Dogs, family and websites

I haven’t been here to post for a while. It seems that the dogs and my family genealogy website have been taking all of my time. My son and DIL went on vacation in early June which left me with 9 dogs (yeah that is 9) and the rest. By Wednesday of that week, I was ready to release my finches into the wild, turn the cats free in the front yard and start adopting out the dogs. Luckily one of my son’s friends was able to come over to stay with me. He took over the difficult dog duties and it was such a relief.

My Yorkie is pregnant. That’s why we had 9 dogs instead of 8. When breeding time came, the stud I had arranged was unavailable. His owner was due to deliver a baby herself any day. In desperation my DIL and I searched for an alternate stud. The only thing we could find was a male Yorkie for sale. He turned out to be a proven stud and a very sweet dog. So dog #9 came home. He was very enthusiastic about his duties as a stud. As a result, I have a female who looks like a hairy football. Her first due date is July 21. The male was starved for affection and needed more attention than we could give him. So we put him on Craig’s List and the calls started within 15 minutes. He has gone to a wonderful home where a very lovely teenage girl will give him the love he needs and 2 Pugs to play with.

Hopefully the Boston Terrier and the Cocker Spaniel are pregnant. We had to pay a stud fee for the Boston, but the owner of the Cocker stud wants first pick of the litter. I need to measure their bellies again today to see if there is any change. The Boston has gotten heavier, so she must be pregnant. I hope the Cocker is pregnant. Her stud was very beautiful. He is black and white with a shock of white hair in the middle of his black-colored head. Her litter should have buff and white and black and white puppies.

Through all of this my pain continues. I am having trouble picking the Boston up because of my back. I have finally been to the rheumatologist and fortunately I do not have rheumatoid or psoriatic arthritis. I have good old osteoarthritis, but it is particularly bad in my knees and hands. The doctor recommends injections of an artificial lubricant into my knees. I am all for it, but must pay $160 out of my pocket per visit for 5 visits. I just don’t have it now. When I sell the first of the Yorkie puppies, I will be able to afford the injections. The second puppy is going to purchase a 1988 pickup truck so that I will have a vehicle again.

I have been mentally and emotionally stressed out too. I have finally admitted that my finances are out of control. I sought help with a consumer counseling service only to have them recommend that I file bankruptcy. At this point I have to just try to dodge creditor calls. I can’t even contact an attorney until I have a certificate from the consumer counseling service. It’s part of the new bankruptcy rules. I hate it, but it may be my best opportunity to get things under control. I should not have credit cards; I just treat them like a license to spend.

There have been pleasant things happening too. I found my Dad’s favorite song and made him a CD for Father’s Day. For his birthday I made him a slide show of his early life, my mother’s early life, their wedding and an assortment of family photographs. Choosing the background music was challenging, I didn’t want to make people cry and also didn’t want to be flippant. For my mother’s segment, I used Steely Dan’s “Peg”. It’s one of my favorite songs and of course it was her name. Dad was in Texas with my sister’s family over his birthday. They had a party for him and waited until everyone left to present him with my gift. He loved it. I guess the rest of the family loved it too. My sister had previewed it and decided then that it needed to wait until only the family was there to watch it. I sent extra copies for my sister’s family. I also sent copies to mom’s brother and sister. I had fun putting it together, but had to leave out many pictures to keep the running time down to 15 minutes. I think I am going to make some more slide shows. I have loads of pictures in albums, but never really look at them. If they are put together on a DVD, I may look at them more often. I also have the ability to transfer video tape to my computer. I have super 8mm movies from the 1970’s I want to share. I also have my son’s first year. Some of that is dark and I hope I have software I can use to play around with it and lighten it up.

My genealogy website was hacked and used to send out millions of phony bank emails. As a result, I am moving it to a new hosting company. I have everything back up except the database. That was the point of weakness that allowed the hacker in. I had not been keeping up with the updates, so it is partly my fault. I have been able to get it back up with the version I was using when it was hacked, but I am having trouble updating to the latest version which is more secure. I just keep plugging away until I get it right.

Arthritis and Bird Care

I’m whiny again today. This is the second day in a row that my arthritis has been bad. My hands feel like they have been plunged in ice. There is a constant ache and moving is painful. My right thumb actually pops when I move it, which I try not to do. After my third trip up the basement stairs yesterday, I started using the stair lift. I couldn’t wait too long for trips to the bathroom. I wish some generous millionaire out there would take pity on me and build me a safe bathroom in the basement. Remodeling my bedroom cost a lot and it will be a while before I finish paying for it.

I moved for a couple of reasons. My son got married last June and I think he and his wife deserve privacy. I’ve always joked that I will be taken out of this house feet first. I hate moving, so I intend to live out my years here. When my sister was sick, she was so weak that with very few exceptions I had to have the fire department come and remove her from the house. They suggested that I move her downstairs. I thought it was a great idea, but with her being bedridden, I needed her near a bathroom. She could not get to the bathroom, but I needed it for the bedpan and the cleanup. My ideal downstairs bathroom would have a tall toilet. My knees are getting worse by the year. I’ve had surgery on each of them twice. I want a shower stall with a bench. If I need to save money I would use a separate shower chair rather than a built-in bench. It may sound silly, but I want a vanity with a double-bowl kitchen sink installed. I have a kind of kitchen set up now with a coffee maker, refrigerator and microwave. The only access I have to water is the laundry room. I have six 2-liter bottles that I fill. Left over coffee, tea and dirt finch water gets dumped into a paint bucket. I empty the paint bucket in my driveway and rinse it in the laundry room. The only drain in the laundry room is the 3 inch pipe that the washer uses.

I try to keep busy. This morning I used a bathroom trip as an excuse to sweep the kitchen floor. If my son and daughter-in-law had been awake, I think I would have run the vacuum cleaner in the living room. Living with 8 dogs is rather dirty. I wish it would be possible to teach them to wipe their paws before coming in the house. I have now fed my finches and given them fresh water. On a bad day that simple task is hard and painful.

I have two finches that are laying eggs again. I am just throwing them away. I started with 2 Zebra finches last May and I now have 13 or 14. It has been fun to watch them tend the eggs and raise the babies. The two birds that are laying now are children of my original pair. When the first clutch of eggs was produced, I had to use a small stool and a mirror to see the nest. That was upstairs in my old bedroom. I can see into the cages better now that they are on stands. I got to see one of the eggs hatch. The babies are so tiny, but then they would have to be coming out of an egg that is just over ½ inch long. I didn’t know that birds clean their babies after hatching until I saw it myself. The babies do get loud and a bit obnoxious when they leave the nest, but still want the adult to feed them. It’s fun to guess what the sex the babies are. They do not display any of the sexually dimorphic (impressive!) markings until they are several weeks old. The latest baby is just now getting the orange coloring in its beak. There were two babies, but one died. I have two other babies that are a few weeks older. I keep watching to see if they will develop the orange cheeks of the males. I have a feeling that they are females which will mean more eggs to throw away. My room is never quite quiet during the day. Their calls are very pleasant. Thank heavens they sleep at night.

The picture at the top of the post is of a Society finch. The baby it has hatched is a Zebra finch. The Society finches do not have sexually dimorphic markings so I may have 3 males or 3 females. They didn’t seem to care that they had not laid those eggs. They just adopted the eggs are theirs and raised the babies.

Enjoying the Great Outdoors

Back when I felt like it was time to get out of apartment living and into a house, I thought it may never happen. My then husband had very specific requirements. It had to have at least 2 acres of wooded land. The trees had to be hardwoods too. I live in North Georgia! There are mostly pine trees in this state. The house had to be brick, not just a brick façade. That was because of the termite threat (I’ve since learned you can get termites even in a brick house). And it had to have a full basement. Full basements have gained popularity in this area in the past few years, but they aren’t necessary like they are up North. I felt like we would never find his dream house, but we did and it was the first we looked at.

The best part of this property is the wildlife. I do see a little less of it since the area has become more developed. I have seen deer and wild turkeys traveling across the back yard. Last summer the dogs alerted us to something outside the backyard fence. It was a small snapping turtle trying to dig under the fence! I was surprised to see it there because it was a little distance from the creek. We find box turtles often; in fact we have to rescue them from the dogs who think they are toys. Every spring a pair of hawks nests in one of the trees. A few days ago I thought the dogs were barking at the hawks, but when I saw two birds on the ground and one in a tree, I knew they could not be hawks. I went out to investigate and discovered they were buzzards that were lunching on the remains of a cat. Yuck!

My sister had an above ground pool put in several years ago. I had a total of 11 trees cut down inside the backyard fence to expose the pool to the sun. That water was cold! The loss of the trees did not deter the tree frogs. They use the pool for mating and spawning. It’s amazing that such little creatures can have loud and irritating voices. The eggs would collect on the Polaris hose. I was glad when we finally started using chlorine instead of an ionizer for sanitizing the water. The frogs still lay their eggs, but at least the eggs die and filter out.

Those 11 trees left behind large stumps. I’m glad I didn’t have them removed. The dogs use them as barking platforms. Watching them, I sometimes think they are playing ‘King of the Hill’.

My driveway is 300 feet long and I like to walk out to get the mail. The main reason is to look for wildlife in the front. There are lots of squirrels and chipmunks. When spring comes, I’ll start seeing the rabbits again. There is a creek that cuts across the property about half way up the drive. The creek has been a problem a few times over the years and has washed out the driveway twice. I like the creek because I can see footprints of the animals that come there to drink. That includes the neighbors’ dogs as well as possum and raccoons. There is enough of a pool next to the drive that there will be small fish wash down from the pond a few properties up the street. They disappear with the next big rain, but I like to think they are making it to Sweetwater Creek and my little pool is just a rest stop.

My cats live inside, but still enjoy the outdoors from the windows. While they lived upstairs, I had lounging shelves on 3 windows. You could always tell when there were birds on the feeders. Eliot’s tail would lash about and she made a strange chattering sound. At night both cats would bat at insects on the other side of the glass. Now that they have moved downstairs, they have to share one window. Sometimes it means that there is some hissing and hitting as they argue over possession of the window sill. One day they were quietly sharing the sill. I noticed Eliot’s tail doing that excited lashing. I managed to squeeze in between them and discovered two tiny black eyes looking back from outside. A mouse had nested in the weeds outside the window. I’m just glad the mouse is outside. I think the mouse is glad too.

I’m trying something to attract more wild birds to the basement window. I use a litter made from corn cobs in my finch cages. I have started dumping the uneaten seed in the bottom of the cages rather than dumping it in the trash. The finches seem to enjoy searching among the litter and the seeds. I cleaned the cages yesterday and emptied the trays into a trash bag. This morning I took the bag out to a spot outside the basement window and emptied it there. The corn cob should degrade naturally and hopefully the wild birds will be attracted to the leftover seeds. I’ll just have to keep an eye on the cats to see if they are watching out the window more.