The title of this post was what the dear vet who took care of our sweet Hildegard said after her passing.

It truly is.

She had a lovely funeral…for that is exactly what we gave her there, in Dr. Beatie’s little clinic in a small town in Georgia. He was her very first vet, and her very last one. He loved her and she was exactly where she needed to be that day. No doubts, no worries about it being the right time…it absolutely was the right time.

A huge and very important part of my heart went with her that day. The part she’s protected, watched over and kept safe all these years is running with her forever. It is exactly as it should be…she needs her Mama.

Hildy never was able to simply be a dog. I needed her too much and because of her nature, she couldn’t have had it any other way. Little Georgia Rose is my dog, and that is exactly what she should be.

We took Hildy and Georgia Rose to the river, together one last time, the day before we took her to Dr. Beatie’s. We turned on the radio as we drove around the fishing ponds on our way home. We were given a beautiful gift in the form of a perfect lullaby for our sweet girl. The words are written here and there is a link to listen to the song. We sang it for her as we held her close in her last moments. She walked into the clinic on her own steam, although she was quickly losing the ability to do so. She wore her pink color with her red heart name tag. She also had on her hospice therapy dog working vest. She was absolutely beautiful.

If only we all could have as gentle and lovely a passing as she had…we left her lying in state, sprinkled with pink rose petals from an old rose bush growing where there once was a home-place on the road to her special place by the river. She also had her very first toys around her and jasmine from our back yard.

Thank you, sweet girl, for taking such great care of me.
You are finally released to simply be…a dog.

This picture was taken the day before we took her to Dr. Beatie’s. She may look like she’s doing ok, but it was only because I was home and she was looking at me.

~Star Lullaby~
written by
Johnny Cunningham
sung by
Susan McKeown

The dark is warm
It folds around you,
Safe to sleep
in velvet arms.
And all the stars
are watching o’er you,
their light to keep you
safe from harm.

So go to sleep,
my bonny baby.
With shutters closed
and windows tight.
There lies a world
beyond the curtains,
forever dark,
forever light.

05 – Star Lullaby

We love you always, Hildegard.
~Mama and Daddy~

I’ve had this piece of paper for almost 20 years. I can’t believe it’s held together through moves across the country and back and being misplaced and found many times, but never forgotten. I acquired it when I worked for a short time in a Hallmark store. The message really captures how I feel about the earth.  I try to make it Earth Day everyday.

Happy Earth Day everyone!

I’ve often seen the Native American dream catcher ornaments. There are two different ideas as to how this protective symbol works. One is that bad dreams are caught in the web and disappear in the light of day. The other is that good dreams are caught in the web and the bad ones pass through the holes. Whichever way it is interpreted, I received a lovely gift the other night. My very own dream catcher.

A spider who lives outside our sliding glass door made her web within a pine nettle…

The pine nettle was used for 3 nights in a row.
What an amazing little spider and what a lovely and unexpected surprise.

We had made the decision earlier this week to have our beautiful Hildegard put to final sleep. Actually, today was our appointment. She had been very fragile, back end giving way and just not doing very well at all. If tears had been medicine this week, Hildy would never feel badly one second of her life. However, they’re not, and we were as prepared as we could be to let our sweet dog and companion pass into what lies beyond this world for beloved pets. My husband, who is on part-time status at his job right now, has been attending to Hildy this week in our ”doggy hospice” care.  He had been away the last two weeks for military exercises and returned to a much more depleted Hildegard than when he left. I received a beautiful sympathy card from one of my best friends and sweet hand-made cards from my little girls I used to Nanny for (my “bunnies”.) I had other dear friends e-mail and call in their support and caring. We bumped her up to 4 Vicodin tablets a day (500mg each.) We were just trying to make her comfortable until we could take care of her Saturday. The very first vet she ever had (Dr. Beatie) had been alerted and the end was drawing near…

…and then I came home from work on Thursday to find my husband calmly smoking his pipe in the back yard. The dogs were out with him–Georgia Rose was laying near him, happy and relaxed. And there, to my amazement was Hildegard, running across the yard to retrieve a ball! At first I was so delighted to see her feeling this good…and just as quickly, I felt distress (and a wave of anger) as suddenly, I didn’t know what to do.

“Hildy!” I said, “What are you doing?!”
Running and having fun, Mama! she seemed to tell me as she ran (as good as an old dog can run) to find another ball.
“But you aren’t supposed to be playing!”
But I am!
“But you are going to sleep on Saturday! We’ve made arrangements!”
Wheee!

I couldn’t handle it and ran to escape into the cyber world. My husband was right behind me. I looked up and said “I’m escaping.”
“I see that,” he gently said in his deep and comforting voice.

We talked and I went out to see if maybe I had made a mistake and didn’t see what I did. Sure enough, there she was, pretty as you please, full of life and energy. My husband suggested we take the doggies to the river. We quickly got them and ourselves together and away we went.

We had already had Hildy’s “last time” out to the river but she had been really subdued. This time, she played and we walked, probably more than was good for her, but she had fun. She enjoyed laying in the cool water in her favorite spot and investigating the different scents and sights of the woods. She couldn’t keep up with Georgia Rose, but she had a bounce in her step and she was smiling the whole time.

Yesterday, my husband called Dr. Beatie and discussed our plans and decision. We couldn’t put Hildy to sleep when she had so much life left. He agreed and it has been established that we are just going to let Hildy ride this wave as long as she can. It may be a day, it may be a week or a month but we are going to enjoy this last hurrah with her.

We may have the right dosage of Vicodin constantly in her system, or she realized that “Daddy” didn’t go away for long and she didn’t have to go into deployment mode (that was my thought, along with the drugs, was that she knew he had gone away and maybe she also knew she just wasn’t up to the job of holding down the fort while he was gone. Maybe I think she’s thinking these things too much, but it just seems that way to me.) My husband reminded me how stubborn Hildy is and always has been and I guess she’s going to be stubborn about this, too. For whatever reason and however it is, our girl and God have decided that now is the time for playing, for ice cream cones (tonight!) and for Hildegard to be with us a while longer.

So, for the love of Hildy, we are riding this wave with her for however long it lasts.

Here she is, on Thursday, April 12th, down at the river…

See what I mean?!

Our beautiful German Shepherd, Hildegard, has been our constant companion in all of our wild gooseberry adventuring. She has been our sweet dog, who always insists she is more human than dog, her whole life. My husband wanted a “big, manly dog” and so we brought home an 8-week-old floppy-eared puppy when we had been married about 3 weeks. We didn’t even have furniture, but we had bookcases, sleeping bags and a puppy, we were set.

Over the years, we’ve had many adventures, many mishaps with her and also much, much love. Our big, manly dog wears a pink rose collar and takes a teddy bear to bed. She has always been a gentle, sweet dog, and has more than lived up to her saintly name of Hildegard, after Saint Hildegard von Bingen (my husband is an admirer of this most remarkable woman’s musical gifts.) Our Hildegard has comforted many people during her time as a hospice therapy dog and also just out and about whenever people needed a bit of gentle doggy love.  She seems to know when people are fragile or needing the most gentle loves due to mental or physical challenges. During one most memorable hospice day she helped a lady who had been non-responsive for months come back to her family for a little while. Mostly, though, she has been my protector, companion and comforter during times when my husband couldn’t be there due to military deployments around the world. Hildy has always been here to take over for him, going into what we call “deployment mode” only truly relaxing when “Daddy” returned home.

It feels like I just turned around one day and Hildy grew old without my noticing. Suddenly, our girl is in old lady. In human years, a German Shepherd of 12 and a half is around her mid 90’s. She has had an ailment or two and an eye condition she developed in Colorado, due to the high pressure of the elevation we were living in. For years, she’s had to have drops in both eyes to stay off blindness without complaint, and happy to receive the doggy treat and “good girl” that always comes after.

Recently, she has been showing signs of old age and we’ve taken her to several vets and have received several treatments which have worked. Now, though, most of those treatments are not working and Hildy is failing fast. She has been holding in there, seeming to be ok, so we kept having tests done, trying to figure out the best care for her. I went online and searched for old age in German Shepherds and found many folks going though similar situations. I read a suggestion that very protective breeds, such as our Shepherds, will seem ok, even if they aren’t, if they think their people need them. It hit me like a ton of bricks…I do need her and she knows it. After much crying, and being comforted by our sweet Desperado kitty, I went and laid down by Hildy and let her know I would be ok for whenever she couldn’t be here with me. I told her she was a great dog (and she still is) and thanked her for taking such good care of us and of me. I also let her know that when she needed to rest, that I would be ok. She looked at me the whole time I was talking to her. The next day she started to go downhill dramatically.

Now, I am trying to believe that I will actually be ok. Whenever I need to cry, I do it away from her, sometimes in the bedroom, sometimes in the car. For her, I always have pats and “good girl”s and love and the assurance that I will be ok. Our cat, Desperado and our little found-hound, Georgia Rose, have been wonderful comfort companions for those times when I’ve not been able to hold in the tears any longer. I’ve cried in secret but secret only to Hildy. Our sweet Hildy is now on Vicodin for pain, 3 times a day. We’ve stopped all tests because they just don’t matter anymore. She’s only on what medication will make her more comfortable and we are simply trying to enjoy the last little while we have with her.

Tomorrow we are taking our girl down to the river, to her favorite spot which I’ve shared with you in pictures, one last time. She can no longer walk all the way to the river so we will drive her down and let her sit in the cool water and smell the woodland scents and take her naps as long as she wants out in our wild adventuring place.

We are heading around the last bend in Hildy’s journey with us, dear friends.
What a wonderful journey it’s been. ♥

Hildegard in her favorite spot by the Canoochee River, March 2012.

Today is the day of fools, of pranks, and of (hopefully) light-hearted teasing. I like to think of it as the true start to the new year. I may be alone, but it makes sense to me.

I have read a couple of reasons as to why this day is called April Fool’s Day. The one I’m most inclined to side with involves the new calendar. The last week of March had long been the week to welcome the new year, with the celebration of New Year’s day happening on April 1st. However, when a new (current) calendar was introduced, the New Year was moved to January 1st. Taking a long time for news and communications to reach the masses, it took years for it to be heard in all of Europe. In the meantime, folks who hadn’t heard of the changes continued to celebate the new year on April 1st. When they were found out, they were called fools and pranks were played on them.

To me, though, it makes much more sense to celebrate the beginning of a new year during the rebirth of springtime rather than in the cold and dreary middle of winter. To celebrate the new year when the earth is waking up and flowers are blooming and birds are finding choice building materials for their nests. When butterflies start their soft flight and the robins are on the lawn is a perfect time to ring in the new year…Nature is!

If that makes me an April Fool, then I will happily be one.  
Happy April Fool’s Day, or Happy New Year, whichever way you wish to see it.

As mentioned in the previous sharing, we had the opportunity to purchase a brand new vehicle. The choice was mine, mostly, the make, the style, the color, everything! I had never had that choice before and it was exciting.

In the end, I chose a Chevrolet Equinox in Cardinal Red (the paint is sparkly in the sun.)

Meet Redbird, the newest addition to our little family. Even though the paint is red, it is a darker red and the car just has a feminine cast to it, so she is a she!

Only 34 miles when she came to us from Virginia…

A gift from an old friend…the little girls I had previously Nannied for helped me choose this steering wheel cover for Traveller. It is now on the steering wheel of Redbird.

If she has the beach parking tag, she is definitely bona fide…

The paint is so shiny, I can see the house across the street reflected!

Hello, new friend. New adventures, new travels, new happenings await us. 
Welcome to the family. 

There’s been a lot of goodbyes in our little family lately. Here is another one…

Back in January, we had to finally say goodbye to our old Saturn car, Traveller. He was named by my husband after General Robert E. Lee’s grey horse. He was a great car, never a problem until the last few years, and each repair has been getting more expensive. The wonderful opportunity presented itself to purchase a brand new car, but we had the difficult task of saying goodbye to our old one. Many people may say “It’s only a car” but so much of our history is wrapped up in Traveller.

This was the car that took us out on dates when we were in college. This is the car that took us to the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California where my husband proposed to me. It was in this car that my husband brought me to our first home together, in Ft. Stewart, Georgia. We moved across the country and back in this car and for the first two years of our marriage, this was our only car. When we did buy a new car, Traveller became my car. We took this car out on many adventures with the dogs into the Georgia woods (and you’ve been able to join us through this little gooseberry blog.) This is the car that carried me and two little girls for two wonderful years of my being their Nanny and he never let us down.

Traveller was with us from the beginning and it was very hard to let him go. But, like horses, they do need to be let out to pasture eventually. Unlike horses, however, he still may have a future ahead. His engine was still good and perhaps he will be fixed up and someone else may have adventures and history with him. We don’t know his fate…and we really don’t want to know.

Thank you, Traveller, for being a great car and for taking us safely to and from where we wanted to go.

At 14, Traveller was starting to show his age…

He lost two hubcaps. One, I heard exit with a “PING!” while driving in Colorado Springs when we were stationed there (although I didn’t realize what that Ping was until I got home.) The other made a much more quiet departure, somewhere between here and Savannah.

The ceiling was sun-damaged I guess, and could peel off very easily. I used gooseberry creativity in covering the holes…

In the end, I also used Bubba-printed duct (duck) tape as it held really well (actually, Gorilla tape)…

Some of the stickers that went with Traveller…

Here is my husband and Traveller on the day we turned the old car in. After 10 years Active Duty Army, he has re-entered the National Guard and his civilian job is armed/unarmed security guard. The night before this picture was taken, we took Traveller back to Ft. Stewart to visit our old haunts. We drove by our first and second homes and the places we used to go to. I have a very wonderful and extremely sentimental husband. He drove Traveller one last time to his job that last day as well.

Thank you, Traveller. We will miss you.
If you do get to be with a new owner, may you be loved and taken care of and have many more adventures ahead of you.

Last weekend, we took our dogs out to our usual stomping grounds in the woods. There is a little path that leads to some extensive swaps that the dogs are always wanting to follow. That day, we decided to let the doggies have their way and we all went down the seldom-used hint of a path to the deep swamps.

We’ve been in a drought situation here in Southeastern Georgia for a while now. Water levels are down and places that would usually be below water are dry land for now. That is what we found in the swamps. What normally is hidden below still waters was revealed to us. What a strange and interesting adventure it turned out to be!

It was interesting and spooky to see what water has done to the trees…

Sometimes, it pays to look up as well…

We found an interesting hole in this tree…

It was even more interesting looking inside.  It looked more earth than wood…thankfully, no one was home…

We explored this strange, twisted landscape for a long time, knowing that any self-respecting alligator had moved on to swampier swamps…

We found this, one of the most interesting inhabitants of the swamp. We call it “The Witch’s Hat.” The roots have grown *up* and spread out like branches (or a witch’s hat.)

We discovered a little faerie glen in the middle of the dark mirklands…

We also found Yoda’s hut (my husband, a Star Wars fan, declared)…

We found other little dwellings as well…

The dogs also found a smelly smell (oh, so many around a swamp, wet or dry!)…

Georgia Rose felt the need to take some of the interesting stink home with us…

Just the memory of it was, thankfully, enough for Hildegard…

More strange and lovely delights awaited us as we found our way out of the swamp…

We finally found our way to one of the bridges we know…

…but have never seen from this point of view…

We climbed up the embankment and made our way to the Canoochee River, and a well deserved rest…

It’s rained for 18 hours straight in the last two days. Our dry swamp is hopefully restored to its natural swampiness, but it was a wonderful, unexpected adventure to discover its secrets.

I am sad to revisit gooseberry with a sad story, but our little family has another dearly departed. Slumber’s best friend, Ghost, has joined her little friend to wherever the good ratties go. On Thursday, February 16th, our little Ghost died very suddenly. We thought it was respriatory problems, but when we took the remaining ratties to the vet the next day for a check-up, he said he thought it was probably a cancer tumor on her spleen that had ruptured, given her symptoms and how quickly she died.  The two remaining ratties have been in deep mourning over her passing, only now seeming to get back to a new normal.

Our sweet, gentle little Ghost was laid to rest beside Slumber under the big pine by the lake behind our house. Goodnight, little Ghost. You were the most gentle, sweetest  little creature imaginable and I’m so glad you were our rattie. We miss you watching us from Rattyton, always observing in your little gentle way.

Raya and Ghost (on the right) in their Ying-Yang pose.

Pile o’ratties. Ghost is the one on the top, near Slumber, the only one awake, saying hi.