Alki on the mend

On By stefrobrtsIn alki, petsLeave a comment
 
Alki is doing fine, spunky and eating well again. And napping a lot, but who can blame her, it’s been a busy week for a little dog! She has been coughing a bit, so I’ll talk to the vet on Monday. We felt ok to leave her alone all evening and ran down to the beach to visit with our friends we were supposed to be camping with this weekend, if we hadn’t stayed home with the pup!

Shellless Egg

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, chickens, jack2 Comments
 
 
One of the girls laid a shellless egg! It is just a membrane, no shell. What a weird thing to hold. It’s all squishy! I don’t think it’s anything to worry about though, I’ve read that hens occasionally lay one, especially if they are just starting laying, and I have a couple young hens that certainly could be just getting started. Plus it was laid in a nest they don’t usually use, so it must have been one of the girls still figuring out how it’s done.
 
 The dogs still enjoyed it!

Alki is home again

On By stefrobrtsIn alki1 Comment

I’m still a bit nervous, but Alki is pretty relaxed – because she’s home from the doggie hospital!

I’m so happy to be home – FEED ME!

I’m feeding her small amounts hoping her stomach stays on the mend. She’s hungry, and giving me sad eyes, so I guess that’s a good sign. Long as she keeps at it.

While at the hospital they did an ultrasound and confirmed there was a large mass around her bladder, which is the cancer. We pretty much knew it was back already. That old bastard is going to get her one way or the other. Thanks to the miracles of modern medicine, and our dedicated veterinarians, she has cheated death for nearly three years since her diagnosis. Even the oncologist says it’s an incredible result. Not much to do now but treat any symptoms as they occur, and give her lots of love.

Alki in the hospital, Barclay eats an egg

On By stefrobrtsIn alki, barclay, jack, petsLeave a comment

Last week we tried a new antibiotic on Alki, because the vet thinks she has a kidney infection. Unfortunately it upset her stomach and she became reluctant to eat. Then the vet gave us some medicine to help her stomach, and some anti-nausea meds on Saturday, and she ate fine. But Sunday she threw up her food, and Sunday night she woke me up at 4AM throwing up. I tried to give her the medicine and a little bread to settle her stomach but she threw that up too. So I called the vet first thing in the morning and she said to bring her right in. She put her on IV fluids and took a urine sample to send to the lab to determine exactly which antibiotic she needs, and gave her a shot to settle her stomach. When we visited in the afternoon the vet said Alki had settled right down in her kennel and was resting. They had just taken her for a walk to go potty, and we could visit her if we wanted, but I didn’t want her to get all stirred up again. She said it was a good thing she was deaf because none of the noises around the busy vet hospital were bothering her, and although she had been nervous and shaking terribly when we brought her in, she seemed to be relaxing and just hanging out now. Tomorrow the vet wants me to bring her some of her favorite food and if she can eat it and keep it down she can come home tomorrow.

It’s so weird having her gone. It’s quieter around the house, and a bit more relaxing not worrying about her all the time, but I keep looking for her. I know this is what it will be like when she’s gone. It will still take some getting used to even though we’ve had almost three years to get used to the idea. But hopefully this crisis will pass and she’ll be home tomorrow and recovering from this little setback.

Meanwhile, out in the yard, I played with Barclay and gave him an egg to eat.

 
  
  
Jack didn’t get an egg, but he was curious about it.

 
Instead I called him over and practiced some obedience while Barclay was busy with the egg.
 

So he got some jerky, which was just as good to him, he can’t figure out what to do with eggs anyway.

More lawnmower blues…

On By stefrobrtsIn lawnmower2 Comments

My lawnmower, which I HATE, seems to have finally bit the dust. I had a pro out to look at it yesterday and his conclusion was that the crank was hosed due to overheating – apparently the mower used up it’s oil on the last mowing session, and it got low enough the engine overheated, causing the crank to get bound up. So it turns, but just barely. He said I might get it running again, but he couldn’t recommend spending much money on it.

So now I’m looking for a nice used mower, hopefully not as used as this one was, to hold us over until we can afford something newer, or we sell the place and move 😉 Whichever comes first. Having a working lawnmower would certainly help push back the second option!

Tough Decisions – Copper moves on

On By stefrobrtsIn chickens, Copper1 Comment
Don’t send me away, I’ll be good!
Tough decision time – I like Copper, he’s been a very nice rooster. He is big and beautiful, and well behaved. He gets on fine with the other rooster too. Only problem is, he loves the ladies! A little too much. The ladies are getting tired of getting attention from two roosters. Every time I go check on them I find hens sitting on the chair, or up in the trees, trying to get away from him!
 
He can’t reach me up here!
So I decided eight hens just wasn’t enough to spread out the attentions of two roosters, so one had to go. Since Copper is related to a couple of the hens, I decided to keep the unrelated rooster, Big Blue. Plus Blue is a cochin and I’m getting cochin chicks in March, so that will give me the opportunity to produce more pure cochins next year.
Surprisingly, I found someone on the Portland Chicken List who has 30 hens and a very tired old rooster, and wanted a vigorous young rooster. So he is boxed up and ready to go to his new home. Hopefully he’ll fit right in there, and be making friends with all the new ladies in no time 😉

Airstream at the Home Show

On By stefrobrtsIn airstream4 Comments

We went down to the Portland Home & Garden show to check out our Airstream on loan to the Pendleton Woolen Mills for the National Parks Blankets display. They have a wonderful area set up, with lots of neat product, I didn’t know they made so many different things, plus lots of wool displays and raw wool. Makes me miss my sheep! But there in the middle is my little gem…

Inside was decorated with blankets and a little dinner set on the table to make it look cozy and inviting. They did a great job!

While we were visiting people were peeking in the trailer, and saying how cute it was. One of the ladies working the booth asked where the bedroom was 🙂 No hidden bedroom in this little trailer – what you see is what you get! The couch pulls out into a bed.

I left them a list of which park blankets I wanted and she said they would leave them in the trailer for us when we come to pick it up on Monday. So it has a long week ahead of being admired! Also the blanket you can see mounted on the wall above it was measured on Tuesday for a world record for the longest blanket. So there have been news crews there filming it. I’m going to watch the local news to see if I see my trailer on TV!

Getting ready for spring!

On By stefrobrtsIn garden4 Comments

I finished installing the new gate to the pasture, did some more work on the fence between the garden and the shelter, and installed a board with pegs to hang my garden tools from under the shelter.

I also went down to the feed store and put a reservation on 10 assorted (buff, red, and blue) cochin chicks 🙂 They don’t come until the end of March, so I have time to build a better brooder box for them than my turkeys had last year. More projects, what fun!

And best of all, tomorrow a professional mower repair guy is coming over to try and get the cursed riding mower running again. Instead of finding myself swearing at it when the grass is a foot tall and needs to be mowed yesterday, I thought I would get a head start on it. This way if he says it will never run again, I can start shopping for a good used mower to take it’s place. Every year we fall behind when the mower won’t run, not this year!

Garden 2010

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, garden2 Comments
For the last year or so the paddock area has only been used as a pathway to take the dogs out into the pasture to play fetch, and I have set a little table and chairs under the shelter and I like to sit out there and read and watch the dogs play and watch the world go by.  I decided it was time to make some changes. Since I don’t anticipate having livestock again anytime soon, I rearranged the shelter. 
 
I removed the boards off the pasture side, and put them on the paddock side.
 
So now the shelter is open to the pasture. Which leaves the paddock area shut off from the pasture, except for the gated entrances. So that area will be my garden this year, and if all goes well for the next few years.

It’s kind of a grassy weedy mess right now, but it was well fertilized by the llamas and sheep so I’m interested to see how this works out. I think I will have better luck planting directly in the ground than I have had in previous years planting in pots or doing an intensive garden. I plan to give my plants lots of room this year.

It doesn’t look like much to write home about, but the turned over area along the fence is my row of peas. I planted them there so they could climb up the fence without having to add extra support for them. 
Luckily it’s still early in the season, so I have time to get the rest of the area in order. I’m planning to just work up rows where I need them, and kill the grass in the pathways and put down bark chips to walk on. I’m going to use organic fertilizer where needed. I’m hoping to get a good winter crop in this year as well so we can have Brussels Sprouts and Broccoli and Chard, and, using a cold frame, lettuce and spinach all winter. We’ll see how that goes. Big plans for someone who can barely produce a few tomatoes every summer!

I opened a section of fence from the main yard into the pasture for doggie access. It’s funny how this makes the front yard feel completely different! Look how happy Barclay is to fetch a ball out of the pasture 🙂 I’m going to put a metal gate there so I can still have control over their access. Otherwise they can be real pests about going out in the pasture and barking at the neighbors.

New tires for the van

On By stefrobrtsIn cars2 Comments

Last Thursday I drove the van into town to meet my husband at the theater and thought ‘boy this thing is riding like..uh..poorly’. Yes, that’s what I thought 😉 But when I got downtown and Dave and I walked around it, we didn’t see anything wrong. So I drove it a couple more days, and then Saturday I drove it to work, and walked back outside to get something out of it and saw this on the inside of the passenger side wheel!

Holy crow! I’ve never seen a tire do that!!! As you can see it doesn’t go all the way around, so you only see it if the van is parked just so. Well, actually…

 
This is what it looks like when you roll it over – it’s even bigger! I knew it was getting bald, in fact we were at the tire store on Wednesday and they pointed out that they were getting bald, but the tires we want to put on it had to come from the warehouse, and we can’t go without the van on a workday so we scheduled to have the new tires put on tomorrow. Just a week too late! Thank goodness this didn’t cause an accident. Tomorrow the van goes in for all new tires all around. Plus some suspension work, new shocks, oil change, etc, then we’ll be all ready for another summer of hauling toys and trailers around.