Friday, November 11, 2011

Raining hard here today

Winter has arrived at Stargazer. I am reminded of the adage about the creek rising...my thoughts are more targeted towards the sump pumps operating after several months down time. The heavy rains begin in November and run through February although I have had the basement flooded as late as April. Living in a bowl alongside a river requires working with the flow. Today, I am waiting for my crumb topped cherry pie to come out of the oven, which I will be taking to book group. Tonight's read, "Having Our Say", by the Delaney sisters, who are both approaching 100 years old. They tell their story of growing up in North Carolina, moving to Harlem, becoming a teacher and a dentist and living their lives within a black culture, totally insular, and quite at variance with the surrounding white world. So a cherry pie is a bit like Southern food, although pecan would be better. The kennel dogs are all tucked in the barns, warm and dry. The house dogs are all crated up except for Gar, the American Pit Bull Terrier, who prefers his alone time. His story will come later. Of the 28 dogs here at Stargazer, 13 live in the house, with often a kennel dog and a foster dog visiting. That is a lot of crates...and mud...which requires me to be constantly changing out towels and every so often using the old fashioned rag and hot water to wash the tile. I find this works better than the mop, as the mop strings are always getting caught up in the crate wires. I realized today that half this crew would not pass house training. I just don't get it. If that dog door is shut for five minutes, suddenly everyone has to pee. Now if there was not a dog door, the dogs would go to the door, and woof or scratch or ring the bell ( not mine, but friend's do this), but here they just seem to forget that little step and just let loose. I love tile and laminate. Not all of them do this, but some do, and I must say, the some are all male.

Having lost Flare, Willy, Tink, and Devil in the past 7 months, I am now looking at losing another dog, Ibis. She arrived here as a foster for Seattle Purebred Dog Rescue in July from Thurston County Animal Services. She is a lovely grey, stunning blue eyes, around 10 years old with severe dysplasia, spondylosis, and cancer. Last summer, a 5 pound tumor was dangling off of her abdomen, swinging like a cumbersome grapefruit when she walked or ran. Removal of this mass by my favorite vets at Mt. View, along with another tumor that was an aggressive form of mammary cancer, gave her a new outlook on life. She leaps, and runs and digs like a 2 year old. She is a song mistress, wooing and cooing and talking to me. She is happy to have me, a home, a crate of her own. No longer a foster, she became a Stargazer when it was found that the cancer had metastasized into the lymph nodes. Not too much time left for this old girl, and I do not have the time table, but I do have the time and the desire to give her some good ol' loving, and maybe even a taste of my cherry pie.