goodbye to Daphne

 

 

She was born in the summer of 2012, and she has been such a good girl - spent her life here with her mom Nova (who passed a few years ago at 13), sisters Sweetie and Minerva and took Charlotte on as her 'puppy' as well when we adopted her (even though Charlotte was two years old, still 'a puppy'.

She was partially deaf - and could howl so loudly and high-pitched that people in the next county probably covered their ears.  The UPS and post men had a hard time as she would get so involved barking at them, often with her eyes closed, that she had no idea to get out of the way of their cars.  Just the other day Mark said she was barking at the UPS man and now we sort of think she had a stroke, and maybe a series of them, although at the time it was just a bit off her usual behavior.  She laid down in the yard to bark at them (not usual) and she couldn't quite howl or bark  with her usual voice even when I got home from work.  She's been 'halfway down' since the UPS delivery day, but she has bounced back and forth from almost her usual self a few times.  

She was sitting in the sun a few days ago with the Lyffan Manx cat and they were having a very good time together.  Back when Daphne was a puppy, we had a Manx cat named Mouse, and she used to follow her all around the road - we called  her Sergeant Mouse walking her pups.  When Minerva got lost in the snow and the thickets at two months old or so - for about two days, and we could NOT find her, we were so worried - it was Daphne that kept insisting on going out every few hours and she eventually brought her home.  It was a bit like a miracle - but she didn't give up.   She also really liked our goats - was heartbroken when our first one Kitty goat passed on at eight - was very upset the next one we got didn't like dogs (we gave that one to another farm, because she really didn't like dogs and wasn't happy either), and spent a lot of time with Melody, our blind goat.  They didn't get along as well as she did with Kitty, but still, they enjoyed each other.

 

We let Daphne out the garage door when she had a bad stumble on the stairs, four days ago maybe? where I had to pick her up and bring her up the rest of the way (she has always had sporadic trouble with that one back leg tendon).  We went to get her back out of the yard and she had fallen into a little hollow on the side of the road and couldn't get back up - Esme and I brought her back in the house and she was better again later.  The next day she seemed fine, and then the rainy weather started up, and she was arthritic and down again.  She went and in and out of the house with assistance a few days during the rain and was enjoying laying in front of the heater with other dogs and cats.  She would say she couldn't get up to go out with the other dogs, and we carried her outside, but then she could walk back into the house afterwards and ask for a treat, but then a few hours later she was again unable to get up again without assistance...

All a prime example of Bluetick coonhound stubbornness, which her mother was 100% bluetick.  Her dad was Catahoula leopard hound and lab.  Today she couldn't get up in the morning.  We carried her out to the yard and she could barely stand.  She went to lay down under the tree where she had the other day.  Mark came back to fetch her up and bring her inside and he said she walked a few steps under the big tree and fell over and was gone within a few minutes.  Her grandmother Misha had a massive stroke, as well, at 17, which we wondered if maybe Misha had had other strokes before that one.  Daphne was 12 (and a half, since she was born in the summer)

We will miss her greatly, the two-legged and the four legged family members alike.

at a year old

at a few months old

bits

 It's been three years since I started using Duolingo every day on my PC profile.  I did mostly Japanese today on there, and did Welsh and French on my phone profile (only what.. 6 months there?).  Doing well with the budget - had two months of good data to sort through and did some of that last night, while holding my elderly little cat in my lap because it was raining and she was cold.  Mark and I had been reading a news article about what other people's average costs for housing, electricity, groceries etc are - and wow, most of the country is so high no wonder everyone else is as worried about the economy.  

Our 'household costs' are really low compared to the people posting in that article, and even so, we were having trouble paying our bills each month and it was getting worse and worse - but that was with only a part-time job for one person (As many hours as they would give me, which sometimes wasn't much, other times was nearly full-time... but lately, the full-timers were working every hour they could get and all the part-timers were getting very few hours), and now I have a full time job AND a part-time job (but less hours on the part-time than before, because of the full-time schedule).  With me now working two jobs  we're finally getting it back in order.  I have no idea how anyone else is making ends meet at these rates, and with rent going absolutely insane that I see in people's Facebook posts, in the newspaper etc etc....  Our insurance went up five times this year, by leaps and bounds, house and auto, but mostly house.  The electric is now about 150% what it was last year, and that is still with levelized billing - it is just more expensive.  The insurance and the electric are the two things I can't fill out what to expect to have to pay until they arrive, because they keep going up.  We are very conservative on our groceries, buy generic and the best deal we can for quantities and cook at home almost 100% of the time and even so our average grocery bill for the month is notably more now than last year - it is almost 125% from a price I had written down a year or so ago.  Being a spreadsheet and numbers geek, even sporadically, gives some insights.  AND I KNOW that the amount of food, quantities etc. we were buying overall when I had captured that 'before' price was actually more than what we are getting for this price now - so, higher prices, less quality/quantity at the same time.  So, yea.. I know exactly why everyone has voted on the economy this presidential election. 

Work is moving to 12 hour shifts, 7 day factory operation - which they didn't want to do, but the upper bosses out of state say it is necessary.  It doesn't affect my schedule, being in the office - but I can feel the mood change.  People have kids, and other schedules in the house to worry about meeting up with to get things done, etc.  Even with expansion and raises coming, hopefully - if every thing keeps going well - 12 hour shifts of a hot, physical job is a hard thing to do when you had been previously doing 8.  And a lot of people don't have ways to get their kids to school or back home etc, a few of them don't even have their own car but share rides with family and other workers.

Just working six days a week at two jobs myself, even though one of them isn't as phsyical, does get to be wearing me down some.  I am up so early every morning whether I really want to be or not, even on Sundays - and have a hard time getting to bed at a decent hour at the same time unless I do languages and then crash immediately after dinner.  And I am bringing my lunches and they are not always exactly healthy, but I'm working on that - canned soup or ramen noodles, instant oatmeal, bananas, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, bowls of hot tea and thermos of coffee etc.  I am still doing the post office delivery route on Saturday - not doing the Sunday packages but letting the other part-timers split that and taking that one day off every week.  The physical nature of the office job is entirely different, walking some, sweeping, cleaning things - but also a lot of sitting in a chair typing and answering phone, copying, scanning etc.  It is a different thing on the body.  I finally got down on my yoga mat again tonight after putting it off for a while.  I can feel I haven't been moving these muscles the same way as the postal route did - and that I've been sitting more, and that I've been driving different vehicles again.  I got through the routine and cracked out my lower back, but I need to get flexibility back.

Our Daphne dog is 13 or 14 years old?  Even last year she was quite spry and running around the yard with Charlotte.  But she isn't doing well now - she is showing her age, arthritis every morning hard to get up to her feet and she can't get as much air to bark and howl as she had before.  The other dogs are worried about her, but she still seems happy enough to get a treat here and there and to sit in the sun when it's warm.  Today it was raining though, so she sat in front of the propane heater and wasn't quite as happy about that.

Got the laundry out.  Time to get myself some more sleep now that I've done that yoga routine, and hope I didn't overdo it and wake up too early hurting somewhere.

Snow 2024 : Episode Three

 

 

The crochet floor rug I'm working on, the other one is still a big hit downstairs but there isn't enough of it.

 

Today was Too Much Adventure, as I call it.  I was called in yesterday to do the full city walking postal route, and I did, get it done, and got home with only some fishtailing and 'hold your hat' over the hill, but I did not enjoy it.  And today, they called me and told me that kid was calling out again, and so I came in - delivered the packages, and it was only two and a half hours, but it had begun to rain and then it was due to freeze again.  

 

I tried three times to make it back up the hill to my house (after the highways were clear, but our side road is NOT.. and it was 29 degrees and people were sliding all over town even on clear highways, I saw the reports).. and the truck was smoking, and I decided to call it 'it could be worse - let's not have it worse' and park it in a neighbor's turnaround with a SORRY note sticking out the window with my phone number on it.  It didn't block their drive - but I'm sure it was 'what, why?'... but the other option was keep trying as it kept getting icier and maybe end up upside-down in the ditch.  The second and third time I tried to get up that hill I was sliding on the return towards the ditch also... and it wasn't fun at all.  

 

So, I threw on the emergency gear I had put in my seat each day this week for walking in this weather- big rubber boots (which, I actually wore on the route today as well as my good shoes got soaked yesterday) and an oversized parka over my normal parka jacket - and walked the mile and a half home.  I'm hoping to go out there (also dressed like this) in a few days when it is close to water temperatures again and take my plastic sled and a bin of salt with me and see if that will make the difference to get me the rest of the way home for the melt on Monday (when I'm scheduled again though, before the melt) **sigh**

 

A self-portrait of me walking in my big orange parka and rubber boots today

 

 

 

Melody, our mostly blind goat, enjoying some time inside (tied to the desk, because she singes herself) next to the propane heater

 

The heater is popular, here is Melody (nose showing only), Minion (cat), and Charlotte and Daphne (dogs) before they realized I had a camera and was taking a picture of them.

  

Chickens asking: Where is dinner? 

 

Charlotte going out with me to check on and feed the chickens.

Daphne, a Niume post

Our Daphne deserves some love, too - I wrote a Niume post about her heroism :)

Da[hne, our Catahoula leopard dog

Article:

I realized, in my post about Sweetie, that I really don't give Daphne as much credit as she deserves.  She has a different kind of quiet intelligence and a deep loyalty above all else.  She is always happy and sweet, but not always understanding the breadth of the situation.  Several times, though, when it got down to brass tacks, our Daphne has helped save the day.

She was born in the Summer of 2012.  She was so beautiful - with more white on her than we thought was possible in a Catahoula Leopard Dog.  In fact, we read up on it and found that we should worry about her hearing, as part of her ears were white.  In Catahoulas, the merle gene (blue eyes, 'blue' spotted coat) can cause deafness in some dogs.  We knew we were going to keep Daphne, because we worried she might have a hearing problem and/or pass it on in her genes.

Also, she was incredibly sweet.  A ball of chunky puppy with one blue eye and one brown.

She was 'White Ears' for about a month, until her name struck me.  She was a little like Daphne, from the Scooby Doo gang.  So, she has been Daphne or 'Daffy' (to my husband) ever since.

Here she is one of several puppies playing tug of war with a rope with our daughter.  The light just shined on her in this picture and she was looking at our daughter with adoration.  One of our cats, a Manx calico, tried to adopt her at this time.  She would stomp around with the puppy at her side leading her up and down our road.  We called 'Mouse' the general and she was training Daphne up to follow her.

She grew, and became longer and lankier, as Catahoulas do.  This picture is her at about a year old, snuggled up against the cold weather on a beanbag.  We were glad to find out she did not have a hearing problem, she just had a different personality than many of our other dogs.  She likes to sit back and watch, and ask the other dogs what she should do next.  She was Loula's right-hand dog, for the longest time.  Sweetie and Spud were born about this time, and she was a loving big sister to them.

I'll relate the tale of the goat again - because Daphne showed her true colors that day.  We had a goat that had died of old age.  We went to our local family that raises goats with Pyrennes and they recommended one to us that knew dogs and would live with them.  'Kitty' was well taken-care of by the elderly lady and adapted to our pack quite well, dancing and trotting along with the dogs up and down our road.  For several months they treated her like a younger dog, taking her a bit further the longer she kept with them.  We tried to keep her to a leash, but she often found a way out of it.  Chewed collars and busted carabiner clips were a usual sight.  One day, she went running up the road with the dogs and out of sight.

Our daughter and the 'kitty' goat, a Nubian dwarf cross

Several of our dogs came back without the goat, but Daphne and her sister Loula stayed with her.  We called and waited and even went through the woods, not sure where on our property they might be.  Then, about eight o clock that night, as the sun was starting to set... here comes Daphne and Loula, one on either side of a seriously muddy goat, herding her along the road until we could come out and click a leash on her.  She had obviously been stuck in mud up to her armpits, and they had somehow (we'll never know) lead her out and forced her to come home.  It was quite a sight.  And we were so relieved.  They were both heroes that day - and the goat went on a lead after that when she wasn't in her pen.

Daphne in the back, Lucy in the middle, Sweetie at the front.

(oh, and a cat)

In the Fall of 2015, Daphne and Sweetie and Spud all chased the UPS truck.  They escaped through the door before I could stop them - and they were off running.  Spud came back that night.. but Sweetie and Daphne did not.  We were very worried.  We sent out calls to all of our neighbors and Facebook trying to see if anyone had seen them.  We called the shelters and the sheriff, too.  Sweetie came back on her own two days later - much to my relief.  Daphne, though, was still missing.  I gave up hope, until one day after Christmas - a very very cold day, a thin Daphne appeared on our road.

 Everyone was so happy to see her, they crowded around her, licking her face and welcoming her 

back.   She had been being kept on a leash somewhere - and her neck was a bit raw from straining against it to escape.  My husband was very angry at this but we didn't know where she had been.  We never found exactly who had tried to keep her ... she is a very pretty dog but they must have known someone was looking for her!  We were so happy to have her home.  I am so glad she didn't give up and found her way home.

There's still one more 'hero' episode about our sweet Daphne - but I'll save that for when I tell about her younger sister Minerva, as she was the one saved.  As I said, Daphne shows great loyalty and perseverance, and doesn't give up on her family.  She definitely is a treasure.

Catahoula Leopard Dogs at Shepard Lane Farm (KnitOwl)

By request, gratuitous puppy pictures.  And pictures of our adult pack at the bottom.
Questions please email at lamb190@gmail.com

  Hunter is spoken for, and will go to his family about 9/20/2015

 Chunks looks just like his Daddy, Spud.  See below in the adult pictures.

 Cutie has one black ear (see below) 

   Pearl on the left, Cutie on the right

 Lazy and Pearl are nearly twins, and sometimes seem to share the same brain.

Lazy has a longer line over one eyebrow and a larger black spot on her back.

 Turbo is a fat and happy puppy and enjoys cuddling up to an ankle.

 Freckles is excited about everything.

 Minnie looks a lot like her mom, Minerva, seen below.  She deeply wants to be someone's dog and is eager and observant.

 Nibbler is sweet. We are keeping him with the pack.

 Story time!

Despite best efforts, none have yet learned to read.

 Aunt Daphne with Columbus' sister from an earlier litter, Rosa.
She looked a lot like Turbo does now.

 Snooze

 Minerva, the pups mother.

 Columbus, a brother from Minerva's first litter.

 Columbus and Hunter

Spud, the pups' father.

Spud and his sister, Sweetie, when they were puppies.

Sweetie, grown up as an adult.

Tilling in Spring

Baby's breath bush under the tree - Mark grabbed a picture of Spring :)

 Daphne dog is growing up... she was born just last summer.

 The cub cadet tiller.  We had to clean vines and weeds out of the tines a few times, but it is going pretty well.

 Esme and the Kitty goat pose for a picture while Esme keeps the goat occupied 

and out of the garden fence.

 First groundbreaking for year.

I notice this is the same dress she was wearing last time we tilled in November... it is one of her favorites.  Yay for outside roll-in-the-mud clothes and for sewing that holds up. I do need to sit down and make her another one like it, as I said on my 'to do' list earlier this week.

 gourd seeds from a very small gourd found hiding in the garden fence

 

Mark came back for a second pass.

We have gladiolus growing where the stick is and around it.

Mark hanging the garden gate back up after we are done for the day

Now to decide where to plant things.  It will be raining much of this week, and we tilled some compost in so it will have some time to warm up.  Mark says we will plant 'some things in this general vicinity'... ha.

Walking to our west field in winter, Esme and Daphne

Esme and Daphne walking outside in the cold with me. We didn't go far - just to the west field and back. I so want it to be warm so we can do our garden, again. Daphne puppy is growing, too. Esme has a super eye-blinding pink ensemble.

Yelling Hey Dogs come back here. 

As happy as a puppy with a stick... 

The West Field in winter 

All sticky mud that gets on your boots...

Then we filled up the outside water trough for all of the animals and came back inside where it is warm.

bits

Esme had a discussion last night about she is 'just right size' but 'still kid' and she wanted to grow up so she could be big and be a mama, but she didn't want to be any bigger either - because she didn't want to wash her hair and she was still little.  She said someday she would use the big bucket and wash her hair just like a mama like a 'shower' - but for now, she will use the little bucket and cry.  *ha*  I think it takes her seven of her little bucket to get the soap out and she could do it so much easier otherwise... but she hates doing things 'new' when she has already latched onto something, stubborn?  Yes.

We also discussed what 'fire' and 'to fire something' was - she told me the definition when she said 'fire' and threw a handful of bubbles at me and I said it didn't look like fire.  'No mama, there is fire, that is fire (cup her hands around something) and there is fire, to throw something at like this (toss something), that is just like that.  You understand?'  *ha again*.  I then said I knew that - we call that two meanings, like no, no, no is three no-s... but she really only had one nose.  She laughed.. and then said she had two noses... after which I identified nostrils again, nose holes - compared to 'whole nose'... which she also thought was funny but didn't entirely grasp.  Then I asked her what should we call it if we 'fire' a batch of fire through the air?  She laughed again, and thought it was all a good game.

note: I remember telling Mark a while back that with our Poofball kitten being all sorts of colors, and Daphne puppy being all other sorts of colors.. and my bean collection being all colorful and spotted and streaked - we must just have a penchant for spotty colorful things.  That is true...  And then yesterday as I am trying to combat Esme's cold getting ahold of me (which it is, sort of) I noticed in the mirror I was wearing a green knit hat, a blue and white variegated wool waistcoat and crazy patterened fabric scrap slippers all over the house like a gypsy... but I was warm, and colorful, and spotted and streaked everywhere myself ;)

 

The Daphne puppy in question, in her favorite place yesterday.  She is growing, as well.