I bought my flowers and planted my flower garden on Saturday. Now the trick is to keep the dogs out of it! I am trying some new flowering plants this year that I hadn’t bought before so we’ll see how it turns out. I am going for lots of vibrant colours and flowers.

I went to Walmart first to see their selection of plants. It was disgusting. They had so many completely dead, brown, burnt to a crisp plants still on display and for sale! I refused to buy a thing and I went down the road to Canadian Tire. They were sooo busy there, and it rang up to $51 (ouch) but the plants seem healthy.

Monty is progressing on his water retrieves. He can retrieve pigeons and ducks now in the water, and his marking isn’t too bad. He will retrieve it to the shoreline, or my hand if I’m lucky. Unfortunately his land retrieves are horrendous – well not so much his retrieve, but his desire to bring it back. The little mischievous bugger would rather run around with the pigeon in his mouth, trying to initiate a game of “catch me if you can”. It’s sooooo frustrating. It is next to impossible to catch him. By chasing him, I’m just making the game more fun for him. I was yelling and screaming at him and trying to throw my leash in a loop to catch his neck, but it just made me look like a hot head. I think someone else eventually snagged his collar. I think he’s an incredibly bright puppy and I hope we can compete in many activities together, but this running away thing is really getting under my skin. Even to get him out of his kennel run, I have to stand there for 5+ minutes getting eaten alive until he’s tired of running around me and will sit so I can attach his leash. If I have a cookie in my hand, he’ll come instantly – however I don’t want to bring food out to his retrieving practices because he needs to be focused on the retrieve, not food. Argh…. Damn good thing he’s cute.

Monty is outgrowing Surf’s kennel. It’s not tall enough for him, so I guess he’s bigger than Surf was already! Winger’s crate is a great size for him, but it’s in my bedroom where he sleeps (on a side note – it’s interesting how fast he learns words. If I say “bed time” he runs and hides like a 5 year old kid would)

Anyway, J. and I took a trip across the river to check out the prices of new crates/kennels at the TSC store. Their prices are about a half of anywhere else. We’re debating buying two of the plastic vari-kennel types thinking we can put them both side by side still in the back of J.’s truck for our outtings and to go to retriever practices. The plastic type likely won’t have the circulation the wire ones do, so we’ll pick up a couple battery powered fans that clip onto the front door of these crates.

I have this coming Friday off and we’re finally going on our long awaited vacation to Cabela’s hunting and fishing megastore in Dundee, Michigan. I’m really excited to have a vacation. Monty has a reservation at the kennel. I think his suitcase will be bigger than mine when I pack more than enough toys and treats for the little rascal.

Cabela’s is supposed to have big aquariums and a taxidermy mountain or some such thing full of dead stuffed animals so I’ll be sure to shop with my camera so I can share the experience J. has asked me to suggest other things we can do on our mini-vacation so we aren’t just working on his hunting and fishing shopping list. I’ve had lots of fun over the last few days suggesting things like quilting shows, hours of Sarah McLachlan Cd’s for the trip, sunset romantic walks, and many more things like that. Heheheeee teasing is fun. He better not call my bluff because I don’t want to listen to Sarah McLachlan. Many of the touristy things I’ve dug up in Michigan would require more time and a separate trip. Really, I’m not picky, I just excited to go. As long as he leaves his REM cd at home – I hate REM.

Julie & Brian – I am pretty sure I heard you guys were getting together a couple weekends back, but neither of you have blogged about it. Did you do anything fun or just sit in Julie’s bare apartment (she’s been moving stuff back to Mom’s for awhile).

EDIT: Julie blogged for me! – http://www.xanga.com/julieverkley