Bad Times and Better Days

I actually took these pictures a few weeks ago, and just hadn't gotten around to posting them. I was undecided about whether to post them now or not, in light of the latest developments. You see, Z has taken a sudden turn for the worse. He had been doing so well for so long... then Friday night he looked like he was having a little trouble with his back legs. By Saturday morning, he could barely walk. We suspect that he injured his back - probably the same thing he did last fall when he had similar issues and was diagnosed with degenerative myelopathy.

I'm not sure how to feel, looking at these pictures from just a few weeks back, when he could hike for miles without trouble. I wonder if he will ever get to hike these trails again, and it makes me sad. But, they are pictures of good times that I will always treasure, and so they also make me happy. So, in the end I decided to go ahead and post them.

It took a long time to convince B to get her feet wet in the creek, but now she happily follows her brothers into the water. Here, Z shows her the best flopping spot for cooling off during a hike.


And L shows her how to get the creek crazies.

We found raccoon tracks in the mud all up and down the beaver pond trail. I was excited to see so many tracks with good detail, including a really nice back foot impression. I felt like I hit the raccoon track jackpot - I just kept finding more and more of them.

While I was engrossed in photographing the tracks, Z took the opportunity to cool off in a mud puddle on the trail. He loves to lay in the creek, or puddles, or any body of water, on hot days.

Later, we found still more raccoon tracks in Squirrel Holler, where I have never seen any signs of raccoons before. I wondered what had brought the raccoons so far from the creek...

...until I noticed that the little puddles along the side of the trail were filled with tadpoles and edged with raccoon tracks. Clearly some raccoon had been enjoying an easy meal. There are days when I would have scooped out the remaining tadpoles and grown them up in one of our fish tanks, but I was so busy getting ready for the 4th of July party that I left them to fend for themselves.

As for Z, he is currently on rimadyl, tramadol, a muscle relaxant, and strict rest. He has improved a little bit since Saturday, so hopefully he will continue to recover. We think that this is due to a back injury rather than degenerative myelopathy. For one thing, his symptoms from last fall improved significantly, which wouldn't have happened with DM. The usual time course for DM is about 8 months from onset of symptoms to complete paralysis in the rear. It has been about 11 months since Z was first diagnosed, and about 8 months since his symptoms gradually disappeared. And the acute onset of his symptoms this time around doesn't match the normal course of DM, either. It took several months for him to get better last fall, but then we were treating as though it was DM, which meant keeping him as active as possible. Hopefully he will improve more quickly on strict rest. Keep your fingers crossed for my sweet dog, who doesn't understand why his legs aren't working the way they are supposed to, and why he's being kept locked up in the house.

The Usual Suspects

Back when we were in grad school, we had a large yet very close-knit group of friends. These are the people who know me best, and like me anyway. These are the people who stood up with us at our wedding. These are some of the people who mean the most to me, who I know I will always be able to count on, and who will always be able to count on me.

Many years ago, we started a tradition of all going in together and throwing a big party at a friend's farm, with a pig roast and bands playing all day, and people camping out for the night. Over the years, as our group of friends slowly dispersed across the country, this traditional party fell by the wayside. After we bought our current property and had the space, we decided to revive it. Every other year, on the 4th of July holiday weekend, our friends descend upon us from all corners of the country. Many of them stay with us for several days. We had quite a crowd here by Friday night, complete with a little tent city that sprang up in the field, and people sleeping in every square foot of our little house!

For the main event on Saturday, our friends got a few of their old bands back together and played throughout the day. They haven't really practiced together for many years now and aren't as polished as they once were, but no one seems to mind.

A few extra backup dancers seem to have accumulated over the years.

Plenty of local friends stopped by to hang out, listen to the music, and enjoy all the great food (which we seem to get carried away with every time, despite our plans to keep it simple.)

Mr. Geek took folks out for a few hayrides throughout the day, too - some short ones for the kids who can't ever get enough hayrides, and some more exciting longer rides down through the back fields, across the creek and back through the woods.

There was so much food, and it was all sooo good! We have enough leftovers stacked in our freezer that we will be enjoying them for weeks to come. In fact, there was so much food, no one had to eat any babies!

After dark, we took the hay wagon up to the highest point in the pasture, where we had a great view of the town fireworks lighting up the sky.

And then we sat around the bonfire, reminiscing about old times, and catching up on new developments in everyone's lives.

The last of our house guests left on Monday, and although we miss everyone as soon as they are gone, it usually takes us a while to recover. This is the third time we've hosted this gathering, and after each time I think we wonder if we will have enough energy to do it again in two years. (In fact, two years ago, we vowed not to do it again - someone left a door open, and one of our indoor-only cats got out. We searched frantically for NINE DAYS before we found him - a story for another time. After we found the cat and felt a little better about things, we reconsidered. This year, the cats were locked in our bedroom for the duration, with several lines of defense to prevent any more feline disasters.)

But the fact of the matter is, we enjoy seeing everyone so much, any amount of trouble is worth getting everyone together like this! So, July 2011, here we come!

Puppy Progress Part 1

B has been having a very busy summer so far! We have been continuing our work overcoming her fear of dogs, but we've also made sure to save some time to just have fun. Her best friend, the GSP puppy, has been coming over for pool parties and lots of play time.

And in the evenings, L and B have started their own little ritual. In the cool of the evening as the sun is going down, we walk the border of our field, and L gets the crazies and zooms all over, with B hot on his tail. He is still faster and takes obvious pleasure in being able to out-maneuver her.

After a little break in the action, B tries to make L go again...

And he is usually happy to oblige!

As for our socialization with new dogs, B has made a ton of progress. After meeting 30+ new dogs at our house, she had improved to the point that it was time to take the show on the road. We started by meeting some of her favorite friends in neutral locations - at nearby parks or on campus. She had no trouble with that at all. The next phase was meeting new dogs for the first time in neutral locations. While it hasn't always gone smoothly, she's had a few breakthroughs and I have been excited about how far we've come. But for now, this post is long enough, so details about this phase of our work, and B's obedience class, and agility training, will have to come later!

Box Turtle Day

This weekend, as the dogs and I were hiking, suddenly B started to growl and alarm bark at something at the side of the trail.

I tried to explain to her that box turtles aren't really dangerous, unless you happen to be a strawberry, but she was having none of it. Clearly this was a dangerous and unpredictable wild animal that should be given a wide berth. I called L over, thinking that he could demonstrate for her that box turtles are No Big Deal. To my surprise, he wanted nothing to do with the turtle either.

I can understand dogs having an instinctual fear of snakes, like Z, but turtles? This is as close as they would come - both B and L were ready to jump back in the event the turtle made a play for them. They were both being very careful to stay out of turtle leaping range.



About a quarter of a mile farther down the trail, I noticed that L had picked up a trail, but he seemed reluctant to follow it very far. On a hunch, I checked it out. Sure enough, another box turtle! I don't see turtles very often, and now two within 10 minutes of each other!

In other hiking news, the wild rhododendrons growing in the woods are finally blooming! It gives the woods such an enchanted forest feel.

The rhododendrons grow all along the trail, along the creek, and throughout the woods. It is hard to capture their effect on film, since they tend to be a lot leggier than the cultivars found in our flower beds.

We are gearing up for a big 4th of July party, so things are busy busy busy here! But I still have a LOT to report about B's progress in the past month, so I'll try to post about it soon!

How We've Been Spending Our Time

One of the many things pulling me away from the computer this summer has been the garden. We usually plant a few things, but we originally had not planned on having a real garden this summer. But then my mother-in-law asked us if she could plant some things in our garden, and we were happy to share the space. And the gardening enthusiasm was contagious. My sister-in-law and her kids were excited to plant a few things, and Mr. Geek's aunt and uncle even got in on the scene. So we started getting more excited about planting some things, too.

We ended up with a huge garden, but I'm really enjoying it. Actually, we made it a little too big - after everyone planted their stuff, we had a lot of open space left, so we kept planting odds and ends to try to fill it. We have zillions of giant sunflowers, peas, beans...

I'll admit, we had so much room to work with that I made some planting decisions based on what was fun, and not necessarily on what I want to eat. I did a row of radishes - fun to pull up - whee! But then what? I've had to look pretty hard to find people who like to eat radishes. If anyone out there knows of anything that can be done to a radish to make it delicious, by all means, leave me instructions in the comments!

We planted a lot of corn, since it takes up a lot of room, and we all like to eat it. We have three waves, each planted several weeks apart. This picture is the first wave, take a few weeks ago.

We have many different types of tomato plants... yellow pear tomatoes..

Roma tomatoes...

Fireworks tomatoes from my dad...

Cherry tomatoes... and several more!

We have birdhouse gourds and goose gourds...

We have so many buttercup squash that I have no idea what we will do with them. I'll probably end up chasing people down the hall at work trying to get them to take some. Anyone have any good buttercup squash recipes?

The cantaloupes have started growing, but I haven't seen any of the honeydews or watermelons or pumpkins yet.

The cucumber onslaught began weeks ago - we have two varieties...

And we have several types of yellow squash and zucchinis that are just starting to take off.

We also have 5 different types of peppers...

And there's more! I can't wait until we get our first lemon cucumbers, but I don't plan on eating them, either. I think we planted those just for the novelty! I'm really glad that we did the big garden this year - I'm having a great time with it so far, and the best is yet to come!

Updates: L's Agility Trial

Okay, so I have a lot of updates to post! I'm so far behind on blogging that several weeks have gone by since L's recent agility trial. I had misgivings about even taking him to the trial, given that we haven't hardly practiced in the past few months. Going from several years of drought to getting much higher rainfall than normal has been harder on L than anyone. I've mentioned that L is a quirky fellow... well, he has some issues that go beyond just not liking to get his feet wet. He has smell issues - when the ground is wet, and it is warm out, there are smells that apparently must be avoided at all costs. For example, he can't walk near where anyone else has peed or pooped recently, and he certainly can't go anywhere that there might be worms. He hates worms. Which is unfortunate, because not only are there just zillions of worms out during all this wet weather, but when it rains, water pools in the bottom of my agility tunnels, and then worms get in them and drown.


So, when L goes out, he usually tries to stay on the mulch along the fence line, and if he has to walk in the grass, he tries to avoid letting any of his feet touch the worm-contaminated ground. He progresses along in a series of skips and leaps, zigging and zagging through the horrible labyrinth of smells. (Meanwhile, Z and B seem to really enjoy rolling on dead worms - I wonder what L thinks of that!) So, I generally avoid trying to practice any agility with L during the smelly season, since I want to make sure that agility is always fun and fast and happy. If I see him skipping and hopping through the grass, or edging his way along the fenceline, or trying to levitate, I write off agility practice for that day.


The trial, however, was in an indoor soccer arena on astroturf. Despite our lack of practice, L had one of his better trial weekends - he was fast and happy and wound up, and I suspect that it was out of sheer relief to be on such a clean, dry, non-smelly surface. He loves astroturf. He earned 8 Q's in 11 runs, and had some of his fastest and most fun runs ever.


I had hoped to have some pictures from the trial, but I haven't gotten them yet, so all you get is words. I have pictures of plenty of other stuff, though - they have been piling up while I've been running around outside, playing with dogs, working on gardens, etc. So what update to post next? B's progress? The garden? The flowers? The hay field? The hikes? It's all coming!

Snake Magnet

Over at Romping and Rolling in the Rockies, KB has posted that she must be a bear magnet, since she's been seeing so many bears this year. Well, I guess I must be a snake magnet, because we've been seeing black snakes much more often than usual. Not long ago I posted about Betsy the Barn Snake, the 4.5 foot long black snake in our barn. Yesterday, as the dogs and I were heading out for our hike, we found this little fellow sunning himself on the road.


He's just a baby, so skinny that I almost mistook him for a stick. The dogs didn't seem to notice him either.

Then, later yesterday, look what we found hanging out in a hay baler: it's Bitsy the Baler Snake!

This is one of two broken balers that our neighbor owns - he and Mr. Geek were going to see if they could use the two broken balers to construct one working baler. But this one is already occupied by little Itsy Bitsy here.

And a few other odds and ends, as I get ready to clean the house for the 20+ relatives coming over for dinner tonight - I was happy to see on our hike yesterday that the wild rhododendrons growing in the understory of the woods are starting to think about blooming.

And at home, the blanketflowers have been going strong for weeks now, and won't stop until November or December. I've been so happy with them that I planted them in a few new spots this year.

And some daylilies are beginning to bloom as well. These are some that my mother split out for me several years ago.

And our blackberries are looking good so far, too. The woods are full of blackberries and raspberries, but I like having a few berry plants right at the house. They are just fun to pick.

We've been busy with the garden, too, but that will have to wait for another post, as will all the other updates about L's agility trial, B's visits to campus, the killdeer, and everything else.

(P.S. Flydragon, please don't punish me for this post by putting up more spider pictures!)