Picnicking, politicking and pets

Last night we attended a free evening concert on the campus of Linfield College in McMinnville (a beautiful institution that reminds Rick and me a bit of our alma mater back in Nebraska). Brian and I heard Etouffee as an acoustic duo at the Brown Bag concert series last summer and liked it a lot. Last night featured the whole band, and it rocked a little hard. Still, it was a nice place to be on a hot summer night with a picnic supper.

This morning the state vet gave the nod to my little Shetland flock for the voluntary scrapie program. I'm a little envious of all those whose state vets help them with tagging and shots and such; the one in my area comes strictly to do the necessary paperwork. He doesn't think much of the program, either, because it is only as effective as people are honest. He does make a good point: to make the program more meaningful, necropsies should be required on all animals in the program who die. Otherwise, people may unknowingly (or knowingly) dispose of an animal that has scrapie and no one is the wiser.

Fellow Shetland shepherd and blogger Juliann had to put down her old, beloved pug recently. Reading her account made me cry -- and reach over to scratch my Rosie. At seven years of age she's been having some health issues of her own, and I am very conscious of how short our time is together. We've had Rosie since her conception, and she has been my "baby dog" ever since we decided which pup in our litter we were going to keep. I'm hoping for a few more good years, but it won't be long enough.
That's it for now at . . .