When It Rains

Had a sick dog yesterday. My 9 year old Goldendoodle, Keogh. Over the weekend, she started walking into things and by Sunday night, she was unwilling to move around on her own. I cleaned her eyes and examined them but couldn't see anything... she has one eye with a lot of scaring from dry eye, but neither was matted or mucousy. Could NOT get into my vet Monday... couldn't even get through on the phone until just before noon. The next appointment was for the 17th. So yesterday morning, once I got everyone situated, I took Keogh over as a "walk-in." Usually that means you sit and wait for a couple hours, longer if you want to see a specific vet. But, to my surprise, the parking lot was practically empty which stopped being a surprise when I walked in the door to a very dark waiting room. Our early morning severe storms had left them without power. They vets were taking care of whatever they could in just natural daylight, with no electrical equipment. So we got in right away. Jane couldn't see much wrong with Ke's eyes except for a slight infection in the eye itself. Usually she's really upbeat and just gives me a general list of possible bad to worse scenarios. But yesterday she was really not encouraging. She ruled out lepto because I put the dogs back on the vaccine a couple years ago. Her real concern was a fungus we have IN the ground in this area which is deadly and hard to diagnose. Keogh is a digger... she goes after the groundhogs and moles with a vengeance. A friend of mine lost a dog to this fungus a few years ago and it was a long, painful process before they even figured out what was wrong with him and put him down. I've been depressed ever since hearing one of the symptoms is eye infections. So, we're treating the eyes for the infection and Keogh is back to going outside without bumping into the door, but it's a waiting game to see if the treatments produce a long lasting effect or just help the symptoms.

So now, Keogh is being treated with 3 different meds...one three times a day and the other two, twice a day. Add that to what I'm doing with the pups and I feel like I'm Nurse Betty!

Speaking of rain

In less than 24 hours we made up most of our nearly 5 inch shortfall for the year. And it has continued to rain off and on all yesterday and today. Much of it came down in buckets. Luckily for me, I'm part way up the hill which is part way up another hill so I don't worry about flash flooding. Most of my immediate area is hills on hills and the drainage always (knock on wood!) seems to spread out before reaching bottom. I've never heard of anyone around here having a flood problem. HOWEVER! My car is one of those with automatic locks once the transmission is in drive and the wheels start rolling. I don't know how fast you have to be moving before the doors lock... no more than a couple miles at most. And yet, my road is so bad... and I'm not just whistling Dixie here... I am down my drive and off the hill, almost to the blacktop before the locks click. What's that? ONE mile an hour? Two? And even then, I'm still banging the undercarriage. Besides the enormous ruts, there are bricks and half bricks scattered all over along with small chunks of old pavement. At one time, the road was brick all the way to the top and at another it was paved. The hill is so steep, none of that has lasted and it has all washed down. It gets covered over with dirt and gravel over time, until heavy downpours wash it away and expose the rest. The road hasn't been graded in a while... my "neighbor" at the top of the hill who has a tractor and used to grade it occasionally has either moved or... I don't know what. It is so bad right now the teenagers who live above me have slowed to what THEY consider a crawl!

The good thing about the rain, besides ending the drought (at least temporarily,) is temps are down to normal... mid 80s... at least until the weekend. I can function again!