Friday night we almost lost our dog. We’ve had a little forty-pound Beagle mix for nine years. We seriously got our dog off Craigslist from a guy who said he was going to Afghanistan. We hadn’t had a dog in 14 years. We had a big, hairy 85 lb. Golden Retriever when the kids were small, and I missed him but enjoyed not having to clean up after him all the time. My husband who grew up in the country with dogs had to have another and we adopted Athena.
She has been a joy. She came into a house of old people at five months old and fit right in. She is the queen, no other animals to share with, and she just lays around under the air conditioner. The three of us go for walks when the weather is nice and then return to the artificially cool house. She loves to lay belly up under a ceiling fan.
We’d bathed her and given her the flea and tick treatment on her neck along with a heart-worm prevention pill like we do every month. We’d taken a long walk that morning and all came in hot and ready for some cool air. Hours later she was sick. She barely moved off her bed. I checked her breathing to be sure a few times. She acted like just rolling over was a chore. I know she was in the same position for several hours.
The vet checked her blood and the only thing that was off was a liver enzyme. She came home with pills to take daily for a few months. He thought it might have been brought on by the heat. I wondered about the treatments after her bath. We asked about the toads around the house and he seemed to think they weren’t that dangerous. Whatever it was, I think the end was near. I slept part of the night on the floor beside her so I could feel her breathing on me.
Today, she is a new puppy! It is amazing how quickly they can go down and how quickly they feel better. My babies were much the same way, sick one minute and well the next.
Anyway, we took a short walk this morning so no one got overheated and may do that from now on. Maybe take a quick one in the morning and another in the evening. We all need our exercise but not at the risk of heat stroke! She’ll be checked at the vets every month to see how things go and she’ll take her pills. They are chewable and she seems to like them.
I learned just how important the little dog has become to me this week. I also learned none of us are as young as we used to be, and heat can have its effects on a body. Do you have pets? Are they like family?
I spent this weekend with my daughter on a Mother-Daughter trip to Wichita. We’ve made different trips once a year for a few years and this one was supposed to be Mother’s Day weekend. But I-35 was flooded so we cancelled. We remade this trip for the last weekend in June and it got HOT! Horribly hot. Near 100° and humidity above 50%. My body doesn’t take the heat the way it used to. 
I recently met an author at the Nescatunga Arts Festival named N. Jade Gray. She was a friendly person and we quickly found out we both wrote for The Wild Rose Press. So, we had something in common other than just being local authors. 
I’ve been married to the same man for 47 years. Yes, we are spring chickens. He became a father maybe before he was ready, but he was thrilled both times. We had two children when we were young, and then quit having kids when we were still young. One of each and the bedrooms were filled up, so we quit. But they were the light of our lives. We didn’t have a penny to our names, and they were the entertainment. We learned to be parents. 
My guest this morning is Laura Boon. She hails from Sydney, Australia, though she’s lived all over the world. Laura is a fellow “Rose” writing romance for The Wild Rose Press. Please help me in welcoming, Laura Boon!
I recently e-published a novella with The Wild Rose Press, Witches’ Cliff, along with several other very talented authors. So far I count 11 novellas set at the same Vermont inn all with different stories to tell. I’m sure there are more to come.
I’ve gotten off the track of life-long learning in the last few weeks, but I feel I learn something new every day. So, to get back on track, I wanted you to know I am trying to learn to write poetry. Now that’s putting myself out there to say something like that on the internet where nothing ever really goes away. But I have some help. I have the Enid Writers Club and one poet in particular, Jim Arnold, who is always trying to encourage me to write poetry. He has even gone so far as to write prose to show that old dogs can learn new tricks.
Spring in Oklahoma! If you’ve lived here long, or even if you haven’t, you know why Oklahoma was given the nickname “Tornado Alley.” Some years are worse than others. The above picture is a free stock photo, not my own. I am not one of the Oklahoman’s who run out to video tornadoes as they sail over. I have great respect for the giants. The funnel pictured above could cause damage, but at least it isn’t a mile wide like some have been and it appeared with enough daylight to see it, not in the dark.
Erin grew up on Keystone Lake and the little town of Mannford, Oklahoma in northeast Oklahoma. It was an idyllic life for her and her mother until her father died on a cross-country trip. Then the two became even closer. Her mother owned a flower shop until the big corporate grocery store with their own floral department ran her out of business. Then she went to work for them. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. But Erin’s mother raised her daughter in the small town where she was born and along with help from her sister, a lawyer in Tulsa, the women not only survived but thrived.
Home from OWFI conference I am exhausted. I always feel this way after spending a weekend with like minds from all over. It was exhilarating and exhausting at the same time. I renewed old friendships and made some new ones. It’s Sunday and I am supposed to put out my blog. I will try, but I am tired. 
Peggy Chambers "Views from the Hammock" site 