Virus!

Song of the day: “Forever” by Chris Brown and “Islands in the stream” by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers. I know, weird combo, but there you have it. Hah.

Disease headcount (turns out it is another intestine virus, so there is nothing we can do except wait and see if the “herd” immunity is strong enough) 3 dogs sick, 1 dead. Ancient Mango (we had the crossbreed for ten years, and he’d been an adult dog when we adopted him; the vet guessed him at fourteen three years ago) passed away yesterday afternoon, lying in his favorite spot on big brother’s room. For all the ways to die, this was definitely not the worst.

Six hours prior to his death, he was fine, cheery, and had just finished eating a special treat, settled on his pillow and then started to drift away…the end. I can only hope, that when the time comes, (and it will, I have no illusions about that) my Bobtail Bommel will go that way. No stretched out suffering in a useless attempt to fight the inevitable, just a quiet falling asleep, never to wake up again. Can’t ask for a better one than that…save immortality that is. Hah.

Well, as for the other dogs: so far so good. We’ll just have to wait and see.


I’ve been keeping an eagle eye on my personal pack, of course, and try not to let worry gnaw at me until there is actually something to worry about. There were times when worries could have paralyzed me from doing anything, and I won’t let it get that far again. I kinda like being healthy, thank you very much. Let’s move on to less depressing matters, I refuse to worry about things that I cannot change, and will just continue to do my very best and see where that leads me.

Okay, edits have been going slowly, but not bad. Big brother calls them quality edits rather than quantity, and that is as good a term as any. The changes that are being made are minor, really, but good. They improve the story, make the whole more comprehensive and…well, they’re making the story better for sure.

There has been yard work, of course. Ate our first iceberg slaw yesterday, by the way, and yes, it was friggin’ delicious. I’d forgotten that lettuce can actually have fibre…that is, they can when they’re grown on more than just five elements, the way those in the store are. Hah. It was a huge lettuce, a solid three pounds, I’m thinking and it was more than enough for nine people to eat from, with the serving of baked potatoes on the side.

We have watered plants, sowed more seeds, turned more earth and on the overall just kept pretty busy. At the moment, we’re experimenting with sowing real raspberries. Since we can only get the Tayberry variety around here, grandpa bought some fresh raspberries at the fresh produce shop, of which half went into the ground yesterday afternoon. Now it remains to be seen whether or not the seeds were ripe enough for them to sprout.

The sugar peas are sprouting at the moment, (underground of course, but the dogs dug one spot up yesterday) so they’ll become visible soon, yay. Tomorrow, or the day after the second lettuce will be harvested for dinner and the rest…well, their time will come, won’t it?

Right, what else? There were three rock-hauling trips with the car these past couple of days. What with all the projects still in process, we’re going to need them, which means that we’re going to have to resume the fetching trips. I took the opportunity to run up the mountain twice, which felt good. Apparently, I’ve had more than enough rest after being sick for a bit.

The weather has been pretty darn pleasant again. A fresh wind, bright sunshine, it makes being outside rather wonderful, if you must know. It is also, why I seriously dislike spending this particular morning (big brother needed an extra hour of sleep before we started on work because Ambah, a sick cocker spaniel, kept him up for three hours during the night) inside writing this particular blog. Hah.

I wonder how long it will be before I start looking forward to going inside again. The summer is likely to be bloody hot, and the cool house will then certainly be appreciated.

As for my day today, and the schedule for it…I don’t know yet. Laundry’s over and done with at least, but otherwise I’m guessing more yard work, unloading the car, maybe giving our tenant a hair trim and of course dodging dogs throughout. I do know that the dog food shipment is arriving again today, so I see some serious hauling in my near future. Hah.

Time to get cracking.

Flyby post.

Song of the day is Daniel Beddingfield’s song with the chorus that goes: “I’m not dead.” For the life of me I don’t know the title, but it’s been tumbling through my head all morning. I think it’s a bonus track, ‘cause I doubt that this is the song that can be called “A kiss without commitment” hah.

So we’re going to do this fast because I’m home alone as of yet, and a friend has come for a visit and is cooling her heels while I do this.
The past couple of days have been busy I just can’t seem to fit everything in, no matter how well I plan it.

Had a few better edits, and the scenes are working smoothly again, which is a relief if nothing more. We’re getting, slowly, closer to halfway through. Yay.

Niobe, the sick dog at the vet, is still losing blood through a variety of orifices, and when they continued to insist that it was parvo, while I was sure that the symptoms and scent didn’t ring true, I insisted on a test. Turns out I was right: The test was negative, so now we’re facing the mystery of what the problem is, seeing as Morpheous (Niobe’s brother) has the same symptoms. Drat! It better not be something that is ridiculously contagious, ‘cause we would be pretty screwed if more dogs get it.

It does concern me, however, that I am starting to get better at recognizing a problem in a dog than the vet. This is the third time I was right, you know. A uterus infection for Iris, when they claimed it wasn’t. Kidney and liver failing for Lapis, when they thought it was Leishmania, and now the two crossbreeds. It is rather disturbing, I admit.

We started putting in tubing, down in the yard, getting it all ready for summer. Only one more fruit tree needs to sprout leaves now, by the way, so that’s a relief. The new Kiwis are doing really well, they’re already in full leaf, and that while it has been only a week or two since they’re in the ground.

Tomatoes are doing splendid, even in places where they just came up without warning. That’s the magic of having dogs who love eating fresh veggies. What with them eating tomatoes as if they think it’s meat, seeds are all over the place. Hah.

We now have a fist sized cabbage, and three huge lettuces that are going to supply us with a week’s worth of salads. Yep, all in all, the yard is keeping us nicely busy.

As for other chores, there’s the laundry of course, but I won’t bore you with the details (you can thank me later, hah) cleaning house, cooking and of course treating wood for what is soon going to be our greenhouse. It’s not easy getting a crap load of nails and screws out of the second hand wood we managed to get our hands on, but it is well worth the effort.

Yesterday, I finally managed to fit in a couple of hours to work on Bommel. The poor bobtail really needed to have his fur trimmed, so now he looks like a bent old rat, but much happier for it. For some reason the longhaired dogs always get cheerier when they’re trimmed.

Our tenant did her exercises well, so those were a few more well spent hours, Knight needed some extra attention, because, let’s face it, he’s still a moron.

Grandpa and big brother’s gate is almost done, there have been trips to the vet to visit Niobe, and soon Morpheous too, since big brother is dropping him off at the vet’s.

Well, time for me to head on down into the yard and water the new seedlings. The sun is shining and after unloading another batch of sand this morning, I’m looking forward to a round through the new growths. Yay.

Vet emergency!

Yep, the day started out splendidly, with Niobe being ill (upstairs dog, over at Grandpa’s and tenant’s place) there was a rather gloomy atmosphere every so often. He’d been feeling poorly for a couple of days, and we were keeping an eye on him, hoping he’d get over it on his own. But then, later in the evening fever set in and we had to break off the edit in order to bring him to the hospital.

Gastritis or a bowel infection that could possibly have been caused by parvo, darn it. I doubt it, considering the feces didn’t smell like the dreaded disease, nor did he have different symptoms,
but then, you never know. All dogs respond differently.

Poor thing’s at the vet right now, and has spent the night on a drip because he was already starting to dehydrate. We’ll see how it goes.

Okay, on to the recount:

Song of the day: “Nine million bicycles” by Katie Melua.

I’m a little hazy on the details, days go past so fast, and remembering to which day any particular event belongs is tricky at best. So I’m just going to write down what comes to mind and refer to it as “some event that occurred in the past three days” hah.

Right, there was a full day of yard work (several half days, considering we had to water stuff every day, but what the heck) where we planted tiny little onions and carrots from the seedbeds. The carrots, I couldn’t resist a taste, are still tiny and actually have the REAL taste I remember from my youth when carrots still actually HAD taste. These days the store bought kind are sort of bland, watery almost, but not the teeny ones from our seedbed, nope, they are splendid.

Seeing as planted plants go slower than weeds, I also spent some of that yard time putting in bamboo sticks with the individual plants, rather than risk loss within the wild…at which time I found a whole batch of tiny tomato plants where water from our sink comes out to supply water to the mimosa tree at the bottom of our yard. So strange, but the seeds that come up by themselves in places that we hadn’t even contemplated, do so much better than those we sow. Can’t beat nature, I guess.

Our tenant outdid herself again and managed (with only a little help) to walk up and down from and to her bungalow, so she could spend the afternoon on my porch. It’s such a lovely spot for her, sunshine and shade both, and a central place where she’s got people coming by on the hour.
She was so pleased not to need her wheelchair that she was a little giddy by the time the day came to an end. She did catch some of our bug, coughing a little and dripping sinuses, but otherwise she seems to have skated through unscathed.

We carried down about thirty pots with eucalypti, oleanders and willows down to the soon-to-be green house, so we have all the growing-things together. About thirty percent didn’t make it, but the rest looks like it’ll pull through. Yay.

Grandpa and big brother worked on the small gate that still needs to be made up by the RV bungalow connection. We finally got together enough wood for the endeavor, and it looks like it’s going to be a nice solid gate that will definitely serve its purpose.

I’m not going to mention the edit, because what with everything going on, it went abysmally. Seriously, it was downright frustrating, and then last night, when it finally started to look like it was going to work, we had to take Niobe to the vet. This means that in the past three days we managed only ten pages or so.

During the yard work my lower back got to be burned as well, darn it. Got this little triangular shape going where pants and shirt didn’t quite met, hah. Stupid pale skin. Why couldn’t I have had the olive tan like big brother and little sister?
Big brother trimmed the bigger cherry tree, which means that we actually have some blossom branches in the house that smell splendidly.
First lettuce can be taken out in the next couple of days, by the way. It looks beautiful!

There was another garbage trip, the stuff does pile up, so we had the cab filled to capacity again.
Got our forty two plastic crates in, by the way, they will make storage a lot easier that’s a fact.
I did a massive amount of laundry. I can definitely see that spring is approaching, because it makes the entire family want to put on clean (lighter colored) clothes. Soon we’ll be back in slippers and sandals, by the way, because the temperatures are gradually rising. Yay.

Big brother cooked the other day, which was rather nice. Mac&cheese with spinach on the side. Cheese dishes are definitely his favorite, and he does them justice. Hah.
Personally, I made pancakes yesterday morning, so we wouldn’t need to waste precious time making lunch, and it fell rather well, getting us through the rest of the day until little sister made dinner.

Yesterday we spent several hours in the small pool, scrubbing the tiles and cleaning everything for the grouting job that looms ahead. It’s not going to be a fun job, but once we’ve done it, we can do the parasite bath on the dogs, like last year, and then fill it up in preparation for summer.

The turtle aquarium finally arrived. There are still several adjustments that need to be made, but soon they’ll be much more comfortable, that’s a fact.

Added to all the activities, the younger sibs are rather busy at the moment: it’s their plan to take their wares (old toys, small art object and such) to the local market and try to sell them. I’m so proud that they are fully planning to try to attribute, especially in these tight times. Turns out this is also the reason why they have been so busy studying Spanish.
It does mean that soon we’re going to have make room on a Saturday to do some recon at said market, to see how things are done these days. It has been several years since we’ve had a stand there after all.

Well, that about sums it all up. Time for me to get started on the day and head on out in the slightly cooler day, facing the dogs’ howling, the way the always do when we get going. Hah