puppy injury, dope, and goop

Friday evening before dark Minnie sat up at attention and when I opened the storm door she dashed outside taking off after one of the black and white cats that we see around here. The cat with Minnie in hot pursuit disappeared beyond the side of the barn. A few minutes later Minnie came back hobbling along on three legs refusing to put her back right leg down. I examined her leg and foot not finding anything stuck between the pads of her foot or feeling anything obviously wrong with her foot or leg. She made no vocal or physical reaction to my manipulations but refused to use the leg the rest of the night. 

Saturday morning she still refused to set her leg on the ground and now there was some swelling just past the ankle on the foot side. 

I called the vet I normally take her to but they are only open a half day on Saturday and couldn’t or wouldn’t work her in. Monday morning was the earliest I could get her in. So then I called the other vet in town that is open all day on Saturday and is generally more expensive and their walk in fee is really high but they would work her in. So I took her there and didn’t have to wait very long. The vet examined her; hip seems fine, knee seems fine, he felt around the swollen spot and elicited a couple of whines from her and determined it could be a torn ligament or a fracture. I could get the x-ray then or wait. If it improved by Monday she likely wouldn’t need an x-ray. He thought that waiting until Monday even if it was a fracture would be fine since he couldn’t feel an obvious break. If it is a fracture, he’ll splint it to stabilize it while it heals. They gave her a shot for pain and sent me home with pain pills. Sunday morning there has been no change and I’m pretty sure it’s a fracture and now I’m wishing I had gone ahead and had the x-ray yesterday. She's been either in my lap or laying next to me since it happened.

Rocky finally came by the end of last week and gooped up the threaded end of the plug on the drain field pipe and I started filling the trench back in. Friday I got all the rest of my little seedlings in the ground that I have room for; 4 yellow squash, 6 cucumbers, and the rest of the nasturtiums. The onions have all come up, carrots too but fewer of those, far less than half the seed I put in. the tomatoes are growing and blooming though we had a cold front blow in yesterday and it got down in the 40s last night. I finished filling in the trench yesterday.

Thursday at SHARE one of the volunteers brought in two boxes of this stuff that somehow her church had acquired. One of the Elders that volunteer opened one and it looked like a cross between rancid peanut butter and baby poop and smelled about what it looked like. He stuck a finger in and tasted it and said it tasted about how it looked. Then he read the back of the package.

Turns out it’s for people with feeding tubes. It all went in the trash.

To end with something a little more pleasant, the mock dogwood/orange is in full bloom.

earworms, library thing, and the pecan trees are finally convinced

It feels like my brain is obsessed with earworms. If I’m not mentally engaged with something, there it is ready to fill the void. It’s aggravating, it’s maddening at times. I will wake up with one running through my brain. Sometimes I know why I’m repeating a particular lyric, just heard the song that day or the day before or read something that reminds me of it but often one will pop in my head and I’m, what the fuck? I haven’t heard that song in years. It’s really annoying when I'm trying to fall asleep. I have to actively counter it with something like planning a yoga routine asana after asana or repeating a mantra over and over with my breath. I don’t know why but it’s a rare day I don’t have a lyric on repeat.

You might remember that a book I checked out of the library and returned unread and even unopened had a torn end page in the front and they have accused me of damaging the book. I never even opened the cover once, not in the library plucking it off the shelf in a hurry from the author’s name alone, not at home. I gave my side of the story to one of the librarians and she told me not to worry about it and I have checked out several books since. Yesterday I returned a book and went to check out another and they wouldn’t let me. There is a hold on my library card because of the damaged book. The librarian was very apologetic but couldn’t do anything about it. I have to talk to the director who is out of town right now at a conference. I imagine I’m going to have to pay for the book at this point. Pisses me off. Once I get borrowing privileges back I’m going to examine every book carefully before checking it out. 

Issue resolved, the librarian I'm most friendly with called today to let me know that the book had been replaced and the hold had been taken off my card and I'm good to go.

Monday the guy that mows and trims the shop yard and around Pam’s house came and when I went over to pay him, as I usually do before he finishes, I saw a clump of blue eyed grass that had sprung up in front of the house where Joe had not mowed yet. First time I have seen this clump so I’m not sure how long it’s been there and since I didn’t want it to get mowed down I dug it up and put it in a pot temporarily. I’ll get it in the ground next to the clump I dug up years ago out of the easement in front of the house on the corner. It’s in full bloom.

It’s been warm and very humid the last several days, the humidity making it feel warmer than it is and it’s been making me sweat some, a harbinger of the summer to come. Today is another miserably windy day; sustained 16 mph, gusts up to 28 mph. The wind is coming out of the southeast today though instead of the south like our previous very windy days. Despite the wind and the humidity I got some stuff done. I put the biggest plumeria in it’s summer location directly in the ground (it gets dug up in the fall/winter after it goes dormant) 

and sunk the biggest and next biggest pots in their holes in their summer spots. The other three in pots are still on the cement apron in front of the barn. One of those will get moved later. When I came in it wasn’t so hot and humid that my clothes were soaked but my hair was and sweat was dripping off my face. Oh joy.

The only other thing of note is this: the pecan trees coming out.

Winter is officially over.