From Shelter to Snuggles: My Name is Tutu

 After our tortoiseshell cat, Molly died, Andrew grew more and more insistent about getting a dog. Tortoiseshell cats tend to be one owner types and she was as affectionate to me as a dog. After having a series of cats, Andrew wanted a dog in the house for years, and I had put him off. 

 

 

It was hard for me to imagine a dog of any kind or size fitting into our busy life. How would a dog get along with the cats? Would it need more exercise and play time than we could give it? My commute makes for a lengthy day away and Andrew has an entirely different schedule and I worried a dog at our house would not have a good life. 

 

With Molly gone, it was undeniable that life was a little lonely. Moxie and Maxwell have affectionate moments but neither are champions of  snuggling. In late April of 2017 we went to the Madison County Humane Society for the first time on the mutual agreement that we were just looking. We needed a cuddly dog. 

I think "just looking" was more of a reassurance from Andrew, who would love any dog and that the choice of which dog would largely be up to me. As I passed more and more dogs my heart sank lower and lower, knowing they were all good dogs in need of a home.  I felt worse and worse as each new furry face inspired no interest. Too big, too loud, too scary looking, too fluffy. They all looked too big for me to handle on a leash at 7:30 in the morning, half awake on a sleety winter day. I wanted to give a dog a chance but couldn't get excited about any of them. We went down the last aisle of mostly empty kennels but we could hear a little more barking and I thought to myself, "don't they have any little dogs?"

We drew near a small brown Benji type terrier that was barking non stop and I thought "well, we will have to go somewhere else or what until there is some turn over here." Then at the very last kennel, right beside the yappy brown Benji dog, was a small black and white dog with a short coat and large eyes. The dog sprang from their bed on PVC pipe stilts and sat primly in front of their door. Not a sound, with ears pinned back, dancing their front feet, and their whole bottom wagging along with their tail in excitement at the prospect of being let out.

 

 

She didn't yap or bark...which was a slight misrepresentation of her vocalization habits. We did another lap around the shelter aisles but I had made up my mind this was the only dog I wanted to meet. I told Andrew the dog seemed nice and we asked a volunteer to get out "the little black and white dog at the end of the row."  We waited in the little play room and when they brought "Tutu" in she was everywhere all at once, sniffing, jumping, running around and completely ignoring us. Of course she was, being let out of a kennel was probably an overwhelming joy. It was not love at first sight for any of us, I think and I was really more into the logistics of care that she represented rather then her self.

She could easily jump 5 feet into the air from a sitting position and almost jumped over the half door of the play room. The volunteer joked that she was a real "land shark" which we later interpreted as a big, big kisser/licker. The only thing that could pull her from running around like a maniac was a fistful of treats the volunteer gave each of us. This seemed to add another layer of stimulation to her almost short circuited energy. We were encouraged to give her as much treat as she wanted and she would stop for a nanosecond to gobble what was offered and would be off again. We were told her name was Tutu and at a year old she was unlikely to get much bigger. 

The volunteer hooked her up to a leash where we took her for a walk around the large lawn behind the shelter where she walked us more than we walked her and continued to ignore us while she checked the many, many messages left by the other shelter dogs on the perimeter of the lawn. She barked and lunged at any other dog she saw, even if it was at a distance and we thought that could be worked out later. (HA!) Do you know how we work it out? By not taking her around other dogs...

I will admit that on that afternoon I did not immediately think Tutu would become the love of our lives. I knew she was little, I could handle her more or less, Andrew wanted a dog, and she would fit the bill fine...probably.  

We had an extra lot going on at this time. Andrew was finishing up his second of three semesters of an accelerated RN program and I was about to change library employment for the first time in 14 years. 

We brought her back to the building after a couple laps where she continued to lunge and bark at other dogs and the volunteers joked with us about "little dog syndrome." We filled out an application and left, already listing the dog stuff we would need to buy. I remember she was wearing a green and yellow John Deere collar.  Because of already planned weekend trips, work schedules, and time needed to get a crate and other accoutrements, it took us two weeks to get her, including application review. 

 I stopped on a Friday afternoon halfway between the two weeks and to take her for a walk. I was surprised by how excited I was as I waited for a volunteer to get her out. She was more or less happy to see me. It was quieter at the shelter than the Saturday before and I felt like this was really the first time we could see each other but she still had a healthy dose of "I'm too busy to pay attention to you" attitude. 

 

It was at this visit that we tested her around other cats, because how she treated them would be a deal breaker or maker for our household. The test consisted of walking her into the cat room that held the cat cages, then opening the door of the cattery room for lounge and play and letting "Drop Dead Fred" approach her. Apparently, this large white and cream colored cat would play dead around any dog that should not be placed in a home with cats. While Tutu seemed more interested in trying to eat cat food behind the bars of the cat cages, Fred scratched at a post, ambled about, and sat down in the middle of the room to wash a paw. I was assured these were all good signs of potential feline and canine harmony, more or less. 

In the meantime, there was a crate to get, leashes, collars, tags, dishes, a cushion for the crate, and a pet carrier for the car. It added up. 

 

Before I go further, we do have a backstory for Tutu that the Humane Society gave us. It is at once dramatic and vague. I'll not go into it here. Suffice to say, she's very happy now and we try not to think about what her first year of life was like. She is lucky to have found her way to the Humane Society and that she got solid training in basic commands and house training through a prison canine training program to make her more adoptable.  The house training was essential for a pair of new dog owners sworking full time. 

We picked her up the morning of Mother's Day, a warm sunny Sunday in 2017 and it was a big day for all of us. After we picked her up we stopped by Petsmart to get her a tag with our names, phone number, and promise of a reward if found. She is also micro chipped.  She was not a big fan of the travel carrier and we ended up returning it for a harness that hooked onto the seat belt. Now she has a luxurious travel box.

From Petsmart we went to Yellow Springs to walk in Glen Helen.

She seemed to really enjoy this except for when she crossed other dogs on the path, which was almost constantly. The little dog syndrome we had seen at the shelter and Petsmart did not mellow out in the Great Outdoors. We got carry out from Winds Café and returned home for her first bath in her new home. 

We added an OSU licensed pennant collar (code for expensive) to her new red and black Kong collar for her charming first introduction to her Maw Maw and Paw Paw.  Tutu loves both of my parents which is a story for another day. 

Our first night together, we insisted she sleep in her kennel crate as she had been trained to do.

In response, Tutu insisted that none of us would get any sleep that night. Her repertoire of wails, whines, cries and barks is impressive, heart breaking, and easily remedied. 

Bird Stories

One of the blog posts that I didn't get to this summer was a round-up of all the bird stories on the property. I have all these pictures in a folder, of all these different lives, successful and some not that I observed, before, during or after the fact of their work.  Like rainbows and beautiful skies, I saw more bird activity than ever before on the farm. It makes sense as I was home so much, but more than that I wonder how many more nests did I not see? Even into August, it seemed like I would find a new one. I think I finally found the mockingbird nest that I suspected was around as I saw two separate pairs of mockingbirds squabbling with as many robin pairs. I never got a good picture of the nest, that I didn't see it until mowing but it is the largest nest I've seen on our property, at the very top of my favorite pine tree. 

Seeing this little nest remnant while walking Tutu by the willow tree... a favorite bathroom spot, I was galvanized into revisiting this post. 

Was this the red-winged blackbird's nest? He's always hanging around this tree, enough of a mini-wetland I suppose, with the sump pump water emptying out into the field. Another nest discovery as the days grow dark by 5:30. In another month, the sun will set around 4:15, then we've hit bottom and the days grow longer again. 

I included the comings and goings of birds in my journal but as I review these pictures, I'm wistful that I didn't have a separate nature journal this summer. Well, one can't do it all.  The usual suspects were Eastern Meadowlarks (no good pictures this year) robins, sparrows, red-winged blackbirds, mockingbirds, hummingbirds, and my beloved killdeer.  I think our trees are really just getting big enough for the mockingbirds to set up house but not enough for the bluejays to move in which is fine with me. As beautiful as they are, they are also disruptive. 

I want to end with the killdeer.  So let's start with some other nest discoveries. 

If this nest looks like it's not quite right, it's not. It's on it's side perpendicular to the branches. This is one of two robin nests I suspect were raided...probably by the same creature that I suspect raided a sparrow nest in the early spring. There were a few nests that had eggs...and then one day had none. 

But one robin's nest that had eggs, also failed. Before we went on our trip to Michigan, Andrew told me there was a robin's nest in the front storage section of the TAB where the marine battery is. It had to be moved and it had eggs in it. This of course broke my heart. I began plotting where I might place it...but he also said he suspected it wasn't worth relocating and he was right. 

I know that in some decorating books, people make wreaths or otherwise incorporate birds nests in their home. I'm not willing to go that far, but I did save the eggs for some of the nature jars I make as gifts. It was a different kind of sad to discover that they couldn't be saved. 

Another sad story was the sparrows, only two, in the teeny, tiny nest in the grape that grows around a post on our back deck area. 

The afternoon after I took the above picture, I checked the nest as I was going to water the garden and it was empty. Both chicks were gone and they weren't quite ready to fly. The obvious story was something had raided it or some other mishap had happened but I couldn't figure out for the life of me what. Later in the evening, something drew my attention to the base of the post and to the right about two feet. There in the pea gravel, like a little fossil, was the tiny skull and beak of what could only be one of the chicks, with a few ants still crawling around it. What could have befell this chick in 24 hours? If it was a raid, all the evidence would be gone...somehow both chicks disappeared and at least one was already nearly gone. I sighed, toyed with the idea of looking for the other one, but this would yield no more answers. 

I'm sorry if this is a bummer of a blog post. So many nests fail. I'm sure I had more successful nests on the property, but one can't track them all unless biology study is a full time pursuit. 

Another robin's nest in another grape.

Years ago, when we first put up bluebird boxes, we put one up in the grapes and tree swallows moved in. They dive bombed Andrew furiously whenever he would try to work in the grapes. The box got relocated as soon as the young family moved out. We didn't have any tree swallows this year, just the barn swallows show showed up as a buffet escort for all the bugs the riding mower kicked up.
 

 

This nest was interesting, Andrew found it at the outdoor center at Lowe's. I wanted to some research to figure out what these light blue eggs are...they are the size of the small chicken eggs my new hens are still laying or a little bigger. 

 I hope you get a kick out of this next picture of a dove's nest on my Dad's hunting cabin.

If you look closely, I think you will see that there is two, maybe three nests total from previous years. Dove's are notoriously lazy nest builders. 

So the killdeer. Here is a picture of her sitting on her nest, early in the incubation period. You can tell I've begun to get a handle on spring weeding.

But rather than disturb her, I let her sit alone and I let the purple nettle grow. Can you find her in this picture?

Then of course, was the exciting day the 4 babies hatched and they ran around the back, side and front yard with their parents corralling them at every turn. 

It takes about 21 days for the babies to be able to fly after 21 days of incubating. For days and days in a row I heard or saw them. Then there was a day I didn't, then another. I was going into work more as we ramped up curbside service. I think I noticed their absence around day 10...far too soon for a disappearance. 

Then one day, I noticed a full sized killdeer and an almost full sized killdeer running around the front yard. Where were the other three babies and parent? For several days more I saw this duo. Dad says something like a fox could have easily crept up on one of the parents and once a parent was taken, could pick off the babies as one bird would not be enough to lead them all to safety. 

I think it's a good guess, but once again, it's a bird story we can only guess at. 

I took a series of pictures of them on the septic tank caps just a couple days before they disappeared...but I'm thinking it's because the baby was large enough to fly. That's what I chose to believe anyway. The baby is on the bottom cap in the foreground. I think the mother liked this spot because it has a clear 360 view of the yard...nothing can sneak up on them here. I have a short video capturing some behavior. It's through the screen door so not super high quality.

I will never know what happened to the birds who made it and those who didn't. What raided this nest, or why this other nest failed. I won't ever know what happened to the three other baby killdeer or the other parent, and in the end it doesn't matter. Their lives ran their course, just like a tree that falls in the forest. It still happens even if no human eyes bear witness. 

I do know that in February, on a day when I drive home and the western sky is lit up by a gradient of pink sunset that so often happens in February, I'll hear a cry as I drive on Route 29 and I'll see these little brown plover like birds racing across the frozen fields. And more so then seeing a robin, my heart fills with joy at the sight of them...but also concern and bafflement...it's February! Surely it is too cold for them. What are they doing up here so early? And yet, here they are. 

What's a post about birds without cats? Here is a picture of Moxie from healthier days. She's on some new food and looking a little better. We will hope for the best. 

Life is all around us, if we only look for it. The sun has set while I've drafted this but the pets still need fed and the houseplants watered. I'll take a hot bath tonight with salt, baking soda, and lavender bubble bath. I'll start another book from the personal library and be remind myself that this season too, shall pass.

 

 

 

Fall Gardening Round-Up

 As I write, we have windows up around the house. It's November 10 and it was 80 degrees today.  When I'm not playing a podcast or audio book, I can still hear harvesting equipment in the distance and smell the crops being taken off the fields or moved from truck to silo. I'm still harvesting Calendula, and the chickens old and new are still laying eggs. I worked on designing our holiday card this year, Andrew and I are discussing what we are doing for Thanksgiving. On a day like this though, everything and nothing, the past and plans for the future seem to intersect at once. 

I think blog posts are definitely going to go monthly for a while. I'm following some other creative threads that will eventually make their way to this blog, and another blog project I'm working on. All in good time. I see myself writing more this winter but for now I continue to straddle the demands of a transitioning season. 

I'll try to put these pictures in some semblance of order. These span late August/Early September to the first week of November. 

I did a lot of gardening some Friday afternoon that seems so far away now, more harvesting Calendula and adding thyme. 

Andrew wanted some additional thyme in a pot so I replanted it in the garden. It had become so root bound, that roots had went beyond the drainage hole and about 5 inches through a gap in the paver stones. 

Other goings on in the herb garden include an impressive bed of sage. 

 I have so much sage I will try to do a creative project this winter, we'll see how it goes. 

I also dried chives. 

We had just run out of chives in this bottle, and putting my own chives in it gave me a particular satisfaction. 

Also, the beautiful Malabar spinach that my green thumb friend gives me every year. 

I planted it the same time I did the tomatoes, the lavender, the marigolds and calendula, Memorial Day weekend. And the Malabar spinach hangs out at around 6 inches in length for three full months. Then around Labor Day, it grows like Henry David Thoreau would say, "like corn in the night."

Here is a nice shot of Tutu guarding the carrots and watermelons. The watermelons will appear later in the blog. Also, take note of all those carrot tops.

I also harvested the Rosemary for the year once the nightly freeze watches started stacking up.

Let's go to the back porch now and check on the Dahlias.

This is the second variety I bought (in July for 50 cents) Andrew likes this variety better, but I like the solid pink.

So pretty after a light warm rain.

That also carries a rainbow with it. 

The same night I replanted the potted thyme and cut the sage, I also made a cut flower bouquet for my Mom's birthday.

Clearly, flower arranging is not "just putting flowers together."  However, since I focus on herbs so much, it was fun to have enough flowers to gather. 

Here is a shot of the back trellis. The moonflowers have been frost nipped, the morning glories are on there way out, but the Dahlias are going strong and inspiring me for next year. 

This Friday I will dig up the Dahlias that have browned and died back. My green thumb friend has offered to overwinter them for me which is lucky for me, since being back in the library full time has definitely made me prioritize the work outside. 

The most recent gardening project was planting the little tree that first appeared on the blog here.

This little hemlock started to brown as time passed. As the baby lavenders died, I paid less attention to this little guy. I planted the tree on Halloween and the dirt was still very moist from the rain. Sadly, even though I pass this tree twice a day, it's always with Tutu on a leash, and not with a watering can. I hope it takes root, and that rain helps him out. I just cannot get to him now. Good luck little tree!

And look how many roots it grew in 6 months!

And once the tree was planted, I looked up to see the neighbor bull had been supervising my work. 

And speaking of the bull, here he is growing his winter coat. They start at the head and it goes from there. They say that the thicker the coat, the colder the winter. But since I don't get close enough to the cows to collect samples of winter coat, and compare them from year to year while cross referencing average temperatures...(shrugs.)

Hey look! It's my favorite cow in the background. What? You don't have a favorite cow?

Let's check on the lavender on the way to the chicken pen.

The baby dilly dilly plants planted Memorial Day weekend are mostly volley-ball sized, a good size headed into winter. 

And the established plants pruned in August are greening up nicely. 

So, let's take the chickens a treat shall we?

Look at all these watermelons. The biggest three are heavy, and they thump when I smartly tap them. Most have a yellow spot. It's mid-October, surely these Black Diamond/Cannonball watermelons are ripe and sweet with their signature deep red color and black seeds.

Well, the seeds are right, but the melon is about 4 shades of red too light.

A taste test confirms my sadness, the watermelons are not ripe...for me to eat. So, to the chickens! I mean they will eat anything right?

The chickens have gotten watermelon rinds all summer, and by morning all that's left is a creamy white shell. The green vegetation in the background is what is left of a wheelbarrow worth of carrot tops. 

And after the first couple bites, the hens demure. They ate them anyway but I'm glad I got this picture of their displeasure!

I say hens...but maybe I should say chickens...

There is something a little bit different about this lady in the middle.

Peeking at me coquettishly from beneath a much larger comb.

Often, showing me the "better side" but I know I'm only getting three new white eggs a day, not four. 

Could we have a rooster in our mix? If so, Elvis as I've named it, is so far the lowest chicken in the pecking order. Seriously skittish, and always chased away from treats and other actions by everyone else in the pen...is this a mild mannered Clark Kent rooster just waiting for sexual maturity to show his Superman side...or is it just a mild mannered rooster hoping to fit in? These are the questions of my time on the farm. A friend of mine responded to this picture "I'm no bird expert, but it sure looks like a dude to me." They are probably right. 

But this is not the only mystery. The same day I took these pictures, I noticed something strange on on the side of the coop...look closely.

Yeah, I know. I've asked you to look at a picture of chicken poop. But look at where the chicken poop is! I mean the stain on the ladder runway and the one right above it, I get it, a chicken perched on there and poopped. But look at the one in the upper left hand corner. It's twelve inches away from the splat closest to the wooden board...and even farther from the board itself that the chicken was perched on. Also, I'm no animal dung splat expert but come on, it looks like a paint ball delivered perpendicular to the ground. How did this happen? Call Mulder and Scully! 

Anyway, maybe it's just best that I keep them in food, water, clean grass hay and semi-ripe watermelons and not ask too many questions.

Let's wrap up with a nice sky shot.

The trees we planted 14 years ago have grown so tall. I actually blogged about them when I first started this blog. One of the pine trees is easily over 15 feet. And beautiful blue skies remind me of another book I finished reading from the personal library. 

This was a very well written book about falconry where the writer focused on one man's story, but zoomed in and out to talk about history, culture, the west, and even the tensions surrounding gas drilling in Wyoming in the early 2000s. It is a wonderful blend of voices; journalism, essayist, and biographer. Also fascinating is that Ms. Dickinson is the spouse of Tim Gallagher, major player at Cornell and author of a book about the search for the ivory billed woodpecker, which was thought to be extinct. 

I have other books I've read, for other posts. 

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