Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Life in our little cottage in the country

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Pet Portraits & Mask Info

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I’m late posting these beauties to the blog as they came during the period in which I didn’t have a computer and I wanted to give them their own post. My longtime blogging friend, Grace, is a wonderful artist. She painted a beautiful picture of Scout a while back, which I have hanging over my desk.

Grace recently did portraits of all our dogs. She posted them on Instagram and soon, they were winging their way from Canada to my post office box. I was stunned when I opened the package – stunned not only by their beauty, but by their generous size. They are extraordinarily beautiful.

They made me cry.

Winston, our first baby, with his favorite ball.

Scout, pouncing, with a twinkle in her eye.

Sweet Riley. I believe he was looking up at me from the porch.

Aren’t they beautiful? I don’t know how Grace does it. There is such detail. I can ‘feel’ Riley’s coat, remember exactly how it felt under my fingers. The same with Winston and Scout.

Oh, how I miss them all.

Thank you, dear Grace, for these priceless remembrances of our babies. You’ve given us such joy. For more on Grace and her beautiful pet portraits, visit her on Instagram at this link.

One more thing for today. Don is overdue for his next visit to the eye doctor, partly because his original appointment was canceled as the doctor had a family emergency. He’s been trying to reschedule but there was no answer at the office. Well, that’s because there was someone in the office – patient or staff, I don’t know – who tested positive for COVID. The office is closed until the middle of this week. He received an update on their protocol from them today: Only medical grade masks because cloth masks do not work on this variant.

I thought I should pass this information on to all of you. We use cloth masks, sometimes double masking. But I just ordered some N95 masks because we’re not going to mess around with this virus.

And what is happening in Afghanistan is breaking my heart.

Stay safe.

Happy Sunday.

Day Two Hundred Seventy

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Boy, I had a bout of sadness this morning. I’d been thinking about Scoutie and Winston and Riley. Don and I were remembering how much Scoutie loved to be in on the opening of gifts and that Winston used sit in front of our San Diego fireplace staring at his stocking because he could smell the rubber/vinyl of the toys that were hidden inside. He’d sit there for an hour – staring.

Then I thought about my parents and brother and how much I missed them.

Sometimes it comes over you in a wave.

Last week, I was chatting with my favorite dealer Sydney, of Fox Run Antiques. (Source of the egg cup cubby, the vintage dollhouse in the kitchen, many butter pats and countless other things including putz sheep.) I asked her if she had any putz sheep this year and she said she did but she wasn’t going to display them because they’re fragile and people steal them. They are indeed fragile. But stealing? So sad.

She sent me some photos of them and I picked out two, which she dropped off at a local antique barn where she has a booth. I paid for them over the phone and on Friday morning, Don waited in the car while I ran into the shop, picked up the bag, said hello to the owner, and immediately ran out again. I haven’t been in an antique shop since March and oh, how I wanted to wander and look and pick up things – especially at Christmas time!

But I didn’t stay. Because that would be foolish. Sigh. Someday.

You know I love to rescue things and both of these sheep have some damage. They needed a home.

A petite putz sheep, with a little stain on the fleece, and the ubiquitous broken ears – that happens a lot with putz sheep. They can break quite easily. My friend Helga, who lives in Germany, actually repairs and replaces parts on her putz sheep. She has a large collection of them, including putz goats and black sheep!)

The other is now the tallest sheep in my collection.

He has a wonky back leg, his fleece is stained, his ears are broken, and the beautiful eye you see has worn away on the other side of his face.

Some of my sheep are in fairly pristine condition. Others are damaged and worn.

All are welcome.

I’ll try to take a panoramic photo of all of them on the mantel above my desk.

We have to do a bit of work outside today. I’m hanging our outdoor lights, we’re storing more things in the shed, and I have to empty a few more pots that now hold dead plants.

Stay safe.

Happy Tuesday.

Winston

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I went on Instagram this morning and discovered a post from Grace (@alightinglightly), the wonderful artist who painted a watercolor of our Scout.

I gasped.

This is our first baby, Winston. I don’t have many photos of him on the blog because he died not long after we moved from San Diego – a year or two – and I didn’t have a digital camera. In fact, this photo was taken in our home in San Diego. Winston had a big ball that he carried from room to room. I have several photos of him holding it in his mouth. It was his favorite thing. At the time I took this picture, he had jumped up on the sofa (the same one we now have in the den). His front legs were on a big throw pillow and he was holding his beloved ball.

When we moved into our rental house in San Diego, we knew we wanted to get a dog. Once Don fixed a gap in the fence, we went to the San Diego Humane Society. Winston was the first dog we saw. He was 18 months old and was trembling in his cage. His owners gave him up because of ‘allergies.’ I can only imagine how bewildered he was and how frightened. We kept going and looked at lots of other dogs, but we kept going back to Winston. We couldn’t bear the fact that he was so scared. So we asked if we could have some time with him. We talked to him and petted him and played with him. Meanwhile, I put my handbag on the ground. Shortly thereafter, I saw Winston lift his leg and pee into my bag. I was stunned at first, and then I started laughing.

I quickly realized he was marking us. We made arrangements to adopt him. Before we could take him home, he would have to have a couple of shots and a fecal sample sent to the lab. We waited two days. According the the SDHS, he wouldn’t poop. We were so anxious to get him home with us that we said we’d take him home sans fecal sample. After we picked him up and parked the car in the garage, we brought him into our back yard. He promptly pooped.

See? He was marking us and our yard. He was home.

We loved him like crazy. He loved to run. We took him to the dog park and to Dog Beach. He loved the water. He was affectionate and sweet. He was so dear.

Eventually, after a few years, we realized he needed a pal and we adopted Scout. When it came time to move East, I drove our CR-V across the country with the dogs riding shotgun. The first night in our rental cottage, we took the dogs outside and let them off leash. They ran and ran while the light from fireflies flickered throughout the yard. It was magical.

A couple of years later, Winston jumped off the sofa and cried out in pain. His tail went down and stayed down. We took him to the Vet, where it was discovered that he had a tumor on his heart. The outlook was dire. They could keep him alive for maybe six months if they drained the fluid periodically. We were all set to do that because we weren’t ready to say goodbye. But he quickly declined over the weekend. We took turns sleeping downstairs with him. As soon as we could get him into the vets that Monday, we did. They had him on the highest dose of painkillers and he was still in pain. We knew it was time to say goodbye. All this happened over about 5 days.

He was only 8 years old.

On the day we said goodbye to him, we came back home to Scout. She was lying on the floor by the sofa. She didn’t get up. She just looked at us with her wise and sad eyes.

She knew.

All these years later, I cry when I write this remembrance. He was our first baby and he was taken from us much too soon.

Shanna did a portrait of Winston with his ball, also. A different photo, a different position. I also have a photo of him somewhere, standing on our porch, ball in his mouth. He loved Scoutie. She loved him.

Thank you, Grace. Our hearts are full this morning.

Happy Wednesday.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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