AL - Recording baby steps: Newest Addition

[i_am2bz]

What awesome pix!

Hope you're feeling better, AL.

 

[AL]

Thanks everyone...
I spent the majority of about 16 hours in bed. I finally made myself get up this morning so I could get the rabbits from the vet (boarded them while I was in Texas - afraid of the heat getting to them). I picked up dog food, chicken feed and a mineral block for the horses and could barely lift them into the truck I felt so weak. I don't think I have a fever anymore, but it is like running a marathon just to get from point A to point B. Exhausting.

The heat index is 98* here.... I have frozen water bottles in with the rabbits, but I am beginning to think I may have to go ahead and set fans out as well. It is sooo humid!

The weather guy says we might get some rain tomorrow. I'll believe it when I see it. The sprinkler just isn't able to keep up with my garden so I am mostly concentrating it on the half that actually has stuff growing / making. My tomatoes are going gangbusters, so many they are pulling down my little stakes so I will have to use some bigger stakes at some point. Hopefully I will feel up to fooling with it in the next couple of days.

I am meeting with my vet on Thursday. She is doing the pre-op bloodwork on Rio and getting me the pain meds / e-collar since they can do it WAY cheaper than at the specialist's office. Rio has his surgery on Tuesday June 7 and I am already a nervous nelly.


I wasn't able to dig Buford's grave because of it causing horrible back pain (pulled something a couple of months ago and it still gives me fits). I had to have him cremated because the county just takes them to the landfill - no way my dog was going there. Anyway today I got his ashes back and it was so hard to think of it as being him. I have never had so much trouble letting go of one of my pets. He was just a great dog.
I remember I used to take him with me when I would ride my horse out at the state forest. Dogs were supposed to be on a leash, but as soon as we hit the treeline I would turn Buford loose. He would run about 75 -100 yards ahead and then come back to me. If I rode 5 miles he would run 10. One time a small herd of deer bolted across the trail but Buford just stood at the edge and watched them run - every muscle taut, but knowing he was supposed to stay with me. The only time he left the trail was when we rode by the river.... he would swim for as long as the river was close by.


Today is my first day back to work after a week off. I love my job and rarely if ever dread going in to work..... but I really really would rather just stay home today.

 

[AL]

Oh my Mercy it is HOT!!!! Our high today is 95, it is already 96 with a heat index of 100. Our rain chance dropped from 50% to 20%, so I am wagering I will need to run the sprinkler over the garden in the morning.

I picked 5-6 little Early Girl tomatoes and about that many grape tomatoes, a couple of yellow squash, banana peppers. My corn is still struggling along, about hip high now - maybe.

The rabbits are miserable even with 2 frozen water bottles. My chicken house fan is so full of dust and feathers it won't run, so I'll have to buy a couple more so I can try to move some air on the rabbits and the chickens.

My vet always sends out sympathy cards and I thought it strange I hadn't received one yet. Turns out they sent it to my folks,who have had it since last week. Normally it is just signed with the clinic name - but several of the staff and both owner veterinarians signed it with little notes. It means so much to me, and hurts my heart a little all over again.
Dr. S - the wife vet - was always super kind to Buford, but he couldn't stand her! He couldn't get up on the slick tile floor, so if she sat beside him he would scoot until his back was towards her. When he was a little healthier, she would get up and move in front of him, and he would scoot around again. It was funny. She signed that even though he didn't have any love for her, she was definitely going to miss "that stubborn old man" LOL


ETA - I was miserable with a headache and exhaustion all day yesterday. Slept pretty well last night but still have had a massive headache. my stomach felt fine and I was finally hungry so I ate with my parents, or tried to. After a few forkfuls of greenbeans and stewed squash (maybe not the most sick stomach friendly ) I had to stop before it all came back. Now I am going to try to lay down and rest this queasy feeling away. I have already fed / watered teh horses, the rabbits and the chickens. I dunked my broody hen in a water tub for a bit and locked all of them out of the chicken house. I have a load of laundry on to wash.
I need to take new pics of my little Tuffy chick... the one that survived a horrible hatche (2 bouts with ants, being so cold it was like the egg was in the fridge, and then bleeding from me peeling the shell). It is a cutie! Feathered legs and ping pong ball head. Cuteness! I am already guessing it as a roo though, because it looks like it is going to be white with black markings. I have 5 of my big chicks (incubator hatch 3/6) and I think 4 of them are roos. 2 of them seem to want to have an attitude so I am going to send them to "live" with my friend. They won't live long so it won't matter they are illegal for her. The other 2 seem ok, so I may keep one and toss one over into Mr. ONs field (he said I could throw any spares to him).

 

[savingdogs]

My heart hurts and I feel so sad every time I think about you losing your dear friend Buford.

With our most recently passed beloved dog, we got an urn for her ashes. I never know quite what to do with her ashes now, it is an item that makes us sad, I want to get hubby to bury the ashes.

 

[AL]

Thanks
The place here has urns that are connected to a garden stone... so you can bury them and have a marker as well. I don't think I can keep the urn inside, it makes me sad everytime I walk by.

 

[AL]

Checked the weather channel on my way to work... it is 102* without the heat index.
I gave the rabbits fresh frozen bottles, I am wondering about freezing fruit or veggies for them as kind of "popsicles" ? If it is this hot now, I dread the rest of the summer even more than usual (I am a bad Floridian - I hate heat. It is so hot and humid it is like being wrapped in a wet electric blanket turned on high.)
ETA - just saw online that our record high for today was 100*, and our actual high of today was 103.
Also just saw about tornadic storms in Massachussetts!!


I sprayed the chicken yard with the hose and sprayed some of the hens as well. I'll have to drag out their shallow tray that I fill for them a wading pool. Also have to tear out the winter walls so they can get some air circulating in the henhouse at night.

Summer is here!

 

[TTs Chicks]

I feel you on the heat - I checked the weather just before I left work (about 4:20) and it said the temp was 101 but the heat index was 104

 

[AL]

A co-worker was just telling me he remembered a summer several years ago that started with this oven-like heat in June and then tapered off as the summer went on.... it was 2004, the year of Hurricane Ivan!! Yikes


So just read this article and found it interesting, thought I would share

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kurt-...ml?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl9|sec1_lnk3|67533

 

[AL]

Dadblame birds and squirrels are getting my maters!!! I had 4-5 I was waiting to let get that last ripe about them, and today they had bite / peck holes. I am going to have to hang some pie pans or CDs tomorrow and see if that will help any.
Other than tomatoes the garden is pathetic. I have 2 little butternut squash, the occasional yellow squash and zuke. My cucumbers are blossoming nicely, but it is so stinking hot I don't know if they'll make. I have banana peppers coming out of my ears, only to discover nobody here eats them! I think I will take them to my friend.

I think I will also take her 2 of my incubator roos.... they are starting to challenge each other / everyone else and I just don't need the drama..... not when 2-3 other young roos are getting along and have worked out the "pecking order". My big red roo baby is super submissive acting, but all of the others follow him. I think he is going to be gorgeous, so he will get to stay most likely.
Tuffy the chick worried me yesterday morning sneezing, but has evidently perked up some. tomorrow I will be cleaning a small pen to start integrating him in with Pat and the incubator chicks. Of course until dumb and dumber are gone I can't turn him out, they'd kill him.

Went to bed at 3am, up at 5 to turn on the garden sprinkler, up again at 630 to get dressed and tend the critters, turn off the sprinkler and move it for tomorrow's run, go to the north end of the county to get my nephews and take them to school, vet appt at 815 to get Rio's bloodwork, x-rays, pain meds and e-collar that my vet got me for easily $250 less than what the orth specialist was going to charge, then dentist at 1030. I need a nap before facing the drama that has become my job!!
(last night a lady on my team came to me in tears, her 30-something year old crackhead son was in the parking lot threatening to kill himself ifshe didn't give him money for drugs. Security -no rent a cops here, all former MPs or county deputies - plus the off duty deputy and myself standing out in the lot hoping he doesn't have a weapon. Lady talked him down and he said he wanted to think about maybe helping the sheriff office as an informant. ..... drama drama)

Here's hoping the heat keeps the crazies inside tonight!!! (and preferably not on the phone calling me)

 

[aggieterpkatie]

AL, I've missed a lot of your journal but I just saw about Buford. I'm just so sorry. It has got to be so hard to say goodbye.