All done!

[unicornduke]

Mostly.

I decided I didn't really care what the neighbors thought and started loading stuff up around 8:30. The next door neighbors were making an unholy racket around 8 last night including what sounded like someone falling down the stairs. So there was that.

I put Mara on the balcony with a new marrow bone and started loaded. Got almost everything loaded that I wanted to bring pretty quickly. I ended up not having room for my milk in the cooler so I hope it didn't freeze too much in a not-insulated bag. Oh well.

The only stuff I didn't fit were my spinning wheel, my camp chair that I use with the spinning wheel, the emergency water 48 pack and the misc bag that was mostly reusable grocery bags and maybe one or two other things. I may also bring the square side table.

Mara was very good and extremely worried about it all but she loaded up fine and drove fine. I made it back up the hill and left her in the truck cab while I unloaded everything as fast as possible. Then I took the truck back down the hill and parked it and we walked back up so she could use the bathroom.

I shoved the fridge/freezer stuff away, ate a granola bar and set up the tv, my laptop and Mara's bed in front of the couch and sat down. Mara paced around for a while and finally drank some water and I convinced her to lay down on her bed and she's snoozling now while I have a twitch stream on for noise. Definitely different noises.

I can't quite figure out the thermostat, I poked at it and looked up a manual but it isn't heating past 50F so I need to email C about that.

I haven't unpacked anything else but my sweatpants and my heated blanket and I probably won't until later.

But I'm basically done! And I'll wrap up the rest on tuesday. I need to make a quick grocery run tomorrow morning but otherwise, it will be a quiet day off work.

Comments

[unicornduke]

She's got three beds, so as long as I'm near one of them and not moving, I can convince her to lay down. It also means that I get a break haha.

The thermostat is now up to 55 so I think it's just a slow heating system or something. Other thing might be that I have the door closed and the heat might be generated on the second floor since there's no obvious heating vents up here. I'll get up and look at that in a bit. I'm very nice and warm right now with my heated blanket. I may put up a baby gate for Mara so she can look down the stairs or on the little landing because there's a window there and the heat can come up.

[graydon]

Yay, increasing heat!

Hopefully it's a heated floor thingy with a valve or flap or something somewhere. But otherwise, yeah, baby gate sounds like a plan.

[unicornduke]

I figured it out, it's radiant floor heating! I kept walking around going "wow the floor is warm!" and the second floor was actually cooler. But that's why it took so long for it to warm up, I guess it comes up through the flooring slowly. I've got it set at 65 and it's now there and I'm quite comfortable moving around so I may drop it a little bit for a nice cool feeling.

[graydon]

Oh, hey, that's pretty good!

And it sounds like the thermostat is precise, too, which is even better.

[unicornduke]

My only concern is Mara getting too warm. She runs hot and her raised cooling bed broke a week ago. It was a cheapo, so I should probably get a nice one to replace it. But if I can get one raised up that isn't cheap, that might work better for her.

[graydon]

Helinox themselves are showing all sold out of dog cots right now, but if you want a robust option, that's probably your best bet, and they're not sold out everywhere. (I have, and am impressed by, one of their chairs and one of their people cots. Not at all cheap but they meet their stated specs.)

Couple lengths of 2x12, some 2x4 cross braces, a length of geotextile, and a staple gun would presumably result in something rather sturdier still. But not as one could say portable, and if you're taking Mara to your parents' place or otherwise travelling (or contemplating moving to a house with F!) I would think the portable option is way better.

[unicornduke]

oooh those do look good. I'll dig around and see if I can find them somewhere else. I had seen some gel pads and those might do in a pinch but a lot of cooling dog beds are only made for smaller dogs, probably because of the weight issues on stitching which is what broke on the previous bed.

Thanks for the rec! She did okay last night actually, around 2am when she got too warm on her regular bed, she moved to her sleeping bag across the room which is less soft but definitely cooler.

[graydon]

You're welcome, and may it be easy to find some in stock somewhere!

Helinox says 145 kg, thereabouts of 320 pounds, for both sizes. Which matches all the human stuff, so I'd be inclined to believe them.

Glad to hear Mara's doing OK.

Friends of mine had a Samoyed years ago now, and they used to drive with the windows down in the winter so Princess could stick her nose into the slipstream and look contented. Keeping one's large shaggy dog happy can be an adventure!

[unicornduke]

I did find it in stock elsewhere and will order it this week. Only thing right now is that C's address is odd and I can't do an address change until she gets back from her trip (not a fun trip, she's in the netherlands helping move her partner's elderly mother into new housing + covid!). And I want to make sure packages get to me properly before I order something rather expensive. I did a test order of girl scout cookies so we'll see when that arrives :P

Temperature management with fluffy dogs is a whole big thing for sure!

[graydon]

Oh lord, the Unusual Address. (This house doesn't have house numbers, and that means every time there's a new letter carrier assigned to the route there's this Moment of Doubt.)

Hope the cookies make it no problem!