The Fence is Up!

Halleluiah! Freedom returns!

Well, in limited amounts…because Duke and Daisy still believe ‘where we go one, we go all.’ In their minds, they think I should stay outside with them at all times. They have yet to grasp the whole purpose of the fence is so I don’t have to stay outside with them at all times. Trust me—come winter, they better figure it out, pronto!

Fence?! Who's crazy idea was this??

Because one side of our yard has a significant slope we had to rig up additional boundaries along the side of the deck and boulder walls in the perennial garden so Daisy won’t fall and hurt herself. To see her outside now it’s obvious that she’s as thrilled about the fence as I am because she plods happily along at a pretty good trot, sniffing and snooping her way around. Most of our landscaping is bordered with good sized rocks, which alerts Daisy when she’s at the edge of the grass.

As you can see by the pictures we have a Good News/Bad News report from this summer. The Good News is…it hasn’t rained much since we got the dogs, which has been really nice for taking them out the whole time they were on the leashes.

The Bad News, however, is since it hasn’t rained much, our yard and perennials look like we moved to Alaska and didn’t tell anyone. Typically it’s my job to water the yard and care for the flowers.

Summer 2011 Disclaimer: I-AM-NOT-SUPERWOMAN.

And here’s my reasoning. Late last year I contracted with Joaquin Guerrero to write his memoir, with a goal of having the book out by the 10^th anniversary of 9/11. Part of Joaquin’s story takes place at Ground Zero when he responded with his K9 service dog and worked search-and-rescue. I started writing the manuscript the last week of December and pretty much wrote day and night, night and day, through the winter and spring. On May 8^th I turned the manuscript into the publisher and raised my arms in jubilation.

Quick reality check.

Just because the mansucript was done, didn't mean I could slack off. I had to switch gears and begin a frenzied schedule of design work, editing process, proofreading, writing back cover text, seeking endorsements, designing photo inserts, and so on. Keep in mind I also have a job and family.

Squeezed in-between of all that was:
·         road trip down to Shreveport to see granddaughter Dottie Layne, born on May 20^th

Grandpa John with Baby Dottie

·         family camping trip to Zumbro Falls

·         weekend camping trips with friends

In other words, ‘something’ had to go…and that ‘something’ was my flowers. With it being one of the coldest springs on record, I’m not so sure I would’ve been willing to go outside anyway, preferring instead the comforts of my studio.

About the time the book process wrapped up, I was finally ready to acknowledge the pathetic condition of my perennials out my window...and that's when Duke and Daisy arrived. Yeah, another quick reality check.

(All of that to explain why my flowerbeds look the way they do!)

So now that the fence is up and we can have the dogs with us in the yard, the other Saturday the hubby revved up the ol’ chainsaw to cut up a large tree that came crashing down in a wind storm. (The other reason my flowers look, well, crushed!) After hubby cut up the tree trunk, he went after the infestation of buckthorn that makes up about 95% of the greenery in our tiny strip of “woods”. Buckthorn, for those of you that don’t know, is a nasty invasive species that grows into giant tree-size dimensions. And because the perennial garden is positioned up against the “woods”, instead of having beautiful peonies, iris, and lilies, I now have a gazillion buckthorn shoots. (Anyone have a backhoe or garden tiller we can borrow? The plan is to start over from scratch next spring.)



Flower beds before the buckthorn took over

So the hubby and I spent the whole day outside, cutting brush, pulling weeds, picking up dead branches, stacking wood. I started a fire in the fire pit and burned some of the branches. Meanwhile Duke and Daisy trotted around the yard exploring their new territory. Noses down, sniffing the ground; noses up, sniffing the air.

As the sunlight faded, the hubby and I sat down—okay, collapsed—by the fire pit. Tired and sore, we felt good in all that we’d accomplished, knowing too that Duke and Daisy now have a safe place to play. We ended the evening with a ‘gourmet dinner’ of old-fashioned style hotdogs cooked over the open fire and a glass of wine. Duke and Daisy were content to lay at our feet, noses up, sniffing for a stray hot dog. Too quick for me, Duke got a little taste of mine. I think sharing “dogs” with the dogs solidified their sense of home.

Barbara

Tails a'Thumping

I’m happy to report the hubby and I braved it out and took Duke and Daisy on another camping trip. This one went much smoother, partly because of our campsite. We were at the Bluff Valley Campground on the Zumbro River where we’d spent a week earlier this summer (BDD—Before Duke and Daisy) with most of our extended family. Each site in that section of the campground is 80 feet wide, which gives us our own private slice of the river. Love it!

Wally & Kim and Jim & Donna, two other camping couples, joined us for the weekend. As usual we had plenty of good eats…check out the Friday night “snack” table!

Kim’s Crème Brulée French Toast was out of this world, and Donna’s key lime pie was beyond scrumptious. The hubby made his famous bruschetta and BBQ ribs.

Lucky for Duke and Daisy, Jim and Donna brought Buddy to play with. Having three dogs tied up, we humans had to do some high-stepping dance steps to keep from tripping up in the dog lines. And come Sunday afternoon, we had a couple of tuckered out dogs on the ride home. 

After Secondhand Hounds rescued Duke and Daisy back in July and got them situated with their foster mom Leslie, some of the folks wondered if Daisy was a candidate for cataract surgery and could possibly regain her sight. Thanks to Leslie’s kindhearted generosity, we followed up on her offer and took Daisy to a special veterinarian to have her eyes examined. The doctor determined that somewhere along the way Daisy had had an eye infection that wasn’t treated, which resulted in the nerve severing behind the eye. Bottom line, even if the cataracts were removed there was still no chance for her to recover her eyesight. The good news that came from the visit is that Duke’s eyes are healthy and the blindness was not hereditary.

Even knowing Daisy is completely blind, sometimes we feel like she can "see" us. It's eerie the way she holds her head as we walk around a corner or come toward her, we get the sense that surely she can "see" us! Meanwhile Duke, we've since discovered, can see through walls. This morning the dogs were outside with the hubby while he cleaned up some brush along the back of the yard. I came down the steps inside the house (in socks, on carpet, so no sound whatsoever) and before I got halfway down, Duke charged all the way across the yard to the window and watched me come down the steps. Somehow he’d seen me from across the yard and through the full depth of the house!

It’s been fun to see their distinct personalities emerge. Duke is still the protector and often won’t go through a doorway or into the yard until Daisy catches up. Sometimes when we feed them, Duke won’t eat until Daisy is ready. That all changes when it comes to treats…Duke automatically drops his and watches his Mom. If she so much as drops any pieces, he snatches them up and waits until she’s done before he eats his own. Daisy gets back at him on our nightly walks though…funny as it sounds, she likes to lead and if Duke gets in front, she plows right into him and resumes the lead by a nose. The instant Daisy hears another dog bark as she’s doing a full trot down the street, she does an abrupt turn and runs right toward them—without having a clue just how BIG that dog might be!

So yes, our house is a little noisier these days with dog paws and thumping tails following us from room to room. We keep all the dog paraphernalia in our laundry room which is rather narrow. When both dogs stand with their tails a’thumping Bang! Bang! Bang! against the washer and dryer it sounds like a marching band tromping through the house. And there’s no need for an alarm clock when we have dual thumping at 6:15 every morning. I’m no dog expert, but I’d say with that much tail-thumping a’happening, Duke and Daisy are a couple of pretty happy pups.

Until next time,

Barbara