Washing the car and motorhome

My neighbor Debbie decided to get out her "magic rag" and wash her car.  She had about 1-2 cups cool water in a bowl and her "magic rag"

Fifteen minutes later she had a beautifully clean car and the water was dirty.  I asked her about the magic rag and found that it is a special kind of microfiber made by TRASAN of Sweden. 

Debbie got hers in 1996 and is still using it.  One dips it in cool water, wrings it out and washes the car, rinsing the rag as needed.  It needs no soap, etc and the car comes very clean with very little effort. 

The windows also come clean very easily.  Yesterday  Debbie showed me how to do my car wash, using the "magic rag" which I had mail-ordered.  My car looks great!

 

Skin, Skin, Skin

Skin is an important part of life.  The largest organ of the body, whether it is a dog's body or a person's body.  I am slowly discovering that Power's skin has more than just dryness.  His skin is rough and raised in a few places.  He is very skittish about being touched.  I think he must have never had to learn trust before.  Today I was putting some cream and he jumped each time my hand touched him.  When he saw my hand approaching, he tried to shy away. When I got the cream on him, he decided he liked it.  I've tried to use a hound glove on him to remove some of the loose flakes and dust after he lies on the sand.  He doesn't seem to know that sensation either.

After lunch yesterday I found a 2 inch diameter raw area on Power's right rib area.  It was moist and red and not present 1 hour earlier.  I decided to take him to the Vet this morning.  Quartzsite has a nice vet, John Hadlock, who has an old mobile home as his office.  He is conveniently located right on the main street, and both he and his office lady are friendly and good to the pets.

Dr Hadlock looked at the skin lesion, and checked the area nearby which still had hair in place and no rawness, just a raised area.  He said Power needed antibiotics, and gave him two injections, and a prescription of antibiotics for 10 days, and a spray of antibiotics to use for ten days.  He also looked at some of the other skin flakiness and said that it looks like dermatitis, and that I need to wash Power with dial soap twice a week.  I am supposed to take Power back in 10 days to be checked.  

I've never had a dog with skin disease before so it's learning experience for me. 

Thank God Power is willing to be medicated.  Today I bought a package of hot dogs and cut them into 1 inch lengths.  One antibiotic capsule will fit into a one inch length of hot dog.  Power eats this readily. Of course, Fleur likes the hot dogs and wants a treat so I have to be careful that she doesn't steal the hot dog with the antibiotic capsule inside!

This was also the day for the first dial soap bath.  I am camped in the BLM desert south of Quartzsite Az and have very limited dog bathing choices.  I decided to try filling a 2 liter soda bottle and put a squirt top on it.  I then squirted water on a microfiber wash rag and added dial soap.  I then kept adding water and dial soap and washed Power all over while he was standing on the patio rug outside my motorhome.  When I got through scrubbing him all over, I used the rest of the water to rinse him thoroughly.  Then I kept him outside standing in the sunshine to dry and we were done.  Guess what?  His black color is a different black now.  It is not a dusty black!  It's a shiny black black! 

Buttocks growing fur

After 10 days on antibiotic capsules and antibiotic spray and dial soap baths the sore on his ribs is healing nicely.  The second area (raised no rawness) is still not raw and still has not lost hair.  The general skin flakiness is much reduced as well.  He's really growing hair back on his buttocks, and new hair is even coming in on his tail.  

Tail still needs fur.

Power is a hard working dog!

FUN for the dogs and owners

Delores with Abby

Dumbledore, Power, and Fleur

This morning, My friend Delores (with her dog Abby), my friend Carol(with her dog Dumbledore), and I(with my two greyhounds) drove a few miles into the desert to a great unoccupied area, to let the dogs have a bit of off leash time to run and play.   Dumbledore is a basset hound who has been best friends with my dogs for years.  Abby is one year old, full of energy and also a good friend of the greyhounds. We parked on the top of a hill so that no matter where the dogs ran we could see them.

Dumbledore and Abby

The dogs know that we have treats in our pockets and a big water bowl at the car so they come back every few minutes for refreshments!

A Gift for a family

I  got a catalogue from a neighbor a few days ago.  She asked me to toss it in the dumpster.  I glanced at the cover and wanted to see what it was. The catalogue was from Heifer International.  They are asking people to gift a goat, rabbits, chickens, a heifer, an ox, etc to help a family or a village in a undeveloped country.  It would provide more food and more livelihood for the group.

The idea intrigued me, and I thought that it's an idea I can and want to buy into.  Most of my family live in Germany, and sending gifts is not easy, due to questions of size, color, would they like it?, etc.  My family members are quite mission minded, and I liked this idea because the gift is really needed, and many people everywhere need help. My niece Miriam served as a missionary lab tech on a medical ship in west Africa, and she served as a missionary lab tech for six months in Afghanistan.  Her Husband, Jost served on a missionary ship in West Africa and worked on a building crew which worked in terrible heat building a medical building.  When I was a young lady, I served as a missionary nurse at a refugee hospital in Hong Kong.

When I still lived in Texas, I had a neighbor named Becky.  One day she commented that there is no limit to the good one can do if one is not worried about who gets the credit.  I had never thought of it like that, and it influenced me a lot.  

 "The poor you always have with you" 

That statement is true now as before. But also there is never a shortage of people who have much.  If we want to help, we can, and there are many ways to help.  We can find a way to help if we will only think about it.

So...I decided to gift a flock of chickens to each of two villages.  Heifer teaches them how to care for the birds, and gets them started.  The villagers can then have eggs to eat, eggs to sell, chickens to eat, chickens to sell, and chicken manure to put in the gardens.  One gift makes many gifts.

Power Feeding time

Power has no hesitation in eating! 

Fleur however is now and has always been a nervous eater.  If any little thing is bothering her, she won't eat at all.  But that doesn't mean that she wants any one looking at her food.  She likes to protect her food bowl, both physically and mentally.  She can't stand the cat looking at her while her food is in the bowl, and she also doesn't like the other dog to even think about her bowl of food.

Power is so eager to eat that he tries to gobble up the food too fast.  Then he chokes on it and spews the food all over the floor.  That doesn't bother him.  He just re-inhales it!  I have discovered that he really needs an elevated food bowl, so I turn a dish pan over and put his food bowl on the dish pan.  That makes the food bowl elevated 9 inches.  He does much better with the bowl elevation.  I believe that he needs it even higher, so I am thinking about what I already own that might work.  If I have to I will purchase something but I am trying to utilize something already owned.  (In an RV every item has to have a home.)  Extra items take extra storage space. I realized that the plastic storage box behind my recliner would be about the right height for Powers food bowl, and I wouldn't have to find a place for a new object.

The picture above is of Power outside the RV in Quartzsite AZ.  I think he's beginning to relax and enjoy himself, don't you?

Power is also such an eager eater that getting his antibiotic capsules down is an easy job.  I have been inserting the capsule into a round meatball treat and putting the meatball on top of his food ration.  Occasionally I see him spit the capsule out, but I just pick it up and put it into another meatball, then put the new meatball back into the food bowl.

Power standing by elevated food bowl

I gave the brain cells time and found a solution for feeding time food elevation.  I have a large plastic storage bin just behind my Laz e Boy recliner. It is the right height so I just put Power's food bowl on the bin. Now he is not choking himself nearly as often. 

RV friends!

Dorothy called me a few weeks ago.  She was visiting in NM and wanted to drop by.  We had a lovely visit at Bluewater Lake State Park New Mexico, and then she went on to California to her high school reunion.  In the meantime I moved on the Quartzsite AZ and set up camp on the BLM land south of town.

Dorothy called again and was heading back to Texas and would be passing through Quartzsite, so she stopped again for a visit.  She came bearing gifts.

Quilt made by Dorothy and given to me.

 She brought walnuts from a tree at her brother-in-law's home.  He had run them through a shell cracker, had baked them for an hour, and so they were really easy to shell and the baking had killed any worms which might have infested them.  She brought dried plums, persimmons, and a large red onion.

What a guest!  Dorothy is fun all by herself, but now I will automatically think of her each time I eat some of her bounty or cover up with the quilt. .

The walnuts I finished shelling today.  I have about 1 gallon of shelled walnuts.  I put them in the freezer so I can use them as needed and they won't spoil.  It was very pleasant to sit outside, in the shade with a breeze blowing, and shell a quart every day.   

The plums are delicious and I'm enjoying them for breakfast every day.  

  

Dry Skin

I find RVing so great that I seldom find fault with any of it.  My favorite places are in the deserts.  Living in the deserts means dry air, and that can lead to dry skin.  Many have this situation and solve it with lots of lotion.  I have not yet solved this problem, but I have tried lotions.

Now, this sounds like I am referring to my OWN skin being dry, but that is not the case.  The dry skin I am referring to is on Power, and also on Chica.

Chica is my cat, a tuxedo cat.  Power is my new greyhound, a tuxedo greyhound.  They each have black fur everywhere except white chin, white chest and belly, and white feet and white tipped tail.  They are identical in their markings, though they are different species, different genders, different ages.  

Power and his flaky dry skin

The very first day I had Power, Chica walked up to Power and they stood nose to nose, smelled each other, looked each other in the eye and have been good friends ever since.

The other similarity is their dry skin.  An animal with black fur shows any skin flakes.  Power is really experiencing dry skin, and I am treating his with flaxseed oil served in his food.  I have been advised that this is really good for him.  He eats so well that it's easy to just add it to his food.  Chica has other ideas.  She thinks flaxseed oil makes her food uneatable.  She says that dry skin is normal for cats of her aristocratic genetic background!  She also says that if I continue to be bothered by it that I should just turn my head.
She says "Royal felines are perfect, I am royal, so therefore I am perfect." 

Her Royal Highness  Chica