Today's Flowers

End of August and still some color around the yard. We're into rainy weather again but I'm not complaining after the warm sunny summer. Hooper's blood work still shows some elevated kidney levels so now we monitor her for a while to try to determine what's going on. Tag goes in for dental cleaning next week and I'm hoping he doesn't require a lot of work. His blood work was good so there is nothing there to add to the dog worries.

I've been on a western reading binge. Here's the list so far. Started out consuming every Zane Grey novel I've found free online, something like two dozen. Also Owen Wister's The Virginian (loved this one) and Lin McLean; Glendon Swarthout's The Shootist (great); Jack Schaefer's Monte Walsh (loved it); Man-size and Bucky O'Connor by William McLeod Raine (I'm not crazy about Raine's writing); Rowdy of the Cross L by B.M. Bower (just OK); Alan LeMay's the Searchers (good); A.B. Guthrie's The Big Sky and The Way West (both wonderful) and soon to read Fair Land, Fair Land to close the circle on some of the characters; Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian (I think I hated this one), All The Pretty Horses (loved it), just started reading The Crossing, will finish the trilogy with Cities of The Plain, and at some point tackle The Road which is not a western. Then I have Pete Dexter's Deadwood, Elmore Leonard's Hombre, Larry McMurty's Lonesome Dove series, E.L. Doctorow's Welcome to Hard Times and a few dozen more titles to go through before I exhaust my westerns list. Thank god for library loans and free eBooks or I'd have to spend a small fortune to read them.

Some pretties....

Warm August Days

Late poppies, encouraged by unusually warm sunny weather, lift their swollen heads to bloom. Sandhill cranes run evening flight training over the cabin. Steller's jays demand nuts at the window then hide them around the yard. Nuthatches honk in the tree tops. Bumblebees tend the fading monkshood flowers. No crows visited us this year. Not a single one. Silvers jumped for three days, then nothing. We're already making plans to leave.

More Dog Pictures

Everything good with Hooper's recovery. She feels ready for anything but we're still keeping her away from the eye for a few days and feeding soft food for another week. Still getting antibiotics at this point and I am surprised how readily she is taking all the meds.

Left eyelid looks good

Sleeping Tag

Tux's eyes look so much better, too. The Panus lesions have pretty much retreated to a small area outside the iris of her eyes.

Hooper takes a walk

Hooper has really perked up and was ready for a walk at the Spit today. Here she is in the back seat of the truck, away from Tag and Tux. She was happy to get out, even if on the leash. Tomorrow the Tramadol that makes her drowsy will be reduced by half and there is no telling how soon she'll be back to her hyper self. She's been trying to lure Tag into rough housing already but we need to protect the stitches on her eyelid for another week. The big collar is taken off for the day and going on at night, but she is figuring out how to sleep with it so there is less pacing and banging into things to keep us awake.

Hooper and Tux

Another day and Hooper is looking better. She's wanting to play Frisbee and has a non-stop appetite. Swelling in the muzzle is going down and her eye looks good. We put the Elizabethan collar on at night but leave it off during the day when we're watching. Isn't she a sweetheart?

Hooper two days after surgery

Tux's eyes show slow but steady progress in the regression of the lesions in her eyes. She hides in the bathroom when Hooper is in the collar.

Tux on my side of the bed

The Sandhill cranes have been staging, lots of calling and flight training in the evenings. They'll probably disappear before the end of the month. At the Spit shorebirds and ducks are staging. There has been stormy weather the last week and I keep forgetting to take binoculars.

Hooper Day 2

Hooper paced all night, back and forth from the cabin to the bedroom, toenails clicking on the wood floor and stiff  Elizabethan collar banging into doorways and furniture. We decided it was the collar bothering her more than the discomfort from surgical procedures so we took the damned thing off this morning and are keeping close watch that she doesn't disturb the eyelid sutures. She's getting Tramadol three times a day, Novox and Clindamycin twice a day, and an eye cream two or three times. Added to the meds for Tag and Tux it's a lot to keep straight. I made a check-off chart to keep track because I tend to forget if I've given or not. Photo shows the shaved area below left eye sutures, swollen muzzle from tooth extractions, bare patch on arm where IV was placed. Some kind soul in the clinic brushed Hooper for an hour while she was sedated (because there is no brushing her without) and boy does her coat look good. Her undercoat has a texture like wool and mats into clumps that are the devil to brush but will eventually fall out if left alone. She's not a happy camper now but appears to be resting better without the collar. I hope she'll be looking happier soon.

Hooper

Poor Hoopie. She really took a beating at the vet today. The polyp was removed from her eye and, quite unexpectedly, three teeth extracted. Here she is just home from the vet and she has to wear the collar for a week to protect the stitches on her eyelid. Can you imagine Hooper standing for that? Her blood work showed a problem with kidney function which may have been related to the periodontal disease. Follow-up blood work at end of month will show improvement if that's the case. Next up for dental cleaning: Tag.

Hooper

The polyp growing on Hoop's eyelid is being removed Monday. It's been growing away from her eye and hasn't been an issue until now. I noticed a lot of watering and redness in that eye a few days ago and saw that the polyp has changed direction, or a new polyp has begun to cause trouble. Anyway, removal is in order and she's also getting a much needed dental cleaning at the same time. She'll be a brand new dog.

Hooper, tired after Frisbee. Polyp on left eye.

Tag resting after Frisbee 

Western impatiens, supposed to stop the itching of stinging nettle

Filipendula rubra, Queen of the Prairie

Bonus Room

We painted the plywood subfloor a deep burgundy to contrast with the green walls and added a throw rug for interest. I know that dark flooring is the worst for showing dirt but I said the hell with the rules, I'm using the colors I like. Our furniture isn't the best (we don't have anything to spare from the cabin) and the rug could be three times bigger, but it helps show the possibilities for the room. A buyer might want to lay vinyl or cork or wood flooring, or just leave the plywood painted depending on the intended use. For us, there is still floor trim to install, sealing the wood around the windows. and I suppose I will tackle the stairway when I get bored.

 

Paint and trim

 Walls and ceiling are painted and when the rest of the trim work is finished I am threatening to paint the floor a bold deep burgundy. My pictures are very gray. There is too much light from the windows for the camera's flash to go off but not enough natural light for a good exposure. Oh well. Walls are a soft grayish green with a contrasting warm white ceiling. Trim is completed in the top picture. Not sure if or when or how we will finish the wood. Size of the room is 16' x 24'.

One window left to trim

A clean narrow trim around windows

Primed and ready to paint

The walls of the bonus room are textured and primed. Today I select colors: ceiling, walls, floor. Do I go with something colorful to my liking or more neutral for sale? Do I go Man Cave or feminine? Decisions. Decisions. After painting we do trim work, rehang the lighting and clean up. Voila! How long did that take?

Below is the injured calf I think I mentioned before. There was swelling around the fetlock on the right rear leg. I'm thinking it tangled with a porcupine as the fetlock looked very similar to another moose that we immobilized to pull out quills. The calf could recover on  its own or succumb to infection. It was noticeably thinner than its sibling at this point. I haven't seen it around recently and hope it's OK... even if the damned thing eats my raspberries.

In the garden only one peony flowered after the hard winter and crazy late spring, but monkshood is abundant, roses are blooming and wildflower seeds I tossed out earlier are finally producing color. I'm waging a war with highly invasive hedge nettle this summer. It takes over any open ground, overwhelms the desirable plants and the moose don't eat it. We're into August weather, cloudy and threatening rain, but not nearly enough to moisten the soil yet. Showers today are more promising.

Pretty serrated leaves of the burnet

Golden elder, second year

Marie Bugnet 

Peony

Tux, soft paws 

Sunset

Sunsets return to Barrow today. The last sunset was May 10.