Trying to keep busy
It's been a bit of a whirlwind this past week. @mrsbozz and I have been doing the best we can to stay busy. It helps us keep our mind off the loss of our dog Jovi. Having to go back to work helps a bit, but man what a crappy way to end your Spring Break!
The Friday after we said our goodbyes to her we decided to go on a bit of a road trip to hopefully keep us occupied. Not the road trip that we had originally planned, but a shorter one just to get out of the house.
As I said the other day, we have never lived in this house without Jovi, so there are far too many memories everywhere just staring us in the face. When we got back from our road trip we found the nice bouquet of flowers you see above. It was sent by my wife's family and it's beautiful. I can't help but notice there might be a few orchids in there.
I think anyway.
You'll probably laugh when I tell you the road trip we took ended up being to a meat market. I don't know why, but one day this post showed up on my Facebook feed talking about this place called Man Bear Meat in the small northern town of Grayling, MI.
It intrigued me enough that I started following the page and before long I was dead set on visiting the place. The specialty bratwurst, sausages, and side dishes this guy was making looked amazing. I knew it wasn't a traditional storefront, but I never would have expected what it ended up being.
I actually tried to find it on a previous trip, but I wasn't able to since I didn't have GPS at the time and I wasn't sure what to look for.
I think @mrsbozz was a little shocked when we rolled up to this house in the middle of a neighborhood and realized this was the place.
You can't see it in the photo above, but on the far left door there is a sign that says "open".
I got out of the car and told @mrsbozz to call the cops if I wasn't back in ten minutes.
It's a quite small space and the guy was standing right there, so I didn't want to take too many photos. The one above is the best I could do when it comes to the inside of the place. It's basically just two large coolers full of meat on the side and then some shelves on the other wall with spices and things like that.
The guy actually seemed really nice and if I had been in a bit different headspace I might have spent some time chatting with him. As it was though, I kind of just wanted to get in, buy some meat and get out. I ended up buying three different flavors of bratwurst (sold in four packs), a length of Kielbasa, and some homemade pasta salad. Grand total: $58 USD.
While I hoped the road trip would take our minds off of the loss, it really just gave us lots more time to think about it since we were stuck in the car. Plus, on the way home I realized we were taking the same route I took when I picked Jovi up the first time from the animal control office. That tore me up pretty good.
We've been blessed with some summerlike weather in Michigan the past several days. With temps in the 70's and the sun shining bright, it was a given that I needed to do some grilling. In the photo above you can see a Chicken Fajita Brat, a Morel Mushroom and Swiss Cheese Brat, and some homemade Kielbasa all from Man Bear Meat.
It was all delicious. I couldn't help but be a little sad though as Jovi was my grilling buddy. She used to out with me anytime I would go to check on the grill, so that was a bit bittersweet.
Saturday morning I drove over to my parents just to let them know that I was alive and I was doing okay. I had one small breakdown while I was there, but I just stepped into the other room while the grief passed over me. We got my mom the lily you see above for Easter. I purposely picked one that didn't have any flowers yet so she could see all the flowers as they came out. I was happy to see it was blooming quite nicely.
My mom sent us a message the other day letting us know that every single bloom was finally out on the lily and it was beautiful. That brought a smile to my face which was nice since I haven't had much reason to do that lately.
Saturday I grilled again, Nashville Hot style chicken sandwiches. I know it looks like it is burnt in some places, but that is actually just the pickle juice, brown sugar, paprika, chili powder and cayenne pepper marinade that we let the chicken sit in before we grilled it.
They were delicious an the heat had me crying for a different reason that I had been all weekend!
As I was outside grilling, I walked over to our small raised bed garden and I noticed the garlic I had planted two years ago was coming up again. I didn't harvest any last year because I kind of screwed things up. This year I plan on just leaving it alone and waiting to see what I can get. It does look like I need to do a bit of weed pulling!
Life is moving on as you would expect it should. I only cried once yesterday, so that is a vast improvement over where I had been. We still miss Jovi and we always will, but the wounds are starting to heal even quicker than I might have expected. I almost feel a bit guilty about that, but I know she was suffering, and now she isn't so that helps.
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
Uh... this food looks good ☺👌👌👌☕... Here soon summer and I can do this in garden too .
It was quite tasty! I plan on spending some time outside soon just getting thing ready for the summer.
Good ..... here I can make now more long walks , when it was -10 or -20 , it is hard to walk in this cold very long :))) But warm garden hmmm... can not say more good I like it . 🤗🤗
I totally understand!
Beautiful white flower
Thank you.
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I know how hard it is to go through this. Haven’t had another dog since Diesel died some years ago now I must say. Can’t remember if we went to a meat market though but we certainly did a lot that time to rest our minds.
!PIZZA
Thanks! I think it is going to be a long long time before we get another dog if we ever do as well.
$PIZZA slices delivered:
@nicklewis(1/10) tipped @bozz
It’s a matter of time those wounds will definitely heal🥹🤲.
We’ll alway miss a loved one
Very true! Thank you!
That all looks good! Some of those "hole in the wall" places are amazing, but absolutely sketchy looking from the outside.
I'm glad to hear the wounds are healing faster than expected. Don't feel guilty about that. You didn't make her suffer just to keep her with you longer, and I'm sure Jovi would prefer you and your wife to be happy, recounting fond memories she made with you, rather than being sad.
!HUG
!BBH
@bozz! Your Content Is Awesome so I just sent 1 $BBH (Bitcoin Backed Hive) to your account on behalf of @bulliontools. (6/20)
I sent 1.0 HUG on behalf of @bulliontools.
(1/3)
Yes, very good points! Yeah, this guy has gotten a pretty big following for himself. Even my wife was impressed with her chicken fajita bratwurst and she is pretty picky when it comes to cased meat like that. I'm sure there's a joke there somewhere!
🌷
They stay with us for such a short time. I have lost many dogs, and each time the pain of the loss tells me never again. But then, there is a dog out there, somewhere, that can have a wonderful life if we adopt it. Perhaps there will be pain again, but at least we'll have given a dog a happy life. It's a difficult tradeoff.
Jovi was lucky to have you.
I don't think I would be opposed to another one further down the road after we have been able to do some traveling and stuff. @mrsbozz is pretty tore up and I don't think she feels like she has room for another one. Maybe one day though.
🌈🌷
I read about poor Jovi, losing a pet dog hurts like hell. We have uhmmed and aahed about getting another dog as the hearbreak of them passing is just so much. But the memories are always with us. Jovi was your grilling buddy, we had Alaskan Malamutes and Cooper the huge male was my grilling buddy, well he was up my arse 24/7! Big hugs as I really feel for you.
Thank you! They sure do impact our lives in so many ways. There is a huge empty space in our house now and even with a new dog I don't know if it could ever be filled. We are likely going to wait a long time before we get another one if we do.
We had to keep ourselves busy as well. Because the longer we sat in the house the more we thought about the events and processed them moment by moment. Never a good thing. You just think what could I've done differently, could we have prolonged their life… Yada yada. Not good. I tend to overthink things. I found a couple good videos that actually helped me quite a bit. If I find the links I'll send them to you on Discord. They may help they may not stuff regardless. Food looks great! Garlic looks like it's coming along well. Good luck with the weed pulling. Lol
Haha thanks, I hate pulling weeds! Yeah, we have some plans this weekend and we have already been busy watching our nieces play softball each night. I think ultimately we made the right decision. Even though it happened so quickly and it hurt so much. I don't think she ever would have really let on how much she was hurting.
I struggled with the whole thoughts on making 'the decision', so much so I got pretty badly depressed. I will have to find that video for you. Like I said it may help or it may not, but the lady makes some good points.
I got it. I will take a look when I am in the right frame of mind for it. Thanks again!
Enjoy your meat. There’s a small meat place like that by me.
That meat sure looks good, so it was a great destination. Those brats look really good!
It's nice that you have some garlic coming up, hopefully you can harvest some this year!
Yeah, it was dang good. We might be heading back up that way this weekend and if we do I am thinking about swinging by again and picking up some more stuff.