I’ve been wondering all winter what was up with the birds — I’ve had a feeder up, and a suet block, and there haven’t been any birds at all. I was getting curious — last winter I had woodpeckers and finches and chickadees starting right after Christmas. Of course, last winter we had no snow and the spring thaw came very early, so perhaps the birds came early too. But the birds are back. Rosy finches, chickadees, and a couple of crows who seemed quite interested in the suet block. So perhaps spring will come again this year after all.
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Well, the dogs are on the mend — Ray’s stitches come out on Friday and I took Owen off to have his dressings changed today. I wish I’d had my camera with me — that external fixature is quite something. My little FrankenPuppy. His Fenatyl patch is also off, which is making him a little less groggy — thank goodness we have the mysterious “anaglesic elixir” because he’s still intermittently uncomfortable. In other news — the tomatoes are getting their true leaves down in the basement, although I didn’t have the germination rates with the pepper seedlings that I’d hoped…
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This better work, because while my boy was really happy to see me when I picked him up this afternoon, he’s not a happy camper. That big square thing on his leg is the external fixature — pins sunk into his bones, and connected to rods to immobilize the whole lower leg joint. Here’s a close up. He also came home with a bottle of “analgesic elixir” — narcotics — and thank goodness. I got him home, and set up in his little bed (which normally lives under the kitchen table, but the cone kept getting hung up so I…
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Yesterday I took poor Gimpy Dog over to Billings to the veterinary orthopedist. Even typing that makes me feel slightly ashamed of myself — we live in a nation in which an enormous percentage of our population doesn’t even have human health care, and I’m spending how much money on orthopedic surgery for my dog? So anyhow, I was really hesitant about this whole thing — not just because of the money, but because the effect of the first surgery, which was supposed to increase his mobility had exactly the opposite effect — he fell apart entirely. But this guy…
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Here’s my Raymond with all his stitches. He had to spend the night at the vet because he was still snoozing yesterday at five when they closed. He’s fine. All cleaned up and they said I did a nice job with the butterfly bandages over the weekend — poor guy really took a gouge out of himself. He’s very happy to be home and is in his crate in the other room loudly licking at those parts of the wound he can reach. Pet owners may order also order products like a dog turmeric supplement that can further help improve…
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My friend Debra sent me an invitation a few weeks ago to join Ravelry, the social networking site for knitters and although I haven’t done much more than set up a page and post my one-and-only sweater, I’m sort of fascinated by the convergance of knitting and social networking. While I’ve fallen in love with knitting, as much for the magical way it stops that buzzing in my brain after a long day at work as for the actual product I’m creating, I’m not one of those people who wants to go hang out at the knitting store with a…
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I admit it, I love Martha Stewart. I love her drive. I love her insane love of crafts. She had Nathan Lane on the other day making plaster of paris bunnies — it was insane. She had these plastic molds she’d clamped together with binder clips and as she was making Nathan Lane file off the rough edges he looked at her and said “Martha! People aren’t going to do this! They have lives …” and her response was “Oh yes they will.” As though she was going to come over to each and every one of our houses and…
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I seem to have momentarily lost my blogging mojo — but with the sunshine returning to Montana, I expect to be back next week, refreshed and re-invigorated by this weekend’s chore: seed starting!
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Look at my new pruning saw — isn’t it beautiful? The most beautiful thing about this pruning saw is how well it works. I’d been using a hacksaw, which was really arduous, but this baby, with it’s many sharp teeth made short work of the overgrown golden plum tree, the overgrown local plum tree, and the last of the two weedy ash trees that were taking over my garage. See what I did with my new saw? It was a very productive weekend. Now let’s just hope for one of those springs we sometimes get where the weather sets up…
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My movie marathon continues, and the sweater I began in 2005 is nearly complete — to be fair, I’ve put it down for months at a time, and then pulled out whole sections, but it’s the first one I’ve ever knit. Of course, the proof will be when I put all the pieces together — will it be worth wearing or will it be a Frankenstein’s monster of a sweater? We’ll know soon … So, as the award season bears down upon us, here’s a roundup of what I’ve been watching this week: The Lives of Others: Like The Diving…