It is a mystery

 Mara appt scheduled for next Tuesday, other option was today which I wasn't prepared for. F will need to take care of her at least one night since I have a work thing that's three hours away on Thursday, but otherwise I think I'll be around for the rest of the week. I'll probably bail early from shearing on Friday. I'll need to run and pick up enough pain meds to get her through next week. 

The only bad timing is that I need to give a little presentation on Tuesday night but honestly, it'll be 10 minutes and I like distractions. Worst case, I give it the week after.

Yesterday, I buckled down and got a few things done. First, I attempted to put up wire mesh around the eaves of the shed, the ladders were either too tall or too short. The too tall ones rested against the tin roofing and I couldn't reach the area I needed to staple very well. I got the snowblower running, still need to pump a tire up but it started right up. The generator...did not. It was running when I put it away so I need to fiddle with it and see if I can get it working.

F came and helped me move a workbench into the shed and then I was rolling. This is my cutting bench since it is wide enough to have a 12 inch wide board on it for cutting and to place my circular saw, my squares, pencil and the light on it all at the same time. It worked great! ( pictures and rambles )

I ran errands this morning. Ran to home depot and only got three things. I was going to get the bolts but their selection was utter shit so I'm going to the local hardware store at some point this week for those. I also grabbed more milk and yogurt from the store because I attempted to make yogurt this week and it got very weird, so I tossed it. Also made the trek north to pick up my shearing box from where I left it. It's now pouring rain so I'm happy to be back home.

( elderly pet stuff )

This week was busy, mostly with work. Monday, I was at coworker's (C) cleaning the last of the chickpea seed, but also was trying to coordinate rides to get a fleet vehicle back during the work trip later that week. Other coworker (B) was being very unhelpful, so finally I texted them directly and asked if they could pick me up from the farm because it would spare another coworker an extra 2 hour drive at 8:30pm on return. They picked me up and took me home, so the car stayed on site for two days. I also used the shopvac to clean it out and left a box of stuff at my coworker's.

Tuesday, I worked from home and packed for work trip and then took Mara to her vet appointment. It was for vaccines mostly and I also asked about her gross toe, the scabby skin spots and if there was anything I could give her for extra long traveling (thanksgiving, 6 hour drive, will do 3 hours, break, 3 hours). She got all the vaccines (yay!), I need to change her rabies tag out. Vet looked at her gross toe and confirmed there wasn't much to be done with it except continuing to trim off the weird bits until it finally broke properly. Scabby skin spots looked like a skin infection, so she has another round of antibiotics. Travel got gabipentin doses to be given about an hour before we start our journey.

I left early Wednesday morning, taking my truck to C's and leaving it there and picking up the fleet car. Drove to campus. There was some wild construction happening in various places so it took a little longer than expected. I had left plenty of time so got there with an hour and a half to spare before sessions started. It was good because I took 20 minutes to find parking, dropped books at the library and had time to eat some snacks before sessions started. I took my knitting sweater project and made a ton of progress on it. Conference sessions were interesting but mostly not note taking sorts of things. We went out to the networking session that night, which was supposed to be at place A but somehow said location (reliable, affiliated with campus), canceled the reservation so we all were packed in the bar of a hotel nearby. It was not super fun to be honest. But my stratey of finding the other techs and just hovering with them and chatting worked very well. I had to remind our team leader that she had said something about rounding folks up for dinner plans and so finally finally we did that.

Had dinner nearby at a place with one (1) gluten free option which was a beet salad. Ew. So I risked it and ate a chicken sandwich off the bun. Pretty mediocre to be honest. Went to the hotel finally, which was actually decent. It's a new place that just opened up and while the rooms were pretty small, they were nice. Other than being unable to change the thermostat, which meant I slept horribly because I like to sleep in the cold, and this was set to 72. We set out heat to 58 at night at home.

Rolled out of bed in the morning when coworkers who were also staying there texted about breakfast plans and managed to shower off the sweat, dress and pack up in 20 minutes. We went to a place that had gluten free bagels (!) and I got a bagel sandwich and some yogurt. Absolutely delicious. Then back to the conference for more sessions and more knitting.

Since I was leaving with C, I had lunch with them and E and they had a planning meeting about some things for next week since it was easier to do in person since they were both right there. I knitted and watched videos on my phone and played Pokemon Go while they planned things. We hit the road around 2:30 and I drove the first part of the drive since C had to answer emails and calls. We got to C's, I hopped in my truck and instantly cursed my past self for forgetting to change the headlight of my truck that had gone out on Monday. I drove to a gas station that had good lighting, and since I had changed the other headlight about a month ago, I had another light in my truck. Thank god it was the easy side to replace. I popped the hood and changed it in about two minutes flat. Drove home. Got home around 7 where my dog was apparently distressed that I was missing and promptly drank an entire bowl of water.

This morning I dragged myself out of bed and went back to C's for the seed field meeting which honestly went very well and was an excellent work event. I got a ton of seed cleaned and so did the other folks. I'm very tired now and just going to eat some random stuff out of the fridge and watch videos on my computer.

I baked saturday morning, starting with getting bread rising (Gluten free sandwich bread from America's Test Kitchen), then I tried cheese, corn, jalapeno corn muffins from Ken Heidrich's Country Baking which was hmmm, okay. I resented that the butter and batter sealed itself to the muffin tin (I hate cleaning muffin tins SO MUCH. eta: I hate the paper cups, I hate the silicon cups, I hate cleaning muffin tins. cleaning the tins is the least bad) and I think I put too much cheese in so the interior of the muffin is hardened cheese. They're edible though! Then I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies because they're delicious and finished off with granola, then threw the bread in to bake. I did some video game playing while the last few things were baking.

After that, I was determined to do an actual house project, so I got started on removing the electrical from the balcony. I figured out the breaker it was connected to a little bit ago using the extremely fun no-contact tester, which is delightful beepy fun to use. I turned the breaker off and taped it down with duck tape so no one would accidently flip it back on. The good news is that there is a junction box in the house right where the wire goes out that I can use to connect the line from the breaker to the UF wire that I will run out of the house. I also figured out why there was two wires running from the switch on the porch, it was actually a three way switch and there was another light switch in the basement. I got the glorified stepstool and started cutting the wire and pulling out the staples. The hanging lights were surprisingly easy and difficult to get down. The first one was easy because they were mounted on the junction box which was plastic nailed into the wall, where the plastic had given out so it was actually just hanging from the electrical wires (yikes). The second one was difficult because it hadn't broken down and there was no real way to get the nails pulled out. So I broke the plastic and got it down. I also removed the flood light and all the other wiring on the balcony. I just snipped the wires on the outdoor switch but didn't remove it yet because I was getting tired and needed a crowbar. 

I ended there although there is more wiring to remove from the underside of the balcony and running into the house because it requires the big ladders and F wasn't home. I have a decent fear of ladders, which feels mostly reasonable to have. I will go up them but I hate going up shaky ladders or unstable ones, or rickedy ones or tall ones. I'll do it, I just hate it and end up shaky afterwards. So I don't go on the big ladders when no one else is around. It's not a fear of heights, I'm fine with those. Just scared of ladders. I could probably start putting up the junction boxes, light switch box and outlet box. I also swept the floors. 

Sunday morning, I played video games all morning. It was great. I did some spinning after that, spinning a Soay roving that I bought years ago. It was incredibly soft and full of medium vm which could be pulled out but was such a pain to do that I gave up on it. It'll go into the rustic/scratchy bin of yarns that will someday be used for rugs or something. I also got half of the Pansy Pandimonium chain plyed, it's going faster than I thought. My plan for this afternoon is to Skein All The Things since I filled up all my Eel Wheel bobbins and need to keep chain plying. I'm almost done re-tying the heddles, just 10 more to go then cutting and tying the extra 40 or so. Then I can get weaving! 

I also did a sidejob plan, one of the last for a bit I think. There's usually a break in late summer/fall. 

Sunday night, it was nice and cool so I kicked the fan on and opened the windows. Then around 11pm, Mara started barking at something. I was sleeping but eventually I sat up. By that time, she had gotten herself up and was standing in front of the fan sniffing as hard as she could, then staring at me, then sniffing, then staring, then sniffing. This is alarming because that window is on the sideporch, so if there was anything out there, it would be RIGHT THERE. 

I texted F to see if she was awake, she was and had checked the outdoor camera when Mara started barking. We went outside and looked around and found nothing! Eventually we came to the conclusion that something (probably raccoon?) had pooped under the porch and the smell was being pushed in the house by the fan. We went back inside and I wanted to sleep. Mara continued standing in front of the fan sniffing so I finally flipped the fan around so it blew out and flipped the AC unit across the room to fan mode to get some air movement through. After a couple of minutes, Mara went to sleep. 

No critter poop found, but I spent yesterday afternoon cleaning the accumulation of stuff from the porch and there was a dog towel that smelled like animal pee, so that may have also been it. The towel is out in the yard being rained on right now. I also mounted a dry erase board on my bedroom door to write house projects on, mainly because I keep forgetting what I want to work on. I think a lot of my inability to get house projects done this year has been Mara's decline and my worry about it. Plus all the normal summer stuff. Plus sheep shearing. It was a lot. But I've got some energy and momentum now and I'm hoping to get some more things done. The balcony electrical and the fencing for the garden are the highest priorities currently. 

Posting through it because I don't know what else to do

( elderly pet stuff )

Last week was hot and tiring at work, but I did get to eat some incredible delicious blueberry/lemon twist ice cream and I normally abhor fruit in my ice cream. Mara had a vet appt on Monday about her legs, which she got gabipentin and new joint supplements. Since she will refuse food if it has a pill, I've been manually pilling her first thing in the morning. Only doing the morning doses, which seems to be helping her. She was full of beans by Friday afternoon.

I had lots of things to do over the weekend and then Friday night, Mara had just the worst diarrhea. Multiple times despite me taking her out. 12:30 am bed cleaning and dog butt cleaning was no fun especially because it requires the hose. She did it again on her other bed by the time I woke up at 6.

I cleaned her up again, hosed the bed covers off, then washed them. Put her on the balcony for a bit, cleaned the floor because it got everywhere and then fed her rice. Other than one midday goo on our walk, her stomach was perfectly fine after that, probably due to the rice and plain dry food combo. I was trying to figure out what she ate, since I'm pretty strict with her diet due to *waves*, and I think it was the dark colored crunchy thing she ate on our walk along the road the day before. Either that or the quarter size piece of dried beef, but I have my doubts. I don't know what the dark crunchy thing was, dried poop, dead animal, live baby turtle, truly no idea (the snapping turtle that I saw in the swamp across the road was trying to lay eggs in the gravel on the road bank a couple weeks ago, so baby turtles are possible)

Got past that, spent Saturday tired but not the worst, just emotionally exhausted mostly. By the end of the weekend, I got things checked off my to-do list plus some relaxing and dinner at a fancy (to me) Italian restaurant where I got really really good risotto plus two meals of leftovers.

Last night, Mara had the leg twitches at 1am. It is specifically one back leg and it kicks really hard and over and over. She's really distressed by it (reasonably) and there isn't a ton I can do. Usually the best thing is to sit next to her in a way that the leg can't kick out far, which seems to be really painful until it slows down a bit, then get her on her feet and get her to drink water. Once all that happens, it may twitch again but only a few times and then it stops. This time I was able to give her a gabipentin since I only have her on the morning dose right now and she seems mostly back to normal this morning. This happens every so often and I need to bring it up to the vet again. It does seem to be aggravated by dehydration (it's so humid right now, and Mara gets so hot, so fast and doesn't want to drink).

I got my work tasks done this morning, my truck inspected, oil changed, tires rotated this afternoon and now I'm dragging. But crafting later and B is coming over to escape the humidity.

Still minor chaos in the scheme of things but creeping up there

I had a nice weekend, relaxing even with the house showings.

Monday, we harvested potatoes for the work trial. Wasn't too bad other than the fact that I ended up being the stacker on the wagon and the truck and all 5k pounds of potatoes went into my arms. There was three people lifting the bags up to me. And then a third of the bags had to get put into different bins because we didn't have enough on the wagon. My arms. I was sore the next two days but not as sore as I would have expected.

That night/early next morning, Mara woke me up at 2 am. She had t o go to the bathroom really bad and she made it out to the grassy area before having some really nasty diarrhea. She's fine, no other bathroom problems although I worked from home tuesday to make sure. I had slept badly Sunday night as well, so tuesday I was so tired so I was kinda glad for the excuse to work from home and not grade sweet potatoes and make conversation with my coworker.

Wednesday, Mara had an afternoon vet appointment for some vaccination updates and heartworm test. Cool, no big deal, I got her a joint supplement too because she's been a little sore. Easy in and out, she was traumatized as usual and then we walked in the cool cemetery across the road. That night I got a phone call saying she had a tick borne disease and would need a course of antibiotics and a blood work test to check her platelet levels because the particular disease affected platelets.

Fuck, I said, many times. She gets frontline but I knew the serestos collar I had on her before didn't work super well because of all the hair and I had switched some time after last year's vet appointment, which is when she would have been tested. I've pulled dead ticks off her, so I know the frontline works. Ugh. She also picks up ticks everywhere. Her hair makes it so easy for them to hang on, although it takes a long while for them to actually make the climb in and bite her because I can usually see them easily.

I had also sent my realtor another listing yesterday and she let me know we could see it today (thursday) at 3pm.

So I worked from home today and then just before 2, I ran over to the vet's, picked up Mara's antibiotics and zipped over to the house.

At 3:15, no sign of the realtor, I called her and she picked up the phone apologizing because her daughter thought her baby was on the way, false alarm apparently but she said we could see the place at 5:15.

Okay. So I drove home, walked Mara, fed her the many new things (she takes pills easy with wet food dropped on them thank goodness, although I bet hot dogs will be in order at some point soon), ate a granola bar and then drove back to the house.

It was super cute, small, most stuff was in good condition, decent sized yard, the neighborhood was quiet and seemed nice.....huge bow in the one foundation wall. dang it. No on that place.

And tomorrow morning, I am driving to meet a coworker to hand over the box of microphones and webcams she needs for a hybrid meeting next week and then heading south to my parents' for the weekend.

 out of all the vegetables, my dog likes cooked squash

I'm confused. 

She haaaaaaaaaaaates fruits and vegetables. I once gave her a chickpea and it took her ten minutes to eat it because she was so skeptical. Corn, peas, carrots, apples, bananas, citrus, all get sniffed and ignored 

but she looooves squash. I've been giving it to her as a treat, frozen in a bone and she will gladly lick it out when she doesn't even like to finish licking peanut butter out! 

So I've got some in the freezer in a flat chunk that I've been cutting up and stuffing in the bone and it's working super well for boredom