimes she sits at the top and whines to have us lift her down. 

Scott and I have been really busy out in the yard this week. We took down parts of the damaged chain link fence and replaced it with good. We are in the middle of moving the wood pile (we have a wood fireplace for main source of heat) which is a lot of wood-about 6 cords. Suzie has been so put out to not have our undivided attention. She is spoiled after only 1 week. 

Scott has been working as a water hauler in the oil fields. He drives semi truck full of heavy water from the pumps pulling oil and water out of the ground and the separator heats the product up and separates the oil and water. Scott works hard and takes pride in his work. He has been frustrated with his boss Gordon Howell. Gordon is in my opinion an honest simple idiot. He has fought Scott from day 1 about paying Scott for work he has done. At first Gordon refused to pay for drive time-drive from the shop to the job location with the company truck. This time is about an hour to and hour back. Scott talked to Gordon and he agreed to pay for drive time. I am thinking how does Gordon expect his truck to get to location? The truck is how Gordon earns money. The truck hauls water and the truck bills the oil company for the load. So the truck is essential to earning money for the company. How is travel time to location not work? Regardless to what I think Scott got it taken care of and he and only he got paid for drive time. All of the other employees are not paid for 2 hour daily drive time. 

Gordon then would not pay for Scott to wash his truck after his week of work. The trucks go on dirt roads and are packed with mud and dirt and oil field grime. It is not a quick wash. Scott decided not to wash his truck ever again. About 3 months later Gordon had a required monthly meeting (unpaid-ugh dont get me started on this) where he told everyone that they were now required to wash their trucks weekly and since he couldnt bill out for the wash he could not pay them for washing the truck. Scott went ballistic. 

I wished Scott could have quit right then and there, but he didnt. He went to work one more day and there was a paper waiting for Scott to sign stating that Gordon Howell Trucking required employees to wash their trucks without pay. Scott refused to sign the paper and called in sick 2 days then quit. 

I am still amazed that Gordon is worried about 2 hours of pay when the truck bills out thousands of dollars a day. I am so irritated at this man. I cannot believe he is still allowed to do business and that some government agency has not fined his company out the wazoo.

The point of this rant is to make note of the fact the Scott was such a good worker it took him 3 days to find another job. He was also reported by the pumper (guy who runs a large group of pumps) as the best guy to go to in all the 4 water hauling/crude hauling companies he deals with.  I am so lucky to be with such a great hard working man!  He is so patient and tries hard to give jerk bosses a chance to make things right.

This robin was sitting on the fence post yesterday. When I was a child my grandmother used to always get so excited when she saw robins flying around. She said it was the sign spring was really truly here. She said flowers grew and temp rose but they were not true signs of spring's arrival. I loved the robin so much. I wrote a report for 1st grade. It was my first oral report and I chose the robin. I still have the report. My sweet mother laminated it and everything! I did not see many robins in Portland and have missed their signal of spring. I am so thrilled spring is here and yet I am dreading the hot temps of summer. I will miss Portland's mild spring and summer.