Closing up the Cottage

Fall is always a sort of melancholy. Winter is on its way.

 We went to close up the cottage. Packed up the kitchen to keep the sugar and spice away from the mice.

Took all of the outdoor furniture and moved it indoors.

 And all of the cushions. I should have taken a picture of the end result of the room packed with all of the outside furniture and stuff, but we were too busy hustling things inside and down under the house. Anyway it looks nicer like this.

To revisit and have a mental vacation and take a snooze on the couch.

Listen to birds in the sun room.

And hang out at the dock at sunset.

Rupert Fall Fair

Last weekend: Gorgeous fall weekend in Wakefield. Cosmos in the goose garden.

Went to the Rupert fair, first fortifying ourselves with Pogos from Dominos hot dog stand in Wakefield.

Then drove over to the Rupert Fall Fair. There were lovely horses 

Cowgirls in competition

At the end of "canter, walk, smile, turn, gallop" they all lined up to be judged. 

Like any good fair, there was a petting zoo featuring a shy potbelly pig.

There were teamster races, this is a 9 year old boy competing in the kid teamsters. (This kid's not in the union- originally, the term meant a person driving a team of horses.)

His grandfather was in the men's.This was a timed event, in one part, he had to get the horses to back up the cart between 2 posts, which looked pretty hard. 

The judging of the vegetables. Next year we should enter, our veg are way cuter.

Back at our farm, we picked this riviere des patates the next day, with 4 adults and 4 kids helping; also harvested carrots, beets, onions, parsnips, turnips, tomatoes, squash- all washed and laid out to dry. A large amount of work made light by many hands, even small ones.

No question, we would win the embracing carrots prize

And probably the prize for best carrot back scratcher

Lake Louise

This summer we got to go to Lake Louise for a little hiking. We rented a car and stopped in Banff on the way up:

We got to stay at the Chateau Lake Louise. A view from the hike

 Our room had great view of Lake Louise, a glacial lake which according to them is the most photographed lake in the world

I can see why

The hotel was very swish, though there were a few others nearby, Paradise Lodge and Deer Lodge which may have been better value. Though I loved the decor inside. The food was way way overpriced ($11 for a tuna sandwich), so in the morning we started going to Laggan's bakery for sandwiches to take on our hikes.

                    

The glaciers were gloomy and beautiful, we hiked 14 km to see them



We hiked past the tea houses

The lake really is turquoise

Another day we hiked Saddleback Pass, to the top of Mt. Fairview, well worth it.

One morning we drove to check out Moraine Lake

And on the on the way back, I asked J to pull over so I could take some photos. I quickly ran back to our car to get him, when I saw this:

We scrambled down to the SUV,  "Just Married" was written on the windows, the passenger doors were open, the back window was broken, no one inside. There was a laptop and several beer tins scattered around. We climbed back up to call 911, and just then a policeman arrived. So we told him we saw, and we left. I later looked up the news to see if it had been reported, and found this CBC story, about an earlier crash, 2 years ago, with the photo eerily similar to the scene we saw. Exact same spot. I didn't find out anything more about this crash. 

We hiked that day, and then took the most beautiful drive.

My Little Dog with Kidney Disease

This is our dog Sadie, she is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel (ridiculous name - but what a gentle breed). She is an awesome little dog.

She started out very little. 

The vet said to wait until she grew bigger to spay her. She grew very slowly and we waited a long time- at 10 months- and she was still way under weight for her age and breed. So the vet did some lab work and called back, saying "I have terrible news." Her creatinine was 211 micromoles/L (2.4 mg/dl) which is like 5% function remaining. She said that my little dog would not live long. I cried for 4 days.

However, that dog won the dog lottery when she came home me. I put her on a renal diet, and read a ton, downloaded free vet references (like the Merck Veterinary manual) and tried to earn an honorary veterinarian degree meditating over what to do to try to help her. The real vet diagnosed a kidney infection, so we gave her antibiotics for 6 weeks. 

This is what she looked like at the time- she walked around with her back hunched, she was probably in some pain with the infection. So skinny.  I feel badly that we didn't know for so long.
Donkey photobombed this shot.

She then had an ulcer bleed, (black tarry stool) so I put her on anti ulcer medication (Dexilant, given to me in samples by my gastroenterologist friend) and the same antihypertensive that humans take to preserve kidney function (a ACE inhibitor, coversyl- also samples) phosphate binder with her meals (epakitin = CaC03 for little animals), and a little baking soda for bicarb. All in dog doses for a 7 lb dog. And now she's 2 1/2 and doing quite well, almost 2 years after she was maybe going to die. She was on potassium for a while, but doesn't need it now. She barfs sometimes, eats grass, goes off her food for a meal. But then she picks up, and she is generally bouncy and sweet. We never did spay her.

I wrote to the breeder but she just said tough luck, her dogs are only guaranteed for heart and eyes. She checked on the other puppies, but apparently everyone else was OK. She was sympathetic, but not enough to mail me back some cash.

I tried to join a renal dog group on yahoo, K9 Kidney Diet but had to fill in an application form and they rejected me when I said that I was a nephrologist. Which I thought was really weird. I mean, I was beside myself with grief that my little dog was sick and I'm not a vet, I needed advice. So I made up a new name, email and vocation for myself, and they took me in. The site was informative to me, and helped at the time. 

Last summer Sadie got sick, with diarrhea and vomiting. She was a deflated little bag of a dog, and looked like she was going to die. I  told the nurses in my dialysis unit about the problem and they gave me the equipment to give her some IV fluids. I gave her the IV (subcu actually) at home - there are lots of helpful sites on youtube on how to do this. Sadie cried and hated the needle, she squirmed and yelped and had to be held down, when we were done she jumped up and actually howled "ow ow ow ow." But then she got up, drank, peed, and the next morning all was OK. To quote Anne Lamott: Help, Thanks, Wow.

Lots of people give their dogs regular home IV therapy, but I'm not going to- she drinks a lot, and I can't torture her with IVs every second day. Will not be giving her dialysis either-  if there were such a thing. I brought her to the vet for her rabies and other vaccines, and her Cr was 180, about the same as over a year ago. Her phosphate was up, so have to use a bit more binder. 

Sadie's diet, for anyone that cares:
Cooked cream of wheat in the morning, with a good dose of whipping cream (low in phosphate, high in fat and calories) and some strawberry jam (again, was trying to fatten her up) with a good sprinkling of epakitin and a small sprinkle of baking soda.
We mix apple juice with her water for vitamin C, the calories, and the bicarb in it (citric acid turns to bicarb in the body) and for dinner we boil a chicken leg or boil some lamb and cut it up for her, again with a good sprinkle of epakitin. These meats are lowest in phosphate, compared to beef, fish or white meat chicken. She is lucky we have a farm. We give her a  bit of cheese or liver snacks for treats and tricks. I calculated her calorie requirements based on a web site that does that kind of thing for dogs. She needs about 350 calories per day.
We give her pills in cream cheese. 

Here she is recently, with her BFF

Still life with roses

This is from a still life class. The roses were fake, which is too bad, but nothing lives for 3 weeks and we don't work that fast. As usual, I am stymied by the drapery. Apparently, the old masters would devote whole classes and paintings to drapery. At one point I told Chui "mon nature mort est mort" and he added some shadows and said "Je l'ai ressuscité." I wanted to note is a small detail: the shadow in the roses was mixed from red- scarlet lake and burnt sienna, and it gave depth to the flower.   He says mix a maximum of 3 colors to keep the colors pure. He corrected my work and added purple grey shadow to some of the petals, which I couldn't see myself, looking at the flowers. 

The composition:

What I did over 3 classes. At the end of our class he came over to mine and added gilt of the gold on the cup, and one tiny highlight on the vase, which enlivened the painting.

Everyone's work all together. Chui compared our works one to each other.  Mine's on the floor at far right, and my brother's is next to it.