We Have a New Dog

Just what we needed! Another dog.

When we came home from camping last Saturday, a brown dog was at our house. He was happy to see us! He had made himself right at home with our other three outside dogs, Ribsy, Pokey, and Lady.
We spent a couple of days trying to decide if he would make our home his new home. I called my neighbor down the road to see if she knew of anyone who was missing a brown dog. She did not. I waited to see if he would go back where he came from. He did not.

On Monday, he injured himself trying to jump over a fence to get to where Leah was. He got hung, but Clay promptly rescued him. He immediately began limping.....I kept waiting for him to get better, but no. Yesterday we could not find him at all until about 2:00. Clay found him on one of our trails, and he was not moving. So, I called the vet to see if I could bring "Brown Dog" in for assessment. Since we only welcome dogs with infirmities to the Johnson Rehabilitation Center, I knew that he would most likely have health issues.

And he did. The vet's report included a spinal sprain (treated by pain meds and anti-inflammatory medication), heart worms (all of our dogs come with heart worms!), and a variety of intestinal worms. Of course. They began treatment for all of that plus scheduled surgery to neuter him this morning. I ordered him a shocking collar (all dogs who live on our land have to have their surgery and wear a shocking collar so they won't get hit by a car), and we will pick him up tomorrow morning.

We still haven't named Brown Dog. The kids are trying to decide on the perfect name.

In case you're counting, that brings our pet population to a total of 8. Three inside cats, one inside dog, and four outside dogs. And I'm really not an animal person!

Our Newest Dog

Lady

I am not much of an animal person, but my children are!  Of course I have compassion for them.  

Most of you know that our dog Joy has required special care for 5-6 years now (I can't remember), because she had a dog version of a stroke kind of thing that left her paralyzed on one side. I had to feed her water with a syringe and spoon feed her softened dog food for quite a while.  She can go up and down our back porch steps because they are very low, but that is all!  She can't jump up on the couch or a bed, and when she is on a bed or a chair, she barks to get down.  We put that dog up and down all day long!  She likes to sit right beside me when I am reading to the children, and she barks at Clay whenever he eats near her--waiting for a snack!  She is really spoiled.

We have buried two of our beloved pets over the last few years, Lilly and Lucky, and I cried and mourned for those sweet dogs.

Our current pets besides Joy include three indoor cats--Marmalade who was scarred for life 5 years ago when we rescued 2 baby kittens from our yard and brought them into our home to play with (or torture!) Marmalade, who didn't know he was a cat.  The newer cats' names are Bo and Frisky, and all three cats are males.  Bo came to us with broken arm.  It healed sticking straight out from its body.  It is useless and has no feeling, so he gets around on three legs.  So living inside our house we have one crippled dog, one crippled cat, one psycho cat, and one normal cat.  I guess Frisky is normal!

Joy and one of the cats--not sure which one, because they all are orange.  When they are walking around I can tell--Bo has a front leg that sticks straight out!

Outside we have Ribsy, the dog who showed up, skin and bones, just as we were moving into our house nine years ago.  She was infected with heart worms, and she appeared to be about 6 months old.  We treated her conservatively for heart worms for eight years, and last year she was pronounced heart worms-free!  She is a very fat and happy dog now. 

Ribsy, coming home from the vet a few months ago after she had this weird thing on her ear---it's always something with these dogs!

And we have Pokey, the 5 pound puppy we rescued from the city park two and half years ago.  He had been hit by a car and had a broken leg (which healed just fine on its own), and he was infected with all kinds of intestinal parasites….maybe heart worms too, I can't remember!  But we dewormed him (fun times!) and now he weighs over 50 pounds and is the picture of health.  Pokey has always been a lively dog since he recovered from all of those worms, and he likes to chew everything!

About two weeks ago another dog showed up at our house.  It was freezing cold, and she came inside our garage.  She was so skinny, and just walked around slowly with her tail tucked between her legs.  Of course we fed her, and she has claimed us as her family!  I finally took her to the vet Wednesday.  I was really, really hoping that we would have a pet that had no health issues.  Please.  A healthy dog!

But, of course, all infirmed dogs and cats find their way to the Johnson Pet Rehabilitation Center…..and Lady (as we named her) was no exception.  Lady has heart worms, which we will begin a 6 month conservative treatment for on Monday, and she also has mammary cancer!  She will be scheduled for surgery to remove the mass in a couple of weeks.  The vet thinks that her prognosis will be good--but she is nine years old, and he can't make any promises.

I have on my to-do list to order Lady a shocking (I mean correction!) collar for our electric dog fence.  When pets join our family, they get spayed or neutered (Lady will get her surgery when she has her cancer removed), and the outside dogs also get a nice correction collar!  I can't have our pets getting in the highway!

So that's the latest update on our animals.  

Finally, A Blog Post

It has been a crazy, busy summer.  I have blogged less these last two and a half months than I ever have since I began this blog in May of 2008.  Last week I considered taking a blogging break for a couple of weeks or maybe months, but I decided to just jump back in.

So here's the deal.  I have been doing some major spring cleaning, even though it is August!  I cleaned out every nook and cranny of my schoolroom, and for the last several days I have been planning and organizing our upcoming school year.  I am almost done.  I think I can finish this tomorrow and Thursday.

Jimmy is off most of this week, so he and the children have been a huge help with the spring cleaning.  I typed up a list of what I wanted to accomplish before we start school next Monday.  It was two pages, single-spaced!  We have diligently worked to cross items off of that list.  We may even finish it tomorrow!

I am so happy to say that my running is going great.  Finally!  I have been meeting Leanna once or twice a week, early in the morning (early, as in I am home by 7:15) to run 6-8 miles.   I have also met Lynn twice for a long run, and we are all running together bright and early tomorrow morning!  Yesterday and today, Jimmy ran with me, and I really enjoyed that.  In fact today with his company, I ran 6 miles without walking.  That is a milestone that I have not completed since last November!  I met my goal two weeks in a row of running a total of 24 miles, and this week my goal is 26.  I plan to build up to 30 miles a week, and just run that amount until my next surgery.

I have said this for the last couple of years, but this year I really mean it:  This school year is going to be the hardest one ever! I really, really don't know how to schedule my day.  Realistically, each child needs me a minimum of one hour, and that doesn't factor in my read aloud time.  Since Clay will be an 8th grader this year, this is the last year that I will have scheduled time to read books to him.  He and Julie are both studying World History this year (and actually so is Leah--the second half of World History), so I know that Julie will want to hear the read alouds too.  Help!  Someone schedule my day!  I can't decide if I want to spend a huge chunk of time trying to create a detailed schedule on paper, or just start school Monday and figure it out as I go!  Maybe something in between.

The children begin XC practice tonight.  They are all thrilled!  Their coach told them at the beginning of the summer that if they completed at least 80% of their prescribed miles for the summer, they would be rewarded with a cool tie-dye t-shirt.  I am happy to say that all four of my running children completed this challenge.  Even Leah!  Even though we had school, and camp, and a week at the beach, and VBS, and just life in general, they dedicated themselves to following that plan.  I am very proud of their diligence.  And I am especially thankful to Jimmy who ran many, many of those miles with them--to insure that they got their miles in.

Tomorrow I hope to begin sharing some pictures of my newly cleaned and organized schoolroom, as well as our curriculum for the upcoming school year.  I also have plans to share recipes that some of you have asked for.

Thanks for all of your condolences for our sweet dog Lucky.  Olivia is working on marking both Lucky's and Lilly's gravestones.  I am not sure exactly how she is doing it, but I know that it will be perfect.

Catching Up

Over the last week or so, I have been steadily working on my summer list.  My summer is rapidly approaching the end, so I have been working, working, working!  Here are a few highlights of what all I have been doing.

• Running:  Finally.  I had a 20 mile week.  Actually it ended up being 24 miles, and I couldn't have been happier.  I planned another 24 mile week for this week, but since I missed my run yesterday, I am not sure if that will happen.  I'll know by Saturday.  If I can run 8 miles today on my treadmill (it's raining), then I'll be back on track.  We'll see!
• Homemaking:  I have canned three batches of salsa, and I need to can another batch today.  Each batch produces 6-8 pints of salsa.  I can whenever I get 30 or so ripe tomatoes from our garden.  I also made strawberry fig preserves using the figs from our fig tree.  I used chia seeds as the gelling agent.  So the preserves are 100% all natural.  And organic too I guess since I used our figs and fresh organic strawberries from the grocery store.  I have been wanting to make homemade laundry detergent for some time now, and last Saturday, I did!  So far I like it.  
• Homeschool Planning:  I have not done too much in this area.  I do have each child's books in their work bucket or work area, but the actual planning of their daily schedule and preparing their materials is on still on my list.
• Cleaning Out and Organizing:  I have completed all that I am going to do at this time!  Even though I love cleaning out things and organizing what's left, I was weary by the time I finished my list!  Actually, I still have a few minor areas left on my list, but I will just get to those areas later.  My schoolroom, kitchen, office area, and storage/craft room are all in order!

Last week included a visit to my new niece, Millie Janalee.  We also shopped at Costco while we were in the Memphis area, and Clay had a dental appointment with my brother, our dentist.  At the beginning of the month, I shopped for what I hope is a month's worth of non-perishable groceries at Kroger.  I completed my monthly WalMart shopping, and I bought 3-4 months worth of Costco items.  I still need to buy my Sam's stuff for the month, and I should be done with shopping for August except for weekly produce and milk from Kroger.

On a very, very sad note.....our sweet dog Lucky died yesterday.  Our whole family is heartbroken.  I plan to write a post about Lucky and the wonderful dog that he was, but I can't right now.  Many, many tears have been shed here for the last few days.  Lucky came inside our house Monday night (he is normally an outside dog), and he never stood up again.  I am so glad that he came inside for the last couple of days of his life.  He was surrounded constantly (and I mean 24 hours a day) by members of our family until the end of his life.  We will be grieving for a while.

Pokey Update and More

The Pokey little puppy is getting perkier!

At the vet visit learned that Pokey had hookworms, a dislocated hip, and just general malnutrition and anemia from the worms.  The vet also suspected parvo, but did not test for it or give Pokey any vaccinations.  He just wormed the sweet little puppy, and told us to watch him over the weekend.

Thankfully, Pokey is now perky!  He has a great appetite, and he is scampering all around, chewing on things, and wagging his tail.  Since he is getting stronger, if the vet can confirm that he doesn't have parvo, we will proceed with putting the hip back into his socket.  He will be in a sling for 7-10 days after that procedure.

Olivia, Julie, and Clay participated in the season's first cross country meet Saturday afternoon.  It was a fun way to begin the 2011 season.  Everyone seemed to have a super time!  Even though it was HOT!

I finished the book The Hidden Hand.  It was excellent!  Just excellent!  I now need to take a break from reading books strictly for my pleasure (a couple of weeks ago I read The Help too).  When I start a good book I tend to stay up way too late or spend way too much time on the weekends trying to finish the book.  So for now, I need to get back to pre-reading the Sonlight books that I haven't read already.

Today was Day 1 of my 14 week marathon training.  The St. Jude Marathon is December 3.  I ran 3 miles this morning.  This first week's total miles are 26, which includes the 14.2 mile race that I will be running this weekend, the Tupelo 14.2 Miler.  My training plan peaks at 47 miles, and that seems impossible.  I know that it is not, because I did it last March, but took look at those numbers is daunting.

We have a normal but busy week ahead.

As If We Didn't Already Have Enough!

Pets, that is!

3 dogs.
3 cats.

Introducing pet # 7!

His name is Pokey.  We found him at the park at cross country practice on Tuesday.  My friend, Kim graciously took him home....but her husband did not want them to keep the little puppy....they already have about 25 animals!  The animal shelter is full.....

So yesterday, Kim brought him back to cross country practice, and we took him home!

Not surprisingly, he is not in perfect health.  He seems to have some sort of hip issue, and he has a skin problem.  He will fit right in with our other less than perfect animals!

I am taking him to the vet at 4:00 today.