WordPlay

Lateness!  That’s what happens when the computer crashes and then your mind crashes and then it’s all about the first draft for Kodiak Chained anyway…

In any event.  Today’s surprising synchronicity of events are brought to you by Halfway Home Rescue, FoxAcre Press, and Tanner Dog.

Halfway Home Rescue recently held a fundraising auction to which I donated a couple of Dale & Sully books (Ahem, “Dale Kinsall Mysteries”) as well as pet a tuckerization or guest cameo in an upcoming work, with that exact work to be determined by…well, by the pet.

Tanner Dog is the winning young man.  As it turns out, Tanner is full of win.  He’s also a special young fellow who doesn’t seem to realize that he’s been partially paralyzed by a Human Behaving Badly–at least not to judge by the spunk he shows in his videos.

More about that later.  (Yes, I’m teasing you, but I promise more about Tanner in the future.)  Because what I’m all humming about today is not only the chance to help Tanner (because hey, as someone who put together a whole fundraising anthology for special needs ConneryBeagle, I know what it’s like to be in that position), but the coolness factor of how neatly Tanner will fit into the Dale & Sully story I have in the works–a little something fun to celebrate the new Foxacre trade paper and ebook editions of that series.

Just to pull all the pieces together as perfectly as possible, it happens that the first of those new editions isnow available on Kindle and Nook.  The other formats are coming along soon, but in the meantime, I get to say, “It’s a book again!”

 

NOSE FOR TROUBLE
Foxacre Press
Kindle Edition
Nook Edition

PS Yes, that’s Dart Beagle
PPS Yes, I did the cover for Foxacre

And  I now have a very, very good reason to write up that new Dale & Sully story…

On occasion, the dogs render me speechless.  Or typeless, I guess.

More often than not, a specific dog renders me speechless.

This would be Dart Beagle, who often defies expectation good or bad, and who in his recent agility trial covered the gamut from wow! to ow! ow! ow!

This is why we take pictures.

D'Artagnan Beagle: Running in his first Excellent level classes and so very thoughtful about...about... Hmm. Not quite sure.

On the Start Line. Yes, deceptively thoughtful. Don't be fooled.

A-Frame Action, Whee!

Such a neat little double jump. He's even thinking about staying with me on the turn. See me not taking this for granted...

There's a reason we call him a Weasel Dog. He's very...twisty. Here he's going in three directions at once, but the best part about it is that he's actually looking for me while he does it.

Such neat little feet.

Working heeling exercises right before the run to maintain the brain.

Don't even ask. Because really, who can explain this one?

Dart is a Leaning Dog

Oh yes. D'Artagnan *did* fancy himself the ladies' Musketeer, didn't he?

You wouldn’t think these things have much to do with one another, but last weekend…

Actually, last weekend should have been all about an agility trial, and mostly it was–and it also deserves its own little chatter.  It is, however, the reason we were awake at 4:30 am when the septic system gave a few forlorn burps and commenced to flow backwards at some speed.

Now is the time to count our blessings, right?  My first thought was that I was going to miss a day of the agility trial, WAHH!  My second thought was…if not for the agility trial, I would still be asleep.  And the septic backflow, which was being driven by the soft water recharge process, would have merrily gurgled onward to do more than flood the shower and tub and a goodly part of the master bath.  It would have filled the bathroom and crept right out into the bedroom carpet…squish…squish…squish…

*shudder*

So when I should have been memorizing agility courses, I was calling around for emergency service, waiting for emergency service, supervising emergency service…listening to the dire predictions of Guy #1 while we waited for Guy #2…

Thankful Part Two:  Guy #1 was wrong.  Although the system is only a couple of years old, it was indeed a simple blockage at the leech flow, which messed with the drainage from the house and created a big blockage at that end, too.  All is pumped and new again.  And since I sprayed down the bathrooms with pet accident solution while they were still wet and followed it up with a bleaching later on, even the smell is gone.

So that was the start of the weekend.

How did the weekend end?  WIN, that’s what.

Ten days earlier, Connery had gone out to the city to help search for an injured cat–and he found it, too.  But the cat was in better shape than expected, and ultimately eluded the humans.  Since then, there’s been a humane trap in place near where Connery found the cat hiding, but…the truth is, those involved were beginning to give up hope.  Actually had given up hope, on Saturday.

But when I came home on Sunday, I found an email from the cat’s human: The cat had been trapped!  The cat was well!  He does, in fact, have a broken foot, and specialists are pondering what to do about that, but he was otherwise in good shape, and his wounds were healing.

I WAS SO EXCITED!!

So it was a weekend that started with AURGH!!, had a bunch of silly young Dart Beagle in the middle, and ended with OHMYGOSHHOORAY!

At least things are flowing in the right direction this time.

Ahhh, spring.

Lots of horse hair.

The paddock glacier has melted.

And DuncanHorse is pleased.

When DuncanHorse is pleased, there’s just no telling what will happen.

One day, for instance…I might head for the barn to discover he’s been quite busy–and creative–indeed.

Yes, once these water troughs were sitting side-by-side. The one on top used to be to the right.

Duncan lingers in the vicinity to be smug. Note the tongue.

Because we needed a close up.

Still looking for trouble...

It's best to give him something to do, then. This is a new toy: oats sprinkled in water. (Bonus: it encourages Mr. I-forget-to-drink-and-then-I-colic into sucking down water.)

Classically, this is the moment he turns to nuzzle me.

Go ahead, Duncan. Just shove your face right in there.

Deeply happy horse sucking oats between his teeth. Win!

By Patty Wilber

Buckshot, Penny, Diane (human friend!) and myself drove to Arizona for an American Stock Horse event in Camp Verde.  It was lovely!

Buckshot was one point out of first overall!  He was very well behaved and looked gorgeous with his translucent gold coat! Three people wanted to know what I fed him to get him that color–alfalfa and grass hay and that’s about it. His color is genetic (and the photos do not do it justice)!

Buckshot

The log drag. Dragging is easy enough. It's placing that log back at the start spot neatly that turns out to be the hard part!

Gonna get that little dogie! We had a good cow go!

I only lost my hat three times…

Penny did a few good things in between trying to fly out of the arena using her tail as a helicopter propeller. I have ordered some chamomile to ratchet her down.

Penny with her tail in proper position!

And no we are not just spinning so fast her tail is billowing out due to the sheer speed of our maneuver!

The truck leaked a lot of transmission fluid (without my knowledge or consent), but managed to drive home without a whimper, despite the fact that the tranny was getting trashed…should be all better soon.

Diane was invaluable as company, driver, horse handler and friend!

The whole event was a lot of fun.

In other news:  I bought Buckshot’s daughter, also a buckskin with a few spots on her heinny.

I am going to take a blog vacation for a month or two.  Until then!

At the end of last week, ConneryBeagle (CH MACH2 Cedar Ridge DoubleOSeven CD RE XF EAC EJC CGC) turned eight.

ConneryBeagle: Yes I DID!

This isn’t something I was sure would happen a year or so ago.  In fact, last year at this time, I was just launching the Heart of Dog anthology in an attempt to fund the very necessary tests that might help us determine why he was in such pain and distress–headaches and infections and ongoing spasms of his upper airway.  He was no longer able to track, and he was losing interest in playing, agility, and…well…just being a dog.  He spent most of his time curled up in a miserable ball.

ConneryBeagle: I’m going to pretend I do NOT REMEMBER.

Well, the book splashed out into a sea of digital releases and has done modestly, which means that the kindness of friends–and some strangers–have made a big difference to us.  In August, Connery finally had the CT scan–just shy of a year since his mysterious symptoms started.  (Here’s more detail about his history and his recent journey.)

At that point he was declared to have an idiopathic problem and the Connery Fund bought an inhaler and the little air mask he needs to use it.  The inhaler contains steroids, which weren’t supposed to go systemic, but promptly did.

ConneryBeagle: Because I am SPECIAL.

Very true, but let’s just call this bad luck.

It took a week to realize the intensity of those side effects, and then another week to get the dose down far enough to reduce the effects.  But it was long enough to reduce his muscling to practically nothing.  And in the following weeks–during which the meds did their job and Connery felt well for the first time in a long time–he romped hard, without having the muscular support he was accustomed to, and…he wrenched his stifles (his doggy knees).

So off we went to another specialist, where (thanks to the Connery Fund) he had an ultrasound (revealing that he had an old, lesser injury he’d never told me about), and prolotherapy, and went on severe activity restrictions and two hours of rehab a day–for six months.  That was mid-December; we’re looking at June as a Freedom Date.

ConneryBeagle: BAWHSOME!  Freedom!

In the interim, we’ve discovered that there’s no dose of inhaler that controls his symptoms without overwhelming his body; I do my best to walk a very fine line.  We’ve learned that he needs pulsed antiobiotics to stave off the infection–every other week.  That, too, will likely have its cost.  He’s on Atopica for his ongoing autoimmune issues–and yes, that too will one day exact a toll.  There are times I look at him and know what it’s taking to keep him feeling well and know that there’s a limit to what we’ll be able to do and how long we’ll be able to do it.

BUT.  Connery has been able to track again, for the last month.  He’s been able to go biking for the past six weeks, weather allowing.  He’s started a careful jumping program for agility.  He’s strong and happy, and when he sleeps he no longer curls into a tight ball…he sprawls.  A happy sprawl!

So, it gets better.  Because Connery isn’t a natural tracking dog.  He had to learn how to do that.  No, he’s a natural at trailing and searching, which is done differently–and he understands that task very well thanks to the tracking work combined with some of our games.

So Friday, when I heard that a friend’s cat had been attacked and badly injured by a large dog earlier in the week and that she was looking for a scent dog to help her search the neighborhood–she was in despair that the cat was mortally injured or perhaps already dead–we headed out.  We ended up in a warren of an old adobe neighborhood–nooks and crannies and high adobe walls, impassible except by humans who were willing to scale said walls and pass the dog back and forth.  We had clumps of cat fur and the cat bed for scenting and reinforcement, and we crawled through a series of yards (those neighbors had been sympathetic, but didn’t happen to be home), and ended up in an area of congealed items (let’s call it open-air storage), where Connery said:

ConneryBeagle: The cat is HERE.

And he was right.

The humans weren’t as good as ConneryBeagle at what they were doing, so…the cat has not yet been contained.  The cat, in fact, was in no mood to truck with humans at all, never mind one gently investigative Beagle, so the cat departed from his impossible little hidey hole with some speed.  But he also obviously wasn’t mortally wounded, so we were all ecstatic anyway, and all the right things are being done to make sure that Mr. Kitty gets home.

ConneryBeagle: And I got COOKIES.

The circumstances were right for success in some ways, and terribly difficult in others (see above, high adobe walls).  But I look at Connery, and I think of how glad I am to have him, and how grateful I am for the help we’ve gotten over this past year, and I’m wondering if there might not come other circumstances that are right for other cats.

Just thinking…

And meanwhile, HAPPY EIGHT YEARS OLD, CONNERYBEAGLE!

ConneryBeagle: BAWH!

By Patty Wilber

It has FINALLY been warm for a few days in a row–it feels like Spring (well maybe because it IS Spring!)

Here are a few signs.

1. Hair.

Brush brush brush and all I get is MORE HAIR.

I hope we have some birds that like to use hair in their nests...

2. Flowers.  I had to swipe this picture from a website.  The Easter Daisy (Townsend’s Stemless Daisy)  is  small and blooms right on the ground, late March to early April–Easter time. .  Flowers are about the size of a quarter and are very showy.

I also saw one mustard and something in the parsley family whose name I seem to need to relearn every year, and haven’t done so yet this year.

3. The horses change colors. Here this really only applies to those that carry the cream gene, which produces both the buckskin and palomino colors, and the one Appaloosa with spots (Buckshot) who also happens to be a buckskin.

The non-dilutes (a bay–Cometa and a sorrel–Longshot, and a red dun (which is a different dilute factor -Penny) stay +/- the same color year round–sleek (summer,  shaggy (winter) or OMG does any one love that ragamuffin? (spring).

(“i do not look like a ragamuffin,” says Penny, with a sniff. ” i wear a blanket.”)

Tabooli is a a light palomino.  In winter he is nearly white, but in summer he’s pale gold.  Right now he looks like he has a some sort of hair disorder as he’s patchy-shaggy-whitish with the gold starting to peek through in the areas where the winter white has fallen out.

T's' winter coat--very pale.

In summer, his gold comes out.

Buckshot is also much lighter in the winter, and the long guard hairs hide his spots.

I don't see no spots!

This was taken 3/26/2012--I spot some spots, plus he is darker! He is still not done shedding. and will get golder still.

4/2011 The gold is more intense but his spots are not too obvious..his dapples are getting in the way...but here's the thing with Appy's--the spots change over time--between seasons and over the years, too.

I am glad for the warmth, happy to see flowers, and looking forward to the sleek coated days of summer!

We all do it.

At the moment, I’m watching ConneryBeagle on the treadmill, laying out notes for the imminent call to his vet, firing up the netbook for first draft (Kodiak Chained), preparing DuncanHorse’s lunch to soak for lunchtime, eating breakfast, and…

Yes.  Eyeing taxes.

I may or may not finish this blog before I slip in to do elliptical beside Connery.  Depends on how long it takes to eat this fruit leather.

Last night, when I should have been writing this blog, I was finishing first draft, doing tax prep, working on Wolf Justice, biking Connery out for his second rehab of the day, and watching my brain go to sleep before I did.

Multitasking, sez I, is not all it’s cut out to be.

Generally I can keep a decent balance of it all, but when taxes come around…when taxes come around the year when I switched accounting systems from Quicken and Excel combined to YNAB, which might well be fine if it didn’t keep fatally stalling out my system so I learned not to fire it up to add records unless the computer wasn’t…well, multitasking.

(You may now hazard a guess as to how often that occurs.  Never, you say?  Why, right you are!)

Gee, I didn’t even mention the proofs.  Or the book cover, or the book pirates, or–

*slaps self*  Stop it!  Close your eyes!  Don’t look!

Gotta go hit that elliptical.  Connery is sad and lonely…

by Dart Beagle

It is ME DART BEAGLE.

Myrealname is D’Artagnan Beagle and that is because Iamdashing!

My realreal name is Albedo’s Charter Member TD OA OAJ CA, CGC but no one usesthat because bythetime they do, I amgone.

Sometimes mymommy says “DartDartDart!” almost as fast as I amgone, and then I hear her!

But it isSPRING and sometimes I amnotmoving. See?  There is a picture.  In case you didnotbelieve me.

(Mymommy says Ishould learntotalk like this: One. Word. At. A Time.  Maybelater.)

Now there is SUNandWARMandWIND. Also the snowisgone if you don’tcount the glacier sheet atthebarn.  There is ajumpingchute set up inthesouthflat and we are playing agilityonit.

Also mymommy doesnotwear so many clothes when she takes us torunwith the bicycle!  And there areflowers.

Here are pictures!

Ready to Bike!

Now we have biked!

Here are the FIRST FLOWERS. They are Heron's Bill flowers. Soon I will pee on them.

Don’t youwish you wereME?

By Patty Wilber

I thought I’d deviate from horses for just this one week as the trip to California for the Bungee Jumping Experience was quite the adventure!

 We went to Los Angeles, where the weather is usually balmy (except on the weekend of the Los Angeles Marathon, which this happened to be…)

We signed up to jump with Bungee America.  I tried to pirate their pics but could not, so you ‘ll just have to go to the link to look yourself!

They jump off a bridge a five mile hike up the East Fork of the San Gabriel River.  In the late 30′s there was a road building project in this canyon.  It lasted two years and was eventually scrapped due to lack of funds.  The road and all bridges were removed over time, but this last bridge is on private property, so it remains.

Th weather was predicted to be cruddy, but the jump organizers said a little rain never stopped them.  Bring rain gear and be ready!

The weather WAS cruddy and the crowd of 80 (eighty!) registered jumpers dropped to about 25.  We, not being wimps, (and having already flown to LA anyhow) were ready to go.

Maegan, preparing to get prepared to hike in. It's not raining that hard, is it?

Jim, Adam, Mark. You may recognize that red poncho--we use them on horse back, too! It's not raining that hard...yet.

We started hiking up the canyon, back and forth across the river and in the rain.  It wasn’t warm, but it was not that cold either, so it wasn’t an unpleasant hike.   Except it kept raining harder…

L-R: Maegan, Adam and Mark. Wetter.

And the wind started to pick up.

The wind kept flipping the poncho about so I ended up holding the back edge--kept my hands dry...ish.

Five miles one way (10 round trip) seemed pretty long to me.  I ride A LOT, but I don’t hike.  My joints (a lot more than my muscles) noticed.  My breathing was fine because even though my aerobic capacity frankly sucks, I was enjoying the advantage of living at high altitude (6800 ft) but hiking at low altitude.

At high altitude the body builds more red blood cells to carry oxygen through the system, as it is harder to get O2 into the system.  So, there I was at low altitude with plentyof  oxygen available, AND lots of RBCs.  Bennie: lots of oxygen to the tissues to help produce energy!

By the time we reached the top, the wind was really fierce, and I kept thinking we were all going to become hypothermic if we had to wait around to jump under the canopy they mentioned they’d have set up.

 I was also wondering how the canopy was still standing.

It wasn’t.  Instead, we all piled into a Sea Can–a sea worthy shipping container Bungee America uses to store equipment at the bridge.

Mark, me, Maegan, Adam, happy as clams (until my feet got cold) in the Sea Can. The wind was crazy out side.

How windy was it?  We sent Jim out to check!

There was also hail.  Ultimately, our Bungee Leaders suggested we bail (well the Sea Can WAS full of water).  Here is why Bungee Jumping off a bridge in high wind is Bad: If you get blown off center, you may bounce back up…into the bridge, plus if they send the tow rope down to haul you up, and it keeps blowing out of reach, you are stuck hanging from the harness, swinging like a pendulum, hung out to …um…in the pouring rain.

This is where we would have leapt off (or blown off on this day)--check out the link above to see nice sunny jump shots.

We ate.  We re-garbed and braved the maw of the storm!  The first 1/2 mile was worrisome as the temperature had dropped and heavy rain was driving into our faces.  There were a few times when I could barely step forward against the gale! You can imagine what the poncho was wont to do!

Fortunately, the wind and the rain became less intense as we descended (but the river kept getting deeper…)

Mark and me. The water is picking up silt, but it's not too deep yet. Our last crossing (a few miles from here) was nearly waist deep (on short people..thigh high on me)!

Much of the rock in the canyon is loose and we were warned to watch for falling rock.  We saw a a landslide across the canyon!  Rock dropped off the cliff, shattered and almost seemed as if it were going to shoot clear across to us!  Then  a hunk fell right behind us–close enough that we ran out of the way.

That was about 1/5 of the load that just missed us! Very strange to SEE rock peeling off and heading at you.

We made it back, changed into dry clothing–harder to do when your fingers are non-functional due to cold– and drove home.

Turns out this rock issue is a big deal, because there was a rock plow cleaning up the road!

Yes, the truck literally plowed rocks off the road.

We have rescheduled for the fall…or maybe I should say autumn?