The Day That Went On... And On... And On

It started out like any other.  An early morning wake up.  Dogs happy to greet the world.  Horses happy to be turned out on grass.  But it just never seemed to end.  Knowing I'd be busy after I did morning chores I went back to bed, trying to grab a few more minutes of sleep.  Unfortunately, tired or not, my body decided I was up to stay.

After a quick bite to eat, a quick game of fetch with the dogs and a quick chat with a friend, I changed into my "town" clothes and prepared to hit the road running.  My first stop was the vet clinic where I committed to a day to say goodbye to Tessa.  Of course I cried all the way into the city.  Next stop was the bank for some cash.  Off to the south side of Edmonton to pick up my brother.  He was coming to look at a place with me.

Past Fort Saskatchewan, and up to Redwater we drove.  I have been looking for acreages and it really sucks.  No fun at all!  The house and yard site had some potential.  My awesome realtor (Dave Campbell of Remax) then booked us to take a second look at a place we had looked at earlier in the week to do a compare.  An hours drive home where I had about an hour to do chores, one of which was giving the dogs a work.  I had packed the two babies with me on the house hunt so they had a wee bit of built up energy.  I worked my three younger dogs on stock.  (Reba was a rock star!  I think we may, just may, be coming out our slump!)  A quick round of chores and back into the truck I went.

This time I had both my mom and brother with me.  Off east to look at the Highway 16 property before kicking it back up north to take a second look at the Redwater property.  Followed by a drive south, back into Edmonton to drop my brother back off.  All in all I put on around 400 km today.  The truly stinking part is we've decided to pass on both properties.  The highway 16 property has this outstanding horse barn (love it!) but the house has a small, teeny tiny kitchen, is right on the highway, and has too many trees that would need clearing.  The Redwater property has a great yard layout, a super cute kitchen and living room, but would need a wall knocked out to make a bedroom "normal" sized.  Plus the barn and outbuildings while usable were not in optimal condition.  They needed work and soon.  All of which is not practical for me.

It's funny to think that the dogs are creating the biggest roadblock for me finding a house in my price range.  (Property is not cheap around here.)  I can't live in a subdivision because there isn't enough land to train on and the County of Strathcona has restrictions on how many animals you can have on certain land size.  Plus I don't want to irritate my neighbors with barking dogs.  The horses can handle being on a smaller plot.  Dogs, not so much.  Plus, with the dogs I need cleared land for it to be viable.  That eliminates all the treed acreages.  The whole process is rather depressing.

After a 12 hour day, nothing much gets accomplished.  Sigh.