Chapter 1 Lily's rescue and naming 2012

Lily's rescue. As you all know now Lily is my house dog. But the story didn't begin that way. It's a story of survival which involves a very young female German Shepherd. First I will introduce the dogs rescuer. Her name is Jewel and she and her husband Steve became very good friends of the Troubirders.... 

Jewel narrates the story "We didn’t want a dog! But, one April morning as I was walking out to get our mail, as I turned, I saw a skinny, dirty German shepherd behind me. I looked at her and asked, “Who are you?” I wasn’t sure if I should be afraid or not. No collar. No sound. No approach. I said, “Sit!” and she sat. I asked my husband, Steve, if. . . and his only words were, “We don’t want a dog.” The next day we still had a dog so it was time to ask around.
Our neighbor at the bottom of Norse Road said he had been watching her for 2 weeks. Every night she would go back to a certain spot by the river, lie down. and wait. No body came. He didn’t want to feed her because he didn’t want a dog.
The second day at our place I gave her some food. She became my dog from that moment on.

Steve said, “Now that YOU have a dog. I think she should stay outside. If anybody comes looking, she’s leaving” When nobody came, we took her to the vet. It was a small investment including a wellness check-up, shots-rabies & dystemper, spading, heartworm, flea and tick medicine and food. Our friends, Ray & Barb Potthoff, have a German shepherd, Baron, and they thought she would be a perfect dog for our farm. They even gave us a little doghouse and they were happy we adopted a German shepherd. They thought maybe our dogs could be friends but our dog wanted nothing to do with other dogs in her space.
Since she came at Eastertime and since she was mostly blond with black, I decided to name her Lily. It took about two weeks but one day when I fed her, she wagged her tail. Lily has been with us for 2 years now. She has a good home, is fed once a day, is not mistreated, and feels safe. She has space to run, she goes to the bathroom way out in the pasture, and lays mostly by the entrance step. She patrols our yard, guards our door, and loves my attention. If I am outside, I am always in her sight.
About 14 years ago, our daughter, Megan, bought a 4-month old black pigmy goat. Three years ago, Megan got married but Geno, her goat, stayed on the farm. Lily, the dog, picks fights with Geno, the goat. They are about the same size but Geno has threatening horns . Lily pursues the battle but Geno mostly walks away from the annoying dog.
Lily’s biggest fault is that she barks at night. Her ears hear all sort of sounds in the woods across the road so she wears a bark collar most nights. There are times when our lives would be easier without a dog but Lily has
wiggled her way into our hearts and she will stay as long as we live here.

As most of you know Steve passed on do to pancreatic cancer and Jewell lives close to her daughter and grandchildren in northern Minnesota. Now it's just me and my best buddy Lily. She's now nearly deaf and so am I. Neither of us chase squirrels up trees any more and take long naps in the afternoon. Obviously  we make a good team and no doubt share memories of those who loved us past.

Introducing Lily-2014-and now a retrospect 6/22/20

Lily's back legs are dragging last with anti-inflammatory spinal medicine. She is a tough old bird and she and I are hanging in there.

Lily came to us because her owners, our friends Steve and Jewel, couldn’t take care of her anymore. Of course, we said right away, we would be happy to take care of her. Still, I was a little apprehensive because Lily was an outside farm dog, not used to being restrained or housebroken. Then, we live in a suburban type neighborhood with neighbors and a busy State highway close by. Unrestrained barking dogs were not in favor here……  Then the weather was well below zero for days on end and Lily did have access to a heated garage at her home farm.  Our garage where Barons  dog house  was located was unheated though it did have a door to a small outside kennel…….  Lily was brought into the house that afternoon, it was ten below.  She took a look around, entered the bedroom and hopped on our bed. “No Lily!” I said. She hopped down. Good start, I thought she knows the word no.

Well, so far, she hasn't barked at all except for the afternoon the fire truck went by. She likes her kennel in the garage with the electric heater blowing and even better in the house when the temps go below zero.  As to hiking with a leash.... no problem. She doesn't pull at all even with Troutbirders leisurely pace.  She is a really mellow dog.  All in all I think this is going to work out just fine....:)

German Shepard Dogs (GSD's) a retrospect a

Daisy is a country girl. A little older, a lot wiser and more sophisticated. Agile and quick. A real athlete. And not above being a big tease. She belongs to Gary & Bobbi.

Baron.  He lives in suburbia.  He is  tall and somewhat gangly. Kind of awkward at times. Not very worldly.  He loves to chase & go for long hikes. He belongs to the Troutbirders.

 









She was abandoned, wandered a while but found a farm home with Steve and Jewel.  Now she is contented to guard her new home. She arrived on Easter Sunday.  Naturally her name is Lily. She has befriended Mrs. T who always gives her treats. She is content and very friendly.

For Baron with the extremely cold and snowy weather of late there haven't been many romps in the woods. Even the dogs can’t wait till spring.

Dubuque Arboretum

One of our favorite early fall day trips some years ago now was a destinations is a 3 hour jaunt to nearby Dubuque, Iowa. This Mississippi river town is located in the northeastern corner of the Hawkeye State. Two attractions there that appeal to us are the Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium and Americas largest Arboretum and Botanical garden maintained entirely by volunteers.  we joined good friends friends Steve and Jewel, to make  visit to the gardens. The gardens are the home of the American Hosta Society and have a huge collection of those favorites Barb. In addition, there are perennial gardens, wildflower and native prairie gardens, an English garden and many other displays. Take a look.

A favorite place to stop on our return to Minnesota is Breitbach's, the oldest restaurant in Iowa. We were saddened to learn that year that the place had been destroyed by fire for the second time. . Rebuilt again, it lies on a ridge overlooking a beautiful valley a few miles west of the Mississippi. A heartwarming story is that, in spite of great financial difficulties, the place was rebuilt with the help of neighbors from the small community of Balltown, Iowa. We had the buffet. It was excellent as always

Normandy Beaches

All right I will cut right to the chase. In the past I have done several posts on the obnoxious forwarding of material best suited for the garbage can. This was often of a political, historical, racist and stereotypical nature. Granted, some of the forwarded material is innocuous, funny, or even inspiring at times. It was during the period of our preemptive, unjustified, trumped up, and immoral invasion of Iraq that I began gets lots of email denigrating France. It seems the French government had failed to jump on the invasion bandwagon.  For this, the French were denigrated for being ungrateful for America’s role in liberating them from the Nazis. Other besmirches were too numerous to mention. We were advised to drop the name “French fries” and use the term “American fries” among other juvenile responses.

The last time Barb and I were in France I caught up to her overlooking the beaches at Normandy with Pont du Hoc in the distance to our left.

 I had just taken some pictures in the American cemetery. Barb was talking to an American National Park Ranger in uniform. They were discussing invasion strategy. I interrupted the conversation by asking the Ranger "what are you doing here in uniform?" The Ranger replied, "I work here." "How is that?" I asked. "This is American soil. It was given to America by the people of France in honor of the American soldiers who died here to free them from the Nazis." "In this way, she added, the American heroes would be buried on American soil."

a few days late but in memory of D  day