Copperheads

About 9 p.m., and I had let the dogs out for their evening constitution.  Mark was just coming out of the garage side door, and Dexter was making his way over.  I shut the door and went about my business.  Moments later, Mark rushed in the front door, and his voice was strained, "Keep Dexter inside, there is a copperhead out here by the garage door." 

He then dispatched the copperhead to the Netherworld.  It was unsettling.  Mark said that as Dexter came over he stopped and looked at something on the ground that caught his interest.  (It was dark and just the outside lights on).  Mark immediately saw the danger, grabbed Dexter, and brought him in.  What was unsettling is that it could have just as easily been a snake bite to one or both of them.

Just two weeks ago, a copperhead lunged at Mark as he rode his motorcycle.  Just down the hill he could see the snake on the side, and as he passed on his bike the snake struck out.  No harm done, but....

Our neighbor informed us of a recent biting of several dogs in a pen in our county.  All will be fine, but it is a nasty thing to deal with.

Vigilance.

Inducing Your Dog to Vomit

My bedtime routine was interrupted last evening by having to search for how to induce vomiting in dogs.  While I knew that hydrogen peroxide was key, and needed a primer on how much.  My search was launched when Dexter jumped out of the bed and grabbed something that was crinkly and ran downstairs.  He had that quick trot that always alerts me that he has something that he considers a prize.  I lay in bed for a few moments.  I was ready to sleep, not chase him down.

But I heard the noise again and went down the steps.  He had a package of unidentified gum (in blister package).  I believe that it was Orbit, and it looked like it had gone through the wash. Likely it fell undetected beside the bed during laundry.  There were two loose pieces on the sofa and a hint of minty freshness on Dexter's breath.  I have no idea how many were in the blister package, but there were at least nine slots.  As it was a wash damaged packaged, I don't know what had fallen into the wash. I found these before from my son's pants that were not emptied.

Xylitol is highly toxic to dogs. It is a natural sweetener than when metabolized by dogs in a toxic dose can result in life threatening hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), liver necrosis/failure.  With the health stakes so high, I was not going to risk making an assumption about what he may or may not have ingested.

I located a syringe, hydrogen peroxide and squirted it in his mouth.  I took him outside to move around, and then brought him in.  He vomited fully in several places to include the arm of the sofa.  It was a welcome sight, and the armcover could be rinsed. I did not see any signs of gum in his vomit, but given that he had a full stomach, there was alot of volume.  He came to bed and all was well.

Now is a good time to check your medical supplies.  If you live in a skunky place, two 32 oz containers of hydrogen peroxide are useful.  It's great as a mouth rinse, laundry aid (HP + Dawn), and of course inducing vomiting.  Having some activated charcoal powder on hand is great too.  I'm 35 minutes away from an emergency vet. So being prepared is both life saving and money saving.

Summer

My blog posts are a rarity.  My life is now resuming some normalcy.  I feel that I can breathe now v. gasping for air.  If there is no time to breathe there is certainly no time to write.

Angel was diagnosed with a mast cell tumor on her leg.  Given her age and the location, we will not treat it.  It cannot be operated on with any hope of reasonable clearances, and amputating her back leg is not an option.  Thankfully we have compassionate means of transitioning for dogs.  We will ensure that she is well cared for.  I have to give her 3 Benadryl a.m. and p.m.  to control the histamines that such tumors give off.  She seems no worse for the wear.

Our weather is hot and humid.  Summer in Virginia.

Husbando riding motorcycle out of driveway onto our road.  Quarter mile down the road a copperhead uncoils and strikes as he passes.  No harm done, but being on foot would have been a problem.  We have a large black snake slip, sliding about.  I hope that he is a totem that keeps us safe from encroaching copperheads.  I've seen too many about over the years.

Dexter has become the dog that we hoped he would be.  He's Mark's constant companion.  He loves all of his sissies, and he and Ella have been digging for moles with great energy and success.  We are harvesting potatoes, and as I dig, I see the mole tunnels and the ridges in the potatoes that I'm digging up.

I'm desperate for a week off.  I'm settling for weekends for now.  We were able to spend time with both Dad's over Father's Day.  As they are in their 80's the limit on remaining holidays is high on my mind.  It was nice to celebrate them.

Sunday Notes

It has been more than a month since I've written a thing.  I've been out-of-my-mind busy, though that will be tapering off soon.  Since mid-February I have been in a mad dash working with a new client.  That typically brings its usual flurry of activity. 

Dog Front:  All dogs are doing well. 
  • Angel has to be separated from Daisey to prevent any further altercations.  
  • I am still feeding RAW==> 231 days now.  I'm now in scoop, plop, drizzle and sprinkle mode.  Scoop meat, scoop starch (or slice and plop for potatoes); plot it in their bowls; drizzle oil; sprinkle Health Powder (Dr. Pitcairn's receipt), sprinkle NuPro, sprinkle vitamins, bone meal powder if not using bone in grind.  No more painstaking mixing.  All are doing very well.
  • Dexter continues to mature and have better impulse control.  We have had him 280 days now.  The last two months have really seen a turnaround.  He has brought alot of energy to our household.
Garden Front:  Mark has been hot housing our seedlings until the weather has turned water.  Our hot house is simply an old door on a wood frame with a light in it.  But it allows the plants to stay warm and grow.  All are in the ground now, to include potatoes. 

Inch worms are dangling about--getting to the car without having one in one's hair or as body decoration is next to impossible.The wood thrush are singing, and they are my favorite herald of Spring.  The redbuds have burst forth with their fuschia and purple blooms, now faded.  The dogwood has similarly had it glory and now the leaves are taking over.  The snowball bush is the next in line to blossom, the heads still tight and green-white.

The leaves is the woods are fluorescent green--almost an assault to the eyes.  Their color will deepen and take on the hue of the species, but for now, all leaves seem indistinguishable from any other unless it is the red maple.

And pollen abounds.

Notes from my Life

The calendar says spring, but the thermometer says otherwise.  Nevertheless, the birds are vocal and active, as are the owls and the frogs.  Driving home last night the car's dashboard read 30 for the outside temp...but we could hear frogs.  Nature will not be stopped.

I've been crazy busy with work, and that will not abate for another 45 days.

Angel is still in lockdown mode, which has kept her out of trouble, and Daisey out of her grip....except that last evening, Dexter had a tumble with Daisey.  He wasn't being mean-spirited, just playful.  She would have none of that and energies escalated.  That escalation happened near Angel's lair, and she was quick to .  There was a hop on pop moment, but I was able to grab leads and get everyone disengaged without any, including me, coming into harm.  My body sprang mechanically into action, no yelling, nothing but grabbing leads and pulling mightily. Trailing leads on my troublemakers is key management tool. 

It is necessary to keep the energy levels down among this group.  Sigh....

I had to breakdown and buy a new computer.  My current computer was purchased in 2009, and was decently outfitted with 8 gb of ram.  But I have found myself running out of resources when using Excel too frequently, and the machine itself has some noises that are disconcerting--the latest of which was the hard drive clicking.  Otherwise, I would have just upgraded the memory.  I tried to upgrade the memory previously, but despite my best efforts to ensure compatibility, the machine froze.  I didn't want to fool with it again.

 I splurged and got a workstation over a desktop machine.  I don't really use my computer for pleasure, but rather to power through work. The upgraded technology in terms of memory and speed is very helpful in my work.  No crazy noises.  No out of resource messages.  I networked my computers, which does give me some flexibility.  These were not things that I paid attention to before, and it was nice to figure a few things out.

The new computer is equipped with 16GB of memory, and a Quadro K4200 video graphics card.  I probably do not need that, but I was in "why not?" mode.  Perhaps I'll be a CAD designer!

Admittedly my stress level is through the roof and diet/exercise have been neglected.  Not smart.  But I've been doing a decent job on staying organized, and that has allowed me to stay focused and productive.

May Spring visit us soon...


Corned Beef

On a home archaeological dig, I unearthed an ancient clay artifiact:  my Rommertopf Clay Pot. I've had it for more than 20 years, and I've not used it in 15.  I dusted it off.  Roasted a chicken.  Perfect.  My sister was coming into town, and we've done a good job keeping up with my cousins during her visits.  My cousin, Val's, home is convenient for all.  She cleaned, and I cooked.

What to cook?  I woke up the next morning with the inspiration of cooking corned beef and cabbage.  We were just a few days shy of that great holiday (which also happens to be the anniversary of our first blind date 36 years ago), so why not bring that dish forward?  We tested the waters of our guests and all said fine.  (Though my other cousin Diane later confessed that she had some misgivings remembering corned beef and cabbage of yonder days----cabbage mush and meat boiled beyond saving.

I've made corned beef and cabbage many times over the years, but I wanted to try it in my clay pot.  I found this recipe over at Food.com   I combined that recipe with Elise's (Simply Delicious) method of braising cabbage and found myself with one of my "Top 10" meals. Points to make:

  • boiling and draining the meat removes excess curing agents.  You will not wake up parched in the middle of the night, and your dish will not suffer.
  • The clay pot perfectly cooks the meat
  • I removed the meat and 1/2 the liquid from the cooker and added quartered red potatoes (large), onions and halved carrots.  The cooked beautifully.
  • I used the brown sugar, clove (ground, I didn't have whole), lemon zest, sherry vinegar (I didn't have sherry wine) and Grey Poupon mustard to coat top of roast and bake further.  The harmony of the the spices and the zing of the zest and vinegar were outstanding.
  • Braise the cabbage separately to have flavorful, good on the tooth accompaniment with your meal...not mush.
The meat was fork tender, aromatic, moist and flavorful.  I will NEVER cook my corned beef another way--to include using the sweet/tangy topping of which you can find several renditions all of with complement the meat.




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March!

I've been away slogging through life on a topography that has been rugged and unforgiving.  My mother in law passed.  It was a merciful release.  So much of what she suffered from could have been addressed by simply going to the doctor.

She made a choice to pray v. simply visiting the doctor.  Sometimes people ask too much from God, when they simply can take care of their issues with a simple medical intervention.  Her approach to her life would have been fine, except seldom do our approaches--our individual choices--involve only ourselves.  Rather, the string of choices that we make wraps everyone up in our axle.


On the dog front, Angel Marie began hunting down, Daisey.  First is was skirmish at the front door, then it became seek and destroy.  My husband got caught in the middle. Angel bit him, though we are confident that he had his hand in an inopportune place.  Though she did not intentionally bite him, she was ready to do harm to Daisey.  I must add that this certitude came after several hours.  The first reaction was, "Angel is going down."  In fact, I had a vet appointment that day.  My redirect was simply to have her euthanized v. her checkup.  Simply put, we could not have a dog actively seeking to harm another dog in our household.

A dog bite sets off calls to the local authorities.  It's a big deal. We ventured to Patient First who punted us to the emergency room. I hadn't even parked the car when I got a call from the animal control officer.  I told him that we were going to put the dog down (this is before Mark reflected more on what happened).  He said the dog had to be kept for 10 days.

A dog dies in 10 days from rabies, and the dog cannot transmit rabies unless it is symptomatic.  Therefore,  the quarantine ensures that if the dog is alive at the end of the time, it most assuredly does not have rabies.
 
Angel most assuredly was not symptomatic--she just had developed a distaste for Daisey that cannot be assuaged.

The bite was not a terrible wound--but deep and of course from a dog's mouth.  They put in 4 stitches==loosely to ensure drainage.  Antibiotics and soap and water.

I took Angel to the vet.  We discussed several things, to include an animal behavioralist.  Right now, Angel is on lock down.  She has no freedom.  She is tethered in the kitchen...her place of choice.  You see, prior to having an OCD with Daisey, Angel simply ate, slept and went outside briefly.  She punctuated her normal, sedate, old-dog routine with "I'm gonna kill Daisey" activities.

So far the management of the situation has worked well. Ella goes out with Angel--Ella, my little ambassador.  Daisey goes out another door.  And to her credit is paying more attention to me and my commands so that she does not get in Angel's space.

I have Euro style lead that allows you to configure the lead a multiple of ways.  I actually thought it was a martingale harness, and I'm not sure where I picked it up in my dog rescue travels.  (I didn't buy it).  Nevertheless, I saw one advertised, and I realized I had such a gem.  It is great for tying a dog off quickly in your home as it has a clasp at both ends, and rings through the leash body to clip onto. Zip the lead around a table leg and fasten to a sturdy metal ring.  Fast, effective and strong.

I hope that March is more tame.....