Wedding Card

We have a family wedding today, so of course I had to  make a card.  I will write about it later.

 

Inside of card

 

 

 

Meet Whiskers V

This is our new puppy....Whiskers the 5th.  We pick him up next week and the puppy fun begins.

Oh how we dread the training of a new puppy, but we are so excited to get him.  If you compare the pictures below you will see he looks exactly like Whiskers IV did when he was this age. 

We fell in love with him immediately as he came running right to us and jumped around playing with his toy, chewing on Jon's fingers and my toes.

We went back to the place that we got Whiskers IV, because they are such a great kennel.

The "peoplelise" their puppies from the start.  They have teenagers come in daily to play with them.  They take them out in the grass to play and teach them to lay on their backs and not be afraid.  They were not expecting us and he was so clean, fluffy and smelled good.

We feel God blessed us as this little guy is 8 weeks old, is being weaned this week, has had his shots and will be ready to be the new member of the Fricker household next week. 

Forgive the blurry picture but he just wouldn't stand still long enough to get a good picture! :)

 

 

Whiskers..our buddy!!!

Yesterday was a very sad and hard day for us  and not much better today.

Our buddy, Whiskers has been such a faithful and good dog for 9 years.

We picked him out when he was 2 weeks old, visited him every 2 weeks until we could get him at 8 weeks.  The first 6 months was the fun times of training a puppy and at times I wasn't sure "I" would make it.  But, all that time was so well worth it as he was one of the best behaved dogs we could have found.

He has not been himself for several months.  In May the Vet said he had 2 bad teeth, so he pulled them thinking that was his problem.  He didn't get better and in fact worse.  We changed vets and the new vet discovered he had a bad infection somewhere.  After numerous visits, tests and medicine he just kept getting worse. The vet suggested we take him to Fort Wayne to the Emergency Veterinary Hospital to get a Cat Scan.  Sunday we were so hopeful as he had the best day he had had in several weeks.  But, yesterday morning he took a dramatic change for the worse (the vet thinks the cancer hit his brain).  After the cat scan we were told he had a tumor in his nasal passage and it had spread to the brain.  Certainly not the news we wanted to hear.  We brought him home with pain meds, but on the way home we decided we just couldn't put him through any more pain.  We stopped at our vet and was with him when she put him to sleep.  Our hearts are broken.  Everything we did he was always right beside us whether it was working in the garden, sitting by the pond or even watching TV.

We are going to miss him and he will always have a place in our hearts.

 

 

Our buddy Whiskers!

 

Whiskers the 4th at 8 weeks

He was Jon's 4th Westie

4 Months Old

 

Whiskers - a grown puppy

 

We are dog people and will soon be looking for another Westie.

We feel this honors the previous dog to want another one just like him.

 

Lucifer (Crocosmia crocosmiiflora)

Lucifer (Crocosmia crocosmiiflora_ is a bulb which multiplies nicely and is a beautiful display

of red flowers that blooms late July into August.  The foliage looks like iris.

My daughter (Lori) gave this  plant to me many years ago.  I have moved it several times,

but finally found the spot it loves.

 

A close up picture.

 

The purple flower is Liatris (spicata) with Lucifer in the background in another garden spot.

The yellow daisy like flower goes nicely with both of them.

 

My Strawberry Vanilla Hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata 'Renhy')

is just starting to bloom.  This is an amazing plant as it starts out

white, turns pink, then vanilla.  It dries beautifully.  I do believe it is

one of my very favorite plants and I would love to have several more.

If you want to see them in full bloom, search Pinterest for Strawberry Vanilla Hydrangea

 and you will want one too.