r/chiweenie

Momo just informed me that a storm is in the area.

She does this by diving under whatever furniture I am sitting on. If I bother to check the weather radar, there is always a storm in the area. She not only knows a storm is in the area before it hits us, but she knows when it has passed without hitting us! She comes out in that case, just as when a storm has finished going over us.

Does anyone else's pup do this? Does anyone know how she knows? I would have guessed air pressure, but she only does it for thunderstorms, not just rain. Can dogs detect electricity?

On edit: I forgot to mention that after teaching Jillian how garbage collection worked yesterday, I taught her about recycling collection today. That's even entirely free once you've bought the bin or the sticker to put on your own bin (one collection every other week, but still), and her family was hauling it to the recycling center themselves. Between letting the city do the work for both garbage and recycling, her family is going to have a lot more free time! She even has a bin already, but her husband insisted it would cost them to get garbage and recycling picked up.

To be honest, he's probably already paying for the garbage collection without getting it! I am pretty sure that is a fee added to city water bills once a year, and I doubt anyone noticed that they weren't putting out any garbage.

Anyway . . .

Original post:
First, Ronan took the ReUse Center stuff to the car, except for the nonfunctional convection oven, which he and Jillian had to carry together.

Second, we moved all the piles off the porch. Ronan hosed the lounge chairs, the whole porch, and the porch stairs very thoroughly. I don't think they've been that clean since I moved in, fourteen years ago.

Meanwhile Jillian brought her Clippers of Mass Destruction (they have telescoping handles—remind me to tell Jillian's story about their purchase sometime!) and we cut back the branches of the trees that turn out not to be Tree of Heaven but actually black walnuts (HUZZAH!). The branches were rubbing against the house. We also cut all the dead branches hanging over the yard lest they fall on Momo at some point. I hadn't realized how many of the branches were dead!

We planned the space. There is even an electrical outlet, so I can bring a fan out. I am going to put Momo's crate in the most closed-in corner, but have the cover only on the top so she can see me all the time. Before I put anything back on the porch, it needs to dry out, which will take some time because of the humidity.

Every day, it gets hot until mid afternoon or early evening, at which point thunderstorms with torrential rain rage for a couple or three hours. Maybe a thunderstorm or two in the middle of the night, and then the sun comes up and tons of the water go in the air and we start all over again. Perhaps you will understand why one of the only Russian phrases I remember from my college studies is, "Eto dushna" (It's humid). (That's transliterated from Cyrillic. It's pronounced more like "Eta dooshnuh.")

I asked Jillian about getting mosquito netting, and what she thought would be best for the purpose. She said she'd ask her sister, an ex-Army etomologist, who did things like that in Kuwait!

They will be back on Monday. I don't even remember what we have in store for then! Momo does seem to be pleased with how open everything is on the porch. She came out to inspect when we were done for the day and scheduling the next time, and her tail was waving the whole time.