Pages

Showing posts with label pets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pets. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 14, 2021

Bright and Beautiful Wanderings

Greetings, dear bloggie frens. I am continuing to run so far behind in visiting blogs! We had a pet emergency, in that my little half-feral was evidently bitten by a rat right on his face, and has had surgery but isn't recovering quickly. We know it was a rat, because Morgy fought it, and won, right on the back patio! A Pyrrhic victory, perhaps.

Poor Morgie, or Morgy as the vet has re-spelled it (!), is wanting to be held for hours, and I am glad to do it, as he never liked being held before. But not a lot gets done when you are holding a sleeping kitty. And my knee is acting very silly lately!

I am shocked, but not really, at Hobby Lobby: They have consolidated what's left of Christmas onto two aisles, and have Valentine's and a bit of Easter up! The Christmas items must have sold in record numbers this year. I tried, but couldn't find, any boxes of unbreakable ornaments and lights after the first of December. I did get some adorable retro plastic deer, 90% off because they were missing something from their heads. Here are two of them, along with some marzipan:

marzipan and mid century modern deer

Frens, don't forget, you can always ask for a discount at stores, including Big Box stores! I wanted 90% off those deer, not the 50% they already were, but the cashiers are usually limited to 10 or 20 percent off, so just ask for the "manager on duty" and see if they'll bite! You know who asks for discounts all the time? Wealthy people! That's where I learned it.

An aside: Have you ever made a big pot of soup and have it not turn out very tasty? I am now stuck with eating a yucky, but healthy, soup for the next three days! I need to stick with a recipe. I think the cauliflower fought with the other flavors.

I'll leave you, dear bloggers, with some photos of my travels home from church. I love the lights of Christmas! Sorry if I repeat any from before.


Leaving San Albino Basilica after Mass...
san albino at christmas
(Yes, I got that piece of trash up!)

Side view of a house near Immaculate Heart of Mary Cathedral:
las cruces christmas near IHM cathedral 2021

This house was full of music and inflatables: A labor of love for the children of Las Cruces, found out on a county road. All are welcome to wander the grounds, so I did:




A pretty house in the part of town known as Mesilla Park. I love it when people light up their palm trees:



And here is a reminder that be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. See the doggie on the back porch? He was so smart and good! Home is where the heart is! 


Hoping your season is going well!

Kind regards,

Holly, The Olde Dame


Monday, September 20, 2021

Shine On, Harvest Moon!

The huge and lovely harvest moon, bathed in a rich golden hue, rose early tonight! I don't take photos of the moon anymore; they always come out like a dot or a little yellow pea when I try! But I hope the moonbeams found you, wherever you are! 

I redid a bit of my mantel, to showcase a fine fat gourd and its tiny "baby." The large gourd is a bottle or birdhouse type, and the little one nestling at its side is a "spinner" gourd. Can you believe the gourd was only $3?


A bit of candlelight, and the room felt very different, very cozy and fall-like!


I just adore candlelight. I am excited to have found a little candle -- and now I can't recall where, which is ridiculous since I go so few places -- that came with a cork lid. When it has finally sputtered out, I will have a sweet tiny container, perhaps for little safety pins or buttons or beads. The glass is a pretty amber color. My mother had many, many amber glass items, and I never liked them, until I turned 60. Then, I adored amber glass! 


I added a little stool I have and put a fake punkin atop it, and I think I'm finally happy with the mantel...but perhaps not. I think I have a fake mouse or two to add to it, somewhere!

I did buy a non-essential item besides the candle and gourd, too...a ristra! A long one that is very pretty. Ristras are green chiles (that turn red when fully ripe) that are strung together in a lovely swag, and sometimes into wreaths. But the swag is the most common. They are a beloved symbol of the turn of the year and of Christmas here. They smell very good when drying.


They hang from most houses, both inside and out, and also hang from the light posts in that little nearby village of Mesilla that snuggles up against the city of Las Cruces. I think it's precious that most manger scenes include a ristra here.


Mine is drying by the front door. If I manage to get another job, I will get one of the four-foot ones. But this one is about 3 feet and quite nice. Once it's drier, it will go inside. I use them in cooking but not enough chiles are plucked from it to make it look scanty. It stays pretty until the next year. Ristras are said to bring luck to a house.

We had a scare with one of the pets, the Chiweenie. He didn't want to eat, and that is a huge red flag, so we took him straight to the vet clinic and he had to stay there a few days, on an IV. The vet thinks maybe he had food poisoning or "just a sick tummy." But he's back home and I have him eating turkey and rice, and chicken and rice, and some little white bread and turkey sandwiches! He's not 100 percent yet...lighted a candle for him and all pets today after Mass...


The vet bill almost sent ME to the hospital! Dreadfully expensive. Insanely so, but what can someone do? These are strange times, changing and in scary ways, I think! Some changes I like, but the pace of change seems to be so fast, the older I get, and I think a lot of the changes are toxic! But there's still beauty...and I hope you have a BEAUTIFUL week! 


Tell me, have you finished your fall decorating? And did you see the harvest moon?

Kind regards,

The Olde Dame, Holly

Saturday, June 12, 2021

A Quick "Hello" to Meet the Pets

Hmph! I am STILL trying to repair whatever it was that happened to Blogger about a month back. If you do not see your blog on the Blogs I Follow list, please let me know! I found TWO MORE of the blogs I love that were inexplicably off the list again. I have missed some very nice posts! Ugh!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But here's the pet family, as of the moment. All of the pets are "rescues." 

Another charging cable bites the dust
Morgie sleeping

The one who is newest and "poorly" is little Morgus the cat. No vet can find out why he is so thin or why his eyes water. We got Morgie two years ago. He seems happy and energetic. I ply him with treats constantly, but he doesn't gain and he barely nibbles. I think I have tried every food, restaurant food, home-cooked food, vet food, and fancy concoction known to PetSmart and man. I'm afraid one vet was right: He was likely a malnourished feral kitten, and will have lifelong impacts. He was very ill and crawling across an interstate when my son stopped his big work truck and put him into the cab. Of course, he ended up with me...He is standoffish and likes the back porch most of the time, and we have him a good setup back there. We sit on the ottomans because "the chairs are Morgie's." While I would like Morgie to stay inside, like Red does, he is wild at heart and becomes distressed inside after a bit.

Morgie on one of his chairs

You have heard of Red already. Red was so emaciated he was just days from death. However, unlike Morgie, Red fattened up nicely! Red and Morgie look similar, but there is over a 20-pound difference. Red has been with us for 12 years and never was a sweeter, more mild creature encountered. Here's Red's dating profile, although he has no interest in any such activity. All our pets are neutered! 

"Hi, I'm Red. I'm a big boy and I am monochromatic from my eyes to my toe beans. I enjoy snoozing, napping, sleeping, dozing, and eating. I like birdwatching from a special perch at the living room window during the 30 minutes I am awake each day. Other activities include purring, tapping humans with my paw to get my chin scratched, and gazing into the water bucket."

Red is a big boi


Sophie is the reason my husband is alive, I feel. With his friends all dying of old age, with the world changing in ways that are wounding and confusing, with his own health troubles, he was slipping away. And then came Sophie. Suddenly, he had a reason to live, to get up, to stay up. If I cannot implore him to seek medical care, I must play The Sophie Card: "What about Sophie if something happens to you?" I love Sophie, too, but my husband loves her with such an intensity. They bonded immediately, when my son pulled out a tiny puppy from his jacket on what turned out to be the coldest day of the year. He rescued her from a box with "free" written on it, set out by a curb. She was so chilled she had stopped shivering. Under the heated blanket she went with my husband, and just like that he found a reason to live. Sophie is a maniac for "the ball." She is rarely without a tennis ball in her mouth. She will even bark with one in her mouth, and when she sleeps, there is always one near her that fell out. Sophie must be hand-fed. She will not eat food unless it is fed to her one tiny piece at a time, and that is a job my husband likes to do.


A very muddy Sophie -- she cannot resist a mud puddle...

Champie was an abuse case before rescue, and I will just say he has a bad back leg, greatly deformed due to the abuse, but the vet says it no longer hurts him. He uses it like a peg-leg. He lived on the end of a chain, no shelter, without a name, for almost two years before a rescue group saved him. He then was adopted and returned within a day three times (shockingly, people are pretty shallow about his appearance and his guarding of food) before I walked into a Petco store and had a large, intimidating woman call me over. She said, "You need this dog" and placed Champie (as they had named him) into my arms. His poor little leg hung down, but his eyes were serene and sweet. I still am not sure what happened, as I was NOT in the market for another dog, much less a stinky, constantly shedding chiweenie, but he went for a "sleepover" with me to see how he and Sophie would do (she ignores him), and then he was mine. Champie has ramps all over the house, so that he can participate in getting to the beds, benches, dog door, chairs, etc. Champie has no idea he is differently abled. He loves everyone, everything. He is always willing to go anywhere. There is one caveat about Champie: Do not touch him while he is eating. He will snap. 



Showing that awful chihuahua-shaped head on a fat dachshund body...
Red and Champie

If you have a moment, please tell me about your pets, past and present!