The Journey’s End

All good things come to an end, don’t they?  We’ve known for five months that our 10 year old Springer Spaniel Rider, had cancer…. specifically Hemangiosarcoma, a deadly cancer that arrises in the spleen and gradually becomes more and more engorged with blood finally rupturing and causing the dog to bleed to death.  Because of his age and the uncertain prognosis for successful surgery we decided not to subject Rider to surgery to attempt to remove the tumor.  Feeding into the decision is the fact that even with successful surgery, many dogs die quite soon, sometimes within two or three weeks of  surgery and we simply didn’t want Rider to live his last days in recovery from major surgery. Hence the decision.

According to what I’ve read dogs usually die within a few weeks of diagnosis even without surgery.  Rider lived just past five months. And for that for that five months we’re so grateful. He wasn’t in pain, had a good appetite, was generally happy and full of pep.  His only symptom was an enlarged abdomen.

On Tuesday night, November 3rd Rider suddenly quit eating and later in the evening vomited a couple of times.  He began to weaken and didn’t want to move around much, and his breathing started to be more labored.  We knew then that the end was near.

Throughout the night I stayed with Rider, petting him and talking softly to him.  He seemed quite comfortable and even wagged his tail several times.  About 6:30 Ed awoke and wanted to spell me, but before I even dozed off Rider collapsed and in short order died.  Both Ed and I were there with him as he went to sleep for the last time.  Then we cried together.

Ed buried Rider with his favorite toy, out in a forested part of our property called “The Island.”  He’s right next to Muffin, our old cat who died a couple of weeks ago. We lost a great friend when Rider crossed the Rainbow Bridge… but we just know he must be frolicking with his canine buddies now.  His journey is over.

Susan Edminster, Granite Falls Washington, November 5, 2009, All Rights Reserved.

An Update on Rider’s Condition

I haven’t posted lately, just because it’s kind of hard to talk about Rider’s march toward the Rainbow Bridge.  But he’s drawing nearer, that’s plain to see.  Although he still eats his meals and other bodily functions still work, his abdomen continues to grow and expand, and this makes it hard for him to get up, and his breathing is becoming increasingly shallow.  Once up he’s lively and happy…. thankfully there’s no pain involved in his cancer at all so we feel just fine about keeping him home as long as possible.  Although we’ve been sad and grieving I’m glad to have had the diagnosis so we can just appreciate him every day he’s with us.  Thanks to all of you who’ve grieved with me….

Sue

October 9, 2009

Dogs Rule Day… October 10TH

It’s that time again! Visit the Dogs Rule website at:  http://www.DogsRuleDay.com

Sue

Bean me up……

A visit to the garden shows that our deer-eaten green beans are not about to give up.  Get a load of those blossoms!  If they actually turn into beans large enough to harvest it’ll be a miracle, of course the deer will have ample time to have a few more meals before the beans mature so we’re not planning a feast of beans or anything. But wonders never cease….

They’re not giving up yet!

Susan Edminster, July 19, 2009

Ouch!!!

Mr. Ed’s been busy today cutting and clearing out some spruce trees that were dying.  They were deformed on the new growth at the tops of the trees and several branches were becoming deformed as well so our Master Gardener friend, Dick, is going to have a look at the cut branches and see if he can offer a diagnosis.  In the meantime some of the other trees needed more space to breathe so “out” came the spruces, and low and behold, much to Mr. Ed’s surprise one tree was host to a nice large yellow jacket nest. Those bees were NOT happy to have their home life disrupted so Mr. Ed is now nursing a few sting spots, the most obvious one right on the end of his nose!

Here’s the nest complete with yellow jackets still crawling around on the outside.

Copyright, July, 2009, Susan J. Edminster, Granite Falls, Washington

Oh Deer!

This morning when Mr. Ed returned from his walk with the dogs he asked me this question:  ”Do you want the bad news, or the bad news?”  Oh-oh, this doesn’t sound good. And it’s not… it seems that over night a hungry deer enjoyed a good meal on the Edminsters…. our bush bean patch…. or should I say our “former” bush bean patch.  Have a look:

What a sad looking row of beans!

Not much left!

The evidence!

The guilty party?

The deer in the above photo is probably not the guilty party, but one of her offspring could be…. this young mule deer doe was enjoying some fruit off our apple tree in this shot taken a year or so ago.

Not much else to say…  the evidence speaks for itself and I guess we’ll be buying our beans at the local farmer’s market this year.

Copyright 2009, Susan J. Edminster, Granite Falls Washington

All pictures are the sole property of Susan J.Edminster, Granite Falls Washington.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

This is an entry I never dreamed I’d be writing and don’t want to write, but here goes:  My Springer Spaniel Rider recently developed a slightly bulging abdomen that’s got the feel of a watermelon… in other words there’s no give at all.  At the same time his respiration seemed a little too rapid, so we took him into the vet where they did blood tests and an X-Ray, and while the blood tests were normal except for slightly low hemoglobin count, the X-Ray clearly showed an abdominal mass. Not good.  The test results pointed to the strong probability of  hemangiosarcoma, an aggressive cancer that attacks the organs, typically the spleen, but also the liver, lungs and heart can be affected.  It’s a vascular or blood related tumor which will quickly metastisize, a “sneaky” cancer since the dog seems perfectly normal. Many times owners aren’t aware the dog is sick until it collapses as a result of a rupture and bleeding. This diagnosis is a devastating to us as Rider will probably die fairly soon and there’s not a lot we can do to stop the disease progression.  Note: When I say it’s “probably” cancer, it simply means that the only way to know for sure is to do exploratory surgery, biopsy and splenectomy. Since Rider is 10 years old we decided against the surgery; it’s major surgery and the survival rate is far from certain even in a younger dog, and the recovery rate is low as well. In other words most dogs die within a few months after surgery. So instead of putting him through the trauma of surgery we’re simply enjoying Rider for whatever time we have with him  and we’ll face the inevitable whenever it happens.

This entry should really be title “The Bad and The Ugly” … there’s no good about it.

We’re sad.

The lettuce Bed is Working!

Hi Everyone,

The wonderful little box lettuce bed is working out very well indeed and in fact we’ll be eating out of it with the next few days.  The advantages of this over the “regular” garden are: (1) the slugs can’t get to it easily and if they do climb in can be dispatched in a second; (2) The soil seems to stay warm enough to allow quick growth, (3) Watering and weeding do not require bending!

Won’t be long!  Yum!

The Neighborhood Rummage Sale

Living out here in the country you quickly learn that unincorporated Snohomish County means that the post office thinks you live in Arlington, but the telephone company is sure you’re in Granite Falls.  But no matter, it’s a great neighborhood with lots of great neighbors and where you can be invited to three or four pot-lucks a month.

So last weekend our local community organization the Riverside Community Center had a rummage sale to raise funds to continue  restoration of the old school house where we meet.  The building was built nearly 100 years ago so needs some pretty constant attention as well as  capital improvements from time to time, i.e. a new roof last year.  We had a lot of fun putting on the rummage sale and met lots of nice  neighbors browsing all the “goodies” that were donated. And to boot we made a tidy sum to put toward our next project.  To learn more about the Riverside Community Center visit the club’s website at:http://www.riversidecommunitycenter.org/indexinc.shtml .

Susan J. Edminster, Granite Falls Washington, May 18, 2009

Gardening by the Seat of My Pants

When I was just a little girl I wanted to live on a farm… no, I REALLY wanted to live on a farm.  That was before I grew up and learned that there was more to farming than petting the pretty cow   or munching down on a fresh picked tomato and having the juice run down your chin.  But even after growing up  I still had a hankering for country life and since Mr. Ed was raised on a farm we decided to buy some land and live close to nature.  So here we are in our little corner of the world, 13 acres on the edge of the forest with no pretty cow to pet except Annabelle next door, and precious few juicy tomatoes to enjoy.   

But even though I know next to nothing about gardening (Mr. Ed’s a good gardener as you can tell from my earlier posts),  today I had a go at getting some dirt under my fingernails. Decided to plant some edible pod peas on a trellis against the house…. good old edible landscaping you know, and also planted scarlet runner beans to grow up on the porch railing.  We’ll see how that works out.  My main interest though, is the porch garden where I have pots of herbs, tomatoes, lettuce and peppers.  The tomatoes and peppers I’ll buy from my friend Jan, and some herbs are from starts,  but the rest come from lots of little seeds carefully watched and nurtured during the next few weeks.  My favorite herbs are chives, oregano, sage, thyme, rosemary and cilantro, all of which are “in process”  even as I write this post.  

Last year’s herb garden

 

One of the “joys” of living out in the country is the presence of snails and slugs, two slimy little creatures with huge appetites for just about anything green.  I made the mistake of planting a couple of vulnerable (who knew?) plants just off the porch and here’s the result:

Aren’t these pathetic?  The one on the left looks like a praying mantis!

There are some lovely flowers out here in Western Washington though, that aren’t bothered by snails and slugs (surprise, surprise). The Rhododendron, Washington State’s Flower (or is is a shrub?) doesn’t seem to have any problem fending the little creatures off. Here’s a lovely specimen from our yard and you can thank Mr. Ed for this one!

Isn’t this exquisite?

So there you have it…. I’m not much of a gardener but am puttering along to see what I can do,  gardening “by the seat of my pants.”  I’ll keep you posted on how this all works out.  Maybe I’ll even have some herbs and produce to share!

Susan J. Edminster, Granite Falls, Washington, May 18, 2009