Ahhhhhhh!

Things are settling down again - at least until the landscape guys begin the drainage and trenching of the back yard, possibly as early as next week.  Sadie has stabilized again, Petey seems nearly over his bronchitis or whatever it was and so far is doing okay on the prednisone, and Eddie and I are getting in lots of walks and hikes. The house is a disaster, and the front garden bed isn't done yet, and the rains have just started again, but 'this too shall pass'.

And so, until I get around to writing a real post, here are a few of my favourite pictures from the past couple of weeks' walks:

First from a walk around Chemainus Lake, a nice 2.5 km offleash trail:



Turkey tail fungus -
a very apt name!




Decaying stumps nurture new growth.
The roots of the new tree are almost spooky!



Modern day petroglyph -
appeared in this rockface around 2005.

And what do we see here?

Next, from a walk at Swallowfield, with Eddie, Gail and her dog Sadie:

Happy Eddie strolling on the estuary

A river runs to the sea

Sadie B enjoys a swim!

Sadie B poses fora photo

And another one of Happy Eddie

And then back to Eves Park, (which I posted about very recently when Liz and I took the dogs there), this time with my Elder College group:

The trilliums are now at their peak.

Elder college group gazes at Mt. Sicker
and Mt. Brenton from the west bluffs in the park

And can you figure out what this is?
A sign nearby asked us not to disturb it. 



That's all for now - time to walk Eddie, feed Sadie, cuddle Petey and head to bed.

One Photo

Salmonberry flower - or maybe thimbleberry.  I forget.

From the Elder College walk around Chemainus Lake this week.  It's all I have the energy to post tonight.  It has been an exhausting few days.  The new roof is on, but Eddie was so beside himself at all the noise and kerfuffle that I had to sedate him.  Sadie has had two collapses this week - one a possible seizure in the middle of the night, and one not long after eating - so the prednisone is no longer doing its job.  She is currently lying in the hallway barking at the shadows.  Petey has developed what the vet believes to be bronchitis, and coughed for fifteen hours straight last night and this morning, and has just started up again.  Unfortunately, we have to take him off his metacam for several days before administering the meds he needs for the bronchitis, so he is also whining and being a big suck. Kinda like me.

A bit of this, a bit of that while waiting, waiting, waiting

(A long ramble of life around here while I wait for late delivery people to show up with materials for my new roof.  I hate waiting. Poor Eddie wants his morning walk.)

Outings:

I missed the Elder College hike last week (they went to Kinsol Trestle, which I described in an earlier blog post here), as Sadie was not stable enough to leave. But on Thursday, Gail and I took her Sadie and my Eddie up to Crofton Lake. It was a great day for being outdoors, and we met several other people with their dogs on a trail where I seldom see anyone. Judging from these photos, I'd say Sadie B and Eddie had lots of fun:

Sadie B runs up the bank with a ball

Off Leash Eddie trots happily along the lake trail

Other Dog Stuff

Eddie is a smart little boy and VERY food motivated. I have been using a treat ball for him for some time

Eddie and his treat ball

as well as a clamshell, and recently added a tug-a-jug to his food dispenser toys as the others were just too easy. He figured out that one in about 30 seconds flat.

Gail loaned me a Nina Ottosson canine memory puzzle - a canine version of Go Fish with treats attached! The dog watches you hide a treat under one of the nine bones, then must remember which one it was and touch that bone with his paw (or nose). Too easy for Eddie - he got it in a second. I put treats under all the bones, then as he pawed one I gave him the treat and replaced the bone. He touched ONLY the bones with a treat underneath, and never once pawed at a bone where the treat was no longer there. What a smart boy!

Eddie knows just which puzzle piece hides a treat!

After a couple of peaks and valleys, Sadie seems to be doing okay with the help of Flagyl. I've started moving her back to her regular diet, even though she still has somewhat colourful, soft poop. If it doesn't return to normal this week, we'll consider more tests - though with palliative dogs one always has to ask the question "how might the results of this test change our protocol?". Clearly, Sadie is not a candidate for surgery, and she is already on the drugs she needs for her insulinoma, so will knowing whether the liver and pancreas is deteriorating even more change anything in the way she is being treated? If not, is the money better spent/saved for other more critical vet care? This is always the challenge in caring for senior or special needs dogs - the drive to have as MUCH information as possible sometimes blinds us to what will actually be USEFUL information. Fortunately, the vet I deal with most for Sadie understands this and we will weigh the pros and cons of putting her through more tests (even blood tests stress her out). For now, we just treat the symptoms.

Ah'll just snooze on the couch, thank you.
Mah mama made me a box so I can still get up here.

Petey was chilly the other morning so I put his warm jacket on and covered him with a little blanket and he settled down for a snooze on one of the dogbeds. A little while later I looked down the hall, and there I saw this:

SuperDog!

Silly Petey, trailing his blanket from his shoulders as he waddled down the hall to find me.

Garden stuff:

The crushed gravel is now all shovelled into its rightful place alongside the carport - no more putting passengers at risk of a broken ankle due to an 8" drop off onto large round rocks!. And hopefully no more blackberries and other weeds trying to wrap themselves around my car.

New and improved side of carport - two yards of crushed gravel
and a sore back later.

I'm working on the front garden bed - the one that was all weeds last year - trying to salvage a few plants in there, planting lavendar and rosemary which should do well in this hot, dry side of the house, and using some 6" rock and smaller beach stone as cover and hardscaping.  Only 25 more feet and a half yard of large stones to go.

A small section of the new bed
(and why didn't I see that dandelion before I took the picture?)

And other stuff:

I have drainage guys developing a plan for the back yard so we can reduce the muck and eventually landscape,  and I have roofers coming to put a new roof on the house on Thursday (which is why  I am sitting around waiting...waiting...waiting for the materials to be delivered today).  I have firmed up a contract with a kitchen design/reno company - a complete gut and re-build (that should be fun!) that will likely begin around end of June. I have hikes, dogsitting, a trip to the Okanagon for my sister's Celebration of Life, and several other things scheduled for the next couple of months. And of course the usual book club and writing group and newspaper column and dog care stuff.  Oh, and Petey will be having his eyes removed as soon as I can figure out a date that will work to get him to Victoria and back. Life is busy. Too busy. I think I am a wee bit overcommitted.  Oops.

Ah, but the flowers are blooming,

Blossoms against a blue spring sky

Wee daisies cover the ground

Yellow skunk cabbage adds cheer to swamp

The eagles are calling,

Eagle on tree along seawalk

Spye, the pigeon who began showing up daily (now twice daily) a couple of months ago is in love - or at least bringing a friend to dinner:

Spye and friend dine on birdseed

The campers are arriving

Crowded RV park along Crofton shoreline
(Shudder!  Not my idea of camping - but good for the local economy!)

The kayakers are cruisin'

Kayakers pass a barge from the pulpmill

And the sunrises are spectacular:

Easter morning sunrise from my backyard

Life is good.

(And I hear a big truck pulling into the driveway - talk about good timing!)

Eves Park

Reflections in pond, Eves Park

It is less than a ten minute drive away, and I’ve passed it at least a hundred times on my way to the SPCA. I once followed the sign along the lane a few hundred metres, but wasn’t sure where I was going or where I should park so abandoned the impromptu stop. I’d heard it was hilly, not dog friendly, and I didn’t know anyone who went there often.

And so it has taken me almost three years to get around to exploring one of the Cowichan Valley’s best kept secrets: Eves Park. It is a 45 acre, Class C Provincial Park (meaning it was donated to the province but is managed by a volunteer board and receives no government funding), gifted to BC in 1961 by Janet Goodall. Last Friday, my friend and co-writer Liz and I took our dogs Sasha and Eddie for a walk in the park, seeking fodder for Crofton Corner, our column in the Chemainus Courier.



Liz and Sasha check out the Park Information Board


And no, there isn’t supposed to be an apostrophe in ‘Eves’. The park was named in memory of the donor’s father, the Rev. James Eaves. According to T.W. Paterson, author of “A Place Called Cowichan” (Firgrove Publishing, 2005), by the time anyone realized the province had misspelled the name, “all the expensive signage had been done, so Ms. Goodall graciously told them to go ahead with Eves.”

Technically, the park is in the community of Westholme in the District of North Cowichan, not in Crofton. It is on the western slope of Mount Richards – on the flip side from Crofton Lake, the trail to which starts at the end of my road. Unfortunately, one can’t get to Eves Park from Crofton Lake without trespassing on private land.

At one time, however, there was a railway line which connected the two – part of a system bringing copper from Sicker Mountain to the west, across Mount Richards, and down to the smelter in Crofton – a smelter once located right across from my house, but long since gone.

Red and black line shows where the railway used to go

An information board provides history and photos of the early years in this area

Liz, Sasha and Eddie check out a small section of track,
left as a symbolic reminder of the park's history.

Today, the park boasts a nature house, well marked trails, information boards and picnic facilities, and yet it has remained true to its rustic nature, a protected wilderness environment of old growth forest, moss-covered stony bluffs, and natural waterways.

A gentle reminder of earth's biodiversity

Eddie on a mossy bluff

Liz checks out the old growth forest

View from the west bluff.  In the distance is the
Trans Canada Hwy, against the backdrop of
Mt. Sicker.



This huge old broadleaf maple tree, one of the few deciduous trees
in the park, may look dead now, but the sign tells us its
branches will have a half acre of leaf surface come summer. 

 The day we visited, spring flowers were just starting to pop out everywhere, wee toadstools covered the ground, eagles and ravens soared overhead, and several trees showed signs of bear or cougar activity.

Trillium

Indian Plum

Toadstools on a mossy bluff

Fawn Lily

More toadstools - I think - or are they mushrooms?

Liz and Sasha look skyward at the sound of a raven calling.

Signs explain the claw marks on trees

Inside of a bear tree

Recent bear or cougar activity

On-leash dogs are permitted in the park. I confess we let ours off leash a couple of times when the moss covered rocks and steeper sections of wet duff-covered trails threatened to send us head over teakettle unless we dropped the leashes and used our hands and poles to keep from falling. We also met a neighbour of the park walking his dog Zena off leash. Zena stole my heart – a lovely and lumpy old dog complete with happy grin, waggles, wrinkles, and all.

Eddie meets Zena

A lovely old face

There were more bluffs and a cave we've yet to explore.  I loved the park, and will go back often. And it was made all the more pleasurable by watching Eddie conquer one of his biggest fears – stairs. Without hesitation, he bunny-hopped all the way up this long steep winding stairway. I was so surprised, I didn’t even get a picture of him climbing his Mount Everest.

Eddie's Mount Everest

Sasha shows us how it's done.
The End.

Why there's no new post....

I am working on the post on Eves Park, the last of the four parks we did last week.  But I'm a bit short on sleep, I'm a bit sick of rain, I'm a bit overbooked on appointments and outings, and just to make things interesting......Sadie got very, very sick.

Sadie and Eddie went for their regular grooming at friend Karen's on Sunday morning.  They go every 2-3 weeks for a good brushing, trim, foot care, etc.  With all that long fur, my arthritic hands just find it a bit much - and besides, Karen has all the right tools and the dogs both really like her. 

I picked them up, brought them home, and two minutes later Sadie had a big sloppy dump in the back yard.  Okay, that's no problem - maybe she was a bit stressed and after all, we've recently upped her prednisone which can be hard on the system.   I cleaned it up, fed her the next of her several daily meals (Note for occasional readers - Sadie has insulinoma, a fairly rare pancreatic cancer, and requires frequent feeding to prevent the overproduction of insulin eating up all the glucose and sending her into a seizure), and took off for my weekly game of bridge.

By the time I got home three hours later, all hell had broken loose.  Sadie stumbled out the door and immediately upchucked all over the deck.  Liquid poop poured out the other end.  Feet folded under as she went into a low-glucose collapse.  For the next eight hours I was routinely cleaning up one end, putting small amounts of food and meds in the other, and spreading old sheets over every inch of carpet and floor.  In between, I was cooking up bland foods for her  (she can't be fasted as one would normally do with a sick dog), mixing  rice, cottage cheese, scrambled eggs, pumpkin, whole grain bread, etc., ever mindful that insulinoma dogs need high protein, moderate complex carbs and no sugar.  A challenge on a bland diet. 

Needless to say, I didn't sleep at all Sunday night.  Which meant I was totally wasted on Monday.  Ms. Sadie, on the other hand, was much improved by Monday morning and giving me the stink eye for keeping her on a bland diet.  Master Petey decided Monday would be a good day to be needy, noisy, and a pain in the butt - he has these days about once every week or so.  Steady Eddie was fine and even reluctantly forfeited his Sunday evening walk and postponed the Monday morning one to the afternoon.  Thank you Eddie, I take back every mean thing I ever said about your crazydog behaviour. 

Anyway, all appears to be well now.  Sadie is still being watched closely, and we'll put her on flagyl if the diarrhea returns once the pepto bismal has lost its effectiveness.  Prednisone can do a number on the gut, and the recent increase in her dosage may be too much for her to handle.  Or she may simply be reaching the end of the road - the changes I'm seeing are all expected parts of the disease. And so the saga continues....

Stay tuned - pics of Eves Park coming up next - likely later today.