mudpies's Blog

Clyde's recovering nicely
Feb 10, 2010 | 9:06 AM PST

I will be bringing him home shortly.  The vet called this morning to say that he's fine except for a bit of diarrhea, and it would be easier for them to deal with that than for me to have to clean up after him.

 I didn't communicate my warning to others very well.  It's not the finished compost you need to worry about.  In this community, food waste (including meat and meat products) is picked up weekly and taken to a central facility for composting.  Each resident was issued a large green  bin with a locking lid that we put at the curb Tuesday mornings.  As well, we were given smaller containers (that don't lock tightly) to keep in our kitchens for small scraps.  Those are simply used to transfer scraps to the large bin.  I keep my small bin under my kitchen sink.  Yesterday, my little glutton (who's supposed to be on a diet) got into the cupboard and gobbled stuff out of the small bin.  The vet tells me that under the sink is probably a great place for the botulism toxin to develop.

 So, in all likelihood, compost from vegetable peels, etc. is not apt to harm doggies.  It's the meat scraps that attract the little rascals.  At any rate, I recently saw a nice stainless steel compost bucket with a strong clasp.  I'll get one of those and keep it ON my counter instead of under the sink. 

My poor 'found hound'
Feb 9, 2010 | 4:20 PM PST
Well, folks, be sure to ensure your compost is not accessible to your pets.  Clyde managed to devour some of the contents of mine and developed food poisoning.  He threw up all over my bedroom, of all places, and began to tremble and lose strength and equilibrium.  I rushed him to the vet's where they got an activated charcoal solution into him, put him on IV and are monitoring him through the night.  The vet called at about 6:00 to say she thinks he's stable.  She'll call again before 9:00.  He's turning out to be one of the most expensive 'found hounds' in history.

Long time gone
Feb 8, 2010 | 2:13 PM PST

Holy smokes!  It's been almost two months since I posted a blog entry.  Time slips by so quickly.  Part of the reason for my absence has been the fact that there's nothing growing in the frozen north (except large piles of dirty old snow by the side of our roads) at the moment, but the other part is that I've been a grouch for a long time and didn't want to share my lousy mood with the rest of you.  I have no idea what caused me to become an absolute Harpy, but I did - for no good reason at all.  I wasn't ill, just ill-humoured, but  I'm beginning to feel more human at last! 

I've spent a lot of the time since my last post reading.  That may have contributed to my lousy mood.  While I was busy devouring books, some rotten creature sneaked into my house and left it in a state of complete disarray.  You'd think I'd have noticed all those dust bunnies, wouldn't you?  Perhaps my lousy humour affected my eyes???

For the past few weeks, I've been poring over seed catalogues.  In fact, I ordered and received all my veggie seed.  I bought a sleeve of Jiffy pellets and I'm all set to start some tomatoes, cantaloupe and pumpkin.  Sadly, it's too early.  I just checked my journal to learn that I started my seeds last year on March 6th.  Rats!!  I need to get my hands dirty.  Houseplants just don't cut it for me.

Today, I took out my frustrations on my refrigerator.  That just goes to show you how desperate I was.  Cleaning my fridge is definitely not my favourite chore, as witnessed by the fact that I found it difficult to identify some of the stuff I threw out.  Ah, well, it's nice and sparkly at the moment.  Should be good for another couple of months at least.  ;-)

C has been suffering with a bad cold.  We both had one earlier in the winter, but I managed to escape this time.  He, on the other hand, can't understand why he should have to put up with a cough and the sniffles.  Surely I should be able to cure it for him!  I've tried explaining that there's no cure for the common cold, but that's no excuse in his opinion.  I've also shared the fact that continuing to irritate his grumpy old spouse could result in his untimely death.  He actually sounds a lot better this afternoon, so hopefully he's on the mend - that, or he's really scared of this old broad!

Well, I'd better get cracking and tend to my spaghetti sauce.  Harpies like their food, don't ya know?