2012 January 13 — Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara

My Sweet Dog

January 13, 2012 · by JudyL

It’s been a rough day for Speck and for Speck’s mom. He had some lumps — one on his neck (if you enlarge the photo you might be able to see it above his leg there — I’m not looking); one on his chest kinda between his front legs and one near his “privates”. We had a biopsy on one of them a while back so we knew it was just a fatty lump but it was growing. It was the one on his neck and Vince knows someone here who had a dachshund who had one there and it got so big it was dragging the ground and the dog had to be put to sleep. If the lumps get too big, there are veins and tissue in them and then they can’t be removed.

When I took Speck to have his nails cut earlier this week, the vet felt the lump in his neck and said we really needed to get it out before it got much bigger so we had that done this morning. I had to have him at the vet bright and early and I almost cry every time I have to leave him.

They called me around noon and said he could come home. He has 5 or 6 stitches in each cut, he doesn’t seem to be hurting but he’s confused. I’m sure he’s uncomfortable, knows something is different but isn’t quite sure what it is . . but he’s on the road to recovery and we have pain pills we can give him. I will be glad when he’s back to normal.

Several years ago when I was visiting Vicky, she had her dachshund, Daisy, at the time. Vicky had a harness that didn’t fit Daisy so she gave it to me for Speck but with his cuts, he can’t wear it for a few days so he’s back to wearing a collar but I only put it on him when he’s going outside. He looks so “naked” without his red harness.

· Filed Under: Family · 34 Comments

Canadian Book Orders

January 13, 2012 · by JudyL

I believe I have written to everyone who requested “out of the U.S.” shipping except since quite a few of you wanted to know about Canadian shipping, I figured I would post that here. It costs an extra $4.50 to mail the books to Canada so if you’re wanting to order one book and have it mailed to Canada, your cost will be $$31.50.

Thank you all for your patience while I figured out this shipping outside the U. S. If I’ve missed anyone . . if you asked about shipping to your country and I didn’t respond, please write me again.

· Filed Under: Quilting · 1 Comment

Yellow Jacket Ranch

January 13, 2012 · by JudyL

So, we have 45 acres . . not exactly what I would consider a ranch but in order to buy farm fuel for the tractor and RTV, we needed to fill out some form and get some number and part of that was that we had to have a name for the farm. Nevermind that the tractor hasn’t been started since the Kubota man dropped it off and the RTV gets driven somewhere — to the lake, to the neighbor’s, to the mail box — almost every day when the temps are above 50º and so far, I haven’t used even a teaspoon of diesel . . but we needed this number so we could buy farm fuel.

OK .. we’ll save probably 35¢ a year because we have the number but so far, we haven’t been able to find a diesel can for gas!

In order to fill out the form, our “ranch” needed a name. I had been saying we were going to name it the Green Tee Ranch and have a green T-shirt as part of the sign that goes over the gate. Then when it got time to really name it, I figured people might already think we’re weird because Vince drives that goofy 16 year old S-10 pickup and every real rancher has a Ford F350 pickup. All I want is a new white with silver trim F150 but that doesn’t seem to be getting much traction around here either. And since they think we’re weird, they’d probably think we sit around and drink green tea instead of Dr. Pepper and that just won’t work.

So, then we spent an hour thinking of names. We giggled and laughed and had more fun. The best ones were:

Vince’s middle initial is “D” so we thought about calling it “The V.D. Ranch” and decided that was worse than Green Tea.
The big ranch is called “Fite’n Chance”. We thought about calling ours “Notta Chance”.

Because Vince was sitting at his computer with the form half filled out and needed a name and we were both coming up with silly names, he decided on Yellow Jacket Ranch because of Georgia Tech. I said “Everyone else has deer and goats and things on their gates . . what are we going to have? A swarm of wimpy bees?” Yep . . a big, bad yellow jacket will be on our gate. We’ll be easy to find!