SkyWatch Friday - 5/30/25 Memorial Day edition

Monday was Memorial Day here in the US. 

My VFW always puts on a nice ceremony at the post with lunch afterwards. 

It was a beautiful day. 

I also attended the ceremony that my city put on.  

There was a choir and a "siren salute" put on by the police & fire departments. 

Much to the delight of my grandkids, we stopped the ice cream truck on our street for the first time this year and we all got a treat. 

I'm not sure when I took this - it was a random photo in my phone!

But I like it. 

I also stopped at the cemetery to 'visit' my dad. 

I love the road going back to his location!

linking up over at SkyWatch Friday

 

A sad Saturday....

Here we go again! 

This time it was Rusty who crossed the Rainbow Bridge, on May 24. 

We adopted him from Sis1's barn where he'd been dumped. 

 So we don't have any idea how old he really was. 

4/29/17

the day we brought him home.

This was the day before his 'adoption' - completely uncaring that I was standing there holding the leadrope of a grazing horse.  

He & Daisy did a lot of snuggling. 

He was all cute with the Spouse.

Me?  I got smashed. 

So what happened began Thursday 5/22 - he'd been fine.  He jumped up on the bed like usual when I got home from work and we had our "together" time. Then sometime after that, he went to stand up and all he could do was circle to the right.  Obviously we were concerned.  We did a little research and honestly were hoping it was his ears or something.  But we decided to call the emergency vet and take him in.   Dumb me, didn't think to grab a cat carrier, so they put us right into a room so he could get down.  We noticed that he was walking ok, but as he cruised the perimeter of the room, he kept bumping into corners and such. 

They checked him out and they basically thought he'd had a stroke!  They showed us that he couldn't see out of his left eye and when they messed with his whiskers, he didn't do anything.  

So we got sent home (at 3am) with antibiotics and steroids and to follow up with our vet.  Friday he seemed as OK as could be, I got him some soft food to go with his meds and he went crazy over it.  He wasn't happy about the pills (I still have the scratches to show for it) but ate the food all up!  The Spouse said he used the litter box, etc.  Saturday he still was the same.  But when I went to give him his evening meds, he was laying on the floor in the bedroom with his leg twisted awkwardly underneath of him, so his left paw was by his right hip.  It took me a minute to even figure out how he was arranged!  I checked to make sure he wasn't broken and set him up on the bed.   He wasn't interested in the food and it was like his left legs weren't working. He was lethargic so I just held him for a long time, then the Spouse took him so I could eat dinner, then he (Rusty) wanted the Spawn to hold him, but when she took him, I saw his eyes were open wide & dilated and he opened his mouth and drool just poured out.  So I called the vet again and they said to bring him right in.  They were waiting for him and took him right back.  

So of course there were options.  They could have done MRIs and hospitalized him, but being away from his people wouldn't have made him happy.  They could have ran all sorts of tests, etc.  But again, would it even have helped?  Would he get better or would he be unable to walk?   There were no guarantees.  So we decided to help him cross the Rainbow Bridge. 

We weren't able to get him in at the same emergency vet that we took Maddie to, so it was the same yet different.  This place took us into a dimly lit room with a comfortable couch & chair, with a Himalayan salt lamp and noise machine playing ocean waves and let us spend as much time as we wanted with Rusty both before and after. 

He always loved the grandkids. 

And the grandkids loved him back! 

Bags were always inspected. 

No box was ever safe, either. 

Moral support - sick grandson and injured me!

Early Saturday before we said goodbye. 

His little box matches both Maddie's and our late dog's (I thought I had a post about him, but I guess only about how we got him).  And the Spawn still hasn't told the Grandkids that's he's gone!!  They just think he's either hiding or just not where they are at the moment.  Poor Daisy is all alone now!   She did see him before we went to the vet, so she had to have known something was wrong.   

Zoo Day!

I took off work yesterday so I could "chaperone" the grandkids' field trip to the Zoo.  Since they're actually still in daycare, the kids needed to have an adult with them, so I wasn't stuck with anyone else's kid(s).  The Spawn decided at the last minute to take the day off work so she could go, too. 

I'm certain there are pictures of me as a kid on this hippo outside the main gate! 

The new-ish penguin house is always a favorite. 

And it was cool to see divers in there cleaning the tunnel!

The kids were so excited to wave at them. 

I know there are pics of me as a kid in front of this fountain!

I just don't think we've ever gotten this angle before.  

The blue square in the background is sort of a built-in photo frame. 

Peacocks roam freely all over the place.

We had a giggle about the mini-excavator 'display'.

Since it was a cool overcast day, a lot of the animals were out roaming around. 

But the chimps were inside.  We got to see one of the babies! 

Some were playing with blankets, too.  Hilarious!

Grizzly Bear

Polar Bear

The kids also got tickets for the carousel.  It was so fun!

Sealion photobomb. 

One of the parents at the daycare actually works at the Zoo so there were a lot of perks.  

The carousel, for one.  The entire Buddy's pizza restaurant was reserved for us for lunch.

And face-painting!

The granddaughter saw one of her friends as a pirate, so she had to be one, too. 

The grandson is a rainbow tiger. 

The vultures were fighting. 

We went thru the amphibian house, too.  I didn't get any pics, because the grandson and I were too busy searching each enclosure for the resident critter.  He got really good at finding hidden snakes! 

Japanese Macaque

Warthogs artistically framed with purple irises. 

I don't know if there are any pics of me with this elephant, but I know there is of the Spawn, so I also had her pose next to it. 

Giraffes!

We could walk thru the "Australian" Exhibit and saw kangaroos just hanging out. 

There's a huge construction site that's blocked but these neat vinyl sheets.  There are openings so you can peek in and see what's going on and they also have signs along the fence kind of like on the animal exhibits, but with heavy machinery!   

The only problem with going to the zoo during the week is apparently none of the ice cream stands scattered throughout the park were open!  And then we found out (because we never thought about it) that most ice cream places out in town don't open until later!  We wanted ice cream and ended up going to ColdStone Creamery to get some.  

  

Last night was quite the treat since both kids only had really short naps, so they had the over-tired crazies all evening.  I don't think it took much for them to fall asleep once they stopped moving!  

 

It's Friday!!!

It's Friday!!!! The weather was calling for record high temps (89*F!!) today, but it's almost 2pm and says 82. That's fine with me - I can't handle the hot weather!

We had a big storm roll thru last night. I checked the weather before I went to bed and saw there was a line of storms on the radar. I was almost asleep at midnight when I heard a rumble of thunder in the distance and the outdoor warning sirens from the next county over go off.  So much for sleep! 

We live about a mile from the county line, so we pay attention to their weather since that's usually what we get, too.  The sirens went off due to high winds.  We had steady rolling thunder & lightning for a good 90 minutes, but not much rain.  We didn't get any wind until 1am, tho.  I had the window above my bed open but had to close it when the wind blew the rain in on my head! 

We don't have any exciting plans for the weekend - the Spouse is in Ohio for Hamvention so I'm stuck home with the Spawn & Grandkids. Tomorrow we'll be going to watch the Grandson play flag football - I've missed the last 2 weeks so I feel obligated to go. Then I'll probably work in my crazy overgrown flowerbeds. I need to mow the lawn again, but the mower - which is quite old anyway - doesn't like me and I don't have the patience like the Spouse does to jump thru all the hoops it requires to get it started. I just want the pull the cord and the darn thing start - which it probably won't. So mowing may or may not happen.

Last Saturday was the VFW's Day of Service - it's something that's required for the post to do to receive our All-State status each year. A bunch of us met up at a cemetery that our post has "adopted" and spent a couple hours putting out flags and cleaning up.

Someone did a lot of research & work putting these pieces of PVC pipe next to the Veteran's headstones so all we had to do was look for the pipes.

It seemed like every time I turned around; I was near this stone.

1st Sgt

Asa H Austin

Co. C

8 US Inf

When I get drawn to a headstone, I always visit.

A quick Google search tells me the 8th US Infantry was in the Mexican War, Civil War, WWI, WWII, Vietnam and Iraq.

Well, that covers 1846-2011.

The shield thingy says GAR, which is the Grand Army of the Republic. That's Civil War.

Find-A-Grave says he passed away in 1881 at age 69, so he was one of the older guys.

Sorry - I go down these rabbit holes so easily and I took you with me!

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Sunday was Mother's Day. I posted pics earlier from where the Spouse & I went for a drive. But we did actually 'celebrate'. We met up with Sis1 & Bro1 and took our Mom out to dinner at a nice restaurant.

The Spawn got me a new purple lilac bush. Planting that is on the agenda for this weekend.

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Monday I met up with the VFW Auxiliary's post historian (since I'm the regular post historian) to go into the attic to look for interesting things to display at the 80th anniversary celebration in November. We've been putting it off since it had been winter and would have been cold up there - so of course the day we chose ended up being 80* - the attic was like an oven!

Noted and laughed about - but stayed in the attic....

a flag made out of beer bottle caps.

We did bring this down - but it'll probably go back up..

A formal photograph (copywrited 1899!!!) of Admiral of the Navy George Dewey who made a name for himself in the Spanish American War. Well before our post was even dreamed of!

Another rabbit hole.... Admiral of the Navy is the highest possible rank in the US Navy until 1945 when Fleet Admiral became a thing. He was the only officer to have ever been appointed to it.

This, however, will be displayed!

This was the post's very first alter cloth, used from Nov 9, 1945 to Sept 9, 1991

Nov 9, 1945 is when the VFW officially recognized our post.

We also found some cool old photos of construction on the building and different events.

Here's a couple of snails on a tree of some sort in the parking lot at work.

OMG - look what I found at the grocery store!

I've tried them both and they're both good, but the thin mint one is not very minty.

Anyhoooo - it's a slow day at work (obviously!!) but I do have a few things I need to finish here before I go home for the day.  I think a nap will be in order before the Grandkids get home from daycare. 

Things you find on Facebook Marketplace -

I have a blowmold just like this - I hope mine's not haunted either!!!