Not much peacefulness going on lately

Monday, a bit after we had dinner. I decided to put out the bowl of cat food a bit earlier, just to see if maybe cat will stop by during daylight hours and I might actually witness him in person. As I'm nearing our back laundry room door I see neighbors huge dog (one of the son's dogs) standing at the chicken coop looking in. We already know he's very curious about them (all the other dogs, including ours, pretty much just ignore the chickens).  Then I see him start to paw at the wire on the door. I open the door and tell him no and he leaves. I go back inside and look out the dining room window and he's back, only pawing harder and more at the door.

This whole time the DIL is sitting in a lawn chair on the edge of their driveway watching her kids play and had her 2 dogs out with them, but of course not really paying attention to any of them. So, I grab the dog by the collar and start walking him back over to her. As soon as she sees me she says omg, I'm sorry. I didn't see him wander off. I just said, well, he's pawing at the chicken coop.........

This dog is huge. Makes our lab mix dogs look small. He could probably tear out that wiring on the coop walls if he worked at it. Keep your damn dogs on your own property! Is it really that hard to do?! They have 4 acres of property! it's going to be a long 2 weeks.............(we are still waiting for the gates from the fence guy, so right now there is still an opening). And then yesterday the water softener guy shows up at their house in his pickup. The son's big dog literally stood outside and barked at the truck for a good 15 minutes straight (which then of course got one of the other dogs barking). I don't know if Mr. was home, but the DIL, of course, was there. No attempt made to get the dogs inside and stop the barking. I know if Mr was home he wouldn't have let it go on, so I'm guessing he wasn't home at the time. I can't imagine what it must be like to live next door to them - when they actually have their 2 dogs living with them - and the 4 little guys, LOL. DH said I'll bet their neighbors are like "ohhh nice...they are gone for 2 weeks" haha.

Last evening DH was outside and chatting with neighbors, so he did mention the son's big dog pawing at the chicken coop. Also neighbor told him a story he experienced Sunday evening. His dogs ran off, as always, and he had to get on his quad to go find them, as always. They usually head down the state land toward the boat launch area. As he's riding his quad through the 20 acres state land he sees a tent and camping area set up. Doesn't see any people. Then he sees a dog over by this downed tree log, tied up with a ratchet strap and the strap got hooked on the log and his leg got trapped up in the strap. The dog was in very bad shape. Neighbor didn't have a knife on him so he went back to the tent area and looked around inside to see if they had a knife. He then texted another neighbor who lives on the hill up above this state land and he came right down with a knife. The dog was in such bad shape they didn't know if it was going to make it. Turns out the camper (still never there as he was out working) works for the nearby rafting business. No one was very happy about any of this. I think they called the sheriff to come out. Again just more fallout from all these extra people around our area. Neighbor said he was so upset about the dog that he didn't even tell Mrs until the next day.

I've been listening to audio books again. Not as easy as the old days, when I commuted in my car for hours on end and very easy to listen to. I now listen when I drive in to the city (but that isn't too often) and when I go to bed, I end up listening for about 20 minutes or so and I end up falling asleep during it, LOL. When I restart I always have to back up to where I last remember listening. I try to listen while working, but as soon as I'm reading an email or something I tune it out.

We have 12 boxes to ship to DS. I entered all the package sizes/weights in UPS to see how much it will cost. $300 if we drop off. $370 if we schedule a pick up (which would be way easier). But then DH said, can't we just give them to the UPS driver next time he delivers and we found out we can, thus saving the $70. I have a UPS package coming tomorrow, so we will give them to him then.  It was pretty quick and easy to enter all the packages in ups.com. I already had an "account". I put the ship to name and address in and entered first package info. Then there was a choice to "enter another package" and I was quickly able to enter all of them. I had already put my card payment info in. I also used a promo code and saved $45, bringing the total down to $254, so better than $300. It generated a pdf of all the labels and I quickly printed out. I had referenced each label with the package # dh gave me, so he easily knows which label goes on which package. I had to enter in a package content description. Hmmm, what to put?! "Here's your old life back"? No, I just put "household items", since there are so many various items in the box. Honestly, I don't even know all what ended up in there. Basically, I know it's all the stuff from his bedroom. It's past time to let go of all this stuff and I'm glad DH finally was willing to figure out how he'd like to do that.