A Different Life II

[Lily&Me]

A friend from high school who is home from California spent the day with me, and we had a lovely visit.

Don't you just cherish people in your life with whom you can just pick up where you left off, even if you haven't seen them in a year?

People who make an effort to stay in your heart....they are the best.


I bought Lily some new dog chews the other day, to which she has had an adverse intestinal reaction. They are going back for a refund tomorrow.

Not extreme, but persistent, for now day 3, and she isn't eating but just a little each day. Clearly not feeling quite up to snuff, but nose is cold and wet, otherwise active and seems fine...but for the persistent gastrointestinal distress.

Time for intervention.

I cooked up some rice, and mixed it with a jar of chicken baby food. She ate it right up, and I'm going to give her some more this evening.

Will report back.


Maggie

[Rocinante]

When our golden retriever, Skipper, had gastrointestinal issues, we would always cook up a batch of plain white rice, very plain boneless chicken, and feed him that combo for a couple of days until things calmed down. Hope the same approach works for you!

<edit> Oh, and canned pumpkin. That stuff is like magic for calming irritated doggie insides...at least it was for him. </edit>

We had to stop him chewing up sticks and eating the ferns that grow around here, as both of those things proved problematic - splinters and bark chips from the chewed sticks in the first case, and who knows what in the second.

[Lily&Me]

I have a couple of jars of chicken baby food, so just mixed one of those into some rice. Had bought them to make a homemade dog treat with wheat germ, just never got around to making them.

She's had a couple of cups of that mixture today, may try her on some pumpkin in the morning if things don't seem to have...ahem...stalled out.

She seems in no distress, other than not eating, and I was just reading something about dogs self-fasting when they have digestive issues...that's exactly what she's been doing.

Am hoping that whatever has upset her system has worked its way out.


Maggie

[DIR1]

My little Maltese gets terrible gassy upsets if she gets ahold of rawhide chews... I make a huge effort to keep them away from her as most of my friends have them laying around their houses for their dogs... just adding my 2 cents...

[Lily&Me]

Thanks for your 2cents.

Lily loves rawhide chews, and I have to give her small ones or they would be her primary food source.

These had chicken in them, and I hadn't bought them before. Doing some research after the fact, these types have been problematic for dogs before because they can contain some medication residue.

Have ordered her some made in America chews.


Maggie

[ColoradoLady]

Poor Lily! I hope she feels better soon.

[paiceman]

When one of mine gets sick I always check their gums first, should be their normal color - pink not a bleached out look. Then I take their temperature - should be about 101.5 to 102.5, if above we go to the vet as dogs and temperatures above about 102.5 can get serious pretty quickly.

If using canned chicken of any kind try to press the water out as the product contains a lot of salt. We try to use actual chicken and boil it.

Our dogs were boarded two weeks ago and our "new" five year old started regurgitating her food, different than vomiting. Took her to the vet as she did same with water and had a slight temp. $500 later all was fine. Then she regurgitated again two nights ago, and of course we are scheduled to leave Saturday for three months. I've come to the conclusion that this time it's nerves caused by thunder.

Hope Lily gets well soon, it's tough to see our pets get ill as they can't actually tell us what is wrong and we so want to help them.

Bud

[Lily&Me]

She didn't get me up in the night to put her outside, so that's a good sign, and has also eaten some of her regular dog food.

I might give her some pumpkin this morning, anyway, just because.

It won't hurt her, and I want to make sure the problem is resolved.

Going to see my chiropractor this am, take the Interstate to Blue Beacon, and do some other running, then picking up Miss Alice this afternoon in Galesburg for the weekend.

Looking forward to having my babies.


Maggie

[Lily&Me]

Miss Alice has been off with my son/his this morning to the Sugar Creek Arts Festival, and they will all be back here with me shortly.

I have baked cookies in their absence, because that's what I do.

Lily, day 5 after her first bout of gastrointestinal distress , finally seems back to normal.

Two days of rice with chicken, and pumpkin, seemed to set her straight, and she has begun eating her dog food again.

Having cool-ish weather today, which will allow for fire building and outdoor cooking after awhile.

Doug would say...Buddha smiles.


Maggie

[Rocinante]

Yay for pumpkin and a little extra TLC.

BTW, dogs don't seem to care which way their digestive tract runs. When it ran in reverse, Skipper's reaction was usually something on the order of, "Hey, look, I just made food!"

We had to be fast.

[Lily&Me]

Yuk!

Lily isn't interested in that...I came home from lunch with a friend the other day and there was a puddle-ish pile on my kitchen floor.

She looked at me very sheepishly when I came in, but I know she had to have been hard pressed to have left it in the house.

All better, now, and probably time to leave this subject in the past.


Maggie

[Lily&Me]

The grands are off with my son/his for the day, I will have Alice back about 2 and set out to take her home.

It's been a lovely weekend.

This is a great group of children, and I love them so.

Two sets of very loving, highly functional...they aren't always, you know ...very conscientious parents, and their children have become wonderful pre-teens with the appropriate levels of internalized self control.

They need very little direction, tho they don't try much with Grandma , and are just a joy to have with me.

Fortunate children, and I am one lucky Grandma.

Each with their respective electronics....they are 21st Century children, after all ....they have played a lot of Minecraft together, and had a blast. Alice, being an only child, has played it by herself but this is her first opportunity at co-playing, and she has loved it.

Built a fire, roasted hot dogs and made s'mores last evening...easy, kid friendly, picnic/camping food. I can indulge them a bit when they are not with me that often.

I do feel a bit like Wonder Woman after these weekends, tho. Doug would call it self imposed pressure, and he would be right.

Having had a high stress career that absolutely required and demanded being able to think effectively on my feet, process information quickly and take appropriate action, that could not be more hard wired into me....what fires together, wires together, you know...so staying on top of things and getting things done while you have the opportunity is automatic pilot for me...and a bit hard to dial back a couple of notches when appropriate.

I have to make myself just sit back and watch them sometimes, rather than feeling a need to be doing something all the time.

Ahh, well, they love their Grandma and love to be here, so I guess it all balances itself out.


Maggie

[Hittenstiehl]

That's a great picture Maggie.

[Lily&Me]

I took about 5...this the only one where one of them wasn't being silly.


Maggie

[Lily&Me]

I put up the clings on the cargo door window...I think they're pretty, tho they don't afford much in the way of privacy I liked the idea of dressing that window a bit.

I don't know if it will seem too busy inside, but I'll leave them for awhile and we'll see how they set with me.

These are two sets of corners, which I tried to place strategically and artfully so as to look like vines.

Inexpensive, from this place...

windowvinyletchings.com


Maggie

[Lily&Me]

SteakNShake has happy hour 2-5pm every day...half priced milkshakes, you know.

Real ice cream, milkshakes made the old fashioned way...a small road treat for Alice and I as we headed to meet her parents.

We ran into a hellacious storm coming into Galesburg....60+mph winds, and I had to pull over to sit it out for fear of being blown off the road.

When we got to Galesburg, Alice's parents were inspecting and photographing their car, which had been hit by a large sheet of flying something that broke and imbedded itself in their car, causing a fair amount of damage. Good thing they had gone inside the Mall and were not in the car when it happened.

The torrential rain did nicely clean the insect and bird debris off my Interstate, however.

The RainX coating that Blue Beacon puts on really makes a difference in getting those bug bits off the windshield and paint.

We especially have lots of fat, juicy, tobacco spitting grasshoppers out here in corn country this time of year.

I am really loving that truck wash, and it will be a regular treat for my little buggy.

$28, for a good wash, including a RainX coating and cleaning/treating the tires and rims. What's not to love.

Meet up with Mimi in 9 days, have some odds and ends to do to get ready for that, after which I will be gone for 3 months....a solo trip, but interspersed with visiting friends and meeting up with groups.

Better.


Maggie

[mimiandrews]

I'm starting to load the trailer for a Friday departure. First stop is a visit with my sister-in-law in southern Kansas.

I do look forward to meeting you.

[skitique]

Safe travels Maggie! Sounds like the next 3 months will be very enjoyable.

Jane

[ColoradoLady]

Maggie and Mimi, enjoy your visit. It is hard to believe....we're almost into the middle of July! My the time has flown by. Next thing we know, we'll all be meeting up in Jackson Hole!

Maggie, glad you made it through that terrible storm. Unscathed! Sounds like it was pretty rough.

Safe travels. Evelyn.

[Lily&Me]

Thanks, and yes, I am looking forward to it all.

My time between now and the 20th has just taken on some new tasks, but as I was due to be gone anyway there is really nothing scheduled between now and then but a haircut.

There are definite advantages to having a computer genius for a son.

He was looking at my laptop the other day, a 7 year old MacBook Pro, which has a great deal stored on it, but is slow as molasses in January.

He said I should upgrade the hard drive, and add more storage, which wouldn't be prohibitively expensive and he could order and install what I needed.

Then, he lets me know he has a solid state (I think) hard drive, and 8 GB of data in a newer but since replaced laptop, that he will let me have.

He's going to have it all up and running before I leave next week.

He's a good man....and I like, love and appreciate good men.

May we partner with them, and may we raise them.


Maggie