Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!  I hope you’re all spending the day with the people you love the most, and will be enjoying a wonderful meal today. 

Safe travels, happy cooking, and best wishes for a truly wonderful day. 

Still Blooming

Do you ever find yourself utterly shocked, surprised, and amazed by how well something turns out, or how long it lasts?

That’s happened to me with this pink Gerbera daisy. I have no idea how, but it’s still blooming. We’ve had several hard frosts; the kind where it takes a while to de-ice the car in the morning. But this little daisy is still blooming. 

My understanding of Gerbera daisies is that they’re a warm weather flower. I’ve planted one every year for the past few years, and I don’t remember one ever making it this long. Definitely not through multiple frosts.

I’m glad this year’s Gerbera daisy is turning out to be different. It’s planted next to the carport, so you see it every time you leave or come home. I really like pink flowers, so it makes me happy to see it every day. It’s just a nice little bright spot in the day. Cold weather is not my favorite, and I really don’t like it when there’s nothing colorful in the yard, so this little flower is making me incredibly happy.

So what about you? Do you have anything still blooming? Do you know something I don’t about Gerbera daisies? Do they always last this long? What little thing is making you happy right now?

When “Failure” Makes You Happy

Do you remember Duke, the dog we picked up from the shelter to foster almost a year ago?  We “foster failed” during the summer.

When Duke came to us, he was heartworm positive, and had a damaged paw.  He made it through the heartworm treatment (which took almost six months before we got the negative test) and into our hearts while he was going through that.

He just fit in perfectly from the beginning.  We love him, Emma loves him, and he does well with the cats.  We had to keep him! 

Duke’s front right paw was damaged when he came to us.  It was initially thought that he’d had a broken leg that didn’t heal properly, but when they did more testing they determined that it was nerve damage (no one has any idea how it happened, and unfortunately he can’t tell us) and that the leg couldn’t be saved. 

His leg was amputated about a month after his negative heartworm test. He went in for the surgery on a Wednesday morning and came home on a Thursday afternoon.  The first few days were rough.  He was uncomfortable, he didn’t like the bandage, we had a lot of trouble keeping the bandage on, he kept messing with the IV site, and we had a terrible time dealing with that once he licked it to the point of having a sore.  But we got through it!  My friend Crystal came and stayed that weekend to help with him.  Nick is an EMT, so is really good at changing bandages, and I became fairly decent at it myself by the time it was over.

During the process of his leg amputation and recovery Duke managed to become a little bit of a local celebrity (or at least had a “15 minutes of fame” thing going on) when the shelter started a chip-in to try and raise some of the money for all of his treatment.  He was very popular at the vet’s office, I tracked his progress on Facebook, people we barely knew were asking us about Duke’s recovery, and I ended up bringing him to work to meet some people.  That grew, and he ended up visiting a few different departments.  Duke loves people and attention, so he basked in his fame. 

Things have calmed down, and we’re happily a six fur kid family.  We have noticed that Duke seems to get some extra attention whenever we take the dogs out.  There’s just something about a three-legged animal that seems to make people want to pet them and meet them.  Duke is fine with that because he loves people.  And food.  And people have food! 

So we totally “failed” as foster parents with Duke, but we couldn’t be happier to have failed.  He just fits in and completes our furry family. 

Dance Like A Chicken Day

Today is Dance Like A Chicken Day.  I love the chicken dance!   It’s the one song guaranteed to get pretty much everyone out on the dance floor, and it just sounds so happy.  I think it’s practically impossible to hear and it not do the chicken dance, which of course puts a smile on everyone’s face.

My husband and I chose to play the chicken song at our wedding reception (of course we did, it’s a great song), and everyone seemed to really get into doing the chicken dance.   So, since I’ve promised you photos with every post this month, here are some photos of the chicken dance from our reception, and of course a youtube video of the chicken dance, so you can have the song playing in your head all day.