End of summer this and that

September 1 and Labour Day weekend must mean the end of summer. We can finally stop waiting for the hot spell that never really came and appreciate cooler sunny days. I've been baking crisps from our earlier ripening apple tree and Fred's been busy making pepper sauce from the greenhouse harvest. I got a bit of a break from contracting so I have to pick up those threads again.

September is also when I get my exercise routine going so I've picked some classes. I really miss the classes I was doing. It was effortless to balance cardio, strength training and abs/balance. I'll have to disperse that through several classes. And speaking of classes, I decided to finally enroll in a pottery class. I've hear a lot about it and after watching the Try Guys try Pottery I've realized there is no way I can get the same results I got as a kid so...let's meet some new people! 

Moved Ficus & drum table

Our flooring was finally re-installed and we took the opportunity to rearrange furniture. As a side note - I remember shifting furniture regularly when I was younger. Both at home and at work (I was a lab supervisor and we'd move stuff around to see if work flow improved) Was that just weird or are we weird now for just letting stuff stay in one place? In any case, it's also wound down the pruning of the money tree. 

We had Bennie's last session and, at the same time, a lot of concerns seem to have cleared up. Moving the drum table was part of removing a guarding spot under the coffee table. It was hard to tell if he was guarding or just hunching; what ever it is, he's not as entrenched in guarding. Not sure if the hot sauce worked for him or us - he's more tentative approaching but at the same time, we're much more attentive because we can't let him find tissue that hasn't been treated. His new fav object is plastic produce bags but he just shreds but now we can more easily break his focus and retrieve the object. 

He had started barking at bed time and a calming walk was suggested. Bennie doesn't do calming walks but we've started interacting more with him after supper and not doing the bedtime kennel routine until after our night time routine. As long as we go to bed right after he hits the kennel, he settles down which is not an onerous change in routine. We need to note what triggers barking sprees but until then we're playing city noises at decreasing volumes so he knows what quiet city noise sounds like. I'm also back to letting him approach other dogs if the owners agree but also keeping an eye out to avoid chance meetings as much as possible. The more dogs he meets the less he'll be afraid of them. Bennie could easily have become incorrigible had we tried to dominate him into being an acceptable family member. Instead I think we've got a pretty good handle on positively molding him into the dog we want. Even when we got Milo, cairns were starting to be bred to be more aggressive vs pack buddy because it shows better. The difference between Bennie and Milo may be a reflection of that trend.

Last change is I'm back to reading a lot more instead of wandering the internet. While beauty YouTube is soothingly non-political does it promote consumerism. I do watch TV but now Space and HGTV are running political ads🤮. Of course we have a ton of streaming options I could check out but there's just something about curling up with a story (even if it is on a kindle).