Getting back to normal -- eventually . . .

After losing Rocky last Friday, I've been pretty depressed. (See "REMEMBERING OUR DOGS WITH LOVE . . . "In Memorium" there at the top of this page.)  And the house still has a really bad smell from Rocky's throwing up over his last two days.  I took the rug outside that he was laying on.  It has to stay out there until we can get it cleaned.  And I'm going to have to spray that wood floor and let it soak to remove that smell since that stuff actually soaked through the rug - but I'm not going to do that until this weekend.  I'm still at work for a while yet.

But regardless of how depressing it is, we do seem to be able to relax now that Rocky has gone.  And the other three dogs seems to be relaxing as well.  Check this out -- Joey has calmed down completely.  ;-D

Apparently Joe was as exhausted as we were!
(And Boo is asleep too in that dog bed there behind that sofa.)

And despite the fact that it's been raining continually over the last couple weeks and the paddocks are completely full of very deep mud, the horses seem to be doing just fine as well. They do need their hooves trimmed, but they're all COVERED in mud up to their knees and even if I clean them off, once Zoilo gets them trimmed they'll go out and get covered in mud all over again! . . . not that good for their hooves.  So we're waiting for the weather to dry out some.  But in one respect, I guess it's a good thing to have all this rain.  El Niño is causing a lot of additional rain -- but it's also supposed to prevent major hurricanes, so better rain than storms, that's for sure!  But as soon as it dries out some, we will not only wash up the horses, but we'll FINALLY get to spread out all that sand in the round pen and begin working with them in there - maybe even Arthur!  I sure am looking forward to that!

And we also have a number of things we need to get someone to come to the house and work on.  I bought a discount from Groupon to have a guy come and clear out the air ducts and even the dryer vents but I haven't been able to get a hold of them to set it up yet.  

And then there's our annual tax return.  Because there had been so many novel things going on last year I'm having trouble completing the return,  I usually do it online through TaxACT but I guess I'm going to have to go back to the CPA we used to use some years ago and get her to do it for this year and next year.  Then I'll probably be able to go back to doing it myself after that since things will then go back to remaining the same year to year after THIS year.

Oh - AND we need to get someone to come to the house and deal with ALL of our computers because there's some problem in them that prevents us from getting into Google and instead of Google there is some other odd thing that comes up every time we open the computers.  We can request Bing instead for searches, but it won't let us get Google and with my memory problem I used Google ALL the time!  So whatever it takes to get them fixed up so we can have Google back will be worth it to me, that's for sure!

But other than those things, we're actually pretty much okay again.  We're just keeping our fingers crossed and hoping Boo doesn't have any problems for a very long time, even though he turned 14 last December! 

Actually, I think we're going to get a closed-in crate and then add wheels to the bottom so that if we have to get HIM into one of our trucks to go to the vet (or probably LSU in his case) we can just put him in that crate and wheel him down the steps and up into the truck by using a ramp.  If we had to lift him we'd probably BOTH lose our backs again!  But hey -- at the moment he's just fine.  He races around outside and when he wants back in the house he comes up to the porch door and jumps up and down!  He obviously feels perfectly fine!  Thank goodness!

Can't WAIT for SPRING!

I'm so tired of the weather lately.  I just cannot WAIT for spring. Well, for some nice warm DRY weather anyway.  I guess it is pretty much spring already down here -- the leaves on the trees are coming out and a lot of the bushes are blooming already. But it's been raining continually until our pond has been overflowing and the narrow trench that allows water to flow across the pasture to that pond has gotten so wide it's practically a river back there!  Gees!

And poor Rocky, our Catahoula, has suddenly gotten to a point where he can't even stand up, let alone walk.  So we took him to the vet yesterday and they hauled him in from my truck on a wheeled table like they would use for a sedated dog.  Poor guy!  So now he been put on corticosteroid (Prednisone 10 mg) for about the next month.  And after that he will move on to Sucralfate twice a day. He was whining and carrying on before he went to the vet yesterday.  He got a shot there and then he starts those meds today.  He still can't stand up at all, but at least he isn't whining and acting as if he's in serious pain anymore anyway.  Whew!  Poor guy!

We also lost our garage cat.  The poor thing was laying at the bottom of the front steps in a pool of water when Mark went out to feed the horses in the morning a week or so ago.  He picked her up and laid her on one of the chairs on the porch and went on out to the barn, but when he came back she was gone.  She probably managed to climb down and go under the house but she never came back out.  Poor baby has apparently died. So sad. 

And then there's Gigi . . . she also went to the vet yesterday for her annual shots and exams.  But while she was riding over there in Mark's truck she pooped all over the place and then got it all over her leash and collar!  Yuk!  Fortunately, he DOES have a rubber liner over his back seats so that could be cleaned out when we got her home.  But good grief -- WHY does she DO that????  Almost all the dogs we've both had have been terrific travelers.  But Gigi? . . . no WAY.  She doesn't like riding in a car at all.  She's apparently afraid to be in there.  So she's not going to be traveling anymore without absolute necessity!  Yuk! She did do okay last time I hauled her over to the Perkins Road clinic, so we didn't put a diaper on her this time.  She IS 18 months old at this point after all and shouldn't need one.  But no matter HOW old she is, she WILL be stuck in a diaper again the next time she has to ride somewhere, that's for sure!  AT 90 pounds she can make one heck of a huge mess.  Good grief!

Good things . . . and not --

I was SO excited that Mark would be coming home this morning.  I stayed home from work looking forward to that. But at 5:30 this morning he called me to tell me some guy had pulled out in front on him on a highway and he hit him on the front right of his truck.  Oh, no!  But when the police showed up (finally) he was told that the guy did have insurance so he'll be putting his truck in for repair and driving a rental vehicle of some sort until it's fixed.  He was able to drive it on home although he did have to hang onto the wheel at all times because it kept trying to turn off the road to the right as a result of that wreck.

Well, now that he's home it IS great to have him back at last. With all those folks who've been staying here for the last couple weeks he seemed to have been gone for AGES!   

Okay, so life IS good again.  But then when I went into the bedroom a little while ago I saw "something" on the floor. When I got closer and picked it up I found that it USED to be my glasses -- they had been chewed apart by one of the dogs in there.  (I can't tell which one that was -- luckily for them!!)  

I found the chewed up glasses on the floor just below Joey there on the bed and just in front of Rocky there on the floor, so no telling which it might have been.  They both LOOK innocent anyway.  Well, those particular glasses were from a year or so ago, NOT the new one -- fortunately.

I also had a problem with the equines today as well.  It was very simple to put Arthur's blanket on him -- apparently he was feeling pretty cold already because he made absolutely NO objection to having it put on.  But I decided not to bother putting one on Shadow since she bit me that last time while I was fastening it up.  Apparently she hadn't worn one before so no need to bother anyway, I guess.  As for Duke, I put his on while he was eating.  I fastened the straps under his chest, but I didn't fasten the buckles in the front since he had his head down so far into his bucket.  So I figured I'd just go on out to open up the gates to let them out of the paddocks since the flooded areas have gone down finally, then I'd come back and fasten up his buckles.  But before I could get back he came RACING out of his stall and his blanket blew off over his rear end and he simply stepped out of it!  Gees! So I just went and picked it up out of the mud and left him undressed since he apparently isn't cold enough to care whether he's wearing a blanket or not!   It is supposed to go down to the 30's tonight but it's at least not supposed to be going to freeze -- but it wasn't supposed to freeze last night either but the grass was all covered in ice when I went out to feed them early this morning.  Well, it's not going to stay cold for all that long.  In just a day or so it's supposed to get back up to the 70's.  Looking forward to that!

Sure glad I closed those paddock gates again this evening.  I hear SO much fireworks out there that sounds like gunshots. I hate that! No one is allowed to do fireworks in East Baton Rouge, but unfortunately they are allowed here in Iberville Parish.  And SO many folks do that back behind us.  That's why I decided to keep the horses up in their paddocks near our house and away from all those other folks' properties! Well, at least it's way colder out there this year than it usually is so maybe all those folks won't party outdoors all night this time -- I hope.