Poison ivy and puppy updates

Yesterday's weather was phenomenal. Simply gorgeous and warm. I actually wore shorts! I decided to tackle some much needed tree and bush trimming that I have been putting off. The flowering viney bush I posted pictures of earlier was beginning to grow up into the dogwood tree branches that hang over it. It finally drove me nuts and motivated me to take action. I went down to the basement and got my hand trimmers and the tall trimmers and went to work.

Naturally this is all very theraputic and when it comes to pruning or pulling weeds I get in a zone and if left unchecked I could very well end up with a naked yard. I started on one end of the yard and made my way to the other, where I eventually encountered, what I had originally thought was poisin oak, poison ivy. Turns out poison oak only grows in the western regions of the United States.



We have a dead tree in the furthest back corner of our yard. It isn't budding like the other trees and has a mess of unsightly viney branches sticking out in all directions. Eventually, when we get a hold of a chainsaw, we will cut the whole thing down. In the meantime I thought maybe if I just trimmed it here and there it would at least look better. I knew that the hairy vine was poisonous and I needed to be very careful, but I was in The Zone. I started lopping off dead branches and vines left and right.



I wasn't careful enough. The itching kicked in during the wee hours of the night, pulling me out of a peaceful slumber. Luckily my reaction is mild and the rash is isolated to small patches of skin like under my arms and various parts of my torso. Fun. I see Benadryl in my future. Tonight's yard activities include moving all the limbs and miscellaneous brush to the curb and clearing all the rocks and dog poop so Casey can mow. We have had lots of rain the last week and our grass is almost knee high in some places. We are indeed happy to finally have grass.

On to the puppies. Also known as....

Stinker 1


and

Stinker 2


The gorilla glue did wear off of Holly's face. Her paws still have hard patches of glue here and there. She never did display any signs of having a ball of gorilla glue sitting in her gut, therefore escaping the need for emergency surgery. In fact, she and Rocky played just as hard and long as usual in the days that followed.



They even sat still, briefly, for their treats. Notice the lovely 1970s linoleum. One of our many home improvement projects.



Later that night we noticed Rocky was limping and wasn't interested in eating his dinner. The following day he was still limping, not eating and very lethargic. He didn't play once. I even let him curl up on the bed, because he just looked so pitiful. I babied him as much as I could. Checked for glass shards in his paws (they broke our cake stand on Sunday, and ate the leftover lemon yogurt cake that was inside it too...that's another story). He had no glass shards or anything else stuck in his leg. When I touched it he didn't yelp in pain. It seemed slightly swollen. We started thinking, due to his extreme lethargic state and loss of appetite that maybe he had some sort of insect bite. I called the vet. The lethargicness and loss of appetite worried him too. "Bring him in and we'll check him out."

I load up both dogs for an afternoon visit to the vet. $50 and a bottle of meat flavored chewable pain killers later we come to find out that Rocky was suffering from a sprained knee. What? Seriously? A sprained knee? We now know Rocky has a flare for drama. He totally milked the situation. In the future we will wait longer before rushing him to the vet.