Using up all nine lives....

My cat wookie is determined to use up those nine lives of hers. Last year around this time she went missing for a week and then finally came home with one of her eyes so badly damaged (hanging out of her head) that she had to have it removed. There have been several "locked in the neighbors shed for days till mom heard her howling" episodes; and of course the 45 minute trip out to Jamye and Adrianna's up underneath my truck. I still don't know how she survived that one. But the she seems determined to top even that one because this past Sunday night around 10:30pm she came home with a big fluid sack hanging from her stomach and several small abrasions one her face and one of her feet. So we rushed her to the emergency room thinking that she had been hit by a car or something. The vet thinking the same thing and fearing internal bleeding took x-rays right away only to find that she had been shot. Yes.... shot! There the pellet was lodged in her chest clear as day and the path it had taken through her side had sliced clean through her deep muscle creating an internal pocket that was filling with fluid, and air. There was however no internal bleeding and after two days at the emergency clinic and a trip to our regular vet this morning her diagnosis is looking good. She will have to be confined and on antibiotics for a few weeks but should heal without the surgery that we originally thought would be necessary to repair her damaged muscle. So we are keeping our fingers crossed.

Wookie of course thinks she is just fine and is none too happy about being locking our little tiny bathroom. Poor kitty :( We are now trying to decide what to do once she heals since we are afraid that letting her outside might mean a repeat of our current situation.. We may build her a little outdoor enclosure or something since she does like to get fresh air, but then again...she may not want out for a while after all of this!

Late night walk

We decided to take the dogs for a walk the other day around 9:30pm (its dark out at that time now) so we walked down the river walk since it has lights along the path. The walk is about 2 miles which is a nice distance for everyone. It was so much cooler out then when we go at 6 o'clock and we had the whole path to ourselves so it made for a very peaceful walk. There might not have been any other people out, but there was lots of critters. There is usually big fat night crawlers, beetles, frogs, and snakes moving across the path but we also had an opossum and an armadillo cross the path so that was fun to see; I think armadillos are so interesting. However, the highlight of the night was by far the beaver. On the way in we saw a shadow move across the wooden bridge that crosses over the path and Pekoe got really excited but we didn't know what it was. Well, on the way back over the bridge Jeramie says "hey look, there's what Pekoe saw!" so I looked down and low and behold there was a beaver paddling along the top of the river. I have never seen one in its natural habitat so I was pretty excited. Its amazing how such an awkward looking creature can be so graceful. :D We watched him swim along until he reached a brushy embankment and then ducked under the water to enter his little "lodge" underneath. Too cool!

We are now going to try and take an evening walk at least 3 times a week so we (dogs and people) can all get a little exercise. I hope we stick with it.... seems like we don't meet to many of our health goals these days.... sigh..... must do better!!

Animal updates

Mischa gets bigger and more enthusiastic every day. Here are a couple shots of her with her ear tape off about a month ago, we are currently still taping since her tips have starting curling back....argh! Sometimes I think we will still be taping 2 more months from now.... I sure hope not!

Sid the lizard is also growing and is about 10 inches long now, so about half of his adult size. He eats lots of salad these days, but crickets are still his favorite. He likes to wait until they run and then he chases them down and sticks his tongue out to catch them :)

Tuskeegee National Forest

Wow I am so far behind on this blog here and the pictures are building up in my camera! Here are some pics I took last month when Jer and I took the dogs and drove about 50 mins. out to Tuskegee National Forest. If I remember correctly we weren't that impressed with it since the roads weren't marked and they all intersected making it very hard to find your way around. We did see a couple of really neat lizards; a little lime green one inside the parks notice board, and strange looking gray one with a red throat. There were also a lot of pretty wild flowers, including some lovely pink roses and there was a 15 mile horse trail there (the only marked trail on the place) that I would like to take Ima on sometime.

We drove around aimlessly on the dirt roads for about 45 mins at which point the sky started tuning dark and a huge thunder shower hit us. It was a good thing that we got out of the maze of roads when we did because they were mostly make of red clay with lots of little ravines and deep ruts so it is very likely we would have gotten stuck in the car :-0

Puppy pictures

Okay here are a few new pics of the puppy, two from just before and two from just after she had her ears cropped, enjoy :)

Hiking at Flatrock Park

A couple of weeks ago Jer and I discovered a new park called "Flat Rock" so we decided to take the dogs out for a walk and check it out.

The park was huge with tons of trails It gets its name from these big flat rock formations that cover large areas on the ground; water trickles through them and they are really pretty, next time I will have to get some photos of them.

We ended up walking the beginner dirt bike trail through the woods which was about 2 miles long. The shade was nice but next time I think we will walk a different trail because we are trying to leash train Mischa and it was just to narrow and brushy for that. I did find myself thinking that they would make good horse trails.... if they were allowed.... sigh :)

We really enjoyed our walked there and have been back a couple times since, but we have been sticking to more open areas. The last time we went I slipped on the slimy rocks and landed in the water....I had to laugh at myself, especially since right before I walked acrossed the rocks I said "I am so clumsy that I am sure I will slip and fall in there" LOL. It hurt my back later that night but at the time it was pretty funny :D

New Puppy Mischa

Well I have been very delinquent on my blog here lately. School is wrapping up for the summer and we have been really busy at home. Jer works away at LTR and I have been looking for a part time job since school will be out soon.

The most recent news is that we got a new puppy. She is a boxer named Mischa and she is a real riot. She is 12 weeks old now (we got her when she was 9 wks) and at her last vet appointment she weighed 19.6 pounds; she has been gaining over a pound a week lately but she is still all joints and feet. She looks especially silly right now running around the house with a cone on her head (she had her ears cropped last week) and I cant help but laugh at her when she is being goofy. Last night she kept jumping up on the couch despite the fact that I kept telling her no.... but she was being stubborn about it, so Jer snapped his finger and said "OFF" in a loud voice and guess what she did? She ran over bouncing across the room and jumped on him instead, I couldn't help but laugh, and then I got in trouble too haha :D