Old dogs and children and watermelon wine

Tom T Hall was more of a story teller than a singer per se and the above is one of his songs.  He speaks of an old colored man cleaning up a lounge where Tom was "sipping blended whiskey down"  while laid over between engagements.

I've always loved the story and the visual of the old man sitting down uninvited and opening up his mind about "old dogs and children and watermelon wine".  He said old dogs care about you even when you make mistakes and god  bless little children while they are still too young to hate.


Don't think the link to the song worked but if you search on the title you can find it :)


I think anyone who has had animals is familiar with the bittersweet feelings of watching a treasured four legged friend  go from that wild child puppy who just about drove you insane, through the middle years of being a bit better behaved and a lot more fun to do things with to that inevitable stage of  slow decline.  To where they might still want to do the walks and games you used to enjoy together but they just don't have the energy any more.

Their eyes still watch your every move and they try to follow you around as before.  But their eyes are clouding over and the old joints make it hard to get up and down so sometimes they just wait for you to come back into the room rather than jump up and go with you.

The last few months of my Jack's life I used to carry him in and out to enjoy some time outside and even carry him down the road so he could walk back to the house.  He never was a jumping around guy but he was always very aware of what I was doing and where I was.   My family made fun of him for not being more active but I understood that it was just his way.  And who knew what the first 6 years of his life had been like - he was a rescue dog and aside from being told he was a "puppy mill yard dog" we really knew nothing about his previous life.

 The last fall he was alive he had an operation for a tumor and for a few months he just seemed to get a second lease on life.  He ran down the road and he jumped up on the porch and totally seemed to enjoy just having fun.

Sadly it was not to continue because in February of the most brutal winter in years he developed lymphoma - he was too old for it to be reasonable or even effective to do massive treatments so it was prednisone for comfort and company for the same.  I must have made 30 crocheted scarves that winter while I kept him company on his journey.  Even the carrying in and out was doable cause he wasn't a very big dog.  He even forgave me the time I fell down on the ice - just lay there waiting for me to gather myself and him up and carry on!

But came the time when it was obvious that he was losing control of himself and I couldn't bear to let that go on.  My vet is a wonderful woman who comforted both of us when the time came - she brought him a soft fuzzy blanket to lie on and easy to eat treats to chew on while she gave him the meds that would set him free to run at the Bridge.

I knew it was his time to go and it was the last gift I could give him but it was one of the hardest things I ever had to do.

So cherish your old dogs along with your children and don't forget to have an occasional glass of watermelon wine - or the wine of your choice!  Time passes so fast that things that seemed to go on forever will, in retrospect, seem like a flash in the pan!

Progress....

It's always amazing to me the volume of food that can be produced in a small space.  I picked lettuce for the fourth time today since planting it in that small brown container.

In case you have forgotten what it looked like in the beginning - it's a little over 2 feet long and in April I planted lettuce, mixed greens and radishes in it and walked away.  No other work involved except an occasional watering.

And shortly after planting it actually started to sprout little plants.  Not particularly exciting but at least a start.

As time went by things looked a little more impressive.  I think this next picture was taken towards the end of May.

And then things really started happening!

The picture right above this is after I did today's picking - as you can see - there is a lot more coming along!

I have picked the greens (the radishes are all picked and eaten) four times now and they are still chugging along - today's crop is going to the local Halfway House because I just can't eat it all!

As usual I have a point - it might be obscure, but it's lurking in here somewhere.  If you have even a small container and some dirt or potting soil along with a bit of water you can personally grow an amazing amount of food.  The rest of the garden is looking scary good - I say scary cause I know that lurking in the bushes could be the woodchuck from hell just waiting for me to take my eyes off the gardens (and the water connection off the water cannon scarecrow) long enough for him/her to wreak havoc in my life.

Today's world is full of contention and angst and politicians (not going there) - in no small way it's reaffirming to be able to say, no matter what's going on "out there" I know what I'm having for supper.  And if it comes to that I know I can feed myself and others.

So far I have picked 2 batches of beet greens, all the lettuce I can eat and then some and by tomorrow I should have enough peas to go with a meal.  The cucumber plants are growing like crazy, zucchini and winter squash doing really well and I think the parsnips are finally sprouting (and no, I didn't dig any of the seeds up to check!).

It's not too late to start a garden this year - or plant a container (it's not wrong to buy a plant that someone else started - you don't have to begin with just seeds).  It might sound like a lot of work and initially it can be a bit labor intensive.  But get things in place, mulch them well and you get more than what you put in back in terms of satisfaction and supper!

The habitat

 Last year I had a couple of volunteer milkweed plants that grew up along the kennel yard fence on the edge of the lawn.  I was totally excited when I found out that this is the plant that the Monarch butterfly caterpillars require for food and a place to spin their pupa - the first thing I learned was they are not cocoons because they don't have silk on the outside!

Have to admit that at first I had no idea what the "worms" on the plants were - they were kind of pretty but certainly didn't look like a butterfly!  But the good old internet - amazing source of information that it is - soon set me straight.



Found 5 caterpillars initially and was hovering over them like an anxious mother with only a few chicks...alas, day by day they became fewer and fewer with no signs of having turned into pupa.

I read that Monarch butterflies are having problems finding places to feed and lay their eggs because of development -  urban or otherwise - along with the wholesale use of pesticides which destroys their critical milkweed plants.  I was really sad to think that the ones that found my milkweed didn't get to start the next generation.

Actually there are four generations of the Monarchs each season - all the but very last one dies once it has completed the life cycle - having mated and laid the eggs for the next generation.  The last generation lives on to move to a warmer climate, spend the winter and then migrate back to start the process all over again.

So, anyhow, all the above is leading up to my own private Monarch butterfly habitat.  This year the few milkweed plants that grew up have morphed into a much bigger group!  Fortunately I recognized them before the weed wacker took their lives -  staked out their area and now they are pretty much big enough to fend for themselves.

I suppose in the long run they may take over more of my so-called lawn than I want them to but in the meantime I'm very excited to be doing my personal best to see that there are more Monarch butterflies fluttering around this summer.

They are truly the king of the butterfly world and certainly worth investing some of my lawn to help them find a meal for their caterpillar and pupa stages of life!

It's been there since last fall and still looks the same

Most mornings, weather permitting, I walk my dog up around the local church.  It's a great place to practise obedience moves (or non-moves) and we both enjoy the early mornings.  At the top of the hill/beginning of the driveway into the church is this relatively unimpressive item:

I think it was originally the inner liner of a box of chocolates - at least that's what it looks like to me.  And it has looked like that for at least 7 or 8 months.

Think about that for a minute:  it withstood all last fall's rains, it "lived" through an admittedly mild New England winter.  Mild but still complete with sand and salt and plow trucks.  And it still looks the same.

It has not shrunk.

It has not fragmented.

It has not biodegraded.

It still looks exactly the way it did when some cretin tossed it out the window of their car.

This little piece of whateveritis stands as a sort of a symbol of the ugliness of trash for me.  It doesn't smell but that's about all I can say in it's favor.

Remember the analogy of the drinking straw and the rock?  The rock will eventually wear away while the straw will still be a straw when the millennium rolls around.  Well, here is a graphic example - this little piece of trash is going to outlive me at the rate it's going!

I know none of us randomly throw stuff out our car windows (right?) but do we recycle as much as we can?  Maybe not - but for everything we don't recycle we create another one of these little everlasting "things"....whether in a landfill or by the side of the road in someones town.

Alright, off the soap box but please do what you can to un-contribute to burying our world in "stuff"!

We can get it done!