Neapolitan sixth, German sixth, Italian sixth, French sixth... fucking dogs.

If I were in Saskatchewan right now, and if I had a baseball bat, I know of two fucking stupid dogs that would no longer have intact skulls. I hate fucking stupid dogs. They came at least four times, chased my llamas into a frenzy and somehow all the fence panels got knocked down (llamas have skeletons like birds—I can't imagine how they could knock down huge, heavy, iron fence panels without snapping like twigs). They bit at least one of my llamas, quite badly, and probably because she was defending her baby. And the baby? Ah, my beautiful little 4-month-old cria (the only one anyone wanted to buy, but we didn't sell her because she and her mother [both gorgeous] are the ones we were going to keep forever), that baby is now missing. Tonight will be -30 degrees... which means she will die. Who knows what other llamas are injured. My llamas have charged dogs before, and they kill coyotes, and I am truly, deeply, terribly, profoundly disappointed they did not kick those dogs to a pulp. My brother spent all afternoon running all over the fields, farm, and creek looking for llamas, rounding up runaway llamas, chasing dogs away, bringing llamas back to the yard, and setting up all those panels. He is some sort of superhero.

Aside from the fact that he never asks for help for anything, he is alone because my parents have come to visit me for a few days, which is most excellent. I've been getting pretty darn lonely. We've done a bit of touring, and an inordinate amount of visiting relatives and friends (inordinate is good... I've never actually visited all these people in one trip before, and never all here on the island, and certainly never all in the city. We've even managed to visit some of the Alberta relatives, right here in the city! There is no up-island trek whatsoever, for the first time in history!). And, I've also, you know, picked up a few rocks here and there. I've really got to stop doing that.

Today I had my first Analysis lesson. It shall be a lot of work, because although I was never bad at harmony, I never bothered to learn it in any permanent manner, just stuffed it into the short-term bin and promptly forgot it after each exam. Now I want to learn it for keeps, so I want to really apply myself to this course. I'll be doing a lot of reviewing all my old harmony textbooks that my parents brought me. My teacher asked me "what enlightened university" I had gone to, since I mentioned I had a particular textbook from my university days. And drat it all, he asked me if I had my Bachelor's and of course I said "yes," and I think he's given me homework somewhat more advanced than I'd like because he's under the impression my Bachelor's was in music. I also can't read the instructions he wrote out for me. But he is such a freaking awesome comp/theory guy.

• Bah, I won three of those. Three! Beat that!