Delayed Home Improvement and A Coat for MacDubh....

Well, the arrival of our wood stove has been delayed, perhaps until Wednesday. This delay began weeks ago with one small event that has had a domino like affect ever since. When we went to the company to by the stone for the hearth and the wall (2 different types of stone), there was a sale going on, and it was actually cheaper to buy a full pallet of each type than it was to purchase just the amount needed. We bought one pallet of one and the other pallet of the other. (This by the way turned out to be a Very Good Thing, because we originally were only going to do half the walls in stone behind the wood stove. We changed our thinking, to taking the stone all the way to the ceiling and because we had bought an entire pallet, we had enough stone available to do it, ready to go! That was excellent!)

The pallet of stone when it arrived...,eventually! 

On the day they were to begin, with 2-3 days scheduled to complete the process beginning to end, it turned out that the company we bought the stone from was out of the stone for the walls. They had to re-order it. Truck came in...no stone. Next day....truck came in. No stone. The stone FINALLY arrived, but the contractors could not just sit on their hands, with projects piling up around them waiting for our stone, they had to re-organize their schedules. So instead of working things in around us, they are now trying to work us back into a full schedule. This by the way is endemic to the business. So...its OK. We understand. We are having a nice quiet day, enjoying time together - Dreamweaver has the federal holiday off. The rest and time together are good!

Now, onto the cute puppy MacDubh and his fabulous coat!
I have talked about my dog MacDubh before here on my blog; he is one of the world's truly good dogs. He's also in the running for one of the weirder ones, by parentage. He is a Rottweiler/Dachshund crossbreed. I'll wait a bit, while that sinks in...take your time.

MacDubh on his old dog bed in my studio...

As you can see, his head and neck are too big for his body, proportionally, he's got the deep chest and muscles of the Rottweiler breed...and 7 inch legs, thanks to his Dachshund mama. He's a short, big dog, and he's actually very cute, even handsome...although the longer you stare at him, the weirder the proportions become!
He is also a typical short hair, which means that when we get into very cold weather, he shivers when we go out for walks. Which has always distressed me, a bit. A few weeks ago, we had the Polar OMG Vortex sweep through our sunny nook of the south...and with below freezing wind chills, MacDubh found himself bundled into an old cut down sweat shirt, augmented with duct tape to keep him warm. Which he was very good natured about,  I must add! (no pictures of the fuggly doggie coat solution - there are just somethings I won't do to an animals dignity!) Why, may you ask, is my handsome puppy coat-less? Have you ever tried to buy a winter dog coat for a puppy with his measurements? Ah...no. Nope. Not happening folks. They don't make 'em to deal with that combo of measurements and proportions. However....my beloved Dreamweaver, who is killer at crochet, undertook to crochet him a winter coat before the next cold snap (bearing down upon us as we speak, I might add!)
This led to poor MacDubh being measured five ways from Sunday on a semi-regular basis for about 2-3 days...fortunately, he is a very, VERY good natured dog...and did no more than a little grunting every now and then as she was wrapping a tape measure around his neck and chest and tummy and down his back.

Have I mentioned he's really good natured? 

And he loves the cats...the cats love him too! 

So, once she had his measurements and a pattern pieced together from medium, large and extra large cobbled together, she made my sweet puppy his very own winter coat! 

And IS he not handsome in it? 

And despite his good natured grumbling over the multiple fittings, he seems
to love his coat now that its finished! 

So, we slipped him him into it, and off we went into the cold winter night and he loved it! He was frisky and did not shiver and seemed to gleefully enjoy his new sweater! The final great point is that Wordweaving made MacDubh's wonderful winter coat out of the same yarn she made my lovely winter scarf, so we are a good looking pair when we are out strolling the boulevard! And I have to say, I am so grateful to Wordweaving for making my puppy such a wonderful garment, so that he can be nice and warm in the cold winter time!

There we are, in our good looking sweater and
scarf, ready to go for a walk. Thor seems to
think its pretty cool too!