Today was good. Indy continued on her road to recovery, so the weight on my shoulders from yesterday, eased. It was kind of a rough night, and I will probably be spending a second night downstairs, but, really, things are MUCH better. Still, rough night equals not enough sleep, which is just no fun.
Watson’s playdate got canceled, but I was able to get somebody else to bring a good natured Golden over for a romp on the deck. She was a little too good natured, and she didn’t do enough reprimanding of Watson being a booger, but still it was a fun evening, and included sharing a bottle of wine with her owner. Plus, the Golden got Indy extra alert and best of all created a bunch of wagging, which had been missing since surgery.
Red fox sighting today! So cute. I’ve seen foxes a couple of times before in the area, but today was the first daylight one. Actually, my mother saw a fox while walking Watson today, and then we all saw one from the back deck. I don’t know if it was the same fox, but it seems likely. It’s about the right time for kits. I wonder if there is a den nearby, filled with cuteness.
Lamb burgers with feta cheese for dinner. Lamb is good food. Perhaps I could lure a fox with some of it.
I also have some fresh strawberries in the house and have been experimenting making whipped cream with liqueurs. Last night was Disaronno and tonight was Grand Marnier. This also led me to thinking I was to try making a Limoncello ice cream this summer.
Thunderstorm tonight, time to find out how Watson feels about thunder. Hopefully he’ll be as easy going about it as all my other dogs have been.
I’m afraid winter is over. I really dislike spring here, at least early spring. I am expecting this one to be particularly unpleasant, since we had record breaking snowfall this winter. Things turn into such a gross, shoe sucking, muddy mess. Flooding closes some bridges and fucks up traffic. I have to clean muddy paw prints off of the floor daily, and there are still muddy paw prints on the floor. Yes, little pretty hints of greens start to appear, but all surrounded by dirty. The streets are gross from the salt and gravel dumped on them all winter. Basically I find it all very esthetically unpleasant and generally tiresome. If I didn’t have dogs, it wouldn’t probably bother me less.
The "creek" in our backyard.
This photo is taken from my living room window. That “creek” is from the sump pump working overtime to keep our basement from flooding. The non-snow area down at the base of the trees is the low spot in the yard. It is a complete swamp. It is gross and dirty, but hey, at least it doesn’t have mosquitoes growing in it… yet. That comes later.
Our snow last week was so amazing. Not just a few dumb flakes, but a real full on snowfall, that accumulated a good six inches, more in some areas. I was so happy to see it falling, as I had already begun to fear that there would be no more snow. The day was pretty warm, and I spent a lot of time playing out in the snow with Indy and Watson. It was a very good day for Indy. I do my best to take the time to really enjoy and appreciate her good days. Overall, she is in amazing shape considering her age, but most of her days are just… days. Hey, I am glad they are not bad days. Still, the good days are very special, and she clearly loves winter, the cold appears to ease some of the inflammations that slow her down.
There are a couple upcoming predicted snow falls, but I don’t expect them to be significant. The days are warm enough it will probably only happen at night, although if enough is falling, I’ll wake up in the middle of the night to take Indy out.
Indy went to see the vet this week, which was a bit of a fail, so I have no real news to report. Just before I arrived, some yahoo ran their car into a transformer box thing and took out all the power in the area. Indy couldn’t even be weighed, much less have blood tested. The vet looked at her in the lobby, because the exam rooms didn’t have any light. Clearly, we’ll need to follow up to get a better picture of her health. Her eyes are still in pretty good shape, no sign of glaucoma or cataracts. She does have nuclear sclerosis, which she has had for a while. The vet mentioned that her night vision probably wasn’t as good, which I agreed with immediately. We’ve actually been leaving a light on for her at night for the past 10 months or so after noticing that her confidence walking around in the dark seemed to be fading.
To continue the fail of vet visit day, my planned trip to take her in for grooming and a “you wash” kind of place was derailed because the place had to close early for some repairs. We’ll try again on Monday.
Tonight Watson goes to his first puppy kindergarten class. I’m very comfortable with puppy raising and dog training, but group classes are a really good way to make sure they learn to behave with distractions. It is cheaper to go do self training sessions at a dog park, but have you seen the way some people (and therefor their dogs) behave at dog parks? Ugh. At least at a group class there is a minimum of one human per dog, plus an instructor, and there is some vague sense that everyone there is hoping for a well behaved dog. I’ll be letting the kid take the class with Watson, as she was very young the last time we raised a puppy. It will be good for her (and Watson) if she is much more involved with his training.
A WIND CHILL WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR EAST CENTRAL AND SOUTHEAST MINNESOTA… INCLUDING THE TWIN CITIES METRO AREA… AND WEST CENTRAL WISCONSIN UNTIL NOON ON FRIDAY.
A WIND CHILL WARNING MEANS THE COMBINATION OF VERY COLD AIR AND WINDS WILL CREATE DANGEROUSLY COLD WIND CHILL VALUES. THIS WILL RESULT IN FROST BITE AND LEAD TO HYPOTHERMIA OR DEATH IF PRECAUTIONS ARE NOT TAKEN. WHEN VENTURING OUTDOORS… MAKE SURE THAT YOU DRESS IN LAYERS… AND WEAR A HAT AND GLOVES.
WIND SPEEDS AROUND 5 MPH WILL BE COMMON TONIGHT. COMBINED WITH LOWS OF 20 TO 30 BELOW… WIND CHILL VALUES WILL DROP TO 35 TO 50 BELOW BY FRIDAY MORNING. THEREFORE THE WIND CHILL WARNING CONTINUES UNTIL NOON ON FRIDAY.
London got to go on a short walk/run today. Based on the troubles yesterday I only let Indy out for brief trips to the yard. She still enjoys the snow, but is happy to get back inside. By limiting her time we did not have another limping incident.
I’ve decided that “feels like -20°F” or lower means that Indy doesn’t get a walk. I have ordered booties for her (and London too, just in case). If those help enough then we can set a new cut off for skipping the walk.
I’ve also decided that “-15°F” or lower means that I really don’t like being outside much.
So far both of the cars are doing okay. The cold does have an impact on gas mileage and also on things like power steering and start up, etc. They are both doing better than a lot of my husband’s coworkers cars.
When it gets this cold outside, the furnace does not do a great job of keeping it comfortably warm inside. Especially anywhere near a window, or even a wall. The insulation in this house is not impressive.
Today I bought a hat for $4.99 at the grocery store.
No sales tax on clothing in Minnesota.
It looks dumb, but my ears are warmer.
Yesterday, when I walked the dogs, unbeknownst to me, the baggie had a hole in the bottom of it. So… Do I need to spell it out? I did my pick-up duty and discovered I had shit on my knit glove. Today, I had no gloves on the walk. At least I had a hat.
It is that time of the year yet again. It has been for a while now, but as I get further into the season I find it less and less bearable.
I hate summer. I hate it with as much passion as I can stir, which is actually very little because summer makes me so distressed and depressed that I cannot focus enough to have a passionate hate for it.
I hate sunlight. I hate heat. I do not like to set foot outside during it. If I could stay inside all the time, I would, and it would only help a little. It isn’t just the sun and the heat, it is all encompassing. I am better off if I put off any outings until night, but only marginally. I am less likely to have a total meltdown, but overall my ability to cope with ANYTHING is so diminished during the summer.
I get that I am not normal. There are so many people for whom this is their favorite time of the year. Others, who may not like the heat, might think they understand, but they don’t. Heat can be alleviated, but the overwhelming feeling of being trapped, of having nothing to look forward to, of just being stuck in misery until fall, that, they don’t have. A cold drink, and a nice breeze and they are enjoying their summer activities. The meaning of the word enjoy is almost beyond my grasp for the season.
I try. I try to stay cooler. I try to schedule things in small doses so I can keep on having minimal functionality and don’t have a total collapse, which just upsets me further. I like to get things done. That may be strongly worded. I HATE to not get things done. It really bothers me when I feel my productivity slipping for whatever reason. Truthfully, even vacationing is difficult for me because I am not “getting anything done.” If I go to long without getting enough done, it depresses me. The summer season depresses me. The only thing that alleviates some of the worst symptoms of the summer depression is scaling back my activities, and yet, accomplishing less depresses me. Is anybody able to see the problem here?
My antisocial nature increases, my ability to handle any sort of annoyance decreases. I could cry over drank milk, because it means I need to go to the grocery store to get more, and the grocery store is located outside of my house. It is expensive too. Our electric bills are astronomical because what small grip I have on something resembling normalcy depends on the AC working and working HARD. It cannot be just taking the edge off the heat outside, it needs to be cold, to battle against the looming oppressive heat and light that chip away at my will to breathe. I hate to go to other people’s homes because they will not keep it cool enough. If they come to my home they need a sweater. Not that there is a lot of inviting or accepting invitations. I am not in the mood for interaction and I have no social graces.
The problem has increased with age, and of course our move to SoCal amplified it and lengthened it. Summer here lasts much longer, and when I am the midst of it, I can see no end.
I am living in an endless summer.
If you can call it living.
I don’t have the lack of appetite aspect, but my eating patterns, choices, cravings and ability to be satisfied by or really enjoy food is very different during the summer and they also bother me a lot. Any condition that messes with my enjoyment of food does a lot of damage to my overall mood.
I had someone over to look at the yard yesterday. Along with several plants, bushes and vines, it looks like we’ve lost 4 large trees (10-15 years old) from the unusual frost this year. I can try having the trees severely chopped back in hopes that perhaps they will revive, but she did not hold out a lot of hope for them.
What sucks is that, beyond the expense of removing them, because of their location it is highly unlikely to get much of the root structure out at all. This means that nothing large can replace them as it will have no room to root itself. This is going to have a real impact on the privacy of the backyard.
So perhaps I should try the chopping them back route? It is unlikely to work and will be quite ugly in the meantime, but there might be a chance of it coming back.
I wish I could afford to completely redo the hardscape out there. It was very well done and has held up beautifully, but is not at all to my personal taste.
There was frozen water falling out of the sky today in Southern California. I’ve heard rumors of such things, but in the decade I have been trying to survive in this area, I have never seen such a thing. Today, I did.
Go figure.
Other things that I said might happen once hell did indeed freeze over, such as my becoming a vegetarian Christian, did not.
It is not Minnesota cold, but it is really damn cold for SoCal. I’ve never experienced anything like it since living here, and it sucks. We are just not built for it here. I do not own any really warm clothing. I don’t have a coat. Californians don’t empty our pools, for the winter or leave our spa pumps running 24/7. They don’t leave a trickle of water running in homes that they leave for a weekend. They don’t disconnect the sprinkler system and put socks on their outdoor faucets. Hell they don’t even turn off the sprinkler timers for the winter.
We’ve had ice on our sidewalks for 4 days now, and it isn’t even melting by midday. There have been multiple freeway accidents due to black ice. Where is it we are living? We know a lot of people who have busted pipes thanks to the last few days of weather. We tried to go out for dinner this weekend and the place we wanted to go was closed because their pipes had frozen and burst. Our bird is in the garage, and is not at all happy about it. Normally he lives outside all year. I’m sure we’ll find breaks in our landscaping pipes as well.
Overall the big problem is the severe crop damage. Citrus and avocado have taken very bad hits. Berries and leafy greens are not fairing much better (and of course California’s leafy greens already took a consumer confidence and sales hit earlier this year due to the ecoli outbreak). Obviously this is going to hurt California’s economy over the coming year, but California provides so much produce to the nation, this is not just a local issue. It is going to have an effect on produce prices nationwide, and that is bad news for everyone.
In my own tiny little sliver of personal produce production, I am pretty sure that my lime tree and habernero plant are both totally screwed.
