1-11-22
South we go, through Chattanooga through Birmingham,
Alabama and turned west onto I-20, on into Mississippi. We were just west of Jackson, MS when I found
an empty parking lot and collapsed on the bed.
It was just after 11 pm, central time.
I woke up wide awake at some O My GOD hour and decided I
might as well get on the road so off we went, another 150 miles or so to
Calhoun, LA. It was almost 9 am and I
was too tired to continue so, park it and sleep some more. I still had 390 miles to go…
So Wednesday was another long day of driving, although once
into TX, GPS sends me off the interstate system onto the state system. It’s pretty good, nicely paved and high speed
limits (70 – 75) when not going through small towns. It’s the small towns that can catch you up –
watch those speed signs. I haven’t been
caught yet!
Marj and Bernie have four dogs. They are:
Callie, the incredible PTSD service dog; Ace, the cocker-aussie mix;
Moon, the ¾ wolf/husky mix and Indigo, a black lab. Well, Indigo is the youngest, Moon is seven
years old and they are both intact. The
idea behind getting Indigo was to breed her to Moon. Well, they got together and she was due at
any minute as I was driving.
Wednesday morning Marjorie fell and injured her
shoulder. As I was driving toward her,
she was going to the walk-in clinic to find out just how bad it was.
There were issues around Waco and I-35, but by some measure
of grace we didn’t get into them. It
was smooth driving all the way into the driveway…
Bernie and I set up Rigbee and discovered the 30 amp outlet
he put in works for his welder but is a 4-blade where my power cable is standard
220. So, I will run off the generator
and it’s cold!!!
Marjie got home while we were fussing about with the little
Ute trailer and OMG there’s a puppy and it’s not breathing!!! Bernie and I rush in and we take turns
briskly rubbing the little one, it’s blond like Moon with little prick ears
like Moon and he’s cold and it’s awful and and and
So, we get poor Indigo into Marjie’s van (she has a
sprained shoulder, the van is a Ford Transit) and off we go to the emergency
vet. I end up on the floor in the rear
beside Indigo keeping track of how she’s doing (panting). Now, Indy had x-rays the day before and they
counted 7 puppies. At the emergency
vet’s office, we were reassured that everything is normal, relax human parents
and take her home to let nature take it’s course.
We stopped for gas and of course, Indy gets up and goes to
the front driver’s side and drops a puppy.
ALIVE!!!! Another little blond
Moon-alike. By the time we got home, she had delivered her first black
one. Marj and Bernie were getting a
wagon to transport Indy back to her whelping box and I’m busy in the rear of
the van yelling, “There’s another puppy!”
So now the count was 3, 2 live and 1 who didn’t make it. Three to go.
We were all starving as it was after 8 pm. I don’t even remember what we ate, only that
we did and intermittently interrupted poor Indy who was calmly proceeding with
delivering puppies. By the time I went
to bed around 10 p.m. there were six.
Three blond, two black and one brown.
So damn adorable. They all had
the prick ears instead of rounded.
The next morning, there were SEVEN. Another black one was born. There are two black males, two blond males
and one each black, blond and the brown one are all girls. Bernie wants to keep them all…
Who wouldn’t?
He immediately named the brown one (I was already calling
her “Coco”) Sinamin. Cindy says that
sounds like a stripper name. (see the
movie “Pixels”)
As the puppies crawl around and Indy washes them, we notice
that the black ones all have some white, somewhere, and the blond ones have
some white on them. One has a lightening
bolt on his head and he’s being called Zorro.
One of the black ones has a shield on his chest and he’s Percival. The black one with white toes and a white tip
on his tail is Tips, the other black one
is Arthur and either Percival or Arthur is a girl? The other two blonds have not been named,
yet.
They are having a cement patio put in, so we needed to move
some fencing. They are horse fencing
panels, five feet high and 20 feet long.
They’re a little heavy.(!) We moved
them using the tractor, but didn’t Bernie drop one on my foot! My foot didn’t break, nor did I get a bruise,
but it still hurts. There are now two
fenced in areas for the dogs. Good
thing, because Tripp is so scared of Moon that he goes on the offensive and
growls and bares his teeth at the big boy.
Moon will eat him with two bites.
Tyson gets along with everyone and just wants to play. Ace plays with both Ty and Tripp, but we keep
the rest of them separated. Indy wasn’t
leaving the whelping box for the first couple of days unwilling to leave the
puppies.
Ah, the puppies.
They are so adorable. Everyone
thinks I’m going to bring one home, but they are likely to be LARGE dogs and I
just won’t. Nope. Cousin Raelene will
throw me out if I do.
Besides, they won’t be old enough when I head for
home.
We’ve done some shopping and of course the internet died
and the Verizon store was closed due to staffing shortages. Since my phone is having trouble connecting,
I can’t even use that as a hot spot.
Good thing I downloaded books to the kindle before I left.
I gave Ace a bath this morning as he was in dire need. It took a lot to get him relatively clean but
then to brush him? Marjie did the
majority of the work there but he needs even more. Tripp needs further brushing, although I did
a lot last night. He still needs his
back feet trimmed,
Tyson is wearing his coat because it’s raining and the rain
is coming down in drops and pellets. While it’s cold for Texas, considering that
CT is below zero, we’re quite toasty here and getting warmer later this week.
