THE CACTUS SHOW

I couldn't write any blog entries for a couple of days because my Chief Research Assistant (a.k.a. Mom) was very busy getting ready for the cactus show and sale.  She repotted a bunch of plants, and she put prices on the plants she was going to sell.  Also, she decided which plants to enter in the show, and then she filled out entry cards with the plants' names and stuff like that.  On Friday, Mom was at the Loose Park Garden Center all day long, helping get the show set up.  She took Dorrie and me to doggy daycare, so we wouldn't get too bored at home.

Yesterday Mom was at the show and sale all day long because that was the first real day of it.  Dorrie and I stayed at home because dogs are not allowed in the Garden Center building, and doggy daycare is not open on the weekend.  Today Mom has to go back again, because today is the last day of the show and sale.  After that, it will be all done with for a whole year!

Anyway, Mom took some pictures so that I would have something to put in my blog.  Otherwise, people will just think I am lazy, which I am not, even though I do like to sleep a lot.

First of all, here are the judges of the show.  They drove all the way from Iowa, and they all wore green shirts, which made it a little hard to tell them apart.  But Mom said that their names are Dick, Rebecca, and Connie.  I was especially happy to see a picture of Aunt Connie because she is one of the most faithful readers of my blog.

In this next picture, you can see people shopping for plants at the sale.  Of course, Mom bought some plants, even though she doesn't need any.  She spent $41 on plants, and the plants she sold added up to $59.  Mom only gets to keep 70% of the sale of her plants, but guess what!  Seventy percent of $59 is $41.30, so this means that Mom made enough to cover what she bought, plus 30¢ extra.  If she sells more plants today and doesn't buy anything else, she will make an even bigger profit, and maybe there will be enough to buy some dog treats.

Winner of the Best Succulent Award

Winner of the Best Cactus Award

Variegated agave

Euphorbia lactea crest

Sansevieria

Fockea edulis

Dish garden

Sansevieria in novelty container

"Bizarre Plant"  Euphorbia platyclada

Okay, well, that's all I'm going to tell you about the cactus show.  Frankly, I think it would be much more interesting if Mom would go to a dog show instead, but nobody asked me.

PANLEUKOPENIA

Right away, you may start wondering "What is panleukopenia?" so I will tell you.  It is a disease that is also known as feline distemper, feline infectious enteritis, feline ataxia, or FPV.  It is not really related to canine distemper, even though it has the same name.  Instead, feline distemper is more like what's called "parvo" in dogs, because it is caused by a parvovirus.

Buttercup

Remember when our little blind kitten Seth died last Saturday?  We didn't really know why he died, but now we think he had distemper.  We think this because on Tuesday Buttercup got really sick, and sadly, she had to be put to sleep yesterday at the Humane Society.  But first, before they put her to sleep, Dr. Regan did a test on her, and it was positive for panleukopenia.  Seth had the same symptoms before he died, so that's why we think he had the same disease.

Most people's cats don't get distemper because the cats get vaccinations, and the vaccine protects them.  But feral cats or kittens who are too young to be vaccinated might get it because it's very contagious.  The main way a cat gets distemper is by being in contact with pee or poop or puke from a cat who is infected.

Once the virus gets inside you, it attacks the lining of your intestines, and that's why you lose your appetite and start vomiting and having diarrhea.  Also, the virus gets in your bone marrow and makes the white blood cell count really low.  Which is how the disease got its name, because panleukopenia means "all-white shortage."  Pretty soon, the infected kitty dies of dehydration or a bacterial infection.

Seth

Aunt Tania tried to figure out which of the three kittens brought the panleuk virus to the shelter.  They all came from different litters and arrived at different times.  Chief and Seth both got sick about the same time, but Chief got better right away, after Mom gave him the fluids and antibiotics.  Seth never got better at all.  He just went on getting sicker until he died.

Anyway, Aunt Tania thinks Chief was the guilty kitten who had the virus.  We're not sure why he didn't get sicker, but it might be because (1) he still had some immunity from his mama, or (2) he has a natural immunity, or (3) he just had a really mild case of it, or (4) he still hasn't got really sick.  So Aunt Tania told Mom to watch Chief very, very closely for the next day or two, because if he is going to be sick, this is when it will happen.  And if we can catch it at the start, Aunt Tania might be able to save him, because sometimes she has saved kittens in the past.

Here are some other interesting facts I learned while doing my in-depth research for this blog entry.  When kittens are nursing, they get some immunity to disease from their mothers' milk.  This keeps them fairly safe until they are about 11 weeks old.  Their own immune systems aren't totally working until kittens are about 16 weeks old, so if they are exposed to the distemper virus between ages 11 weeks and 16 weeks, at least three-fourths of them will die.  As they get older and bigger, their bodies can deal with the dehydration better, so more of them can survive.  Any cat who is exposed to panleukopenia and lives through it will be immune to it for the rest of his life.

This is what the panleukopenia virus looks like.
Image credit:  Viperdb

The feline distemper virus has been around for a long time.  Wild cats such as lions and tigers can get it too.  And so can raccoons and mink.  In the 1970s, the virus somehow jumped over and started attacking dogs, which is when the canine parvovirus or "parvo" got started.  Puppies that haven't had all their vaccinations yet are the most likely to die of parvo, just like kittens are the most likely to die of panleuk.

So anyway, the lesson of all this is that you should get your kittens and puppies vaccinated as soon as they are old enough, and you should get booster shots if they need them.  And meanwhile, we are keeping a sharp eye on little Chief and hoping really hard that he doesn't get sick.

ADVENTURES WHILE WALKING, by Dorrie the Chihuahua

Mom told me that "Adventures While Walking" used to be a regular part of Piper's blog, but nobody has written any "Adventures" for a long time.  This was partly because Mom got lazy and didn't take the dogs out walking very often.  And another reason was because all the dogs who used to write about their adventures are now taking their walks at the Rainbow Bridge.  Well, except for Piper, who doesn't like to go for walks anymore.

But this morning Mom said she had time, and it was cool enough that we could go for a walk.  Mom invited Piper to go along, but when Piper saw her collar and leash, she headed upstairs to get away from walking.

So Mom and I had some quality time together, just ambling through the neighborhood.  Mom could walk really fast if she wanted to, but I can't because I have very short legs.  So we just went pretty slowly, and that way Mom could take pictures, and I could sniff everything and pee on anything that needed it.

When I pee, I always lift up my right hind leg.  Mom thinks this is funny, but she has seen other girl dogs pee this way, too.  Mom thinks I am either marking my territory like a boy dog would do, or else I have a luxating patella on the right side, so I can't bend my knee very well when I pee.  I'm not telling Mom which of her theories is the correct one.  It's more fun just to let her guess.

Anyway, here are some of the things we saw while we were walking today.  First of all, the neighbors where Henry, the soft-coated wheaten terrier, lives have had a big orange dumpster in their driveway for several days.  They took down the trampoline and the tall swing set in their back yard, and threw them in the dumpster.  We think they threw some other stuff in there, too.  They did not throw Henry in there, but Mom says that's okay because Henry is getting older, and he isn't as annoying as he used to be.

This house in the next block needs paint on the upper story.  Mom says it has been in this condition for at least two years.  We don't know why they don't finish painting it.

These people have planted two apple trees in their front yard.  Mom is quite sure there didn't used to be apple trees there.  The trees are already big enough to make lots of apples, which shows just how long it has been since Mom went out walking.

At the corner, we saw a statue of Mickey Mouse.

On the end of someone's driveway, there were lots and lots of pennies.  Did they get spilled there, or did somebody put them there so that everybody who went by could pick one up and have good luck?  Mom did not take one, so I guess we won't have good luck.  Unless it's good luck just to take a photo of pennies on the sidewalk.

Here's a house that was getting siding.  Usually, these Tudor-style houses don't have siding, but maybe these people got tired of having their house painted.

A bee was trying to find some nice flowers on this Russian sage, but he seemed to be having a hard time because he kept flying around from place to place.  Mom was trying to get a picture, and finally she got the front half of the bee.  It's a good thing I can be patient while Mom does this silly stuff.

We saw some men installing Google Fiber.  A lot of people signed up to get it, but we didn't.  Mom says we don't need internet that is 100 times faster than regular internet.  I hope she's right about this because I wouldn't want to get left behind in the cyber dust.

Sunday, at a house in our block, a huge limb fell off a tree.  We don't know why the limb fell off.  It rained on Sunday, but not a whole lot, and there were no big winds to knock a limb off a tree.  I guess it was just an old limb, and it was tired of holding on.  All of Sunday afternoon and evening, there were chain saws running down there.  We were surprised to see that most of the debris was already gone, except for some leaves and sticks.

Well, I hope I have done an okay job on my first Adventures entry.  I am sure there will be more of them when the weather gets cool enough for us to walk more often.

SAD AND GLAD NEWS ABOUT OUR KITTENS

Friday Mom took the new foster kittens to the shelter because she was worried about Seth and Chief.  Neither of them was eating very much yummy kitten food, and Seth was having diarrhea.  Also, one of the kittens kept puking, but Mom didn't know which one it was.  She thought it might be Seth.

Anyway, Aunt Tania gave Chief and Seth some fluids, and she also sent some fluids home with Mom, so Mom could give them more fluids.  Mom is not very good at giving fluids, but she is trying to learn to be better at it.  Seth and Chief also got some Amoxicillin and some Metronidazole to take twice a day.

Our kittens waiting to be adopted at PetSmart

Buttercup had gained 3 ounces since she first came to our house on Tuesday, but Seth had lost 3 ounces.  Chief stayed exactly the same weight, which was 13.5 ounces.  Aunt Tania also told Mom to take some a/d Prescription Diet food home, which sick animals will sometimes eat when they won't eat anything else.

So on Friday night, Mom gave medicine to the two kittens, and then she gave them fluids.  Seth didn't mind too much, but Chief didn't like the process, and he bit Mom really hard on the finger.  She still got the fluids in him, though, because she is a good foster mom.

Chief really liked the a/d food, and he started eating lots more than he was before.  The fluids and medicine really perked him up, which is good.  But Seth didn't want to eat anything, and he just got weaker and weaker.  We were all afraid he would die, since he didn't want to eat.

Yesterday Mom went to the adoption event at PetSmart, and she took the 6 big kittens.  Lots of people looked at them and said they were really cute, especially Abra, but nobody adopted any of them.  Instead, people were adopting some Siamese mix kittens.  There were 4 of them there, and 3 got adopted.  The 4th one is getting adopted today.  Also, there was an adult cat there who was a Siamese mix, and she got adopted, too.

Here's a little video Mom took of our kittens at PetSmart.  This is the first time I tried putting a video in my blog, so I hope it works.  In this video, you can see how cute our kittens are, and that people should have adopted them.

But none of our kittens got adopted, and that made us sad.  And then when Mom got home, she found out that Seth had died.  I was here when he died, but I guess I slept through it.  Anyway, there wasn't much I could have done about it.  Mom buried Seth in the back yard.

Chief and Buttercup don't seem to miss Seth at all.  They are just hungry all the time now.  Chief has a little fat tummy, like kittens usually have.  Mom weighed him, and he is already up to one whole pound!  This means he gained at least 2 ounces in one day's time.

So we think Chief is going to grow up to be a nice, big kitty someday, even though things did not work out so well for poor little Seth.  But I guess that's how life goes.  Sometimes good things happen, and other times bad things happen.  And I suggest that if bad things are happening, you should just take a nap until the good stuff comes around again!

Abra sleeping upside down

THE BARLOW ROAD

Mt. Hood is a very tall, very pretty mountain, as I already told you.  The main problem with it for the early pioneers was that it was exactly in the way of where they wanted to take their wagons to the Willamette Valley.  So at first, people had to go down the Columbia River on a raft.  This could be very dangerous because there were some bad, scary rapids in the river, and your whole raft could tip over.  Or even if it didn't, your wagon could fall off the raft, and you might lose everything that you hadn't already thrown out earlier to make your load lighter.

The Columbia River

Oh, and people could fall off in the rapids and drown, which wasn't good either.  Plus, in order to take this big risk with your life and your belongings, you had to pay a lot of money to a professional rafting person to take you down the river.  Or else you had to pay some Indians to take you in their canoes.  If you knew how, you could build your own raft, but not everybody knew how to do this.

Sam Barlow, about 1919

In 1845, a man named Samuel Kimbrough Barlow went over the Oregon Trail with his wife and children.  Before he went to Oregon, Mr. Barlow had been a tailor in Kentucky.  When the family arrived at the Columbia River, there were already 60 wagons waiting to go down the river on the expensive ferries.  Mr. Barlow got angry about this state of affairs, and he decided there must be a way to go by land instead.  He said, "God never made a mountain that he didn't make a way to get over it."

The Barlow Road is the pink dotted line

So Mr. Barlow's party of 7 wagons joined up with Joel Palmer's group of 23 wagons, and they started looking for a way to go around Mt. Hood on the south side, through the Cascade Mountains.  The trees were very, very thick there, so the men had to cut down a whole bunch of them, just so they could get the wagons through on a path that was still really narrow.

It was hard work, and it took a long time.  When they got to the point where they needed to find a pass over the Cascades, Mr. Barlow and Mr. Palmer climbed up the side of Mt. Hood to about 9,000 feet, so they could get a better view.  And from there, they could see which way to take the wagons.  This pass later got the name of Barlow Pass.

The Barlow Road today

Anyway, by the time they got through the pass to a place called Government Camp, it was so late in the year that they couldn't take the wagons any farther.  So they made a cache of all their stuff, and they left one person there to guard it.  The rest of them went on to Oregon City, and they got there on Christmas night of 1845.

One of the five tollgates

In the spring, Mr. Barlow went back to where the wagons were, and he got permission from the Oregon provisional government to build a toll road.  The road was cleared out enough to open when the wagon trains started coming through in the fall of 1846.  The toll was $5.00 for a wagon and 10 cents for each horse, mule, or head of cattle.  Some people could pay this, but others had no money left, so they paid a quilt or two shirts for a wagon, or a gun for two wagons.  The road never made a profit because there were too many people who couldn't pay the toll, and the gatekeeper was nice enough to let them pass anyway.

The Barlow Road was very important in the settlement of Oregon.  About 75% of early immigrants going to the Willamette Valley used the road, even though people said it was the most difficult 100 miles of the Oregon Trail.







A traveler named Sarah Cummins wrote that "The traveling was slow and toilsome; slopes were almost impassible for man and beast.  As night was coming on, it seemed we all must perish, but weak, faint and starving we went on.  I could scarcely put one foot before the other.  I weighed less than eighty pounds at the time.  My own party had been 14 days with only nine biscuits and four small slices of bacon."

Mom's tour group on the Barlow Road

Anyway, Mom saw a little part of the Barlow Road while she was in Oregon.  I am glad I didn't have to go there in a wagon with the pioneers because I would have got really tired, walking around all the tree stumps.  Also, I would not like being hungry, like Sarah Cummins was.  Still, I guess it would be better than falling off a raft and drowning in the Columbia River.  Which is why the best plan of all is just to stay at home, so I think that's what I'll do!