Monday, October 4

Poorly pup

There’s not much to report for last week. We only got to the allotment once which was on Tuesday. Ruby has been very poorly.  She started with sickness and diarrhoea. She then, quickly, became very lethargic and would neither eat nor drink which just isn’t her at all. We rang the vet quite late in the evening as luckily our vet provides a 24 hour service. As a result we made a late night visit where Ruby was diagnosed as having a fever and gastro enteritis. The options were to keep her in and put her on a drip or for her to be given an anti emetic injection, to be taken home and us to keep a close eye on her. We chose the latter and we were instructed to take her back if she deteriorated. When we arrived home, the injection had kicked in and she had a good drink - the first hurdle was overcome. After a good night’s sleep, at least for Ruby, the next morning we managed to get her to eat some chicken. Over the next few days she was kept on a bland diet of chicken and white rice delivered in small amounts throughout the day. One meal was sprinkled with a probiotic powder.  She has steadily improved and is back to being playful. On Sunday afternoon she produced a satisfactory ‘deposit’ so we are gradually switching to her normal diet.

We did get to the allotment on Tuesday. Martyn covered one of the beds that had previously been dug over. It was first covered with weed control fabric which was then held down with a layer of wood chippings.
One of the downsides of weed control fabric is that cut edges fray badly. We’ve been trying to think of a way of mitigating this and are trying ‘cutting’ with a culinary blow torch. Hopefully the sealed edges will resist fraying.
Whilst we were at the plot we gathered a small harvest.
28 September - courgettes - Ambassador, Cauliflower - Saragossa, Raspberries - All Gold & Joan J and Blackberries =Loch Ness

Last week's meals where our homegrown vegetables were used were a chicken and mushroom hotpot. Into this went some of our, potatoes, carrots, onion and frozen peas and sweet corn.


We also used vegetables, cauliflower and sautéed potatoes, as an accompaniment to breaded haddock. 

We used, onion, garlic, onion and frozen sweet corn in a turkey, bean and quinoa bake. I didn’t have any black beans so used black eyed beans instead. I used a mix of red, white and black quinoa.
Sunday we had a tomato and mushroom frittata which used some of our plum tomatoes and parsley. The eggs came from the allotments too just not from our plot. I used more tomatoes than specified. It was served with some of our frozen sweet corn and sautéed potatoes. It looked better in the pan than on the plate
As always, wherever you are, I hope you and your furry family members stay safe and well.

This week I am once again joining in with Dave’s Harvest Monday collection of posts over at Our Happy Acres


 
Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett

16 comments:

  1. So pleased Ruby is on the mend. It's always such a worry, they can't tell us what's wrong so we have to guess. Thank goodness you have such a caring vet available all hours too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Our vet is great, Deborah. They are the emergency hospital for the area so there is a vet available 24/7. they operate a sort of A&E out of hours for anyone whether they are registered with them or not. They also have a team of specialist vets and also have students from different parts of the world. We're very lucky.

      Delete
  2. Poor Ruby, I'm glad she is on the mend now. Bertie had something similar a while back and he was so miserable at the vet's they sent him home instead of keeping him in. He really doesn't like being away from me at all. My trick for getting him to drink if I think he is dehydrated is to put an inch of water in his bowl and add some of the water from a can of tuna. It worked really well after he had surgery and stopped drinking. I was just thinking about the edges of weed control fabric yesterday and wondering if I could hem it in the sewing machine when it was new. I'm sure it would last much better if I did. I like your idea though, very clever.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ruby wouldn't go near food or drink CJ. She actually backed away when I offered her a water dish when she was curled up on the sofa. The vet hoped that if the injection stopped her feeling nauseous that whe would drink and happily it worked. She wasn't actually dehydrated at that point or I guess they would have insisted on a drip feed.

      Delete
    2. By the way I wondered about hemming the fabric but we use so much of it.

      Delete
    3. Had another thought maybe you could glue a hem rather than sewing it.

      Delete
  3. It's always scary when our pets get sick. Glad to hear Ruby is on the mend! Using the blow torch on the weed fabric holes seems like a great idea. I'll be looking forward to your results.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was scary, Dave. She was fine in the morning and became ill so quickly. So far the torch seems to have worked.

      Delete
  4. I'm glad to hear that Ruby is on the mend, our furry friends do cause us some worry, don't they. Archie slipped yesterday and has hurt his leg, I don't know how many times he's done this now, I think he's prone to limps. Just a case of resting up again now until he can walk properly again.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They are, Jo, Ruby was limping after being laid still for so long but she walked it off, It was maybe cramp.

      Delete
  5. Glad to hear Ruby is better. Heat is definitely the way to go with WSF. I have heard of a hot poker being used to make planting holes in it, but your redeployment of the chef's device is much more practical. Sewing on that scale is a non starter IMHO.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've seem holes melted using a hot can on a stick, Mal. It looks a bit like a bulb planter so I guess that you could heat up one of those. At least we can use the torch on site.

      Delete
  6. Goodness, how worrying re poor Ruby. I'm pleased to hear she is making such a good recovery. Some lovely meals there.xxx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was worrying, Dina, to be off her food just isn't Ruby.

      Delete
  7. It is so worrying when our pets are ill, so it is great to know Ruby is more back to her normal self again. One of my plot neighbours cuts hi landscape fabric with a blow torch, a fairly industrial model tbh, but your kitchen gadget should do the job. This frayed bits of plastic are infuriating, so it will stop them and probably extend the overall life of the sheet too. Let us know how it goes!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is, Kathy as they can't tell you how bad they feel. I'll definitely feedback about the landscape fabric. An industrial torch sounds scary.

      Delete

Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment - it is great to hear from you and know that there are people out there actually reading what I write! Come back soon.
(By the way any comments just to promote a commercial site, or any comments not directly linked to the theme of my blog, will be deleted)
I am getting quite a lot of spam. It is not published and is just deleted. I have stopped sifting through it and just delete any that ends up in my spam folder in one go so I am sorry if one of your messages is deleted accidentally.
Comments to posts over five days old are all moderated.