Tuesday

We said goodbye to our Blaze dog (the largest Great Dane), 11 years old, today...who had died in her sleep. Esme took it as well as she could, lots of questions, tears and discussion.  We had lost a few dogs before in her life, but not something she saw and connected so deeply with. We had waited until after the flea market to really tell her - partially because we needed to do maintenance on the tractor, and also because we didn't want Esme to become terribly upset where we couldn't handle it well and she didn't have something else to focus on.  And then she wanted to see...which was hard, but it made it real.  The last dog was Astro, the stray that the neighbor was scared of but we had befriended..she didn't see any of that...but has felt the sting and the loss since.  Blaze being a natural death scared her some, too...as I said, lots of questions about when she was coming back - what it all meant, if anybody ever came back etc.  She did understand, finally.. she's just been hoping it wasn't true and maybe it would work, she said.  She insisted we had to make a headstone. We buried her in a deep hole made with the tractor on the edge of our property - and put cedar logs on top... but Esme said it wasn't good enough...so we let her choose a board for me to chisel Blaze's name into and put it up there.

7:30 flea market, getting ready, setting up etc, math, exercises
-----Power Pack (begin reading vol 1. issue 44)
We bought some tomatoes and planned to make sandwiches later

8:30 packing up, break, stopping for food
home

10:15 Minecraft exploration, nether castles, portals
----(Daddy was doing the tractor maintenance to get it started and the hole dug)
11:00 burial of Blaze dog - making headstone memorial
-----discussion
11:30 break

12:15p - More Minecraft exploration
12:30p - finish reading Power Pack together
12:45p -  greenhouse operations
---planted marigolds, plant maintenance, the kale had come up
1:00p - Minecraft building throneroom

 

Far from this castle she had taken over in the Nether, she had made a gravestone for Blaze there, as well.

2:00 -  weaving loom, tomato sandwiches
2:30 - done

Hamvention 2007 in Dayton, Ohio (fleamarket)

We were at the Dayton Hamvention Friday through Sunday. It was my first Hamvention - although Mark has been coming (and selling at the fleamarket) for years. We brought Blaze along and she was a big hit among all the people who had left their dogs at home. We kept getting asked 'Is that a Great Dane?' (or greyhound, depending on if they had seen a Great Dane before).


Mark and Blaze at the hotel.
We call this the 'Scooby-Doo' grin. (on Blaze, not Mark!)


Blaze watching the shop.
We had a sign up 'Dog Can't Make Change' after somebody asked -- and it made quite a few people laugh :)

Our flea market was bright and well-marked, or so we were told!

At one point, we got really busy!

Mark catches me playing with the Sangean ATS-505P shortwave radio we bought.

I had a shortwave as a kid, that didn't work very well - and being around all the different radio equipment made me really interested in finding another one. One nice guy showed me his digital shortwave (A Sony) because I was looking for one in the fleamarket - and apparently they look much different now than when I was a kid! For one thing, mine was analog, and very small - like a transistor radio. On a good reccommendation from one of the ICom people inside the arena, I bought this Sangean and was soon listening to brodcasts in French, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese as well as English broadcasts from foreign countries. Wikipedia refers to this past-time as 'DXing.'

Other fleamarket scores: We haven't unpacked them yet, but Mark scored a few electronic hobby toys from 'the golden age.' We had them out on our table to see what other people thought, and they really got a lot of attention. We didn't want to sell some of them though - including a miniature robotic arm and a 200 project electronic wiring kit. Mark found a full set of 'Dr. Dobb's Journal of Computer Calisthenics and Orthodontia' volumes and a complete metal train railroad kit as well.

Some notable visitors to our booth...

We told this man he could have this HEAVY power supply for $5.00 if he could pick it up... and we could photograph him doing it for the blog. He was a really good sport!

This man showed us his 'keyboard experience,' a Blue Man Group contraption of strange design.

Some fleamarket booths had strange decorations...(see above) more fleamarket pictures below...












We took some video as well, although that takes a while to convert and pull off, but it's on the way!

All the animals were fine and happy to see us home. I think Mouse taught Pogo to hunt, as her pounce has gotten much more accurate and deadly! Pogo was sleeping between us again this morning purring and saying 'All is right with the world again.'