Walk on the Wild Side

Molly has been wanting to go to the coulees for days, so on Saturday morning we went to the end of the street for a walk. Molly was so excited! She was jumping and running as we started out, and sniffing everything. We walked about 1/3 of the way out, and I stopped to take a picture of 2 magpies on fence posts. As I was looking at them I could see something else moving. I assumed it was a deer, but as I watched I realised it was a coyote. And if there is one coyote, there are many coyotes. The one I spotted was the look-out for the pack, and we did see several more. They seemed to be in hunting mode. Although Molly was not the prey, we decided it might be better to leave that side of the coulee and move to the other side, where they are developing another part of Riverstone (much to our dismay). It was kind of cool to see them in action though.

I took some pictures of the little flowers we saw along the way, as well as the view, which sadly never  shows up well in photos. I also took one of the look-out coyote, although you have to enlarge the picture and REALLY look for him! He's between 2 fence posts, but not the pic with the magpies in it. Molly also was really tired out by the end of the walk, and was panting and moving quite slowly. She enjoyed herself though.

Molly is Old

Molly will be 13 this October. She's really starting to slow down now. Her back/hips are quite bad, and she limps, short steps, and skips most of the time now. The injections don't seem to have much effect anymore, sadly. We have to give her pain medication on occasion. She also trembles all the time. The tremors/seizures that she used to have occur all the time now, and are more severe. Apparently her eyesight isn't great. She's also losing weight again, down to 36lbs. Getting old is so hard.

Having said that though, she still has a lot of spirit! She likes to go for walls, albeit slowly. She loves to get to the coulees so she can sniff all the animal tracks. She's also the star of the neighbourhood. All the kids know her by name, and get so excited to see her. Tonight for example, there was a group of about 8 kids out playing, and when they saw her, they all yelled "Molly!" and came running to give her pats. She pushed her way into the group and demanded pats from all of them. The kids love the fact that she rubs like a cat. She's a very popular dog. They also find her belching very funny.

The boy that lives behind us, Evan, really loves her. He knows all about her sore back, and if he sees she's limping he'll tell me that he will pat her only from the middle up, to make sure he doesn't hurt her back. It's so cute. 

I don't know how much time we have left with her, but she sure is a great dog. Hopefully we have lots of time still, because we can't bear the thought of being without her.

Curtains

The sun goes down so late here in the summer, and I need to go to bed so early, that I decided we needed curtains in the bedroom. Although I hate making curtains, I can't stand to pay for ready made ones. So I decided to make some. They were much cheaper than premade ones. The fabric was 40% at Fabricland, the rod was $9.95 at Zellers, and the hold backs were $12.97 at Wal-Mart! A much cheaper option, and it wasn't too bad making them.