A Sad Story

It’s been rather a traumatic weekend. On Friday evening, Mick found a small dog at the side of the road, she looked like she had been involved in an accident with a car. She had a badly broken leg, and was in very bad shape. She had obviously been abandoned by her owner, and looked like she had been living rough for several weeks. The weather here has been really cold, and nighttime temperatures have been below freezing most of the time, so she must have had a pretty miserable time of it.

I really do not understand the mentality of people who can treat their animals like this. I know what I’d like to do to them, but it can’t be published on this page.

Mick took her to our local vet, who said the accident had probably occurred a couple of weeks before, as her leg was broken in two places and infected. He said he would need to x-ray it to make sure, but he thought the only option was to amputate her leg. The vet kept her overnight, and said he’d call the following morning and let us know the verdict.

Mick and I talked about it that night. Not only was the cost of the dog’s treatment prohibitive to our keeping her, but we have three cats who would never tolerate a dog in the house. It upset us both terribly, but we knew we had no choice but to tell the vet to put her to sleep. It was a horrible decision to make, and it’s haunted us both. We can only console ourselves with the thought that, had Mick left her where she was she would have died anyway, and it would have been a miserable death for her.

The only good thing to come out of the whole incident was, I found out that our vet was delighted with the story I wrote about him and his experiences on the Iditarod. Unfortunately, I can’t post a link to the story, as I said I would, because it isn’t in the on-line magazine. It will, however, eventually appear in the archive, so I’ll post a link then.

Oklahoma Writer’s Federation, Annual Writing Contest

I did make a New Year’s resolution to post something on this blog every week. But then, I also made New Year’s resolutions to quit, abstain from, and generally cut down on my bad habits, and I haven’t done any of those things either. Oh hum.

Truth is I’ve been totally swamped with work preparing my entries for the Oklahoma Writer’s Federation annual writing contest. Admitedly, most of the work was already done, though some pieces needed editing and revising. Then I made the mistake of deciding to enter a category that needed a lot of work.

I’ve been tinkering around with an idea for a nonfiction book for some time now, and have even written a few chapters, but the thing takes a lot of research, and other projects kept getting in the way. Well, that’s my excuse, I guess there was also an element of procrastination involved, isn’t there always?

Anyway, I had a sudden rush of blood to the head and decided to submit the thing ― you notice how it’s become “the thing?” ― to the nonfiction book category of the contest. This involved writing a chapter outline and submitting sample chapters, and as I had only written about seven chapters thus far, the scale of the project was monumental. I had to spend every available moment on the computer, and my husband, Mick, got lumbered with making dinner, grocery shopping, and several other chores for a week. I don’t know what I’d do without him.

To cut a long story short, I just got it done in time for the deadline, then I had to walk round to the post office in a blizzard to get the thing in the mail. I know it doesn’t stand a snowball in hell’s chance of winning, as I had no time to revise or edit, but hopefully I’ll get some feedback from the judge about my idea.

Right now, I never want to see the bloody thing again, but give it a few weeks...

Photo: A dog team crossing the frozen Yukon River

The Iditarod

Well, that’s Christmas and New Year out of the way. I did manage to have a pretty good time, despite coming down with a severe cold on Christmas Eve, which lasted all through New Year, and still has not yet released its hold on me. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t been around here for a while, that and all the usual craziness at this time of year. Anyway, it’s 2008 and time to get back to work, but not before I wish everyone a Happy and Peaceful New Year.

Earlier in December Mick and I helped Santa’s Old Broads at their wrapping party. We, and several other volunteers, wrapped Christmas presents for 120 disadvantaged kids. Judging by all the gifts, those kids must have had a great Christmas. And all that practice made wrapping our own presents a cinch this year.

We are still clearing up the devastation in our garden from the ice storms, and will be for a long time yet. Temperatures right now are all over the place. On January 2, we had a high of 32º F and a low of 12º F. Yesterday, we had a high of 71º F and a low of 52º F. But that’s Oklahoma for you, if you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.

I’ve just completed another assignment for Oklahoma Living Magazine. This one was about our local veterinarian, who has volunteered his services on four occasions, to care for the sled dogs on the Iditarod. For anyone who hasn’t heard of the Iditarod, it’s the Wimbledon of dog sled racing, and takes place in Alaska every year, starting on the first Saturday in March. The Iditarod Trail covers 1150 miles between Anchorage and Nome. For more information on the race visit:

http://www.iditarod.com/

For anyone interested in finding out more about the role of veterinarians on the Iditarod, I’ll post a link to my article on this page, after it’s published in February.

Ta ta for now.

Some of the destruction that greeted us on Monday morning. The first is my dogwood tree. The second a persimmon tree threatening to fall. The third is the willow, and the fourth the remains of my neighbour's cottonwood tree, together with leaning electric pole.

More ice storm photos from Sunday. Believe it or not the flowers on the left were crysanthemums.

Ice Storm photos taken on Sunday, December 9, 2007. Above is the dogwood before it split in two.

Oklahoma Ice Storms

On Monday, December 10, a state of emergency was declared for the whole of Oklahoma following the weekend ice storms. Once again, as in January of this year, the air was rent with snapping tree limbs, the sounds echoing round like sniper fire.

My garden looks like a wasteland, it's truly a heart-breaking sight. A tiny flowering dogwood, the prettiest tree in my yard, with its beautiful white blooms in spring, and its blaze of red leaves in the fall, was split in half. A red bud tree has fallen down. And many other trees have lost limbs, oaks, maples, and two peach trees. Only the willow managed to bend his back and survive the chaos and destruction around him.

I’ve lost trees, others have lost much more. Fifteen Oklahomans have lost their lives, and our hearts go out to their families and loved ones.

We all live at the mercy of the elements, and sometimes Mother Nature is a cruel mistress. And Oklahoma seems to have suffered much at her hands this year: ice and snow storms in the winter, flooding and tornadoes in the spring, sweltering heat and humidity in the summer, and now back to ice and snow.

Along with over half a million other homes in Oklahoma, we lost power. Throughout two bitterly cold nights and one whole day we had no electricity. Although the power did return briefly last night, by the time Mick and I had finished cheering, it was off again. This morning, around 9am, the lights came on, and are still on as I type this. Others are not so lucky, and can expect to be without power for a week or more, and with snow and below freezing temperatures forecast for this weekend, the outlook is pretty grim, and does not bode well for the festive season.