Month: August 2012

As many of you know, I love my blog. I am committed to it, every day. My early ideas about it are holding up – it is a record of my life, a journal, a living memoir. It has changed quite a bit and been redesigned a dozen times, as I add video, photography and other ideas and pages to bedlamfarm.com. I am now negotiating with a premium dog food company – the company that makes the food Red, Lenore and Frieda eat every day – about putting an ad up on the top of my site.
The ad would be separate from the editorial content and photograph and the company would offer special premiums and anything else they wished to show. I would get a monthly fee, small at first, bigger if the ad works and some dog food – if people click-through on the ads, read them and sometimes buy their product. The idea was actually instituted by my vet. She recommended this food in response to issues I was having regarding my dog’s coat, stool and some other medical issues. She said this food was the best she had seen and so I went out and bought some.

I also need a very particular food for Red, a high-energy working dog who needs protein and burns up a lot of calories. She recommended a special line of this dog food for him, and I was quite surprised by the results. All of the dogs coats have shined up, they have plenty of energy and – you all understand about stools – their stools look what dog’s stools ought to look like. That is, to me, one of the great measures of health. We are close to an agreement. It would be a good thing for me, as the blog is expensive to maintain and I don’t want to charge for it.

Better yet, this is a company I like, with actual values that I share. It is not part of a big corporate conglomerate. I’m very comfortable with the philosophy and approach of this company. They seem to really love animals. So I’ll keep you posted. I like the idea of advertising food that my dogs actually eat.

And I think it is important to think of ways to monetize blogs like mine without charging for them. I want to keep my ideas and images free. I’ll let you know what’s happening.

Curious, I get almost as many requests for photos of Ben as for Red or Lenore. Perhaps, I think, it is because we look alike. Perhaps not. Ben is still up on the roof, repairing damaged slate. He has a day or two to go. It gets hot up there, and the slate is too hot to touch. Ben does not eat any solid food that I know of, he exists on tobacco, caffeine, and high-powered sugar energy drinks. Ben, I think, will live to be 100. He and Ajay began whacking away at the collapsed barn today. We are getting somewhere, day by day.

The wallpaper task will be epic, I think, this old wallpaper – there are two or three rows of wallpaper – has a mind of its own, and I have charged into this task with vinegar, a special enzyme solution and fabric softener, all mixed with water. It took five or six hours to get this much off, and my back, arms and legs are shouting at me. Great fun, though. Maria will get obsessed over this if I let her. But I want to do it myself, at least most of it. I’m getting the hang of it, scraping easy, spraying lots of warm water with various glue-eating solvents. This is not a small or clean task. The walls are fighting back, I can feel them hanging on to Florence’s last wallpaper hanging.

The good news is that the plaster underneath is clean and solid, at least this portion.

I am going at it as often as I can I return in the morning. I’m not writing the next few days, the Frieda manuscript is back in the hands of my editors. I am getting stubborn about this.

There are few better ways to greet the day than with a donkey greeting. First, Simon’s bray. Then Lulu and Fanny think about it a  bit – donkeys are a bit like cats, they do things in their own time, when they feel like it, not just when you want them. They do come running for Maria, for her attention, for the carrots and corn dobs in the plastic bags she brings. Then, to be brushed, touched, talk to. I never saw a donkey in my life until a few years ago, and now I cannot imagine life with these loving and intelligent and spiritual creatures. Everyone needs a donkey.

I’ve taken a lot of photos and videos of Red moving on four legs, so I thought I would take one of Red on three. We don’t really know why Red is limping on one leg – X-rays and physical showed nothing. We did pretty much rule out tendon or ligament damage. It’s something in the paw or pad.

Could be a hairline fracture, a stone bruise, soft tissue damage, I don’t really know and I’m not sure it matters. I am holding off on more tests until Red has a chance to heal. He was in a lot of discomfort yesterday – panting, signs of anxiety, but today he seems himself, alert, focused, energetic, eating well, sleeping easily, hanging by my side.

The vet is ready for a battery of tests if he is still limping in a day or so, but I am  holding off on that, as I would for myself. I want to see if Red heals, as border collies often do. I don’t want to rush into tests and pills, panic or activity for its own sake. I don’t know exactly what’s wrong with Red’s leg and the vet doesn’t either, so I will take my cues from him. If it persists or worsens, I’ll consider the next step. I’m taking him for short walks, but no running or working, of course.

I’ve lived with border collies for 15 years and Rose often came up limping for a day or two, and then got better. So I’m going to give that a chance, that’s why my instincts tell me. And I will follow them.

Come and see Red on three legs. And thanks, but I am not in need of medical advice for Red, but I do much appreciate how much people care about him. I do. It is a wonderful thing to see.