Wednesday, July 05, 2006, 19:27
Which Way Is Up?
The last three days have been something of a blur. I feel like I've been grabbed by the heels, hoisted up and shaken, and now I'm not sure which way is up!
It started Sunday evening when Randy gave Charlie a bath outside in the yard with the hose. Charlie has not had a bath since before his surgery to remove the fatty tumors, and since the sutures are out now, Randy figured a flea and tick bath would be a good idea.
My husband had no more than finished Charlie's bath when he called out to me. I was on the other side of the yard, trying to get the butterfly who had spent quite a few minutes perched on my hand interested in the petunias I had planted in a galvanized tub.
"Come here," he said. "Charlie is bleeding."
The butterfly flew to the dark purple petunias, and I went to look at our dog. He was not exactly bleeding -- but something was definitely coming out of the suture site on Charlie's belly.
"That's not blood," I said. "It's bloody pus."
As it turned out, Charlie had a huge abscess at the surgical site on his belly.
Ever since he had surgery, I thought the area looked quite swollen, but I also though it might just be from the surgical trauma. Two different vets looked at Charlie three different times since he had the surgery, but neither of them apparently suspected an abscess.
When Randy gave Charlie a bath, the abscess broke. And it broke in a big way. He had a hole the size of a dime in his skin.
When Charlie stood up, bloody pus gushed out of the abscess, cascaded down his leg and soaked his foot. When he sat down, more bloody pus gushed out of the abscess.
I called the answering service, and one of the vets called me back (he was not one of the vets who had seen Charlie, though.) He said there was nothing else to do for it but to let it drain, and that opening up the skin to clean it out would do more harm than good, and that he didn't think it was necessary, anyway, since Charlie is already on doxycycline (thank goodness!).
After I talked to the vet, Randy and I took turns gently pressing on the area to get more of the pus to drain out. Then we took Charlie for a walk, hoping that his leg moving back and forth would push more of the pus out.
We also spent a lot of time telling Charlie to sit, because he every time he sat, more pus would drain out.
After two hours of working on Charlie, the drainage had slowed down.
The abscess was still draining Monday, but it seemed to have pretty much stopped by Tuesday. The area looks much less swollen now, too, which is good.
In addition to worrying about Charlie's abscess, we also had to worry about getting our hay baled. Randy cut the field on Sunday, and we were able to bail it on Monday. We started baling at 5 p.m., and by 9 p.m., the hay was stacked in the barn. Of course the temperature had to be in the 90s on Monday when we baled. We ended up with 137 bales. I figured we'd only a get a hundred bales or a little more, seeing as it has been so dry. Randy was estimating 160 bales. The actual yield was in between our two estimates.
Unfortunately, the biggest part of baling the hay is not the baling -- it's stacking it in the barn. That's what takes the most effort. And that's what takes the longest because we have to carry each bale inside (after throwing it off the wagon outside), and then Randy has to climb to the top of the stack with each bale.
Stacking the hay was somewhat the least of our problems, though. While Randy was raking hay on Monday, the neighbor's four Jersey heifers showed up in our driveway! Randy said when he was on the other end of the field with the tractor and rake, he wasn't sure what was going on, seeing as Isabelle and Kajun were running around like they had lost their minds. As he drove closer to this end of the field, he finally figured out the neighbor's Jersey heifers were galloping around in our driveway and kicking up their heels.
I had seen the heifers in the ditch by the neighbor's when I went to town earlier Monday afternoon, but I figured they'd just go home again when they got tired of eating grass in the ditch. They didn't. They decided to wander. I didn't see them when I came home and assumed they had gone back where they belonged.
Randy tried to call the neighbor Monday afternoon right after he spotted the heifers, but got no answer. I tried to call the neighbor Monday night but got no answer. I also tried to call her son. No answer. And I tried calling her Tuesday morning to see if the heifers had made it home. Still no answer.
Tuesday afternoon when we went to my brother's for the Fourth of July picnic, the heifers were in the yard at the neighbor's, so I didn't worry about it because they were home.
The neighbor showed up here later in the afternoon on Tuesday looking for her heifers. They had left home again.
The neighbors had gone away for the weekend. And when they came home, they found out their heifers were missing. In the process of looking for her heifers, our neighbor discovered that at one point, they had gone to the another neighbor's a half mile up the road.
Randy and I and the dogs went for a walk up the dirt road Tuesday evening and saw cow tracks three-quarters of a mile up the road. No heifers. Just the tracks.
The Fourth of July picnic at my brother and sister-in-law's place was fun. My sister and her husband and their son and daughter ha d not yet see my great-nephew Eli (born on April 18), so that made it an especially enjoyable afternoon.
Tuesday evening, we sat out in the backyard for a while, watching all of the fireworks from miles around. Tuesday afternoon, various members of the family kept asking us if we were going anywhere to watch fireworks, and we said, no, we were just going to sit out in our backyard. We can see the fireworks from various municipalities, plus quite a few private residences shoot off some spectacular fireworks. It is legal to sell fireworks in Wisconsin. It is legal to buy fireworks in Wisconsin. It is illegal to shoot off fireworks in Wisconsin without a permit. Go figure.
After the Strawberry Fest on Saturday, cutting hay on Sunday, Charlie's abscess breaking open on Sunday, getting our haying done on Monday, the neighbor's heifers going on the lam Monday and Tuesday, and the Fourth of July on Tuesday -- I am looking forward to a quiet remainder of the week.
I hope.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Sunday, July 02, 2006, 21:22
Strawberry Festival
Well.
I took my books to a strawberry festival at a strawberry farm about 15 miles from here on Saturday -- and sold 10 books (4 *Christmas in Dairyland* -- 4 *Give Me a Home Where the Dairy Cows Roam* and 2 *Cream of the Crop*).
I still don't believe it.
I signed up as a vendor for the strawberry festival back in April -- before I knew that the other outdoor events this summer would turn out to be so dismal.
Strawberries, apparently, are a bigger draw than cheese curds, arts and crafts fairs or dairy days.
Except -- I cannot exactly say that the strawberries were a bigger draw. The strawberry festival (sponsored by the Wisconsin Strawberry Growers Assoc.) drew a fair number of people. But there was not a huge crowd of people. The attendance was steady but not overwhelming. The farm is known for its strawberries in the area, but this was also the first time they have hosted a strawberry festival.
I have spent a fair amount of time trying to analyze what was different about the crowd or the event. But there's nothing solid. Except that it was a one-day event (not an entire weekend or four days, as some of them have been). And it was not a community-wide event (a single event at a single place -- a farm). That's all I can come up with.
Then again, perhaps the mother of the man who owns the strawberry farm (they also produce organically grown beef) summed it up best at the end of the afternoon. She stopped by my table many times during the day just to chat. She grew up on a farm, farmed for most of her life, and at one point, she gleefully confided to me that she was 80 years old and that she loved to go out on long trail rides with her family and that she was now riding a Tennessee Walking Horse on the trail rides and enjoyed every minute of it.
Anyway, at the end of the afternoon, she gave a huge, contented sigh and said, "My, but wasn't this a nice party?"
Maybe that's it -- the event seemed more like a party, more like a family reunion, rather than a commercial event.
And it *was* a nice party. The food stand that was set up next to the vendors (and there were only 8 vendors) featured strawberries, of course: strawberry shortcake, strawberry slushies and strawberry bratwurst (I never got a chance to taste one, so don't ask). The money raised by the food stand went entirely to the 4-H club in the next little village down the road.
One young lady (a 4-H member) who was taking the money for the slushies and making change, was having a terrible time making change. She was maybe 12 or 13. I noticed that the people in front of me patiently walked her through the making change process (no cash register and no calculator!) and when it came to my turn (I needed change for a $50 bill because someone paid me for a book with a $50 bill), I walked her through the change process. She sighed and said, "this isn't fair! In the store they have cash registers that tell you the change and in school, we get to use calculators!" I looked at her and said, "you have a calculator right here" and I tapped her forehead. People around me laughed and nodded, and so did the 4-H leader who was supervising behind the counter.
This is by way of saying that maybe *that's* the difference -- it seemed more like a party, like a friendly gathering of folks who all liked strawberries.
And that was in spite of being threatened by a thunderstorm first thing. Sale hours started at 7 a.m. (!). I got there a little after 6:30. It was raining already then, and I got fairly wet setting up my awning. After that, a thunderstorm blew in from the southwest. From the rumbles of thunder, I thought for sure we were going to get walloped. People from the farm came around and said they had enough people lined up that if the thunderstorm was going to be very bad, they could help everybody tear down and get their merchandise and booths under cover in a hurry, if need be. But the thunderstorm slid around to the south. The sky cleared up by 9 a.m. and it was clear sailing after that. Quite literally. A 30 to 40 mph wind blew out of the west.
The wind was strong enough to blow books off my table from time to time. The strawberry farm is located on a prairie (known as the Rusk Prairie) and there was nothing to stop the wind.
By the end of the afternoon, I was apprehensive about getting my awning down. When it got to the point where I could take the top off, it was like holding onto a parachute or a sail. For a few minutes, I entertained vivid mental images of me holding onto the awning and flying over the prairie and continuing east until I reached Lake Michigan. But finally -- finally -- I lifted it off the frame and rolled up into a ball and set it safely on the ground.
My next event is a community carnival/fair on July 15 and 16. I know, I know. But I already paid the vendor fee, so I might as well go. This one is a little bit different, though, because it's an arts and crafts sale, but it's indoors at the high school gym. I HOPE the people organizing it will do a good job of advertising that the arts and crafts sale is at the gym. We shall see.
Charlie -- is feeling much better than he was Thursday and Friday. He is actually able to move around quite well and can get to his feet with a minimum of trouble. Friday night when we took the dogs for a walk, he tried to jump around like he usually does when we go for a walk (he 'woofs' and jumps high in the air and spins in a circle) but then decided maybe he wasn't quite ready for that. Much different, though, than the dog who could barely get his rear end up off the ground Thursday and who could barely walk.
Hay -- Randy cut our hayfield this afternoon. We probably won't get more than a hundred bales off the five acres. But if it stays dry like this, which it probably will, then hay will be at a premium, and we will be grateful for all the hay we can get. I know Isabelle and Kajun will be especially grateful! So that's probably what I will be doing tomorrow is baling hay. It is rare when you can cut it one day and bale it the next, but it has been so dry, the hay doesn't have much 'juice' in it -- and it's practically ready to bale when it falls behind the cutter.
LeAnn R. Ralph
