Monday, June 16, 2014

MONDAY'S MUSING—THE BLIGHT OF THE BROWN MESS

The One and Only Copper

                                                                                                                                                            


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.



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.

COPPER w/his I'm innocent look.
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.  

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. 

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.