Counting my blessings

I love Thanksgiving, and cheesy as it sounds, every year at this time I count my blessings. Tomorrow it will be sixteen years since I moved out here and it is no secret that I love living here. The only year that I haven't been here to enjoy the holiday was five years ago ... when I was of course in West Arichat for my daughters' wedding.
Here in the beautiful Annapolis Valley, the leaves are always at their best for Thanksgiving. This is my favourite holiday to cook for as pretty much everything comes straight out of the garden.
This year I have just been showered with blessings. After months of easing them into it, I am happy to report that Dora and Oscar are safely ensconced in the house. It has taken months of visits to the laundry room and a summer of spending nights safely secured in the workshop to get us to this place. And of course lots of love and affection to build the trust we needed to get there. As romantic as it would be to have the worlds smallest feral cat colony, out here there are simply too many predators.. some of them human sadly.. for Dora and Oscar to be safe outside.
This year, we also have a very special new reason to be thankful Yesterday, Andy arrived here to join our family circle of love.
Who is Andy you ask? As you can see from this picture his foster mom took, he is a very handsome fellow. But he is much more than a pretty face. Before he came under the loving umbrella of ARC, Andy had been picked up near Walmart, where he had been trying to scavenge enough to stay alive.
The short version of this story is that the kind folks at ARC had already preapproved me to adopt a senior dog when I would be ready. While we all knew that could never 'replace' McG, I felt that adopting a senior dog would be the best way to repay the years of love and devotion I had from McG.
Last week, the email with Andy's first pics came and the rest is history. Yesterday, his foster Mom was kind enough to drive down to Kentville and bring Andy to me so that me and my trifocals didn't have to hold up all kinds of traffic on the highway by driving to the city: ))))
The vet wasn't sure how old he is, as he only has two teeth. But he is sweet and gentle and so very eager to please. We all had a good night's sleep last night and I'm going to have so much fun introducing him to our favourite trails in the woods.
I"m not just blowing smoke when I promote the advantages of adopting a senior pet. Anyone who has followed this blog for any amount of time has been regaled with tales of Scamp, the senior fellow who settled in from the first minute his paws walked in the door here.
Its no secret that I have a real affection for homeless senior pets ( Find out why Mature Pets make great companions right now ) They are particularly vulnerable when they become homeless because many adopters simply pass them out of fear of high medical bills or not having fifteen years of love to offer.
The truth is that senior pets make very Zen companions and are often easier to settle into a new home, especially a multipet one.
So this year, while I'm making the cranberry sauce and baking the pie, I have an extra special reason to be thankful. This year I can be thankful that I have enough sense to appreciate what a wonderful companion little Andy already is. He is living proof that seniors really are more experienced at love.