Summer Thoughts

Today is the first full day of summer. We spent it as we've spent most of the spring, experiencing a thunder storm. This one had lots of hail included. We were having a late lunch at a restaurant when the hail started and the manager asked everyone to move to the center of the restaurant in case the windows broke. We wondered what condition the car would be in when it was over. Although there was a lot of it, the hail was only about a half inch size and didn't do any damage that we've found so far.

This is the storm moving in from the north.

This has been a strange week. Monday we went to the store and stocked up on 120 pounds of dog food for the pups. That will last about three weeks. While we were gone Morgan found the bird seed again. After the last disaster I put it in a plastic box with a snap on lid and tucked it away in the garage. She found it, opened it and dragged it around the garage leaving a trail of birdseed all over the place. What is it with her and birdseed? We had to put her plastic hat back on, because she has started chewing her tail again.

Tuesday we took Lucy to the Vet. She hasn't been eating well lately and a couple times when I've tried to give her medicine she's snapped at me. I thought she might have either some arthritis in her jaw or a bad tooth. Dr. B gave her a check up and the arthritis in her back and legs has gotten worse since February. He didn't think arthritis was in her jaw, but it did look like one molar might have a problem. The situation we're in is that Lucy is so old and her liver disease is so bad that putting her under anesthesia is dangerous. On the other hand, she shouldn't have to live in pain.

We started her on some pain meds and if that helps, we may not have to make this horrible decision. If she doesn't start feeling better, we have to weigh the risks and possibly put her under for dental work. Lucy doesn't have a lot of time left and we're trying to make the best of what time we have. This is the bad part of having a pet, but it's something I feel strongly about. I owe it to each of them to give them the best life possible and when the time comes, to make the hard decisions for them.

Wednesday night I went to bed with a headache. I thought it might go away overnight. Wrong !! By morning I had a migraine and didn't want to get up. Hungry dogs and a hungry husband demanded my appearance. I caved in and took one of my migraine pills. I try everything I can think of before taking one of these magic pills because they cost $23 apiece. I caught a mid-morning nap and the headache calmed down, but didn't go completely away.

We had a dinner engagement at 4 PM. It was really early because we had dog class at 7. Around 3 the day's storm started and it was a beaut. The tornado sirens started wailing, so I turned on the tv. The weatherman was saying that it was past us except for this little tail right over our neighborhood. Then he commented that it didn't look too bad except for the little tail. The sirens continued and Monty came over, panting and drooling and begging me to get in the closet with him, but I had to get ready to go out.

I secured all the dogs and we left. I worried about how they would do on their own. Dinner was wonderful. A friend wanted to cook for us and he did a great job. We were stuffed when we headed home to pick up Fudge and Lola. We heard that a furniture store had lost it's roof from our storm, but that was the only major damage.


I've been working hard with the dogs all week and thought I was seeing some progress. In class Lola forgot everything she had learned and spent the entire hour spinning. Fudge was so interested in what Lola was doing that I had a hard time keeping his attention. Due to the storm there were only four dogs in class and ours were certainly not the top students.

Friday we were planning on heading for the lake to see Grace swim, but when we awoke there was thunder and lightning and it had been raining all night. It didn't look like a good day for the lake, so we canceled. Actually, it cleared up and was a beautiful day, one of the few we've had recently. We've rescheduled our trip.


Here are some of the flowers I planted this year. I'm not planting many because the pups like to eat them. They've snapped the heads off most of my pink coneflowers. My favorite colors are pinks and purples and usually I plant flowers in those colors. This year I forced myself to try something different, so I went with yellows and oranges.


I used to supplement my meager income by knitting little dolls. The ones done in school colors were my best sellers. Students liked to buy them for their boyfriends or girlfriends. I kept this one because she reminded me of my days living at the beach. It seems appropriate to get her out on the first full day of summer.


I must make some more of these little dolls.

I have a little refrigerator magnet that was a Christmas gift a couple years ago. I read it every day, so I'll add it on here. It has a picture of a shaggy little dog and says this:
"To you he's a dog. To me he's an
adopted child who is short, hairy,
walks on all fours and doesn't
speak clearly. I have no problem
with any of these things."