Back To Normal

Today we finish the two-week course of antibiotics we've been giving our 5-year-old golden retriever for a tick-borne disease. We sort of knew she wasn't feeling well. She'd been a little lethargic, and had some off-and-on joint pain that didn't seem to be related to activity. Then, she had the seizures, and we headed for the vet.

The diagnosis was anaplasmosis. While she gets an annual Lyme's vaccine and monthly tick prevention medication, these weren't effective against anaplasmosis. But the antibiotics the vet gave us were.

She seems to be back to her old self. Thank goodness, no more seizures.

While there's snow on the ground now, Bill and I are thinking ahead to the new year and the next tick season. This $300 vet bill caught us by surprise, especially since we thought we had been taking reasonable precautions against tick-borne illness. But this dog has a thick coat that makes it hard to find and remove ticks.

We usually have her coat cut very short once in the spring because of ticks and once in the fall because of burrs. I think we'll budget for an extra midsummer cut next year.

Building The Pile

Welcome to Compost & Creativity. I’m Donna Kallner, a fiber artist from rural northern Wisconsin. For most of our lives, my husband and I have been self-employed. We’ve had lots of practice at coming up with creative solutions to challenges faced while trying to make art and make do. And in trying to make a difference in the world, we’ve learned that even small things can yield big results.

Everywhere we turn, we meet wonderful people who are also trying to make do and make a difference. This blog is a place to share ideas. Thanks for coming by and joining in.

I’ll be posting once or twice a week about topics related to living well but simply – things like vegetable gardening, composting, food preservation, bread making, growing and gathering craft materials, homebrew, winemaking, low-cost low-impact recreation, pets, housekeeping, clothing, craftivism, community, volunteering, vehicles, books and blogs. I’ll post occasional creativity exercises, DIY gift making tutorials, and PDF resources that make it easier to get volunteer jobs done in your local community.

To stay up-to-date with what’s happening at Compost And Creativity, subscribe to this blog, using the button in the sidebar.

Building a blog is a lot like building a compost pile: It can be done with little thought to the ingredients and left on its own, and still produce results – eventually. But the results will be better and we’ll have something rich and fertile sooner with a healthy mix of elements added to the pile.

Here, the key to the mix is you. I hope you’ll share your ideas and experiences. Join the conversation related to a post by clicking the Comments button at the bottom of it.

Want to write a guest post for Compost and Creativity? Send me your ideas at donnastitches[at]gmail.com.