Last week, when we took Jackie and Jillie to the groomers for a summer haircut, one of the attentive  young women who take such good care of the community's pets noticed something amiss in Jillie's rear end. She decided to take Jillie over to the veterinarian clinic that the spa is connected to, and had one of the vets look at Jillie. It seems she had an anal gland that collapsed and became infected. She was cleaned up, the anal gland expressed of infection, and was given an antibiotic injection. Later, when we picked her up, she was perfectly fine.

 

We had noticed she was scudding and she had licked her bottom, but this is not unusual behaviour for her. For her and for her brother, who never scuds, but is always feeling irritated around his anus and whom we've had expressed by one of the clinic technicians on a number of occasions. The groomers also offer that as a service, but they're not as skilled as the technicians. At the time we had made a follow-up appointment, and that was for today, at 2:30 p.m.

 

So I was busy this morning trying to get everything done that I normally do on a Friday, before leaving for the appointment. While I was preparing breakfast for us and for them -- oatmeal, melon and banana for us, kibble, chicken and melon for Jackie and Jillie, as well as a scrambled egg shared between them. They look forward to that 'extra'; a shared egg in the morning and in the afternoon after our forest  hike, then again after their evening meal, a salad of chopped fresh vegetables -- I also sliced a half-dozen peaches for a pie filling.

I'd bought a small basket of Ontario peaches when we were shopping on Tuesday and by Thursday I could see that some of the peaches were on the cusp of going bad. Guess it's the overly-hot weather, but I've never known that to happen before. Eaten fresh they were great, but I wanted to use them up, so I thought a peach pie would do the trick. I mixed sugar and cornstarch with a small amount of cranberry juice, sliced the peaches into that (and gave the puppies a minor share of sliced peach) then set the pot under a low heat for everything to simmer and the resulting liquid to thicken. Once it was done, I added butter to the hot filling, and then almond flavouring and left it to cool.

 

After breakfast before cleaning up the table and washing everything I made a pastry dough. Rolled out the dough into a pie plate, filled it, covered it, and baked the resulting pie in a 375F oven for about 35 minutes. Then I put a chicken soup on to simmer for dinnertime, cleaned up the kitchen, went upstairs to make up our bed, give our bathroom a quick tidying up, did the same with the powder room downstairs, dry-mopped the kitchen floor.

And we were ready for our romp through the forest trails. A beautiful day awaited us. A temperature high of a reasonable 26C, brisk breezes and a hot sun moderated now and again by high, puffy-white clouds. As we entered the ravine we checked out the ripening raspberries and thimbleberries. We've been picking them for several weeks; even as thimbleberries are ripening, new flowers are blooming. The wild blackberries, really plentiful this year, will be a while yet to ripen. It's really the raspberries and thimbleberries the puppies love, and on hot days their sweet moistness is perfect.

 

The trails are beginning to dry out, thanks to the sun wherever it penetrates the canopy, and the wind, though there are still plenty of muddy areas that both the puppies and we avoid when we can. The wind kept mosquitoes at bay, and that was appreciated. There's nothing left of the ripening hazelnuts, all of them harvested and eaten by the resident squirrels before they could become really shell-hard. 

Everything has been earlier-than-usual in blooming this year. Queen Anne's lace, fleabane, and pilotweed have grown to ridiculous heights, thanks to the plentiful rain this spring and summer. And now, somewhat surprisingly, the Himalayan orchids are also now beginning to bloom. And we saw cornflowers in bloom as well. It's always a surprise to see those old friends. Where years before in the pollinating meadow, Black-eyed Susans proliferated, this year they're reduced in number; wild saw grasses have overwhelmed them.

 

Later, at the veterinarian clinic, Jillie's full recovery from the collapsed anal gland was verified. And while we were there, the technician that looked after them expressed Jackie's glands, so they should both be in good shape for a while. While we were out in the ravine, two dogs familiar to them came along for cookies and Irving as always obliged. But while we were at the vet clinic, someone walked in with a large dog and Jackie was transformed into a little raging monster, barking and growling at the poor dog about ten times Jackie's size, who was alarmed and fearful at the hostile reception he was submitted to by a very small dog who seems to view other dogs as potential enemies -- until he gets to know them.