It ain't gonna be pretty.
It's gonna get worse before it gets better for dogs and horses and humans.
Gosh, it seems like the whole last month has kinda gone that way, as we've waited and waited for Bridie's spaying incision to heal, only to have her incur a new wound on her leg requiring more time for healing and more supervision by Mom and Dad.
My sisters told me their vet told them that wounds take longer to heal in the winter.
That was good news, not!
Since we have a pup with a dime-sized rip in her back leg, we may be waiting a long time. The injury, which appeared from mysterious circumstances, is located right where Miss Bridie sits down.
Unfortunately, the wound is also reachable with a tongue, even past the edges of a giant Elizabethan collar.
Bridie has ripped her bandages off a few times, which, in each case, has opened the door for that tongue to go to work on the injury which, of course, leads to more time needed for healing.
Well, yesterday I asked one of my former students, a rather renowned veterinarian, for some tips on what to do about Bridie and her never-ending injury.
Cathy said a sock bandaged on the leg might help cuz the wound will heal faster if it gets some air.
She also suggested using bitter orange. I used that a few decades ago when my horse Rambo wouldn't leave his wound alone.
It's supposed to be repulsive enough that they won't touch where it's sprayed.
I also used a later variation of it in an attempt to save the barn stall boards where Lefty lives and chews.
I found that bottle yesterday and sprayed it on Bridie's latest bandage. She seemed to leave it alone.
This morning we have torrents of rain falling onto piles of snow, causing all-out mush out there and no way that a little pup's back leg is gonna stay dry.
After going out for chores, I'm also hoping our barn doesn't flood because there was a lake forming at the barn door.
Anyway, there's no way any dog is gonna stay dry for the next few days of ugh, late winter, early spring ugh-liness.
So, now I have piles and piles of towels in key spots, for drying off and for saving the furniture.
So we wait and we wade.
I've told friends that the past month and the times ahead are looking a lot like the time in the early 1980s when it rained most of the summer.
The kids were maybe 5 and 6, and, like Bridie, they had to stay in all the time.
They had a little mini rubber raft which we brought inside and left in the living room for them to play.
One evening I was fixing dinner. Bill wasn't home yet, and Annie came to the kitchen with tears rolling down her cheeks and hands over her mouth with blood showing.
"What happened to you?" I yelled, pulling her hands away.
I'll never forget the scene of looking through the blood and seeing a bottom tooth missing, root and all.
Of course, Willie did it, and do you think I could find Willie. He HAD to be in the house.
I found him hiding in the bedroom.
They had been playing with the thin nylon rope around the rubber raft, and apparently when Annie stuck the rope in her mouth, Willie pulled (probably pretty hard) and out came the tooth.
Twas after hours for dentists, so Annie never had her baby tooth stuffed back into her gums.
Maybe that was the precursor to her gum surgery this past Friday.
Anywho, it was that kind of summer with all that rain and not much fun. All that time spent in the house with little kids led to my addiction to the soap opera "All My Children."
Who remembers Tad and Jenny?
There's a whole 'nother story about that soap opera and some of my other friends who were also addicted and who went to all lengths, even when teaching, not to miss an episode.
And, so we have that same kind of transition from winter to spring. It's for sure we're gonna be miserable and grumpy, and it will get worse before it gets better.
I just wish "better" would hurry up.
In other news, I saw this scene above yesterday while picking up my online grocery order from Yoke's.
There's GOT to be a story there. Anybody have any thoughts?
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Also, because it's ugly out and hard to take any pretty pictures, I'm going to keep posting sunflower scenes as my form of support for the Ukrainian people.
When I talk about the misery we are experiencing because of the weather, I must say it's all relative.
I can't stop thinking of how the lives of the citizens of a nation have been senselessly disrupted and how long they may wait for the war to end and if they will ever be able to get back to normal.
Yes, it truly is relative.
A little mud and rain and snow misery can't come close to what these people have to endure because of one despicable, heartless and ruthless member of the human species.
So, sunflowers it shall be.
Happy Monday and stay strong Ukraine.
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