In memoriam

I had to have Piglet, my handicapable Welsh Corgi, put to sleep this morning.

We had a scare in March, and I thought I'd lose him then. But he perked back up again. However, he's been sleeping and dozing more and more. He had a last good weekend while I was at the Charleston show, with Dogmaw's dogs, Ammie and Dozer. But by Saturday there was no way I could sit him that he wasn't inflaming a pressure sore, and he had picked up the worst case of maggots I had ever seen (and I've dealt with them before). The maggots just blossomed on Saturday, and I alternated between picking maggots and thinking about my syllabus. This had happened last year too, and I kept him dry--once the maggots are picked off (yes, ewwww!)he's fine, and they do debride any infected wounds. I planned to call the vet on Monday and get some antibiotics, and all would be well.

But the maggots kept multiplying; the two times he had them before I could remove them all in a few sessions with the clippers and haemostats. By Sunday afternoon they had moved into healthy skin, and started digging, and Piglet stopped being able to sit up on his own--I think he had a small stroke, for he just rolled over, always on the right side (that leg had been weak for a while). There were just too many problems, all at once, and he was no longer a happy dog.

So it was well time.

So he's back with his momma Eilonwy and sister Arrow in the corgipack, and he's running around with my mother and herding all of our past cats and anything else he can see.

The house seems very empty and VERY quiet.

Weeding violets

Violets are beautiful flowers, delicate yet colorful. My yard is a carpet of wild violet, which I think would send many gardeners into a fit of hysteria. Generally I just mow them; they stand in nicely for grass and are highly drought tolerant, important right now when despite our recent rains we are still at a level-four drought.

In my woodland flower bed, however, I do not want violets.

When I first planned the bed, I read about a foolproof method for suppressing weeds--a thick layer of newspaper covered with compost or pine straw. I duly hied myself to the Farmers' Market and its industrial bins of newspaper recycling, and came home with arm-loads of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. (They have fewer glossy inserts and a higher print-to-colored-ad ratio.) I spread my paper, and covered it with pine straw, and happily, blissfully waited out the winter. Such winter as we have in Atlanta. However ... I had used too thin a layer of newspaper; while the paper was suppressing many of the weeds, it was no match for the powerful invasive, determined wild violet.

The area where that bed is had been hard-packed clay under a garden shed, judging by the soil and the concrete-lined post holes. That means that violets are almost impossible to pull out unless the ground has been soaked. It rained last night, so this afternoon I armed myself with a trowel and some buckets and tackled the bed. I got about third of the thickest nest of violets out, but still have a lot to dig. Oh, well. It is good fun; I had Piglet out in the yard with me, and I sang silly versions of folk songs to him (What will we do with a barking Piglet erlai in the morning? Yes I should have laid more paper, yes I should have weeded sooner, DANG, I should have laid more paper erlai in the springtime ... ) At least it was until my back complained. I would never have made it as a farmer.

Meanwhile, I just listed some purple floral doughnut beads on ETSY, in honor of the violets. Yes, the violets are in a sack, so they cannot root anywhere else, bless their nasty little plant hearts.