Thank You, Charmaine!

I've shown you the photo I took of my son and father before. Now, you get to see it with the painting my wonderful, talented sister-in-law Charmaine painted for me. I'm just in awe over her talent! You should see her quilts. Her applique is amazing. Now, she's taken up painting and after just a very few lessons, I think she's ready to teach. I hope to have her paint our Elly next year. Elly escaped our fenced yard and was hit by a car that ended her life last April, in the prime of her life. She was only six and a black German Shepherd dog. I miss her so much.

Charmaine has been such a blessing in my life. I met her when my mother-in-law (her mother) had had a heart attack and she, my hubby (her brother) and I were going to drive to Mississippi together to see her. As it turned out, we didn't make it in time, so we went there to plan and attend her funeral. That was in 1983, I think. Since then, she's always been there when I've needed her. She's a true friend. A sister. I'm blessed to have a sister by birth, a sister by marriage and a soul sister. I have an extremely good friend too and a mother that I love and get along with. Who could ask for more?

Thank you, Charmaine. One more thing -- I did have trouble deciding where to hang the painting. I knew it deserved to be in the living room where everyone who visited could see it, but I wanted it in my bedroom. That way, if there was ever a fire in the middle of the night, I could save it. Now, I just hope that if we're ever unfortunate enough to have a fire, that I'm wide awake and I can get it and the watercolor of our home that is upstairs.

Photo of the week 10 of 39 -- Black and White

I didn't get to go take a picture of the cows I had hoped to find. And I'm not overly happy with the one I took of the cat at Petsmart either. He's a sweetie, but I just didn't get that great a shot. So, that got me to thinking of my early photos of Elly and Barkley when we had just brought him home. He's sleeping on her tail here and she even has grass stuck in it. Neither of them seemed to even notice it. I sure do miss that girl!

Next week's theme is Logs.

Final Elly Update

We just found Elly's body in a ditch with high grass by our house. We had looked there no less than 6 times, but just couldn't see her until we almost walked on top of her. My hubby and I found her together. I saw buzzards circling across the highway when I came home from the store. That's what made us look more closely in the high grass and low places. We hadn't done it before because there are just so many of them. Now, of course, I have so many regrets about not doing it sooner.

Dispirited

My hubby, our white German Shepherd dog Barkley and I are all showing signs that we're starting to get dispirited about Elly. We've been hopeful, even though we've been brutally honest with each other about the possibilities of what could have happened to her. As each hour passes, hope diminishes. We're becoming more sad, grumpy and restless. It's not really fun at our house today.



Elly had her red collar on when she went missing. She did not have on tags. Of course, I know better than this and that should not have been the case. She does have a micro-chip. I've called the AKC Companion Animal Recovery folks (her chip is registered with them) and the Home Again folks (they made the chip and she's registered with them again now too). They notify vets and pet related businesses within a 25 mile radius and a 50 mile radius, I do believe.


Today, I took fliers to several gas stations, restaurants and one trucker stopped on the side of the road. They were all very kind. One lady at a gas station more than 7 miles from our house said she had seen a large, black dog walking on the side of the highway just a little while ago. I got the direction the dog was headed in and took off. I didn't see hide nor hair of Elly.


Driving around to these different places gave me ideas for other places to go. Of course tomorrow I'll take fliers to the local vets, groomers, the Walmart across the lake and any businesses that were closed today or that I flat out missed. I also realized that some unscrupulous person could have purposely snatched our dog with the purpose of trying to sell her in Canton at the First Monday Trade's Day, which just happens to be next weekend. I think it actually starts on Thursday, but I'll double check to be sure. I also realized that I could put fliers on the cars in the church parking lots next Sunday. I would have done it today if I'd had enough of them with me or time to get more. I'll be calling to put ads in the newspapers also, tomorrow.


If you're reading this and you think of any other places I can try, please leave a comment.

MISSING!!!

As I sit here on this rainy Saturday morning, eating cold pizza for breakfast, our Elly dog has been missing for more than 29 hours. My hubby let the dogs out to potty yesterday morning and Elly did not return with Barkley. Hubby later found a hole in the fence.

Elly will leave the yard, but she is a homebody and has always returned very quickly. She doesn't like to be outside for long stretches of time if it's hot or raining. She likes to lay down after her drink of water and cool off. I guess it's all of that thick, black hair.

She has a slight limp in her right back leg at the moment. It started when I was in CA and was much worse then. I think it started on the weekend (when our vet is closed) and by Monday had started to improve, so hubby decided not to take her in to have it checked out. I keep thinking that she and Barkley ran around enough to aggravate that leg and she was limping more. Then she was probably either hit by a car on the highway or someone stopped and picked her up because she looked injured. We have driven up and down the highway, about 7 miles in each direction and don't see her. The problem is that there is a lot of tall grass this time of year because of the wildflowers growing. Most of it won't be mowed until the flowers have gone to seed.

Elly being hit by a car is the worse case scenario, but if we could find her body, we'd at least know what happened. The other possibility, someone picking her up -- at that time of morning, the only people I can think of driving down the highway would be going to work, travelers or truckers. I can't imagine anyone being able to take her to work. If she was picked up by someone traveling or a trucker, then Lord only knows where she is by now.

I've called the Humane Societies around here and a neighbor who rides horses and asked him to keep an eye out for her. We'll call the newspapers and put an ad in and we'll put up fliers. At this point, all we can do really, is hope. I've got a headache from worry and I'm so sad I can't even believe it. She's a loud, bossy thing, but sweet as can be. I love her and miss her. Hug your pets today and give them a little treat.

Motherly Kisses

I'm looking through pictures today. Trying to find one of M that I can put on here without fear of her wanting to kill me later. She is another family member who doesn't like to have her picture taken. So far, I haven't found one that is clear and shows her face. I am running across other cute, fun pictures that I'd like to share though and I finally realized that I can post more than one entry to my blog a day! After all, it's my blog and I can do what I want with it.

This is a picture of Elly licking Barkley when he was new to the family. I love this one because it looks like she's kissing him to me. She was acting very motherly when he was tiny. Now, of course, she is very much back to her Alpha Female act and she never lets him forget who is boss!

I added some pictures

For my picture a day challenge today, I took pictures of my dogs and let me tell you, it was indeed a challenge to get a picture of Barkley! He wouldn't sit still for anything and I tried just about everything. I should warn you, in case you ever visit, he has no manners whatsoever! It's totally our fault, but just the same, you've been warned.

I had to wait until he ran himself ragged before he would sit still enough to get his head in the shot. That's why his tongue is hanging out so. Elly was quite cooperative. I think she likes to have her picture taken. At least until she gets to wondering about that thing I'm holding and then she's not too sure any longer.

Barney was hard to get the other day too. You'll notice the bed is a mess. I had just gotten home from a trip to CO to see my sister and her family. It really wouldn't have mattered though, I'm bad about not making the bed properly. If you look closely, you'll also notice that the curved log walls behind the bed need to be vacuumed again! I think vacuuming your walls should be a once a year job. Unfortunately, my house feels that I should do it more often. If you ever contemplate building a log home, call me. I can give you lots of advice!

The picture of me is also one I took as one of my picture a day pictures. A self portrait. This was the best of the bunch. I deleted the others. I hate to see myself in pictures, but I've decided that my son and Grandkids need to have some photographic record that I did live. There aren't that many of me from my son's growing years. I regret that.