Countdown to surgery

I am disappointed to tell that I am not able to get gel injections in my knees. My primary care X-rays didn't show the full picture. I have patellarfemoral arthritis and there is no cartilage under my kneecaps. The hyaluronic gel and a few other treatments require some space between bones but I have none. It's bone on bone. I got a cortisone shot in one knee and will try physical therapy to strengthen my quadriceps, but the orthopedic doctor made it pretty clear knee replacements will be needed. Dang. I was hoping to avoid that. But he assured me he could get me back to hiking again. I go back in three months to see how things are doing.

Minis

A young couple, doctor and wife, bought the big house with five nice acres just down the road from us and they have... ta da!... two mini horses! They fit into the neighborhood perfectly with the mini cows across the road and two alpacas just north of them.

Cuteness to start the day

Shoveling shit in the pen this morning this made me put down the shovel and run for the camera.

A sparrow, I guess. Little thing clung to his wool while Gimpy pondered what was hanging on his back and what to do about it. Eventually he just went back to eating, the bird dropped off and hopped around on the ground avoiding the hooves of the curious sheep before flying off. So cute.

I made a few more poppies before it dawned on me that this is porcelain paper clay and may react like porcelain in the glaze fire. Doh! I'm going to finish firing these before committing to making more in case they warp and end up little more than a mess in the kiln. Wish me luck.

An Expensive Toenail

Hattie cracked a dewclaw nail while herding sheep a few days ago, the second time this summer. It was pretty painful and starting to look red all around so a visit to the vet was in order. Last time a tech was able to nip the nail off without need to see the vet, saving a lot of money.  I took her in yesterday hoping for the same but it turned into a bigger thing than expected. The crack went all the way up the nail under the skin with inflammation all around it. So the hoped for simple clip turned into a mini surgery requiring sedation to cut out the whole nail, and along with a round of antibiotics and pain meds to jack up the cost it put us back over two hundred dollars. She did get a cute bandage in the deal though. I can remove that Monday if she resists tearing it off this weekend. An Elizabethan collar was prescribed but I'm holding off as long as possible. While I recognize the need for their use, these collars are awful devices to put on an animal that doesn't understand the why of it or that it is only temporary. 

Here is Tux looking more alert already after going back to antifungals twice a day. With both dogs needing multiple meds twice a day I am hard pressed to keep them all straight. 

Tux vs The Fungus

Tux's Fluconazole dose was reduced to once a day, per her AZ vet, three months ago. Her cocci titer had been stable at 1:8 for quite a while and the vet hoped she had stabilized. But the last month I've noticed weird stools full of mucus and that she is looking askance at food again, just like when she was sick. I feared the worst and indeed, her titer has risen to 1:32 since stopping the evening dose of meds. It appears her immune system is incapable of fighting this strain of Valley Fever fungus. She requires a high dose of antifungals to do all the work. I've added the second dose back and am awaiting further instructions from the AZ vet. Poor Tux will never be free of this awful fungus.

Other pictures

Some Walla Walla sweet onions drying next to our Bolt EV. We fill 'er up in the garage!

I guess we're warding off vampires (or is it werewolves?) in the garage. Garlic and onions will go into everything I cook for a while. I've already frozen some pesto but my basil hasn't grown very well so I won't be making as much as I like. I grew a variety called Pesto Perpetuo last year and loved it. It has varigated leaves and doesn't flower so just grows and grows for abundant harvests but it wasn't offered at any nurseries this year. Couldn't find seed sold online either. So I'm growing five different kinds of basil this year and so far I'm happiest with the Thai variety. One variety has big ruffly green leaves, one is purple, one is the usual cooking variety sold at groceries and one is purple/green with hairy leaves that aren't too great for eating, imho. 

As far as the garden goes there were some successes, some failures. I found a way to protect the outside plants from the rats and had some nice veggies but the tomatoes have been hugely disappointing with blossom end rot. I'm finally getting good fruit out of the Roma plant but the San Marzano isn't responding to my efforts to give it calcium and most of the fruit is going to the ducks. The Cherokee Purples, our favorite tomato, are starting to ripen with the two plants fully in ground looking much better than the two still partially contained in the soil bags. 

Raspberries are maxed out and slowing down while two of the blueberry plants are starting to ripen. The other two blueberries suffered winter damage and produced only a few small berries. The raspberries are spreading so aggressively throughout the garden that I'm entertaining thoughts of moving the veggie beds somewhere far from them. Their roots have infiltrated the asparagus bed and after the winter damage they suffered I think we'll never enjoy an asparagus crop.

It's been uncomfortably hot and smoke from the fires in British Columbia is thick in the air so I'm not working the sheep or Hattie. She's a very disappointed dog.

 I've been working on clay projects and was dripping sweat today - not nearly as bad as in Arizona but still uncomfortable with the high humidity. I'm making garden art - poppies and seed heads - experimenting with porcelain (too fragile, floppy and will probably melt in the firing), iron stoneware (good for the poppy heads but not the look I want for the flowers), and finally settled on a paper clay that is smooth, white and allows me to build the different flower parts without quickly drying and cracking or flopping. Now how many flowers will I get out of 25 pounds of paper clay?

Poppy seed heads

Poppies and pot