Yeah,eh,eh ... they're all growing old

Just like Shirl from Sky Hooks, all my friends are growing old. Our youngest pet is a cat who's now eight years old. The most elderly is Diablo, my horse, who just turned twenty. When you have pets you have such companionship, love and joy from them; but also heartache and heartbreak. Jethro, my 11yo Rottweiler, was recently very sick & I was soooo scared. I really thought he was going to die or that I would have to have him euthanised. He started looking sick on Friday, 2 weeks ago. He was straining to pee and there was blood in his urine. By Saturday afternoon I knew he was very sick & rang the vet. We made an appointment for Jethro on Sunday morning, but this posed a real problem. Jethro is highly guard trained and he takes his job seriously. I was concerned about safety, as Jethro will only allow 4 people near him - let alone touch him! The vet gave me some ACP (a horse tranquiliser) to give him before I took him in. It bombed him out & he got happily into the back seat of the car. He only reacted once - a deep, deep growl - when the vet was checking the dog's prostate! The examination proved non-specific, but the vet thought he probably had a massive kidney/UTI and that he was trying to excrete kidney stones. We took some blood, he gave me antibiotics and anti-inflammatory meds and we came back home. It took Jethro 14 hours to recover from that horse tranquilliser and we had to do it all again in 3 days time. The blood tests showed the expected high white cell count, but also that he was not making red cells as quickly as expected. After the second visit to the vet and another dose of sedative, with a long recovery time, it was decided that the stones were gone and Jethro was expected to get better - but probably slowly. He is now doing really well. No more blood, no more discomfort & I am so relieved to know he will be with me for a while longer. He is the 9th Rottie I have had since I got my first one in 1973 ... and he's the best one. I know his time with me is limited and I intend to spend every second with him that I possibly can. He's now spending all day with me - inside & out - and he sleeps beside my bed at night.

Dance With Me Butterfly!

This set took a-g-e-s to complete, but it's now gone to its new home.

I was a bit concerned that the shrug may be a little small, but I will replace it for the winning bidder if it is :)

Still have enough of the pink yarn to make another one!

eta: it was too small so the replacement one has been sent to the winning bidder, as promised.

Bunny Versa set

Also sold through our Woolly Butts store for the Kate Buntine Foundation charity, was this Versa Vest set.

The set consists of the vest, soaker, shorties, an itti bitti MCN & itti bitti wipes.

It was excellent value and the new owner is well pleased with it :)

Bunny Shorties

The October auctions for the Kate Buntine Foundation raised $668.42

The shorties in the pic were part of the Versa Vest set.

Thanks to everyone who took part.

Kate Buntine Foundation (JDRF)

The August/September round of fund raising auctions through our Woolly Butts store: http://www.wahmnaps.com/store.php?SS=46

was very successful. Over $4,000 was raised. The Versa Vest will form part of an MCN set which will be offered during the coming weeks. There are a couple of other things I am still working on; and Natalya also has some items to finish off. I'll add a link and the date when these things are Previewing. This vest is hand knitted using beautifully soft Worsted (10ply) Bellingen yarn which was dyed by Jen, who donated it to our Kate Buntine charity auctions. The vest is not yet finished, but thought I'd put up a sneaky peek!

aaaannnnnnnnnd ~ back to knitting

I searched every yarn website/store for the perfect red to make Celia Ng's shawl pattern "Salsa Roja". I even bought some Wollmeise! However, I decided on Madtosh Sock in 'Tart' colourway (well it did HAVE to be red! didn't it??! with a name like that?) ... but couldn't find it instock anywhere. So, I put out an SOS/ISO on Ravelry and Jenelle came to my rescue. mwah! mwah! It's an easy pattern. I love it & have already worn it heaps.

Monkey Rabbit

Being an absolute animal freak since I was a child, I have always had pets of almost every variety there is. One of the things I used to do quite frequently during the breeding season was to stop the car and get out to check the pouches of any possums I saw lying on the road to see if there were any babies in there. I had successfully reared several and so had some experience at doing this, especially from mums who'd been shot by overzealous farmers. This particular morning, I was on my way to the school where I worked as a teacher, when I saw a freshly killed possum obviously hit by a car as she had tried to cross the road. As usual, I got out to check the pouch and there was a minute baby so young that it had barely any fur and, as I'd never had success with one so young, I didn't think its chances of survival would be too high. However, I decided to try anyway and took it – “it” turned out to be “he” – home with me. He was very cold and wouldn't attempt to suck at the formula I offered. (Young possums attach themselves to a nipple in the pouch the way kangaroos do and I had detached him from his dead mother's nipple). I put him into my bed wrapped in a woolly jumper with the electric blanket on, in the hope that he would warm up and so decide to suckle. Not so!! I was desperate, when I had an idea. I owned a red and white Manx cat named Monkey Rabbit, who had just weaned a litter of kittens and still had some milk. We all know what great mothers cats are and so I decided to give the idea a try. I put the possum into the kittening box with Monkey and, to my amazement, she started to purr immediately. After a bit of coaxing, the possum found a nipple and started to suckle!!!! Monkey licked him all over and stayed in the box with him for some time, then decided to leave him to sleep. However, he had very different ideas. Possums cling to their mothers' backs and this was to prove no exception. It was the funniest thing to see Monkey trying to rid herself of this "thing" which had attached itself to her and would not let go. In the end, she gave up and the baby possum was permitted to ride around on her stomach, hanging on for dear life with his tiny "paws". This story had a happy ending as, thanks to Monkey Rabbit, a very helpful vet and an excellent milk substitute, the possum grew into an adult who became known as Sugarmagundi. He became a bit of a nuisance as he grew, because he believed he belonged inside with his "mother" and she believed that he belonged outside in the trees with the other possums. Sugar was very tame and no matter what we did to try to make the house possum proof he always found a way inside to curl up with Monkey, even when she had other litters. Eventually, he discovered that lady possums were far more interesting than his "mother" and he found a mate to live happily ever after with.He always came to visit around dusk each night to say hello and to get his piece of bread and sugar - hence his name. He loved to lie in wait after dark and, hanging from a low branch by his tail, would grab the hair of anyone who passed by beneath him. This was quite a scary thing when you weren’t expecting to be swiped by his sharp claws. He got my mother-in-law on a number of occasions! Sugar’s nocturnal visits into the house eventually stopped but he continued to hang from the trees to play his practical joke on any friends or family who were foolish enough to visit after dark.