We recently took Gator and Bailey to Money Creek Campground up US Hwy 2.

The campground was closed, as it always is in the off season.
The pups had a blast running thru all the puddles, and Gator found a snowball that she played with until it crumbled. It was fun watching them romp!

Just an update on the old gals.



They are both doing much better since we started giving them lactated ringers. We use an 18 gage needle and just put it under the skin in her back. We call it being tanked.

They are both on Hills Rx KD formula dog food. Both wet and dry.

Also, they each have a harness that has a handle on their back to assist when necessary. The harness was created originally to assist rescue dogs over rough terrain. They work good, there are 2 straps one across the chest and the other across the belly. Plus a strap across the front under the colar. The straps are all padded. I can actually pick Ginger up by hers.

Samantha has a cancer that she is bleeding internally. Probably a tumor that started on her spleen. We did not want to put her thru surgery or anything, figured at her age it would be too much. She was falling down alot with her front legs, but since we got a handle on the fluids and food she is walking good again.

Suzi takes her on walks around the property.

It it funny to watch Suzi and Sam take their walks, Both Louis and Natasha cats follow along. Evidently Natasha talks the whole way, and shows off her climbing skills. Sam seems quite pleased with these walks.

I was going to take Samantha for a walk, but evidently I don't rate. She chose to stay near the house and watch the cats and I take the walk down the driveway and back.



Ginger is also doing better now that we have the fluids regulated. She has a different type of cancer. It is a type of Luekemia. We also discovered she had ecoli and I think the meds for that helped clear up some of the other infections she had going on.
Someone needs to explain to her that she is frail! When you go outside she lunges down the stairs, and crashes. She lunged one time and I hurt my rotor cuff by grabbing her harness. I think I got hurt because she is so low to the ground that my elbow was straight causing my shoulder to take the brunt of the pull. Due to this and the fact that I am now running the geriatric pet unit the deck is on super duper slow/ hold.

One time Ginger got hurt and could hardly walk, but still wanted to walk in circles while I got her food out. I started attaching her to the coffee table at dinner time to give her a chance to heal. This is working, she is barely limping today. She does get tired quick. But seems to enjoy food and dog bones still.



She has been fighting chronic dairrhea so I trimmed her rear to help with cleaning up easier. I got a bit carried away, and oopsed. Now she looks like a lioness. FYI I do not recommend doggie diapers on a dog with dairrhea, it is more messy than just cleaning the floor...


She also is getting what she considers a special treat: Peppermint flavored Kaopectate mmmmmm nummy!

I got a weather station for christmas. I have it hooked to my computer and have figured out how to post it on the blog. It will be on the right side of this blog. If you click on the weather area it will open a new window showing more details from the station in our yard. Having fun...

Just a slide show of Joe and Carisha's kids (pets) this past year.



note it is a video, so if you got this via email go to
http://gingerthebrave.blogspot.com/

Louis cat brought another live bird into the house. The little bird found a hiding place on a shelf under our wii board. The video is the bird being released.



For those on email alerts, go to the blog to see the video
www.gingerthebrave.blogspot.com

Saw this fisher king at Marymoore.
Suprisingly, I don't know that I have ever seen one there before.

We are running quiet the geriatric dog unit now.


Samantha is sick now also. Her labs say she is anemic, bad liver, bad kidneys, and bad pancreas... she was staggering and falling on her face all of a sudden. She is much better now, but we still have to carry her up the stairs, but at least she waits at the bottom of the stairs for us to come help.

Ginger on the other hand will attempt the stairs if we are not right there, some times she makes it, sometimes she gets stuck on the stairs, and sometimes she flips over and tumbles back down the stairs eek. Ginger has a harness so we can grab the handle on her back to assist her. Ginger is still hanging in, good moments/ bad moments. found out she has e-coli now in addition to the cancer. Her immune system is messed up aslo, but I still cannot keep up with her!


They are both on lactated ringers 2x per day. and pills.


Gator, Bailey, Natasha, and Louis are all doing well.

Suzi took a quick trip to Palm Springs to see family this past weekend.
She used her cell phone to take this great shot of Mt Rainier from the plane on the way down.

These humming birds are sure enjoying the oasis of Palm Springs, CA!

Suzi's parents took her for a hike thru Indian Canyons. The following shots were taken by a combination of Suzi's cell phone, and Mikes.







She was glad she went, but is glad to be home now...

I went out to mow, and found the deer in the field I WAS going to mow.



Even though I kept passing by in the field across the driveway, the 2 yearlings settled in. So I gave up on the idea of mowing where they were... maybe another day.

Another great sunrise:



Photo taken 10/26/11

Our little tenacious Ginger dog still rules the roost:

We did get some news that she probably has cancer. We could have shelled out over $300 for confromatino, but we are just going to do symptomatic comfort care. She is on thyroid meds, steroids to help the iflamation, and antibiotics. What hit me was when the vet and his assistant we go to kept going on and on about how frail she looks. She is still keeping us in order though she has deligated some functions to the puppies.

We were watching a football game this past Sunday, and all of a sudden a bird hit the window. I went out to check it out and 1. See if the bird was still alive, and 2. If it was keep the cats away from it. Well, I could not find the bird.
Upon coming back into the house I noticed Bailey dog sniffing something under the window. It was a Flicker Woodpecker. A young one. It was still breathing, so I tried to pick it up to put it in a bucket and the poor thing went crazy! All I could think about was the holes those woodpeckers drill in the trees eek! It climbed under the couch cover and I put the bucket over it trapping it against the front of the couch. Whew, once we got the lid on the bucket Suzi carried it outside for the big release. Below is the video of the successful release.

There must be something living down in the stump. The cats spend hours at a time just staring.



Below is a video of Louis taking a dirt bath.

Gator was having fun running up the hills of beauty bark staged at the Marymoor dog park.
Seems like I see at least one great blue heron each time I go to Marymoor.

Tripod, our 3 footed deer was head butting his twin brother.



Tripod's horns are just little bumps,



but his brother's horns look like wicked spikes.



below is a video of them playing.


Meanwhile, their mom found that the center roof (1 out of 3) was off the garden. She got into the garden and went under the chickenwire roof.



at least she is on the side of the garden with all the weeds. The other side is strawberry plants...

below is a video:

Sunrise taken from the end of our driveway.

Natasha was beeing cute posing on the truck hood.


Last month we got a call telling us our fence had some rotting. I went to check it out. that top board was a 2x4.


I only needed to replace 2x4's (top and bottom) on the deck. All done.

It is the season for tree removal. We had several issues. One was some trees along the power line, we had some birch trees that were blackened from brushing the power lines, so the power company came out and removed them.
Looks like the bucket arm is a bit close to the power line to me… (the top wire is live)



They sure did a good job of clearing my view of the neighbors house.
While the guys were here, they mentioned we should consider cutting down our 75’ hemlock tree. (they would not do it since it would not land on the power line, just my house.)




We have heard this before from a couple of different sources, so… we hired Rudy from Top Notch tree service to cut it down.



They limbed it as far as possible with the bucket,




then decided to limb it the rest of the way climbing the tree.




Below is a video of the tree having it‘s limbs cut off:


I missed the cutting of the top 1/3rd (batteries died in camera)



Then he cut the middle section.
Below is a video:


Followed by the bottom of the tree.
Below is a video:


Now we have lots of firewood for warmth this winter. :)

We saw this osprey on a telephone pole in Monroe the other day. It was so bright out we knew he had something, but did not realize it was a fish until I came home and took the time to look at my pics.


Sushi anyone???


Had I taken the time to look at what he had while there, I probably would have taken some video, and thought more about my focus settings... oh well someting to keep in mind, and look forward to since I know he lives on the cell phone tower in town.

Local bunny with a cute white mark on his forehead.

Dragonfly.

For some reason there were a ton of these dragonflies, but just on one day last week. At first I thought it was 2, but then I realized they were just bi-planes.

Tripod: This young buck was last years baby, he is missing a foot.
He seems to get around ok, when he moves slowly he actually steps on his stump.
see video below:


I did get a chance to see him run, and he does just fine on 3 legs.

We took a little drive up the Sky Valley (US Hwy 2)

Louis and his new friends:

Suzi's Weeping Willow Tree just after sunrise.

Our Calla Lily is in bloom:

Been getting daily strawberries lately. Gator likes them, but when I gave her a green one, she thought it was just a play toy and spent along time tossing it thru the air.
This is how she carried it around:

Meanwhile, Ginger had the right idea:

This is Harlo, she is a rottweiler that is visiting next door.

Gator and Bailey really like it when she comes to visit. Yes, Bailey is licking her in the face, somewhere along the way she decided this was the appropriate way to greet new dogs... it is amazing that none of the dogs she has greeted this way seem to mind much. And she does geet alot of dogs frequenting the off leash dog parks and all.


Anyway, Harlo is actually Gator's bliss, check out the video of them running below.

Just Sammy looking real cute after getting her nails trimmed.

The dogs were ready to go find a spot to run. We saw potential camp sites along the way. So we headed back down the road.

We found an area where it looked like it was 3-4 campsites, but was empty, so we pulled in.
I was getting level when a couple and their 2 dogs showed up. They had parked where they cannot be seen from the road, and wanted to make sure we did not block their way out. Gator had a blast playing chase with the 3 year old dogs. Ok, Bailey had fun too, but it was Gator's bliss.

We woke up early, (just after 5 am) and Suzi opened the curtains to be greeted by a 2 point buck by the back door. It was cold so I took a look at the temp. 32F... brrrrr... glad we were not tent camping! We decided to head out. The light was just starting to hit the high mountains when we left. We saw no traffic all the way down, but we did see numerous deer along the way.