Hello Everyone!
Finding a nearby vet, Rideshare apps are bogus, A long walk ahead, Reassembling the sawhorses & Building a new gate!
Alright, I am right on time today with my writing routine... which seems like a miracle after the long tiresome day that I have had. Go figure that it happens on a day when I am trying to keep the entry short... so that I do not have to scramble around just before sunset to get all my late day chores done... because by that time I need to be slipping into bed and falling asleep.
The reason that I want to get to bed super early tonight is because in the morning I need to get up around four-thirty (which is no biggie considering that I keep waking at that time anyway) then I need to get all the dogs to use the bathroom long before six o'clock... so I can begin a very long walk. Basically, I have to carry my boy dog five miles along two busy roads with no shoulder (in the predawn hours) so that I can have him to the vet by eight in the morning.
It was very challenging just to have a phone call with the veterinarian's office... because of my poor cellular reception... and then I found out that they would not have an opening (to see the dog) until Friday... which is a 'no go' for me... because his wound cannot wait that long to be tended to. In a nutshell if I can get him there by eight... and leave him there they will squeeze him in (to see the doctor) at some point during the day.
I am really torn on whether I should hike another two hours back to the farm... then hike back to get him later... and then hike home again... because honestly I do not think that I have it in me to do eight hours of that kind of walking all in one day. It is already going to be a total shitshow... because my elder dog is going to whine the whole time that I am gone... and my other two dogs are going to have a lot of anxiety over where me and their brother went.
Honestly, I did everything in my power to find a ride to no avail... and I even looked at what it would cost to use a rideshare app... but one app did not allow pets and I could not for the life of me figure out how to mark on the other app that I would have a dog with me. Even if I had found the 'pet box' to check... there is no way I could afford paying over forty dollars for a five mile ride... which yup was just a one way trip!
Heck, I do not even know if I will have enough to pay the vet... and I told them that on the phone... and they said that they will work with me as long as I could pay something when I visit. I am unsure what all that means... but most likely I will have an outstanding bill with them after the visit... that I will need to pay off in a certain amount of time.
Obviously, I give the legendary 'zero fucks' about any of that stuff (including carrying a nearly sixty pound dog for two hours down dangerous roads in the dark) as long as at the end of the day.... I know that my boy dog will be okay. Maybe if I am super lucky someone will see us walking and offer a ride... but the odds of that occurring given that I am not only a stranger but a very rough looking stranger are slim to none.
Anyways, today I decided that if the dogs are going to keep being in the temporary dog yard during the day... that I need to make the gate on it much stronger than it is... especially since that is the part that cut my boy dog. Given that I did not want to attempt building the new gate on the sloped terrain (which would have been a damned nightmare) I opted to remove the dismantled sawhorses that were leveling my mattress... and reassemble them so that I could then use them to build the gate on.
For the most part the gate project went rather smoothly even though I did not have any pressure-treated lumber to use... and the lumber that I did have was not only the wrong size... but also twisted and curvy to boot! In the end I did it though... and all that is left to finish it up is to use my angle grinder to trim down all the screws that are sticking out the back side of the gate itself.
I still have to find something (probably some eastern cedar logs) to act as posts for the new gate... and then get the knots/branches trimmed down on them so they are smooth enough to hang the gate on by its hinges... but I will get to that soon. Although I dislike the idea of digging holes in that area for the fence posts... I just have to do whatever I can to not just keep them secure... but also keep any of them from getting injured again.
Well, I better wrap this entry up and get to doing those chores so that I can get to bed early... wake up early... and ultimately take what I am thinking of as 'the death defying walk' in the morning. I hope that everyone is doing well. Ta ta for now.
P.S. Out of the blue yesterday a very old supporter of mine (my first actually) contacted me after five years of radio silence... and informed me to let them know if they could help with anything. So between that and me and my mom's last Hive Power Down... I might have enough to pay for the vet! In short... so long grocery and bill money... and hello my boy dog being okay!
