Wednesday, August 23, 2006, 19:51
Leaping Lizards. . .!
No one really has any way of knowing for sure how a dog feels. You can make a guess by the way the dog is acting. But you can't say for 100 percent certain.
Last week when Charlie finished up the clindamycin for the infection in his hips from the abscess that developed at the surgical incision site on his belly, I thought he was feeling better. He was moving around more and looked more bright-eyed and happy and energetic than he did when we started the clindamycin. That is to say, he was a different dog than the one I took to the vet clinic a month ago who yelped when he tried to get in the truck and fell back to the ground and the dog who yelped when the vet flexed his hind legs and the dog who could barely move enough to walk out of his kennel.
But then, in addition to the infection in his hips, Charlie has tick diseases to deal with (Lyme, Ehrlichiosis, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever). So, after he finished the clindamycin last week, we started him on the doxycycline for three weeks for the tick diseases.
We're five days into the doxycycline today.
And I am wondering if, after being sick all summer, our 70-pound Springer Spaniel IS feeling a tiny bit better.
Call me crazy ('you're crazy' -- thank you!) but it's the four pails of washing machine water that were sitting outside by the bird feeder this morning that made me start wondering about how Charlie is really feeling.
When I'm finished washing clothes, either Randy or I will bail out the washing machine, put the water in five gallon buckets and carry it outside. The water goes to water trees or the garden or Randy's big pumpkins or I have also been dumping water around my rugosa roses to drown out the rose chafer eggs so maybe the bugs won't eat all of my roses next summer.
Randy bailed out the washing machine Tuesday night, but since I didn't feel like stumbling around in the dark to dump the buckets, he left them sitting in a row by the bird feeder so I could dump them this morning when I had a few spare minutes.
When I had finished feeding Kajun and Isabelle this morning, I brought their buckets up to the house, came up through the basement and went back outside. I figured it would be as good a time as any to take Charlie for a little walk around the hayfield -- especially since it was thundering to the southwest and getting dark and looking like it might storm.
"Come on, Charlie," I said. "Let's go for a walk."
Charlie was lying in the hole he has dug for himself along the house. He jumped to his feet, and as I came around by the bird feeder, Charlie hurried to catch up.
He raced up behind me, and then, in one gigantic leap, jumped OVER the 4 five-gallon pails of water standing side-by-side. Not over them like a horse would jump a hurdle. OVER them from one end of the line of buckets to the other end. I was walking parallel to the buckets. The bird feeder was on the other side of the buckets. If Charlie wanted to catch up, he had to clear all four buckets in one leap.
And he did.
Effortlessly.
As if it didn't bother him in the least.
And when he landed on the other side of the buckets, he glanced back at me, bright-eyed and panting happily, and then he ran down the hill in front of me. He knew we were going for a walk, and he didn't want to miss a single step.
Not bad for a dog who could barely move a month ago.
Not bad at all.
So that's why I'm wondering if maybe Charlie is feeling just a tiny bit better.
I don't want to jinx it by saying he IS better -- I'm just going to keep wondering if maybe he is feeling a tiny bit better.
Lawn Mower -- After I hit a rock the other day with the lawn mower, I was wondering if maybe the blade was bent. The good news is -- Randy thinks it's just the frame that's bent and not the blade or the shaft. So -- it looks as though our old lawn mower will keep going for a while yet. Thank goodness. I like that old mower. It actually has a throttle on it. The new mower does not have a throttle. Apparently mower manufacturers these days are thinking that people are not smart enough to know how to set a throttle on a lawn mower. . .
Isabelle --Yesterday, August 22, 2006, was Isabelle's one-year anniversary here with us! It doesn't seem possible that it has been one whole year since she came, but it has. In the past year, she has grown a little taller, and she has filled out. And her nose doesn't have so much of a "baby" look anymore. And she's getting to the point where she is not quite as worried about her little tender white nose. She's even letting me kiss her nose now without too much fuss. I think she feels really silly when I kiss her nose. But she's not worried that I am going to bite her nose (as if I ever would!). Well, that's not quite true. When I was a kid, I bit my pony's nose. She had a bad habit of biting people, and one day, when the right opportunity presented itself, I bit her on the nose. She never bit me again after that.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Tuesday, August 22, 2006, 20:21
A Rare Find. . .
I have not seen one in years. When I cleaned out Kajun's tub so I could fill it with fresh water this morning, this was the last thing I expected to find in the tub.
Unfortunately, the walkingstick had drowned.
I fished it out and put it on the post by the barn so I could take a picture of it.
It has been years and years since I have seen a walkingstick. I used to see them all the time when I was a kid when we went picking blackberries. Either the walkingstick would be on the blackberry brambles. Or else I would look down and there would be one in the berry pail. It would either be a brown one or a green one, depending on the background where it had recently spent its time.
But what in the world was a walkingstick doing in the barn? In the horse tub no less?
According to this website, walkingsticks are rarely seen because they prefer to be high up in the trees, which is where they like to find food. The prefer to eat the leaves of wild cherry trees and oak trees.
We have wild cherry trees at the edge of the yard. And there are oak trees growing along the road.
The cherry trees are a hundred feet from the barn. The oak trees are two hundred feet from the barn.
So, like I said, how in the world did a walkingstick end up in the horse tub?
Technically, it shouldn't have even been in the barn because there is no habitat inside the barn for it. There's not even any habitat near the barn.
Unless. . .
I wonder if it is possible that the walkingstick was making its home in the top of the wild plum tree growing by the barn? Wild plum trees might not be all that different from wild cherry. Maybe not as far as a walkingstick is concerned.
If that's the case, if the walkingstick was living in the plum tree, maybe it laid some eggs. According to the website about walkingsticks, the eggs look like tiny seeds.
If I see more walkingsticks around the barn or in the barn (but I hope not drowned in the horse tub!) maybe we'll have to take a closer look at the top of the plum tree to see if we can spot any more of them.
If you're interested, here is another picture of a walkingstick.
LeAnn R. Ralph
