Monday 21 December 2009

Pet and Home Maintenance

Everybody has their strengths and weaknesses.  I'm learning more about mine as the days go by - especially when faced with unpleasantries. I can set a good mood amongst family and friends. I can lift spirits. I can encourage and comfort. I can communicate well and enable others to communicate as they should.  But... I cannot face the distress and helplessness of sick people and animals.

The Machinist, on the other hand, is excellent at caring for the sick and frail, as he did with our beloved Bucko here and here. I admire this quality in him so much.  He checks his Bob every hour, waters him, via a syringe, changes his soiled bedding, washes his butt with Dettol and dries him down.  Then he washes all Bob's soiled towels in water with bleach and eucalyptus oil.  It's been three days and each day, the Machinist has administered vitamin C by injection and orally by syringe.  All this from a man who couldn't change his own baby's nappies without dry renching. 

And talking about dry renching, I think the Machinist's stomach for 'smells' is getting tougher.  Today, he and I had to clear the blocked septic pipes.  I check that things are working smoothly, going where they should go, into the septic tank, while the Machinist rams hoses down the septic pipes, via the breathing hole. It's a nasty business, but someone's gotta do it. Unfortunately, our pipework is old and consists of ceramic pipe, narrowing to polypipe.  Each time we get a blockage, the Machinist declares that soon, real soon, he's going to '....rip all these odd pipes out and put plastic ones in...'.

Fun fun fun.

And with all that stinky trauma, on a hot and sticky day, we decided to claim some R and R for ourselves. 

I need to work on rustling up a decent Christmas spirit...

5 comments:

French Fancy... said...

Isn't it astonishing how strong we can be when things come to test us. I'm a very squeamish person who retches easily but our rescue bichon Poppy has tested this more than any other dog I've had. Because she was nearly starved to death she has a lot of food issues and, early on, ate anything she could find within her reach - candles, wood, etc. I've never had to clean up so much diarrhea in such a short space of time - on her bottom and in her house. I just felt so sorry for her and got on with the cleaning. How could I be cross?

Three cheers for your wonderful husband - he loves that dog as much as we love ours. I hope his finger is improving and of course - it goes without saying - that I wish Bobby a quick quick recovery. Oh, that poor little dog - my hears goes out to him

French Fancy... said...

I mean in our house not her house. These are two spoilt bichons; they have car look out seats and sleep on our bed.

@eloh said...

This all reminds me of a Christmas nursing a dieing Golden Retriever while her girl was on vacation. I was more sick about how to tell my daughter her dog passed. Everytime I went to the dog I'd sit on the steps just sick that I'd open the door and find her dead... I boiled chicken and sat giving her broth and bites, washing and cleaning her bedding, turning her...

One day I just knew she couldn't hold on much longer... the bed was empty..she was slowly walking back up to the workshop... she lived several more years.

mold inspections Manhattan said...

Home cleaning is a very important aspect...the water let outs that is the pipes,the basement,the roof...everything needs to be taken care of.

Nyc mold removal said...

Home cleaning becomes very essential also when the pets are around as they litter and make the apartment dirty,if the ways are not known then it is best to hire professionals for the purpose.

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