Forever Friends...

  

   This is Molly and Lucy.  Molly McGee is our Jack Russell Terrorist and Lucy is her faithful sidekick.  Molly came to live with us after my dorkus baby brother bought her as a puppy for his then 3 year old daughter.  Of  course, the pup was way too whacked for a three year old and was constantly knocking her down and running all over her.  JR's tend to be a little on the exciteable side...one of the most manic dogs I have ever owned.  My brother begged us to take her, and bring her up here "in the country" where it wouldn't matter that she had to run away and go a million miles an hour all the time.  At the time we had a black lab named Seamus and I said we'd bring him by and if they got along okay, we'd talk about it. Well, they hit it right off and so Molly McGee (whose former name was Daisy..ick) came up here to live at Honeysuckle Hill.  

  Molly loved Seamus to death. JR's tend to be very loyal dogs too. She would run along side him and chew on him and wrestle with him and play play play. One day I was petting him and said, OMG--Pat, look at his jaw!! The little puppy Molly had chewed him raw, all along the bottom of his mouth.  But he loved her so it didn't matter I guess.That little JR would grab that 70 pound lab's collar, and drag him around the living room carpet! They loved to play. When Sophie had gone from us, Seamus went through a period of intense grieving...walking from room to room looking for her. He would go outside and check everywhere, and when he couldn't find her, he would get very depressed. SO when Molly came to live with us, he was ecstatic and took her for his own.

  We lost Seamus, we think to a pack of coyotes. He had come home on 2 occasions all chewed up, and I nursed him back  to health. Then one day, he didn't come home. It was Valentine's Day, and we went out and looked everywhere and couldn't find him anywhere. It was desperately cold and I was so worried...we looked for days on end and never found a trace of him. It broke my heart...he was a wonderful dog. 

  Molly went through the same grieving process for him that he had gone through for Sophie. If it was possible, Molly was even more depressed at the loss of her best friend. After watching her grow more and more despondent, we decided to go to the animal shelter and get another dog.  We found a young pup. There were 2 of them, litter mates, and they had been rescued only a week before. Apparently some heartless bastard had moved and left his pregnant dog tied up outside the house with no food or water or shelter. By the time someone called the animal control people and they got there, the mother and 4 of her pups had frozen to death. The surviving pups, both girls, were named Flora and Dora by the shelter workers. We fell immediately in love with one of them and took her home with us. We named her Lucy , as in " Luuuuuucyyyyyyy......you got some 'splainin' to do !!!" At first Molly wasn't real sure about this interloper, but we sat down and explained that Lucy's mommy had died and she needed a family and so we brought her here. In very short order, Molly had accepted Lucy and the two became inseparable. Lucy is now 3 times the size of Molly, but Molly still reigns supreme, lol.

  These dogs run together, sleep together, play together, eat together. They share everything and that now includes little Caylee. lol  Where one is, you will almost always find the other. The fight each others' battles, they defend the homestead and they protect us too...always side by side. They run raccoons out of the backyard gardens, possums away from the chicken house, and errant stray cats away from our garage. They both love all the kitties that live here, but have no tolerance for outsiders. 

  These two best friends forever are a shining example of friendship in it's purest form.

Namaste.
  

 

Happy Splatterday, people !!

This is how it looks now...only with more water...water on the ground, water falling out of the sky, water, water everywhere... A tiny bit of green showing....

 This is how it's gonna look by about the end of April, first of May.  I am so looking forward to it!!!

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  But, even cold and rainy days are good for something. I made a big pot of French Onion soup this afternoon, and have a nice loaf of oatmeal honey whole wheat bread in the breadmaker.  We are going to a potluck tonight where they are serving corned beef and cabbage dinner with all the trimmings, so I baked a gorgeous loaf of Irish Soda Bread to take.  I'm going to put the soda bread recipe on Dragon Woman's Kitchen later tonight.  Just took a picture.  Looks like this:

  YUM!!  Isn't it bee-oo-ti-full ????   It is basted with a mixture of melted butter and buttermilk while it's baking too, giving it that pretty crust.

   I  have been asked to come share my story tonight at this potluck meeting. It's always good to remember what it was like, what happened and what it's like now. Sometimes saying this stuff out loud serves as a good reminder of why it's important to do the little things we do every day to ensure that we get to keep living this good life....

   We have a problem.... the neighbors across the pond think that our Jack Russell Terrorist has mauled one of their dogs. They took the poor thing to the vet and it was put back together, and so we are faced with what to do about Molly....the problem is this:  No one has seen Molly do this.  And we live out in the country where there are lots of dogs that run the place. There are neighbors down the street from us that have 3 dogs, 2 of which have been known attack cats and other small things. Across the road from us, there are German Shepherds that come out when another dog up the road comes into heat. They travel with a Boston Terrier who likes to act ferocious.  But the neighbors really seem to want to believe that its our dog. We are keeping her tied up right now and keeping her in the house too. It's killing her--Jacks are roamers and runners and the most willful dogs on the planet. We are looking at the possibility of the invisible fence, if we can afford it....at least then she could run around our property.  It kills me to think that my dog could have torn up another dog.  And not knowing if it's really her is the other thing. Are we punishing her for something she didn't do?   It's a terrible dilemma and we are trying to take it one day at a time and figure it out.    It sucks.

  Guess I'd better go check on my bread and get a shower. We have to leave in about an hour and a half.  

   I have been on the phone a lot today and am thinking about turning it off...lol.  I think tomorrow will definitely be a cell-free day for me.  That sounds like a good idea...

  Namaste

Thoughtful Thursdays

[Molly McGee, the Jack Russell Terrorist extraordinaire!]

Well, home from the speaker meeting and it was a good one. The speaker had about 26 years and was delightful. We had a medium sized group, and they devoured the desserts. I did manage to bring home some of the old fashioned oatmeal cake I made..everyone loved it and wanted the recipe. It's one of those poor people cakes. lol On a brown recipe card with fading ink that I've been carrying around with me since I was 18. (HOLY CRAP!!!! Do THAT math....)

For some reason tonight, I'm thinking about the blessings that are a result of NOT getting what we want. About the way sometimes things come to us in such a roundabout fashion that we could easily miss them if we're not careful. It pays to practice mindfulness...

I taking part in a thing called 365 days of grace in small things...every day you post at least 5 things that you are grateful for in your life. Lots of folks are doing it, and it's really a good exercise in paying attention to the small stuff. It's easy to be grateful for the big ion-your-face stuff...but we forget about the grace of the smell of our baby's scalp, or the feel of the sun on our face, or any number of tiny seemingly inconsequential things. For instance...it wasn't until after I experienced my Ubiquitous Event and couldn't sit on hard surfaces anymore, that I really appreciated being able to sit in the grass. Or in the beginning when I could barely walk, did I have a new appreciation for walks in the woods that I used to take with my husband. Or riding in the car on long trips. Or feeling at ease anywhere I was. Or not worrying about where I would be or what I could or could not do, whether I could keep up. Whether I would fall. Things that never crossed my mind before.

Today, things are more precious to me. Because I have found the sacred in almost everything, I am a better steward. Because I have glimpsed the fragility of life, I am more caring and care-full. I wouldn't be who I am today, if things hadn't been set in motion that changed my life. It gives me a new perception in life.

A Course in Miracles says that a miracle is a "shift in perception". Undoubtably, I have experienced a miracle in my own life.

And so it is...


Namaste.