Froggie!

Each morning before work, I spend a few minutes (5-10 minutes on FB is all I can handle) scrolling through Facebook.  I look at dozens of beautiful animals who are in desperate need of homes, I post a few and cry about them all.  I would love to take all of them, but the reality is that we have a house full, and I can't take on more than I can afford medical care for, and I can't take on so many that the quality of life for those I have already committed to suffers.

Every now and then, for reasons I can't necessarily explain, I know that one of the little faces I see belongs in our family.  When this happens, I give myself a time limit (I have many  rules established that prevent me from acting rashly. They are all very necessary.), and if the animal is still available, I proceed.  I saw and posted Froggie's picture in mid May, the week before finals week.  I was at my absolute busiest, so I decreed that I would wait until after finals were done, and if he was still unclaimed, I would go for it.

So I waited the proscribed time period, found he was still there, and the family (along with Daisy, Jezebel, and Damon) went to the Humane Society to meet him.  I knew when I saw his strange, mis-shapen body, and so-ugly-it's-cute face, that I was in love and this was happening.  Then we brought Jezebel, the easiest, most laid-back of the dogs, in to meet him.  He started barking wildly, charging at her, and smashing his flat little face into her side.  It was strange.  It seemed rather aggressive, but Jezi wasn't responding as if he were trying to attack.  The young man who worked there said that he had behaved this way with the other dogs he had met, and wasn't adopted because of it.  We spent over an hour outside with the dogs, watching their interactions, running and walking with them as a group, and trying to assess the situation.  I asked for Rachel to come out (she's an amazing employee there, and a vegan animal-rights' activist, so I trust her opinion completely) and help me assess the interaction. She agreed with me that it looked sort of aggressive, but yet not really, and the other dogs didn't seem to read it as hostile.  Her confirmation was all I needed--I felt certain that since I'm home in the summer, I could spend the next few weeks getting everyone socialized and things would work out fine.

We left with Froggie--Dej and I were feeling pretty good about it, but Mark & Luce were not very happy about him coming home. They felt he would upset the other dogs.  M, L, and the other dogs arrived home before Dej, Froggie, and me. I was braced for a couple of weeks of hyper observation and training, so we came in the house very apprehensively.  Froggie did not, however. He trotted in, walked right up to the other dogs, and they all sniffed each other as if they were old friends.  From that moment on, he was the most perfect little pack member. They have not had any interpersonal issues at all.  We were thrilled and pleasantly surprised by the immediately peaceful, happy family.

We discovered right away that when Froggie can't see humans, he cries, and when Froggie cries, it sounds like a goat being strangled.  He makes the strangest noises I have ever heard from a dog.

His post-surgical outfit (better than a cone)

We knew when we adopted him that his teeth were a mess--full of cracks and abscesses, and many needed to be removed.  We also discovered at his first vet check that he had a malignant growth.  That was a nasty surprise.  We had pre-surgical bloodwork done, and the good news was that his organ function and over all health were good.  We scheduled the dental and mass removal surgery for the first available time.  The surgery was successful on both fronts, and he should have many quality years left with us.

The Humane Society estimated his age at 10.8 years, and our vet said 12 years, so he's definitely up there in years.  He has a ton of energy and is still very silly and playful.  He's now cancer free (clean margins, so a really good prognosis) with a clean healthy mouth, and he's really enjoying life.

He was brought into the Humane Society as a stray, which really means some asshole wanted to dump him without paying the dumping fee.  Because of that selfish, thoughtless human, poor Froggie not only lost his home but his name and medical history.  Froggie is not a runner.  He sticks so closely to me that when I stop, he runs into my ankle. While Froggie hadn't had vet care for probably several years (at least), I think he was loved and treated kindly in his past life. I see no signs of abuse or neglect in him at all.  I'm pretty certain he had a nice life, but his person died/entered long-term care/divorced--something that left Froggie suddenly in the care of someone who didn't want him and subsequently cruelly dumped him.  Froggie was the name given at the HS. I was planning to change it to Pierre, as he didn't know the name at all, but as it turned out, Froggie fit him so perfectly that we stuck with it.

While I love all dogs, I have a definite preference for medium-to-large-size dogs and have never had a small dog.  He's < 15 pounds (a pug-Boston terrier mix), so he's quite small.  I'm thoroughly enjoying having a little "yip-yip" dog.  I feel pretty lucky to have such a mix of sizes and personalities!  He gets along with all of the dogs, including his extended family--Sophie (Dej's dog) and Nala and Ziva (my parents' dogs).  He's especially fond of Damon and Sophie.  Damon is laid back and doesn't mind when Froggie drapes himself across Damon's body, or uses him as a support so he can stand on his hind legs.  Froggie pays back these favors by grooming Damon's face, ears, and feet, quite elaborately.  Damon loves it, and it's pretty entertaining to watch. Frog takes it very seriously and is so thorough about getting every part of his face and ears, and Damon's head is about the same size as Froggie, while Damon's feet are about the size of Froggie's head. Frog also loves Sophie quite passionately, but she's a diva and is not impressed.  She will gladly allow him to groom her face and ears, but never returns the favor.

He has some quirks.  He's stubborn.  So stubborn.  He turns into a little hurricane of naughtiness 15-30 minutes before breakfast and dinner. He has an internal clock that seems to really rev him up before meals. He starts tearing around looking for excitement--shredding tissues, chasing cats, dragging shoes (which he leaves in strange places and we have to hunt for them), attacking his teddy bear, all while making a cacophony of grunting and goat noises.  This is not my favorite way to be awakened in the mornings, but it's really entertaining.

May Update - Prom

May was a really action-packed month for all of us.  It's one of the more intense months for both Mark and I, on the work front.  We tend to work long, hard hours and be pretty exhausted with little time or energy to spare.  

We noticed at the beginning of the month that we were suddenly hearing one of the names from L's circle of friends more often.  We were not prepared for her to start having "special friends" yet at all and had discouraged her from developing non-platonic relationships. These are the years she should be focused on herself--developing her brain, body, and good habits for her future, not her biological impulses.  Chemistry, being our biological imperative and all, will not be denied, and it made its appearance in their little group.  We were relieved and felt much better about the situation when we met her special friend, Nick. If she has to detour into the pointless world of romance, he's someone we feel comfortable with. He's kind, smart, mature, respectful--a very good choice and just what you would want for your daughter's first romantic endeavor.

While we were still trying to adjust to this new situation and work out policies and guidelines that we didn't expect to need in place quite so soon, they dropped another surprise on us.  He was graduating in May (a year early), and he wanted to go to prom. She did not want to go, and initially resisted, but then realized it was his only shot to go and didn't want to deprive him of that. They informed us the Monday before prom that they were going.  I had several levels of private meltdowns. I don't approve of prom for many reasons. It's a pointless, ridiculous waste of money for the students who go, and a slap in the face to the many students who can't afford such a pointless waste of money.  I did not think I would have children who would participate in something so frivolous.

I took small comfort in the fact that she wasn't really into going but wanted to make him happy.  I wrestled with not making this about me.  This is probably my biggest struggle with raising kids.  Morals and ethics are incredibly important to me, and I want them to be important to the girls as well.  However, I have to be very careful not to impose my own personal moral code on my teen/adult children and let them find their own in matters where their health/safety/future is not directly at risk.  The fact that I believe proms are ridiculous and shouldn't occur should have no bearing on whether my children attend, because it's not a big deal to anyone but me.  I also struggle through the rather selfish notion of not wanting them to do things that will reflect badly on me (If I let her go to prom, people will think I approve of such stupid, wasteful activities.), and that is absolutely not an appropriate reason to deny someone an experience.  I did a lot of private emotional struggling during the week that I spent doing the activity I loathe most--shopping, and last-minute prom dress shopping is a particular kind of hell.

We looked everywhere and tried on countless dresses. It was so not fun.  She was becoming discouraged and hateful toward her body, which is absolutely fine but not easy to fit right off the rack.  We finally found a dress she didn't hate that was close to fitting, so after purchasing the dress, we started the last-minute (and thus overpriced) alteration process.  We used the shop at the Janesville mall (K-Alterations), and I have to say they did a really good job and got it done earlier than they said they would.  I will use them again.

In the course of that nightmarish week (come home from work, get dinner in, spend the rest of the night shopping), I discovered a couple of her friends were unable to get appropriate clothing but had tickets and were all planning to go as a group, so we took them along to get clothes--even more shopping, yay.  That week in which I spent hours every night shopping with a group of teens will serve as paying back the entirety of my karmic debt for a lifetime of ugly deeds (and I've done some really bad things in my wild youth).  Really, that has to be a wash.  I'm still suffering a little PTSD from that week. ;)

Luce & N. let us take some pictures here (I was allotted ten minutes), and then they went to have more pics taken by N's mom, who did a fantastic job and generously shared the pics with us.  They had dinner, attended prom, and then returned to N's house where the kids and N's parents hung out and had snacks around the fire pit.  They had a very nice evening, but stayed less than two hours at the prom--all agreeing that that was the least fun part of the evening.  So I mentally calculated the amount of money spent and the hours spent preparing for that two-hour stay at prom, and wanted to weep at the hourly breakdown.  We have some great photos and the kids have great memories. I try to remind myself of that when the numbers start dancing around in my head. 


N's parents are lovely people, too.  His mom sent a pre-prom gift for Luce--a very nice scented shower gel, lotion, shimmer mist spray.  She also made and gave her a photo album with some of the pictures she took from the night.  All of the following shots were taken at Rotary Botanical Gardens by N's mom.

After surviving the prom experience and finishing up my semester, we moved on to our next big, exciting May event--the Froggie adoption.

Coding v. Gardening

Coding wins.  Coding always wins.  

My big summer project has been writing curriculum for a web development course (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) for a high school.  I really enjoy writing curriculum, but have never done so for anything lower than college level. Additionally, I had some constraints--no textbook and any required software has to be free.  Not have a textbook is a pretty big challenge.  There is a lot of information that needs to be conveyed before one can start developing web pages.

I spent the first month gathering materials and resources.  I chose the topics that need to be covered over the course of the semester and grouped simialar/compatible topics into units. The Web is full of tutorials on these topics, and many of them are excellent, but they all seem to have a major flaw.  The tutorials are topical, all topics are covered, but there is no over-arching methodology for how to put all of the pieces together.  A novice could whiz through the W3Schools' outstanding tutorials on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, but once they leave the tutorial environment and want to start creating a website, they are lost.  I decided that the best approach would be to use these tutorials as a textbook--assigning specific topics for each unit, and then integrate them into my curriculum that ties everything together.  I didn't love that part of the development process, so I was able to squeeze the work in while still keeping up with my other tasks and responsibilities.

This month I've spent creating content, writing examples for each unit, and creating and writing the assignments for each unit.  I've completed the HTML and CSS portions of the class and am currently working on the JavaScript.  I really liked the HTML and CSS curriculum development--writing example code and assignments, especially, so this is the point at which it started to consume me.  I took a break between CSS and JavaScript to write the website for the class.  I needed a (free) site from which the class and all it's materials could be accessed by the students, so I developed the website and uploaded the content.  That portion is technically done, except that I keep waking up in the middle of the night with ideas that necessitate me getting up, logging in, and adding to the site.


That, combined with the JavaScript stuff I'm working on, is now impeding my sleep and taking over my life. Cooking, gardening, blogging, sleeping--none of that compares to the glory of writing code, so I struggle to keep up.  I find myself realizing that it's 5:30 (I know that, because the dogs start nagging me at 5:15 or so for their 5:45-6:00 dinner), I have no dinner plan, and the people in the house need food (and given that I make everything from scratch, the earliest they can hope for dinner is 7-ish, if I start immediately).  I would love a life where I could spend 12 hours a day coding and didn't have to be bothered with crap like cooking (or eating/sleeping), but my family doesn't appreciate that approach to life.


I'm forcing myself to do other things today.  I got up this morning at 4 and worked until 9:30.  I'm getting my blog done, cleaning the herbivore room, then heading out to catch up on my neglected garden.  At some point while I'm gardening, I will have to come up with an idea for dinner tonight (I've got nothing so far), and then make sure I stop gardening and come in in time to make dinner. I have issues with gardening, too.  Once I get started, I prefer to work until I lose light. I generally have to be reminded to stop to eat or feed the family.  Rest assured, though, my brain will be JavaScripting away the whole time.  When I get into "development mode", even when I'm not coding, that's all I can think about, and I'm slightly crabby until I can get back to it.

 I am looking for course testers/proofreaders.  I haven't gotten much sleep over the past few weeks (development mode--my brain would rather create than rest, I guess), and I'm far too close to my work to catch errors and oversights.  If you've ever wondered about how the World Wide Web works and would like to try your hand and creating web pages, I have a free course for you. :)  You can take it in its completion, just dabble with pieces, or even just read through the materials, and I would welcome any feedback for potential improvements and especially catching errors.  If you're interested, let me know, and I will send you the link to the course site.

I'm a little paranoid, because launching a website is a big deal.  When I do this professionally, I have a team--other people to test the site, proof the content, and check accessibility, a test server where people from different locations can access the site using different browsers (web pages render/function differently based on the browser and version), access to the dedicated web server on which the site will reside, and some fancy tools that give me metrics about the site/peformance.  I have none of this for this site.  It looks good on the three browsers I tested it on, on the machines that are in our home, but that's not really an adequate basis for going live.  I know that it's not a "business/professional" site, and it's hosted via a free (non-dedicated) host, so I feel pretty powerless and "ass out" with this scenario.

The garden needs some serious weeding, which I will work on today, but that won't even scratch the surface of what has grown in the last week with all the rain and hot temps.  I have a garden assistant (a lovely former student) who is going to work four hours a day, every day this week, and between the two of us, I hope to have it whipped back into shape by the weekend.

I attended Rotary Gardens' Garden Walk a couple of weeks ago, and this was one of the better years.  I really enjoy seeing "real" gardens on the walk.  I have no interest in seeing what some money-hoarding asshole can purchase and pay people to maintain.  I am not remotely inspired by a pool (in WI, really?  What a waste of garden space/habitat!) surrounded by $30,000 of stone work.  This year's walk didn't have the big vanity "gardens" that are on the walk some years, so it was really enjoyable and inspirational.  I will say hands down that the absolute best houses on the walk were the RBG hort. staff members'.  Four of M's staff volunteered this year (or were roped in/peer pressured into it).  These people are gardeners, and it showed in their beautiful, unique, and creative gardens.  I was so inspired that if not for my current coding obsession,  I would be gardening full time.

Check out the green visitor

Once I get the curriculum totally done and loaded, I have to start prepping for my four fall classes.  That's right. I have not even started my own prep yet.  Normally I do that much earlier in the summer. THEN I can transfer all of my energy to the garden.

Below is a "dump" of lily (asiatic and daylilies) shots.

April Update

Fiona, cute as always

Fergus, all better--no head tilt

April flew by.  I think all I did was work.  I have a few pictures from the spring egg hunt and of the animals, but that's about it.  No garden pictures at all--I completely missed photographing the spring bulbs for the first year ever.  If I don't blog things, I don't remember them, so the whole month is kind of a blur.

We did experience some major April showers.  In our basement.  Again.  First our hot water heater died. The first indication we had that anything was wrong was finding 40 gallons of water on our basement floor, because the bottom had a rust spot that gave out. I never thought to crawl under and check, but now I know to keep an eye on that kind of thing.  We got that replaced and got some clean up done, but hadn't returned everything back to normal when the valve on our washer gave out, and we came home to find that had flooded the basement.  UGH!  The plus side is that like our original floods in the winter of 2014, at least it was all clean water, so the stuff that wasn't ruined by getting wet ended up clean.  I'd like to think that everything that could flood in the basement has happened, and we should be set now for many years, but...  I'm still pretty paranoid about water in the house.

I never envisioned when we started the first egg hunt for Dej 23 years ago that I would still be doing them!  L isn't ready to let them go, so we continue to stuff the same collection of plastic eggs with cash and vegan chocolates and jelly beans.  L almost always "wins" with more eggs found, as she's much more aggressive than her sister.  We still have to help and give Dej hints.  Each girl & Russ also get their own basket (the girls have had the same baskets their whole lives), filled with money, candy, and sometimes other goodies (you can see Russ got some kind of manly liquor in his basket).

The animals are always quite certain that any family/holiday gatherings are thrown so that there are extra humans to rub/massage/pet them, so they insert themselves into every activity that detracts from their rightful attention.

We always have an assortment of boxes around the house. The cats love them.

March update

The garden is so cheerful right now!  It's looking very "English Cottage Garden", which is my favorite kind.  I like a garden that looks like it just kind of popped up on it's own.  It's a less-cultivated and more wild look than many people appreciate, but it makes me very happy (and the critters really like it, too).  I don't have any garden pics from March (or April), so this is recent.

In March we adopted two cockatiels (Max and Elvis).  They settled in quite well and started exploring their territory more quickly and fearlessly than most birds who have lived in cages. They laid claim to a particular Amazon Prime box that was part of the bunny/guinea pig box village in their room.  The rabbits and Luna had no problem sharing, as they have plenty of other boxes.  The boys have been playing house in that box for months--waiting for the eggs that will never happen, poor things.  They are adorable together and are always together--feeding and grooming each other and performing elaborate song and dance routines.

Fergus struggled with pastuerella--a horrible, often fatal bacterial infection.  He's six, which is rather old for a dwarf rabbit, so it was particularly frightening.  He was moving in a rather uncoordinated way on a Sunday night, and by Monday morning, he tried to jump off his favorite spot (about 18 inches off the ground) and fell.  His balance was obviously impaired and he was struggling. I had one class to teach in the morning, so I scheduled a vet appointment for immediately following. In a few short hours, he had progressed rapidly and his head was tilted extremely far to the right, and his eyes were jumping and rolling.  I was shocked and sick to see how badly he had gotten in that period of time. We got the diagnosis and antibiotics and eye drops for him, but the prognosis wasn't very encouraging.  He was incredibly nauseated (motion sick) due to the pastuerella invading his inner ear.  He was miserable and unable to eat, and without keeping his gut full and healthy, he wouldn't live long enough for the antibiotics to work.

I couldn't get him to eat anything--he rejected his favorite treats.  I started syringe feeding, and that wasn't going well, because he would refuse to swallow and just let it run out.  I spent hours and hours in there begging, pleading, and trying everything to get him to keep food in. The poor baby was just too miserable to swallow anything.  This is where I stopped blogging, as I was trying to give him round the clock care and feeding, which threw me even further behind in both sleep and work--both of which I was already struggling with.  I am forever grateful for my amazing "animal friends" and their constant support and wealth of knowledge!  My friend, Julie, is the rabbit expert in my life, and she recommended using meclizine (Bonine/some types of Dramamine) to help with the horrible nausea. That took the edge off enough that I was able to get food into him and keep him going long enough for the antibiotics to work their magic.  He quickly started to improve.  

Often the head tilt from pastuerella is permanent, and while I was hoping it would clear up, I wasn't optimistic about the odds.  Within a week, though, that was getting better.  In the photo above, you can see he is still tilted.  Within a couple of weeks, it was totally gone.  He still has the pastuerella in his left eye, but it's managed with drops and cleaning, and I watch him carefully to make sure it's not getting out of control again.

We celebrated the traditional B-D family St. Patrick's Day, with Mark making an "Irish" meal (hash, baked potatoes, corn, Irish soda bread, green beer) and M & the kids carving soap.  The soap boat floating competition gets fiercer each year, with L. wining again this year.  All but three of the boats sank immediately, with the remaining three lingering for almost three long weeks.

I don't have a working 'c' on my laptop keyboard right now. It started working erratically a few days ago, so I took it apart and tried to fix it yesterday.  It didn't go well and isn't working and the key won't stay on at all now. I ordered a new key (but I don't think that's the problem--I think it's a problem with the entire keyboard, but I'm going to try the $7 repair first). In the meantime, to type that letter, I have one copied to the clipboard, and use ctrl-V to paste the copied 'c' every time I need to type one.  It's a pain in the ass.  There were 107 'c's in this post!