From Mom, August 20th 2009

Hello Jerm,

I was so excited today!! I walked to the mail box with Emma trotting along beside me to post a letter to you and when I opened the box, there was another letter from you!!! That was perfect timing. I wish that the same could happen to you, but I suspect that you will get several letters from me at one time and then maybe go a few days without receiving anything.

We are doing okay. I do miss you a lot. It is hard not having you around to talk to like we used to do. I doubt that I would feel the same with anyone else. You are the Sunshine of my Life as Stevie Wonder said. I am so proud of you going off on your own and doing this. You have always been so independent and self-relient. What you are doing right now is the hardest part of being in the army, that's why you will always hear tales about guys going to boot camp and what happened there. You hardly ever hear much about what they did afterwards unless they were shipped overseas, that's really what boot camp is for you know. To prepared you for overseas combat. You will have more training after boot but nothing will ever compare to it.

Poor Fritz, I'm not planning on using him to breed until spring as Dutch will be bred to Emma, Hiedi, Jolly and Gretel. Gretchen and Sadie will be taking a break their next heat cycle to recuperate and regain body fat. Fritz don't know this though and he keeps checking the girls for ripeness. At least I will know when someone is starting to go into heat. LOL Fritz misses you. He missed going to the dog park and chasing the ball. I'm not going to return to the dog park until all the puppies have gone home.

Dutch is getting big! He now out weighs everyone else by more than 5 pounds. He is now 61 pounds. Still bone raw boned looking and I think he may grow a bit more. He is now 7 months and should keep growning for atleast another 2 months. Emma is done growing and weighs 37 pounds.

I just got done giving all the babies a bath and momma too. I started giving them puppy gravy in the evenings when I get home from work. This of course means crunchy puppies. They are now also peeing alot. So sometimes they end up all wet. It is hard to keep the cloth puppy pad flat under them in the crate, so it can soak up the pee. I still have 5 puppies to place, with three more that are under consideration. I think that after all these puppies go home I should have atleast three months without any puppies to care for. This will be nice so I can do more training with Dutch and Emma. They need it that's for sure. They actually all need reminding now and then. Sadie is still fascinated by the puppies and she is always trying to lick them from below. I'm not sure of her intentions or if I should trust her with them or not.

The last few days this week have been warmer but humidity wise it's been about 65%. It is still hot and makes me sweat and stuff. But I know what the high humidity feels like. Home Depot is air conditioned with swamp coolers. Which are pretty much like they sound like. They cool by throwing moisture into the air. So when I was working there, I could be fine all day working in vacant apartments and go to work at HD and be drenched within minutes of getting there.

I woke up to the god awful smell of Dog Shit this morning. Poor Dutch kept making these quiet little barks and woke me up at about 5:30 am. I was not happy. I took all the dogs outside and they all had the squirts. I interrogated Wes and found out that he had feed them all a bunch of dog food mixed with people food. You just can't to that. A little nibble of something now and then is okay but not a whole meal if they aren't used to it. Shitsville. They are still shitting soft. I better not wake up tomorrow to that smell that's for sure.

That's too bad about your battle buddy having so much problems with his back that the both of you are missing out on training. It can make it hard to catch up with everyone else.

I keep stopping to watch Gretchen's babies crawl all over her. They are some fluffy babies now that they got their baths, too bad they don't stay clean longer. Oh well it just means that they will be used to taking baths when they get to their families.

The TV just said that Cheetahs like to roll in Daisies because Daisies smell so good to them that they can't resist. I keep thinking about Forest Gump too. Forest just went with the flow, where ever that took him. That's why he didn't have any trouble going thru boot camp. He got told to go somewhere or to do something and he just did it. I wonder what it was that he and Bubba did that they had to scrub the floor with their tooth brushes. I need to watch the special features. I love that movie, Joseph and I are always quoting it at work cause the residents can be so stupid. :)

Anyways I love you and I will write you more tomorrow and the next day and the next day after that. Take care of your self and keep your feet dry, your eyes straight ahead, shoulders up and your heart light. You know time will keep going at the same pace that it always does and soon you will be on to something new.

Love Mom