As much as I try to avoid attributing human characteristics to four-legged creatures, when Deb and I returned to the bus Tuesday evening Scout and Dipstick knew that something was wrong. Both of us had Smudge’s blood on us, staining our t-shirts and jeans, and we were greeted with much sniffing and a little whining.
Did they have a clue, really? We believe they did. Their reactions when reunited with the puppy yesterday afternoon made that pretty obvious. They’re still hovering over their baby sister.
All critters have instincts.
Smudge had a reasonably good first night after surgery. Her pain meds wore off around 5am, meaning that I was up shortly thereafter to take her outside and check her dressing. As we expected, she’d licked at the bandages some — there will be no “Cone of Shame” for our Country princess — which I remedied with strips of adhesive tape.
We’ll repeat that ritual, I’m sure, over the next few days or so.
Today, despite pressing work on The Mountain (cutting back overhanging branches along the road), we’re staying put at the campground. Deb talked me into resting my aching back through what promises to be a rainy Friday. We’ll tackle the tree-trimming Saturday morning.
That respite also gives us a chance to watch Smudge more closely and better manage her activity.
I have one more observation about our first experience with the animal hospital in Mountain Home — not a complaint, just something I’d never experienced.
Like I said, Smudge received excellent care. Through it all, however, the only contact we had with a licensed veterinarian was a brief phone call before she began surgery. We never saw the doc — not when the puppy was examined and admitted, and not when she was discharged.
Again, the vet tech we worked with was remarkably good, competent as well as kind. But the whole process resembled the nurse-practitioner scheme now common in human medicine, and I’m just old-fashioned enough to not be totally comfortable with that.
I have more than just casual experience with the way it used to be. My late father practiced veterinary medicine for over four decades, both small-animal and large-animal. Granted, he was a one-man band — no assistants and no techs, doing everything from scrubbing cages to performing surgery — but I can’t imagine he would’ve been ok with delegating all personal interaction with his clients to someone who wasn’t a vet.
Times have changed, I guess. I don’t have to like it, though.
“The leadership at the FBI and Justice Department have weaponized federal law enforcement against everyday Americans, seeking to silence those who dare to have a different viewpoint.”
“If you’re a parent attending a school board meeting, you’re pro-life or praying at a clinic or you’re a Catholic simply going to mass, you are a target of the government, a target of the FBI.”
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), this morning
While savoring my second cup of coffee this morning, I had the TV tuned to House Judiciary’s “weaponization hearings.” Fundamentally, and aided by the testimony of “whistleblowers,” it pits those who swear fidelity to the Constitution of the United States against those who pledge allegiance to the Permanent State.
And who’s defending the indefensible? Democrats, of course.
They’re parading their trademark perversion of what it means to be an American. In typical collectivist fashion, they presume that we’re citizens not of a country but of its government. They recognize only subjects, serfs, sycophants.
Perhaps most evil are the Left’s attempts to compare their own “defund the police” agenda with the Right’s call to withhold funding from an increasingly rogue DOJ — as if cops enforcing the law against criminals somehow is egregious, while State agents acting outside the law against law-abiding Americans is worthy of praise.
Republicans don’t want to defund the police — they propose defunding the Stasi.
The committee’s chairman, quoted above, represents the correct constitutional perspective. He’s unmasking the anti-American opposition’s hypocrisy, defending the whistleblowers and (repeatedly) reminding us all that progressives convened a kangaroo court over an “insurrection” that wasn’t.
Just holding these hearings is a moral victory of sorts — and you know what they say about moral victories. Statements and testimony will expose Democrats for who they are and encourage true Americans, but we’re doing battle not only with the political elite but with captive media and the entire Permanent State.
No one will hang. No one will go to prison. No one will be impeached. No one will pay for their crimes against America.
We knew all this anyway. If you’ve ever been labeled a “conspiracy nut” for your suspicion that government was acting against the People, that the State operates outside the Constitution, you weren’t wrong about that — any of it. The America “reimagined” and “fundamentally transformed” by the Left is not America.
Our present predicament won’t be changed by congressional committee hearings. America can only be restored. That’s up to the People.
Remember, they hate us. They’re coming for us. Conduct yourself accordingly.
Two years ago today, Deb saw her first bald eagle in the wild.
Her cousin had shuttled us from our campground on the banks of the White River down to Buffalo Point. We spent hours there, reveling in the peace. The eagle glided past us over the water.
Five months later, we’d make the choice to live the rest of our lives with the magnificent Buffalo right in our back yard — ten miles from Buffalo Point as the eagle flies, 22 miles and 35 minutes by road.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB