Waggy girl & the garden

Sadie is doing wonderfully well today! She zonked out from about 10 last night until about 6:30 this morning. I slept on the couch to be near her and I wanted to be downstairs in case she was in pain or anything, I'd be able to hear her and help...So I awoke this morning to a very alert girl wag, wag, wagging at me! She obviously was feeling quite a lot better, so I was very happy and VERY relieved that she was doing so well!

We went on a short "W' (as we call them) and then when we got back, she gobbled up a bunch of chicken and rice (much to Koty's dismay, mind you!). I gave her a pain pill and then we settled back in to sleep for another couple of hours! It was so nice to see her perky and wanting food!

At about 10, we all went on a "W" together and then I dropped her off at the house and took Koty on a longer walk since he's Mr. Energetic despite being 11+ years old!

Here was Sadie a few minutes ago when I went outside to snap some quick pictures of my pretty plants for this blog!She's already back to the following me around bit that she has always done! If she can't see me, she comes and finds me! It's annoying as all getout, but I'm thrilled she's feeling that well already to be annoying!! : ) Now she's back to being sound asleep on a comfy dog bed.

Ok. How about looking at some plants? The side yard is coming along famously! I swear things are growing at breakneck speed right now! And, I'm finding surprises as things have been sprouting so quickly...Here is the corner of the side yard. I transplanted a bunch of the violas from the flower boxes over here in the shade and they seem to be happy. I also have nasturtium from last year that re-seeded itself in a few place! Nice! Bonus! These are the creamy yellow nasturium that I love, so I'm glad they're back this year! I love their saucer-like leaves.


Here is my rhododendron starting to bloom! I love the soft pink color of this one.

Here are more violas that I tucked into the back there! They look really pretty with the lamium plants, I think!

Here's a pretty orange Icelandic poppy growing amongst the phlox. The phlox are getting so TALL already! I can't believe it's only MAY!

And last, but certainly not least is my Montauk daisy bush. This thing is the hugest daisy bush I have ever seen in my entire life! I cut this thing back like crazy this spring, but you'd never know it! It is seriously large. At least 4 feet across and 3 feet tall already. And it will keep growing all summer and then, like magic, in the fall, we'll have a million daisies all over the entire plant! People stop and take pictures of this thing because it's such a specimen!

Ok...Tomorrow we will look at some more of the goodies in the back yard. Lots going on this time of year!

Happy day, everyone! My dog is doing well!

Post Op doggies

Sadie is now home safe and sound. The poor thing has a zillion staples in her belly holding her together and she was moaning and crying in pain as the morphine slowly leaves her system. She's feeling good right now, though. I just gave her a 1/2 of a pain pill early, and fed her a bunch of chicken and turkey bacon. She has no interest in her regular kibble, and who can blame her for that? I'm boiling some more chicken right now and will mix that in with some rice for a good gloppy meal for her later.

She's resting now that the pain pill is working and I've got a nice, cold compress on her belly which must feel REALLY good! She's completely zonked out.

Here is the scene from a moment ago. Would you look at these two?
Could they possibly be any cuter?

That's Koty, there in the foreground with his little footie on the pillow and I've got pillows against Sadie's back to bolster her and make her feel safe and comfortable. It worked! I love that Koty is smunched up against Sadie's back. He loves her despite her refusal to play with him. It's really pitiful. Poor Koty tries almost EVERY SINGLE day to play with her and she just glowers at him like "What's your problem, dude? Get away from me!"

Poor Koty then has to resort to playing with his stuffed toys and me. He's a very, very good boy.

Anyway, I am happy to report that all is well on the homefront once again. Only real change is that now we will not be going to England and Spain as we had planned. We were supposed to leave on June 1st, but Sadie will need extra love and attention for at least 2 weeks as she recovers from her huge surgery. And, of course, I'm gladly the man for that job! We also, luckily, got the travel insurance, so we will not lose out on the airline tickets to and from Europe, so that was a good bit of foresight!

Thank you again for your well-wishes and crossed fingers and toes. We appreciate any good ju-ju that was sent our way!

Scary Thursday

Yesterday was the day from hell. It started with my husband awakening me at a very early hour to tell me something was wrong with our sweetest dog in the world, Sadie. This is Sadie:



She is honestly the gentlest, mellowest, lovebug of a dog that you could ever begin to imagine. I just adore her little (big) self!

I rushed down the stairs, of course, and found her laying on one of the dog beds in our bar. She was panting, not wagging, not really responding to my voice and she refused her breakfast.

I immediately called the vet and we rushed her in there pronto. The vet felt around, took her temp and vitals, and then proceeded to take some xrays. The culprit was her spleen. On the x-ray we could see that it was enlarged and that there was fluid leaking into her abdomen...Not good.

Long story short, after many tears and two TERRIBLE outcomes, we lucked out with the lesser of two evils. The worst scenario was that we were going to have to euthanize her yesterday. Just the mention of that word makes me shudder and start sobbing, so you can only imagine the relief when the specialist vet (that also got us in right away, thankfully) told us that her ultrasound only showed a tumor in her spleen. All her other organs were perfect. No other tumors.

Final outcome is that she had to have an emergency splenectomy. The tumor was the size of a baseball and had caused her spleen to rupture. She had blood leaking into her abdomen and basically just felt rotten. If the leaking got worse, she could have possibly died, so we are lucky in a sense that we caught it when it was very do-able to make her better.

We are going to pick her up in a few minutes and I CANNOT WAIT!

PS - Update on Sadie...She is resting. Has bouts of pain where she sort of moan/cries, but then she falls asleep because the poor thing is exhausted. She's been through quite the rigamarole. We are SO very thankful to have here home and alive. I cannot express how thankful we are. And, also thank you to all of you for your kind words and support!

Fleurs for summer 2010

Man, oh, MAN am I liking what I did for my flower boxes! They are divine!

Remember back when I was going for the purple theme this year? Apparently the growers out there listened because there was just all manner of blue, violet, purple and lavender when I went to Marblehead Garden Center! They've got gazillions of annuals in right now and it's just a feast for the eyes and nose over there! SOOOO gorgeous!

Seriously, if you live anywhere near there? It's worth the drive. And, it's not only the ones in the main part of the garden center! There are a zillion more up in back behind the fence! I found the nicest pretties there and the plants are amazing in quality. It was hard to resist buying one of everything! I still may add one more type of plant to each flower box...We'll see how they look in a week or so.

So.....drumroll, please...........

Here they are in all their glory! (Remember, if you click on the image, you can see it full-sized.)

Nice, right?

Here are a couple close-ups:

We've got quite the mixture going on! Greens are the dwarf, giant papyrus in the center, two pony-tail grasses and two mini-licorice plants. We also have that adorable Kenilworth ivy on each end. These are wonderful little plants that love sun and shade and in the ground, will root and spread. Oh, they are fabulous!

For fleurs this year there is a white lantana in the center, two white bacopa in front by the ivy, two purple nemesia next to the grasses, and two purple angelonia beside the papyrus.

I'm thinking it might look really nice to add either two purple brachysciomeor two lavender verbenain the front near the white lantana.

What do you think? Too much? I dunno. I think they maybe need a smidge more purple in there.

Doing a job for a client today. Will post pics after I'm finished.

Happy almost weekend! : )

Lettuce take a look!

Ha!! See what I did there with the title? Clever, no? Ha!

You see, I've been growing goodies here since mid-March. We had a very mild March and I took the chance of planting violas and some lettuces and arugula. Well, I'm happy to report that all have been grow grow growing for two months and I've got my first harvest of lettuce. Some are small, some are large, but they are lovely romaine lettuces none-the-less! I sprayed these babies on the back stoop and just brought them into the kitchen! Having salad as part of our din-din tonight! Exciting! There's something so VERY satisfying about eating something you've grown yourself!

I still have nine lettuces growing out back there; three in a pot, and three in the little garden beds by our back door:
See there on the left? That's a basil and a tomato plant I bought today! I'm a plant addict. What can I tell ya?
Those in the pot there are HUGE! Will harvest them next week, probably.

Also, I have arugula that is blooming! I didn't know arugulas bloomed, so I'm thrilled! They're really cute!

Aren't they so cute?

Tomorrow we will look at the new plantings I installed in my flower boxes. I did them up Tuesday while I had a few hours on my hands. They are LOVELY! Happy hump day!

Yard, continued from ages ago!

On to happier subjects...After the trauma of the baby bird yesterday, let us go back to the original intention of this here blog. Gardening. Plants. Prettiness. Zen!

A few days ago I took photos of the goodies I had planted in the back yard. I bought them sort of as early birthday gifts for myself. Or at least that's how I'm justifying spending that much on the yard!

First, the mystery plant that is a mystery no more! It is Baptisia! False indigo! SOOO pretty! Here's what it's currently doing there amongst the phlox:
And this is what it looks like when it blooms:Isn't it so pretty?

And here's a nice little grouping in the back corner where I have not been able to successfully grow ANYTHING! I cannot tell you how many bushes and shrubs and thingamajigs I have put back there but they always die after a year or two. Anyway, I transplanted that grass from a spot in the yard where it was crowded out by an enormous hydrangea. It looks pretty happy there with his hosta friends! I also put that little bleeding heart bush there at the base of my butterfly house. Isn't that cool? I love my butterfly house.

And here in the middle you can see the white bleeding heart and Solomon's seal. LOVE those.

Happy Birthday, self!

Tomorrow we will explore the fine world of arugula and romaine lettuce. I know you're excited. Try to calm yourself!

Ugh.

Man. I hate this post. I hate having to say that my beloved baby bird did not make it through the day yesterday. I really don't know what happened. I checked on him the very MINUTE my eyes opened yesterday and he was just fine! Bright-eyed and sort of hippity-hopping around the nest.

Look:This was taken first thing yesterday morning...

It was a very warm day, too, which was a bonus since they need to stay warm, so I was thrilled that it was in the mid-70s. I checked on him again at noon when I had to go to work, and he was still moving around and very much alive.

So, something happened between noon and 3:30 when I got home. I think perhaps the mama and papa bird knew that junior was not going to make it so they stopped feeding him. Nature sucks sometimes. Animals can seem so callous, but that's the whole survival of the fittest thing. Can be quite cruel.

Oh, man. I am sad. I'm really bummed out. I think I should have gone with my gut feeling about this and kept him inside for a week or so. I wish I hadn't listened to that wildlife rehabilitation lady. Ugh.

Anyway, I will be performing a bird burial today in my back yard.

I was a Mama for a day

Ok. Hold on to your hat. I have been mothering a BABY BIRD today. OHMYGOD, it is so stinkin' cute! A neighbor found him hop hop hopping around in the middle of our busy street! MAN! So, she scooped him up and that's when I came out the back door to get in my car to go to a plant sale and the grocery store (I know. I lead a very exciting life!)

So, long story short, I ended up with the birdie here because that's just sort of what I do. I don't mind gathering bugs and worms to feed the little fella. And, I'm a biology person by training, so I sort of knew what to do. Sort of...More on that later!

Looky here:



He's got a HUGE beak, right? And I fed him and fed him and fed him. I dug up some worms and got some bugs from the back yard. Ground them up in a little bowl and fed him using chopsticks! And he'd gobble up everything I offered, and then he'd fall sound sound sound asleep. I walked in there once and thought he had died, but he was just zonked out! I put him in a big drawer that had a heating pad on one side, padded with rags and soft tissues. And he LOVED that heating pad. He was all warm and snuggly in there...

SO, then I called a woman who is a licensed person in the state of MA to be a wildlife rehabilitation person. She was VERY chatty, but when she FINALLY got to the point, it turns out this little birdie of mine was simply a fledgling. He is in really good shape and is nearly feathered out. He probably left the nest a week or so early, which is VERY common.

What she told me to do was put said baby into a basket I had - like an Easter basket type thingy. Then, I had to string the basket up into my lilac bush that is right under where the nest is.

They nested in the eave of our house, waaay up there:

I just went out there to check on the situation and I'm happy to report that mama and papa of the baby bird are out there attending to him. They were yelling and squawking at me when I went to see if the basket was still okay up in the tree. It's really windy, so I was worried about it falling down. There they are up in the wires:

So, hopefully they will care for the baby and keep him warm at night and then I can rest easy knowing the baby will go on and be a good, productive citizen of bird society!! : )

That's my exciting story of how I was a baby momma for all of three and a half hours!