Life saving dog

Yesterday, Bass and I went for a long walk through the wood.

He was lucky enough to hunt a group of more than three (that I could see) beautiful floppy eared bunny rabbits trying to cross our path. And one small grey squirrel which disappeared up a tree.

He was in a hunting mood when we returned.

I flopped into my chair to prepare to eat my lunch and watch TV, when all of a sudden, Bass leapt on me. Hunting, hunting, scrabbling at my clothes and shoulder. Pouncing and jumping, alert, determined.

I was unnerved.

Had the dog gone mad?

He was especially hunting my shoulder, arm and sleeve. So as soon as I could restrain him, I looked down my sleeve. I got a heck of a fright. Something large and orange was running up my arm and it spilled itself out of my cuff onto my lap.

I screamed, Bass went into attack mode and Mr Furlong came running. I was convinced I had somehow got a massive spider in my clothes, and that when it had stopped running around my lap, it would spread it’s legs to become something from a horror movie.

But it remained furry, orange and round and turned out to be a very distressed bumble bee.

Mr Furlong decanted it in the garden much to Bass’s disappointment and my relief.

So the question remains, how did Bass know I had a bumble bee deep inside my clothes?

I think the answer is he heard it bumbling on a frequency range that we could not.

Lest we forget meditation “RARE 1942 US Army Field Ration”

This is the meditation for today in a world where currently we wallow in food abundance. New MRE’s for modern soldiers contain every luxury under the sun.

This 1942 field ration makes me feel we should never forget the discomfort and sacrifices our ancestors made…..

The reviewer mistakenly calls the wrappers on the sweets “plastic”, but there was no plastic in 1942. There was no instant coffee either, only “soluable” coffee. Perhaps soldiers also got a tin of bully beef? I hope so. This small offering would leave any soldier mighty hungry! God bless them all.

We washed the car

In our area of England there has been a drought. My friend who lives in a house getting water from the stream, has ended up with no water yet again, and my farmer friend has a dry river to offer her cows and horses. The river through the town has wide white beaches now and wonderful pebble crossings.

It’s been hot and dry.

We need rain.

But

don’t worry everybody.

We washed the car this morning. It’s drizzling this afternoon.

Perhaps we should charge a fee.

No Philip Green here..

I might have told this story before…

We had a shop many years ago, an art gallery. All our records and sales were on our shop computer. It was before “hacking” was a thing.

One day, when I started my computer up after lunch to begin inputting our sales, I found a message on it, placed there by a hacker who’d used HIS lunch hour, wandering around our computer.

The message sneeringly said “No Phillip Green here!”

The difference between Philip Green and us, was that we made a huge profit from selling the building where we lived and worked in our shop, and the profit paid for a large house where we lived for over ten years. We sold that house, to move here to our flat three years ago. Here we live mortgage free.

Philip Green is now in deep dwang. He is closing his shops and is threatened with bankruptcy.

Whilst

we are living a pretty worry free life on our tiny pensions.

I’d prefer to be me!

We had a bird….

I’m pretty peeved.

We have had few birds in our garden this Spring, even though we have provided huite cuisine and five star restaurants.

But I noticed the other day, that we’ve had one in our front garden.

You always get some one who will not enjoy our high class facilities at the back. Whoever it was, I didn’t see it, but he is now persona non gratia.

He must have spent a fun time eating all the buds on our rose bushes!

Drat!

Going backwards…(dog)

I’m so dog depressed!

We don’t leave Bass-the-reasonably-new-dog at home often.

I have recorded every time we have, right from the beginning. At first we left him at home simply loose in the house and he barked. So someone told me they simply said “Goodnight” to their dogs and closed them up in a darkened room. So, we tried that with Bass. We added anti anxiety music and a kong with peanut butter smeared on it. And a not-so-dark room.

We have had very successful times where my recordings show a quiet dog doing something or other – perhaps sleeping….

But we went to a barbecue yesterday to a cat owned house. we couldn’t arrive with a dog. I settled Bass down as usual in my room with anti anxiety music in the background, and the kong – and this was the result….

What an absolute pest! This is a recording of an unhappy dog, barking, whining, howling and scrabbling at the door. We’ve gone backwards!

All suggestions are welcome…bring them on people…..

The hanging dog laugh

Everyday I walk for my future health. After a chat with my 27 year old brand new doctor, “we” decided I should actually wear the foot brace I received from The National Health Service that aligns my left foot to my left hip where my Osteoporosis is significantly not good. The stroke I had in 1980 weakened my left side and with Osteoporosis, if you don’t use it, you lose it. Bones strenthen during impact.

So, my daily walks with my foot brace and Bass-the-dog, are all about impact.

Sometimes they are a real drag. Sometimes they are enjoyable. I meet people. Bass meets other dogs. It’s all very chummy. Gone is my terror at meeting another dog that plagued me with Bobby-the-now-dead-dog who faught with every dog he met.

I have found it’s the small dogs that have aggression problems. Bobby was a rescue dog who’d been attacked some time in his early life. Just seeing another dog reminded him of it….

But a recent walk opened up a new view of what to do with a Bobby kind of dog. It’s uniquely clever and the woman who showed me was obviously an expert.

As she approached us, Bass and me, her small terrier turned into a slavering snarling maniac. It had a harness on. I wondered how Bass would respond to the snapping chops and ugly sounds from an attacking dog. A monster. A raving lunatic dog. I got quite nervous for the first time with Bass.

But I shouldn’t have worried. The lunatic dog’s mummy was an expert. Before striking distance, she simply lifted the whole dog off the ground where it hung in mid air, scrabbling about frantically, snarling, barking, howling with rage, and she effortlessly passed us with a happy wave.

Of course a lunatic St Bernard would need a crane!

My new doctor situation

I was summoned by “my” doctor to talk about my bone density scan.

In the three years we have lived in this town, I have only seen the Nurse Practitioner whom I like, since the doctor that I was first allocated here “left”. He was charming. I really liked him. But he seemed to disappear in a cloud of secrecy. If I ask about him now, peoples’ eyes avoid mine and they change the subject.

So, on Wednesday, I agreed that “my” new doctor should phone in the morning about my scan results. Well, she didn’t. I waited in all day. Eventually, after my query call to the surgery, she phoned.

I didn’t like her from the very first moment I heard her. She has a brassy ‘new woman’ voice.

I looked her up on the Internet. She must be in her late twenties, or early thirties. She runs, rock climbs and rides her bike fifteen miles to work. Her last job was at a nearby town for a year. So I think she is brand new!

She’s been allocated as “my” doctor.

We don’t have to have the doctor we’ve been allocated. We can choose. So I’ve looked at all the doctors available at our practice. I realise they are all YOUNG!

I suspect they will be patronising or obsequious or arrogant.

I might as well put up with the doctor I’ve got. She might improve if we actually met. She has a diploma in sexual health – do you think that might help me in coping with my old age?

Still, I suppose all new doctors need patients. Why not throw them an obnoxious old lady who dislikes doctors and won’t take the medication?

Good ol’ Epsom Salts

Tradition told how the healing powers of the waters were discovered in 1618 or thereabouts. A villager called Henry Wicker was looking after animals on Epsom Common in a dry summer, when there was a shortage of water for cattle. He found a trickle of water in the hollow hoofprint of a cow, and dug a square hole about it before taking the animals home for the night. Returning the next day he found the hole that he had made was full and running over with clear water. But his cattle, however thirsty, would not drink from it because of its mineral taste. Wicker tried the water himself, and was the first person in history to experience the effects of Epsom salts. Enthusiastically, he set about promoting the waters as a medicine.

http://epsomandewellhistoryexplorer.org.uk/EpsomSpa.html

Not mentioned here is that the guy found that when his cattle waded through the water, their wounds healed faster….no wonder he was enthusiastic

The benefits of Epsom salt aren’t just folklore. In fact, numerous studies have demonstrated the profound and wide-ranging benefits of magnesium and sulfate. Doctors and researchers say that when you soak in an Epsom salt bath, magnesium and sulfate can be absorbed through the skin. They recommend an Epsom salt bath as a safe, easy way to increase the body’s levels of both magnesium and sulfate.

What is Epsom Salt?
https://www.epsomsaltcouncil.org/#mainNav

And its helps with Arthritis!

I’m on a “flare up”, so I’m soaking my wrist in Epsom Salts….

All you want to know is here – LINK

Experiment results to follow….(comments welcome if you have tried it!)

Tulip petals and dogs

On our walk today, I was on a poo watch.

The reasons were twofold.

We have changed Bass’s food and (two) he’s been wanting to eat grass.

So I thought to check how he was going on the poo front.

I am pleased to report, his poo looks good and healthy, (and so does he) except for the two tulip petals I found in it.

Outside our back door, a few days ago, I placed a vase of tulips that I’ve been meaning to chuck into our green garden waste bin. They are a very unique colour. And I found two petals in the poo.

Did you know dogs eat tulips?

Well, they do!

In fact, I have discovered that almost every flower on THIS LIST of toxic flowers, grows in OUR garden…..