February was a wild month. Within the first week we had our water heater fail–rather catastrophically–and flooded the downstairs (which includes ou r bedroom). That’s ongoing, Also had a bit of a vehicular hiccup with the SOTA rig, a 20-year-old Honda Element, that cost a pretty penny. But thankfully it’s running great with 230k miles.

The true highlight of the month was our welcoming of Monte to the household.

We adopted this sweet guy from a rescue over in Edmonds, WA. He’s about 2 years and fully of energy! The guy has is pretty reactive when he sees wildlife, so it’s going to take some time and work to bring that down but he’s super smart, and food motivated, so I have no doubt he’ll figure things out and be a great hiking buddy.

For the first time in my adult life, I have found myself without a dog companion. I rescued my first dog when I was in college, about 22 yrs old (Kloe, the best dog in the world and I still miss her dearly). Since then I’ve had as many as four dogs at once, two separate times.

Now, we’re taking a little break from being a dog-centric household. It’s freed up our weekends, weeknights, and ability to travel. And, we honestly were just so sad after losing our old dogs these past few years we couldn’t stand the thought of going through that again.

I have started volunteering with the local Humane Society as a dog walker; twice a week, I take a little time out of my workday and walk a doggo. It’s truly been fulfilling, and I’m going to go ahead and share my new dog friends here.