Enjoying the day

Two sheep

Three sheep (can you find them?)

Tux doing well on Valley Fever meds

Fluconazole

Tux starting Valley Fever meds today. One and a half tablets for the next six to twelve months. Liver test needed in three months, blood titer in six. I need to watch for a bad reaction to the drug during the next week.

Valley Fever

It's confirmed. Tux has Valley Fever. A serious case. Her titer was 256, that's usually as high as the test is run. I don't know yet what medication she'll get. It will be ready to pick up tomorrow and we have to expect even more lack of appetite and refusal to eat with this stuff... after I finally got her eating again this past week. An egg, hamburger, veggie and rice scramble with a bit of soup base has been doing the trick. I now have three different diets to dispense for the dogs and am doing more food prep for them than for us! Anyway, I hope there will be no complications from the meds, but we are in for a very long haul with this disease as the vet won't even do another blood titer to check for improvement for six months. Keep your fingers crossed that the meds aren't outrageously expensive as I've already got the questionable $70 a month probiotic for Hooper in addition to her expensive prepared kidney diet. 

The desert with it's rattlesnakes, deadly heat, cactus spines, poisonous everything and deadly fungus turns out to be a far more dangerous place to live than the wilds of Alaska.

A Vet Visit

No good news today. Blood tests were needed for Hoopie and Tux.

Hoopie's creatinine level is up again. She's going on a low protein diet and Azodyl, an expensive probiotic that is ineffective according to one study I read about online. Oh well, the vet recommended it.  She wasn't crazy about the new food at first try so I'll add a no-salt bullion cube for a little flavor. I guess it's only a matter of time before we lose her. My sweet girl.

Tux's blood values were all over the place and x-rays showed abnormal lung tissue. She's lost ten pounds in the last couple of months. Either she has cancer or Valley Fever, coccidioidomycosis, a fungus found in desert soils. We won't get results of the test until next week. She can be treated for Valley Fever, but it will be six months to a year of anti-fungal meds - that recently tripled in price - and possibly a life long need for it, in addition to her Pannus and arthritis medications. If it's cancer she won't be with us long.

It wasn't Tag's day for an appointment and after Hoopie and Tux, I'm afraid to take him in.

There is something to be said in favor of letting these guys just live out their lives naturally, without a lot of invasive medical intervention. I've felt more like I've tortured Tux the last few months than helped. I gave her some nice fatty hamburger with dinner tonight and she was happy to eat again, but poor Hoopie was smelling it cook and then only got the disappointingly bland low protein food. Why not give them ice cream and steak and let them be happy in their final days?

The End of the Alaska Era

The Homer cabin sale closed today. Now there are big decisions to be made and
the search for a new place is on.

Desert Big Horn

There is a really big old boy in the group of rams in this video.

Homer Cabin, Tux's Nose and Desert Things

The paperwork is signed, the cabin is emptied and the deal is scheduled to close on the 20th. Yeah!

Crazy as it sounds I'm thinking Tux was bit by a snake and maybe that had something to do with her refusing to eat. I've been watching two spots on the side of her nose that look an awful lot like a small rattler snagged her. There were a few days that she spent sleeping in the bathroom when she was looking real old, face a little swollen, hair sort of standing on end, definitely not a happy dog, and I thought at the time she looked snake-bit but brushed off the idea because it's just the wrong time of year and the swelling wasn't severe. Now the skin is sloughing off on these two spots and I'm thinking it might indeed have been.

Tux's poor nose

Cloud drama yesterday

Elephant's Tooth

Gorgeous day for a walk today

Looks like burros dug these pits against a high bank as shelter during the freezing wind

Ground cherry pods (filled with fireflies to make little lanterns in The Unforgiven)

Drought Monitor

Keeping an eye on water.

Cactus with hats:

Morning cloud watch:

My skin-and-bones girl. But she is eating again.

Skinny Dog

Here are a few pictures of Tux. She stopped eating for a while, refusing to take meds, and got frighteningly thin. I didn't think to take pictures at her worst. She's eating normally again and filling out a little. I think it was the bitter Tramadol she was avoiding. She caught on to all the ways I was hiding it in food and just refused to eat anything, even throwing up the pills if I put them down her throat. 

So the Alaska vet prescribed a compounded version of Tramadol, in a supposedly taste-good liquid form, and then I once again changed her feeding routines and foods to shift her away from avoidance. So far so good, although she does not like the liquid Tramadol either, and I don't blame her. It smells like cough syrup, not something a dog might like. I'm not disappointed about it though. The compounding costs $50 for the same supply that costs $7 in pill form. That was a one time only purchase! 

So in the morning I'm able to give her one Tramadol in pill form and one Novox, by rolling them up in a shave of cold butter and offering it to her along with three or four pieces of Vienna Sausage (whatever works!) so she swallows them quickly without chewing. Then she gets the Pannus medication in her eyes. I don't offer her food until after the morning walk, the other two dogs eat before the walk, and if she doesn't finish I take the food away and offer at noon. Also, I'm not getting the expensive Prescription food for a while because she was avoiding that but readily eating the other dogs' food. I give her the liquid Tramadol a half hour or so after the evening meal so it won't become another food thing.

Poor dog must hate me after all this torture.

This is just so.... wrong

I am following news from the north Olympic Peninsula before committing to moving there. While there is much we like in the area, there are things we find disturbing. Like the Poop Nazi we ran into last spring at the campground, challenging us about the dogs being off leash so they could jump into the back of the truck then pointing out a piece of poop across the road and asking if it was ours. Gotcha! Oh yes, the Poop Nazi wears a gun to do his job and takes it very seriously.

So I read there is a new management plan for the Dungeness Refuge. Apparently only walking is allowed on the five mile long spit. No running, no jogging, no trotting. Only walking. (Presumably the law doesn't apply to deer and other wildlife, but maybe I'm wrong.)

Well the new plan is going to allow some jogging! Yes, jogging will be allowed on a half mile stretch of beach or the trail adjacent the parking lot. That's not a lot of jogging if you're out for some exercise. Oh well, you'd probably just step in horse poop anyway since horse riding will be allowed on that same stretch of beach... IF you can get a horse there. There are no access points for horses because they are only allowed on this half mile section of beach. You have to get permission from a private property owner to get there with a horse or maybe drop in from a helicopter - if a helicopter is allowed.

And no doubt there is a gun-toting ranger to enforce the law and protect law-abiding walkers from reckless joggers and illegal-entry horses.

Surely, you say, there must be a good reason for this walking rule. Why, yes! There is! There hasn't been a study yet to determine the effects of jogging on wildlife.

Oh.

I think... my head... is... exploding. (Is that allowed?)

Spider

Female tarantula wandering around yesterday evening. Cool factoid: males can live ten to twelve years, females twice as long! 

Sheep Again

This time I went back home and got the camera. We counted 22 sheep, a mixed group of males and females, one of them a big ram. There was some jousting, attempts to mount the females, mostly just feeding. Very cool.

Big ram

Riding the Rhino

Boundary Cone in the background

They love riding in the Rhino

Sheep slope in foreground

Desert big horn

A Birthday Walk

Sometimes I detest this desert but those times are getting fewer. The place grows on you somehow - or me, at least. 

Yesterday we took the usually uneventful evening dog walk and ran into three desert big horn rams courting a ewe. We walked within 50 yards of one of the rams but none of them startled and ran. They were alert and watching, but just as curious as we were. 

Then I nearly stepped on a baby Diamondback. It was no more than twelve inches long with crisp diamond shaped markings on its fresh skin. It had a bulging mid-section so I suspect it warmed up quickly during the sunny part of the day, ate a lizard or something and got caught in the sudden drop in temperature when afternoon shade fell as it was digesting that meal. It was stiff and sluggish with cold when I found it in the wash. With luck it might have survived the nighttime temps in the 40's. I have learned to appreciate rattlers as long as they don't threaten the dogs. 

Next we were joined by three coyotes yipping and yowling on the ridge above us. A large pack moved into the area last week, possibly coming down from the Mesa, and their vocalizations ring through the canyon. One has a very distinctive call, a series of high pitched staccato notes, uh-uh-uh-uh-uh. The dogs sure get excited and want to respond when the coyotes point their noses to the sky and let loose. I do too. Even Bob let loose a howl or two with us. I suspect there is some canine in my genetic make-up. 

Heading back to the Rhino a couple of feisty burros blocked our way. The wild burros are sleek with rippling muscles and not an ounce of fat, unlike the carrot stuffed Oatman burros. They're more concerned about the dogs than us and usually trot off after giving a huff or two. I call it a huff but it might be more accurate to call it a super snort. If you blocked one nostril with your thumb and blew a short, hard blast of air through the other, then magnified the sound a hundred times, you'd have an idea what it sounds like. It seems to be a challenge or warning sound and carries a good quarter mile or more. We'll often hear a huff long before we see the burro. 

So that was our evening, a walk of about an hour full of wildlife encounters and Bob says everything happened because it was his birthday -- and because I had no camera. Maybe so, but I had better start bringing that camera anyway!

Today we are cooking up a turkey dinner.

Alaska Stuff

I guess it is safe to formally announce the pending sale of our cabin in Alaska. The inspection is approved and the as-built survey completed with no violations, so with only the title search to be done there is really nothing to stop the sale. The offer came as a surprise and even though it's going to be a hassle to move out in December it was too good to pass up.

From my past in Alaska...

USGS released a booklet about their 25 year bird banding project in Old Chevak. Biologists worked in coordination with the people of Chevak to track bird populations in the region. Groups of local kids joined the biologists in the field to conduct round-ups of brandts, emperor geese, white-fronted geese, swans, etc.  I spent one summer in Old Chevak bunking in the old church building featured in this booklet, working on different projects but also some bird banding, although not with the Chevak groups. Anyway, the first half of the booklet is a beautiful album of group shots, yearbook style, while the second half tells the stories of the various birds. It's very well done with wonderful photography and a pleasure to relive my time there. Download of the booklet is free:  Banding Together

Lastly, I couldn't pass up posting this hilarious picture that is roaming the Internets. It's only fair.

Man Hunt

How does he drive with those antlers?!

Walk Pictures

We walked to the chocolate jade mine this afternoon. Perfect weather for it.

This beautiful black burro was very unhappy to have us there and huffed at us until we were out of sight. Tux is terrified of burros, especially when they huff, and ran out of sight. She didn't respond to calls and whistles so we decided to turn back to search for her.

We split up, Bob going back to the truck to hook up with me at a rendezvous point. The collies went with me down the adjoining wash. These pretty flowers were growing out of the rock and sand in the shade of an old Palo Verde tree.

Bob found Tux back at the truck where we kind of figured she'd end up. She considers the truck or Rhino her safe spot and always finds a way back. We ran into this flop ear guy on our way home.

Making Mud Pies

With the studio finished I was able to try my hand at throwing again. Watching a few Bill van Gilder and Simon Leach videos on YouTube refreshed my memory on centering and throwing basics but, boy, my skills are really rusty and my hand strength isn't all it used to be. Here are pictures of my working studio and the results of yesterday's efforts. Will attempt to trim them later today or tomorrow. The clay is drying very slowly.

Throwing area with "walls" to catch clay splatters.

Shelving units joined to make a tabletop work area.

Metal working area.

A Surprise

Good news to announce soon. Don't want to jinx it by celebrating too soon. But it's good. Really.

Moving on

Yellow barrel cactus is blooming again. Seems to be blooming year round.

I forgot about my little maiden in the garden.

Texas Ranger full of flowers. Regular watering this summer and a good dose of plant food sure helped it along. 

New closet doors installed and painted.

Entry door painted, too. 

Tin ceiling in studio/office/guest room (that's a mouthful). So much fun.

Now to move all my stuff back in and get a comfy chair to sit in. This will be a nice quiet place to read. I'm working on the Lonesome Dove series and Little Big Man, some great story telling.