Saturday, June 18, 2016

Poor Jackal - Vet Visit

 On the exam table after his pain meds.

Jackal woke us up at four am this morning screaming in pain. It scared me to death. I thought he dying . When he stood up he wouldn't put weight on his left front leg and it was obvious he was injured. He was fine when we went to bed so I was baffled about how he could hurt himself.

I was afraid his leg was fractured or something, but we couldn't feel anything. Hubby palpated him and said the pain was coming from higher up around his back or shoulder. We got him laying down and kept him still while hubby massaged him and I called vets. Our vet wasn't available so we scheduled to take him to the vet who treated the horses for the grass staggers over new year's day.

When we got there hubby had to carry all sixty three and a half pounds of Jackal inside to the exam table while he screamed in pain. I was useless, just crying and following them. The vet examined him and took his temp. He agreed it was higher up. When he lifted Jackal's head to draw blood he started screaming again. That's when the vet said it was probably a disc or pinched nerve.....

He took blood from his leg since Jackal couldn't raise his head and then they carried him back for x-rays. My sweet boy was perfect for his x-rays and didn't have to be sedated even though he was in excruciating pain. I'm so proud of my boy. A lot of dogs refuse to cooperate for x-rays and these were the first Jackal has had so I didn't know how he would do. I'm glad they didn't have to sedate him. It scares me to knock them out.

The x-rays showed that he has a compressed disc at 3/4 and a misalignment at 4/5. The vet said there's really no way to know what caused it. He could have twisted wrong. So they gave him a shot of Metacam, a shot of Prednisone and a B12 shot. He has to take pain pills and steroids for a while and he has to stay quiet and not jump or run. I had to remove his ottoman and he has to sleep on the floor now.

They also found that his tick disease has flared up again so he's back on doxycycline. I really like this new vet! The first thing he asked when I told him he's been treated before is if he was treated the whole thirty days and I told him no they only prescribed ten days at the other vet. I've been feeling skeptical about our local vet and I think I'm going to keep using this one. He did right by my horse and now my dog too.

The vet bill was only half of what the local place would have charged too! Since we were there and cleaning out our bank account anyway i told him Jackal's whole history and asked a million questions.

He said the lump on his side is a fatty tumor, but the one on his leg is definitely not!!! I was shocked because the other vet said it was. He said it's definitely attached to muscle, but since it hasn't grown it's not necessarily malignant and we should continue to monitor it. We want to try to avoid surgery at his age and health.

I also asked him about Jackal's thyroid since his recheck was next week anyway. They did the test and said his dose was way too low! I knew it!! It has been eating away at me that his dose was so low and he hasn't lost any weight. I am hypothyroid so I know first hand what it's like. Based on his results they raised his dose from .3 to .8! I really hope he feels better soon. We also went ahead and did his heartworm test which was negative.

 Those eyes are begging for relief..

So he's home now and finally able to sleep.


 Stuck on the floor but at least I gave him two microfiber blankets!


I feel so bad for him. After the agony I went through with my pinched nerve in my neck I can truly empathize with him, which is why I didn't try to avoid the steroids. I normally hate giving steroids, but it's necessary in this case. My poor baby.

P.S. now I know why you all hate posting on blogger from your phone.... it's not easy!! My apologies for any autocorrect mistakes!

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Our Garden


This is how our garden started a month ago...


Below is two weeks ago....


 Below is yesterday and today!!

 Waist high or higher in spots!


 That's all with just rain and natural fertilizer (thanks Chrome!)!  He only had to start watering it this weekend because it's been really dry all week.


We've already harvested fifteen pounds of zucchini, yellow squash and cucumbers as of tonight!  This is the only picture I have of it though because we've been sharing it with my parents and grandparents and he's been eating it like crazy.  I'm holding out for the watermelon, acorn squash, butternut squash and spaghetti squash!

I just made him write a list of everything he planted... here it is.

Turban Pumpkin
Golden Acorn Squash
Delicata Squash
Waltham Butternut Squash
Spaghetti Squash
Pink Banana Squash
Green Cushaw Squash
Sweet Dumpling Squash
Candy Roaster-North Georgia Squash
Seminole Pumpkin
Upper Ground Sweet Potato
Yellow of Paris Pumpkin
Amish Pie Squash
Other miscellaneous pumpkins he can't remember what he planted....
Cocozelle Zuchini
Yellow Straightneck Squash
White Pickling Cucumber
Mirabella Cucumber
Clemson Spineless Okra
Crimson Sweet Watermelon
Black Diamond Watermelon
Cherokee Purple Tomatoes
Bell Pepper (Cubanelle, Pimento and another one he can't remember - starts with an M)
Black Beauty Eggplant
Red Ripper Peas (seeds he's had for years that his grandfather gave him)
Genuine Cornfield Pole Beans
Field Corn (his grandfather's)
Stowell's Evergreen Sweet Corn
Beefsteak Tomato
Amish Paste Tomato
Windowbox Roma Tomato
Baby Bell Pepper
Sweet Potato (unknown variety he got from store bought potato that sprouted - 30 plants)
Beauregard Sweet Potato (9 plants)
Vardaman Sweet Potato (65 plants)
Virginia Baker Sweet Potato (25 plants)
White Hayman Sweet Potato (25 plants)
Purple Sugar Cane
Asparagus
Rhubarb
Horseradish
Birdhouse Gourd
Dipper Gourd
Loofah Gourd
Spinach
Garlic (his grandmother's)

Can you tell we love squash and sweet potatoes??  Just wait until you see our fall garden list!! Some of my favorites like broccoli, kale, etc.

That doesn't even count our blueberry bushes, gooseberry bush, muscadines, cherry tree, apple tree or peach tree hehe.

Friday, June 3, 2016

2016 Reading Challenge - Book Scrabble - May

I read seven books in May.  I started off strong, but then slowed down toward the end of the month.  I finished the Queen's Blade series by TC Southwell quickly and then had to take a bit of a break.  I'm not going to write about them individually because I don't want to get so detailed that I give anything away.  :)

(so I don't have to link each individual book hehe)

I wasn't going to read the two prequels to the Queen's Blade because I thought I wouldn't want to, but by the time I finished the first six books I had to read the last two.  I'm glad I did!! It filled in so much of the back story and I loved them just as much as the original series.  I'm normally not too big on prequels, but these were very accurate (a lot of times they have major discrepancies) and just as enjoyable.  I will say it again.. I LOVED this series.  It seriously has made it onto my top favorites list (along with other fantasy favorites like Wheel of Time, Sword of Truth, the Pern books, etc.).  I have no idea why I loved them so much... my husband didn't enjoy them nearly as much as I did.  I think because he's read similar stuff before, so to him the ideas in it are old.  These were different from anything I've read (main character is an assassin) so they were new and exciting to me.  I normally don't like war or politics based books and these had both, but it didn't bother me or take away from the story at all.  These were very well fleshed out and interesting, with great characters.  There were a few times when I thought things were going to get repetitive and annoying (e.g. the dancing), but they didn't.  The author managed to keep the story interesting to the very end.  To me anyway.  Opinions are subjective obviously.  :)  I'm glad I bought the whole series because I will definitely read these again.  If you're the type who gives up quickly if the beginning of the book isn't interesting, please don't give up on these too soon!! The first book starts off a bit slow, but it's worth it in the end.  If you aren't hooked by the end of the first book don't bother buying the rest of them though.  Those five books gave me 10 points (S=1, M=3, L=1, C=3 and G=2).



November's Past was recommended to me by a friend.  It's about a detective that doesn't like being a detective and a murder case.  It was really good.  I like murder mysteries so it was right up my alley.  It felt a little slow paced after the Queen's Blade series, but I'm always like that after finishing a really good series (I'm one of those weirdos who feels sad that a series ends lol).  By the end of the book I was definitely interested in reading the next book (not out yet), but it didn't end on a cliffhanger so it didn't bother me to move on to something else.  It's probably because each book is a different mystery all wrapped up neatly by the end of the book (or so I assume since that's how the first one is).  I didn't guess who the killer was by the way!  Good twist at the end.  :D  This book was 1 point.


I chose Zombie Fallout simply because it's a Z title that earns me ten points on the Scrabble scoring system lol.  I'm glad I did though!  This book really surprised me.  It was the first zombie book I've ever read and I actually really loved it.  It's in first person and is different because it's basically journal entries about a man and his family surviving the zombie apocalypse.  I think what makes this so different and surprising though is the humor in it!  He's very sarcastic and I love it.  :D  One thing that was annoying and hilarious all at the same time is that it never failed I would get to the gross parts of the book when I was eating!!!  Every time!  Of course that probably has something to do with eating on lunch breaks and reading while eating supper, but still the coincidence was funny.  When I was reading while not eating I wouldn't get to anything gross.  Some of the descriptions are kind of gross if you haven't guess that already.  The funny thing is I accidentally bought the second book in the series (that dang one click to buy pop up in the Kindle app is dangerous!!!) so I'm reading that now.  If I had hated the book I'd be pissed and try to get it returned, but since I enjoyed it I figured why not?  It's only a few dollars.  So look forward to the review on the second one next month.  :)

That's all for May.  That is a total of 21 points. For those of you just joining, the points are not my rating system or anything.  I'm scoring the books I read this year on the Scrabble score system below.

(1 point)-A, E, I, O, U, L, N, S, T, R
(2 points)-D, G
(3 points)-B, C, M, P
(4 points)-F, H, V, W, Y
(5 points)-K
(8 points)- J, X
(10 points)-Q, Z

I will add them up at the end of the year and see how many points I earn.  :D  I'm not scoring the individual books because to me they are either 5 star or 1 star.  I'm not very good at subjectively scoring books haha.   A book rarely falls in middle ground for me.  Until next month, happy reading!