Our Ride

As you all know, this dog likes going fur rides in the truck. I get to go most of the times that Mom 'Bean goes out to Tuggy's place to visit and to work on the trike. I likes Tuggy, he always pets me and makes a fuss, telling me what a good dog I am. He must know that the way to Mom's heart is through her critters, and besides, I am a good dog.

Tuggy has made lots of different kinds of trikes over the years, and this one is different than the rest of them. He said it's a prototype so others can make this kind of trike woof less money than other kinds and easy to put on or take off and put motorcycle back to 2 wheels. I wonder if he read the prototype 37c review, or is it some other kind of prototype. Anyway, we will be riding it soon from what I saw the other day. I hope I like riding in the back of the trike as much as I like riding in the back of the truck.

Reba here

Hi. Reba Jane Rottenweiler here. Just wanted to touch base with you and let you know how I'm doing these days, so am getting Mom 'Bean to type while I dictate. My toe was cut off a week ago today and I am feeling much better and walking better too, though there is a wide open sore where the toe used to be. I must admit that I feel like I had anti aging face cream rubbed all over my body. I feel younger again since I got the toe cut off cuz I'm not in as much pain now as I was before. I sure hope it heals fast so I can go play at the dog park, haven't been there fur a long time and this is the best time of the year to go, not too hot and not too cold, just right.

Reba: So Far So Good

Well, Reba is home. When I went to pick her up, they brought her out to me and she seemed happy to come to me, then lay down with my foot as her pillow. She is still very sleepy. She is also very not her usual self. While still in the vet office I was told she'd gotten snarly with them... then when I just petted her head she growled at me. One of the gals there offered to help me lift her into the truck, so I had to coax her all the way to the truck, then we lifted her up onto the tail gate and that is where she decided to lay down and go back to sleep. I was trying to get her to move into the truck far enough for me to close it so I could drive away and I very nearly got my arm ripped off. Wow, this supper lovey dovey dog sure can turn into a snarling, ferocious, dangerous dog when she wants to. I never saw this side of her in all the years I had her until this problem with her foot, now this is the 3rd time. Each time though, I must admit, even though she snapped at me, snarling and growling, if she had really wanted to she could have gotten me and ripped me to shreds... and she didn't. Too close for comfort though, for sure. Finally, she did go into the truck and I was able to close it up.

I was given a bottle of antibiotics to give to her for the next 2 weeks, as well as some anti-inflammatory/pain med stuff, and one of those cones to put over her head if she starts licking at the bandaged foot. I must try to keep it clean and dry for the next 3-5 days, then can take the bandage off. Providing the stitches don't rip out, I have to take her in in about 2 weeks to have them taken out. Apparently, they had a bit of a hard time closing the area after removing the toe. I have to try to keep this hyper active dog calm for the 2 weeks to lessen the chance of the stitches ripping out. Gee, sounds like fun. (ya right).

Will keep you updated on Reba's recovery. We hope she will soon be able to return to her blogging though with a toe missing it may now be more difficult for her to type.... guess I'll have to take dictation. haha.

Reba News

Just wanted to let you know that Reba is in 'the hospital' today having her surgery. The cancerous toe is finally being removed. The vet would have liked to do chest x-rays and blood tests before doing the surgery, to make sure the cancer hadn't spread anywhere and I said no. I just don't have the extra hundreds of dollars to do this. The surgery is costing $3-400 and these tests would cost at least another $200. Just can't do it. So, she gave me a talk that basically was 'don't blame us if your dog dies' kind of thing, and she said Reba has already out lived her life expectancy, any age dog has risk with being put out for surgery... yadda yadda yadda.

I held her while the vet & assistant gave her a shot to make her sleepy, then stayed with her until she was a limp old dishrag. She couldn't even get up to walk into the operating room, so had to be carried. I gave her a kiss on the forehead and told her I'd see her in a while, that I'll be back to pick her up this afternoon. One way or another I will go back and pick her up this afternoon, I just hope and pray she'll be leaving there on her own 4 feet, healthy and happy again though likely sore for a few days while things heal up.

The vet & assistant were really impressed by Reba and how good she was while getting that shot. They said it would hurt some, so I held her head while the vet held her back end and the assistant gave the shot into the muscle. Reba didn't even flinch. The vet said what an unusually good Rottweiler she is.

I'll let you know how she's doing when I know anything.

Big Red's Resurrection

Big Red had surgery cuz he 'died' the other day. These are some piktures Mom took of him on Wednesday, then yesterday Tuggy took the faring off, that's the big thing on the handle bars, so he could get to more of the wiring. He found and fixed the problem, then put Big Red back together. Mom got a phone call from Tuggy in the later afternoon telling her he'd been out riding Big Red and he's running good.

I sure wish it was as easy to resurrect dogs that die as it is to bring motorcycles back to life when they die.

Anyway, now that Big Red is back running real good, and looking like he's s'posed to, Tuggy will be able to go fur a nice ride on Sunday. It's his birthday and he's ridden his motorcycles on his birthday fur the last 50 years so wasn't about to miss this year. Now, he can put more time towards finishing Mom's trike. She'll update you on her blog.

Disclaimer: No Ferrari parts are being used in the repairs of building of these two trikes. Harley parts for Tuggy's Big Red, and Yamaha, Datsun/Nissan, and various other parts are being used fur the manufacturing of our trike.

Yucky Tea

I had to stay home yesterday when Mom went to her TOPS meeting and to visit her Mom. She said it was too long fur a dog t have t sit in the truck, specially a dog what's had the runs lately. Someone told Mom about this special tea that is s'posed to kill cancer so read about it on the internet... lots of good stuff about this tea. So she bought some fur us. It's called Taheebo Tea and is made from the inner bark of a tree in Brazil. I won't drink it, so she mixes it in woof my food so I have to get some into me. It gave me the runs. Mom had been told that it would 'clean you out when you take it', but that didn't tell me that I'd get the real bad poopies from it. So, I been spending extra time outside lately. Mom didn't give me any last night cuz she said maybe she should cut back on it cuz she could be giving me too much. Anyway, I been on it since Monday night, so nearly 4 days now. Mom thinks I am walking better, though doesn't see any real difference in the swelling on my toe yet. She keeps hoping it will go down and the sores will heal and I will be okay. My take-the-toe-off surgery is scheduled fur next Tuesday, April 20, so we're hoping the vet will say "we don't need to do this after all, the toe can stay and be okay." We won't have to do any credit card processing to get the surgery done cuz the Animal Care Society cares about me and said they'll pay for the surgery, so it's not that. It's that Mom loves me and wants to make me healthy woofout cutting part of me off. Some peoples are praying fur me to get better. I sure hope their prayers work.

Ripped Off

Mom followed a link awhile back that took her from Facebook to an Iphone place where they said that if Mom submitted her name and stuff, they'd send her an Iphone that she would use fur a few weeks then write about what she thought of this phone. Mom could keep the phone and it would be hers fur doing that report on it. She was real excited cuz she really wanted that phone. Oh, I guess she should have known better, but it really looked legit. Well, I guess she won't be needing iphone accessories any time soon cuz she has never received the darn phone. Now she knows it must have been a scam of some sort, yet still can't seem to throw it off, still there is a part of her that looks fur that phone in the mail.... and it never comes. Grrrrrrr. People that scam should be bitten!!

Big Red 2

Here's some piktures of Big Red the first day Mom met him... oh ya, and Tuggy too. Arf, arf, arf.

Big Red.

I gots a story to tell you. On Friday, Tuggy phoned Mom and said Big Red died. Big Red is his motorcycle trike. Him & some friends had pushed Big Red over to Butch's place, not far away, and he was spending the night in town but needed Mom and her flat deck trailer to take Big Red home so he could find out what was the matter woof it. So on Saturday morning Tuggy's friend Don drove him out here and they moved the steel rack and a few other things off the flat deck trailer, moved the utility trailer out of the way, then Don left. Once his truck was out of the way I got into the back of our truck, Mom drove it down to the bottom of our yard, and then her & Tuggy got it hooked up to the trailer and off we went to town.

I got to stay in the back of the truck and watch Mom back the trailer into Butch's yard then watch them put chains and what they call a 'come along' on the trailer and hook it to Big Red. They used that to pull Big Red, Mom was pumping on the come along while Butch and Tuggy pushed from behind and then it was on the trailer and Tuggy chained it in place, Mom roped it down fur extra support and then it was ready to go.

During this time there were people in the yard that came to say 'hi' to me once Mom told 'em it was safe to visit me when I'm in my truck. Mom showed them my owwwie foot. At that time it was all fine, just really swollen but later it burst open along the side, I guess from all the pressure inside it. Mom notice a hole in it when we got home later. (More later about this).

Anyway, we drove out to Tuggy's home about a half hour (people time) from where we picked up Big Red. Mom & Tuggy got it partly unloaded then 2 other guys came along and helped. Mom got to look at our trike and said it's coming along. More on that later on her blog though. After they drank tea together, they parked the trailer cuz Mom will need it out there later to bring our trike in to get it inspected for insuring it fur the highway riding... then we left and drove home. Mom went to lift me out of the truck and that's when she noticed my tumor or whatever it is had burst open. (Yes, lift me out of the truck. I trained her to do this fur me since my foot has been sore. Good thing I gots me such a strong Mom cuz I weigh 87 pounds so am a real arm full fur her to lift. Most of the time I jump in by myself, though sometimes I make her lift me in too, just fur the fun of it. Arf, arf, arf.)

Now I gotta go sleep. I'll try to blog some more tomorrow fur you.

Spring!!

Would you like a little bit of spring?? It is within my power to give you some spring. Yes, with just a click here, you can have some spring. You will get black page. Click your mouse anywhere and everywhere on the page and see what happens. Better yet, click & drag your mouse over the black page. You just gotta love it. Enjoy SPRING and it's beautiful flowers.

Human-ity

Every spring each TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) group has a special luncheon to honor the outgoing executive, welcome the new executive, and honor people who have lost the most weight in their category. This coming Thursday is the one for my group. The group leader chose music as the theme for the day and asked everyone to bring some kind of instrument if they have any. I am going to take my native drum and some other small rhythm instruments. Also, I made some gifts for the outgoing executive members. I took old records that I bought at the 2nd hand store, and melted them a bit in the over, shaping them into plant pots.

Today I went to the garden centre across the lake from my place and had a look at what they have for flowering plants in 4" pots. All they have is Pansy plants and various bedding plants. I think the Pansy will be perfect for this project. I will go back on Wednesday and buy 6 plants, all of different colored flowers, then set the pots into the records. I've done this before and it looks quite nice, will make great table decorations until gifted to each outgoing executive member, and they will totally match the theme.

They aren't personalized gifts in that they don't have names on them, but they are hand made gifts which I think always makes them special and personal. I have shown the record pots to a couple people and they think they're great. I'm sure the ladies that get to take them home will like them.

Mom 'Bean

Humanly Possible Today

Today I started cleaning up around 2 of the bird cages, planning to move the other 3 bird cages over to that area of my living room. During the winter months, these 3 cages (DW, Paco, Bubba) have been in front of the living room window. Now that the warmer weather is coming, the sun beats in this window and becomes too hot for the birds. The other day I had to close the curtains to keep the sun out. I do that all summer long to help keep the house cooler, but at this time of year I don't want to do that yet. So, I decided to move the birds as I knew I would be eventually doing.

As so often happens, this led to another job and I got distracted from the first job. When I had the 2 cages (Tiki & Billy Bob and Angel & Stud Muffin) moved and the floor swept I decided that I needed to give a nest box to Angel & Stud Muffin before moving the cages back in where they need to be. My friend Drew had built me two wooden boxes for this purpose, and I used one for the Parrotlets, so the other one was for these Cockatiels. I had to decide where the hole needed to be cut and cut it, as well as putting hardware on to hold it on the outside of the cage over one of the food dish holes. I got all of this done and some shavings in there for the bedding.

No, I didn't end up getting the cages back in place as I also decided I need to do some cleaning in that area, clean up some dirt that DW dug out of one of my plants. I decided I would use the cordless vacuum to do this job. I had used the cordless circular saw and the cordless drill to work on the nest box and didn't know how much charge was left in the only battery I have, so figured I should charge the battery before doing the vacuuming job. I put the battery in the charger and went to do something else.

I am very good at starting things and not very good at completing them. Some days I wonder if some kind of project management software would help me to get organized and actually do some of the many projects I have to do here. Hmmmm, likely not.

Now I think I will go do that vacuuming and maybe move the cages into place.

Mom 'Bean