Adventures In Homesteading (Day 39)

Hello Everyone!

The death defying walk, Gulch jumping, My boy dog got surgery, A kind stranger turned friend & The new cellular repeater rocks!

Alright I am running about twenty minutes behind with my new writing routine schedule... but for all intents and purposes... I think that it is close enough that I can say that... I am on time! After the day that I have had (which deserves its own novel) it is incredible that I am not fast asleep already... dreaming my little dreams.

It is difficult to know where to start... but I awoke at around two fifty-five in the morning... decided that four hours and fifty-five minutes of sleep was not enough for the day I had ahead... and zonked back out for another hour or so. I am unsure exactly what time that I awoke again after that... but I think that it was close to four-thirty.

Once I was up I immediately got all the dogs outside to use the bathroom... before setting about brewing up the strongest espresso that I could... and trimming down a black locust limb into a walking stick to use on my journey to fend off dogs if need be. I also packed a backpack with a half gallon of water, a flashlight, a poncho, a small amount of smoking fixings, a phone charger... and one giant heavy mil trash bag just in case it started raining and I needed to protect everything in the back pack itself.

With my kit all prepared and the other dogs put in their crates with an abundance of water... I leashed my boy dog, threw on the backpack, grabbed my walking stick... and began walking by four fifty-five. I know that I said that I was going to carry him... but it had rained during the night... and the big sheet that I was going to use as a sling was soaking wet and I did not want it rubbing up against his wound.

After getting off the property and hitting the road I quit using the flashlight... but in hindsight it might have been a wee bit safer if I had kept using it. The thing is though that my hands were quite full between the leash and the walking stick... and although I could have used a headlamp the only ones that I have at the moment have USB cords... and I did not want to fiddle with them nor make things more complicated than they already were.

As I was explaining in yesterday's entry the roads that I had to travel on are super dodgy... even in broad daylight... and let me tell you it was frigging dark out without even the moon to help illuminate our path. When the first car zoomed by us speeding... and driving in the wrong lane to boot... I leapt into the gulch/ditch on the side of the road with sheer abandon... and yup I let out quite the loud 'God Damn!' in the process... but was thinking: Okay, it was just one car doing that everything will be alright!

Little did I know that every vehicle (mostly big trucks) would do pretty much the exact same thing... and yup they were all driving at nearly twice the speed limit... and treating the road like it was their very own personal racetrack. Given the lack of a shoulder to the road I was even walking in the opposite lane and would switch lanes when I saw headlights coming... or heard the distant roar of an engine approaching.

Admittedly, I am getting on in my years and not quite as spry as I used to be... but it is really amazing what adrenaline will do for the body! Out of the dozen or maybe two dozen times that I leapt off the road into the overgrown brush of one gulch or another... there was only once where a vehicle came within a meter of hitting us and I swear they swerved towards us at the last moment as if trying to hit us.

In other words, it was one hell of a harrowing walk... and there were even spots where the guardrails made it so that I had to risk walking on the road without the 'comfort' of knowing that I could leap out of the way. There were also dogs all along my route... and I am so glad that my boy dog is very responsive to the command that I give him to ignore other critters... and keep walking along as if they do not even exist!

I am sure that I looked shady as hell walking along with my backpack, the dog and walking stick at that early hour. Plus there was the fact that I kept 'hiding my face' by tilting my head down (so the brim of my hat would keep the headlights out of my eyes in order to not lose my night vision) which yeah made it a true wonder that no one called the law on me for 'suspicious activity' during the predawn hours.

The walk should have taken roughly two hours... but I was not just walking at a leisurely stroll by any means... and was power walking to try to avoid as much commuter traffic as possible. In the end I shaved a good fifteen minutes off the walk by doing it that way... and let me tell you every minute spent on those roads felt like a dang eternity.

For the dog's part he did fantastic and by the time we were halfway there he even figured out that when headlights were coming... it was time to get the heck off the road with his daddy as fast as possible. I felt kind of bad about doing that sort of 'forced march' with him... but at no point did he show any signs of distress along the way other than the same sort of distress I felt as we leaped into one overgrown, snakey, tick infested thicket after another.

Since I did not have an appointment at the vet and they were going to 'squeeze him in' I was really amazed that once they learned of my walk (and knowing that I had to make a return trip in the same manner) that they prioritized seeing him, working out what the bill would be... and then doing the surgery in short order so that I could avoid the hottest part of the day. Thank all things wonderful, magical and divine that the supporter that I mentioned yesterday made it a priority to be available today to help if I needed more funds... because otherwise I would not have had enough to cover it all.

I am unsure if I have time to really spell everything out because the hour is growing late... and a storm is blowing in... but in short my boy dog got fourteen staples (if my count was right) and although he looked really good in all other regards... I did get some sad news as well. Please understand that I was already suspicious that he might have testicular cancer (so the blow was not that heavy) but the veterinarian (there were two that worked on him actually) basically confirmed it.

Being that he is twelve years old there is a good chance that he will die of old age before the cancer can spread... or become life threatening... and the only thing to really do at this point is to remove his nuts. Needless to say I will do more research on it all... and probably consult the veterinarian more over it... but I have a strong inclination to let the old fella keep his balls and age with dignity.

Anyways, on the trip home I was having a heck of a time walking with him... because he had/has a big transparent plastic cone around his head... and he kept trying to sniff things and it would get hung up on stuff. I had just resigned myself that the walk back was going to be a very long one... full of lots of stop and go... when a vehicle pulled up behind us and a voice said something along the lines of: Would you like a ride?

The moment that I looked up and saw a nice person that I had met at the veterinarian office (and not some random person) I almost cried... and had to physically check myself to stop doing so before answering in the affirmative. Having that two hour or more harrowing return trip... turn into a five minute ride of pleasant conversation where I made a new friend was so amazing... that I still have yet to process it all or how it made me feel.

One last thing worth noting before I wind this entry down... is that my new cellular repeater came and since it has already been put on chain by the person that helped me get it... Thank You So Much @Wesphilbin and you should know that the one I got in the mail... was a full one... and not just the amplifier and power cord! In other words it came with both the external and internal antennas... all the mounting hardware... plus the coaxial cable! It also works wonderfully and I already have it setup and operational!

Well, I have to wrap this up... because daylight is fading fast... and I have to bust a move if I am going to get this all edited and posted with enough time left to do my late day chores and feed the critters. I hope that everyone is doing well. Ta ta for now.