Friday the 6^th of September was a very busy day indeed. I’m only catching up to all the stories one at a time… As I mentioned in a previous post, we had to rush the new water tank installation, and the compost bin building in between, because we had an important appointment. So this is what that was all about.

We had an appointment to meet something very important – a little rescue puppy. Markus’ dog Jet had sadly passed away from Leukaemia a short while ago, so he was quite apprehensive about meeting a replacement so quickly. In fact, he had bluntly refused to even go and look at a bullmastiff-husky mix. But this one came across our path as if by destiny. Our good friend Bron actually put us onto this one. So after rushing to put the tank tools and the chooks away, we all bundled into the car, five minutes early. This was a world record for us; we’re never early for anything. It wasn’t far to go, so we quietly took the “scenic route” (not really) to delay our arrival a little bit without letting anything on to the excited kids. We arrived perfectly on time at our destiny. They were such nice friendly and welcoming people. They weren’t the puppy’s real foster parents, but they had fostered his brother, so they kindly just hosted the meet and greet.

So there we were introduced to Lennon. He is a Labrador x Wolfhound x somethingelse rescue. He was born in a fabulous litter of 4, hence they all had Beatle names. The others were Ringo, George and Cartney. The last one was a little bitch, so they took poetic liberty with her name. I hope sir Paul approves. Markus, being a music aficionado (that’s putting it mildly) at least related to the name. As we were enjoying the chat with the hosts, it was uncanny how the similarities jumped out. They also had chooks, including Wyandottes, but with a different colouring to ours. Lennon was fostered by people with chooks. All three the other “Beatles” also went to homes with chooks. We had a really fun chat and time with them.

But so what about Lennon? My word, that was the easiest “sell” ever. He just climbed (literally too) into everyone’s hearts. We were still talking chooks and dogs when Patricia started filling in the adoption forms! And so with smiles on all faces we left with young Lennon in tow in less than half an hour. At home it was the normal puppy stuff – closing bedroom doors, picking up the kids’ shoes and any other chewables, introducing him to Jazzie, getting a big box ready for his bed, scrambling to get puppy food and so on.

The next day, four of us left very early for basically most of the day. Micaela was participating in a Calisthenics competition on the other side of the world (or so it seemed). Of course half an hour into the trip we realised that in the rush we had forgotten her equipment. So we had to turn back to fetch it. I think I mentioned we’re never early (nor on time) for anything… Well, she just made it in time for the first item. Anyway, meanwhile Markus and Lennon stayed at home with his granny. Grandad and Grammy are currently visiting us.

Great was our surprise when we came back. There was no Lennon! Well the puppy was there, he was excited to see us, everyone was excited to play with him and all that, but he wasn’t Lennon anymore… During the day Markus had decided to rename him as Jack. Jack Black, Jack Sparrow… there could have been a number of influences if I think back to the things they have experienced recently, but I think the main inspiration was the song “The Jack” from AC/DC which Markus started playing recently – a nice bluesy number I must say. In the song, the chorus repeats “She’s got the Jack” it seems a few hundred times. Well, now “We’ve got the Jack!”

No doubt there will be many, many more Jack stories in times to come. He is quite the Jack.