Gracie: May 2004 - May 5th 2011

Something terrible has happened: Gracie has died. The story of her death begins on the evening of Wednesday, May 4th. I got home from work early that night and I soon decided to go to bed early due to malaise. Right before bed, I let Gracie in, as usual. As soon as she stepped in the door I could tell something was wrong. She seemed to not want to walk. She was behaving as if her back legs were asleep. But I am impatient these days and so I just tried to hustle her into the garage. It was awkward for her and took a lot of encouragement from me. But Gracie is known to be skittish and nervous and she had displayed similar behavior before. I thought she had a leg injury. The only symptom I initially noticed was trouble walking. Once she was in her kennel I noticed that she did not seem in any pain, but she did seem very alert and her eyes were wide open. There was no vomiting, or panting. Darcy and I tried to coax her back out of her kennel for the sake of more observation, but she would not come out. We could have taken her to the 24 hour vet, of course, but we didn't. I did not think the situation was an emergency and I thought we'd take a second look at things in the morning. Why was that my judgment? I don't know. I hope it was a justifiable instinct, but I fear it was just selfishness and wanting to just go to bed. I thought (or told myself) that it was just a leg injury and if she just stayed immobile for the night we could go to the vet the next day.

It turns she did go to the vet the next day. She was no different in the morning. She had urinated in the kennel and was still sitting in it. There was some drool hanging from her lip. We called the vet, loaded her kennel in the car and Darcy had to drive her to Plano by herself, fighting the smell of urine in the car. Even then as we loaded her kennel I took the situation seriously but I wasn't worried. I still thought that she'd had a leg injury of some kind and that the pain had now gotten very bad. Gracie had been known in the past to have a very low pain tolerance. She was behaving strangely, but strange behavior was common for her. She was unfortunately a often nervous and anxious dog.

Anyway, she was soon dead after arriving at the vet. Now I've learned some obvious things. I can't get a second chance to take this more seriously. The past few years with Gracie have been trying. We have gradually accepted that she is not compatible with our small children or our other dog, Teak. That was a hard notion for us to accept since we naturally see our dogs living inside with the family, as part of the family. For the past six months or so Gracie was only allowed two places: in the backyard, or in the garage. But even then she posed a threat. A week before she died, on my birthday, she killed a kitten that had gotten into the yard. She attacked and injured Teak in the back yard on several occasions. My plan for today had she not died was to make here an enclosure so we could keep her outside and out of trouble. We were going to keep her until the end. There were some in the past who urged us to euthanize her. I still remember the agony in feeling the pressure to make that decision. In fact, she committed two separate transgressions that led to the possibility of euthanasia. (Once when Darcy was pregnant with Olivia, and once during the summer of 2010 where she attacked Teak.) But in the end we decided to work harder for Gracie, so that she could live out her natural life. Once her enclosure was built, I thought we would finally reach equilibrium with her. She didn't mind being outside or in the garage at all. We still went for walks. She seemed happy.

In any case, it is depressing now that she's gone. I have already mentioned too many bad things about Gracie. I hate to do that, but they are part of the story of her life. It was rough for her near the end because she found herself in a familial situation that she wasn't cut out for. But life was good for her and I in the beginning. I feel pretty worthless now that Gracie's story has ended, but I hope she feels I gave her a life worthy of envy in the beginning. Lot's of affection and walks. Someday I hope to write about those good times. The times she loved were when it was just me and her. The problem is that life has gotten more complicated since those first few years, and neither of us has handled it very well. Some of the terrible attitudes and behaviors have swelled in me over the past few years: impatience, irritability, always being in a hurry, anger, hatred, pessimism, having low expectations, psychological and physical tension. I get so fixated on anger and find myself in prolonged trances over it. I daydream and am introspective to the point of not being able to pay attention to those around me. Now, none of this is directed at my family, but it does no good for them either. I hate to admit it, but neither of the dogs has gotten much attention or affection in a long time. I hate to admit that I had seen them too often as burdens and extra work. All I can say is that now that Gracie is gone and I have missed my last chance to be with her I can't describe how bad I feel about who I've become. I hope she can forgive me, if I deserve it.

Southern Pea

The Southern Peas were planted on April 1st 2011. There are three rows of 14 plants each. I plan to plant a few more rows as I have time to clear the rest of the garden. Right now, collard greens from last fall are blooming and producing seed. Once they're done with that, I'll clear and plant more peas and okra. Nothing but peas, okra and tomatoes this year. I had a few small patches of peas last year at various times, as an experiment. The plants germinate and grow very well, even when planted in the middle of August! It was very interesting to see these tiny pea seedlings thrive on hot August days. By comparison I have tried to plant beans before, but they have always germinated and grown terribly even when planted in the nurturing conditions of the spring. The bean experiments have never lasted very long. In any case, the peas grow well and are not defeated by the hot and dry summer. The quantity of peas harvested was neither insignificant nor impressive, but the flavor of the peas harvested at the green mature stage is amazing. I hope I have enough plants to eat peas often this summer.

Update 4/8/2011: About half of the seeds have sprouted.

Update 5/19/2011: I had to scrap the first planting of southern peas. The good news is that when I pulled them up there was evidence of nitrogen-fixing bacteria on the roots. Thrips had attacked the original planting from the beginning, but the most damage was done to the peas from a spell of cold and wet weather. They looked terrible after that. I planted too early since southern peas don't respond well to cool weather. The next batch was planted on 5/6/2011. Germination was good. The seedlings look good now, and none appear to be damaged by thrips. Perhaps the warmer conditions lead to better resistance to the thrips.

Spring tomatoes have been planted.

In an effort to make my gardening habit more scientific I want to make a note that tomatoes were planted on March 17th 2011. This year I have three plants and two varieties: 2 Celebrity and 1 Early Girl. I planted in the usual way, which is to first soak and saturate the pots in a seaweed and fish emulsion mixture. And I threw a handful of basic organic fertilizer in the hole before planting. I saw plenty of earthworms (of what I believe are the red wiggler type) but I did not dig around as much as normal and did not add as many soil amendments as usual. There is still kale and collard greens in the garden from last fall. Everything else was killed by the cold. This must have been the coldest winter since I have lived here, in the sense that plants that usually survive the winter did not this year. The cilantro was killed, and the confederate jasmine appears to be killed also (although I noticed new growth on it yesterday). Cilantro has survived in the past and had attracted great numbers of ladybugs throughout the spring.

This year's planting date is about the same time as last year's, and last year's crop was very successful. The first tomato last year was harvested on May 17th, and their were about 120 total tomatoes harvested from 4 different plants! (And I'm not counting the cherry tomatoes.)

Update 5.24.2011: First Early Girl tomato harvested.
Update 6.27.2011: Last tomato harvested and the plants are done. 53 total harvested throughout the season.

Another Garden Update

Here is the current news on the vegetable garden. I'm still (as of yesterday) enjoying mustard greens, and have been eating them frequently for a few months now. The first harvest was probably sometime in November, but the plants have grown (and continue to grow) so well that it looks like they haven't even been touched. (Or maybe there were just so many to begin with.) In any case, the greens are delicious. I don't know if my seed will be good when the next planting time arrives, but it may not matter since I noticed a few of the plants are about to bolt.

The broccoli was also a success this year. I think it tasted as good as broccoli possibly can, which is delicious. But I have even more good news about it. I found an uncommon recommendation that broccoli can be successfully grown if the transplants are placed with an in row spacing of 4 to 6 inches. By comparison, it is easy to read elsewhere and find 12 to 15 inches as the recommendation. The smaller spacing was interesting to me because the garden is so small and I like broccoli so much. The bottom line is I planted with the 4 to 6 inch spacing and each plant produced a flower cluster of good size. I had 9 plants total.

Another interesting fact from this season is that I used no fertilizer, with the exception of some compost at planting time and the usual year-round garbage. Again the bottom line is that each plant produced more than I could eat. If all that was in spite of not applying extra fertilizer, then that's even better.

The plants will meet their end sometime, but it appears that it won't be due to cold weather. I have already seen temperatures cold enough to freeze the water in the dog's water bowl. The plants did appear damaged on those mornings, but it was only appearance. Once the day warmed the mustard greens, broccoli and lettuce appeared normal and still tasted good.

The garden on 11/14/2010.

First broccoli of the fall garden harvested 11/23/2010.

The garden on October 21 2010.