A Clear & Difficult Choice

Our poor Petey, so happy in this recent Christmas photo. Sadly,  he was quietly, painlessly put to sleep last week after a shocking and frightening event.

It is startling to process what happened.  Hard to understand that our funny pup, hyper as a hot wire, who, when he ran, looked like a deer on a trampoline, had a dangerous streak so hidden and unpredictable that he attacked a guest at my house.  Not nipped at a guest... attacked.

I had asked a new friend over for lunch, a  woman I'd been emailing over the past year, another Elizabeth from Connecticut, a friend of a friend.  Finally she crossed boarders and I invited her to lunch. Petey was scratching at the kitchen slider throughout our visit, tail wagging, wanting in.  But over the past few months, only since our move, we had noticed he barked increasingly and aggressively at passersby and visitors.  So, when he wasn't cuddling with us or playing with Larry, we relegated him to the back yard.

Petey was so eager to come in that day I thought I'd allow it. And as he wagged and panted at us, so happy to be in, and as Elizabeth reached down to pet him, he attacked her, faster as lightning, biting her arm and hand maybe three or four times, her clothing at least twice.  I couldn't pull him off her.  He was in another state.. Finally Elizabeth tossed a glass of water in his face, and I virtually kicked him out the door.

I looked down and noticed the drops of blood on the floor.  "Oh my God!" I said, horrified. "Let me see your arm!"  Elizabeth had been bitten to the veins. She was bruised and bleeding.  Talk about shock and horror.  So, off we hurried to the doctor to dress wounds, get boosters, bandages, antibiotics, and ointments.  It was horrible.  Thank God he didn't get her face, or go deeper into a vein.

This attack was vicious and unprovoked. It was terrifying.  And risking another, with children around, with all the left-open doors and gates and coming and going was simply not an optioin.  Neither was leashing this beautiful creature to a fence all day, especially since we ourselves were now afraid of him. And giving him to someone to use as a guard dog where he was likely be tied to a fence and abused was also not something we were willing to do.

For me, this is new territory.  I'm still processing the shock of having someone over for a meal and a mauling.  Not an event I can easily wrap my head around.  I guess I'm going to have to pass up that "Hostess of the Year" award.   Second, I've never had to put to sleep a young and healthy dog.  I've put dogs down before, but it's not quite the same as  your very old dog -- covered-in-warts-and-bumps kind of old,  barks-after-the-stranger-leaves old dog -- has a stroke and is spinning and vomiting  on your little sister's bedroom floor, unable to focus or function.  Okay. That's a euthanasia no-brainer.

It's different when it's a young and healthy, loving family pet in his prime, a nap-mate, a walking companion.  That's a different ball game.  (The professionals I spoke with said  there was no way to get that kind of aggression out of a dog's brain.)  And there was no way I could sentence Petey to a lesser life than the one he had with us, the life he had before he snapped and went bonkers.  

So as we come up on two years, we add one more loss to our list of losses.  A lovely but ailing hen, our funny, fat rooster, all those spiders, and now our goofy, nutty, un-fixable but beautiful dog.

Farewell Petey. We loved you.
Get well, Elizabeth, brave woman, trooper girl, kind lady.

Baby Bites Dust; Honey Bun Feeds Masses.

By now you know of I developed a deep affection for Baby, an obese, asthmatic & slightly drooling Watch Rooster who would bravely choke out something like half a crow around 5:30 a.m.

I raised him from a tiny chick like a good mother hen.

Then, I think I fed him to death.

He was on a diet, I promise. But, one morning, a few hours after I'd fed him a tiny treat of left over stew drippings, (which he lapped up eagerly), Larry came inside with the urgent report "Something's wrong with your rooster."

Out I fled to the back yard only to find Baby dead as a doornail. What a terrible surprise. Really, I was quite teary and devastated.

As Larry & William dug a wide berth for his grave, I lugged his nearly 20 pound limp carcass over for our burial ceremony.

There was nothing for it. The only way we could fit his girth into the grave was in the undignified Feet Up position. Poor Baby.

I prefer to think he's just being praiseful , but it's a stretch, I know.

Of course he received full honors... family prayer, home made cross and grave stones.








Honey Bun, my perfect and perfectly ladylike laying hen, was faithful to the end. Here she is standing vigil at Baby's grave site.

But more bad luck was heading our way... Several weeks after we lost Baby, Honey Bun was snatchedby nearby workers and probably turned to stew.

Alas... We do mourn.






Our Little  Human Mud Pies:  Shane  & William

We just hose 'em off and stick 'em in the tub.Yes... our drains do suffer.

Chicks, Man

With so much focus and debate today about the variety of sexuality (we have our straights; our gays; the straights who actually are gay; our gays for a while and those for life; our transexuals; hermaphrodites and so forth), its tough enough to sex a human. But they say sexing a chicken is the real challenge. There are chapters and pages on the subject instructing one on the scientific methods as well as the old wives tales about how to tell whether you have a hen or a rooster.

Well, I did my research. And after about 6 weeks with our three chicks, it became obvious to me that my tiny egg farm wasn't going to be all too fruitful. Because I was certain that our three baby hens were, indeed, two roosters and one tiny lady. And at that, not just any roosters. A lame rooster, Gimpy Peep, born with clubbed feet; a big throated rooster Baby, or... Goiter Baby... and one little lady, Stripe.

No problem for this co-dependent! My sister tells me as I child I used to purchase the dying plants and animals as our local five & dime, take them home and heal them. I suppose if I hadn't developed into a puny looking allergic asthmatic, I might have reached my aspirations to become a Veteranarian. Alas...

Last week our little brood was attached by a large dog and of course, poor defenseless, lame Peep was the one who got it. Two days later, unable to even scoot, I took her to Chelly, our local vet, who informed me that my rooster would live, and not only that, after one quick glance, that my rooster was a hen. So it turns out we have one lame hen, one healthy hen, and Goiter Baby as their big date!

Life in Panama... Cock-A-Doodle , Bow Wow Wow

Time to catch you all up before these first impressions of the past 4+ months become evanescent, or run-of-the-mill. If I have a good quality, it's that I adapt and adopt easily, so initial strangeness turns to normality pretty fast. That said... before I forget, here are my impressions and what our life is like thus far.

Let's talk Noise. I think sound is a thing that most people forget to consider in many situations. But it's something I can't avoid because I'm what's called a highly "auditory" person. I hear everything, I'm a talker, and hearing even my own thoughts voiced facilitates my comprehension. And I'm cursed with the inability to ignore or minimize sounds. So in college, I was like a cazed schitzophrenic (they have high cortical activity and are sensitive to noise) when someone snapped a pencil at the back of the auditoriumn and I'djust about jump out of my nerdy front row seat. And those people who try to slowly open the candy wrapper at the movies? RIP IT OPEN AND GET IT OVER WITH. YOU'RE TORTURING ME! Okay, so you get the picture. Noise is an issue for me.

Cut to Panama, where we live in a high cielinged, slightly cavernous cement and tile home. I can lie in bed at our of the house and I swear,I can hear a spider silently peeing all the way in Wiliam's room. Back in Sarasota, if a dog dared go on a barking spree and break through my ear plugs at, say, t three a.m., i'd be in my car in a flash, driving in quiet fury around the hood like some maniac, just waiting to get my hands on theright house ....for what? I don't know. Maybe a neighborly note in their mailbox the next day..."Gee wiz, Mister Neighbor, can you stop your dog from barking at flippin' 3 a.m. 'cause it is annoying the crap out of me? Signed, affectionately, your neighbor (no address)."

Guess how many dogs live around our house here? Including Cuco, Rocky, Lisi, the Akita tied to the post, the real barker behind Ulda's hosue, and about 8 more up on the main road (one block away), I count maybe 12. Any passerby even nearing our street, and the symphony begins. If the wind blows, if I sneeze in my sleep... it's just Cock-a-Doodle-Doo Bow Wow Wow Wow Wow Wow... ALL night long.

Lucky for me, I actually like the sound of Roosters (no they don't crow at dawn), and the wind that literally howls and whistles through the pine trees going down toward the river. William had trouble with the wind at first, but now he likes it. Sometimes the rain is so loud during the wet season that you have to shout to be heard.

Bajareque is the word for "mist" and living in a cloud forrest, the air fills with mist and often. It is cool and lovely. It doesn't roll in in a thick San Francisco style blanket. Sometimes it looks like smoke. At times it turns to fog and can be nearly blinding, but most mornings are clear and filled with the good noise of many birds, birds so well fed by the natural fruit, that they just turn their noses up at our bird feeders!

Life is simple and our group of foreign friends gather often, even more than once a week, for pot lucks and socializing. Jenni and Steve Bliss are a young couple from Indiana, and here by way of Costa Rica. They host a running Saturday pot luck open house and have four fierce and fabulous kids. It is through Jenni's pot luck that I met everyone else.

"Everyone else" is a representation of different states, countries, religious and political backgrounds, so conversation is never absent or dull. Indeed, conversation around here gets passionately heated.

What we miss (organized sports, art, events for kids), we make up as we go along. Susan Bostrom (with her husband Glenn and daughter Jessica) has a big hand in managing to gather us all up for one thing or another. Those Connecticut girls... always good for hosting parties, right?

Larry has become shockingly social. First of all, he calls people on his cell phone! He coaches basketball at a nearby gym 3 times a week. He pals around town with his buddy Terry Sandhoff, gathering up meat and fireworks for the 4th. He goes online to give out advice to friends who might have a visa question.

Church here is a challenge because either it's in Spahish, or at a private home, which turns out not be really Larry's thing. But our great friends, Bruce &Sharon Brown play the role of our family's spiritual team, and Larry sits in on Bruce's easy lessons. Jenny &Steve also offer a weekly adult discussion, which I attend, and somehow we end up not falling too far off our Christian path.

What do I miss? Of course, family. All our family in Sarasota, Michigan and California. And photos and paintings. But beyond these, it comes down to a few things. Food and theater and activities for William. You can't find a good cookie here to save your life. Sushi? Forget it. The steak and burger meat here have no fat in it. You'd think that is a good thing, but Larry will tell you otherwise. Plus, cheese and nuts cost a fortune. As for kids... there is not movie theater here, no skate park, no local kid theater. Every town in the world should have local kid theater and a skate park. (Teens in small towns with little to do end up drunk and pregnant. So that may be when we hit the road to the States!)

But the trade-off, for now, is good. William and his friends mostly play outside. In the rain. In the mud. In the trees. They invariably come home soaked, and cut, or caked in mud.
So... you hose 'em down. Scrub 'em off. And never leave home without an extra set of clothing stashed in the trunk.