Ghetto Grooming

once again i have a huge lag in posting.  and, once again, it's not for lack of stuff going on!  i continued canning lots of goodies, adding to the list Roma Tomatoes, Pickled Green Beans, Pickled Banana Peppers and finally bagging cream corn.  it was while doing the corn that i really missed my mom and my aunt (her sis) - they were pros at this stuff.  but i made it through it & hopefully will have something positive to report after that first home made spaghetti sauce or whatever.
i'm sorry to report that things did not work out in the dog grooming salon i was working in.  nothing in that whole series of events that warrants any time here other than what i just gave.
HOWEVER.....
in the interim, i am grooming dogs at home. not a lot, but a few here and there to keep the skills improving.  i have no desire to keep doing this out of my home for personal as well as logistical reason.  i mean, can you imagine trying to groom in the garage while this was going on?  sure, it would have made wetting a dog down easy, but the drying time would have been impossible!  so my plan is to do this temporarily until i can find a place & map out a plan to open my own store front.  i figure i have plenty of time, no need to rush and make any more mistakes than i already have.
so with that said, here's what Nacho has rigged up for me just to get by (excuse the blurry photos cuz that is all i seem to be capable of with my phone):

we start with a general overview of the setup.  tub on left, supply table behind that & grooming table on the right.

anyone who's been to our house will recognize the grooming table as our welding table.  we figure sometimes you need a shave down & a little spot weld all at the same time.

then only mistake we made on the grooming table is the arm is simply too short.  Nacho did rig it up so it raises and lowers, but right now it's at it's max height & that's not working so great.  but it works just fine for my temporary "salon".
next up, my supply table.  i was able to re-purpose my old garden cart.  i have had this thing since about 1995, so i would say that was money well spent - thanks Target!

you can see my small supply of towels in the bin & a few necessary bathing items along with my shears.
my favorite part....the OSB tub!

yeah, that's right, a tub made out of OSB & it works great!  on the left is the doggy door that swings open so they can walk right in.  you can see the little "lock" in the bottom of the photo above or to the right of Nacho in the photo below.  water runs out the drain in the upper right corner (photo above) which connects to a hose going out to our gravel drive.  i'm not worried about any chemical issues with our well since i'm using biodegradable products.  and filtering through the gravel makes it even better.

and you can see from the photo above, it was plenty of room for our 100lb friend Jake who came to see us this past Saturday!

Jake also tested our drying setup.  yes, that is a leaf blower in the blurry photo below - thanks for the idea Moser!

this is the area where we will need some improvements.  first up, a larger kennel.  Jake was fine in this & stood up almost the entire time so that helped get his belly dry fast.  but i really want something more comfy for a larger dog.  now the leaf blower concept may seem a bit klugey, but cage dryers are essentially the same thing.  i'm pricing those now but this thing worked like a charm.  we used it, the little yellow "squirrel cage" fan on the left, and my 2 assistants Barry & Nacho with regular hair dryers and this guy was done in 2 hours flat!  i don't think we could have achieved that if it had not been for the leaf blower & squirrel cage.  

so there you have it.  a rough start, but a start indeed.  what i do like about this setup is i'm at home so if i want to take a dog outside for a break, i've got a great layout for that.  there are lots of things to improve, but, like i said, this is only meant to get me by for a very short period of time.  

here's hoping the next posting under the grooming tag will show me with a giant pair of scissors & a big ribbon!

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Jump!

well it's been a VERY eventful few weeks here.  never mind our flooding.  that was easy.  we know when the water is coming up or going down & we know how to prepare.  but my latest?  hmmmm
for the past 2+ years i have been very honest (and vocal) about how burned out i am in my current job.  i absolutely loathe working in IT.  and i am not alone i'm finding out.  i reached my peak about a year and a half ago when something happened at work that really sent me over the edge - i posted about it & retracted it because there was nothing constructive in it...at least i didn't think so then.
i realized much later that it was the push i needed to start finding my way out of my current job.  a year later, i was still struggling, but i was trying.  it took a while, but i realized i was asking myself the wrong question for the longest time:  what is it you really want to do?  that just added another layer of frustration because now i was not only unhappy in my job, but i couldn't not answer this question that i thought would make it all better.  somewhere along the way, i realized the question really was "what do you like?"  never mind the "to do", just what do you like.  that changed everything.
2 things happened:  i changed my approach to searching for the next job and Cookie was diagnosed with brain cancer.  i won't rehash the brain cancer stuff because it's all out there already, but it did really make me sit down & think about how much i like animals, dogs in particular.  i started googling "careers working with dogs".  aside from joining the circus (which i'm pretty sure i already live in), certain options kept presenting themselves:  vet, vet tech, groomer, trainer, dog sitter.  so i started researching those.
meanwhile, back at the farm, i began what i like to call my "man on the street career research project".  i would ask anyone & everyone about their jobs.  the Culligan guy?  yep!  the girls at my vet?  check!  the ladies at the nursing home?  check!  random people in check out lines!  really, i did!  and if i heard about a job someone did & couldn't ask them?  i googled it!  my philosophy was that old standby:  throw enough darts, you're bound to hit something.  i had some weird epiphany last March.  sitting in my cube at work, i broke.  i said out loud to all my co-workers "i'm done!  i will not spend the rest of my life staring at the corner of a cubicle!" and i meant it.
i believe in signs too!  always have.  weird things happen for a weird reasons.  i remember my graduate adviser was soooo disappointed in me when i mentioned this in front of her years ago.  "How can you study what you study & believe in signs, fate, etc."  my answer:  i just do!  and this year has been just that.  my favorite, our trip to Jackson Hole, WY and my dog sledding tour.  our guide Courtney and i had a conversation about how she made the leap, leaving her job in healthcare to be a guide.  i was captivated.  i so admire people that can take a leap of faith to get out of the normal routine & make their own path.  i told her at the end of our tour that this was the year i was going to take that leap of faith.  i was going to jump.
and jump i did!  i gave notice almost 2 weeks ago.  Wed will be my last day working in a corp environment.  and what am i leaving for?  dog groomer!  that's right!  i'm gonna go work for the 4-legged variety.  and i could not be happier right now.  i've worked in a local shop the last 2 Fri & Sat's & have enjoyed it.  it will be challenging, but i'm not scared at all.  and that people is a very big deal for me.  but i get it now. every person i have ever talked to that has done something like this said the same thing: you just reach critical mass. a point where you know if you don't jump off that cliff, you never will.  and i could literally feel each of those moments when i took that one step closer & the final one when i jumped.  and it felt great!
will i make a lot of money?  probably not! will i make any money? i sure hope so!  but am i scared?  not a bit!  i don't know when i've been so excited to embark on something.  i have certainly had better, more lucrative offers in the last year+, but none of them felt right in my gut.  this did the entire time.  so, like a marriage, for better or worse, here goes!

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