• Tag Archives Vega
  • Mighty Possum Warriors

    Summer                                         New Moon  (Grandchild’s Moon)

    From this point forward (if I remember) I’m going to start naming the moons in ways that make sense to our life here at Artemis Hives and the Seven Oaks.  The Grandchild’s Moon is in honor of a yearly visit that takes place most often in this moon’s ambit since Jon and Jen return to work as teachers in early August.

    The mighty possum warriors finally gave up and came inside to the cool, flopped down on the couch and promptly went to sleep.  A hard day hunting the wily critter had done them in.  I’m 99% sure that the possum only has shattered nerves.  All that barking.  Right out on the patio.

    Jen called today and they leave Chicago tomorrow and plan to be here Sunday night.  They are going to come up on the Minnesota side of the Mississippi, stopping in Winona at the National Eagle Center.


  • Interesting Stuff

    Summer                                            Waning Strawberry Moon

    The intrepid opossum hunters have not touched their morning meal, nor have they come back to the house.  This work commands their full and undivided barking, yipping, tail wagging and sniffing.  You gotta admire persistence.  Or, maybe not.  It’s pretty damned hot right now.

    Fleet Farm has aisles full of interesting stuff.  One aisle for example had, according to the sign, earth augurs and come-alongs.  Who could resist?  I did buy a come-along.  I mean, who wouldn’t?

    You could also buy horse treats, horse bedding, a $1,300 leather saddle (it was nice, with great tooling), feeding bowls to hang on the fence, blenders, shotguns and handguns, red licorice, a cultivator and several styles of wagons.  I got outta there with the following:  an umbrella for the patio, a green outdoor carpet, an outdoor fireplace, two heavy rubber buckets, black, and a small one, pink (for Ruth) and the come-along.

    Not bad considering everything else they have.  In fact, only the come-along was not on my list.


  • Vega and Rigel At Work. Again.

    Summer                                  Waning Strawberry Moon

    Off to Fleet Farm this morning.  But not before I pass on another Vega and Rigel adventure.

    Nope, neither of them escaped.  They were out much of the night, Kate letting them in and out.  When I got up at 7:15 or so to feed the dogs, I let them out as usual, then went downstairs for the whippets.  The whippets ran flat out upstairs, barking, as they always do.  However, when they went outside the big dogs were no where to be seen.

    They normally hang around a little bit.

    After feeding the whippets and putting out the food for the big dogs, they still weren’t back from what ever had captured their attention, but they were barking.  A lot.07-10-10_hole-under-dead-tree

    After I finished my ramen, I set out to discover what was up.  I worried that they were barking at the labs of the surgeon who lives diagonally across the street from us.  His dogs come up to his property line and stop at the invisible fence.  These kind of events incite Rigel to burrow under the fence and go investigate.

    Nope, not on the north facing fence.  I still heard them, so I walked the eastern fence line.  Still no dogs.  I turned right at the southern edge of our fencing and headed west.  Oh, I thought.  They’re barking at some dog that’s loose back here.  Nope.  When I got to where I had heard them, they were not at the fence at all, but back a ways in the woods.

    Vega has a tendency to lie down and bark, so I thought she may have taken advantage of the cover, laid down and decided to enjoy herself in secrecy.  Nope, not that either.

    When I pushed aside the undergrowth and got to the place where it was all happening, I saw a hole in the ground that looked like a fox hole–no, not that kind, the military kind–earth mounded up around a hole.  Vega and Rigel had dug a very large hole under a hollowed out fallen tree.  Rigel was in the hole, her butt up in the air, her nose up in the inside the hollowed tree and barking.  They have something up there.07-10-10_vega-in-the-hole

    I was still in my pajamas so I didn’t investigate.  It could be a skunk, a raccoon, a cat, maybe even a groundhog.  Don’t know.  But the coon-hound in these dogs surfaced this morning.

    OK.  So I went out with shoes and pants on, camera in hand to record this historic doggy moment.  The first photograph shows the hole with the dogs circling, waiting to see what I would do.  “Maybe he can get it.”  Pant, pant. “Maybe he can get it.  Come on, Dad!”

    Shortly after Vega realized I was going to be of no help, she slid back down in the hole, seeing if more loud barking would coax whatever it was outside where she could eat it.  Surprisingly, nothing happened.

    Well, Dad couldn’t bend over enough to check inside the tree, but he did have a camera that could.  So, I took this picture, which if I see it right is a shot of a baby opossum.  I know we have opossums because I posted pictures of one that came around the Winter Solstice two years ago.  07-10-10_yum

    This shot is with the camera stuck up inside the tree from below.  Well, I just looked at pictures of several babies:  opossums, raccoons, woodchucks and gophers (all critters I know sharing this land with us.).  None of them look like this.  Maybe that’s the snout of a mother opossum?  Or the snout of a maturing young opossum?

    I just massaged the photo a bit more.  This is a young opossum staring out from the hollow tree.  The two black spots on either side of the face are eyes, the pink is nose and, oh well, I just enhanced it and here is what I saw.

    07-10-10_aha


  • Holes in the Fabric

    Summer                              Waxing Strawberry Moon

    It seems the gods of fate have not left our pack just yet.  Today was the annual physical for all of our dogs, a process that begins with luring Vega and Rigel into the back of the truck.  Hilo and Kona just jump up into the front seat.  That all went fine.  Kona and Rigel were a bit nervous, panting and walking around in the exam room at Foley Blvd. Animal Clinic.  Hilo sat on my lap and Vega, still a bit dopey from the stings, I think, laid on the floor as if she lived there.  Or, as if, as Kate suggested, she hoped she was invisible.

    The exam went well enough.  Vega came in at 115 lbs and Rigel at an even 100.  Kona had gained half a pound and Hilo had lost a pound and a half.  During the results, Dr. Roger Barr, a friend now after 16 years of Irish Wolfhounds and Whippets, said he would, “save Hilo for the last.”

    Our littlest girl and the dog most devoted to me has some form of kidney disease.  Roger says within two months or so she should start to show symptoms as her kidney functions slowly shut down.  There’s not much to be done about it.  A round of antibiotics could, but probably won’t, knock out a pyelonephritis, if it’s there.  If it is an infection, then her kidney function tests will return to normal.  It’s possible, but not likely.

    Hilo is 9, so she’s not a young dog, but Emma was 14 when she died a couple of weeks ago.  Hilo’s not gone yet, we have some time with her, in some senses as we always have, but now with a knowledge that those times are nearing an end.

    Each dog is different and special.hilo600 When they die, a unique aspect of our life here comes to a finish.  It is the unique and the special traits or memories we recall when we speak of them in later years.   Celt’s stepping on my snow shoes, barking at the flapping black plastic bag, receiving attention at the St. Kate’s Art Fair as if it were his due.  Buck’s careful positioning of the pillows and blankets so he could lie down on the perfect spot.  Iris retrieving and shredding tissues.  Emma standing on the tree.

    But in the immediate aftermath of a death it is the hole in the fabric of our life that tears the heart.  We were seven and now we are six.  Soon, if Roger Barr is right, we will be five.


  • Bee Diary: Supplemental

    Summer                            Waxing Strawberry Moon

    Vega took a nap on the couch this afternoon.  Not unusual.  She likes that spot. When I came upstairs after my workout, she was still on the couch and I went over to pet her, as I sometimes do.  In looking at her I noticed that her eye looked strange, swollen.  Oh, boy, was it swollen.  Her muzzle, too.  Vega had become curious about the bee colonies.

    Bees know how to deal with curiosity, nip it in the muzzle and the eyes and the mouth.

    When I took the bee course, more than one person asked about dogs, concerned that the dogs would attack or knock over the hives.  Each time the question was raised, I could see a slight sense of amusement on the bee folks.

    “You don’t have to worry about the bees,” they said.  But, they might have usefully added, you might need to worry about the dog.

    In other bee news I forgot to mention that during hive inspections last week, I saw a new bee work its way out of the hexagonal cell in which it had grown from egg to larvae to pupae to adult bee.  She gnawed away the cap, wriggling to get out, but needing to remove almost all of the cell’s beeswax cap before she could get free.

    When she emerged, she looked like a puppy, all shiny and eager, untrammeled by the world.  Then, she flew off and got to work.  That’s the way bees are.


  • Reaching Back in Time

    Beltane                      Waxing Hungry Ghost Moon

    We’re only a week away from the summer solstice, but you could not tell it from our current weather.  We’ve had a cool, rainy streak that has made work outside appealing.  It’s also given the weeds considerable encouragement.

    The internet allows a look-up phenom that you’ve no doubt experienced at least once.  An e-mail shows up from someone in the way back long ago.  A posting of Facebook.  A comment on  your blog.  I’ve had a few.  Got one Friday from a high school girlfriend, a relationship that meant something to me.  It was nice to hear from her since we stopped seeing each other my senior year and went our separate ways.  E-mail is a great medium for this kind of oh my it’s been so long reacquaintance.  Neutral. Not time sensitive.

    Vega has a new gorilla that she carries with her in the house where ever she goes.  It makes a noise and whenever she triggers it, she scoots off for a safe area, not quite sure.  Rigel has no interest in toys, she enjoys the thrill of the hunt, the joy of escape.  Which she did yesterday.  Again.  She got out through a hole under the fence I wouldn’t have thought big enough for her.  I’ve hardened the lower edge of the fence line over the years, but this spot had rotted out.  I found her collar hooked on a log where she’d crawled under the chain-link.  She does not go over the fence anymore.  Electricity.

    Kate’s on a countdown for a new hip.  June 30th.  She commented on a discogram yesterday (this involves a probing needle that injects dye between the discs to get a contrast image), “I’m a Norwegian, a stoic and a woman and still I had copious tears.”  She can bear it, but she pays a price.  She also observed, by the way, that I will never, ever have a discogram.  She’s right on that one.

    Not a bee day today.  Wednesday looks like the day for the hive inspection.


  • Friday, Friday

    Beltane                                         New Moon (Hungry Ghost)

    Errands this morning to the pharmacy, Office Max and Pet Smart.  Our Vega loves her toys and is a strong vegaoutsidefencechewer.  Even buying the ones rated For Power Chewers she eventually gnaws the damned things apart.  But she has such joy with them.  Throwing them in the air, carrying them from place to place, sleeping with them.

    (Vega east of eden)

    Back home for a Sierra Club call about some structural changes in the Chapter’s legislative process, then a nap.  If I were more energetic today, I’d put in some time weeding, but I’m not feelin’ it.

    The nurse’s strike did not impact Urgent Care last night, but even if it had, this house supports the nurses.


  • Falling Behind

    Beltane                                    Waning Planting Moon

    Life seems lighter now with Kate at home.  Shared life is so much easier than solo, at least I find it so.

    Kate made oatmeal this morning and I went out to the garden and picked fresh strawberries.  A delight to have with our cereal.  Also a delight to have a partner at the table, a fellow reader of the paper.  Good.

    Spent some time weeding this morning.  The whole package of the vegetable garden, the bees and our large perennial beds has gotten ahead of me, especially the perennial beds.  I had to repair all the damage Rigel and Vega did to the vegetable garden last fall, then plant the garden, then plant much of it again after the frost.  There was also some residual damage to the netaphim in the orchard and the vegetable garden that had to get fixed.

    (on the other hand, it could be worse. we could have kudzu.)

    The warm spring has put the bees and many of the plants 2 to 3 weeks ahead of time which has meant extra work with the bees (with potentially productive long term results) and good weed growing weather for the perennial beds.

    In many ways it’s all good news except the aesthetic side of our property has definitely suffered.  Still, I’ll get ahead of it sometime in the next couple of weeks.  Then, I have to prune those shrubs that have reduced our front sidewalk to half its normal size.


  • Sheepshead

    Beltane                                      Full Planting Moon

    Sheepshead tonight.  We get in lots of jokes and laughing during the game.  The best story came from Dick Rice, who says he got it from a relative of Flannery O’Connor.  He told it in response to Bill mentioning Vega and the rabbit.

    This guy’s dog brought home the neighbors pet rabbit, a pet she prized.  The rabbit was dead and the guy felt embarrassed, wasn’t sure quite what to do, so he wiped off the rabbit, washed it off in the sink and dried it carefully with a towel.  His neighbor had not come home from work at this point, so he snuck over to her house.  In her backyard he carefully took the now clean, but obviously still dead, rabbit and placed it in the house she had built for it.

    The next day he saw her crying and went over to her yard.

    “Oh, my.  You’ll never believe what happened!” she said, tears streaming down her face.

    “What?  What happened?” he said.

    “Well, my rabbit died the other day and I buried her in the backyard, but somehow she came back and ended up in her house again.”

    True or not, it’s a great story.


  • In 80 Degree Weather You’d Do It, Too. If you fit.

    Beltane                              Waxing Planting Moon

    Vega the wonder dog continues a puppy habit.vegainwater Even though she’s quite a bit bigger now she can make herself small enough to fit in the rubber water bowl.  This means that when I fill it up, it soon empties.  I have to go buy a smaller bowl, one she can’t use for cooling off.

    In other dog related news I bought two sprinkler heads to replace the ones purloined by either Vega or Rigel.  They have a high degree of energy and intelligence.  That makes them inquisitive and with dogs this size that means destructive.

    I spent the morning on Ovid, translating verses of the Metamorphoses, 11-15.  This is a slow process for me because I have to look up each word, discern which of the possible words it probably is, determine its possible declension or conjugation, then go back and try to put all this together in an intelligible English line.  Latin poetic conventions make this difficult since words that below together are sometime split apart by as much as a verse.  Also, Ovid, like Shakespeare loved neologisms so sometimes the word he’s used is the only time it was ever used in Latin.

    Don’t get the wrong impression though.  When I finished this morning, I whistled and sang, a sure sign I feel good about what I’ve just done.   It’s a fascinating process for me.

    Kate has a big month taking shape.  She leaves on Tuesday for San Francisco and two continuing medical education conferences which will take until June 6th.  On June 30th she has hip surgery.  She needs the surgery, her hip is painful for her and painful for me to watch.

    The violence in Bangkok continues and some of it happens right outside my brother’s soi, a sort of side street with no exit that is peculiar to Bangkok’s urban design.

    Final Sierra Club legislative meeting for the 2010 session tonight.  There will probably be work upcoming related to next year’s session, but for the near term future, that work will come to a close.  No more weekly meetings.  Happy hour after this meeting.