The Ninja Groomer

04/10/2024

It has been a week!! I’ll turn it over to BC to tell this one.
(Copied from his post)

BC: To follow along with this journey, I need you to go into your bathroom and close your shower curtain. Now grab that curtain and throw it open all the way! Now you are part of what I am doing now - pulling the curtain and sharing some of the true life of The Ninja Groomer at B-Kat Ranch.
I learned as a young boy, totally crushing on Jo, you take the good you take the bad you take them both and there you have the facts of life. My tale starts on Pie Day (3/14) when lightning struck the ranch while we weren’t home. We actually were delivering some pies to friends and family! We were super lucky as we did not have major damage or a fire, but we did have a mess including a hole blown through our well pump. We had to pull off of our container build, and start dealing with that and the related insurance issues. Completely unknown to us there were 2 demons freed by that lightning bolt. Our poodle who has been a perfect dog for all of her years started doing damage to the house at times. We all know dogs that chew on woodwork for various reasons but we didn’t know why she had started this behavior. It was Kat Henschen who finally made the connection to storms. When a storm was coming she would literally try to dig underground which meant clawing through the vinyl, and then chewing through the subfloor. Why would a dog develop a fear of storms in her teens after spending most of her life without a care in the world? Remember we were gone during the strike, but Cozy wasn’t. I’m guessing being stuck in a house and having a lightning bolt strike 20 feet outside the back door is absolutely traumatizing and might cause you to revert back to your primal instincts to dig a den for safety. We have also learned that it’s very possible that she felt an electric shock when the bolt hit the property. It was great to have made the connection so that we could take proper measures when storms were coming to provide comfort to her. Unfortunately, that was only the start of that demon. Meanwhile, back in the human world, I had a demon starting myself. MS is really confusing because things in your body can trigger MS flares which then masks what is really going on. For example I might be coming down with a common cold, but what really happens is I’ll have intense nerve pain in my feet and I won’t be able to walk. I mean debilitating pain which then masks the cold but if we don’t get the cold under control we won’t be able to get MS to sit down and shut up. While Kat and I are mending fences, hanging drywall, replacing electrical things, my elbow was bothering me. It’s the elbow on my “good” arm, you know the one I would land on if I happened to fall, which is normal in my MS world. The pain actually became unbearable and I sought care at an immediate care center. The doc said it was my bursitis which I have been dealing with for years. I explained how this was different and he guessed that there might be a mild infection and prescribed an antibiotic which I had already been taking. All my other symptoms were probably just my MS flaring from that. If you don’t know, what bursitis is, Google will explain it better but what I will tell you is at certain times I have a b**b that grows out from my elbow. It’s not a nice fit b**b like you would find on my lovely bride, but probably more like an 80-year-old lady. It swings around and gets in the way, but really doesn’t cause much other issues. Once again, I think the comparison to an 80-year-old lady b**b is accurate.
My elbow continued to get worse and that caused me to seek further knowledge. Actually, again with the curtain open, it forced my wife to call her friend who happens to be a wound care specialist. She instructed my wife to force me to go to the ER. I was raised that you only go to the emergency room for life-threatening issues. I didn’t consider my painful elbow to meet that requirement. Kat, furious at this point, put her friend on speakerphone, and they both yelled at me until I agreed to go to the ER. I agreed, just knowing I would get to rub it in their faces when I get kicked out of the ER and they tell me to make an appointment with my regular doctor. And that is what happened!!! Crap, the curtain is still open. What really happened? The ER admitted me to the hospital and prepared me for surgery the next day. Seems like my arm b**b was full of infection. Keep in mind the whole time leading up to this my MS was flaring. That left my superwoman Kat doing everything. She was working, taking care of BKat, bringing home the bacon and frying it up in a pan, which isn’t much different from her normal routine when I am healthy except now she has to drive to the hospital a few times a day to see me. My surgery went well and it seemed things were heading the right way! Well, did you forget about the other demon, the one with Cozy? Although Kat comforted her during storms she still wasn’t right. She continued to decline so Kat got her an appointment at our vet so that she could drop off cozy on the way to work and hopefully pick her up on the way home. That, of course, was happening on the day that I was getting discharged which we did not know at the time. So Kats day was wake up, work out, do all the chores, visit her husband in the hospital, pick up Cozy, take cozy to the veterinarian, go to work, get constant texts from her husband saying he gets released and he needs picked up and not sure how that will happen. Now you might think maybe somebody else could pick me up but there were some issues there. My lovely bride left me completely naked at the hospital. she took all my stuff, including my brace. I think it’s her way to make sure that I don’t leave on my own. I also did not want anybody to be there at the discharge but her. I’m very weak and tired at that point and I know people can help me almost as well as Kat, but when I am really struggling, she is the only one that can take care of me. Kat heard from the vet that cozy was on the mend. She had ingested some of the wood and vinyl as she was trying to put in a basement. Luckily it was on its way out and surgery was not required. At the end of the day Kat was able to get Cozy, get me, and get us all home safely in bed. She truly is a ninja warrior and I love her so much.

I've been writing this story now for twenty five hours. I could write it
For another twenty five hours I'm not proud... or tired. But I guess you are. I just want to sincerely thank everyone. I have been complaining about my MS for the last couple posts and I’ve been hearing from people all around the globe some that I have never met in person giving us love and support. I also can’t thank our local friends enough for helping Kat With chores, cooking meals, or just being a friend with a shoulder to cry on. We are blessed with such a huge support team and we love every one of you even if you are a thousand miles away or across the street. Thank you. I don’t really post in real time obviously for security reasons, but I will tell you I don’t worry much about this woman when I’m not around.

Love is my religion and keep groomin’ y’all.

(Ps, there are 3 song referenced in this story. Did you catch them?)

04/10/2024

To follow along with this journey, I need you to go into your bathroom and close your shower curtain. Now grab that curtain and throw it open all the way! Now you are part of what I am doing now - pulling the curtain and sharing some of the true life of The Ninja Groomer at B-Kat Ranch!
I learned as a young boy, totally crushing on Jo, you take the good you take the bad you take them both and there you have the facts of life. My tale starts on Pie Day (3/14) when lightning struck the ranch while we weren’t home. We actually were delivering some pies to friends and family! We were super lucky as we did not have major damage or a fire, but we did have a mess including a hole blown through our well pump. We had to pull off of our container build, and start dealing with that and the related insurance issues. Completely unknown to us there were 2 demons freed by that lightning bolt. Our poodle who has been a perfect dog for all of her years started doing damage to the house at times. We all know dogs that chew on woodwork for various reasons but we didn’t know why she had started this behavior. It was Kat Henschen who finally made the connection to storms. When a storm was coming she would literally try to dig underground which meant clawing through the vinyl, and then chewing through the subfloor. Why would a dog develop a fear of storms in her teens after spending most of her life without a care in the world? Remember we were gone during the strike, but Cozy wasn’t. I’m guessing being stuck in a house and having a lightning bolt strike 20 feet outside the back door is absolutely traumatizing and might cause you to revert back to your primal instincts to dig a den for safety. We have also learned that it’s very possible that she felt an electric shock when the bolt hit the property. It was great to have made the connection so that we could take proper measures when storms were coming to provide comfort to her. Unfortunately, that was only the start of that demon. Meanwhile, back in the human world, I had a demon starting myself. MS is really confusing because things in your body can trigger MS flares which then masks what is really going on. For example I might be coming down with a common cold, but what really happens is I’ll have intense nerve pain in my feet and I won’t be able to walk. I mean debilitating pain which then masks the cold but if we don’t get the cold under control we won’t be able to get MS to sit down and shut up. While Kat and I are mending fences, hanging drywall, replacing electrical things, my elbow was bothering me. It’s the elbow on my “good” arm, you know the one I would land on if I happened to fall, which is normal in my MS world. The pain actually became unbearable and I sought care at an immediate care center. The doc said it was my bursitis which I have been dealing with for years. I explained how this was different and he guessed that there might be a mild infection and prescribed an antibiotic which I had already been taking. All my other symptoms were probably just my MS flaring from that. If you don’t know, what bursitis is, Google will explain it better but what I will tell you is at certain times I have a b**b that grows out from my elbow. It’s not a nice fit b**b like you would find on my lovely bride, but probably more like an 80-year-old lady. It swings around and gets in the way, but really doesn’t cause much other issues. Once again, I think the comparison to an 80-year-old lady b**b is accurate.
My elbow continued to get worse and that caused me to seek further knowledge. Actually, again with the curtain open, it forced my wife to call her friend who happens to be a wound care specialist. She instructed my wife to force me to go to the ER. I was raised that you only go to the emergency room for life-threatening issues. I didn’t consider my painful elbow to meet that requirement. Kat, furious at this point, put her friend on speakerphone, and they both yelled at me until I agreed to go to the ER. I agreed, just knowing I would get to rub it in their faces when I get kicked out of the ER and they tell me to make an appointment with my regular doctor. And that is what happened!!! Crap, the curtain is still open. What really happened? The ER admitted me to the hospital and prepared me for surgery the next day. Seems like my arm b**b was full of infection. Keep in mind the whole time leading up to this my MS was flaring. That left my superwoman Kat doing everything. She was working, taking care of BKat, bringing home the bacon and frying it up in a pan, which isn’t much different from her normal routine when I am healthy except now she has to drive to the hospital a few times a day to see me. My surgery went well and it seemed things were heading the right way! Well, did you forget about the other demon, the one with Cozy? Although Kat comforted her during storms she still wasn’t right. She continued to decline so Kat got her an appointment at our vet so that she could drop off cozy on the way to work and hopefully pick her up on the way home. That, of course, was happening on the day that I was getting discharged which we did not know at the time. So Kats day was wake up, work out, do all the chores, visit her husband in the hospital, pick up Cozy, take cozy to the veterinarian, go to work, get constant texts from her husband saying he gets released and he needs picked up and not sure how that will happen. Now you might think maybe somebody else could pick me up but there were some issues there. My lovely bride left me completely naked at the hospital. she took all my stuff, including my brace. I think it’s her way to make sure that I don’t leave on my own. I also did not want anybody to be there at the discharge but her. I’m very weak and tired at that point and I know people can help me almost as well as Kat, but when I am really struggling, she is the only one that can take care of me. Kat heard from the vet that cozy was on the mend. She had ingested some of the wooden vinyl as she was trying to put in a basement. Luckily it was on its way out and surgery was not required. At the end of the day Kat was able to get Cozy, get me, and get us all home safely in bed. She truly is a ninja warrior and I love her so much.

I've been writing this story now for twenty five hours. I could write it
For another twenty five hours I'm not proud... or tired. But I guess you are. I just want to sincerely thank everyone. I have been complaining about my MS for the last couple posts and I’ve been hearing from people all around the globe some that I have never met in person giving us love and support. I also can’t think our local friends enough for helping Kat With chores, cooking meals, or just being a friend with a shoulder to cry on. We are blessed with such a huge support team and we love every one of you even if you are a thousand miles away or across the street. Thank you. I don’t really post in real time obviously for security reasons, but I will tell you I don’t worry much about this woman when I’m not around.

Love is my religion and keep groomin’ y’all.

(Ps, there are 3 song referenced in this story. Did you catch them?)

03/11/2024

It’s that time again!!! Get ready for your next update on The Ninja Groomer build! A big thank you to Indiana Spray Foam,LLC

03/01/2024

I had a customer recently bring me bandanas she had kept over the years. Some of them quite vintage, from way back in the early 2000’s when we used to have them embroidered with our name and number. That was so cool and so sweet of her to do. It brought me back way back to my early days as a groomer and small business owner. The only thing that’s never going to change is that every thing will always inevitably change. I went back into a blog I used to write and found one of my first posts. I though it’d be fun to share,

IT WAS EARLY 2005:

I sat in the parking lot and quietly stared into the empty lobby of Platinum Paws. My eyes welled up with tears as the lump in my throat I had managed to swallow earlier in the day returned, forcing the tears to slowly run down my cheeks. There would be no “holding it in” this time. The day had taken everything from me. I slowly dropped my head and let it rest on the steering wheel and the pity party commenced. “I’m not good enough.” “I can’t do this.” “I’ll never make it.” I blubbered to myself. Eventually I calmed myself into a state of reasonableness and began to pray the Serenity Prayer….”God Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” I took a deep breath and as always calmness found its way back to me. I had just endured my very first terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day as a small business owner and groomer.
After I graduated school I quit my job at Safeco and immediately pursued my passion for grooming. I, along with my husband, took over a business that had been in existence for approximately 6 months, Platinum Paws. Just my style: jumping in head first. I’ve always been an all or none kind of gal. The previous owner agreed to stay on for a couple of weeks and show me how she had been running things as well as introduce me to some of the clientele that she had built up over the last 6 months. After that I was on my own, with the exception of my sister in law (B.C.’s sister) coming in to help out when she could. What I lacked in experience I made up for in determination. Platinum Paws was making just enough to cover the rent at that time so B.C. continued to work elsewhere including working in the evenings at Petsmart as a dog trainer.
About a month had passed in my new career. The day started like any other. In those days I did it all. I answered the phone, I checked in and checked out clients, I bathed the dogs and groomed the dogs. I cleaned up messes and disinfected the cages. I took them out to go potty one by one. I did the reminder calls and wrote thank you notes. I took home the bath towels to wash every night and brought them back to the shop the next morning. Up to this point I had been able to juggle everything pretty well. I had 5 dogs on the schedule that day: two Yorkies, a Standard Poodle, a Brittany Spaniel, and a Weimaraner. That was quite the ambitious day for me back then, but I was confident that I would be just fine. Little did I know what the day had in store for me. As soon as I opened the door for business it was like a bell had gone off to start a boxing match. The phone was ringing every 10 minutes, new clients interested in our services were walking through the front door about every hour it seemed. I had deadlines to keep with the dogs that I was grooming that day and I was falling so far behind. The Weimaraner kept barking so loudly that my neighbor from State Farm rushed over to see if I was okay. When he walked in I was on the phone struggling to hear the customer on the other end. The relief on his face that I was ok soon turned into a look of minor annoyance as he politely asked me to try and keep the noise down. To make things more challenging, the two Yorkies were both matted, the Standard Poodle hated his face being shaved, The Brittany wanted no part of the grooming process, and the Weimaraner continued to bark and bark and bark. I just felt as though I was sinking in quick sand. The harder I tried to get on top of the day, the deeper I sank. When the overwhelming fear of failure became too much, I took a break and called B.C. His level headed voice of reason talked me “off the ledge” so to speak and I was able to once again face the day and do what I needed to do. Although I was unable to meet the “deadlines” that day all of my clients were happy with the work I had done and their fur babies were happy too. “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger” is so true. Although I had my little pity party at the end of the day, in the end I chose to be humbled by this experience instead of discouraged. The next day I walked into Platinum Paws with a renewed sense of enthusiasm and willingness to do and be my best.

01/18/2024

I could not have said it better myself. Thanks for sharing Andi Hauser 💜

“Farm work doesn’t make you stronger. It doesn’t make you anything. It reveals you.

There’s gym strong and then there’s farm strong. They’re mutually exclusive.

The toughest women you’ll ever meet spend their days on a farm.

There are more uses for twine than you can possibly imagine. You can tie up a hole in a slow feeder, fashion a tail strap for a horse’s blanket, mend a broken fence and use it as a belt.

“Well that certainly didn’t go as planned,” is one thing you’ll say quite a bit.

Control is a mere illusion. The thought that you have any, at any given time, is utterly false.

Sometimes sleep is a luxury. So are lunch and dinner. And brushing your hair.

If you’ve never felt your obliques contract, then you’ve never tried stopping an overly full wheelbarrow of horse manure from tipping over sideways. Trust me, you’ll find muscles that you never knew existed on the human skeleton to prevent this from happening.

When one of the animals is ill, you’ll go to heroic lengths to minimize their discomfort.
When you lose one of them, even though you know that day is inevitable, you still feel sadness, angst and emotional pain from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. And it’s a heaviness that lingers even though you must regroup and press on.

You’ll cry a lot. But you’ll never live more fully. You’ll remain present no matter what because you must. There is no other option.

You’ll ask for so many miracles and hold out hope until the very last.

You will, at least once, face-plant in the manure pile.

You’ll find yourself saying things like, “we have maybe twenty minutes of daylight left to git ‘er done” whilst gazing up at a nonspecific place in the sky.

You’ll become weirdly obsessive about the weather.

You’ll go out in public wearing filthy clothes and smelling of dirt, sweat and p**p. People will look at you sideways and krinkle their noses but you won’t care.

Your entire day can derail within ten seconds of the rising sun.

You can wash your coveralls. They won’t look any cleaner, but they will smell much nicer.

Farm work is difficult in its simplicity.

You’ll always notice just how beautiful sunrises and sunsets really are.

Should you ever have the opportunity to work on a farm, take the chance! You will never do anything more satisfying in your entire life.

Well, that about sums it up, folks!” - unknown author

09/24/2023

Beautiful night for a fire 💜

03/03/2023

Jonathan from Cooley Carpet cleaning did an absolutely amazing job on our carpets! We live out in the country on a farm, so not only was he willing to bring his custom service to us, he came armed and ready to tackle some of the most dreadful stains possible. Mud and dirt are a house hold staple when it comes to farm house carpet. No problem for Jonathan. Pets! Boy do we have pets! Years of Dogs and cats in our home has meant years of accidents. All kinds of accidents! P**p accidents, p*e accidents, bloody toenail accidents, remnants of chewing raw bones accidents, upset tummy coming out of both ends accidents….so many accidents, so many stains. How did Jonathan handle all that?? Meticulously. That’s how.Whatever it took, however long it took, Jonathan’s elbow grease along with his army of tools, solutions, and equipment battled all those stains and won! I’ve had a few other professional carpet cleaners out to my farm and none of them ever came close to giving me the results that Jonathan did. He is punctual, professional, kind, loving and conscientious towards pets, and willing to go above and beyond to make sure everything that can be done for your carpet… gets done. If you are looking for THE best carpet cleaning experience, I’d give Jonathan a call.

Call today to get an estimate or schedule a cleaning.

904-580-6659

02/26/2023

01/05/2023

Headed to Chi-Town today to pick up a couple of Shor-Line cage banks and a big dog dryer for The Ninja Groomer shop. We love Shor-Line because…well first of all they make purple grooming tables…but also because they are A TOP OF THE TOP award winning company out of Kansas City. They make stainless steel cage banks originally for the veterinary world and have expanded their market into the grooming industry. When we first started out at Platinum Paws we could never afford these so we used crates… then eventually as time went on we purchased really nice top of the line powder coated banks. So starting out at Ninja Groomer we STILL can’t afford them hahaha! However, we got lucky. REAL LUCKY…. and came across some gently used Shor-Line cage banks….. we just have to drive to Chicago to get them. As a pet owner I don’t imagine when you drop your dog off at a grooming shop you think a whole lot about the safety or condition of a cage or cage bank that your dog will be in while they’re waiting for their turn to be beautified. There are a ton of safety concerns that a groomer needs to be aware of while a dog is waiting for their turn, in or out of a cage bank. I don’t like letting dogs free roam in the shop because that sets you up to have to clean up messes constantly and worry about dogfights. Plus you have dirty dogs mixed in with the clean dogs. In my experience dogs feel much safer and I feel much better when they are in a cage bank. With Shor-Line some might consider it the dog’s own private waiting room. You might wonder why we are willing to drive all the way to Chicago in a snowstorm for these items, right? Grooming shop equipment costs thousands and thousands of dollars. THOUSANDS!!!….when you want the best. And of course we want the best if we can make it happen. So off to Chicago we go! 
We will be storing everything we bring home today in the climate controlled barn until we are ready to move them into the container shop. Hopefully sometime in May. That’s the goal! Very exciting!!!! 💜