The Attack of the Summer Shed

Run and hide, the dog fur has taken over!

It's summer.  Here and all over the Northern Hemisphere, the world has gotten warm, the sun is out, and people have long since come out of the winter hibernation. 

Yesterday I decided to be bold.  I pulled the little canister vacuum out of the closet in the little hall in this little house.  I got the brush attachment and went with care along all the baseboards to get the bits of Parrot food out of the cracks, vacuumed all the "public areas" in the house, the bedrooms and I thought I was done.  I finished up this burst of domesticity by scrubbing the counters down and using a sanding block to get the coffee stains out of the formica. 

Useless stuff that formica, it stains at an eye blink and my counters are beige.

It has been in the upper 80s since April here in South Florida.  Normal Spring and Summer temperatures, nothing out of the ordinary.  Yesterday was a good day to get that cleaning done because there was a shower that was filling the pool when I got started, and the sun came out later to prove that it really is the Sunshine State.  Late Summer here is actually cooler, typically than it is in Philadelphia.  At least it is in August when Philly can get in a heat wave where there hasn't been rain in two to four weeks, and the temperature during the day hovers North of 95 for all of that time.  It gets too hot to rain, and the city was just far enough inland that the ocean breezes would not give any relief. 

It may be more humid here in Wilton Manors, Florida, but you will be more comfortable with that ocean breeze blowing the mosquitoes West into Oakland Park and Fort Lauderdale.

My dog has decided that just like almost every other dog, it is time to get rid of the Winter Coat once and for all.  I think she's decided also to make it entertaining for me and do the Summer Shed seemingly all at once. 

Here I am only a day past the last thorough cleaning of the house and when I walked into the hallway first thing, bleary eyed, just past 6am, I spied a clump of fur.  Bending over to pick it up, I crossed into the bathroom, dropped it into the trash bin and went about my business. 

Finishing that, I walked out into the living room, spotted another clump of dog fur.  This had been artfully arranged into a tumbleweed shape and was spinning in lazy circles in the draft caused by my ceiling fan.  I picked that one up and walked into the Kitchen, picking a clump of dog fur that was next to the dog bowl, and fed Mrs Dog. 

After taking Mrs Dog for her walk I looked around for any other clumps of fur and couldn't find them, so satisfied, I grabbed the mug of coffee that I had brewed and sat down on the Poang Chair that I have facing the front window and my laptop and settled in to do my morning blog and the rest of my web silliness before starting my morning Job Search (TM).

Grabbing the power cord from the small recycling bin, I plugged it into the back of the laptop and opened the lid.  While reaching for the power button I saw a clump of dog fur fly up into an artful arc as it landed on the ground near my left foot.

How the fur ended up being all over the house so quickly is a loss to me.  I could go a week before "having to run the vacuum again" in winter.  Finding the fur in the laptop was amusing and reminded me of the old adage:

"You either keep pets or you keep house, not both".

Oh well, she's due for a bath anyway.  I'll do that and it always serves to entertain with the sheer volumes of fur that comes out of this short haired Border Collie/Mc Nab Dog once it has been loosened up by liberal amounts of soap and water. 

Back to the vacuum!  Here comes more fur!

If I could only crack open that battery pack on the Roomba, I could rebuild that silly thing and have it do the work for me....