Bye bye Fishy

Yesterday we lost our giant goldfish. I wish I could say he'd lived a long life, and I suppose he lived a much longer one than many goldfish did, but I still think it was all too short.

I spent a lot of time researching goldfish and their diseases online yesterday, and I learned just how ignorant we were as fish caretakers. I didn't know just how scientific you had to be about everything, testing the water for just the right chemical balance. I know now, but I so wish I hadn't learned about too high nitrate levels the hard way.

The other thing I noticed yesterday and didn't read because I was hoping all the while for a good outcome was an article about euthanizing your fish! I'm wondering what the emergency vet would think about my coming in with the mini tank and gasping fish.

We spent a lot of time yesterday trying to save our fish. Yes, he probably only cost us about 20 cents when I bought him a couple of years ago. You wouldn't know that by the amount of money and time we spent trying to fix the problem. On Saturday we saw him sitting on the bottom of the tank gasping, so Keith ran out and bought a new aerator. We changed part of the water. He seemed to perk up some, but by yesterday morning, he was looking really bad. That's when Keith started searching goldfish diseases online while I went out to buy a second tank so we could move him while we found what was wrong with the first tank. I also bought that water test kit and discovered what the problem was. We moved him to a smaller tank, changed more water, treated it, tested it again. I went back to Petsmart to get something to treat the nitrate levels to help bring them down because we were afraid that changing out all the water would kill him if the nitrate levels didn't.

It's a very strange feeling to be in the parking lot of the petstore when your phone rings, and you're thinking it must be the news that your fish has died.

Unfortunately, our attempts to save him were futile. I'm sorry he suffered from our ignorance. With all the research I've done on cats and dogs, I never really thought to do much on fish. It seems I was much mistaken there.

Perhaps it seems silly to mourn a fish, but he'd been part of our lives for several years now. He'd gotten so big that we had started looking at larger tanks so he could continue to grow. He seemed to be thriving.

Keith had to measure and weigh him last night. We'd gotten him as a tiny little comet, and he'd grown to be almost 9" long and weighed 8.25 ounces!

The tank is in our front room. It's one of the first things we see when we come into the house. I keep looking at the empy tank. I plan to empy it out, start with fresh water, let it cycle with the plants and the good bacteria, then get another fish or two, along with a fancy water testing kit. In the meantime, I'm going to keep missing our fish.

A busy weekend

I needed to get a little distance before I wrote about this past weekend.

Last Friday, while Georgia Power contractors were replacing meters in our neighborhood, one of them asked me about dog that he thought looked starved and abandoned. He told me there was no power going to the house when he replaced the meter.

He told me about it because he thought I looked like someone who cared about animals and would do something about it. He was right.

I knew exactly which house he was talking about. We'd been wondering just a day or two before if the people had moved, leaving a lot of junk behind them.

I got on the phone and called one of the neighbors who lived closer to it. (I'm not that close.) He said he thought they had moved out except that one of the teenagers was still living there, or so he thought. I decided to go see the dog for myself. I rang the doorbell, and when no one answered, I walked to the side to look over the fence.

Yes, the dog was there. As you can see, he was very thin and shaggy looking. I came home, called my vet and looked for a rescue who could help him. However, it's late on a Friday afternoon, and my vet's office is the only one I can reach. I get information on how to feed him so that he won't get sick, then I head back over with a small amount of dogfood, a water bowl and a bottle of water.

He's quite hungry. I'll admit that I've been intimidated by this dog in the past. He barked wildly at anyone passing on the street, many times looking like he would leap right over the fence. Needless to say, I certainly didn't want to get too close to him, but I also needed to feed him. I put the dish on top of some junk in the backyard, and he grabbed it to carry it off and eat.

I went back with a slightly larger portion a few hours later. Keith suggested I try a paper plate since the dog had run off with the container I'd used. Well, the paper plate was a bad idea. The dog grabbed it, sending dogfood flying all over the place. The next time I fed him, I used a disposable plastic sandwich container. This time the dog took it gently from my hand. That's how I fed him for the next few meals. I took him the food in a sandwich container, and he took it from my hand.

On Saturday morning I spoke to a different rescue group who were adopting animals at Petsmart. The woman in charge there told me to contact animal control. My county's animal control is actively working with rescues, and she told me that several of the officers would do what they could to help get a purebred German Shepherd rescued. Honestly, I felt very uncomfortable contacting them. I'm sure it's because in the past going to the pound meant the animal would probably be euthanized, but I decided to call.

I had a very interesting chat with the a.c. officer who called me back. She did go put an abandonment notice on the house, and I continued to feed the dog. This was Saturday afternoon and Sunday. On Monday morning I started contacting people again. I found a rescue group who could pay for his vetting, but they needed a foster home. I knew I couldn't be his foster home, and the rescue basically agreed with me. He would need someone who was more familiar and comfortable with German Shepherds. Our April, who passed away in 1999 or 2000 was part German Shepherd, but she was a petite 45 - 50 pounds. This guy is a full sized one, and he'd be like letting a pony into the house, not to mention both of us were unsure of how we would be around him. I'm working on getting him a foster home, contacting some other people and groups, and I go over to feed him.

He's gone. The notice from Animal Control is gone, the dog's gone, and some of the junk is gone. I come home, call a friend who does lab rescue, and she agrees that the owner probably picked him up, but she says call Animal Control just in case. It wasn't them. So, after leaving the dog for probably two weeks, according to some of the other neighbors, they got him when they were about to get cited for negligence.

I know in the past the dog had been cared for, so part of me hopes that this was just a bad time for them, and now they'll care for him again. What I'm afraid of is that they'll just abandon him somewhere else. There's nothing I can do about that.

I wish I'd known about him earlier. Apparently this had been going on for awhile, and when they moved out, I think the dog had been in bad enough shape that he wasn't barking anymore. The folks I spoke to across the street didn't know he was still there as no one had heard him barking in some time.

Well, I did my best, and I know that I can't save them all, but that doesn't stop me from feeling sad about the whole situation.

More birding news

Sometimes I find small masses of feathers in my yard. It looks as if a bird has exploded, leaving nothing behind but its feathers.

I've usually blamed cats. It makes sense the pets and resident ferals might want a little fresh meat. I'm not happy about it, and I make sure the cats stay well fed. I hope full tummies make it less likely that they will hunt and kill birds.

Today, I found that I was probably mistaken about what causes the leftover feather piles.

I had stepped outside to feed the two feral/stray cats, and I noticed something odd in the street. It was a bird, about the size of a crow, but most definitely not a crow. It was one of the smaller raptors that I see sometimes, but I've never seen one closely enough to identify it. I usually see them backlit against the sky, streaking across at a speed that makes it impossible for me to identify them.

It was quite busy ripping into something, so I was able to step back into the house and yell for Keith to get out of bed immediately and look out the window. I went for the camera.

He was able to see it, but when I went back to the door, the bird had turned my way. Great. I knew my camera wasn't strong enough to get a picture through the screen door from as far away as I was, so I decided to take a chance and go outside. It let me get out the door, then it took off with something dangling from its talons.

I went to my trusty Roger Tory Peterson bird identification book and found that I'd seen a peregrine falcon. Then I checked the range map for it. After looking at that, I checked the copywrite of my book. 1980. Bird populations have changed a lot since 1980. I think it's time to order a new bird id book.

After that, I just had to go outside and see what it had been eating. There in the road was what looked like a feather explosion. Now I know I can no longer blame the cats for them, and I have evidence that the raptors do circle around our house, checking out who is visiting the bird feeders. It's been an interesting morning.

A picture or two

These are pictures of a redtailed hawk that landed in our backyard earlier this week.

Knitting pictures coming soon.

Hunting owl?

Last night, just outside our kitchen door, we heard some very strange noises.

They definitely weren't human. I listened, trying to decide if it was a coyote, but it also sounded like something we had heard years ago. An owl, happily trying to hoot around a mouthful of prey.

Now I'm worried about my two feral cats who hang around. If it's really the owl, which I've been pretty sure is a large one (we think it's a Barred Owl), what was it getting near my kitchen door? One of my ferals? The neighbor's ankle biter of a dog? Or some poor possum making its rounds to see if there is any catfood left over?

I will say that if you ever do hear an owl trying to talk with its mouth full, it's a pretty funny sound. I'm not sure I can find anything like it online, but I haven't looked. I don't really have time to look for that today, what with trying to run all my errands before the next rain event starts. I hate slogging through rain to grocery shop. That's less than fun.

However, and I know some of you may have a few minutes to spare, see if you can find a barred owl calling with a full beak. Link it so we can all listen to it.

See, Mondays can be fun. :)

ETA - I found one that sounds similar! Go listen here!

Second edit - I found an owl cam! How cool is this? I really need to quit looking up owl info and get moving.

I finally uploaded a few pictures.

These pictures start a few weeks ago, so I've put them in some semblence of chronical order.

You may remember, if I blogged about it, that I thought I had searched in vain for a second bobbin of singles. I finally found the fiber, unspun, of course. The finished second bobbin is the one on the far right. I had divided the fiber before I spun it, in an attempt to spin two bobbins of the same weight. Didn't happen. I have

much to learn, and probably not nearly enough time to learn all I'd want. Honestly, I'd have to be immortal to learn all I'd like to learn.

Can you imagine? Becoming a vampire so you'd have time to study all that you would like? I could take astronomy classes, learn Hindi (for watching Bollywood movies) - I'm digressing.

This next picture you see, depending on how blogger decides to edit my post, is the yarn on the swift. I think it must be the single as you can see loopy, tightly twisted areas. My finished yarn was actually quite nicely balanced.

You remember that we're waiting on pins and needles waiting for the results of Lily's biopsy. In the meantime, let me share a picture of Lily sleeping on top of the curio cabinet in the kitchen. She found our round baking pan to be the best spot ever for about a week. I don't think I can even begin to tell you how we have worked to disuade her from getting on the curio cabinet. Luckily for us, she just found one of Scooter's cat beds, and that has become her choice for napping.


This past week Gale and I drove to Gastonia, NC, to go to Mary Jo's, a huge fabric and notions store that is 32,000 square feet large. Can you say total sensory overload? It was amazing, but as I told Gale, next time I need a list. I went with plans only to check the place out (yeah, right), and I, of course, made some purchases. That said, I got an awful lot and didn't spend much at all. Off the top of my head I'm not sure how much fabric I did get - I'm thinking about 5 yards total, as well as zippers, buttons, and a pressing tool. It's not a tailor's ham, it's the round one that fits into sleeves. I should have just gone on and gotten the tailor's ham too. Drumroll please......I only spent about $55. Some of the fabrics I purchased were Amy Butler, and they were between 35% to 40% off what I could buy them locally.

Never fear. I will continue to purchase locally, as this was an all day excursion, spent mostly in Gale's mini SUV. Mary Jo's has seemed like an urban legend. A place whispered about in quilting classes, so I had to see it for myself. Wow! Just wow!

Now for a little knitting. This bright orange project is stoma cover #7, knit from Cotton Classic, using US size 6 needles. This is one of the formerly amigurumi yarns, but I know someone will just love this vivid orange. I actually enjoy a good eye-searing lime or purple yarn too. (Maybe not wear except as a hat or mittens, but I do love 'em.)


Last, but certainly not least, is my February Lady Sweater in progress.

This morning, while waking up and thinking I needed to wind the next

ball of yarn, I realized that I am going to run out of yarn. Yes. I am going to be short.

This wonderful Malabrigo Merino Worsted has been marinating in my stash since 2005. It's from the very first shipment of Malabrigo that Needle Nook ever received. I'd purchased it with a project in mind that I've never gotten around to knitting, and when I decided to make this sweater instead, I had enough.

And herein lies my error. I had enough for the size I thought I needed to make, but after working on in for some time, I realized I needed to make a larger size. I charged right ahead, making that huge mistake of not rechecking my yardage. As the end of ball 3 looms in the near future, I only have 2 balls left to finish knitting the body and the 2 sleeves.

Can I take a minute to point out to less experienced knitters that we all screw up? We all make the silliest mistakes with our projects. This is why I tell people to buy that extra ball of yarn when I'm working. It's just for this reason.

Now, I'm not sure just one more ball of yarn is going to fix this for me. What I will do is continue to knit. I can finish the body, and in the meantime I can start looking for the same color of Malabrigo and see if I can find a reasonable match. I know it won't be the same. Malabrigo kettle dyes their yarn in batches of 10. However, since it is kettle dyed, and there are inconsistencies in color, I should be able to find something I can use. If not - well, I'm sure I can think of something.

Now, it's time to go enjoy this frigid morning. It's the first hard frost of the season. Poor Sassy is outside as I didn't want to stay out there and wait while she searched for a place to do her doggy business. (Sometimes it takes a really long time to find the perfect poop spot, and I figured I could blog instead of spending 15-20 minutes outside waiting while she sniffs every square inch of the yard. She does have one of those insulated doghouses, and she waits in it while watching the back door. You can see her nose sticking just out of the doorway flap. She also starts her special "let me in" bark which I haven't heard yet, so maybe there is a lot of squirrel chasing going on right now. Whatever, it's time for her to come back in, warm up and have some breakfast.) Enjoy your Sunday!

Coyote!

We saw our very first coyote on our street today! I saw it trotting around in the yard across the street, so I yelled in a very ladylike way, "Keith, what the hell is that?!"

Dear Keith. He says that it's a fox. I'm thinking no way is that a fox. That's a coyote, and I just need you to agree with me so I know I'm not hallucinating. Luckily, pictures of foxes and coyotes are quite easy to find on the Internet, and he soon agreed that it was a coyote.

Our kitties don't know it yet, but they have just become indoor only cats. I know they are used to using my vegetable garden as a litter box, and I'd honestly rather have to keep moving where I plant the edibles instead of scooping kitty litter, but I also want them in one cranky, furry, living piece and not on a coyotes dinner plate.

As for the coyote, it was probably thinking "what the hell?" itself. We were standing there, watching it. It took off running up the street until we couldn't see it. I knew it was only a matter of time before they were here in my neighborhood. Daphne, who lives about 6 miles away, has seen them in her neighborhood for the past few years. My only gripe about coyotes around here really is the whole inside/outside cat thing. I see buying or building one of those outside cat playgrounds in my future. Why can't I see that winning lottery ticket in my future?

In the really hope I was dreaming category...

This morning I woke up abruptly, or so it seemed, when I felt something running around on the bed.

We don't normally sleep with the kitties at night. While Mr. Chubbers is the best, quiet, stay in one place all night long cat, Lily likes to engage in early morning aerial acrobatics while Princess Plumeria just meows in the most pitiful way possible to let us know she's in dire need of petting.

So, when I thought I felt something running on me, I instantly knew it wasn't a cat.

Then, when I felt it on the top of my head, I freaked out.

I tried to say Keith's name, but no sounds came from my mouth. (At this point I should have realized that I might still actually be asleep. I may be a quiet person much of the time, but I don't have any problems talking.)

I tried again. "Keith! Turn on the light! There's something in the bed with us!"

That woke him instantly. He wanted to know what it was.

"A mouse, a chipmunk, I don't know!"

The covers got tossed back. I tentatively touched my pillow and jumped at what I saw beneath it. It was the bandanna I used to cover my eyes while I'm napping.

Keith's reaction to all this? He was "dreaming like hell" when I woke him up, and how did I know I didn't dream it? After all, it's not likely we'd have a mouse in our house with the cats.

Well, that's not exactly true. Sure, no mouse in its right mind would willingly come into our house, but as I had just grabbed Lily with a live chipmunk in her mouth just a week or so ago, there may be a small rodent inside most unwillingly.

As it was about 6:30 a.m., we went back to bed after thoroughly checking the covers. Keith is convinced that I dreamed it all. While I'm not as sure, he sometimes thrashes around like crazy when he's REM sleeping, so it may have been nothing more than him pulling on the covers. Although, I'm sure I felt something in my hair....

Gratitude

Oh, it's raining like mad again, and the water's rising.

However, we did go through and toss some stuff that should have been tossed some time ago. Regretfully, we also had to toss some stuff (books) that we would have kept if they weren't horribly waterlogged.

I've been watching the weather, and it's almost like a horror story. People here in Georgia have been swept away by flood waters. There are some giant sinkholes swallowing up parking lots. I'm not thrilled with what's going on here at our house and on our street, but we are actually very fortunate.

I'm really not being a Pollyanna about it. Even if we end up throwing out everything in our basement, which I hope we won't have to do, material goods can be replaced. Nothing will be able to replace the missing child who was probably swept away by the storm.

Next, almost all of my fabric and all of my yarn is upstairs, above the flood. That makes me very happy.

And finally, sometimes procrastination is a good thing. Keith had thought we'd have our basement framed in and sheetrocked by now. It didn't happen, and now we know that we have other things to tackle (bricking in the garage door) before framing in the basement. My beloved has thought all along that he and I would do the framework (ha!), so it's been put off and put off. Just a little while ago he said he was so happy that he didn't have his den put together yet.

Please do keep some good thoughts for my two feral kitties, Mamacat and Hopalong. I haven't seen either one of them all day, not even when the rain stopped for a few hours, and I'm worried about them both. I have a very good idea of where Mamacat lives, and for the most part it's a great place as she always looks dry and fluffy. I think Hopalong hangs out with her sometimes too. My fear is that she got trapped by the rapidly rising waters, and well, you can deduce the rest.

As for my very spoiled varmints, they are quite irate that I'm not letting them outside to go potty in the mulch or down into the basement for some lurking. I know I will have to pay for my human insolence in the very near future.

Those crazy critters

Lily's found a new place to sleep. Yes, that is the headlight of a 1984 Datsun 300 ZX. That's the last year they were Datsun.

This car has a long history with my family. My Mom and stepdad L originally bought it.

Then it went off to college with my cousin. She later gave it to my

uncle. A few years ago it went back to my Mom and stepdad D. Now we have it.

It does need some work. Mom and D put work into it, but Keith has always wanted a car to restore, and this one still has plenty of things he can do. In the meantime, I need to order a repair manual for him, and I get to start looking for things like a heat shield (which always makes me think of Star Trek).

I know, it's always cats on my blog. Can't help it. I know my place in the universe, and it is to serve catkind.

However, you've been more than patient, so here are more sheep pictures from Wisconsin Sheep and Wool. Enjoy.

Ahhh! Mom's back home. Do you think she'll stay put if I sleep in her suitcase and knead her things?

Sheep teaser

I'll admit to being pretty useless yesterday, and this morning I just don't have enough time to post much. I did want to show you this picture since I didn't notice the grin until I uploaded it from my camera.
Stoner sheep or what? I just love that grin!

Summer Insomnia

Yes, I have it again. It's all due to the fact that we can't afford to keep the house as cool as I need it to be to sleep well. Honestly, I probably need to sleep in a refridgerator. I love it when it's about 60 degrees. Perfect sleeping temperature for me. Since it's just plain horribly expensive to run the a/c to keep it that cool, I now wake up almost every night roasting. I've read that most people are comfortable sleeping at 68 degrees, but when daytime temps are in the upper 90's, well, you see where this is going.

The summer solstice is Sunday, and once more I'll be counting down the days until the fall equinox. Don't get me wrong. There are things I love about summer, but the heat isn't one of them.

One thing about insomnia is that I start thinking about really wierd things. Like what I'll blog about next. One thing is TV couples who are just wrong. I must admit that CSI Miami is such a bad TV show. I do watch it sometimes as everything about it is soooo wrong. Like this past week, why are two scientists who are supposed to recover evidence babysitting someone who's going into witness protection? Why are they helping him go over his court case? Just so wrong. And that brings me to the couple of that show which is bizarre. Calleigh Duquesne and Eric Delko. Eric is such a wimp. Pouting, butt-kissing, masochistic - just all round wuss. And Calleigh is a two-face, using the term from Seinfeld. You know, she looks great in some lights and absolutely awful in others. I think she looks old enough to be Eric's mom. Ugh! I'll admit that I don't watch it that often anymore, and it's not even bad enough to fall into the "so bad it's good" category, unlike some movies I've watched. (Empire of the Ants leaps to mind.)

See, insomnia is not good for me. There was another TV couple who just plain bugged me with their wrongness, but those thoughts slipped into the ether once sweet sleep came upon me.

In pet world, I think Scooter is fading now. My beloved has finally seen it also, and that decision will be upon us very soon. Scooter's 19th birthday is this Sunday, June 21, and unless something drastic happens, I'd like to be able to celebrate it with him. However, I'm keeping an eye on him. I don't want him to suffer. Last night he was a mega petting pest, muscling his way into my lap as I was eating a midevening snack and getting settled to watch Predator yet again. He's now hiding and sleeping, but Keith said he was very demanding about his petting this morning too.

The heat and humidity are making Sassy's skin problems worse. I'm going to give her more Benadryl and see if that will help until I can take her in and get her allergy tested. Yes, I think it's come to that. I won't be able to do it until next month, but next month is nearly here. I've got an open prescription for the medicated shampoo, and it looks like I'm going to need it for her. Such fun.

Pets and stress

Poor Sassy has been distressed since the back yard was all dug up. The fence had to be taken down in order to get the big truck with the tank back there, so she's been stuck in the house more than she's used to for the past couple of weeks. How has she been handling it? By scratching the fur off her butt from rubbing on the sofa and chewing some of the fur off her tail. Ugh.

We bathed her again yesterday with the prescription shampoo, so I hope that will help, but I'm also going to the health food store today after the dentist to get a Bach Flower Remedy or two. I've got to figure out which ones I need, but I'd thought this would be better than putting her on anti-anxiety meds until we get her domain back into shape. The fence should be put back together today, so at least she can get out back for more than 5 minutes and start putting her smell back onto everything.

As for Scooter, he's hanging in there, eating anytime we'll feed him the things he wants to eat. I haven't taken a good look at his tumor in a few days (it's pretty gross). We haven't taken a real, go anywhere vacation in a little over 2 years. That was when the elderly cats got to a point where I refused to travel. Keith really wants to go somewhere, and he said we'd just take Scooter with us if he's still around. I don't think he's thought that through. I doubt anyplace will want an elderly cat who sheds like mad, pees large amounts (at least he always makes it to the box), and occasionally drips blood in their rooms. I know the only reason I put up with it is I love him so much. While it'd would be great to get away for a few days, I'm not sure I could do it until after Scooter passes.

I'd better get moving since that dental appointment is pretty early. So I'll end with a picture of Chubbers begging for tummy rubs and lots of nibbling on the hand that feeds him.

Wow, I really do need to work on my photography. Apologies for this less than stellar shot, but since one of my work supervisors was helping me hold down the quilt, I had to post it.

The baby quilt is finally 100% complete, just days after Claire's 5th birthday. It's still a good size for a child, and as she grows, it can be a great lap quilt.

And now for something completely different. The other night at knitting guild Ellen came to me and said she was enjoying my blog. I said off the top of my head, "that's slightly terrifying". I'm really not sure when I became someone who just said whatever popped into her head. I used to actually have some sense, but I've lost it somewhere along the way.

Ellen, I must clarify my strange comment. I find it slightly terrifying when I find out someone I know is actually reading my blog. There's such a wonderful anonymity about blogging. I let the thoughts pour from my head. And while I personally know most of my commentors IRL, it still freaks me out a little when I discover people are actually reading my blog. I don't know why. It just does.

I do want to take this opportunity then to thank those of you who do read my blog and enjoy it. I do appreciate it. This all started out as a way for me to tell my family and friends what was going on without boring them to tears about knitting and pets since I can entertain them with pictures, and they can skip any details if they choose. The real irony is that I've found out that most of my family doesn't read my blog. They may look at it occasionally, but not very often. However, I enjoy it. I can wax poetic about knitting or Jason O'Mara as much as I want, and not have Keith rag me about it. (Actually, he says things like "your man is on tv now", which is only fair since sometimes I yell to him "OMG! You've got to come see this woman's boobs!" Hey, it's TV, and you'll never know what freaks you'll see.)

Well, I must get moving. Coffee is waiting, as is Sassy. Her medicated shampoo arrived in yesterday's mail. You must be very quiet. After all, "bath" is one of the most frightening words you can say to a dog. Swimming in an algae and frog filled pond is one thing, but getting sprayed with soap and water is quite another. Luckily for Sassy, bath comes sometime after breakfast, and breakfast is the word she's thinking about now.

eta: grrr! Blogger keeps messing with my formatting! Sorry for all the run together paragraphs.

Sassy update

I forgot to mention earlier that I think Sassy is already improving. She did curl her lip at me the other day when I tried to clean her ears, but yesterday she just sat down and let me do her drops. Her medicated shampoo should be here today or tomorrow. I've discovered that benadryl affects her like it does me. Who knows if I feel better since I'm sleeping all the time?

Thank goodness she loves Pill Pockets.

Is April Fool's early this year? aka as

Oy vey Shar Pei!

Sassy and I spent some quality time at the vet. He thinks she has inhalation allergies, contact allergies and probably flea allergies. For the next month to 6 weeks she needs medicated baths weekly. The shampoo has a prescription. He doesn't think it's her diet, so that's one huge relief. Anyway, she also gets to take Benadryl and have her bald spots treated 2x daily. She's also getting antibiotics.

We went through this with her last summer, and what the vet told me today is that we should just expect to have spontaneous flare-ups with her skin. Poor, poor dog. At least we're used to this. Don't get me wrong. I don't like it, but I'm used to it.

As for the septic, let me mention that our system is approaching 50 years old. Enough said? Yeah, I think you get the picture. I'll just say that plumbing is a recession proof business. Maybe I should take it up.

Actually, I'm getting set up on etsy to sell things, like the project bags that make great wine bags. I'll post a link to it when it's up and running. Right now it's a bare shell of a shop.

Schedule changes

I decided that Sassy couldn't wait until Friday to go to the vet, so I called back and we've got an appointment tomorrow. While I'd rather see the same vet each time, Shar Peis have so many possible issues, and I've spent some time online reading about them all, that now I'm a little freaked out.

Yeah, I guess I'd better start jobhunting. Looks like I'll need the income to funnel to the vet's office.

Did you ever notice

that sewing really cuts into your knitting time? I was updating my knitmeter, and boy! I've not done much knitting this month.

I just called the vet's office, and Sassy has an appointment for Friday morning. It's the earliest we could get in with the vet we've been seeing recently. I think she'll be okay until then. I'm keeping an eye on everything, and unfortunately, she's not the first dog we've had with strange skin issues. April, the first dog Keith and I had, had all sorts of skin problems. Hers were different from Sassy's, but it got me trained up for Sassy.

We've never actually picked out a dog. Both Sassy and April were dogs we found roaming in our neighborhood. We looked for owners both times, and I think both times the former owners were not looking for them. Poor April had grown into a choke chain when we found her, and she was scared of men although she learned to love Keith. She lived to a ripe old age of around 14, we think, as we never knew her real age. So, I do know how to deal with animals with issues.

Anyway, the vet and I should have some fun on Friday. In the meantime, I think I've been treating Sassy more as a lab when I should be treating her more like a Shar Pei. From what I've read, she's the worst sort of mix as Shar Peis and Labs have polar opposite nutritional needs. I'll discuss it with the vet, but I think instead of ham and potatoes that I may need to try oatmeal and poultry of some sort. Either that, or Keith going to have to get his hunting license and bag the maximum amount of deer this next year to feed her. (Sorry to any vegetarians out there, but let's face it, dogs need meat. Yeah, I know they are omnivores, but I have visions of the camping scene in Blazing Saddles when I think of feeding Sassy beans.)

So, it's Monday. What fun do we have planned for this week? Septic tank gets pumped tomorrow. Keith has let me know that playtime is over, so I either need to start getting stuff posted on etsy, or I need to start jobhunting. It's gonna be a fun week, including all the usual grocery shopping, starting to go to the gym again and more rain heading our way later in the week. yeeha.

No knitting content, just a pet rant

Our poor dog Sassy is a mixed breed dog. We found her as a puppy after Mama Dog had escaped from her humans and was roaming around with 2 pups. Sassy got separated, and while we looked for her humans to return her, we didn't find them and ended up keeping her.

And here's the big bugaboo. Sassy is such a sweet, good natured dog who is a mix of Shar Pei and Labrador Retriever. I learned after her first vet visit that vets love Shar Peis as they have a whole myriad of health issues. Apparently, labs have a few too. As Sassy has aged, she's been developing some of those health issues, mainly allergies. She has skin issues (after some research I found Shar Peis need weekly baths). I've started cooking homemade, limited ingredient food for her, and in the last couple of days I've noticed her fur is falling out, and she's shaking her head a lot. I've cleaned out her ears a couple of times this week, and now I'm thinking that I'll have to change her diet again. I'll take her to the vet again this week, but the sticky point there is that the vet who's been seeing her only works a few days each week, so I'll have to see when she's working this week. For the short term, she's getting a bath, another ear cleaining and some ear drops, as well as a little Benadryl. I'll make an appointment for her today to get her in ASAP, and do some research on grain free diets for allergy dogs.

The really sobering point was last night I started looking at some website that had life expectancy for Shar Peis. I know labs can live a pretty long time for large dogs, but Shar Peis only have a 7 - 10 year life expectancy. Sassy just turned 7 this past summer. I think I'm looking for another Shar Pei website to see if this first one is true or not. (Fingers crossed it's not.)

Well, I've done it again.

I joined Facebook today. I've had 3 friends and relatives invite me, but I honestly thought it would be pretty useless. I dunno, it made me think of Comic Book Guy in front of his computer when he isn't at the shop harassing his customers.


I called one of the three who invited me and asked what the hell is up with this? She said she had thought basically the same thing, but now she's found that it gives her an easier way to keep up with someone whom she rarely gets to see. Since she's someone who's opinion I trust, I signed up.

I'm already in instant messaging conversations over there. Not like I don't spend enough time on the computer...


On to the wierd world of animals here. On Monday, Lily went a bit mad, went outside and then brought in a chickadee. Poor little bird. We got the bird away from Lily, but that left a loose bird in my office. Past experience made me hope that I would be able to find the bird after it expired, but in the meantime we trapped it, gave it some seeds and water and shut the office door. On Tuesday morning I discovered the cat carrier holes are large enough for a chickadee to escape, and I had a loose bird in my office. By Tuesday afternoon, I convinced Keith to buy a birdcage from Petsmart. No luck catching the bird, but I kept fresh water and seeds out for it. I would come into my office and find it sitting on the cable going from the CPU to the router. It would sit and watch me. I was getting used to its cuteness, but I didn't really like having a teeny tiny loose bird hopping around. I finally caught it Thursday morning before I left for work (I'm filling in for someone). I was so relieved to have it in the birdcage. When I got home last night it was fussing about being locked up, but it was still eating away. I left it alone for a couple of hours, and when I came back in, it had died! I was surprisingly upset about it. I mean, I had just finally caught it, it seemed to be eating and drinking well, so I was stunned to find it had died. I had planned to take it to a rehabilitation center, but instead I had to bury it today.


As for Lily, she and I spent some quality time at the vet. She has a swollen lip, and while it would be poetic justice if it were from the bird, Dr. Alicia thinks she hit it. It looks much like a fat lip you might get if you were punched in the face. She got an injection of a kitty non-steroidal anti-inflammatory, and we get the thrill of giving her another medication for the next week. She did provide some amusement while we tried to figure out if she got the fat lip from running too fast and sliding across the wood floor on her furry little feet. (She doesn't have much toe floof, but sometimes a little is all it takes.) As active as Lily is, and you can ask any chipmunk, bird or squirrel about this, and she can be surprisingly ungraceful, I should be wondering why she hasn't done this before. I find that by the time I go investigate crashes that I hear from the basement or the closet, the perpetrators have already disappeared, but 99.9% of the time, Lily is involved.

A pictorial review of Lily's exploits. They include hiding in the shredder (we always keep in unplugged), sleeping in a small bowl on the kitchen table, sitting on top of the paper towels on top of the fridge, sleeping in the kitchen cabinet (Keith removed the dishes after he caught her climbing on top of them), on top of the fish tank, lounging in the bird bath, and finally, helping Keith pack for the gym. As sweet as she is, there's a reason her last name is Damnit!



And yes, there is knitting. Blogger wouldn't let me load my pictures yesterday, so here is Keith's first Wollmeise sock in progress. I'm on the heel!