Mirfy vigil

Mirfy is having more trouble with his hips and back legs. Sometimes he stands, and his hindquarters start sinking. So he takes a few steps, then stops, then they start sinking again. I watched him do that, over and over, for what seemed like most of Friday (which I had off last week). Finally, after standing still to eat a few bites, his hindquarters sank to the floor, and the rest of him followed. I gave him some food on the floor, but he must have been exhausted and he fell asleep.

His main problem, though, is getting back up. I've been letting the dogs stay inside overnight for a long time now, and since the hot weather started I've been more inclined to let them stay inside while we're at work, too, but it's necessary that they go outside for a bathroom break right before bedtime, and right before I leave for work. It's been getting harder and harder to get Mirfy up for his bathroom breaks. We've resorted to incentives of increasing persuadability, up to deli meat, and last night the deli meat didn't work. My husband was so worried that he stayed in the living room all night, to be there if Mirfy got up to go outside. But he never did. He didn't get up until I rose in the morning, around 6:15.

Tonight, my husband went to bed early, and I'm on Mirfy vigil. He got up around 10:15 to go outside, which is good, but he cried a little as he was doing it. This is new. It's obviously been difficult for him for a while, but the little whine noises started, I think, yesterday. Plus, when he was outside, he kind of collapsed, and it took him a while to get back to his feet. Most alarming, after he got up one of his back legs looked really out of whack -- instead of bringing it forward with each step, he kicked it backwards. Kind of like it had a hitch in it he was trying to get out.

That was 40 minutes ago, and his leg seems to be better now. I've been hand-feeding him, and talking to him, and just keeping an eye on him since them. I guess we'll try another bathroom break, then I'll go to bed.

Back from vacation

I had an event-filled two week vacation, most of it taken up by a trip to Wisconsin to see my mother and my brother's family.

High points of the visit with my brother include a trip to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, a visit to a local landscape store to buy rocks, and playing with their new kitten.

Then back to mom's and off the next day to Madison for her surgery. I was able to sleep in the hospital room, which was not as comfortable as a hotel, but really better all around. By taking lots of walks in the hospital hallways, we convinced the doctor to let her go home the next day. I drove her to her first follow-up appointment on Friday, and she should be able to drive herself this Friday.

I got back Monday evening, and had yesterday off to do laundry and catch up with housework. Although between getting some plants in the ground and anxiously observing poor old Mirfy, I didn't get a lot of housework done.

Mirfy seems to be deteriorating somewhat. It's just his mobility (and of course I have to assume he's in pain.) Basically he doesn't seem to want to lie down. He takes a few steps, then stops. After stopping, his hindquarters immediately start to sink slowly down. Then he takes a few more steps, then stops, and it repeats over and over again. He did this for hours yesterday, until he started eating around suppertime. Of course after a few seconds of standing still to eat, his hindquarters collapsed. By this time he may have been pretty tired, too. I put some food on the floor for him to eat, but he fell asleep pretty quick. Tonight he came in after work and did only a small amount of the walking/stopping/sinking routine before trying to eat and collapsing. But once he was down, he seemed relatively okay and ate a good amount while lying on the floor before falling asleep.

While I was gone, the hubby installed the most excellent dog ramp for him, because the study (which is where the dogs eat and sleep) has two steps going outside, and he's been having trouble with them. So that was obviously done just in time.

This might be kind of a rough summer.

Vacation

Today we're getting ready to leave for Wisconsin tomorrow, for my niece's graduation. (I'll also be staying another week to help my mother deal with some surgery. I get to rent a car for my return, yuck.) There's not a lot to do; in fact, it's mostly mental -- making sure I'm not forgetting anything.

The heat that started on Saturday, when we put in the rock garden, continues, and Sunday we finally decided that there was something wrong with our AC (which is actually a heat pump system). We had somebody come over Monday and sure enough, the system was completely out of freon, due to a valve problem. So now the house is cool and will maintain a decent temperature while we're gone.

We've had all sorts of heating/cooling problems with this house since moving in last June, but everything up until now was covered by the warranty, which turned out to be a great investment.

Japanese-inspired rock garden

Rock garden
Originally uploaded by mara.

I'd been looking at a rock garden plan in a book on stonescaping for a while. Finally I bought home a photocopy on Friday. When I showed it to my husband, he really liked it and said I should do it. So I thought I'd try to put it in this weekend.

Turns out it took only one day. Saturday morning, around 10:00, we left for the rock yard. It took a while to figure out the materials, especially for building the little rock sculpture meant to look like a Japanese rock lantern. The key was finding natural or salvaged stone to use as a square post. They don't have any salvage at my rock yard, but they have an amazing array of "brick rock" that has straight edges and sqared-off corners, and we found a beautiful piece of purple-tinted sandstone to use as a post.

On top of the post, two flattish, squarish pieces were needed, plus small flat pieces to use to construct "pillars." I was happy to see some weird-looking clay-based stone that not only had the right size pieces for platforms, but also little flat pieces to build columns. They call it bark rock.

After finding that, the search was on for flagstone. I wanted something of a slate look, and luckily there was a group of gray sandstone that not only had the right look but was available for hand-selecting (rather than having to take the lot).

Finding the gravel, or stone mulch, had its own dilemna -- what colors? I wanted some contrast, but I wasn't sure how much. Black and white seemed extreme, but the white stones looked great with the grayish flagstones, and the black stones were sparkly, which seemed ideal because they're supposed to symbolize water. I was getting hot and tired -- those would do. As it turns out, the black/white contrast reminds me of the yin/yang symbol, so I kind of like it. It's not as naturalistic as what's intended, though. I may end up putting some beige or gray gravel in with the white.

After that, finding the small boulders was easy. They have a great selectio of Wisconsin granite, pink, black, and white. I choose a variety of colors and sizes, keeping an eye out for rocks with veins (found a great one -- pink with a black vein).

We brought it all home in two trips, with a break for lunch. After unloading everything to my site, I scraped the top 1-2 inches off the site to remove grass and weeds, and also to lower the whole area so that the flagstones and gravel would be at ground level.

I played with the flagstone placement for a while, then determined where the post for the rock sculpture would go. Hubby dug the hole for the post and we put it in. Then we put down a layer of plastic and cut a hole for the post.

Final flagstone placement was next, then the "mountain range" of small granite boulders. (They're going to be re-arranged, I think; I'm not quite happy with them. Plus I have some small ones to add.) Then the "pool" of dark stone mulch in the middle, uniting the sculpture, boulders, and the middle flagstones. Then the light stone mulch all around. Then the top of the rock sculpture, balanced on the post.

The plan calls for mortar to put the rock lantern together, but theirs is more complex than mine -- four neat pillars rather than the two roughly stacked columns that I have. So I'd rather not mortar, if I can get away with it. However, it's very flaky, soft rock and will probably at least chip if it falls, if not break altogether. So I'm still considering mortar.

There's room on both ends for shrubs and perennials, and room on the length-ways sides for low-growing stuff like sedum or rock cress, or a nice agressive ground cover like bugleweed. (I won't be putting any plants in the rock area at all; just around the edges.) It's pretty close to being a full-sun area, especially during the few weeks before and after the summer solstice. But I'm still observing the light to see if I can get away with any part-shade plants.

I was done and out of the shower by 4:30. What a fun way to spend a Saturday, although I picked a bad day to create a full-sun garden -- it was the first day to hit 90.