Snow and fog

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It started snowing Saturday morning about the time I got out of bed. It didn’t amount to much for a while. By the time I took the dogs for a walk, it was beginning to stick.

That was around 10 am. Even though it had been fairly warm earlier in the week, the snow was starting to stick on the roads. By the time we got back home, there was about two inches.

And then, by the afternoon, it was all gone.

The temperature dropped a little overnight, although not below freezing. When we got up Sunday morning, we had dense fog. This was up close to the top of the mountain, when I took the dogs for their walk.

The fog got thinner the lower we went. I think that means it was actually a cloud by that time.

Our weather has been wet and quite warm. It rained a lot before we got the snow, and it’s raining again now, as I write this Monday evening. We have had a fire most of the recent days, but, except for a couple of really cold nights, we could have done without. Now, the temperature is actually supposed to go up though the night. It’s 50F now and is supposed to be around 60F by morning. It looks like winter is almost over. At least that’s what this clematis thinks.

Clematis is deciduous; it’s not supposed to start leafing out until spring. We have some bulbs that are similarly early. In fact, some of our bulbs sprouted new foliage even before all the old leaves had turned brown and shriveled.

This weather. It’s all so confusing.

Lessons, learned and not learned

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I have been taking the dogs out into our front yard for a post-lunch play session for quite a while now. Ever since the great dog escape I have been putting Zoe on a long leash and letting Sam run free. That has worked pretty well. Sam can run around and escape from Zoe’s attacks, and then come back for more punishment.

A few days ago when I took them for their morning walk, Zoe was so full of energy that she could hardly contain herself. She desperately wanted to run. So Thursday afternoon, I decided to put Sam on a long leash and let Zoe run free. I expected her to run in big circles around the yard, but she didn’t. Instead, she ran about 30 feet away, and then turned to stalk Sam. That went on for a while. And then Zoe walked down to the bottom of the grassy part of the yard and into the woods.

I called her. I yelled for her. She ignored me and continued into the woods.

If this had happened 35 years ago, back when I had knees and could run on them, I would have chased her. These days, all I can do is walk at a determined pace, which is not enough to keep up. But I had Sam, I thought, and Sam could find her.

So I took Sam down through the narrow band of trees at the front of the yard to the street. Based on the direction Zoe had been walking, I planned to take Sam to Fouche Gap Road and head her off. But when I got there, Sam continued across the road towards the other end of Lavender Trail. I figured Sam knew what he was doing, and was following Zoe. So I let him go. We went up the steep grade towards the dead end, where I had found all the shotgun shells a few days earlier. I tried to jog a little, which demonstrated, if I needed it, that 30 minutes on the stepper is not an eight-mile run.

When we got to the top, my phone rang. A neighbor up the road in the opposite direction had caught Zoe. So, Sam was faking it.

When I managed to get back home, I drove up to our neighbor’s house and retrieved Zoe. She seemed glad to see me and hopped right into the car.

It’s clear that Zoe did not learn her lesson from when she disappeared for four days. However, I have learned my lesson: I cannot let Zoe off the leash. That’s a disappointment. I had hoped to have a normal dog, like all of my other dogs except Zeke, who could be trusted not to run away.

Sam’s problem

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On Tuesday afternoon I was working at my desk with both dogs lying behind me when I heard a loud commotion. I thought they were play-fighting, but when I looked back I realized that Sam was having a seizure.

He was on his side with his rear legs drawn up, he was shivering, and his upper body was swaying from side to side. His eyes were so dilated that his pale blue irises were just a thin rim about the black of his pupils.

Sam had a seizure about a year earlier one night while we were in bed. It looked pretty much the same. This time I immediately took him to the vet. He couldn’t walk, so I had to carry him to the truck. He has always had problems with car sickness, so I wasn’t surprised that he vomited. When I got to the vet’s he jumped out of the truck and was able to walk in. They saw him pretty quickly.

He was a little shaky, but seemed to be over the seizure. The vet looked at her records and saw that he had actually had two previous seizures. The first was in 2018. The second was about a year later. This one was about eight months later. She said it was probably a form of epilepsy, and that we should monitor him, and if the seizures came less than a month apart, she would put him on medication.

And then he had another seizure in the vet’s office.

She gave him a valium, which didn’t really calm him much. So she gave him an injection, which calmed him immediately.

Phenobarbital is the most common treatment for epileptic seizures in dogs. The vet said the hope is that it will keep the seizures to no more than once a month. I hate to think of poor Sam going through a seizure like this that often. It’s a hard thing to watch, knowing that you can’t do anything for him. I assume it’s worse for him to actually go through it.

On Wednesday he seemed completely normal. I took him and Zoe out into the front yard for their regular after-lunch play period. He chased around, rolled on the ground, and chewed on Zoe’s cheeks just as he always has. He seems no worse for the experience.

Jingle Bells

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It was raining Thursday so I took the dogs for a walk up the short stub of Lavender Trail across Fouche Gap from us. When I got to the top, I saw this.

It’s hard to see in this image, but there are a lot of red objects on the road. No, it’s not red Christmas tree ornaments. Not lipstick tubes, either.

They are shotgun shells*, 12 gauge, at least 50, probably more. Also scattered around were a fair number of 5.56 mm shell casings.

I found several clay pigeons, both broken and whole, so I suppose the shotgun shooter was doing some target practice, although at a pretty close range.

We had heard what sounded like a small war a few days ago. A 12 gauge shotgun is quite loud, far louder than what you might expect from watching TV or a movie. We also heard some very fast shooting, something that would be hard to accomplish without an automatic weapon. Maybe the shooter had a bump stock, like the Las Vegas shooter used to kill so many people back in 2017. That almost certainly accounts for the 5.56 casings.

The end of the road is not far from our house. We can actually see it from the driveway. It has been used for target shooting on a not-too-freqent basis, just often enough that it’s hardly remarkable any more.

We live in a rural area with large stretches of undeveloped forest land, but it’s all private property, so people might have trouble finding a place for target shooting. There is at least one actual shooting range, but I suppose that’s too much trouble. It’s much easier to find a dead-end road and just start shooting, never mind what the nearby residents might think.

*You might have heard a version of the old Christmas song “Jingle Bells” that goes, “Jingle bells, shotgun shells.” I tried to look it up but found only recent versions. I don’t remember if there were more verses in the song I heard when I was a kid.

Turkeys on the road

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Returning from a doctor’s appointment (orthopedist — arthritic knees) on Monday afternoon, I had to stop for a parade.

I counted at least 19 here.

So why were these turkeys crossing the road? I have no idea. They wander. The real question was why did the last few of them seem to be so reluctant to follow the rest of them. As I pulled up to them, two stayed in my lane and kept looking back in the direction they had come from.

If you look carefully, you will see what they were watching. It’s close to the edge of the photo on the right. At first I thought it was a small turkey. Then I thought it was just a piece of wood or trash. Then I realized.

They were watching a cat. I couldn’t see it very well, but it looked like it might have been a tortoiseshell like Mollie. It turned and walked back into the woods as I passed.

Retreating was probably a good idea, no matter how hungry it might have been or how interested it was in chasing birds. These turkeys were bigger and heavier than the cat. I suspect it would not have fared well if it had attacked, although there seems to be some debate about whether a feral cat could kill a turkey.

This cat was probably dumped by someone and has been living in the woods down at the bottom of the mountain. We have seen cats that we assume are feral living along Huffaker Road, sometimes over periods of months, so they apparently can find enough game to stay alive. For this particular cat on this particular day, it was probably better for the cat not to try to have a turkey dinner.