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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It’s been quite a weekend here at LivingSmall. First, the gimpy dog has not recovered very well — turns out that his achilles tendon is falling apart, and his “good” leg isn’t really good enough to support his weight — it’s full of arthritis in the hock. So I think he’s having more surgery on Thursday to repair the achilles tendon, and then we’re going to have to order him some braces to support the poor arthritic hocks. With any luck, this will at least get him back on his feet and allow him to get around the yard and…
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My Very Old Man has died. It was in the paper yesterday. His name was Harold Busby and he was 88 years old. I haven’t seen him in about a week — I pass his house while walking the dogs and I usually stop to pet his Very Sweet Brown Dog and to wave at him behind his picture window. I don’t know what’s happened to the dog — I’ll have to ask his neighbor Lynn, who has been taking care of Harold for the past couple of months. I’m sad about my Old Man — I liked seeing him…
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It’s snowing again. I woke up this morning to about 2 inches of snow and it was sort of exciting. I didn’t have a clue last night when I went to sleep that it was going to snow, so there was that little frisson of excitement, like the first snow of the year. It was pretty, every twig was outlined, and it’s not very cold. It’s still snowing — little tiny flakes. It’s a late spring this year and as much as I want to get out in the garden, well, I have a novel to write, and more sweaters…
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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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My friend Max was telling me about his in-laws’ declicious ham salad the other day at the party. He said it’s really addictive and one of the things he looks forward to after a family ham. Since I have a lot of ham left, the thought had been niggling in the back of my head. And I often find myself scrambling to figure out what to eat for lunch. Hmm. Ham salad. I’ve never made ham salad in my life — so I did what anyone would do and googled it: Ham Salad. And because I’m me, I fiddled with…
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I hosted Easter yesterday — sent out invitations and invited everyone I know to stop by — it was great fun, there were probably 30 or 40 people over the afternoon, luckily not all at once since my house isn’t that big. I did a big ham, cured and smoked by our local butcher, Matt. He does wonderful hams (we keep trying to convince him to eschew CAFO meat, and while he does do some local sourcing, he’s unconvinced people around here will pay for it. Considering half the kids in the county get free lunch, he might be right,…