Time is gliding by

It’s been a week of technology improvements around here. My computer was acting up and I bought a new one, more powerful so it can hold all my pictures and files without struggling with memory freezes.  I choose to have windows 7 installed instead of 8 because everyone I know who has 8 hates it.  But even windows. 7 is taking some getting used to as is the new addition of office.    And the computer may be great but the included keyboard is crap.  We set the old computer up in the bedroom for my husband to use and took a lot of the files off it.  That meant moving the router, which was fun. 

One more thing we are going to set up next week is a Roku- to stream movies.  After that hopefully our tech upgrade is done. 

We lost another dog last week too, Cricket, my office dog.  She was a 15 year old Yorkie mix.  She was black and tan but she was a bit larger at 20 pounds than a Yorkie and her long coat was wiry, not silky.   She was the office dog because until the last year she couldn’t be trusted to be around the other dogs- she hated females.  When she was younger she sent several of the other dogs to the vet and the other older girls were terrified of her.  All we had to do was say “Crickets out”- and they ran and hid.  But she was very friendly to people and to male dogs.

In my office she had a doggie door to her own private outside run.  She liked to sit under my desk as I worked in here.  Until last spring she always had a companion too.  First her son, then our old stud Jack Russell, Gus, after he was neutered. But she outlived them both.  This year she had mellowed to the point that we allowed the door of the office to remain open when I was in here and the other dogs filtered in and out, although she seldom left.  My bitchy female Tina, her old arch enemies’ great granddaughter, was not afraid of her, because she was not around during Crickets reign of terror and challenged her whenever she came out.  Knowing that she wasn’t up to her old level of aggressiveness Cricket just chose to stay in the office most of the time.

First she stopped eating regular food but I was able to get her to eat things like scrambled eggs or chicken soup.  Then she couldn’t keep any food down, vomiting about an hour after I fed her.  I took her to the vet; whose diagnose was some sort of cancer in the digestive system and kidney failure.   There was nothing to do but put her down.  Steve was able to bury her in the little warm spell we had, but it wasn’t easy. 

I guess when you have a bunch of dogs over 10 years old it’s inevitable that they start dying but this year has been tough.  I checked on Cricket every night before I went to bed, to make sure she had food and water in case I wasn’t going to be coming into the office early in the morning and it’s hard to break that habit.  Ginger, who is her daughter, has taken her place under my desk as I work, although she doesn’t have to be locked in like her mom was.  Our oldest dog now is Sadie, who is actually close to 16.  She still seems to be going strong, but I will be taking her for a health check-up soon.

More egg problems

After a week or two of no problems with the eggs in the chicken coop we now have something in the back part of the barn, where the ducks and turkeys are.  One of the turkeys and maybe a duck or two had a pile of eggs in one of the doghouses I had put in there for them and something got in there and chewed them up- I found the shells all over and it looks just like the possum damage in the chicken coop.  I don’t know if the eggs were any good since it’s so cold they have been freezing if not sat on constantly but I was hoping to get some babies a bit later in the spring so the egg eater must be stopped.

The hard part of this will be finding a place to set the trap.  I don’t know where the possum is coming into the pen like I did with the chicken coop.  If I put the trap out in the open it will probably catch a cat.  But as Steve says- I have to try. 

Crippled deer is still around

Last summer I saw a crippled doe hanging around my pond.  A neighbor mentioned seeing her too.  I actually felt sorry for her and wasn’t trying to scare her off as I do most deer.  It looked like the leg had been broken; she probably was hit by a car.  I guess she managed to survive even though I hadn’t seen her in a couple months.  Yesterday another neighbor called asking me what “we” could do to help the poor crippled doe that was eating out of her bird feeder.  It seems that she has been coming everyday with another doe to eat out of the neighbor’s feeder.  (She actually spreads feed on the ground under the feeder for the deer.)

I told her there was nothing we could do- no one was going to come out from DNR about a crippled deer and if they did it would be to just shoot her.  The neighbor said it appears she is healed, but the leg healed in an odd way.  I warned the neighbor that feeding the deer up close to her house like that would mean that the deer would likely ruin her shrubs and garden but she doesn’t care.  I still feel a little sorry for the doe but I like my plants too, and I won’t be putting food out for her.  So far the snow hasn’t been that deep and the deer shouldn’t be too desperate. 

Now that I am retired I plan to spend a little more time just sitting out on my property observing the deer and birds – that is once I get done revising my gardens, fixing the chicken coops and other things. So much to do- so little time- I feel it more and more as time glides by me.