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| This was the sign in front of the research farm at Kanawha with Solo and Lady posing beside it. They were quite the 'hosts' for any guests we had there. |
We had a lot of flowers around the farm, and here are a couple of photos with the dogs and the flowers. Such pretty things, all of them.
Sometimes, I could even get David to pose... Yes, that is a rose behind his ear...Silly man!
I could let the dogs out onto the porch on sunny days, and they would just lie there in the sun, and would normally not leave the porch. (One time, though, a wild rabbit was discovered in a nest she had made in our discarded pine Christmas wreath I had pitched under the porch after the holidays. Solo had found the nest, unfortunately, and since she had not been raised during our 4-H rabbit times, she didn't realize that the bunnies were not 'food.' I looked out to see if the dogs were still on the porch, and they were not. Solo had picked up one baby bunny and had eaten its upper half before I realized what was happening. Lady had also picked up a baby, but she had carried it out a bit farther in the yard, and was just laying there, looking at it. When I went over to her, she gently picked it up in her mouth, until I told her to 'drop it.' I put the little baby back into the nest beneath the porch with the other little bunnies still there, and put up a blockade to protect the nest. The dogs were told 'No!' and were taken inside the house. For several days afterward, we didn't let the dogs out the front door, and eventually the bunnies were gone from the nest. I was relieved to find that the mother must have returned, and kept feeding them for the few days until they were big enough to be out in the world. David could not quite understand why I was interested in protecting baby rabbits. To him, they are just a rodent that likes to eat in his garden! But, the 'mother' instinct in both me and in Lady kicked in, and we didn't want to harm them. Solo never attacked another rabbit that I know of...she was normally a very well-behaved dog.
Unfortunately, one time when we had been gone on vacation for a week, and had hired a neighbor to feed Alitza's rabbits in their cage (which was on legs, but had wire mesh on the bottom). A dog from town came out and found the cage, and the bunny Alitza had at that time got it's feet chewed off by that dog, and when we came home, we found her dead in the blood-spattered cage. The dog's owner did come out and apologized for the dog's behavior, but I was not happy at all. And, Alitza was crushed. Just one more reason for people to keep their dogs under close watch any time they go outside.
We took a vacation in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan, and in the photo on the left, the dogs are enjoying attention from a little girl who was staying at one of the motels where we stayed. In the photo on the right, the dogs are enjoying a walk along the beach at Au Train Bay on Lake Superior with David. The water was frigid, even in August, so swimming was not a long-time activity!
Here are Solo and Lady enjoying the beach. Notice that we kept them on leashes when we were in areas they were not used to...but in this shot, even though neither of us is holding the leashes, the dogs think they are supposed to stay where they are...
One Mother's Day, we met Dave (my youngest son) and his wife Carol at Beed's Lake near Hampton, Iowa for a camp-out. The dogs both slept with us in our tent, and they enjoyed roaming around our campsite, but we kept them both on leashes. Even the best-trained dogs can forget their training when excitement occurs. A chipmunk, or other creature, would send them off chasing after it, and they could easily get lost. We just didn't risk that...
One fall, we met Dave and Carol at McIntosh Woods Park near Clear Lake, Iowa for another camp-out. In the photo above, Carol is cooking for one of our meals, and Dave is assisting. The dogs liked hanging out near where the food was being prepared, even if they never got to eat scraps from our table.
During our time in Kanawha, I worked about 15 years as secretary for the Lutheran church there. In the photo above, the wife of one of the ministers I worked for is standing with me and the dogs as David looks on. We were at Lake Catherine in Thorpe Park near Forest City, Iowa for a walk and a picnic supper with Pastor Lee and Lorraine. We had so many good times with our dogs and friends...
In this photo, the two dogs are posed in front of our back door, and then I took that photo and cut out just the dogs to use as accents with this photo. It was Christmas time, and the dogs were sure pretty additional decorations for our house!
In this photo, Lady and Solo are standing with David in front of one of the huge snow sculptures at the St. Paul, MN Winter Carnival. We ventured to go up there, even with snow and ice a possibility on the road, and we had a very good time.
In August of 2001, I took my elderly friends, Louise and Marcus Hoelscher, to spend a couple of days at the cabins in northern Minnesota. In the photo above, we were spending some time at Itaska State Park, and this shows Louise, Marcus and the dogs posed near the marker for the Headwaters of the Mississippi River at Itaska. Little did I know at that time, this would be Solo's last trip to Minnesota...
Here is one of my favorite shots of Solo as she basked in the sun on the front porch of the farm house in Kanawha. I had a special bond with this dog, since I assisted in the breeding to get her, and also helped deliver her when she was born. She was 'my dog.'
In October of 2001, we had a nice picnic at Crystal Lake north of Kanawha. Here are the dogs, enjoying the sunshine by the lake on that nice afternoon. It was to be our last picnic together...
The photo above is the last photo I took of my beloved Solo. We had entertained David's mother for Thanksgiving in late November of 2001. She had gone back home on Sunday after Thanksgiving, and Monday morning I was pretty tired, but still had to get up to go to work. I was taking my time arising, and I heard the phone ring. David had let both dogs outside to do their morning 'business,' and our neighbor across the road (the research farm is located on a county road that goes right through the town of Kanawha) had been out on their usual morning walk, and noticed what they were pretty sure was our dog lying in the ditch near the road. David went out to look, and it was my beautiful Solo. She was dead. At first we thought she had been hit by a truck going into town, but she had only one tiny spot of blood on her head, and no other signs of injury. I could not go out there, so David picked her up, carried her to the back yard by the garden, and dug a hole to put her in. After he was finished, he came back to the house. I needed to be at work at the newspaper, so I ate my breakfast and got ready, and went to my job. Needless to say, I was in a state of shock, and even though I was able to type, I was not able to carry on conversations. My boss was totally understanding, and explained my quandry to any customers who came in and wanted to speak with me. I made it through the day, but it was one of the saddest days of my life. I talked to the gal who lived next door to the farm at that time, and she said not to be so sure that Solo had been hit by a truck. She had seen an enormous owl flying around in the mornings when she got up to go to work at the local Pronto convenience store, and she thought it was big enough to be able to at least pick up a dog the size of Solo. With the tiny spot of blood on her skull, I think that may be the explanation of her death. It would be sudden, and since the dogs literally 'never' went out near the road, it seems to me to be the only way to explain how she got out in the ditch. I was shattered by her death, but we still had Lady, and life goes on...in spite of our sorrow.
After awhile, I decided to make scrapbooks of my dogs, and starting attending gatherings of the Creative Memories scrapbook group at the community room in the City Hall building. It was a good way for me to work through my grief, and to make a permanent way to remember her, and later Lady as well. The photos I've entered in my blog these past two days are from those scrapbooks, in the most part. Each dog has her own book - one is white (for Solo, our too-much white dog) and one is black for Lady who was so very black on most of her body. I put sayings by various writers inside each book to commemorate our beautiful and loving dogs, and I will post some of those here, and some later as I tell more about our lives with Lady as we carried on after the loss of Solo. Each book has the dog's plaid collar with its tags buckled around the spine 'sleeve' of their own book. It has been a great way to remember these fine animals, and started me on my 'scrapbooking adventures,' which are still going on...
"A dog has the soul of a philosopher." ~ Plato
"Dogs watch for us faithfully." ~ Cicero
"You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us." ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
"I think God will have prepared everything for our perfect happiness in heaven. If it takes my dog being there, I believe he'll be there." ~ Billy Graham
Stay tuned...more to come!
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