More departures on the Unfarm

Ready for your daily dose of depression? I have more departures from the Unfarm to announce, unfortunately.  

First to go was Axel. On February 9, a few weeks ago, we made the ever difficult decision to have Axel put to sleep. Prior to February 9, he had been having some trouble with his eye being a bit teary and goopy so we took him to the vet and got him on eye drops and antibiotics with instructions to return in two weeks for a follow up appointment. At our follow up appointment, however, instead of being improved he was pretty much the same and the vet noticed a small lump on the side of his head. We took x-rays and the results were discouraging to say the least: the upper part of his jaw on the left side of his face was simply not there anymore. It turns out that the bone cancer that we thought we were rid of with the amputation of his front right leg had cropped up in his jaw and eaten away at the bone until there was nothing left. With him at risk of a spontaneous fracture of the remaining portion of jaw and his quality of life taking a turn for the worse we spent one more evening with him at home with all the other animals and took him in to see the vet the next day when Mom could be there as well. Before we left for the vet's office I made him a small batch of carob chip cookies and he had those as his last meal. After that we gathered around him, petting him and telling him that we love him as they put him to sleep. We had him cremated, and placed his ashes into a wooden urn with his picture on the front, reserving a small amount of ashes for a tiny pendant urn that I can wear around my neck to keep him close to me, as we have done with Kita, Maia, and Buddy as well.

Axel was loyal to a fault and would follow me everywhere, barking whenever anyone tried to get near me, even if they were family members. He was always smiling and he just kept on pushing through every obstacle that was thrown at him. He will indeed be a tough act to follow. 

Axel, smiling as ever

Our second departure happened just this afternoon. We lost Penny, our Welsummer hen with the spurs, after a long residence here on the Unfarm (for a chicken, at least.) I was unable to find the photos of her batch of chicks, taken when we first brought her here to the Unfarm, but I was able to find evidence of her being here as far back as 2009, placing her at ten years old at least, which is an admirable feat for a chicken, especially one as low down (at the very bottom, to be exact) on the pecking order as she was. I'm not certain what caused her death - whether it was due to natural causes like age or whether the other chickens beat her up - but I found her today out on the pathway in the back, surrounded by a bunch of her feathers and already passed away. 

Why Penny was so far down on the pecking order is also unknown to me. Of course I can speculate all I like: maybe it was because she had spurs, or because she didn't grow up with the other chickens, or because she broke her toe when she was young and always walked with a limp since then. What I do know is that she was a nice chicken and was spoiled as much as a chicken can be - she got her own coop away from all the others, she got uninterrupted meal times and was free range 100% of the time (whereas the others are closed into the run for half of the day before they are let out), she would hang out in the house with me at times and I even made her a harness to take her for walks out in the front yard. 

Penny in her walking harness

So there you have it; a recounting of the recent departures here on the Unfarm. I can only hope that the next post is more lighthearted. Until then, hug your pets, tell them you love them, and appreciate the time you have with them. 

Beware of attack chicken

We have, residing here on the Unfarm, an attack chicken. This attack chicken's name is Gretchen and he (yes, you read that right - he) is our rooster. We named him as a chick when we were told that he was a she and the name just stuck. If you ask either my mom or I our opinion on said rooster you would be told that he is a fearsome defender of (almost) all of his lady hens but otherwise he is relatively harmless and even somewhat comical at times - performing his sidestepping shuffle dance for us in an attempt to either add us to his harem or show who is in charge, depending upon which theory you ascribe to. According to Dad, however, Gretchen is a "mean rooster" who attacks both frequently and without remorse. 

In looking at various threads on the backyardchickens.com website the main consensus seems to be that Gretchen's behavior is dominance based and that he should be culled from the flock. Well, that's just not how we roll around here - Gretchen is family and we just don't go around killing our family members. We just don't. And besides, it's not like Gretchen isn't good for anything. He does protect most of the ladies. Penny is the notable exception - we're not sure if it's because she is older than the rest of the chickens and so didn't grow up with Gretchen and his crew or if it is because she is sporting spurs on her legs - but whatever the reason, Penny is definitely lowest down in the pecking order and frequently gets picked on or chased by Gretchen and several of the other hens. 

Aside from his lack of protective instincts towards Penny, Gretchen is quite protective of all the other hens and no one is too big for Gretchen to go up against when it comes to someone bothering his ladies. Axel, the largest of the three dogs, grew up with chickens and cows on a farm somewhere before we rescued him from the shelter so he generally leaves the chickens alone. Scout and Molly, however, are another story. Scout thinks that the chickens are endlessly fascinating toys of some sort and they only want for the proper persuasion to get them to join in a rousing game of chase. Molly will chase almost anything that a) moves and b) is smaller than her. Being a chihuahua mix not many things fall under category b, although she will join Scout if he decides to chase the chickens. The chickens, for their part, squawk and flap their wings and tear around the yard in a highly disorganized manner that often leads them back into the path of the dogs. Hearing this commotion, Gretchen races to the rescue. He flies into the dog run and heads straight for whatever dog is closest and slams into their side, effectively drawing the attention away from the hens in order to give them time to make their escape from the dog run. The party is generally over at that point. The hens are gone and none of the dogs wants to tangle with Gretchen the attack chicken so for now the good outweighs the bad and Gretchen is staying where he is, "mean" or not.

Gretchen, our attack chicken

Limping back to the vet

As always tends to happen here on the Unfarm, no sooner has one pet gotten back from the vet than another one heads in. This time it is Scout, who is limping. Again. Last time it was his right leg and this time it is his left and in both cases the blood work came back with a high eosinophil level while the x-rays came back clean and the anti-inflammatory medication has no effect which means we need to see a specialist. Which means more money. Our vet's office recently remodeled and added another exam room, a project I am sure was funded mostly by the Unfarm; they really should have just named the new wing after us.

In this case there is no end in sight yet to the vet visits for Scout. First up is an expensive test (surprise, surprise) to rule out Addison's disease. Should that come back negative we have to schedule a visit with an orthopedic specialist who may recommend injections for a month that we would have to learn how to give. So in addition to being able to pill a duck and collar a chicken I would be able to add "inject a dog" to my list of accomplishments. The fun never stops around here. I'll keep you posted.

A healthy respect

It would seem that after Molly's misadventure with the chickens the other day (see previous post: Gretchen - warrior rooster) she has developed a healthy respect for the chickens. Actually it tips the scales closer to fear. Ask her now if she has to go out to go potty and she'll perk up, wagging her tail and heading toward the door to her territory (aka the master bedroom.) But if it is still light out, that's as far as she will go. She has made the connection that daylight means the chickens are out and could ambush her at any moment, and so long as they are out she has determined that she won't be. Put her outside and she cowers on the back deck, tail tucked between her legs. Even if the chickens are not actually visible, she is certain that they lurk somewhere nearby, ready to chase her the minute she starts to pee. As this is a relatively new situation I am not sure what exactly we are going to do to remedy it. In the short term we have been taking her out to the front yard to go to the bathroom but this is far from ideal as she has been known to take off into the neighbor's yard to chase their cat or run after people walking past the house. Maybe some kind of canine-galline desensitization therapy in which we place a chicken in the same room with Molly for longer and longer periods of time. Or is it that you add more and more chickens in the room? Something like that. Or maybe we need to increase her dosage of prozac. Or maybe some kind of dog therapist. To be honest, she probably needs more prozac and a therapist as a matter of course anyway. She is far from well adjusted. Probably the next big project we'll need to tackle here on the Unfarm.

Gretchen - warrior rooster

The routine for letting the dogs - or rather Scout - out in the backyard has become more complicated now that he is full grown and no longer an eight pound puppy who can be bossed around by the chickens. Before we can let Scout out we have to do a head count of the chickens and establish that they are, indeed, all out of the dog run. This is best accomplished by tossing a scoop full of squirrel food off the deck over by the blueberry bushes. The chickens are, by this point, used to the sound of the squirrel food bin opening and know to come running from whatever part of the yard they are in if they want an easy meal. Which they always do. If all five chickens start pecking the ground for bits of sunflower seeds and corn we know that we are in the clear and Scout is free to go out. If one or two chickens have flown into the dog run we have to entice them out with additional scoopfuls of squirrel food before we can let Scout roam freely. 

It happens, though, that on occasion one of us (cough "dad") fails to do a proper head count and just opens the back door and hopes for the best. Sometimes this works out and sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't, Scout's exit is quickly followed by a barrage of squawking and a great deal of flapping about as whichever chicken attempts to flee from a rather exuberant Scout intent on playing with them. We quickly intercede on behalf of our frazzled chicken and wrangle Scout, hopefully before any damage can be done. 

Axel and Molly do not require such maneuverings before being let out because Axel was raised on a farm with chickens and has learned to ignore them and Molly is about the same size as the chickens and is too fearful to try and take on any of them by herself. This does not mean that she will not join in with Scout if he is chasing a chicken: she will. Safety in numbers, I guess.

99% of the time when the dogs are in the dog run, the chickens know enough to stay out of it until the dogs return to the house. But there is that one percent. This happened a few days ago when Lucy decided to fly into the dog run while Scout and Molly were still in it. The chase was on. Molly and Scout started chasing, Lucy started running and squawking and then in came Gretchen. Bravely coming to the aid of his wife, he flew over the dog run fence and began chasing Molly. Molly, for her part, was completely taken aback by this startling turn of events and did what any sensible ten pound dog would do when being chased by a full sized rooster: she ran up onto the deck and hid between Axel's legs. While this was going on, Lucy seized the opportunity to fly back over the dog run fence and into the safety of the rest of the yard. Gretchen celebrated his victory by strutting back and forth a few times, crowing, and then flying back into the yard with Lucy. Who would have guessed that under all those fancy feathers lurked the heart of a warrior, ready to leap into action to defend his hens whenever the need should arise? I must admit that I have rather a little more respect for our little rooster-cum-warrior.

Another one bites the dust

The population of Scout's toy box is steadily declining. Stuffed animals, frisbees, and rope toys have all become endangered species around here. Apparently, the most entertaining part of a toy is not shaking it or chasing after it but actually pulling the stuffing out of it to reach the squeaker inside. Watching the toy box progressively get emptier I grew concerned that our puppy would become bored and move on to the destruction of less appropriate things like, say, the couch. Knowing that if that were to take place Scout himself would become the endangered species I came up with what I thought was a genius solution. I bought a package of tube socks and a bag of stuffing and stuffed each sock with the stuffing and a squeaker and then sewed the top closed. Voila! A bunch of new toys. This should last him a while. Right?

It took Scout all of an hour to figure out that these new toys were perfect for tug of war. As soon as he could convince Axel to play with him the two of them were squared off, each trying to rip the sock away from the other. More than winning the sock, the real appeal of this game appears to be the sound of the sock ripping open and the sight of the stuffing falling all over the living room floor. Now not only is the toy box population still decreasing, but we are cleaning the living room daily of fluff and squeakers and ripped up socks. I think that I am going to have to break down and buy new toys made of tougher stuff or risk finding pieces of the couch strewn about the living room.

Hang ten

Scout is a professional surfer. Counter surfer, that is. At this point he could win pro-surfing competitions with all the practice he's had. And Scout is not shy about his surfing. He will do it right in front of us if he thinks there is something worth going after on the counter. His regular raiding runs have netted him several prizes already including, but not limited to: an entire container of dog treats, a hot dog bun, cookies, bread, a variety of lids to a variety of containers, plastic bags containing or previously containing food, the top to a thermos for Mom's tea, plastic water bottles, dog toys, training treats, half a jar of peanut butter, an entire cube of butter including the wrapping, and his latest prize: a bottle of fish oil for the cat's food. Much to his disappointment I caught him red handed and confiscated the smelly item, but not before he chewed several holes in the bottle and spilled fish oil all over the living room carpet. This was, presumably, a tactic to ensure he would have some for later, like a squirrel storing nuts for the winter. He spent the next hour licking fish oil out of the carpet, even after Mighty Mouth - our industrial carpet cleaner - tackled the mess. What remains from Scout's counter surfing is the unpleasant aroma of fish permeating the house, and several large stains all over the carpet. 

This was obviously not Scout's first misadventure with counter surfing and I'm sure it won't be his last. Case in point: just a few days ago I found a chewed up bottle prescription bottle and several pills scattered on the living room carpet. This pill bottle was previously a resident of the kitchen counter and we have never made a practice of storing our medications scattered across the floor. Clearly Scout had been at work again, and this time it cost us $65 to call the animal poison control emergency line to make sure that Scout had not inadvertently poisoned himself with Molly's Prozac. (He had not, although he was rather more sleepy for the rest of the day than a ten month old puppy should be, which was actually a nice change for us all.) As much as we try to keep items that may be of value to Scout out of his reach, he has a habit of turning lemons into lemonade and finding a purpose for anything he encounters in the kitchen, whether it is edible or not. Non edible items make great chew toys, after all. It would not surprise me if there was a sequel to this story.

Super Dog!

... Or, How I Came to Walk Scout Before I Walk Molly and Axel. But "super dog" has a better ring to it, don't you think? Dog walks. It sounds like a simple enough activity: attach leashes to dogs on one end, your hand on the other, and proceed to put one foot in front of the other. But add in one slightly grumpy 90-pound dog, one extremely exuberant 50-pound puppy, and one overly neurotic ten pound dog all pulling in opposite directions and/or barking like a crazy thing (Molly) and the task becomes decidedly less simple. The solution was obvious: I needed to walk in shifts, taking one or two dogs and then the remaining dog(s). The first day I attempted this was a utter fail. 

I decided that I would talk Molly and Axel together so that I could ensure that Molly's bad habits would not rub off on our impressionable young pup; Axel being rather set in his ways and not so easily influenced. Scout would walk by himself because he tends to be calmer on his own, and he was in obedience class at the time and could benefit from the extra training time. So off I set one summer evening, Axel and Molly in tow. Scout was less than pleased. He was convinced that I was leaving without him and he would not get a walk this day. As I rounded the corner of the house, Scout ran to the master bedroom, jumped up on the bed, and pounded on the window. Which was, unfortunately, open. I stood outside, shouting for Mom and trying to force my frozen muscles to move my body back into the house. While I stood there watching, Scout pushed the screen out of the window and almost fell out. My heart skipped a beat, but he recovered and managed not to fall out. You can imagine my relief. Followed by my utter dismay when Scout took a look out the (second story) window, figured, "I can make that," and proceeded to JUMP OUT THE WINDOW. He went flying, like some sort of super dog, out the window. My heart stopped. I had visions of Buddy jumping off the garden retaining wall and injuring his wrist and how that was the beginning of the end for him. I was sure that jumping out of the window would have some kind of dire consequences for Scout. He landed behind the trailer and I stood without breathing for half a second, waiting for the worst to happen. What actually happened was that Scout ran out in front of the trailer and came bounding up to me, as if to say, "Well? What are we waiting for? Let's go!" My relief was immeasurable.

That he was uninjured was a miracle. That he was unfazed was somewhat disturbing. What, after all, was to stop him from jumping out the window again? This then, is how I came to walk Scout before I walk Molly and Axel, in hopes of draining off some of his energy before he sees me walk off without him. This is also, incidentally, how I came to be even more anxiety ridden than I already was, which is saying a lot. Prior to all walks now we shut every window, every door, lock all doors to the outside, and insist that anyone coming or going does so through the garage, which means there are two doors for the dogs to get through before they can gain any access to the outdoors. These precautions afford me a small measure of comfort but as I am about as neurotic as Molly, it doesn't afford much.

Crazy is as crazy does

Molly is the newest canine addition to our Unfarm family. Our reasoning for getting her was as follows: Scout needed a playmate closer to his own age. Axel likes the companionship of other dogs, but has - we quickly learned - absolutely no interest in playing with an overactive upstart of a puppy. Enter Molly, stage right.  She is a small, ten pound cocker spaniel and chihuahua mix with soft, short, caramel brown fur and brown eyes. She is cute, certainly, and sweet, definitely, but she is also - unfortunately - a tad bit crazy.

The shy, five month old puppy we thought we were adopting turned out to be closer to eighteen months old and "shy" is an understatement. She is scared. Terrified, actually. Petrified, even. At least fifty percent of the time. And what here on the Unfarm could be so scary? Oh, lots of stuff including, but not limited to: bike racks, floor vents, doorways, sewer drain covers, metal plates in the sidewalk, storm drains, changes in the color of the sidewalk, people (outside the family), other dogs, pet stores, slippery floors, dog bowl platforms, and dog bowls themselves (but only certain ones.)

And how did we end up with such a "special" little thing? We adopted her from a local rescue who got her from a shelter in southern California where she was picked up as a stray which means we have no history on her: no clue how her formative months were spent, or how long she was on the streets, or how she ended up there in the first place. We have nothing to go on and are left to try and undo months of deep seated issues.

She is nothing if not neurotic, which is probably why she fits in so well here. Half of us are crazy (Scout is a puppy, and by definition that makes him crazy) or special needs (we've got a duck with a limp and a chicken with a permanent broken toe - rest assured, neither issue causes the birds any pain) so the addition of Molly just adds more character to the Unfarm.

It's not all bad, though. She loves Scout and plays with him daily and worships the ground Axel walks on and will spend half of her walks jumping up to give Axel kisses (which he mostly rejects.) She also loves beds and sleeps all night with Mom and Dad on theirs with them, then spends Dad's working weeks sleeping all day with him. She is, to quote Dad, "a good little sleeper" and has taken over Maia's duties of keeping Dad company while he sleeps. Molly also, inexplicably, loves the beach. I thought for sure she would be terrified of the sand or the water or the noise or the people or everything combined but by some miracle she wasn't. She happily followed Scout, Axel and I into the water and splashed about in the waves, getting soaked in the process.

So how to increase the good times and decrease the stress and anxiety for Molly? We're going to try getting her on the friends and family plan at the local pharmacy. I think that enough of us are on mood stabilizing drugs that we qualify for getting another prescription for free. Whether or not it will help any remains to be seen but I will keep you posted.

Hello my name is Scout

In the several months that we have lived with Scout we have discovered several things:

1. Puppies are absolutely adorable but they don't stay that way for long. Pretty soon the little six pound, eight week old pup that was the picture of cuteness when he gently mouthed your slippers or jumped up to see you when you got home is a forty pound teenager who destroys your shoes in five minutes and pulls you down the street as he gasps and chokes at the end of the leash, making you look anything but in control (and let's face it - you're not.) On the plus side, he pees outside most of the time now so let's celebrate the small victories.

2. The grass is always greener. Scout has come to the decision that any treat any other dog has is better than the one he's got and will complain bitterly about the injustice of life having served him up a treat (bone, rawhide chew, peanut butter filled Kong, etc) that is clearly sub par to the one that Axel and/or Molly have. After about five minutes of his incessant barking in the particular tone that we have come to learn can be translated as, "I want what they have! My treat isn't nearly as good as their treat and if I only had their treat I would be completely satisfied for the rest of my life!!" we will either take all the treats away or we will switch treats with Molly who generally couldn't care less what treat she has, so long as she has one. Scout is perfectly happy for about two minutes until he realizes that Molly now has his former treat and suddenly that treat is the best one and the process starts all over again. For Scout, the grass is always greener on the other side, or the other treat is always better than the one he's got.

Scout has been jealous of the other dogs treats from the beginning

3. Toys are awesome and toys with squeakers are even more so. Scout loves toys, the noisier the better. Apparently, the purpose of toys is to either A) interrupt dinner with the loudest squeaky toy in his arsenal by running in circles around the dining room table merrily squeaking away, or B) cover the living room floor with the stuffing from whatever toy has fallen victim to Scout's ruthlessness, leaving the sad, empty shell of the toy lying forgotten on the floor amid it's own innards.

4. The purpose of life. The purpose of life, according to Scout, is to eat treats. And he's not picky about our treats either - treats can, and do, include traditional dog treats: food, bones, Zuke's treats, cookies, rawhide chews, homemade dog treats, and any assortment of items found in the aisles of both Petsmart and Petco. But let's not overlook the benefit of nontraditional treats - peanut butter straight from the jar on the counter, regular butter from the [now broken] butter dish, cat food, pre-digested cat food (otherwise known as sand cookies around here on the Unfarm), duck food, chicken poo, duck poo, rabbit bunny berries (do you detect a pattern here? if it came out of any animal other than a dog it's fair game), plastic of any kind (water bottles and milk jugs are a particular favorite), and food of variety that gets left out on the counter.

5. Life is full of obstacles - it's how you deal with them that matters. Nontraditional treat inaccessible? Use your surroundings: Scout will crawl, climb, jump, and stand on tiptoes to get to what he wants.

Scout stands on my desk to look for treats

Scout searches for bunny berries in Jojo's hutch

6. Make yourself at home. Scout will turn almost any object into a chance to relax; the world is his pillow. Literally. He will sit on just about anything: beds, couches, rugs, carpets, Molly, Mom, Dad, me (especially when I am trying to get my shoes on for a walk), and - believe it or not - actual pillows. 

The end of an era

I have tried and failed numerous times to start this post. There is no way to make light of the loss of Maia, nor should there be. So instead, here are a few memories of her:

*Fair warning: disjointed memories follow... watch for awkward - or even no - transitions ahead. 

Years ago, we took Kita and Maia up to our family's vacation home on the Puget Sound and one time we decided to row her and Kita out to the floating dock to hang out with us, thinking it might be fun to spend some time with the dogs out there. Maia apparently disagreed. Almost as soon as we got the dogs out to the dock, Maia jumped off and swam to shore. We jumped back in the boat with Kita to go retrieve her but halfway to shore Kita jumped out of the boat and joined Maia on the beach. The beach there is a rocky curve of land below a cliff, upon which the houses stand; to reach the house you have to climb a tall staircase to get to the top of the cliff. When he reached the beach, Kita led Maia up the stairs before we could get to them - unfortunately, he led her up the wrong stairs, sending us on a chase through the neighborhood to track them down again. Maia would - and often did - follow Kita anywhere, when they finally came back Maia had found something in what must have been an advanced state of decomposition to roll in - she stank to high heaven and it took multiple washes to get her smelling anywhere near approachable again. 

We used to camp every summer on the southern Oregon coast, at a small campground with beach access that was generally fairly unpopulated so the dogs could run free to have a little fun and stretch their legs. Since the beach was bordered by a tall cliff on one side and the ocean on the other we considered it a fairly safe area to let the dogs explore off leash. On one occasion, Kita and Maia took off down the beach and disappeared. When next we saw them, they were running along the top edge of the cliff. How they got up there is still a mystery. How they got down was terrifying: Maia tripped and started to fall. I panicked and ran in terror to the cliff edge, ready to try climb up to get her or catch her if she fell all the way to the bottom. When I looked up again, she was happily running back down the cliff to the beach. To this day I could not tell you how she recovered from her fall or how she found her way around on the cliff so quickly. She was, apparently, a lab/beagle/mountain goat mix.

Maia lived to the ripe old age of 19 years - a pretty good feat for a dog of medium (about 45 pounds) size. To the end, she loved going with us on trips and to the beach. Unfortunately, she was less and less able to keep up or walk for very long the last year or two. We were then faced with two options: 1) leave her at the house and take just the younger dogs, or 2) get creative. Clearly option 1 was off the table so we got creative. We bought one of those big-wheeled garden carts from Costco and loaded it, her dog bed, and the dogs into the Suburban and headed to the beach. We put the dog bed in the garden cart and pulled it along the beach behind it us. When Maia got too tired to continue on we would set her in the cart, on her dog bed, and wheel her along with us, her ears flapping in the breeze, her eyes blinking in the sun. She seemed to not mind being treated like a princess and she always got a lot of attention from the other people on the beach. She has always adored being the center of attention and in her opinion the more people, the merrier.

Maia in her princess cart, with a blanket to keep her warm on the windy coast

The name of the game: procrastination

Back in the beginning of January I made the resolution to post on here at least twice a month. As it is now mid March you can see how well that resolution has gone. Much has gone on here on the Unfarm since I last posted in (oh, the procrastination, the embarrassment!) November. Here are some of the updates which I hope to be following up with more in depth posts.

An out of sorts sort of year: The whole of 2014 was unusual in that much of what we traditionally do each and every year did not get done. I had planned on taking Axel and Maia camping but my sister couldn't come out here from Colorado during the summer and I know too well Axel's desire to be near me that I feared if I attempted a solo trip I would come out of the campground showers to find him sitting outside the building waiting for me, having left an Axel-sized whole in my tent. In addition to a lack of camping there was a similar lack of berry picking. I don't think we went out once that summer. Usually we visit local farms to pick most of our strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and peaches. In addition, we had a bunch of home improvement projects planned that never got done. Let's hope we can get at least a few of them done this year - if not I think the chances are pretty good that someone is going to fall through the rotting pile of wood that we call a deck (the result of building a deck out of wood in a climate that is nearly perpetually wet.) As it is we have roofing tiles nailed to the deck to keep us from looking like a cartoon character who has stepped on a banana peel, windmilling our arms as our legs slide out from under us on the algae/slime that no amount of scrubbing and washing seems capable of reducing. The year went out with a fizzle as well when we failed to decorate gingerbread houses and bake our usual assortment of cookies and candies to give out to friends and relatives. We did manage to make a batch of fudge, some butter toffee, and rocky road but that's about it. No sugar cookie decorating, no cranberry coconut cookies (they are actually much tastier than they sound), and no chocolate covered cherries. We barely even decorated the tree for Christmas. Let's hope that this year is better than the last one.

Addition, then subtraction, then addition again: No, I didn't take a math course at the local college (child, please!) I bought a pet mouse back in August and named her Bernadette. She was a secret mouse in that Dad knew nothing about her (I figured ignorance was bliss.) Unfortunately she died after about a month (here is where that subtraction comes in) and I decided to get a new mouse (addition) and name her Caroline. In November we finally told Dad about our secret mice. He took it surprisingly well.

Another addition: The Saturday before Christmas we decided that we needed to add another dog as Axel seemed somewhat down since his friend Stella died of cancer recently and we know that Maia probably wouldn't be around much longer having just turned 19 years old and the thought of having only one dog seemed too lonely to bear so we added Scout, an 8 week old pointer mix from the Maui Humane Society. He was adorable which was good for him since puppies are, as everyone knows, rather obnoxious.

A loss: On January 3, 2015 we made the tough decision to put Maia to sleep as she had started whining, unable to get comfortable and her quality of life was diminished. It is never easy to make that decision but we try to do what is best for our little ones and I want to make sure that it is understood that it was not motivated out of a desire to reduce any "hassle" on our part. She got to leave with all of us (except Liz, who had gone back to Colorado already) around her.

A gain: We discovered that Axel likes having a dog to walk with but doesn't really care to actually play with anyone so we decided to add another dog for Scout to play with - enter Molly, an unknown small dog mix who is supposed to be about the same age as Scout (about 4 or 5 months old.) Two puppies at once. Clearly we would be good candidates to enter some sort of in-patient psychiatric facility.

Another loss: In February we lost Sakari, the last of our original three chickens. She was my personal chicken and would have been 11 years old this spring. She got a sort of throat infection and despite treatment she was unable to beat it. We had been hoping she would make it to old age - 11 is actually only middle aged for a chicken. Poor Penny is on her own for now.

And yet another loss: Just a few days ago we lost Basil to a gut upset. I have come to hate gut upsets in rabbits as they have taken several of my little ones now. Basil was an especially sweet little bunny who was the best cuddler of the group and preferred to spend his time out of his cage next to me so that I could pet him the whole time - he would actually demand it if I stopped for more than a minute.

Life on the Unfarm: an illustrated account

Not all of our living happens on the Unfarm. We leave comfort of the Unfarm for visits to the vet (more often than we would like); fun outings like hikes, camping or trips to the beach; and the not-so-daily dog walks. Yes, it is true, I am at times a terrible procrastinator and don't always get around to walking the dogs every single day, although I am trying to do better. (Says every procrastinator that ever has or ever will live, probably, but I really mean it.) At any rate, when I do get around to walking I face a dilemma: do I bring Maia along and move at a pace that would have snails passing us by, or do I leave her behind with her sad little eyes watching Axel get leashed up while she stays home? Clearly neither option will do. Maia deserves to go with us, but at 18 years old it is unfair of me to expect her to keep pace with Axel who is half her age. The solution was clear: buy a stroller/trailer (it has handlebars but can also covert into a bike trailer) made for dogs that Maia can ride in. This photo is taken from the back of the trailer (she calls it her dog sled), with her sitting inside while we go for a walk. That way we can go at Axel's pace without straining Maia or leaving her out of the fun. At the end of the walk she gets to hop out and finish it alongside Axel but the rest of the time she is content to sit inside on her dog bed and enjoy the view. She seems to like it, and certainly prefers it to being left at home. I prefer it because then I don't have to suffer the horrible guilt of leaving behind such a loyal companion of so many years, and Axel still gets his exercise.

Life on the Unfarm: an illustrated account

In all fairness, when I started writing this post, it was still Monday. And it would have been posted by Monday if the internet hadn't crashed, sending my post into the black hole where all things lost on the internet end up. So here we go again.

Last week I the blog took a hiatus while I worked on a pincushion for a Mother's day gift, with bee pins that turned out pretty cute (although mine is probably not an unbiased opinion); biked around the town and to work on account of the fact that my car was out of gas; worked on some art; and impaled my leg on a metal garden fence. Not to worry though, the prongs between the gate were large enough to get my calf wedged through, but not small enough to break the skin on both sides. As it was I escaped with a cut on only one side of my leg and L-shaped bruises on both sides, where the fence went on, and where I had to rip it back off again.

At any rate, it is Monday (sort of) and time for another photo from the Unfarm.

Today I managed to catch the ducks sleeping under the lilac tree, in a patch of lily of the valley. Unfortunately, Axel walked past and set off Maggie's protective instincts, causing him to tear out of the flowers and chase Axel off until Maggie determined that Axel was now at a safe enough distance from Minna. Maggie takes his job as Minna's bodyguard very seriously. So the picture I had intended to get - of both ducks sleeping with their beaks tucked under their wings - ended up becoming a photo of Maggie returning to Minna, quacking his "qua-qua-qua-qua-qua-qua-qua" chatter that he uses to reassure Minna and calm her down. 

Life on the Unfarm: an illustrated account

It's Monday, folks, which means that it's time for... pictures from the Unfarm of course! I call this one "You snooze, you lose." This is another common sight on the Unfarm - Maximus knows that the dogs get some canned food mixed in with their dry food during dinner time and he wants in on the action. The canned food is actually an incentive to get Maia to eat as her appetite has shrunk over the years - she is 18 now and entitled to a little special treatment. For her part, Maia is convinced that if she holds out long enough something even better will magically appear in her bowl. These items might include ham, chicken, eggs, cheese... you get the idea. So while Maia procrastinates Maximus takes advantage of her lapse of attention and scarfs down bits of meat and gravy until he is caught and sent out to the living room with his consolation prize of canned kitten food.

Maia's Meatballs

Maia has become increasingly uninterested in eating her food, causing her to lose more weight than I would like. To try and reverse this weight loss, we have taken to supplementing her dry food diet with extra calories in the form of a variety of treats, cheeses, meats, eggs and beef jerky. It is quite possible Maia is milking this weight loss for all she can and is fully enjoying this recent change in her diet. But as we estimate that she is approximately seventeen years old, we are willing to give her almost anything she will eat. Chocolate, however, is still not on the menu and it will remain that way; sorry, Maia.

For a while, Maia was willing to eat her dry food as long as we mixed it with some warm ground turkey, but in typical Maia fashion she has recently come to the conclusion that the formerly acceptable meal is now subpar and no amount of cajoling on our part will change her mind. Her behavior has meant that I have had to get creative in trying to get any amount of nutrition into her, hence the following recipe that I developed a few days ago. So far, it seems to have earned the Maia seal of approval, and hopefully it will remain that way. For at least another week, the standard time frame it takes for Maia to decide that she should abandon yet another formerly acceptable food source.

Maia's Meatballs

approximately 3 pounds ground turkey

2 cups rolled oats

¼ cup better in the raw powder*

¼ cup ground flax seed

½ cup finely chopped broccoli

¼ teaspoon garlic powder

1 egg

*Better in the Raw powder is a nutritional supplemental powder designed for a raw food diet that we had left over from the raw food diet Buddy was on in an attempt to improve his health. You could leave it out if you want, or perhaps use this recipe in a raw diet, omitting the baking step. I'll leave it up to you.

Mix all of the ingredients together and form the mixture into balls about 1 -2 tablespoons in size. Place onto greased baking sheets and bake for 30-40 minutes at 350 degrees F, depending on how brown you want them. Store in an airtight container in the fridge or freeze the excess. They can easily be rewarmed in the microwave before serving, or cut into smaller pieces for little dogs or dogs that prefer smaller bites. Or those that think they should be fed pieces of food the size of grapes, while reclining on a chaise lounge, being fanned with palm fronds, a la Maia.

A scare on the Unfarm

Last Friday morning I noticed Maia was a little wobbly. Because she had suffered a bout of Old Dog Vestibular Syndrome six months or so ago, I was worried this was a recurrence. I called our vet (who is, of course, on a first name basis with us as we have spent enough money there to put EVERYONE'S kids through college - vets, techs, receptionists, the whole shebang) and got an appointment for that afternoon. 

When I took her in I wasn't overly concerned, as she had come through the previous bout quite well and this one didn't seem nearly as bad. The vet found that she had slow reactions on her left legs and in her right eye, leading them to suggest that it might be a neurological problem. Concern started to wiggle in the back of my mind. The vet ordered blood tests, thyroid tests, a urinalysis, and suggested we take x-rays. Hmm, someone else must be approaching college age. I was able to authorize the blood work but the powers that be (my parents) decided to wait on the x-rays. 

By the time my mom arrived home from work the blood test results were back and the vet managed to convince my mom to approve the x-rays for the next day on the basis of the neurological symptoms and the fact that she was anemic, which might be caused by internal bleeding.

Saturday morning I managed to get Maia to the vet by 9 am so they could work her in during the day. She seemed much better so I was optimistic. The concern had made a quiet exit. By the early afternoon I got a call informing me that the x-rays had shown a mass in Maia's spleen and the vet recommended an ultrasound to get a better picture. The door slammed open and worry barged in. While on the phone, the vet told me that the ultrasound techs were at the local ER vet and they were holding the last available appointment for me at 4pm if I wanted to take it. Schedule it. I'll pick her up in 20 minutes.

Down to the ER vet. Yet another place I am all too familiar with, having visited it before with at least one cat, one duck and two rabbits. The ultrasound showed that there was indeed a mass in her spleen, which may have been causing the neurological symptoms, along with fluid in her belly that had leaked out of the mass yesterday. I think they used the term "ticking time bomb" when they told me that the mass could burst at any time; they recommended surgery. Then. Saturday night, not even 48 hours from the first sign of any trouble. I could not bear the thought that the mass might burst, causing Maia pain and forcing her to go into surgery in a state of shock. 

There was good news and bad to consider. On the positive side, we had caught this problem early, before it burst. Many of the patients the ER vets see come in after the mass bursts, and Maia was in the condition that the vets want to see a patient go into surgery in: stable and relatively healthy - she is in remarkable shape and most people do a double take when we tell them she is, in fact, 16 years old. The bad news was that the vet was less than optimistic about the outcome. He informed me that the ultrasound can't see everything and that many times, when they open the abdomen they find that the tumor has spread. To the liver, the kidneys, the abdominal wall. Needless to say, this was NOT what I wanted to hear. 

I authorized the surgery. I did not check with my parents, on the grounds that I was afraid they would say no and I was not at all ready to lose Maia, or risk a possibly painful death at some point in the future. I left her there, and drove home, still in something of a tailspin. To their great credit, my parents were not mad but were, in fact, supportive of the decision to go ahead with the surgery. Maia has always been a good little girl, and is very fond of sleeping all night in my room, and then all day with Dad when he is on his week to work nights. She is, as he often reminds us, "a good little sleeper."

The vet had informed me that they would call when they started the surgery. I checked my phone to ensure it was on the loudest possible setting. I then checked my phone at 9:30 to be sure I hadn't missed the call somehow. 9:37. 9:46. 9:50. 10:13. 10:25. 10:39. 11:01. 11:16. Sometime between then and midnight they called to say they were beginning the surgery. If they encountered anything unexpected (read: bad) when they opened her up they would call. I spent the next half hour laying on the couch in the dark, visualizing with everything I had that the vet opens her up, inspects her abdomen and says, with amazement, "it's clean - no signs of spreading! Wow!" I also pictured the happy dance I would do when I got the good news. (The visualization has more power when you imagine how you will feel when whatever you hope for happens.)

A little before 1:30 in the morning, my phone rang again. 
"Hello?" 
"We're all finished with the surgery. The spleen came out in one piece without any trouble." 
"And the spreading? How did it look?"
"Oh yes, we checked the liver, kidneys and abdomen and everything was clean. No signs of spreading."

I thanked the vet and hung up, then bounced down the hallway, burst into the master bedroom and told a somewhat confused, bleary eyed Mom the news while doing my happy dance. (And yes, it did look ridiculous.) I then called my brother, my dad at work, and my sister - even though it was 3am in Minnesota.

Maia got the OK to come home Sunday night. Before picking her up I stopped by the store, got three different kinds of treats and a very fancy $70 metal frame "princess bed." Now, a week out from the surgery, Maia is doing very well. She has a cute red hoodie vest on to keep her from licking at her staples and she is back to her old self, with some improvements: her appetite has greatly improved and she is much perkier than she's been in a while, which has me wondering if this mass had her slightly under the weather for longer than we realized. 

All in all, I am quite pleased with the condition of all the Unfarmians. Kita continues to trek along, Ginger continues to insist that her litter box will work better if she dumps all the hay out onto the floor and then turns the box upside down like some post-modern sculpture in the middle of her cage, and the ducks are both molting, blanketing everything in a layer of down and feathers.

The best laid plans...

I had big plans for this summer. Go camping.  Train up Buddy for longer hikes.  Wander through the woods with the dogs.  Hike around the Columbia Gorge.  Go camping again.  Explore the Puget Sound.  Stay at our family vacation home up on the Washington coast, the dogs and ducks in tow.  And what did I actually accomplish?  Sadly, none of it. 

At first, the slow start to summer waylaid my plans - it is quite difficult, I have found, to get excited about camping if it means hunkering down with three wet, muddy dogs as we listen to rain dripping onto the tent for hours on end.  There goes May and half of June.  By mid June it was finally clearing up and I was attempting to set up a camping expedition or two with my sister, a person I had always loved spending time with, but - long story short - she was being rude, condescending, and self-absorbed and I was tired of putting up with it.  We have not spoken since the end of June.

July was taken up with keeping the Unfarm running while my parents went on various trips, and designing and building a new chicken coop to house the Littles, who were out growing their temporary housing in the living room.  We have a coop for the Ladies, but the size difference is too big and the Ladies tend to pick on the Littles, so shutting them all up in one coop overnight seemed too dangerous a prospect, especially with Penny the Attack Chicken on guard for the Ladies.

August - surely now I can find some time to go camping with my pups.  Apparently not.  August got taken up with time spent manning the Unfarm while my parents went camping (lucky them) and then one of my cousins came down from Washington to stay with us for a week. We spent most of the time hanging out with the animals, doing some arts and crafts, and going on a couple tax free shopping sprees.  By the end of August there was light at the end of the tunnel - I might finally get to go camping. Or not. Buddy the wonder dog got out into the front yard and, somehow, he managed to injure his leg. 

This happened, as these things always seem to, just minutes after our vet had closed for the day.  He spent the rest of the evening favoring that leg and by the next morning it had swollen up to a huge lump around his wrist joint and he wouldn't stand at all.  We carried him into the vet and several x-rays later we got the verdict: he had dislocated a bone in his wrist and torn the ligament.  We still don't know how he managed to do that - he had only been outside for 2 or 3 minutes.  Apparently, he does everything fast: run, eat, play, and dislocate his wrist.

The vet wrapped his leg in a huge green-striped cast - which gave him the appearance (and feel, no doubt) of having replaced one leg with a large watermelon - and sent us to the orthopedic vet.  A few days later (they wanted to wait for the swelling to go down a bit) he went to the vet's office for surgery and an overnight observation.  It was the first time he has ever been away from all of us overnight and I don't know who was more distressed - him or myself.  We both survived it and news from the surgery was good: he had dislocated his wrist but had not torn any ligaments, which the vet was rather surprised at and said that was hard to do.  Finally - something goes our way at the vet's office.  And here we were convinced that we were single handedly responsible for supporting the entire veterinary profession in our state.

However, even with the good news from the vet Buddy was still put into a cast that he will have to wear for at least 6 weeks.  In addition, he has to be kept quiet and prevented from running, playing, jumping on or off of furniture, and going up or down stairs.  All of which he does on a regular basis, and continued to do as if nothing had changed.  The sedatives they gave us might as well have been placebos for all the good they did.  In addition to the sedatives, he is also on thyroid medication, pain medicines, and antibiotics which he must take two to three times a day.  But that is another story.

We are about two weeks in now and by the time he is back to his regular routine it will be cold, and wet, and dark and much too late to consider camping.  

Normally I could handle this disappointment but this year is particularly hard because Kita has always loved camping and I don't know how many summers he has left.  At 15 he is already elderly and his arthritis gets worse every year. A depressing thought, I know, and I usually try to keep this blog lighthearted but death is an unfortunate part of life on the Unfarm at times.  I suppose I could spare myself the pain of losing my little ones by not having pets, but then life would not be nearly so worthwhile.  And besides, it would be incredibly selfish of me to not provide a safe and loving home for an animal simply because it causes me pain when they go.

Signing off for now - time to give Aspen, Buddy, Kita and Maia their medicines.  Between all of them I fear we may be in danger of wiping out entire pharmacies. 

Recipe for disaster

This post is long overdue. I really should have written it a few weeks ago but school has kept me too busy to write anything until now. Okay, okay - it wasn't really school, it was a combination of procrastination, napping, and writer's block - but saying it was school sounds so much better than admitting the truth. At any rate, back on New Years I promised a post about yet another mishap involving Buddy, and it is time to deliver. Here goes.

For Christmas, I decided that instead of buying yet another treat dispensing ball for the dogs, I would simply skip the middle man and give them treats as their gift. But this was Christmas - I couldn't just give them the same treats I make all year, it had to be special. The solution I came up with was to make them little peanut butter, dog-bone-shaped cookies and drizzle them with carob. (This, by the way, did not turn out so great - the drizzle didn't hold to the cookies strongly enough and it tended to chip off when the treats rubbed against other treats and/or the bag I had them in.) After making several bags of treats, I still had a considerable amount of carob chips left over and had decided to use the rest of them (as they were human-grade) in chocolate chip cookies. At the time, however, the pantry was already full with all the other ingredients for the Christmas baking season so I left them on the kitchen table, along with whatever else couldn't be crammed into the cupboards. I did, however, take care to keep all edibles (as we always do) in the center of the table and thus out of reach of any dogs (read: Buddy).

Alas, it was a recipe for disaster. Buddy, having sniffed the carob out, I'm sure, managed to somehow get to the chips in the center of the table (I'm still not entirely sure how he reached them... we really should put cameras in the kitchen to monitor this kind of thing) and take his prize into the living room to enjoy it at his leisure. And enjoy it he did, eating almost all of it. Unfortunately for him, his enjoyment would turn out to be short lived as it seems that eating approximately three cups of carob chips is a bit much, even for Buddy. I came home later and noticed Kita licking something off the living room carpet. Upon closer inspection it turned out that it was the remains a pile of carob and dog food pieces that Buddy had vomited all over the floor (there is, apparently, no accounting for taste in dogs - they eat the grossest things sometimes.) Further investigation revealed that Buddy had also vomited another huge pile of the disgusting concoction all over my bed. Needless to say, Buddy went to bed without dinner that night. (Honestly, the last thing I wanted to do was add fuel to the fire - giving his stomach a break from food seemed the wisest course of action at that point.)

(As for the carob chips: I have yet to make any more attempts to experiment with carob, and don't foresee any in the near future.)

Cross that off the list

It's done! Finally! A picture of every single animal that lives with me here on the Unfarm. Getting the pictures added to this site has been on my to do list for a few months now - I needed to add pictures of Minna and Maggie (now that they are full grown and sporting their adult plumage), as well as Maia, Jojo, Clover, and Mynxy cat. But getting the pictures was - as is customary on the Unfarm - easier said than done.

Minna and Maggie were relatively simple as they tend not to run around as much as the other animals. Not that they can't run - don't ever think that just because they have large feet designed more for swimming than mobility on land that they aren't fast - it is at times hard to outrun Maggie when she (I mean he, but it has become habit to refer to Maggie as a "she") is determined to catch up to me.

As for Mynx, I happened to catch her during a rare moment when she was not sleeping. She did, however, decide to investigate the camera and I was eventually able to get a shot of her whole face, rather than just her nose.

When it came time to get a picture of Miss Maia it took considerably longer than I had originally thought that it would as Maia was convinced I was about to deliver some cruel treatment of some kind. As a result, although she did as I asked and sat on the couch, she spent the entire time trying to avoid looking at me while trembling throughout her entire body. It may have had something to do with the fact that I often corner her on the couch or chair when it is time to clip her nails - something she (well, all the dogs actually) abhor. To be fair, I try to be as careful as possible when clipping their nails, but both Kita and Maia have black nails and sometimes accidents happen and I nick the quick.

The most difficult photos to get were the pictures of Clover and Jojo. The rabbits, while they do many, many cute things and strike numerous adorable poses, only hold those poses for approximately 2.3 seconds - not quite enough time to get the camera in position and focused. After about 10 minutes or so of taking pictures of Jojo and Clover, I had 5 decent photos to choose from, and 63 photos depicting only a blur of bunny moving across the screen.

But they're here, they're done - uploaded and titled and off of my to-do list - now all I have to do is tackle the other 374 things on my list.