Today’s date reminded me of the dice game “craps” which is popular in casinos worldwide. We are not particularly gamblers, especially at our advanced ages, but reminisce occasionally about things we did in the past which we thank God that we’re now over those days and urges.
Anyhow, here a couple of notes about the goings-on in our world on July 11th of 2024:
The (clickable) image above shows one of the several mesquite trees around the house which are all fully endowed with green foliage and numerous bean pods. Not shown in the image is the ground beneath the tree covered with more bean pods. The desert critters and other phenomena eventually clean up the pods, so there is no labor involved, which is good since daytime temperatures here are in the 105-115° range during pod season.
These deciduous trees lose all the green (well, most of it) during the colder months, but have lots of bipinnate leaves providing shade during the warmer months. We’re thankful to have these around the property.
We have had Cabela, our Min-Pin, for almost fourteen years now, and she was estimated to be about two years old when we adopted her in August of 2010. In the (clickable) photo, you can see that she has cataracts in both of her eyes, the right eye completely blind now and the left one not far behind. She does OK in bright light, but tends to not see very well in darker conditions. She also seems not to be able to see things close up and her depth perception is certainly impaired judging from her reaction to things around her.
In spite of her vision problems, she is physically able to get around and prances like the little puppy still going inside of her. We worry when she runs around, since she tends to collide with objects from time to time.
This particular breed of miniature pinscher (not related to Doberman Pinschers) has skin problems resulting in bumps and growths on the surface of her (almost) hairless body. These aren’t a significant problem since they are benign and if she doesn’t scratch them and make them bleed, they don’t seem to affect her.
So, we will continue to baby her as long as she remains healthy and spry. Naturally, we dread the day that eventually will come when we lose her. Dog lovers everywhere know the pain of that.