Barclay’s sore throat

On December 9, 2012May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn barclay, navi1 Comment

Saturday morning we had to rush Barclay to the emergency vet! He had been coughing on Wednesday, lethargic the past two days, and Saturday morning I followed him around the yard and he looked like he was so weak he was going to collapse. I had already decided he would go to the vet that day, and planned to call them as soon as they opened at 8, but here it was 5am, and he wasn’t looking good. I took him inside and gave him some soft food, and he ate a bite, then just stared at the bowl and shivered. That was it, he was going in NOW.

We got to the vet and they examined him and determined he was running a very high fever! They took him back to do xrays and blood tests, and had to knock him out because he was so upset about it. They found a sore in the back of his throat – they think he may have poked it with a bone. I think it was the ‘pig ear’ rawhides he likes. Some of them are thin and have pointy ends – I could see him swallowing a chunk and hurting his throat.

They put him on an IV, for fluids, antibiotics, and pain meds, and kept him all day. I was so worried I called to check on him every couple hours. Navi didn’t know what to do with herself, being the only dog. By afternoon she was sitting in the hallway yapping at nothing – I think she was just nervous. Being the only dog is a lot of pressure for her! By evening the vet said Barclay was eating solid food and drinking, and was so upset about being there, they were ready to send him home so he could rest.

Of course he was super happy to see us! We took him home and he drank and ate and slept in the middle of the living room where he could be the center of attention. Navi followed him around wagging her tail, and sat on the couch watching him sleep until she fell asleep too. He pretty much slept on our bed all night. I heard a couple coughs from him this morning and we got up and gave him his pills, he ate and drank, and even barked at the front window a little. But mostly he’s resting.

Hopefully this will be a quick recovery. The vet says there’s a chance the sore is a tumor, not a wound, but I am assuming it’s a wound, and that’s what the vet felt was most likely too. It makes sense, and I refuse to even think about another dog having cancer at this point. He’ll get another exam in a couple weeks to see how it looks. The first thing I did when I got home is throw out those ‘pig ears’ – no more of those for him!

Woodpiles

On December 8, 2012November 25, 2020 By stefrobrtsIn navi, TheRancho1 Comment

When we moved in, there were two big woodpiles, one on either side of the yard, covered in ugly brown tarps.

We peeked under the tarps and discovered some mouse poison right after we took possession, so we spent some time looking for any more of it before we brought the dogs over, and then I’ve watched them like a hawk while they’re out in the yard to make sure they didn’t find any we missed. If those logpiles weren’t already on my to-do-list, that put them there for sure – the woodpiles had to go!

So Last weekend a friend came over along with two other friends with full size trucks, thinking they’d each take a load of wood and it would all be gone. Not quite. It took FIVE full size pickup bed loads to clear the piles away! The one closest to the house was the oldest, and a lot of the wood was rotten and full of termites! Yikes! They took as much of that as they could too.

That left me with a lot of debris to clean up:

And a new, and not entirely enjoyable view, of the neighbor’s yard!

Hey, I moved away from the farm to get away from that sort of ramshackle chicken coop/blue tarp stuff! Oh well.

The other pile left less of a mess. At least it was all good wood, none of that rotten stuff. But it was still full of mice and rat droppings. I didn’t find any more poison hidden in the piles. The boxes had looked pretty old, so it had probably all been consumed by mice long ago, but I wouldn’t take a chance of the dogs getting any. I’m sure we displaced a lot of rodents though.

Much to Navi’s delight. She’s been hunting mice every time she goes outside. She caught one the other day. She’s fast! I don’t think these mice came out of the woodpiles though, she’s been hunting mice in the garden area.

Our next big outdoor project is to clean up the big garden and reseed it for grass so the dogs will have more grassy area to play in. I don’t need that much garden anyway! Not sure when we’ll get a dry weekend to do that.

The dogs chasing a mouse in their new backyard

On November 18, 2012November 25, 2020 By stefrobrtsIn barclay, navi, TheRancho, video1 Comment

MVI 1781 from Stephanie Roberts on Vimeo.

Our new house–Welcome to Rancho Relaxo

On November 16, 2012November 25, 2020 By stefrobrtsIn barclay, dave, navi, TheRancho2 Comments

Our new house doesn’t really look like a big deal from the front. In fact it’s mostly hidden by the tall bushes along the curb.

But it has a pretty little area along the front, and a beautiful vine that will have big purple bunches of flowers on it in the spring.

The front room has a big fireplace, and a nice big window looking out on the front yard.

The dogs like that a lot!

It’s taken a few days, but they are starting to settle in. I think it helps that the furniture all smells like home.

We had a lot to do, cleaning, arranging, figuring out where everything goes in our new small house!

What a mess! I’ll get better pictures when it’s all cleaned up!

The inside is nice, but the real selling point of this house is out back. Check out that huge covered patio! And the back yard is terraced!

You walk off the patio, and follow a path down the stairs to the firepit.

I think we could get most of our friends around this giant firepit! I can’t wait to do some camp-cookin’ over it.

Step off the patio and go to the right, and there’s a sunken seating area.

This seating area is surrounded by peonies and all sorts of other flowers and bushes, I don’t even know what they all are yet.

Beyond the seating area is gardens – here is a section of chard, beets, and carrots.

Then towards the back fence is another huge garden, which had squash, beans, and tomatoes.

At the far end of the yard is another seating area on the end of the terrace.

Up close to the house is a big herb garden full of all sorts of herbs I recognize and a few I don’t.

And because the house backs up to the city water source, which is a fenced off area, there’s no one overlooking our backyard like there were on most of the houses we looked at in neighborhoods. In fact that white house off in the distance is the only house we can see from our backyard, except our immediate neighbors, who are hidden by trees. So it all feels very private.

Well, it’s all ours now. We’re just about all out of the old house. Closing is in a couple days. It’s weird to leave the farm after all these years, but this is a super nice place. We’ve met some of the neighbors and they all seem nice. The neighborhood is close to work and very walk-able. And of course it’s a lot less expensive than the farm, and will be a lot less stressful than trying to maintain 3 acres we really didn’t need. Change is always a little scary, but this is one case where we made a change for the better, all the way around.

Yellow sky

On October 21, 2012 By stefrobrtsIn barclay, navi1 Comment

This afternoon we had hail, followed by thunder, and then it all cleared up and the sky turned this amazing yellow! I was shocked when I glanced out the window to see everything bathed in this strange hue. It looked like the someone had thrown a yellow filter over the sun!

Soon it started raining again. Of course the eskimos have heavy coats on, so it didn’t bother them.

They just ran out in the field and had a ball hunting mice while the rain came down.

After about a half hour it was all over, and you never would have guessed the world looked like this for a little bit.

Refurbishing the decks

On September 16, 2012May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn navi3 Comments

This is a project we started last year and couldn’t afford the chemicals or the equipment. But friends loaned us the equipment, and we went out and got the chemicals today and went for it. First we watched a video online, and boosted by the simplicity with which they refurbished a deck that looked much worse than ours, we got started.

Started out by dragging all the furniture into the garage, and moving the tomato plants. I cleaned up the spaces between the boards that were clogged with stuff, and gave it a little rinse to knock off some dirt. You can see how grey and weathered it looks.

We used Thompson’s Deck Cleaner and brightener. Apply, scrub, let sit 15 minutes, and rinse off with the powerwasher.

This went a lot faster than I expected, and the difference was amazing!

Look how clean those boards are!
Dave had to go to rehearsal before we were finished, so I did the last three sections myself, then moved the whole show to the back deck. I did the smaller end of the deck before my back got tired.

(dogs were not allowed outside until everything was finished and cleaned up for the day)

What an incredible difference for such a simple process! We’ll finish up the rest of the back deck tomorrow. Then the instructions said to let it dry 2-3 days and then apply the sealer. It’s supposed to be hot and dry through Tuesday, so I think we’ll have no trouble getting the entire project done before the weather turns.

Update:

Over the next two weekends we finished the whole thing, cleaning the gigantic back deck, and laying down a coat of waterproofing on both.

And the proof that it all worked out came when it started raining again. We got done just in the nick of time. Nice to see the water beading up on the wood again.

That was a lot of work, for someone else to enjoy it! Why do we ignore these things when it’s our house, but fix them up just in time to sell them to someone else?

End of Summer photos

On August 29, 2012 By stefrobrtsIn barclay, garden, navi, outdoors, pets1 Comment

This has been a weird summer. I’ve been working full time, with a ridiculously long commute, and the end result of all that is I feel like I wasn’t even home for the summer. Hopefully things will get better soon.

I abandoned my garden, and it’s all overgrown and weedy. I planted a few tomatoes in pots on the front deck, and they might kick out a few tomatoes before the winter comes, if we’re lucky. BTW, that’s Saki next to the tomatoes, they were visiting.

Mostly we’ve been working on cleaning the house and getting it ready to sell. It’s coming along better than I expected. But that’s another post.

Today I went out in the late afternoon and took some pictures around the yard. No particular reason. The light was so beautiful, I couldn’t help myself.