The Dog Days of Summer.......

Here in Ohio we have entered the 8th month of the year; the month I wish we would just skip.  I love that my Anglo Saxon ancestors called it; Weod Monath or better know as Weed Month.  It's the month when you know summer is over.  The yellow fuzz ball geese bobbing along on the river a few short months ago are eating everything in sight to gain the strength to start the journey south.  Butterflies are very busy; I have not seen one Monarch butterfly this summer.  Many swallowtails and admirals but no Monarchs, pay attention humans and put that bottle of RoundUp down.  The yellow jackets have turned evil and I usually need to duck and cover at least once while walking to the studio.  The cicadas, also known as space invaders, are singing madly this month. Spiders are on the move too.  There are so many spiders in the downstairs bathroom it feels more like an outhouse.  Every morning I scoop them into a cup and return them to the garden.   Too sum it up, stuff is moving. 

In lieu of the early summer drought and now torrential rains. In the heat and humidity the plants are waking up, although things are looking pretty stressed; hell, I look pretty stressed.  I have delayed firing glaze kilns as our night temps are almost 80 with very little breeze and humidity lingers and builds through the night to 90-100% by morning.  Not so great for computerized kilns, even with a fan blowing on the components.   

As for the true dog of August, Kirby. He is doing great!  We are still figuring out these thunderstorms and as they are hitting daily and we are figuring this out as fast as possible!  

Yesterday a storm hit out of nowhere and he decided to hide behind the buckets in the studio.  The pacing and panting started.  

He hates the crate.  It's akin to caging an angry bear. The ace bandage trick worked pretty well except he is a 90 pound guy and even the biggest ace bandage only works for a while before he wiggles out.  I read reviews on the Thundervest and thought that would be a good investment.  I remembered I had the life jacket from our other 90 pound pup, Zeus. Zeus loved his life jacket!  It's practically brand-new, has a handle on the back, and I can tighten it down pretty good to make Kirby feel snug.  Perfect!  I dug it out of the rubbermaid in the shed and let Kirby smell it and see what he thought.  Seemed ok.  

Well I thought he was relaxed...... the next storm hit about three hours later and it was packed with 50 mph winds, power outages, thunder, lightening and full on Ohio summer storm.  

I ran for the life jacket, the way the rain was coming down I thought I should get mine too! 

I strapped him and he stood frozen.  No pacing, lots of panting and stress but not the usual hiding under tiny chairs, knocking over pedestals and vibrating.  

I sat on the floor with him and tried to get him to sit down.  

Holy shit he couldn't sit down because I had velcro-ed his boy junk in the life jacket!  Sorry buddy and ripped the vest off.  He stopped walking on his tip toes and took a breath.  

Made it through that one and got ready for another round of storms coming in.  I gave him 30 milligrams of melatonin (thank you Brenda!!)  It took about 30 minutes to kick in.  The first lightening bolt hit about 20 minutes in.  So I carefully put the life vest on him, avoiding the boy junk and it helped! 

Still hiding but finally found a safe place and laid down, somewhat weathering the storm.

I'm not getting too much done as we figure this out but it's August and it's the dog days and I have spiders to wrangle and glaze calculations to revise...... 

Hurry up September........