The kindness of neighbors

Last night was our turn to host our weekly neighborhood potluck. Unexpectedly one of our neighbors handed me a small gift bag, with instructions not to look inside until everyone had gone for the evening.

So just before bed, with the kitchen tidy and the house quiet, I opened the bag and found...

I nearly burst into tears. I'm not normally a fan of knick-knacks, but this one blew me away. The fact that these kind people had gone out of their way to find a lovely picture of Lydia, then have it enshrined on this ornament, touched me deeply. I treasure it.

The Guardian of the Garden is gone

Lydia, our beloved Great Pyrenees, died last night.

It happened so fast I can't quite believe she's gone. We had her stitches (and plastic cone) removed on Tuesday morning, and she was feeling fine and frisky afterward. I brought her into the garden as a treat, and she explored as usual. It was so good to have her back in the garden with me as I worked.

After exploring, she rested in the shade of the pear tree, looking glad to be free of the cone and glad to be in the garden with me once more.

Yesterday morning Younger Daughter and I went out early to pick strawberries and raspberries. Lydia, as Guardian of the Garden, surveyed her vegetative domain.

Then she moved herself to another favorite spot under the raspberries. This is the last photograph I have of her, looking pleased with the world.

But as yesterday progressed, I got more worried about her. She was eating absolutely nothing, but we tried to remember she was just two weeks after major surgery, so perhaps she still needed more recovery time...?

Then last night at 11:30, Don woke me up and told me Lydia was seriously ill. I threw on some clothes and came downstairs. She was panting, lying flat on her side, and her gums were pasty white and bleeding. Immediately we scrambled to get ready to take her to the emergency vet clinic (the same one where she had porcupine quills removed last year). When the car was ready, we went over to pick her up and carry her -- and found she had died. Quietly, peacefully, without fuss. She looked like she was just sleeping ... but she wasn't. Don thinks she had a stroke or perhaps a blood clot.

Darn it, I'm tearing up as I write this. I simply cannot believe she's gone.

Goodbye, beloved pet. Thank you for eight wonderful years.

Diagnosis for Lydia

Our Great Pyrenees, Lydia, had a mass on her belly which concerned us, so a couple weeks ago I brought her in to the vet. It turned out to be breast cancer.

The vet told me that female dogs who get spayed before their first heat cycle (9 to 12 months of age) reduce their chances of breast cancer by 95 percent. If spayed after the first heat cycle but before the second, chances are reduced by 80 percent. But if left unspayed, it's almost guaranteed they'll get breast cancer in their older years. Lydia just turned eight years old.

Her inflamed teats were weeping a watery bloody fluid, so the vet wrapped her in bandages to catch the drips. It didn't work because the bandages bunched up and hitched downward, but it was only for a day or two.

She went into surgery right away. The vet both spayed her and removed the mass, which was sent in for a biopsy. The results came back indicating the cancer may have metastasized.

She came home with an incision from north to south, tipped with drain tubes at either end. Major ouch.

Needless to say, she was stuck with the "cone of shame" (as they call it) until the stitches came out. It took her a couple of days to sleep off the effects of the anesthesia.

But after that, she felt fine and frisky, but couldn't figure out what this strange plastic thing was around her neck. She simply cannot grasp its diameter, and has spent the last two weeks blundering into things and getting stuck in corners.

The last couple of days have been hard on her. I think she's bewildered by the "punishment" she's receiving -- wearing a cone -- and is acting depressed.

Yesterday it seems she might have blundered into a hole or something and lightly sprained her left front paw. At this point the cone is doing her more harm than good, so I called and moved up her vet appointment a day early to have the stitches and cone removed (her appointment is tomorrow).

The vet showed me how to check her lymph nodes, which I should not be able to feel. We'll bring her in for a six-month checkup to see if the cancer has spread.

Sigh. Lesson learned, folks. Please spay your female dogs before their first heat cycle.

Random pictures

Here are some random pictures from the last few weeks:

Arrow-leaf balsamroot in bloom, late May.

Apple blossoms from our young apple trees, late May.

Chipmunk.

A puddle by a drainpipe on a neighbor's property. See the little black dot on the pipe?

It's a fledgling blackbird. The parents were twittering anxiously overhead as I took these shots.

With Lydia and Lihn (Younger Daughter's Quaker parrot) in the garden.

I usually bring Lydia out to the garden with me and let her wander while I work. I call her the Guardian of the Garden.

Here she is, zonked out at the base of the Stanley plum tree.

"Huh? What?"

Five red-winged blackbird eggs.

Their nest is in the cattails of our pond.

A rain squall.

Although we've had some warm days (even one or two hot ones), this spring has been remarkably wet and chilly. On June 11 we dipped to just a hair above freezing. Thankfully the tomatoes didn't die.

On such days, the warmth from the wood cookstove is welcome (even in June).

Naughty robin, eating my strawberries.

Don has a faithful audience as he presses hamburger patties for our neighborhood potluck (it was our turn to host).

It's currently daisy season.

Suddenly we have cedar waxwings in the garden. Gorgeous birds.

Notice the one on the left has just caught a butterfly.

However they're also after the strawberries.

Lydia greets the neighbor's alpacas.

Morning sun through some fog.

Dawn sky.

I'm still waiting for the killdeer eggs to hatch. Because the chicks are precocial, the incubation period is fairly long -- 28 days -- and since this couple has nested smack in the center of the garden, it's preventing us from doing anything heavy-duty (using the tractor to bring in additional tires for beds, for example). I can't even pull weeds around the area. I'll be glad when this nest hatches.

Both parents incubate the eggs. It's charming to watch the "changing of the guard" -- the bird getting off the eggs does a little bowing-pecking ritual to its mate, and makes barely-audible cooing sounds, before relinquishing the nest.

Enjoy the spring.