Ah, Father Time just keeps moving on. The clock is ticking but at this time of the year it seems to go a bit more slowly now that my garden is tucked in and waiting for next for next spring.
That doesn't mean that there's not a lot going on though. Retired Mountain Man had hernia surgery a couple of weeks ago. This is the second time for him but this go-around was much better. It's amazing what improvements the medical community makes over the years. This time he was in and out of the surgery clinic in less than three hours and back at home resting in his chair. There's still no lifting of course, but there's no pain. That's the best part.
Dr. Chase Williams was his surgeon and it turned out he is from Missoula, went to med school in Washington state. We have many ties to Missoula and the surrounding area, so he seemed like the right doc to us.
While Jon was recovering I finished my canning for the year. The salsa is in the jars plus some pepper jelly and apricot jam.
These turkeys were just passing tbrough last week.
We spent a lot of time trying to get everything done to prepare for winter before Jon had surgery, but we couldn't finish it all.
Our friend Bill Harris has been helping us out finishing the projects that needed done around the place. He has moved a lot of firewood for us and sold all that Jon had left except for a bit in the basement in case of an emergency. We don't plan to burn a wood fire this winter since we have had our mini-split installed. We will be heating with it and using a baseboard heater or two when it gets really cold.
It has been almost 50 years since there was no firewood stacked on what we call "the island". Fifty years of firewood making is a LOT of firewood, but as I said, time is moving on.
Bill likes to carve things with his chainsaw and left us this cute pumpkin the other day after he finished loading up his truck with wood.
Jon is not the only one going to the doctor as I have now seen my dermatologist and an allergist and finally have a diagnosis of Lichen Planus. I can now add it to my list of autoimmune diseases, Hashemoto's, Celiac, Durhing's Disease. The bad news is that it causes scarring on my scalp and is the reason I have lost most of my hair. There is a drug I can take to try to prevent the rest of my hair from falling out, but lots of side effects. I haven't made any decision yet.
I don't know why my immune system doesn't work right, but it's certainly off track. Since there's no cure for any of these diseases, they are a major life changer in more ways than I can say. But, the clock is ticking and the best thing to do is to go for it before it stops.
So, we decided to "go for it" and we have a new member in our family, Lady III. As our son JP said, "She is our third dog named Lady and our Protector of the Realm." In 1972 our First Lady was an Irish Setter and she was followed by Lady II, an Australian Shepard.
Lady III has a very sweet temperament and even though she hasn't been crate trained, she slept all night in her crate.
She has a blue merle coat although her face is mostly white. The blue merle pattern is really pretty and we had lots of name suggestions: Pebble, Cinder, and Ember, but Jon wanted Lady which seems right when I think of her as a full-grown dog and not a cute little fluff ball puppy.
A blue merle is actually a black dog whose coloring has been genetically diluted. Parts of her black coat remain intact, while other parts take on a bluish-grey color. Her parents are a blue merle border collie and a black and white border collie. I did not know anything about "merle" until I started researching information about the puppies.
Yes, I'm out in the rain with Lady, working on house-breaking and walking on a leash. So far she's doing really great, but she is just beginning to learn her name. We have a long way to go.
