Getting prepped

 Getting ready. One event for sure,  but maybe two. 

It’s possible that we’re gonna get another hurricane here in New Orleans. So like anyone with any awareness, I’m getting equipment overhauled and groceries stocked in. This nice old dual-fuel lantern is part of the kit. I picked it up years ago in broken state from some garage sale or flea market and never did anything with it. It got packed away and forgotten about in my attic where it sat for years until I recently rediscovered it and ordered the missing parts for it. And here it is, lighting in the first try after probably a decade or more in pieces. Gotta love these Coleman products. 

I used to collect these whenever I found one for sale cheap, figuring they’d be handy in power-out emergencies. I’ve used them a lot both back in West  Virginia and here in New Orleans when the weather has put the regular lights off, and being a pack rat, I’d amassed over a dozen of them over time. When Hurricane Ida came last year, I offered them to neighbors who had no alternative light sources but probably not surprisingly, the kind of people who live in hurricane-prone areas without back-up gear tend to not want to learn how to operate devices like white gas lanterns, and I was able to loan out exactly none of them. 

I’ve just gone through them all and I only need two in my house; one for the bedroom and one for the living room/kitchen. So I prepped three, giving me a spare, just in case.  The rest are getting packed for the other event, which is actually a certainty. In roughly six weeks, Merida and I will begin to move our stuff out west and set up our new homestead out at the mines. And it’s there that these lanterns will all find a use, cleaned and overhauled and placed at various locations underground. For my mines out there didn’t have electric lights back in the day and they sure don’t have any now. The nearest active power line is miles away. So these old lanterns, many long-ignored, will now find new utility lighting up areas of my mine workings. I’m kinda glad now that none of my non-prepping neighbors wanted any of them last year. 

Boneyard!

Flying into Tucson this morning  passing over the AMARC storage facility at Davis-Monthan makes for a nostalgic view. If I could have just one…or twelve!

 

 

Still trying me

 So walking Merida this morning and we reach a disagreement as to which way to go. I want to turn left and go home but she wants to go right. I told her no as I turned left and tried to lead her but she came to a stop and ducked her head and the collar slipped off over her head. 

Free dog. 

Murphy would have taken this as a sign that he was destined to be somewhere else. A chase would have ensued. But what does Merida do?

She plunks right down on the sidewalk and waits for me to put It back on her, which I do, praising her. Then she gets up and I try to pull her home and she stops and digs in and pops her collar again. Then she plops right back down and waits for me to reattach it again. 

She wants to go right but I’d already told her no. That matters to her. She won’t go without me but that doesn’t mean she’s going go give in without “asking” again. 

And she did it to me a third time too, once more going to ground as soon as she was untethered. Not running off, but not going home, either. But after I hooked her back up for the third time and got sharp with her, she finally fell into line and hopped on home next to me. 

Weird little dog. I think I’ll keep her. 

Merida’s interesting day out

 So what do you do when your little dog has her yearly veterinary appointment and the vet’s office is in the middle of the city’s large Pride event?

You take your little dog to the circus!

“What has been seen cannot be unseen!”

At least there was no shortage of cute girls to look at. 

Side note: Just because the dog is 25% off, that doesn’t mean that her vet bills follow suit. Candy bars and ramen noodle lunches again for a bit. 

Look at me.

 I am the Captain now. 

Merida is settling nicely into her new role as Queen of the Realm, Overseer of the Lair. And all-around good dog. 

She was lost for a bit without her Shepherd siblings and clung to me constantly, but she seems to be over it and has assumed command. 

As for Murphy and Belle, they are together again. 

Honored always. 

A chapter ends. Murphy joins Belle.

 It's no secret that Murphy was old. He's graced this blog for over eleven years and he was two when he first came to live at the Lair. back in December of 2010. He was a different sort of Shepherd than those that came before him. He was strong-willed and stubborn due to a history of abuse and neglect and he marched to his own beat. I never really tamed him, but we became friends and we understood and respected each other.

His health had been going down for some time. Like Lagniappe before him, he suffered from Canine Degenerative Myleopathy, a disease that slowly eats away at the nerves in his spine. He managed well but he was getting slower and weaker over time, even as he compensated for his declining back legs with more muscular forelegs. His eyesight was going and his hearing was gone, but I was slow to notice because he took his cues from the other dogs, mainly Belle, when it came time to bark at someone.

When she left last month, his decline became increasingly apparent. I never posted it here; it was just between us. And he never stopped trying. Even as it got harder for him, he soldiered on through sheer willpower and orneriness. That dog didn't know what "quit" meant.

Still, the writing was on the wall. I could see it and he knew it. He spent more time close to me and he slept against me every night the last few weeks, something he's never done before. I promised him I'd get him home, and I prayed to God for just that: let me get him home one more time.

Well yesterday we made it home. He'd had a rough night the night before but he was still up and walking yesterday morning. He was awake and alert the whole drive home from Seguin, Texas. But when I pulled into the driveway, he couldn't get out of the car without my help. He struggled up the steps, crossed the threshold, and collapsed on the floor. His floor. He was home but this was as far as he was going. I knew it in an instant. This was serious.

The vet was closed already but the office manager is a personal friend. She came in minutes to help with him, and then she called the vet at home and got an order for meds, which she went back to the office to get. Other friends came and helped me get him back onto his bed, and we moved it to his spot by the window. He couldn't get up again, We both knew it.

Last night I slept next to him on the couch, his bed moved so that he was right below me. When he'd stir, I'd pet him and talk to him, and give him more pills. And this morning, when the vet opened, I loaded him up and took him in. It was hard, but he's been my friend for a long time, and I owed him this. I stayed with him until he was gone, gone at the hands of a vet staff who he knew and who knew and liked him. He was my friend.

Eleven years. Thirteen years old. And I'm sad that it's over but I thank God that He blessed me with this wonderful companion for so long. Right now I believe that he's with Belle again across that Rainbow Bridge. And with Lagniappe. And Oliver. And Brandon who came before them. My Pack. Waiting for me.

And until we're reunited again, Merida and I will still have each other. And you'll get Merida stories and pics. I promise.