We’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts

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I’ve been eye-balling the coconut tree on the corner. It’s next door.

This morning, I decided to step outside and make that sharp right to check out the ground beneath it. When I did, holy moly! I hit the mother load. There were stray coconuts everywhere. True, some where a little elderly, but that was OK with me. I grabbed an arm full and took them back to the Fort Doberdale Coconut Posse. I threw them on the ground, found my big ol’ white shopping bag, and took another sharp right turn back to that tree.

I returned home with a huge bag full of the precious nuts, proving I am the hunter that my dogs think I am, once again. (Yesterday I came back with chickens! I not only hunted them down, I cleaned, wrapped, and froze them for storage.) After unloading the massive bag of coconuts onto a lawn chair, I wiped off all the ants that accompanied the nuts over here and had crawled onto me.

One of the coconuts had a good sprout on it, but there was not enough color in the mix for artiste Luigi, so he added his yellow Cuz ball to brighten the pallet. Then he stared, waiting for something to happen.

Something did. Raven came along with the evil intent of taking his Cuz ball. And Leissl had the same idea, without the evil intent part. The three stood together psychically deciding the fate of the helpless ball.

When all was said and done, Leissl put her decision into action, and that was that.

Until later, when Luigi regained possession of today’s coveted Cuz, and planted it next to the newly potted coconut tree. Ollie was ready and willing to grab that ball.

Meanwhile, the Queen Mother, the Bahamian Baby, who taught these mainlanders what a coconut is for, pulled, tore, and enjoyed her Sunday morning coconut bash.

Lilian, who carries on as if she’s the ultimate Doberdiva, got coconut hair stuck in her teeth.

It’s a bit like walking around with spinach on your teeth. But curlier and you don’t have to smile for people to notice it.

Annie was more into hugging her coconut than using it on her teeth.

Bouchard, macho Frenchmann that he is, used the one-paw-holding method when pulling his nut apart.

Baby used the traditional two-paw method.

Ginger took special efforts to move her coconut around to the right spot.

Then she dug in!

Ooops! A little sprout. Another one that needs a pot of soil to grow up in.

While Lilian’s scanning for a spare pot, I’ll go find the soil.

NaNoWriMo Down

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These folks who do the NaNoWriMo program and website have a big task every year, and they warned us that the website gets so busy and this year they have the most participants they’ve ever had, that they were expecting glitches. Sure enough, I went to add to my word count this evening, and the site is down.

D-O-W-N

The exact words are:

Site off-line

National Novel Writing Month is currently undergoing maintenance, and will be back up in an hour or two.

I feel the excitement. The frantic excitement of a not-for-profit group working on a shoestring to make something that’s grown so immensely still fit into their shoebox. They know their shoebox is too small, and have mentioned they are getting a bigger shoebox for next year, but this year, their very predictions are reality this night.

So I will post my 1989 words for the day here. Plus the 636 I did on Friday, brings me up to 2000 something. Tomorrow will be here soon enough and I’ll have that extra hour that I’ve already been trying to get used to as of last week when my computer changed times on me and between it and the clocks on the wall, my week has been an extraordinary bumbling of trying to figure out just what time it is.

Dobergramps Regis

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Regis is the resident Dobergramps at Fort Doberdale. He was adopted within a few weeks of Ginger at the end of 2005. He has wobbly back legs, and had probably been in an accident of some sort years ago because he has some scars on his back legs where hair will not dare grow in.

Regis is a big boy, and like a lot of seniors of all species, a lot of his parts sag. He has the best neck. I love to hold it and watch it wobble. His underbelly, now that it has something in it to sag, does a nice wobble as well. He came to Fort Doberdale a little undernurished and very depressed. Another old dog left to die at a shelter.

I would guess Regis was a studly boy, as he was not neutered until I adopted him, and he was no spring chickie then…er rooster, I mean. But he likes his girls, and it has taken him a while to realize he’s not the macho guy he once was. He loves to boss Bouchard around, and Bouchard is a little scared of Regis, which isn’t a bad thing really. Bouchard needed a little bit to be put in a place where he could revere an elder male. And he does.

Regis favorite thing to do is get out the back door first, turn around, and bully Bouchard until I come along to break it up so Bouch can get outside. Regis moves like a rusty old tank, and Bouchard moves like a Doberduck. Unfortunately Bouchard’s time of malnourishment was in his formative months, so he had nothing to build his bones and muscles till after they were put in place and lacking.

Regis barks in Bouchard’s ear when the Fort Doberdale Squirrel Posse is tracking the progress of the local squirrel patriach, Clem, or one of his relatives. He also barks in his ear when he finds it necessary. Regis reminds me of a drill sergeant, and Bouchard is the frustrated boot camp soldier.

When I throw the ball for the Posse, Regis gets riled up to the point that he has jumped up at me if I’m on a chair, and grabbed at the ball. He can’t run after the ball, and he wants his turn to hold onto it so everyone can honor him as the ball keepper.

Today was one of those times. I gave him the ball, and with the exception of one finger, the pass off went fairly painlessly. Regis was the honorable Cuz Ball Mann, aka, “The Mann,” and had his time in the sun where the other players tried to figure out how to get the ball back into circulation.

You may notice another Cuz ball in this picture. There may be a half dozen other Cuz balls, but once one Cuz ball is nominated as “the ball,” the other ones don’t count if you’re a player in the big game.

While the other big game players figured out how they were going to retrieve the ball from the Dobergramps, Regis tore into the grass, ripping it out like Macho Mann, and showing his might.

Sometimes, Regis has senior moments and trips over things…like the hose or the threshhold. And other times he gets a look on his face as if he is trying to remember what he was doing. Like today when he was guarding the Cuz Ball, that look suddenly came over his face.

That’s when the others know they can safely get the Cuz Ball back…because he forgot he was guarding it.

By the time he realizes what’s going on, it’s time to start the game over again.

By the way, November is Adopt-A-Senior Month. Seniors are often overlooked, but, with their antics, love of life, and calm natures, are a wonderful addition to a household. They appreciate having a warm hearted person to love and a soft place to rest their old bones. Check our seniors page out for some very lovely adoptable characters looking for love and stability in their golden years.

Harness News

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Guess who got a new harness this morning.

Meanwhile, the Dober-maid learned not to wash the harnesses with the towels.

There are some harnesses in this basket of lint. I swear!

Ginger’s First Pain Pill

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Today, Ginger limped on her right front leg for the first time. Her back right leg has been bothersome now and then. Before knowing about the cancer, I thought it was from playing too hard and muscle aches.

I reached down to massage her under her front arm pit, and felt the hard, massive lump there. How fast these ugly tumors grow. When her back leg would ache, I could massage the pain away. But it wasn’t so for this disgusting thing I felt beneath her today. She didn’t get comfort from my massage, so I stopped. Instead, for the first time, I went into the house to look at the two bottles of pills the veterinarian sent home with us. I noticed they were for pain. That’s all I looked at when I put them in the medicine chest. I didn’t believe we would need them. I thought praying, diet, lots of love and visualization would clear Ginger’s body of the cancer. But this cancer is deaf to the tones of healing. It’s claimed her body and is taking it over without mercy.

I read the bottles today, figuring I would have to guess which pain pill to give her. Not so. This veterinarian knew what was coming. I chose the bottle that said, “Give for pain and limping,” and gave her the dose with food.

Ginger still played. She tried to keep up, but she wears out faster now. Luigi is her best playmate. He is my boy, and is the best energy around this house. He played her game, and we are blessed for his patience and fun spirit. No matter who he’s battling wits with.

Bouchard has been the most blessed by Ginger’s adoption. She came home on December 7, 2005. She brought him out of his shell and taught him to play. Ginger is the only red girl in the pack, and Bouchard is a red boy. Ginger validated him. Bouchard was pulled from a shelter when he was under a year old, a skin-and-bones boy who’d been left behind when his people moved. He was scared, water he drank went right through him, and he had no concept of dogspeak. He seemed to think any move towards him by a dog was an aggressive one and he’d react first, think later. He’s much better now, and a lot of credit goes to Ginger who gently got his playful self rolling. I have a feeling Bouchard isn’t doing well with recognizing Ginger’s new scents. The scents from cancer. Tonight, he chose to watch the sunset rather than play.