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Need to find better ways to cool our home

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Now that it’s finally get warm outside here in Toronto I’ve come to realize that we need to find a better way to keep the house cool in the summer.

We have window air conditioners, but they seem to only cool half the house. If I go upstairs into the non- air conditioned spare bedroom on the south side of the house it’s almost as hot as if we didn’t have any air conditioning at all. Same for our kitchen which also faces south.

I have curtains in the kitchen and a roman blind in the spare bedroom, but I’m thinking about getting some wood blinds so that I can use them to block some of the strong sunlight that comes into both of those rooms in the morning and early afternoon.

I figure if I can keep those two rooms a little cooler the rest of the house will be cooler too and perhaps we might even be able to turn the air conditioning down a notch or two.





Grooming Midnight outside worked well

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I was just sitting outside on our front porch with my dog Midnight. She’s shedding so I got out the grooming tools – ezgroom brush and Furminator, and I sat and brushed her coat.

She behaved the best I’ve ever seen her behave while being groomed. She mostly just sat there enjoying being brushed as she looked around at the neighborhood and tried to eat a few ants that were passing by her feet.

We haven’t been grooming her as much as we should so I’m surprised how good she was. She must have really enjoyed the attention because two people walked by with dogs and all she did was watch them walk by. Usually she jumps up and tries to run at the dogs so that she can play with them.

I usually don’t like being out at the front of the house with her at this time of day because we have several school in the area and all the kids walking by as return home from school usually drives Midnight nuts. She just wants to play with all the kids. Still, she was pretty good when most of the children walked by.

One lady went by with a baby in a stroller. The baby was wearing the cutest baby clothes. Perfect for a lovely late spring day. Luckily our dog doesn’t pay much attention to babies when they are quite. If they are laughing or crying that’s another story!

Does your dog enjoy being groomed?

Next step? Maybe an outdoor bathing session?

Lovely pink hellebores and variegated tulips

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Believe it or not, up until a few days ago at least, my Hellebores were still blooming.

I guess that goes a long way towards explaining how cold our May was here in Toronto! It’s cold no longer though, we’re currently having a major heatwave with temperatures in the 30 to 33 Celsius range ( that’s in the 90’s F) plus we’ve got humidity on top of the heat so it feels even hotter.

I haven’t checked the hellebores since this heat started, but this is what they looked like only a few days ago:

hellebore

My tulips were also lovely in May. This one is called the Canada Tulip I believe due to it’s red and white coloring:

red, white and yellow tulip

This tulip even has a cool looking flower bud. You can visit my photoblog Breath of Life to see it’s variegated bud if you’d like to.

I hope that you had a great weekend and that your Monday is going well. My Green Thumb Sunday post is late due to an allergic reaction that I had on Saturday. You can read more about it over at As the Garden Grows if you’d like.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post.

Toronto area dog owners Woofstock is this weekend

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Are you going to Woofstock?

Woofstock is the largest festival for dogs in North America and it’s this weekend!

It’s been held here in Toronto on Saturday June 7th and Sunday June 8th between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. each day. The festival is taking place at the St. Lawrence Market Neighborhood.

I have to admit that I’d never heard of Woofstock until a month or so ago. Of course I never owned a dog until last November so perhaps that’s how such a big festival in the city I live in escaped me.

The festival has been going on since 2003 and last year it was so big that CNN beamed the event around the world for the whole weekend.

Chris and I are definitely going to go downtown and check out Woofstock tomorrow and perhaps on Sunday as well. Midnight loves meeting other dogs and she loves people too so this will blow her mind.

There are all kinds of events and contests planned for each day. Perhaps we’ll enter Midnight in one of the contests. She’s cute and she’s smart it might be worth a try.

Check out the Woofstock website for a complete list of events, sponsors, booths and learn how to enter your dog in one of the contests if you’re interested.

Zootoo – a social network for pet owners

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zootoologo.jpg I just signed up with a social network for pet owners. It’s called Zootoo.com and it’s a place where pet owners can create a journal to discuss their pets, connect with other pet lovers, discuss pet news or even launch pet groups or announce pet related events.

I’ve joined a few pet and or dog related forums and groups since we got Midnight last November and I’ve enjoyed connecting with other pet owners.

One thing that I like about Zootoo is that there are lots of groups specific to type or breed of pet as well as groups that have been created for pet lovers in specific areas. I joined a couple of the dog and Labrador Retriever groups right away.

Sometime over the weekend I’ll add to my personal page by posting photos of Midnight as well as pictures of my two box turtles. Then I might go around and look for other members that own Labs or box turtles and connect with them.

The only, minor, problem that I had with the site was registering. I’m in Canada and registration requires that you list a zip code. I’m fairly sure after reading the terms of service that membership is open to most people with the exception of a few countries so it would be nice if they fixed this requirement. As a result of having to put down the only US zip code that I know by heart (90210) it looks like I’m from Beverly Hills California so group suggestions etc don’t work well for me.

If you have pets and want to start a page about your pets and connect with other pet lovers check out Zootoo.com.

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