Blossomgate

A lesson in how to change a small task into a LARGE undertaking:

Darling Blossom had a little unplanned outing yesterday. It was a beautiful day so I put her out in the back yard to soak in the sunshine. When I went to bring her back in, she wasn’t really interested in returning to the confines of the house, so I left her out…and promptly forgot she was out there. A little while later I was fixing her a bite of lunch (No, she’s not normally THAT spoiled – but I had a bit of my lunch left over…and with a little bit of Olive Oil for her delicate skin….LOL) and I realized she wasn’t in the house! I ran out to the back yard and called her. No Blossom, no jingle-jangle of collar, no sniffle-snuffling. I flew through the house to the front door as panic rose in my throat. I threw open the front door and screamed out her name. Then I looked down…and there she was, right in the front yard, looking at me as if saying, “I’m right here – you don’t have to yell!”

I brought her safely inside and then went back out to the back yard. How the heck did she get out? I’ve got a privacy fence enclosing the ENTIRE back yard and have adequately stopped up the one place she likes to dig. I walked the fence line…no previously unknown doggie digging spots. No weak spots, no holes in the fence. Both gates apparently closed. Sis had been sitting in the sunroom at the back of the house all day and would have noticed any person in the yard. Has my darling Blossom learned the secret of teleportation? The only rational explanation I could come up with is the side gate. It closes, but the latch has been broken since I bought the house. Since Blossom has mastered ‘push’ rather than ‘pull’ and the gate opens inward, which requires ‘pull’, it hasn’t been a problem. But Megan’s friend had come through that gate and perhaps it didn’t close entirely and Blossom slipped out. It was windy, so the gate could have blown shut behind her. I know I’m reaching here, but that’s the only explanation I can come up with.

I called my favorite (He’s free – that’s how he became my favorite!) handyman – Dad. He said he’d be over in an hour. True to his word, one hour later Dad was examining the gate latch in question. Then we headed off to Home Despot for a replacement. No luck. Ahhhh…but the handy-dandy dirty grungy nasty 500-year-old hardware store DID have the required latch, which was sold to us by a man (?) who had his last bath somewhere around 1912, if my nose was not deceiving me.

We brought the latch back home and Dad set to work. I set to go-fer-ing. We hit a small snag when he wanted me to change the bit on the drill. Right. Just because I own a drill doesn’t mean I am proficient. After un-screwing the bit 4 times in a row when I was trying to tighten it in…Dad began to question my parentage. I could not possibly be his offspring and be that stupid about tools! It took a while, but after combining bits of the old latch with pieces from the new and drilling multiple new holes (many of which we refilled later) and a bit of grinding of miscellaneous jutting pieces…the gate now can be latched securely, thus securing the safety of my darling Blossom. Good thing, too – because if she were to ever get out and wander off…there is NO ONE in the world who would put up with her aches, pains, growls and over-the-top quirkiness like I do. She’d be making a quick trip to the pound for sure.

Two purposes were served, by the way. Blossom is safe and Daddy gets to gripe about something for a good 2 days. Everybody’s happy. Yay.

One more note about the back yard… a couple of days ago I fixed breakfast for Sis and me. As I sat down in the back sunroom, I heard what sounded like water running through the pipes in great quantity. I asked Sis if she had put laundry in to wash. No, she hadn’t. I did a quick tour of the house and nothing was on. Odd. However, I had fixed a yummy breakfast and the oddness of the rushing water sound could not compete with the yumminess of the good breakfast smells. I ate. By the time I was finished, the sound was still there. I stepped out the back door and was met by a flood! What the heck? I stepped around the corner…and the spigot was wide open and gushing water. It wasn’t broken, it was just ‘on’. Once again, Blossom was in the yard. Do you suppose she’s learned to turn on the spigot? Seems like an odd skill for a dog who detests any water other than what is in her drinking bowl to master. Again…no one had been in the yard. Sis had been sitting right there again and there is a window next to her right above that spigot. So once again I am on the horns of a dilemma – is the back yard haunted…or is Blossom truly “that damn good”? One of the great unanswered questions in my life….I need something else to occupy my time!