Love the fall...

To keep in the spirit of the fall, I thought I would shed some light on my new re-discoveries.  Last year, at this time, I was taking a class called Broadleaf Plant Identification.  This class focused on plants that mostly stayed green and did not lose their leaves during the winter.  Because you are so focused on learning the plants, you tend to ignore all the other plants out there.  The broadleaf plants stand out, everything fades into the background.  So the fall colors were okay but they weren't important to me as I didn't know the trees and was focused on something else (a typical problem encountered each quarter with a new ID class).

And then we finally got to the deciduous plants in my spring ID class.  But they weren't changing colors then, just leafing out.  And while it was great to learn the plants and see their blossoms, we didn't see them in their truly colorful stage.  So now that I know these plants, the world has opened to me, much like it has with every new thing I learn.  And of course, because it's education about my outside world, it literally means the world around me is opening up.  It's a very cool experience and one that I enjoy sharing if you couldn't tell from my posts throughout the year :)

So, I would like to point out a few of the plants that I have been walking by lately that have made a great impression on me...

First off... Euonymus alatus 'Compactus' or dwarf winged euonymus

Uh yeah, let's just look at that color.  This is not photo-shopped and, like all these other photos, is taken by my phone!  This plant can seem rather boring all other times of the year but in the fall, it stands out in this hot pink color.  And when I say hot pink, I mean it!  It is one of the more vivid fall colors out there.  This bush is just cool and although most of its leaves are gone, it's had quite a run!

Next we have Cornus kousa or the Kousa dogwood

Close-up of leaves

Kousa dogwood in front of a red maple

Although the Kousa dogwood is in the shade in front of the red maple in this picture, you can see from the picture of the leaves above it, it has a very rich coral color.  The leaves are also unique and it provides such a nice pop of color in this smaller-growing tree.  And of course, let's not ignore the red maple (Acer rubrum)... stunning as well.

And last but not least... the sugar maple (Acer saccharum)

Colors from beautiful gold to...

Hot oranges and corals

This tree has such a stunning array of colors!  It is best when the light catches it... so beautiful.  And now I put it all together... this is a dominant tree on the east coast and probably one of the reasons the fall colors there are so beautiful...

Conway, Massachusetts

I'm not sure if these trees are sugar maples, but this is the beautiful scenery that greeted us when we visited a friend going to school near this spot in 2010.  And, on a side note, it just so happens the same college is the top contender for my next scholastic school move... Conway School of Landscape Design.


But back to here... just a few more... here are the kids enjoying their afternoon stroll...

Milo in his new hoody

Fynn checkin out the scene

Happy fall everyone!


PS.  If you get a chance, go see a fabulous fall-themed show the Seattle Women's Chorus is presenting.  This weekend is the last weekend for Hallows in the Cathedral.  Truly a VERY cool show... I mean just look at the scenery...

So spooky!  Enjoy... we sure did!

To everything (turn turn turn), there is a season (turn turn turn)...

Ah let's set the stage... because I love me some music from the Forrest Gump soundtrack and we need a little background music, please...

It's definitely a new season... Fall, back to school and all that it brings with it.  This weekend I took a break in studying (read procrastinated on school work) and we went to a nearby pumpkin patch.  It was gorgeous weather and so much fun albeit we were the only people there without kids.

Doesn't that look like fun?  There were lots of activities and it was fun to get lost in all the pumpkins.  I was a little saddened by the fact that I didn't find too many imperfect pumpkins.  I always enjoy picking the "Charlie Brown"s of trees or pumpkins... the ones that aren't as attractive.  But alas, mostly perfection.  So I had to make up for it with some mini gourds, warts and all.

And here they are displayed proudly around our doorstep...

And I must say, even though it was unintended, they go very well with our hold-out flowers that grace the stoop...

Diggin the orange...

I always love the fall.  The chance to get back into things like squash and sweaters.  And drink fun drinks like pumpkin spice lattes.  On that note... I'm not one to plug a product but I must say, Starbuck's ad campaign this year for their version of the pumpkin spice latte is very funny... I'll even go so far as whitty.  This is my favorite commercial...

Oh my lord, too funny.  I just envision doing that myself... opening up the door in the morning and yelling "Pumpkin spice!"  Never gets old.

This quarter I have now embarked on the more serious horticulture classes: drafting, business management and weeds.  I am putting in the building blocks for grad school and will hopefully be heading that direction next year.  While I ponder the differences between Landscape Design and Landscape Architecture and how that will influence my future career, I would like to share a recent experience in my weeds class.  But first let's take a trip down memory lane.

In college I was a youth group leader at a local church which was so much fun.  Every fall we would take the kids on a rock climbing/camping weekend at Mt. Erie.  Each year I would be the good leader and let all the kids get up on the rock and I would support from below.  But in my final year, I decided to take the plunge.  Surprisingly, it wasn't that difficult.  Picture it...

http://www.summitpost.org/mount-erie/153999

I'm not sure what the name of the face we were climbing was called but it did look like this.  Anyway, when I got to the top, it was one of the coolest feelings... you truly felt like Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie Titanic where he says "I'm the king of the world!"

On a side note, heading to Mt. Erie (which you can drive up) is defintiely worth it as you have some of the most amazing views...

So, back to the current situation.  In my weeds class, we are supposed to bring in samples of weeds with ID cards we make.  Don't worry, there is a connection to these two stories.  Well I didn't know quite a few weeds in my yard so I took pictures and then asked my teacher.  She gave me hints to help me figure out what they could be.  While that was frustrating at first, it turned out to be a good thing.  With the clue, I was able to figure out what weeds I had which was so exciting, a true feeling of triumph!  It turns out I have wall lettuce and nipplewort growing in my backyard.  If you're worried, these are very common weeds in this area.  Anyway, it was a very exciting accomplishment indeed.

That's it for now, just thought it was time for an update.

New Lease on Life

On July 31, 2013, I started my day as usual around 7:30 AM, letting the dogs outside and then bringing them in to feed them.  Right after their breakfast, I noticed that Fynn's disposition was a little off - she didn't seem comfortable.  She wouldn't take her morning pill and looked uneasy... like she needed to go outside.  So I let her out and immediately noticed her tummy was slightly enlarged.  Normally, I keep her fairly lean.  Now some people may think she is underweight but due to her legs having problems, it is best to keep her that lean and it's actually healthier.  So it was really easy to spot that her tummy was slightly more round than usual.  I woke Shane up to get her opinion and she confirmed Fynn looked a bit odd and that I should call the vet.  Fifteen minutes later I was at the vet and Fynn's stomach had swollen to the size of a very large medicine ball.  My poor baby could barely walk and was crying out in pain.  And then the vet confirmed my worst fear... Fynn had bloat.

Now my family has had fila brasileiros for a while now and I am well aware of the health issues that plague not only this breed but all giant breeds, bloat being one of them.  That said though, I still never though this  could happen to my kid!  And when talking to my friends and extended family about her situation, I came to realize that most people are actually unaware of the risk of bloat.  So I write this partly to share Fynn's story but to also spread the word so that maybe more canine lives can be saved.

Bloat is a condition where the stomach distends with gas and fluid and then twists.  This traps the gas within the stomach preventing the dog from vomiting.  As the food within the stomach ferments, it creates more gas and eventually the stomach wall begins to die.  According to the vet, it looked like Fynn hadn't digested her last two meals.  And all of this happens VERY fast.  It took about half an hour from when I noticed her not being herself to me being at the vet with a very sick dog.  Bloat is very dangerous.

Dog with bloat

Bloat occurs mainly in large dogs with deep chests but can also occur in small dogs with deep chests like dachshunds.  Other symptoms besides the ones I already mentioned include pale gums and pacing.  It is extremely important to catch this early on.  Luckily, we did so with Fynn and not much tissue had died.  You  can read more about bloat here.

Right when I brought Fynn in, the vet techs rushed her in to get x-rays of her belly to see what they were dealing with.  They were unsure of the image results as there was so much gas in her belly so they intubated her to get a lot of the gas out, then re-did the x-rays and sure enough her stomach and spleen had twisted.  The vet then told me that there was a 70% chance of survival with this surgery.  That was a hard pill to swallow.  You see, once they un-twisted the organs, that would release a lot of toxins into the body and some dogs are unable to recover from that shock.  As usual, I asked the vet if she thought it was worth it and she said yes.  I felt that I owed it to my dear Fynn to at least try to save her.  This was all so sudden, I wasn't ready to let her go.  Even with such a big risk, I decided to move forward with the surgery.  It's a good thing I did... Fynn pulled through just fine.  She was very lucky though... lucky to have this happen when I was home and lucky that she was healthy enough to pull through such a difficult life-threatening situation.  You see, all the bloat cases I have ever heard of never ended this well.   I was truly amazed that she lived.

After the surgery, Fynn had to deal with a new set of problems.  I decided (on the vet's recommendation) that she should go to an overnight vet to be monitored as there were possible unseen issues that could occur.  That facility sent her home with a pain medication.  My personal vet had only prescribed an anti-inflammatory.  Not only that, but during the surgery, my vet had not emptied her stomach.  I'm assuming this was to be as minimally invasive as possible.  The overnight facility's indicator on whether a dog is well enough to go home is if they are able to eat.  So regardless of the records that were sent over by my vet showing this, they fed her and gave her pain medication that slowed her elimination.  None of these things helped the food that was still in her stomach to move through her system.  All of this was completely counterproductive (and really frustrating).  Finally, after two days of no solid waste, minimal food, no pain meds and walking, Fynn showed that her system was digesting and getting back to normal.  I was the happiest mama in the world! 

Now it has been a month and thankfully she is doing just fine.  While her hair is growing back very slowly, her energy level and appetite for not only food but life was practically back to normal the moment she left the hospital.  I have a pretty amazing and resilient dog!

Fynn in Neah Bay, 3 weeks post-surgery

My hope is that we can save more lives if we get the word out there.  I count my blessings every day with Fynn.  I don't believe that it was her time to go.  But every day she is here is a day that I almost didn't have so I am extremely thankful for the miracle that her existence is.  And to commemorate her new lease on life, I have started a mini-journal of her life... tweeting pictures.  You can follow me on either instagram or twitter and see all the pictures.

Thanks for reading.  Mama loves you, Fynn.

Blowin My Mind...

Holy shit!

There are times that things just slap you in the face and astound you and this would be one of them. This happens often to me with music.  Can you recall a place where you heard a song or had something musical happen that just made you speechless?  I have written about something similar before.  Speechless, in awe, floored... it all applies.

Let me first give a little background.  I was introduced sometime last year to one of my favorite choral composers Eric Whitacre's pet projects, the Virtual Choir.  This concept is the first of its kind.  He composes a piece of music, puts training materials online and has thousands of people submit videos singing to the same piece of music.  Together, all these people from all over the world create a collective vocal choir that is pieced together to create finished projects like this:

This would be Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir 3 singing his composition 'Water Night', one gorgeous piece.  So you can imagine my joy when I heard he was coming out with #4.  Unfortunately, due to a busy schedule, I was unable to sing but I learned about the process.  Here is a taste of how it started. You download the sheet music online as well as all sorts of tools to help you learn like videos of Eric conducting or audio of your parts or all parts to help you learn.  That combined with the forums and other tools on the website are a fabulous way to get comfortable with the process.  After practicing, you then record yourself and upload your video to the website to be a part of the choir!

 

So this is the audio that we started out with.  It seems pretty straight forward with a typical "choral" sound.  Well, this is the finished product:

Fly to Paradise - Virtual Choir 4 by Eric Whitacre

I AM SO AMAZED.  It's a different take for sure.  Luckily I like electronic music so I'm not as offended as some are.  Regardless, I love it.  It's a great song with ethereal haunting melodies and a great message.  I'm just so amazed with this production and had to share.


On another sad note, a friend of mine passed away on July 2nd.  This is Greg Carroll.

I met Greg in the music department at Western Washington University.  We studied music and sang together in choir for a few years.  He was one of the sweetest guys I know with the biggest heart.  Since that humble beginning, he has gone on to be a successful tenor in the opera scene with such an amazing voice.  He was only 35.  This is such a tragedy and it's heartbreaking.

So Greg, this song goes out to you as you fly away to paradise.  Your heart, beauty and spirit will forever be missed.

Oh Jimmy...

While I'm not a regular watcher of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, he so often does the funniest sketches.  I just had to share one I thought particularly amusing.

Epic.

Progress and Miracles...

So first off I'd like to share the progress that was made this weekend with our yard... very exciting things.  We worked quite a bit in our yard this weekend.  To preface this, let me tell you where we/I've been.  It all started this last winter when I took a soils class...


I found that our tiny yard is so polluted with animal waste that its phosphorous levels were astronomically high.  I happened to do my final project on this issue so that I could help to deduce what could be done to improve the health of our yard.  The dogs not only helped to eradicate grass in areas with their paw traffic but our naturally acidic soils combined with way-out-of-balance other chemical levels made a difficult condition for grass to grow to not only make the yard more attractive but to also help mitigate the phosphorous problem.

I must interject here, this whole issue produced a great book/research idea... it would make a lot of money if someone did the research and wrote a book to help the average lawn-caring dog owner better manage the pollution problems that come with animals.  That would have been handy for my report!

Anyway, aside from the yard-wide full-summer re-seeding plan, we also had some other beautification projects that were goals for the summer.  Let me just share some "lovely" photos of how our yard looked this winter.  Please be ever-abundant with grace... ;)

The "trashy" distant view would be the neighbor's yard, an unfortunate sight we have yet to overcome.

The view as you enter our yard.

So my lovely girl Fynn likes to look in our main window seen in the first picture to monitor where we are and if we're going to rescue her from being outside.  So pitiful.  That has caused a depressed area in the yard to become even more so with compaction.  This has turned into a semi-hydrophobic situation in the summer when the soil completely dries which is not ideal to say the least.  A long time ago I dreamed of putting down pavers to create a small patio.  So we got to work making the magic happen and here's the result...

Of course, it helps to have things growing in... I'm just sure Fynn loves her new platform.  And the hope is that this will reduce the mud tracked inside during the fall/winter rainy season.  The plan is to put mosses in between the pavers to help with erosion and beauty.  Next step after finalizing the mini-patio... re-seeding this sadness.

And can you believe my classmates suggested to just cover the whole back yard in mulch? Preposterous!

In other news...

When I first moved to Seattle seven years ago, I got an orchid that was used to brighten up my windowless office.  I've done such a wonderful job keeping the leaves growing this whole time but alas no buds graced my presence.  I had many people give me advice over the years.  I finally started a fairly regular 4x/year regimen of fertilization and low and behold it paid off!  Here she is in bud...

And voila, here she is in all her glory!

So proud.  Look what can happen with a little patience.

Growing Pains

My baby's getting old.

No longer this cute gangly puppy, my sweet girl is now considered a senior citizen in the extra large dog range at the ripe old age of eight years old.

One of the hardest things about being a young animal owner is taking care of your pets financially.  I'll admit it's not easy to stomach vet bills while you're trying to work and go to school at the same time.  And you take your dog in to be seen and know they need the care being offered but it's a hard pill to swallow when you hear the bottom line.

As Fynn gets older, that is the other hard thing to watch.  I realize I never had it so good as when she was three - fit and happy, agile and no real issues to speak of.  I think this hits closer to home having just experienced her mama Vida's death.  For a while now I have been looking at Fynn and getting really sad about where she is at with her health and age. She is not as stable anymore on her legs. She will sometimes fall when the floor is slippery.  It's sometimes hard for her to get up into the car on her own and her knee that she injured when she was younger bothers her more.  And like all filas that long to please their owners, even though she knows you're telling her to get up, it is difficult for her to do so and she gets so worried.  It is so hard to watch.

So I took her in today to get some care and come to realize she needs more care which will in turn cost more.  Of course I will give her that care and thanks to student loans I can.  Regardless of that, the blow financially followed by the blow of watching her age was really tough.  And then I heard this song come onto my ipod...

Aside from the lyrics referring to father and the cheesy video, Paul Simon puts it perfectly.  "As long as one and one is two, there could never be a mother who loves her daughter more than I love you."  And snap, it's all in perspective.  As the doctor said, she could live quite a few more years and I want to have her feeling as best she can so she can enjoy those years as much as she can.  And true enough, nothing matters when it comes to her.  I would do anything to care for her... she is just that important to me.  Thanks Paul, for not only making me cry but for the reminder.