Category: Mother Nature

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Nothing to Eat or Drink Past Midnight

Tomorrow morning is a big day for one of my dogs. Surgery at the veterinarians office for a fractured tooth. Oh My gosh – when the vet showed me her tooth I almost passed out. It fractured and has gotten abscessed and she must be in miserable pain. I’m so glad I took her to get checked so they can fix it now.

The weird thing about surgery is that she cannot have anything to eat or drink after midnight tonight. Since they have to knock her out for the surgery, if she eats anything there is the risk of her vomiting and then choking. That would be devastating to me to have something like that happen. I love her so much. She will be able to go a day with no food and I’m sure the vet will give her an IV so she doesn’t get dehydrated.

My poor girl – tomorrow is a big one but when it’s all over she will feel so much better!

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Yummy Banana Nut Muffins

Betty Crocker makes a great banana nut muffin mix. All you have to do is stir in a couple of eggs and then add some oil and water. Thirty minutes later you have baked deliciously moist warm muffins waiting for the little slab of butter and a cup of hot tea.

I like to add real bananas to the mix before baking, so I try to keep one or two ripe bananas on hand most of the week. It can be challenging to find bananas in varying stages of ripeness. At the Food Lion grocery store near my house, they get a shipment of bananas once a week and they are bright green. They ripen naturally in the store, but they all ripen on the same schedule, so the bananas you buy are either not ripe enough or too ripe all at the same time. So I only buy two bananas at a time at Food Lion.

But Kroger is a few miles further from my house and they seem to get banana shipment three times every week. So you can buy individual bananas in varying stages of ripeness. If I happen to be at Kroger, I’ll buy two very green bananas, two almost ripe bananas and then one that is ready to eat. That way they will continue to ripen after I get them home and not all spoil within just a couple of days.

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Bring on the Spring!

The southern groundhog weather expert, General Beauregard Lee, did not see his shadow today. It’s a good thin he is in Atlanta, because at home the day was rainy and miserable, although warm. It’s almost like we are already having Spring, rather than waiting 6 weeks for the official first day of Spring.

We were fortunate to have a very mild Winter, with only a few days of snow flurries and it never really amounting to much. Everything wet has been rain, which is much better for me than snow and ice. Even so, I am tired of the short days, early darkness and  needing a coat for even the shortest dash from the house. Bring on Spring! We are ready!

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Fog and Fine Mists

About a half dozen times every year we have a morning with fog or a mist that makes visibility a challenge. For some reason people driving on the interstate don’t want to slow down. Without fail, when one of those fools hits the patch of highway in front of the dam, they slam on the brakes because they can’t see and then they slide into the guardrail. All I can say is, they are lucky the state put guardrails up, because without the guardrails those vehicles would slide right off the road and end up in the river.

Fog is nature’s way of telling us to slow down, look a little harder at what is in front of you. Sometimes you let your mind take over in autopilot and you don’t take enough care. I welcome the fog and the mist – and I respect the message.

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Dog Toys

My dogs love to play with toys that I buy for them with squeakers inside them. I guess the squeak sounds like a baby animal that brings out their hunting instincts. If the toys is plastic, they tear open the plastic pretty quickly to get to the squeaker. The ones that are fabric get torn open quickly, too, and all the stuffing gets pulled out. I like the new ones with no stuffing – there is no mess to clean up.

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Pumpkins Fresh From His Farm

My friend Spencer called this morning and asked if I want some free pumpkins. Of course I said yes. He has a little garden patch in the back of his house and he grew about a quarter acre of pumpkins and gourds this year.

I’m going over there this weekend to pick out my free pumpkin and visit with Spencer for a little while. It was nice of him to think of me.

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Utility Trailers

My Uncle Carl has several utility trailers at his place. He uses them to haul all kinds of things, from yard waste to motorcycles. So when I started thinking about getting a small trailer to use with my Mazda SUV, I figured he would be the one to ask for advice on what to look for and where to buy one at a fair price. Well, he invited me out to his house to look around and have a talk, which is always nice. He is a very cool guy and I was grateful to be invited over.

After we walked around the farm and talked for while, he told me that I don’t really need to buy my own utility trailer. Since he lives only about 15 minutes – 20, with traffic or school buses – away from me, he said that any time I need to need one for me to just come on over to his place and get one of his. He said that as long as I didn’t keep it for more than a day or two, that it should never be a problem for him. So, I am going to take him up on his offer and not buy my own. That’s so sweet of him!

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I Love My Vet

When I acted on a whim and got my dog, I had no idea how much time and money I was going to have to spend on taking care of her. She is a great dog, but I really have to work at caring for her, with grooming, flea and tick prevention, annual check ups and now allergies.

Evidently she is allergic to grass. It does not make her sneeze like humans do with grass allergies. It irritates her feet like acid when she walk on it. After we go for a walk in the yard and come back in the house, she immediately starts licking her feet. Sometimes she even chews on her feet to the point that they are bleeding.

I took her to the vet so he could check her and he helped me figure out that it is allergies. So I have had to start giving her foot baths at night and when they get very sore I put a special creme on them and cover them in bandages so she can’t lick off the creme before it has a chance to work. The vet says if they get too bad that I can bring her in for a shot, but that costs $60 and she would have to get the shot at least once a month.

I never heard of dogs having an allergy to grass until she started having the sore feet. Who knew?