Henry's World

On July 3rd, I picked fruit with Village Harvest, a charity group who picks fruit off of people's trees to donate to the food bank. The first house we visited had plums, oodles and oodles of plums. We made the mistake of shaking them down, as most of them were very ripe and exploded. Believe me, it was as bad as it sounds. When I was doing the sorting, tossing out the bad ones and keeping the good ones to give away, my gloves got soaked from plum juice. More than half of the plums we collected were no good. Oh well, onto the next house. The next house we visited had apricots and lemons. Most of the apricots we were taking were high up in the tree, so I got to climb the gigantic ladder! It was pretty fun considering the ladder was four times the size of me! The next house we visited after that was about as big as an orchard. They had two lemon trees, two plum trees, and an apricot tree. I was busy picking the lemons the entire time, and I managed to pick about fifty pounds of lemons...

Trinket's Journal March 25, 2006 One day away. One. One day. I couldn't believe it. All of the training I had been doing for the past 2 months had lead up to this. One day and I was through. One more day to survive. It was amazing to look back on my tug-of-war skills when I first began this to now. And after tomorrow, nothing else mattered. I was pumped. I was ready. One more day. Rascal's Journal March 25, 2006 I guess there are some days when you wish there wasn't a target on your back. I wish I could just be a normal tug-of-war participant like the other dogs. I had to accept being the one expected to win. But I had always been expected to win. And when you're a hardened hooligan like my self, you treasure victory. Don't think ahead, Rascal, I chastise my self. I'm not a tug-of-war fighter. I am a tug-of-war winner. And tomorrow I will become THE tug-of-war champion. Victory is all but assured.

March 1, 2006 I jumped and tugged harder. The vivid colors of the snake hissed like an out-of-control freight train. Rascal tugged with vicious intent, saying, "You know you can't beat me." The snake went flying out of my grip. I gave a cry as the snake lunged- I woke up. Midnight, said the clock. I lay back down. Another bad dream for a dog that had plenty. I remembered what the dog Rascal had said, and shivered. I lay back down, but wasn't asleep for a long, long time. March 2, 2006 Bucky went out for his morning training again today. I brought out the tug toys. Dad and I began our daily work, him tugging at certain angles, trying to catch me off guard, and me adjusting to keep tugging. After about 15 tough, hard-fought minutes, I won and we set the toy down. Dad rose and said, "Trinket, I've been meaning to tell you. The date for Dogpalooza was released today. It's earlier than I thought. March 26th." I jumped up in shock. It was only 24 d...

For those of you who like The Pug That Always Finished Second, I have a surprise! There will be a marathon this weekend! Stay tuned!

Last Saturday, I was working on bikes for Good Kharma Bikes, a repair shop. They accept volunteers to come work on their bikes. People can come in and get their bikes fixed, free of charge. This was my first time doing bike repair, so I was way out of my element. They were very happy to teach me how to repair a bike. The first thing I learned was how to clean out gunk from inside the ball bearings in the wheel. You clean it out using cleaner and grease it back up again to get the wheel moving smoother. Otherwise, the gunk could build up and the wheel would stop moving. The bike I was helping to work on needed a new seat, which was replaced before I arrived. The back wheel had a broken spoke, so they took off the tube and found a new fixed wheel. The bike also got a new gear cassette. The brake was broken, so it had to be restrung. The new back wheel turned out to be to big for the back brakes, so countless adjusting had to be done to make sure it wouldn't drag and had a good brake ...