I get to help train a puppy

I can’t really put it fully into words how great it is to have this diesel heater on nights in the teens and 20s. I know this makes logical sense to anybody who reads this, but until you’ve lived it you don’t feel the fullness of how wonderful it is. We’re sleeping better and far more comfortable now.

Monday I was supposed to take the truck up to Albuquerque to get the topper put on it and then have a couple warranty things checked out. After our heater ran out of fuel before we woke up Monday morning, I looked on Facebook marketplace for some more Jerry cans so we could at least have two cans here on site and nobody has to drive 20 min each way to get more diesel in the morning. I was messaging with a lady off FB from just north of Albuquerque about getting some Jerry cans from her and then it dawned on me that maybe they wouldn’t have a truck for me to rent at the dealership, but I’d end up with a car. That was kind of a horrific thought in light of hauling water and diesel every day so I decided to call the dealership to find out that they didn’t have any vehicles to rent so I abandoned my trip to Albuquerque and stopped at Socorro to do the shopping for the day instead. I got ahold of a guy in Belen who had a jerry can, and he was willing to meet me at the gas station out by the interstate being I don’t feel good in Belen. Now we have two Jerry cans and that works out really well. That night Welda left Jake at the house that we shower at while she went to a meeting. I knew he doesn’t come well so I started working on recall. He’s just a puppy, but he is a smart little dog! She told me that I can help train him. Yay!! Training dogs is kinda like being a grandma; you get to play with them, train them, and send them home.

Tuesday morning Welda let me know that Jake was outside and that I could come pick him up and take him back to camp for training. I did just that, and this pup was leash trained in less than 10 minutes. He pays such good attention and doesn’t pull on the leash. We ended up going up to Capitan to the hardware shop and Family Dollar. By the time we did that I didn’t really need to get a leash and a choke chain to train with, but I got those two pieces of equipment bc they’ll come in handy. Jake ended up spending most of the day with us. It was funny to hear the difference in Wesley’s no at the beginning of the day when you couldn’t tell that there was really a strong desire for Jake to stop his behavior based on how it was said, but by the end of the day Jake knew when he was being naughty

Today we washed bedding, which is always a lot of laundry. We ran back up to Capitan to grab some things at the hardware store so he has the last parts he needs in order to have two jerry cans hooked up to the heater at once. We’re becoming regulars there.

While I started laundry, Wesley took boxes to the old cistern to burn a later day. It’s supposed to be windy tomorrow so doing that today we’ll cut down on how many boxes have to be retrieved from the wind scattering them. The downfall is that some of the boxes were contaminated so Wesley ended up contaminated and I was reacting to him so I sent him to do something away from me and not laundry. Thankfully he felt tons better after a shower and clean clothes. Hopefully his coat will decontaminate when we wash it tomorrow.

Welda invited us to come to Christmas. They don’t have to do that, but it’s a blessing to be included when we just don’t have all that much human interaction in the pasture. I’m planning to make a flourless chocolate torte being I can cook it at the house we shower at. Oh yum!