Brut Thursday-Growing Together: A special plant.

When we dug Brut's grave, we dug it about 5 feet deep.  At the very bottom was pure, untouched lake/river sand.  As probably many years ago there was water running through where our house now stands.  Hubby, Mark, grabbed a scoopful of this sand from Brut's grave and we have saved it.  Not really sure for what, just to have a part of the Earth where Brut lays.

Fast forward to November 2016 and the day we found out that Silver had a mammary gland tumor.  I took cuttings off of my Kalanchoe plant and placed them in water.  I wanted the hope and growth that plants bring, hoping Silver would get better.  When she passed away in January of this year, I almost forgot about the cuttings and their meaning.  I had a jar full of roots and stalks that needed planting.  I think it was the end of February when I finally got around to doing so.

There is nothing specific about the Kalanchoe plant that I felt was attached to Silver when I took the cuttings.  I needed to trim back the original plant in hopes of getting it to flower and I hate just throwing cuttings away, so I planned to grow the cuttings for Silver.

Kalanchoe plants are a succulent plant, meaning they needed a sandy, loose soil, much like cacti.  This is where Brut's sand came into play.  I took the cuttings for Silver and the sand from Brut and mixed it in the soil creating fertile ground those little plants to thrive.  And thrive it has as you can tell from the picture above.

A very special plant that combines tragedy and loss and brings them together for life and growth.

A wonderful gift that keeps giving, my Silver and Brut.



  

What DOESN'T your dog get into?

Is there anything your dogs DON'T get into that surprises you?  Are there those one or two things that for some reason they have never touched?  Something that is easy access, would be a great chew toy or something to eat and you can't understand why they haven't gotten into it.

The perfect dog safe!

Being the kitchen dogs, Chance and Blaze are my counter surfers who get into to anything and everything, yet for some reason have never touched the sugar bowl.  Mark is just baffled by this.  Of all the weird things they have grabbed and eaten off the counter and table he just can't figure this on out.  The dogs haven't even moved it around or knocked it on the floor.  So I guess if I want to hide anything from the dogs, the sugar bowl is the place to do it.  :)

The jungle room!

The second thing that surprises me is that they don't get into, bother, or eat any of my plants.  Not even when they were puppies.  Most of my plants are tall or off the floor but still they are all over the house and except for this incident with Blaze when she first came back to us after leaving the litter, I've never had any of the dogs mess with the plants in any way.  Maybe they are nature lovers too.  BOL!

So with all of the things your dogs get into, destroy, chew up, and eat what are those few things they don't touch and baffles you?

What are some of your other interest?

Since I'm dealing with a bit of writer's block, I thought I would try something creative and veer off the topic of dogs for a while and into gardening.  My second favorite thing next to dogs.

I usually just concentrate on veggies, I don't mess around with flowers except I like to plant sunflowers all around the front of the house.  So I will start veggie seeds indoor this week, as we usually aren't able to plant until the first of June (hopefully) and with the short growing season of about two and half months those seedlings need all the help they can get.

I like to keep things easy and affordable or it's no fun.  I don't like to fuss over the garden.  Like compost, I used what's on hand:  leaves, ashes from wood, straw and duck poop.  So even Luigi does his part!  Duck manure is considered a hot manure and needs sit for a year before being ready to use.  So I have a small compost pile that I rotate from spring to spring

The main veggies I plant are:   tomatoes, cucumbers, green and hot peppers, onions and carrots. Each year I try to plant something new and different I haven't planted before or try another veggie again that didn't succeed very well.  Last year I tried broccoli, which turned out great and I'd like to do again. The dogs loved it!   This year I'm going to try again at growing lima beans.  I had some luck with them last year, but I started my seeds too late to get a good amount.

I only have so much room as my garden is small raised structure that hubby built where it has the best possible sun, considering the amount of trees we are surrounded by.

I use a method called "companion gardening," an age old method of growing certain plants together to benefit each other.  It helps in warding off insects, disease and helps each plant grow.  Two things I've learned:  put radishes in your cucumber hills and you'll rid yourself of the cucumber beetle.  (May work for squash as well) and that peppers grow great next to broccoli.  The cucumber beetle was actually sucking the life out of my newly planted cucumbers because I'd been lazy about planting the radishes in them.  When I finally did my cucumbers came back to life in a jiffy.  And I'd heard conflicting results about putting broccoli next to green peppers, but my green peppers flourished next to them and were some of the biggest and best I've ever grown.

I love gardening.  I am always amazed by the miracle of the seed and the power each hold within them, that with just the right conditions becomes the impossible.  It still boggles my mind.  There's nothing like just connecting with the Earth.  And no better excuse to play in the dirt!  And of course the dogs love eating out of it just as much as we do!

So what are some of your other interest?

Monday Memories-Our Big Scare

With a house full of dogs, cats and plants, I have always taken extra precautions.  I have never had any issues with the animals and my plants.  For some reason they have always left them alone.  I have always checked which, if any of my plants were toxic and kept them out of harm’s way or just gotten rid of them.  Sharing this night of horror is one of the hardest things for me to admit because it was my neglect and anger that made this fearful event worse than it already was. 

I had a plant called a Sago Palm.  It was my third time cutting this ancient plant plant back at the base to restart it .  It is a fern like plant with plastic-like fronds that grows very slowly, maybe a frond or two a year.  After three years I had about 5-6 fronds on it and was thrilled.   

Enter Blaze.  I cleared all of my plants except for the Sago Palm, so Blaze could use the same ledge as the plant to help with her separation anxiety.  My plant was so happy in this spot, I never saw it on any of the toxic plant list for dogs and for unknown reason I left it there.  I had no idea that Blaze had been nibbling on the plant, but she had knocked it over more than once.  FIRST CLUE.  Why I did not move that plant, when I had been so careful with all of my others, was way beyond me.  I still doesn't make any sense to me to this day.

Well, one night Blaze had chewed an entire frond off and I had just had it with everything.  Chance and Blaze's return had been so difficult, not only their trauma, but trying to make a divided household work and all of the uproar it caused to everyone, that in my hurt, frustration and exhaustion I threw they plant outside.

In Chance and Blaze's yard.

"Now you can have it!!"  Words and actions that I could never take back.

A couple hours later.  The nightmare started.  Both dogs were vomiting while it came out their rears.  Over and over again.  I called the vet.  She had never heard of the plant.  I looked online and there it was under toxic plants:  Sago Palm.  Vomiting, melena, icterus, increased thirst, hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, bruising, coagulopathy, liver damage, liver failure, death.

My heart sunk and terror of what I had incurred has haunted me to this day.  It was the most horrific night of my life.  I searched the snow covered yard for any signs left of the plant.  It was gone.  They had ingested all of it.  We knew that fact that they were working it out of their system so quickly after eating it was a good sign, but it didn't stop the fear that something more life threatening could happen.  All night of cleaning up vomit and diarrhea and being so terribly frightened that the worst was going to happen because of something stupid I'd done.  Neither my actions or lack of them with this plant made any sense and now my two babies lives were in jeopardy.

After a couple of hours of non stop action, the retching began to slow and eventually all the sickness came to halt.  Weak and exhausted Chance and Blaze finally were able to lay down and rest, with only some intermittent vomiting.  They were quiet the next day, but were doing OK.  Later in their day they began to bounce back to themselves.  They had made it.

It was the scariest night of my life. And I still have the hardest time forgiving myself for causing it all to happen.  I still don't know why I never moved the plant, whether it was poisonous or not.  I don't know what caused me to just leave it there in easy reach, or what made me think Blaze wouldn't chew on it at all.  Why I had taken great precautions with all of my other plants, yet left this one right in front of her face?  And what, just what had ever prompted me to throw in out in the yard for them to devour.  You can not believe how many times, I have wanted to write this and couldn't bear facing the world with something that could have been avoided and catastrophic because of something I had done. The results could have been fatal.   We have had some close calls in our lifetime with our dogs but this was by far the closest and most serious.

     Grateful, doesn't even begin to describe...

You can look on ASPCA -Animal Poison Control Center where they have a list of toxic and non-toxic houseplants and outdoor plants for more information.

If you see signs or symptoms of your animal that your pet may have ingested a plant or any other poison, please, do not wait, call your local vet for help.  Time is of the essence.