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| The One and Only Copper |
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| One of my Asian Lilies blooming on the ground. |
There’s
a brown mess in my flowerbed. It’s managed to take down the bottom stems of a
section of my Tiger Lilies, roll right over my yellow marigolds, and stunt the
growth of my purple pansies. They’re sort of flattened. My Stargazers are
confused as to whether they should be upright or safely lay on the ground and
bloom. Ditto with the bed of Asian lilies.
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| Old fashion Tiger lilies |
I
worked hard to get those beds looking good. I have to say, I drooped worse then
the Gladiolas as I surveyed the mess. I believe the first words out of my mouth
was, “Oh. My. GAWD!” (I've been watching reruns of Magnum and I think I was
channeling Higgins because he does that phrase so well.) I know the next words
out of my mouth, in Higgins style, was not Magnum but JACOB ALEXANDER! Especially when I noted a flow of white in
the beds.
What was the mess? It’s called dawg.
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| COPPER w/his I'm innocent look. |
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| Six fully functioning toes. |
Well
two dogs—our latest rescue dog, Copper, and Jake’s Pit Terrier, Isis, almost a
year old. Copper we found starving to death at the state nursery two weeks ago.
I’m serious when I say that because he literally was a copper-brown skanky,
tick filled piece of fur draped over bones with big brown eyes that begged for
help. He’s about 4 months old and a
mixture, as best we can tell, of shepherd and Beauceron (with six toes on both
back feet) and he was so weak he could barely walk without wobbling and sitting
or falling down when we brought him home. I could see he had a strong will to
live. I just couldn't walk away. Hubs grumbled about another rescue animal
until he took a look at him. That was it and sweet-talking started and
grumbling ceased.
I hate, people who throw away unwanted pets. Puppies are NOT
equipped to survive without intervention and neither are most cats unless they've been taught to hunt. Even experienced hunters still misses half of the kills
they try to make. Hatred isn't an emotion I feel often and most of that
abhorrence is directed at people who hurt kids and mistreat animals. I can get
physical very easily in defense of either.
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| Copper, still a bit ribby, but healthy. |
We
got Copper home, tongue lolling and a happy look in his face. The look of hope about breaks your heart. We pulled all the
ticks and what a job that was. We gave him a bath and have been feeding him 4
meals a day. We’re beginning week three and although he’s still very thin he looks
100% better and is now in his lets find trouble mode. Isis has her own pen. So
far, Copper isn't penned, but he stays close and in the yard, much to my cat’s dismay. See, Copper thinks the cats are his new playmates and they aren't real thrilled with that thought and he’s be slapped upside the nose more than once when he’s
gotten rambunctious. He doesn't try to hurt them but he wants them to run and
play. Jake lets Isis out every evening to play and run and Copper loves it.
Once play time is over it’s time for training Isis and then she comes into the
house for the night.
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| Gap in the bed of lilies and iris. The streak is Shadow my 15 year old Russian Blue with Callie in the foreground and Copper's nose to the left by the yellow flower pot. |
The
mess that rolled through parts of my flowerbeds was two pups at play. To be
fair, neither go into my garden beds on their own but when they’re playing they aren't paying attention to where they roll or lay. And neither was my son. They are now all well aware that the wrath of mama is not a pleasant thing to deal
with. Yeah, they've all gotten that point firmly in mind. The dogs tend to
slink away when I go in mama mode.
Lilies
are pretty tough flowers, especially, Tiger lilies. Next year they’ll be fine
so far as putting forth stems to bloom and the base bushy greens are somewhat
flattened but picking back up and they will be lush again next year when they
come up and the Iris and tulips had already bloomed so they’re fine. But all
that work, sigh...
Hope
all you fathers out there had a great day and that this week is starting out great. This
week seems a bit better for me.
