"Chewy"

This is "Chewy", our newest foster. Actually his name is "Mr. Nibbles" but I thought that was a bit much, so we'll call him Chewy at home. A fellow cat foster took him in, but couldn't take him home because of all her cats, so she was boarding him at the Downtown Animal Hospital. He'd been there two weeks and I thought that was enough of Shamrock's money spent on boarding a dog that is not any trouble to foster at our house. So he said goodbye to the ladies at the clinic and came home with us!
Chewy was a stray in the Portland area of Louisville. His rescuer thought he'd been burned, but he actually just had fleas sooo badly that he'd chewed and scratched his fur off and his skin was raw in several patches. Now he's been vaccinated and neutered and his skin is healing (fur's coming in patchy on his lower back and left side). He's a cute little bugger, only 11 lbs...obviously a terrier mix. Looks a bit like a combo Yorkie/Cairn Terrier...reminds me of a little Benji. I'll be taking him with me to Dog Day at Slugger Field on Tuesday. I think this little guy will get adopted FAST!

The Hard Part....

Fostering kittens is not all cuteness and fluff. We lost Peanut tonight, the little kitten from Slugger Field. He was barely a day old when we found him, so we new he had a 50/50 chance (if that) of surviving. He made it about 7 days and then Friday evening he didn't eat very well. Saturday he just got weaker and ate less and less and, although I tried tube feeding him every two hours through the night, he died between the 2:00 and 4:00 AM feedings. I wish I could have saved him, he was a cute little bugger. It's really hard to adopt out a kitten that you've gotten to know for several months, but this is really the hardest part of fostering kittens.

Curtis's Fawn

This was all Curtis, believe it or not, so I'll let him blog about this:-)

Last Thursday after a day game I got off work a little early and had plenty of daylight to get some things done at home. I decided to first take Tyson on a walk at the Clark County State Forest which is about 2 miles away from our house, then mow/weedwack the yard.

About half way into the walk Tyson and I both heard some noise coming out of the brush beside where we walk. We stopped and this little guy popped out! I somehow got Tyson to stay and I edged closer to the fawn. I noticed a not-so-good smell coming from it's general direction and figured the mom was dead in the brush. But as I got closer I realized that the little guy actually had a bad infection on its back/rear.

After crawling through downed trees (from previous wind storm and ice storm) and thick brush I caught him and brought him home. Luckily, I called Rachel who had a number for someone, who had a number of a vet in Louisville, who had a number for a volunteer at the "Broadbent Wildlife Sanctuary" who could take the fawn that night! Good thing too as we have the capacity for taking care of dogs and cats, but nothing appropriate for a deer!

I am planning on calling on Tuesday to check up on the fawn to see how he's doing. Through this experience and the one with "Peanut" from the previous blog entry, I've been dubbed "Jack Hanna" from my peers at work. That's okay as long as they know that I don't do snakes!

Kittens Everywhere!

Our two litters are getting big now! All but two have been spayed/neutered and 4 of them went into a condo this weekend (woohoo!) So right now we still have 6 (the white ones and the siamese-y ones) and I think these will do the best on Petfinder. I've got to get everybody posted today.


We also have one brand new kitten...and when I say brand new, I mean about 2-4 days old! Curtis brought him home from the ball field because his mama was feral and they couldn't catch her. We're calling him "Peanut" because that about how big he is (2.5 oz!) and because he was found in a portable food/beverage cart! haha Right now we're bottle (syringe) feeding him and then putting him on Jewel (mother of our 7), who's been letting him nurse a little bit. She's also been grooming him too, which is good, but she's not really initiating contact with him. We're hoping this little guy makes it 'cause he's so darn cute!

Chicago

Leslie and I went to Chicago two weekends ago to visit Jessica. We hadn't had any "girl time" together since before Leslie's wedding...2 years ago now! We stayed at Jessica's house, which she shares with a friend who has a little girl. Jess works at a restaurant downtown called Vivere, which is one of three restaurants in one building called "The Italian Village".
Friday night,when we got there, we went out and didn't get back in til about 3:00. We had "breakfast" at a 24 hr diner around the corner from Jess's place...Leslie and I look a bit tired, don't you think? The next day we slept in past noon and then took the "L" to see where Jess works. Here's the view of downtown from Jessica's stop along the "L". It only takes 15-20 minutes for her to get downtown to work which is on the loop.Jessica lives in a predominantly hispanic neighborhood so there are a lot of beautiful tile mosaics on walls and buildings. This one was right before we got on the "L". Jessica's roommate was having her tattoo "developed" that weekend. She had it done 5 years ago and her tattoo artist was darkening it up again. I'm not a huge tattoo fan, but hers was quite beautiful. Saturday night we stayed up late again watching movies and doing pedicures. Sunday we slept in again and then ate lunch at a local Mexican restaurant before Leslie and I headed home. It was really nice having a "just us girls" weekend and we plan to do one at least once a year from now on.

My Surprise

Curtis had me take off work last Thursday because he said he had a surprise for me. And gosh, was it an awesome surprise! He bought us tickets to go see Bryan Adams perform at the Brown Theater in Louisville (acoustic set, just him on guitar and his pianist)!!! If ya'll don't know, Bryan Adams is one of my most favorite singers:) It was an amazing show, we loved every minute of it...except for the few middle aged drunk ladies who were a bit too expressive in their affection for him...in front of their husbands I might add, haha. One of the rules they told us at the beginning was not to take any pictures or video, which we had assumed and left our camera in the car. But sure enough, as soon as he took the stage, there were cameras flashing for at least the first 20-30 minutes. It was ridiculous...although I was wishing I could have snapped a few shots myself. I'll settle for pulling an image of him off another website:) If you ever have a chance to see this tour, GO! It's incredible!

Irises

My irises are blooming and they make me sooo happy:) Thank you to Kristen and Mom and Dad for supplying me with all my starter plants. I can't wait for them to spread and fill in so I can transplant them until they're all along the fence following the drive.




The yellow and burgandy ones were from behind the garage...I didn't know what color they were going to be so I didn't plant them along the fence. I think I'll just keep them back there for cutting purposes. I have some gladiolas coming back up too and my hollyhocks look like they just might bloom this year. I just bought some wave petunias for my porch hanging baskets and some other pretty flowers (don't recall the names without fetching the tags) in my big pot on the back porch. I'll take pictures of those once they fill out a bit.