In the past few days, I've been performing some "lasts" regarding the vegetable garden. On Sunday, I mulched the garlic. That will be the last task in the garden until the snow melts in the spring (that is, if we ever get any snow).
Last night, we had the last truly local meal we'll be able to pull off until next May or June. We had the last of the carrots and garden potatoes. Because there weren't quite enough potatoes - Rose Finn Fingerlings - I had to add a few old red potatoes from the back of the refrigerator. I roasted the carrots and steamed the potatoes. To round out the meal, we had Swedish sausage from Ingebretsen's in Minneapolis.
All that's left from this year's garden are two meal's worth of fresh-frozen snap beans, a freezer bag of oven-dried tomatoes, some frozen pesto, and about 2.5 cups of dried shell beans.
(If you visit Ingebretsen's web site, all you'll see are Scandinavian gifts but they also have a great meat and specialty food market. I personally love the Swedish sausage, but if you're feeling particularly adventurous, you could also try some lutefisk. Although Wikipedia gives a Swedish spelling variation, my grandmother always assured us that only Norwegians ate lutefisk - not good Swedes. Whatever the case, I've tried to make it a practice to stay away from foods prepared with lye.)
Dexter Update: Kim was nice enough to ask about Dexter the dog. Way back on November 21, I mentioned that he was scheduled for an echocardiogram at the University of Minnesota Veterinary Hospital. It turns out that he does not yet have heart disease, but is going in that direction somewhat quickly. He has heart murmurs in two main valves, which has lead to his heart being enlarged (or as our regular vet said, "It's huge!"). At this point, there is nothing they can do. If he was a human, he would have valve replacement surgery, but I guess even the U doesn't do that on pets - it's much too expensive. However, once he gets heart disease, I guess there's a drug that can help the heart pump better. This drug has not yet been approved by the FDA, so we're now on a list to be able to get it from Canada if need be.
So, the final diagnosis on the big-hearted dog is that he has a bronchial infection. He's been through two 10-day cycles of antibiotics, but the cough is not quite gone. I think we're going to have to do another cycle of antibiotics to finally get rid of the cough (and all the phlegm he coughs up and immediately swallows - there's no accounting for a dog's taste).
It took me a while to get back here--been busy with work--but thanks for the update on Dexter. I hope that the antibiotics have robbed him of his new yucky snack by now... and that it takes a long time for the heart disease symptoms to show up.
I'm not surprised to hear that he's a big-hearted dog, though... you can just see how sweet he is by your pictures. :)
Posted by: kim (blackswamp_girl) | December 28, 2006 at 05:04 PM