New Year News

We're the boring people who go to bed before midnight on New Year's Eve, so there is not much to say about partying and such.  But that doesn't mean the new year has been uneventful.  For one I had the chance to go to Florida and visit my mother, which was a wonderful thing to do in the middle of a cold spell.

 During a rainy day we went to the Naval Air Museum.  It was fantastic, and I enjoyed every second of it, and we spent hours there.  It is a great place, and if you are in Pensacola, it is worth spending the time there.  It costs nothing to go, and even the tours are free, and the tour guides are incredible volunteers, each with their own stories and experiences they share freely and entertainingly.

Then there was the beach, and I learned that seagulls love pet food kibble, and will catch it out of the air.  Lots of fun!

The only bad thing was that I missed Decibel's first snow.
Decibel delighted in the white stuff, and there were a few inches worth, so she could experiment with it some, biting it, digging in it, and trying to run through drifts, which sometimes caused spectacular crashes.
Decibel is now a teenager for sure, and while she is not moody, she certainly has her moments of being demanding, oblivious, loving, deaf, full of it, willful, stubborn, and smoochy.  I think this article Sweet Teenage Rampage describes her well.

Then we had a bull castrated, just after the day I discovered a lump on Ralph's leg, so our vet checked it, and thought we should take it off soonest.  Thus we scheduled a set of lumpectomies:  Ralph's mystery tumor, a lipoma he had for a while, but it was right in the armpit, and while it had not grown, we thought it was a good time to take care of that, and well, then there was the black cat that needed to be neutered.
Our vet is not only a very competent person, but also extremely nice, and she lets me help or observe whenever I am inclined to do so and not likely to be in the way (I could not do this for Decibel's spay and gastropexy).  But a few lumps and testicles, well they don't do me in.  So I got to hold legs and hair out of the way, and Ralph and Token made it through with flying colors.  Sure Ralph is still sore, as his lumps were catty-corner on him, and stretching is ill advised, but with time and a little pain medicine he will soon be better than before.  Token does not seem to hold the surgery against me either, he was just glad to be home and get some food.

Now it snows and Harold the lucky is going to Hawaii - even though it is work-related.