Saturday, April 24, 2004
My throat
This is the dumbest, most annoying thing since...hmm, since my bronchitis bout all last June.
OK, caught some kind of bug in Denver the last weekend of March, if you recall. Mostly upper resp--throat and ears, which resulted in laryngitis. It was ALMOST all better again, until the Sad Incident of Duke's Passing. See, Duke was a portly old boy with a pretty thick coat, and he preferred to be outdoors most of the time. So he was out in the turn-out pen when he died. Which presented a problem, because the only way in and out of the pen was a ramp leading down what used to be stairs (installed, actually, because that was so much easier for Duke to navigate).
Duke weighed over 100 pounds and there was simply No Way, with the best will in the world, that we were going to be physically able to wrestle him up that ramp. However, we'd had plans in place (yes, okay, since last year) to change the layout and add a nice big chain link gate I bought at an auction. So I figured this was an excellent time to cut through the old fencing. Sort of bringing something good out of a sad event, you know?
Unfortunately there were skeletons of last year's dead weeds thickly interwoven into the fencing. As I was trying to yank the bottom edge free, I accidentally whapped myself in the face with the old seed heads, which probably had some pollen remnants mixed in with a boatload of lurking dust. Yes, I was inhaling at the time. Of course yes this brought the laryngitis back with a vengeance.
So it was almost getting better AGAIN when, for some reason, Appy decided to attack Climber. Out in the dog pen. Which still did not have the gate in place. So I screamed hoarsely at them, which did absolutely not one iota to make Appy knock it off. Happily Climber (being very agile and smart) got away and quickly UP the ramp, dusty but unhurt. So then I screamed "Bad dog!" at Appy awhile longer, again to no great point except to release my tension.
And REALLY screw my throat. I think I may have actually strained it. I don't THINK there's any infection going on, but I am driving liquid Guaifenesin (expectorant) stock prices through the roof, I'm sure.
On the plus side, the gate is now in place. One of the reasons we wanted to restructure the dog pen is that it has slowly become a low spot over the years, and on the rare occasions when it rains around here, it rapidly turns into a cute little (gross) lake. Which is fairly useless as a doggy bathroom.
So yesterday, in a very steady and fairly cold rain, I undid the temporary fencing so Caro could go into the pen and muck out a drainage trench, while I put the gate in place. Well, yeah, with balin' wire, because the special posts Sterling helped me install last year (former highway road sign poles) turn out to NOT have standard gate hardware available. Can you imagine??
OK, caught some kind of bug in Denver the last weekend of March, if you recall. Mostly upper resp--throat and ears, which resulted in laryngitis. It was ALMOST all better again, until the Sad Incident of Duke's Passing. See, Duke was a portly old boy with a pretty thick coat, and he preferred to be outdoors most of the time. So he was out in the turn-out pen when he died. Which presented a problem, because the only way in and out of the pen was a ramp leading down what used to be stairs (installed, actually, because that was so much easier for Duke to navigate).
Duke weighed over 100 pounds and there was simply No Way, with the best will in the world, that we were going to be physically able to wrestle him up that ramp. However, we'd had plans in place (yes, okay, since last year) to change the layout and add a nice big chain link gate I bought at an auction. So I figured this was an excellent time to cut through the old fencing. Sort of bringing something good out of a sad event, you know?
Unfortunately there were skeletons of last year's dead weeds thickly interwoven into the fencing. As I was trying to yank the bottom edge free, I accidentally whapped myself in the face with the old seed heads, which probably had some pollen remnants mixed in with a boatload of lurking dust. Yes, I was inhaling at the time. Of course yes this brought the laryngitis back with a vengeance.
So it was almost getting better AGAIN when, for some reason, Appy decided to attack Climber. Out in the dog pen. Which still did not have the gate in place. So I screamed hoarsely at them, which did absolutely not one iota to make Appy knock it off. Happily Climber (being very agile and smart) got away and quickly UP the ramp, dusty but unhurt. So then I screamed "Bad dog!" at Appy awhile longer, again to no great point except to release my tension.
And REALLY screw my throat. I think I may have actually strained it. I don't THINK there's any infection going on, but I am driving liquid Guaifenesin (expectorant) stock prices through the roof, I'm sure.
On the plus side, the gate is now in place. One of the reasons we wanted to restructure the dog pen is that it has slowly become a low spot over the years, and on the rare occasions when it rains around here, it rapidly turns into a cute little (gross) lake. Which is fairly useless as a doggy bathroom.
So yesterday, in a very steady and fairly cold rain, I undid the temporary fencing so Caro could go into the pen and muck out a drainage trench, while I put the gate in place. Well, yeah, with balin' wire, because the special posts Sterling helped me install last year (former highway road sign poles) turn out to NOT have standard gate hardware available. Can you imagine??
Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
