Sunny Saturday in the Garden!

Today was beautifully calm and clear so it seemed a good idea to spend time in the garden doing odd jobs and, at the same time, benefitting the puppies with plenty of fresh air and playtime.

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Heathcliff Looking In On You All

Hi, all my blogging friends.  As you can see, I'm on the outside looking in...this has been the status quo for much of the time since the arrival of you know who and who...just on two weeks ago. I'm not so sure I can handle much more of this apparent 'favouritism'! They claim it's because I have a 'medical condition' and need to stay calm, but I think it's all a ruse...although I have had tests at the vet and there are some things to be concerned about. I feel fine, though!

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Problem Plants and Peaceful Puppies Entertain this Easter Sunday

How could anything this charming be a declared weed in South Africa?
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PLEASE SUPPORT THIS WORTHY CAUSE OR SPREAD THE WORD...

The raffle has begun! 

FOR ALL INTERNATIONAL BLOGGERS & FOLLOWERS OF DRIFTWOOD RAMBLINGS:

Linda is wanting everyone to take up the cause in their own areas and countries by making a donation to a rescue shelter in need in their region. It is her fervent wish that Romeo's Wish grows into something worldwide through everyone spreading the word to do something similar.

Please help me to help make a difference

Just a short one to let you all know that the Romeo's Wish raffle has officially begun!

To find out more and to see all of the fabulous prizes on offer, please click here.

To buy tickets, please click here.

 I HAVE DONE SOMETHING....

I looked at all the caged animals in the shelter...the cast-offs of human society.

I saw in their eyes love and hope, fear and dread, sadness and betrayal. And I was angry.

"God," I said, "this is terrible! Why don't you do something?"

God was silent for a moment, and then He spoke softly, "I have done something," he replied. "I created you."

~ Author Unknown ~

Please help in any way you can...even if it is just by spreading the message on behalf of Romeo's Wish

Faithful Companions!

Yesterday, in Romeo's memory, we opened our hearts to rescue Milo.  Here he is with Coco and Heathcliff....

You paused outside to look into my cage. I tried to play it right, wanting to catch your eye with a shy glint in my own, a soft bark, that said, "Choose me," in a canine grammar I hoped you'd understand.

~ R.S. Jones's account of his dog Scout's adoption from a shelter  ~

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Romeo's Wish @ The Squashed Tomato

If Romeo could have had a wish before his tragic death, we feel certain it would have been for other rescue puppies, dogs, cats and kittens to be given a fair chance of a happy life.  While the shelters do a tremendous amount of good, their resources are pitifully constrained and both the animals and their carers have to contend with less than ideal facilities. 

Linda has consequently taken her pain at losing her little Romeo and immediately set about doing something positive to make a difference.

First up, she has adopted Coco, a gorgeous rescue pup from the same shelter (The Bellville branch of The Animal Anti-Cruelty League) that rescued Romeo.  Secondly, she has taken action to raise much needed funding for this shelter, in order to be able to assist with the upgrading of the facilities and  provide much needed resources (towels, bedding, blankets, fly netting, a tumbledrier for the wet winter months and so forth). 

Read more about Romeo's Wish here.

Opening our hearts to Coco

Hi! I'm Coco.

As you know, we were Romeo's guardians at times when our daughter, Linda was unable to take him with her for certain business engagements and functions. From the time she adopted him, he was never, ever left alone, not at her home or at our home. He was either with her or with us. Our own dogs, Bonny, Heathcliff and Toby grew to love him so much and each 'reunion' was met with boundless joy on all sides. Romeo had been accompanying the big dogs for their daily run on the field when visiting us from the time we all felt it was 'safe' to take him i.e. after he'd completed his puppy vaccination programme and had grown a bit. At first, either Linda or I would accompany my husband and Romeo was kept on his leash at all times. Once the routine had been 'learnt' and Romeo knew the drill, we allowed him to run unhindered, as the field is safe and we were always right there to keep him in check. The Sheps spend their time chasing after and retrieving tennis balls, which my husband whacks hard and far with a tennis racquet. It's a game they love and it gives Toby, our 1 year old German Shepherd an excellent workout. Heathcliff (our own rescue dog) and Romeo would have great fun running about, sniffing and exploring, but always under the attentive and watchful eye of my husband. Romeo loved the freedom of being able to race and jump and dig, kick and dive headlong into the grassy mounds. He was a natural athlete and it was on the cards that he'd be taken to agility training once he was a bit older. Eventually we all seemed to have the routine down to a tee and my husband took over on his own, just as had been the case before Romeo joined our family. The big dogs would run up their ramp and travel safely secured in the canopied bay of our bakkie, while Romeo would sit up front with my husband in air-conditioned comfort, which he absolutely loved. Although our canopy windows have safety bars on the windows to prevent the big dogs from being able to hang out, the width was a little too wide to risk letting Romeo travel in there, too. We were not prepared to take any chances that he might have been able to push himself through the bars. The routine worked so well and they all had so much fun together, our little close-knit pack of four. They would return home ready for a swim on hot days, followed by breakfast and they'd all settle down for a nice nap afterwards. 

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Farewell Romeo

My daughter's blog post:

I'd like to say thank you for all of the support and condolences that have been streaming in over the past 24 hours. Romeo, my beautiful baby boy, was tragically hit and killed by a car yesterday morning. He was on his usual walk with the family dogs and, inexplicably, bolted through a fence alongside the field. He ran out into the road.


Words cannot express the pain, confusion and extreme loss that I and my family are feeling. Tears have replaced laughter and the sadness is haunting. His time here with us was so short and yet he managed to have such a profound and loving impact on everyone, both those who met him and those who hadn't.


I will miss you forever, Mister Munchkin. Rest in peace, my gorgeous little puppy.

Romeo
November 2010 - April 2011

Meditative Interlude

To one who has been long in city pent,
'Tis very sweet to look into the fair
And open face of heaven, to breathe a prayer
Full in the smile of the blue firmament.
~ John Keats ~

Every now and then, it is good for both ones physical and mental well-being to escape from the everyday activity of life and to immerse oneself in the heart and soul of the natural world.  To be absolutely at peace, surrounded by mountains, sky and water and not think about any of the many things one focuses on during the course of a normal day.  These pauses or interludes break the pace and allow one to breathe more deeply and consciously and to reconnect with ones source or essence. 

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Say it with flowers!

And all the loveliest things there be,

Come simply, so it seems to me!

~ Edna St Vincent Millay ~

"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it within us, or we find it not." - these wise words, attributable to the American philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson prodded me into thinking about how closely we really look at all the loveliness around us.  We view our gardens, close-up and from a distance and think we are really seeing all there is to see, but do we?

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Mellow Days In and Around the Garden

 

This week, we had two of the most perfect days, weather-wise, that anyone could have wished for.  So beautiful were they it would have been a crime not to schedule in some time to enjoy them. 

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Mixed Blessings!

"It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness."
~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon ~

No, I am not using the term, 'mixed blessing' in the sense in which it is usually understood.  I'm referring, rather, to the mixed bag of blessings I was able to enjoy while accompanying my husband on two site visits this week.

Regular readers of Driftwood Ramblings will already know of my great fondness for hitching a ride with my husband when he has to do a field survey.  Obviously, there are many times when this is simply not possible, but whenever there's the slightest chance of my being able to combine a pleasurable outing with business, I grab it with both hands.  I was able to do just this yesterday and here's what I came home with!  A bunch of happy memories, my mixed bag of blessings stored on camera...

To view these photographs, please click on the Read more button below. I do hope you enjoy them...

I'd say we got our money's worth! [Part 2 of Helicopter flight]

To those of you who were brave enough to hop aboard this helicopter flight  a few days ago, I'm pleased to see you're still hanging in there quite happily.  I knew that choosing a really good-looking pilot would be worth the extra cost and give you something to gaze at if you started to get bored with looking out of the windows.

I'm not so sure the pilot has been all that happy being kept up here for quite this long.  It's probably  high time I suggest he bring us in to land, but before we do, grab those cameras for one last round of clicking.  You never know, this might well be the last chance you'll have of taking this flight around the Cape Peninsula!  I see it's grown a bit hazy in the time we've been up here, but no matter, I'm sure you've all had a great flight and I'd say we got our money's worth!

Once we've landed you can all give me a couple of your pictures.  We'll jumble them up in a hat and I'll put them up randomly on my blog...that way, no one has preference over anyone else and no one needs to feel their nose is out of joint, OK?  We won't even give them captions...we'll just allow each picture to speak for itself. After all, this is not a photographic contest.  Just a nice outing we've captured on camera!

If you would like to complete this flight with us and have a safe landing, then please click the Read more button below...