Autumn Leaves

Fall is my favorite season, and the only complaint I have is that it's usually too short. This year, that was not the case.  We had a long, beautiful fall, and I felt like I was enjoying the fall colors for weeks which was such a blessing.  I love the beauty of creation...and how God gives that to us to enjoy because He is good and He loves us, and He reveals His love in nature...and He reveals His nature in Creation...   Well, in our little corner of the world, raking leaves is not a bad thing... It's actually kind of a "status symbol".  If you have leaves to rake, you have trees... And the more leaves in the yard, the bigger the trees, which (to us) is always a good thing.  :-)  This year we even had enough leaves to make a pile...  And somebody got a chance to play in that leaf pile...   

Maybe that wasn't who you expected...

But who can resist that face??

Stay . . .

Okay!!



 This sweet girl gave us quite a scare... 

Last Tuesday night, at supper time, the dog started vomiting...

Not the kind of vomiting like a dog does when they eat a little grass or something and hack it up...

She vomited her food, and then vomited bile, and then continued to wretch and heave until there was nothing left but drool.  It was awful.  :-(

We cleaned it all up and washed her face and assumed it was a fluke.

But then, she continued to wretch daily for the next 3 days.  It was so strange.  She would be fine for several hours, and then suddenly she would vomit violently all over again.  Finally, Friday morning I took her to the vet first thing. They weren't able to find anything wrong with her.  No parasites, and everything seemed normal when they examined her.  They sent us home for the weekend and said if she didn't improve, they'd have to do more x-rays and scans on Monday.

Meanwhile, I had been cooking her plain rice because it was the only thing she kept down long enough to do any good.  Saturday was probably about the worst.  She finally went off all of her food and water and just laid there.  The sparkle was gone from her eyes and as I stood in the shower that morning I actually let myself wonder if she was going to be okay.

She hadn't had anything to eat or drink the entire day Saturday, so I took out one of her precious Chicken and Sweet Potato dog treats to try to entice her to eat something...

We discovered these treats at Trader Joe's a couple months ago, and they're Gretchen's favorite thing.  We always gave her one when we left her home alone (which is quite a bit in the summer).

She devoured the treat, and I was very thankful.  After eating the treat, she actually showed an interest in some food and water, too, and I was hopeful.  And then...it all came up all over again.

Finally, I started to think back over the last week, and how Gretchen had several Trader Joe's treats on Tuesday...  I thought about how she seemed to be able to keep plain rice down, but vomited everything else, and then it occurred to me that she always got sick within a couple hours of having a treat...  In looking at the ingredients, it would appear that Gretchen developed a sudden and severe allergy to wheat.

(Well, in hindsight, it was probably actually gradual, but the vomiting was very sudden.)

We eliminated all gluten from her diet, and she has been a new dog ever since!

We are SO thankful!

It's amazing how much pets become a part of the family.  Hearing her eating and drinking again is like music to my ears.  The little kibble crumbs that used to drive me crazy in my kitchen are treasured reminders that we still have a teddy bear to cuddle and love.  She is a gift, and I hope she will bring joy to our home for many years to come!

A budding photographer

A few months ago, we decided to give our old Kodak digital camera to Beth.  She has always had an interest in photography, and we didn't have any need for our first digital camera anymore, so we thought it would thrill her to call it her own.  And it has... Early on we had to make a "rule" about candid photos...  She is not to take pictures of people without their permission.  Of course, there are exceptions--like this moment she captured one night while I was making supper: 

We were browsing through her pictures today, and some of them are definitely keepers.  :-)

But, as the general rule applies, most of Beth's pictures are of the one subject that can't argue with her--Gretchen.  The poor dog gets chased around the house on a regular basis to be photographed.  (I'm sure she's looking forward to spring so Beth can get outdoors and photograph something else.) 

Here, she's taking a minute to smell the flowers:

  This one, she even smiled for the camera:  

 (Beth snapped this picture just as Gretchen sneezed.  We laughed so hard when we found it today!)  Looks like Gretchen was having a rough day in this one:  

She also managed to capture a video of the last seconds of Team Culver's surprise win to go to the final four:

 The complete chaos in this video almost makes it more priceless as you can hear her get totally swept away in the excitement of the win and completely forget she was filming...   Then, last night after Bible study, she grabbed this video of Matt improvising a song about peanut butter at her request: 

 This crazy guy has more musical talent in his little finger than most of us can hope for in lifetime...  Anyway, I can see that some of Beth's pictures are going to be pretty special, and I'm kind of excited that she shares my interest in photography.  It will be interesting to see how she develops her skills over the summer--when she has something more interesting to photograph than Gretchen.  :-) 

It's February...

According to the calendar, February is the shortest month of the year... ...but in Minnesota, it feels like one of the longest. Winter has lost its thrill by now... ...but the end isn't in sight yet.  February is one of those months where you just kinda find a comfy spot and wait for spring to arrive... 


 At least there's Valentine's day...  I'm not big on seasonal decorating...but I thought I'd be festive and design a Valentine's theme for my blog...yeah, like I needed an excuse to play with my blog design...  ;-)  You'll have to excuse me if I think of lots of excuses to change my blog design in the near future.  I can't help myself.  It is February after all--what else is there to do?  Anyway...   So, we're passing the time and trying to keep warm while we're longing for leaves on the trees and lush green grass... And where we really want to be is on a family outing to the park for a nice round of disc golf! But, there's still a little fun to be had in these last weeks of winter, so Mike and Beth ventured out to play in the snow a bit this afternoon:  

 

And here is my first attempt at adding videos to my blog...

Here's one of Beth Marie's trips down the hill:

Then, one of Mike and Beth going together:

  And finally, one of Mike and Gretchen: 

 (Not sure what Gretchen thought of the experience. :-) Still looking forward to spring, but winter has its amusements...

If you don't want to see my underwear, don't read this post:

 My last post was about the faithfulness of a certain little animal who lives in our house... my teddy bear, Gretchen.  It's amazing how many smiles this little creature brings into our home.  Our first couple years with Gretchen were very challenging.  We almost decided she wasn't worth the trouble.  Breaks my heart to think of that now...she just wasn't an easy dog to train.  But she's a very good dog now, and a welcome member of the family.  She really is quite civilized for an animal--her inner beast doesn't come out very often at all anymore.  But there's one nasty little habit that she hasn't been able to overcome.  She has a taste for dirty clothes.  Specifically our underwear.  Several days ago, I went into the bathroom to take a shower.  Now, to her credit, most of the time when Momma showers, she sleeps faithfully outside the door or else on the rug in the bathroom.  But on this particular day she opened the door to the bedroom with her nose, and I knew she was up to something.  I looked at her and said in a low voice,   "No panties."  I proceeded to take my shower and when I finished, I made my way into the bedroom where I found Gretchen near the foot of the bed.  Her location in the room would indicate that everything was perfectly normal.  But with tail between the legs, head low, and ears back, her body told a different story. Into the closet I went to find not one, but 5 pairs of underwear strewn about.  She had cast off all restraint and shamelessly devoured FIVE pairs of underwear!  Naughty.    Usually, I would give her a token swat on the nose with the underwear and say,   "Naughty dog.  NO panties."  But FIVE pairs of underwear??  I remembered back to a story my dad told about one of their dogs that killed a chicken.  Dad took the chicken and strapped it around the dog's neck and made him drag it around for a day.   (Hey, you can't have a dog killing your chickens!) After that point, that dog was the chickens' devoted protector.  Hmm.  So, I took one of the pairs of underwear and secured it around Gretchen's head:  

 The funny thing was that Gretchen willingly accepted her shame.    She knew she did big sin...  So, she quietly sat there, in the exact same spot, the entire time I got ready.  After 15 or 20 minutes I removed the obstruction from her eyes, and she pranced around the room with her tail high and her conscience cleared.  And to my knowledge...  she hasn't had a taste for underwear since.   Time will tell how good her memory is.  :-)

Faithfulness...

Certain things around our house are pretty predictable. One of those things happens every time we finish our evening meal around the kitchen table. As soon as I put down my fork... ...I feel a soft tap on my leg. It's Gretchen, wanting to get on my lap. Of course, you think, she's begging for food. But you see, Gretchen knows that when the meal ends, we read the Bible together, and there will be conversation... ...and somewhere along the line, she got the idea that she needs to be a part of that. (Of course, she's not offended if we give her a taste of something) But the moment I put her on my lap, she goes limp and relaxed and sometimes even starts to doze off in the crook of my arm.  

 You would think that in the presence of all of those smells of the tasty remnants of the meal before her, she would be utterly overwhelmed by her instinct to devour everything on the table. But she is perfectly content just to sit on the lap of the one she loves more than anything else in the world. That makes me feel pretty special.  :-) It also makes me think that there's a spiritual truth there somewhere... Gretchen is an animal--a "brute beast".  She is a creature of instinct, and the only way she learns what is expected of her in the human realm is routine and discipline.  Let me tell you, there's nothing much in this world that pleases her more than a juicy piece of meat.  Yet her love for me drives her to completely overlook the enticing pleasures in front of her. That's faithfulness... Can I say the same for me? How much do I long to be in the presence of the One I adore? Do the best things this world has to offer fade from view when I'm resting in His arms?  I hope so.  Wouldn't it be wonderful to tap on His leg and crawl into His arms tonight?