Our American Elms

There's a nice article in today's Oregonian about the American Elm tree and Dutch Elm Disease and what Portlanders are doing to save their neighborhood elm trees. There's even mention of our North Omaha Park Blocks! Read about it here.

It's amazing what our friends in Ladd's Addition have done to help save their street elm trees - we have a lot to learn from them! Happy Holidays everyone!

Did we Dig it or What?

Ok, folks - we did it! We replanted our lost trees on Omaha Parkway - it was a big success with 25 neighbors coming out to help us plant five trees. We needed everybody, because digging holes and placing trees in them is harder than you think! Here's some pictorial evidence of a great morning planting trees...



Digging was much harder than we anticipated, and we did run into roots from the former inhabitants of these holes, so we had to dig around to find the perfect spots to place these trees. It was a good thing that Karl Dawson from the City of Portland brought pick axes with him - in fact, he thought of everything, including some good soil with which to backfill the holes. We had plenty of mulch (bark chips from the former elms) but good hard soil was hard to come by, so his pickup load of soil was helpful to anchor the trees.



The next project is to wait for Spring - Karl will again gather us together to go over watering procedures for the summer months. We are also going to work on building benches for the parkway so we can sit and watch the trees grow tall! Besides, Quinn & Piper (the young Van Patten/McVee children) need to play in the trees while they're small and remember that they helped plant them. Those two kids were incredibly hard workers - helping to dig the bark shavings out of the holes and then stamping in the good dirt. They're the only ones among us that will still be here when these oak trees are big and bountiful!

I didn't take as many pictures as I should have - if anybody else wants to send me the pictures they took, I'd be happy to post them here. We had a wonderful turnout of folks and we are so pleased to have trees back in their rightful places.

Update: Monday 11/16/09 - take a look at the photo stream (above) to see all the photos I've collected from folks....keep sending them and I'll keep updating the photo stream - it's great to see all the folks who helped out!

Tree Planting Details

Join your neighbors to help replant the elms lost to Dutch Elm Disease in the Omaha Park Blocks. Portland Parks & Recreation will be working with Neighborhood Tree Stewards to replant five trees. From Rosa Parks south, the trees will be; Oregon White Oak, Oregon White Oak, Accolade Elm, Accolade Elm and a Big Leaf Maple

Please join us to meet your neighbors, have some coffee and donuts, and replant Omaha Blocks

Signing up is appreciated, please call to sign up.
Karl Dawson
Portland Parks & Recreation
City NatureUrban Forestry Outreach Specialist
kdawson@ci.portland.or.us
503-823-1650
http://www.portlandonline.com/parks/trees

Hello Friends of Trees!

Hey check out the new blog by Friends of Trees called "Growth Rings" - the link is down on the right side of this page and also here:

http://friendsoftrees.org/blog/

Friends of Trees are responsible for creating the new canopy the Portland area has experienced in the last 20 years or so....they are doing a fantastic job of getting the word out: TREES MATTER!!!!

Pruning your OWN Trees

Yes, we hired an arborist to prune our own trees on our property.

We have an ornamental plum tree in our front yard that was showing evidence of disease: black knot disease to be exact. The cure is to prune judiciously, spray with a fungicide and feed the tree back to good health. We're using an arborist who is certified in the best practices of the industry and who, well, loves trees.

Our fruit plum tree in the back was just overgrown and needed thinning and pruning.

Now they both look MUCH better. Over the next year they will get some fertilizer and they should both do well.

Planting Trees

David and I attended the "dig it" event at Mt. Tabor Middle School on Saturday and we helped plant trees there with Friends of Trees, Urban Forestry and a bunch of volunteers from different places. We also graduated as Neighborhood Tree Stewards and we even received a certificate!

I tried to get my Mom to travel to Portland for this graduation, but she declined. She started laughing "I've been to ENOUGH of your graduations!"

Tree planting tips: wear your grubbies (you will get muddy), bring gloves, a shovel, some pruning shears and a knife or wire cutters (depending on how the trees are wrapped up). I think that Urban Forestry will bring mulch (we should check with Karl Dawson about that), but it might be a good idea to have some buckets of water or hoses ready as well.

November 14 - are you ready???

Rogue Dawson

Yesterday was our last tree stewardship class and our final speaker was the now infamous Karl Dawson, the man who is going to get our trees replanted on Omaha.



What a nice guy - he's been head of public/private park partnerships for 10 years on behalf of the City of Portland. He organizes volunteers and neighborhood groups to do city tree projects that the neighborhoods want done, and he works to energize neighborhood groups to recognize the importance of trees to their streets, parks and property.

He's having trouble finding trees in the species that we want (and that he suggested) to plant in the Omaha Parkway. He wants trees with a big enough caliper size so that they won't be easily vandalized and will grow quickly. So he's requested a set-over of the planting date until November 14 in order to find the trees he wants.

So: we need at least 7 people to help with planting on November 14. David and I are in - are you?

From Neighbor Mike

As you can see, I'm finally getting around to blogging and spreading more info. This from neighbor Mike at 6355:

GREETINGS I TALKED WITH KARL AT U.F.. HE GAVE ME LOCATIONS OF TWO TYPES OF TREES SUGGESTED A WHITE OAK LOCATED ACROSS THE STREET FROM BEACH GRADE SCHOOL AT 1710 N. HUMBOLDT IT'S 200 YRS OLD. IT JUST DWARFS THE HOUSE THAT'S UNDER IT...IT'S A REAL PRETTY TREE AND HAS BEEN PHOTOGRAPHED ALOT. THERE IS A BIG LEAF MAPLE ON GREELEY AVE 2 BLKS. SOUTH OF LOMBARD. BOTH TREES ARE HUGE... I'M KIND OF LEANING TOWARD DIFFERENT KINDS OF ELMS, JUST TO KEEP THE BLOCK LOOKING FOR UNIFORM, WITH A SIMILAR SIZE TREE....IT SOUNDS LIKE KARL NEEDS TO KNOW WHAT TO LOCATE BY THE 24TH...

Any thoughts?

Tree Vandals

A few weekends ago some tree vandals went down the parkway and pulled off low-hanging branches off of the Elms. I know that some of the neighbors cleaned up the mess by putting stuff in their garbage.

I asked Autumn Montegna (the elm monitor for the City) about this. She advises us not to clean up elm limbs from the big trees - they are potential dutch elm disease carriers and need to be chipped. We are to call her if branches come down and she will send a City truck out to collect any debris and the City will properly dispose of it. Autumn's phone number at the City is 503-701-7622.

I also pointed out to Autumn that when they pulled out those trees so suddenly, vandalism occurred. This is not random - there are studies showing that places with fewer trees have higher crime rates! I heard this in my tree stewardship class from the Oregon State Forester. Wow, trees are important in lots of different ways.

Trees, Birds, Bees

This Tree Stewardship class that I'm taking is fascinating. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in knowing more about good tree management (at least in the urban environment) and tree biology. I always knew that trees were important to the environment, but I didn't realize *how* important. Our goals to reduce carbon emissions and have clean waters and soils in the future are dependent on maintaining the urban canopy in Portland. Our elms on Omaha Avenue are *key* to a clean future.

Last Saturday our class was held at the Hoyt Arboretum where we had this wonderful tour of some of the hardwoods (birch, maples) by the director of the place. Hoyt has over 8,000 trees representing about 1,000 different species from around the world. We learned a little about tree biology, including the key things about trees: they don't heal from wounds like humans, but instead compartmentalize their owies (CODIT)

We got to hear professional arborists talk about prudent pruning methods and how not to prune trees and more importantly, why trees fail. It was a great way to spend a Saturday - David and I loved it so much that we went back on our own Sunday (with the dog!) and went for another walk through the conifers this time and marveled at the amazing array of species right in Portland. With 12 miles of trails, we will go back many times to see it all.

Airplane, circling

It's 4:30 am. I've been up since 3:00 am because there's a small aircraft circling our neighborhood, relentless, pursuing something. It woke up my dog. Who woke me up.

And at this time of day, there's only one logical conclusion: the Jihad is out there and they're going to get us. I woke up David who said he didn't want to talk about it. Not now, he said. Then I said "yeah, you'll talk about it when the foreigners burst through our front doors demanding our papers!"

He stuck his thumb out from underneath the bedcovers and said "the paper recycling is in the kitchen. They can have all the paper they want."

No one takes me seriously.

Update: there is something going on. See this post from about a week ago in the Sentinel

Tree Stewardship Class

The first Tree Stewardship class was held last night - and thanks to my husband David Taylor and Allen Wheeland for joining me in this adventure! It was a fascinating evening - and the next four classes are going to be very interesting as well. I thought I'd share with you my initial thoughts after this class.

There are a lot of city bureaus dealing with the issues of ecology and specifically trees. They are trying hard to get along and work together, with varying results. I think what we've witnessed is this disharmony of bureaus with differing raison d'etres working it out in front of us. Thank God Parks is winning!

The tree experts in this town are many and varied. In this class, I think we will meet most of them.

Intuitively I knew that trees are important to our ecology and our public health (both physical and mental) but I had no idea how important they are to all the infrastructure of our environment. More later about this.

I now know why diversity of species are important - we all get that since our elms are coming down. This class got a little deeper into that question and made clear that the City will never plant like they have in the past, putting one species in a row down a boulevard or median strip.

As I came back down Omaha from my walk with my dog this morning and saw the remaining elms standing in their gigantic rows, I started to cry. I love these elm trees, whether they should have been planted like this or not. The fact is that they are lovely and graceful parts of our landscape. And the bad news is that eventually they will all be gone in a few more years, whether we like it or not.

The good news, of course, is that the City will replant trees here. I want to make sure that they're big trees going in - not some puny imposters that will not provide the canopy that the elms have provided us. I think Karl Dawson gets that and so is suggesting the obvious ones that will grow and expand out - the oaks and the maples, as well as some evergreen if we want it (but nobody, not even me wants that right now). This is good. Big trees are important to our landscape (and little ones have their place, too).

It's true!

We've confirmed it: The City will plant trees back on Omaha Street!

From our neighbor Erika:

I spoke with Karl Dawson from Urban Forestry this morning. He said UF will
plant 6 trees in a volunteer neighborhood planting on Halloween from 9-11am. As
many neighbors as possible should join in the planting. The neighborhood then
needs to set up a watering schedule for 3 years for the summers (May-June) after
the planting. UF can provide hoses or irrigation if needed. He said the city's
sprinkler system would not provide the direct watering the trees need.

Maybe we should have another neighborhood meeting to decide the types of
trees and a watering schedule. Our tree choices are: Oregon White Oak,
Northern Red Oak, Big Leaf Maple or Evergreens. Karl said he will purchase the
trees around Oct 24th for the Oct 31st planting.

...but let's not weaken...

It is more important than ever that we take a greater interest in our trees and park space in front of our homes, especially given the invasive nature of Dutch Elm disease (or as my friend Emily calls it "Restless Elm Syndrome") To that end I've decided to take the Tree Stewardship class that the City of Portland puts on. I received the class syllabus today and am extending an invitation to all of you to join me in this class - you can register at the door!

The Class times are: 9/29 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm; 10/3 8:30 am-2:00 pm; 10/6 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm; 10/10 8:30 am-2:00 pm and 10/17 8:30 am - 2:00 pm.

It is likely that more of these trees will have to come down and that we will be advocating for their replacement in an ongoing way. So, let's get educated about trees, their care and how best to advocate for them.

Stop the Presses!

Our neighbor Dan Netter saw City people walking around in the Omaha Street park this afternoon. Dan took an opportunity to talk with them. Dan reports the following: The City Parks guru Karl Dawson was here to look at the crater where the trees were taken out of the park-and he told Dan that the City WILL replace the trees! He said that he wants us to pick out trees to replant from a list of different species that they've put together.

If this is true (and we hope it is!) this means that the City will replant the trees! This is great news (if true) and we can expect trees to be planted evidently in December. Several people have contacted his office and we will wait to see if he confirms this news. Stay tuned....

Contacts

As promised, Julia has put together her list of people she has contacted in the City regarding the North Omaha street trees.

We're Getting Heard!

North Portland neighbors have heard our pleas for help! Several good people have asked me "What can I do to help?"



Neighbors: Your participation is crucial to our success getting our trees replanted. Matt McVee is busy putting together lawn signs to put in our yards up and down Omaha Street - can you help him put together these signs and/or get these yard signs placed? Will you take responsibility for your houses on your block of Omaha to alert neighbors to this problem? Let Matt know by either leaving a comment on this blog or by sending him an email at OmahaTrees@gmail.com. Thanks neighbors! You're the greatest!

Julia's Emails

Neighbors have done a great job zeroing in on who is responsible at the City of Portland for our trees on Omaha Street. As we discovered last week, the median strip is no longer maintained by the Parks Department, but by the Portland Department of Transportation's Bureau of Maintenance (BOM).

Here's the link for reading Julia's emails with the City of Portland about our North Omaha Street trees.

Neighbors Resolved

One of the things we love about living on Omaha Street is the canopy of tall, deciduous trees which offer shade to our yards in the heat of the summers and wind breaks in the cold of winter.

Years ago, when my husband David hurt his back and couldn't move often or without great pain, he reported to me that relief came in the form of placing himself near a window to watch those great elms sprout and grow leaves, and watch the nest-building activity of the wildlife in the branches. These aren't just trees that are disposable; while disease may bring down the old ones, it's important to plant new ones.

At our neighborhood meeting yesterday, where about 35 people attended, we agreed to the following principles:

1. We want to replant the missing trees.

2. We will do what it takes to buy and plant the trees ourselves even if the City can't afford them.

3. We will care for the trees in their early years, with an agreement with the City until the City can afford their care again.

Beyond these rather short-term goals, we also want to make clear to the City that the Omaha Street median isn't just a median strip, like a strip mall or strip parking or the other ugly forms of that word. The Omaha Street elms are part of a natural park system in North Portland. It's labeled as a park in nearly every guide available online, and people use it as a park for daily activities like walking their dogs or playing games or simply enjoying a nice day of sunshine. Our parkway is a destination for the citizens of Portland.

If you want to be part of our group, or would like more information about the group and our intentions, please send us an email at OmahaTrees@gmail.com .

Omaha Tree Meeting

Thanks to everyone who came to my house this morning for the neighborhood meeting about our Omaha trees! Of course it rained! But we made it through and I think we have a good agenda with which to move forward. (Julia, Rich, Erika and the rest of us will be very busy this winter!) I will post more in the next few hours. Check back often!

We will change this picture below to something more aesthetically pleasing! We can do it!

Devastation

Our beautiful boulevard has Dutch Elm Disease. They have taken out five trees in the last week and it just uglifies the landscape around here. What hurts the most is that the city didn't notify any of us that this was about to happen.

We're forming a neighborhood group to figure out what to do next. The City says it doesn't have the funds to plant trees back, but I can't imagine this place without trees. At the most cynical, our property values have just dropped a good $50k a piece.

Have you seen this man?

My brother Michael is on a terrorist watch list, according to his bank. Figures.

More Music....

My project lately has been to convert the old corroding tape cassettes of Dad's singing to electronic mp3 files....I added two more songs (actually, the last two that I have) yesterday.

http://groups.google.com/group/bill-stevenson-music

It was a hottie outside....

This morning when I took the dog out the chill hit me square in the face: only 60 degrees?

The soaring temperatures this week have been hard on our lawn, the park across the street, the hanging baskets and the wildlife outside.

But I have nothing to complain about because I live in air conditioning and have a swimming pool in my backyard. But I had to share the pool with the wildlife as even insects swarmed because they needed cooling off as well.

At OHSU the threat was to campus-wide systems that are responsible for keeping the special research freezers going (many hundreds below zero) and enough power and backup power to keep the hospital beds cool. There were problems yesterday, but they seem to have mostly resolved today.

I would rather have this than snow any day.

Summer evening skies full of surprises...

Have you seen the International Space Station (ISS) pass by overhead yet? David and I wandered out to the backyard last evening around 9:40 pm to see it go....it's traveling very quickly but you see this bright star moving through the sky. You have to know when to look because it moves so quickly, so catch the next dates here.

Good Book

David is reading a delightful little collection of short stories called "Sum" - 40 tales of the imagined afterlife, each different. We're fans!

Dance Like You Mean It!

I spent part of my Thursday afternoon at the Chiles Center at the Thunderbird Dance Camp watching the final recital of all of Oregon's dancers under the age of 25! Why? Trisha was there, that's why! She started texting me on Monday to come watch her dance, so I had x'd out one hour of my afternoon from work to be there.

I should have x'd out the entire afternoon because it was mayhem and an extravaganza of sweating dancing girls! I got there and found a seat up high in the nosebleed section. The parents were pretty competitive about the seats - groups from different places were holding seats and I was clearly an outsider, somebody who hadn't been ensconced in these seats all week, and the stares were fierce. "These seats are saved," they hissed at me until I finally reached some top section where one lone small broken seat remained for me.

The back biting and competitive nature of these parents was awesome to witness. It was worse than Little League dads - these dance mothers are fierce! I kept wondering, why don't they have jobs like everybody else? Evidently there exists moms who have nothing better to do than follow their kids around and bad-mouth the competition while munching on barbecue-flavored pringles. One nasty dancing daughter came up to her mealy-mouthed mom to exclaim: "Watch the girl next to me...she's awful! And she has spent the week trying to talk to me! Ick!" The mother replied, "just dance and forget her, don't talk to her, you don't want the judges to think you have anything to do with her!"

So, with baited breath, I waited for Trisha to dance. I could barely see her down below. But when her group of dancers emerged, I recognized her immediately. She was in the front row and she was smiling! She knew her stuff and she danced really well. She twirled and tumbled and kicked and gyrated her arms like she knew what she was doing! It was AWESOME!

My pictures (taken with my iphone because I have no other recording device currently) are pathetic and don't show much except attest to the fact that I, and I alone, watched Trisha in her finest moment shining at the Thunderbird Camp. I also noticed that she had lots of friends around her that she was enjoying. I hope that she had a great camp experience, that she always dances with girls who aren't very good, and that she just had fun.

For Music Lovers Only

By popular request....

http://groups.google.com/group/bill-stevenson-music

Our Daily Bread

This all started when I got out of the shower one morning, David had already left for work, and I wandered into the kitchen to make myself some breakfast and found that the kettle was on full blast, the steam whistle was disabled and it was dry. David had absent-mindedly left it there and had I not been home, would have posed a serious hazard to the health of our happy home.

David became alarmed as well at the potential danger to our property and our pets and immediately went about to find another coffee solution so that this wouldn't/couldn't happen again. David found the magic of Macy's! He bought a grinder/binder/coffee maker extravaganza and brought it home that very evening. It's programmable!

Now, with coffee cups in hand, we stand on our new red floor and make obeisance to La Machine in the morning to grant us our daily coffee.

Caught in the Crossfire

My Dad’s mother Mary Jean died a week ago today, reportedly about 8:30 pm. She died in the same hospital ward where my Dad died almost three years earlier, but she died peacefully in bed whereas Dad collapsed on the floor outside of his room and died with a dozen people trying to revive him, voices raising in anxiety as Mom and I clutched each other in fear. I knew Dad was going, but I didn’t want to believe it. My Mom knew too, and she didn’t want to watch. She went around the corner from him and she sat down on an abandoned hospital bed and sat with her head in her hands.

Grandma didn’t want anyone with her as she died, and I kept her wish until she was unconscious and wasn’t in control anymore. Even then, though, I really didn’t want to be in the room with her; we weren’t close, she didn’t like me, and I really felt nothing at all as her breathing labored, her organs shut down and she passed. I was there to support my brother Bill and my sister Pam, who did evidently care about the event.

It sounds egregious not to care about your grandmother, but it was the truth. She was a difficult human being; she made my Dad’s life extra miserable and I had nothing to say to her in the last few years, and it was mutual.

This grandmother was an enigma to me; I didn’t pretend to know her, but she pretended that she knew me and later in life attributed all sorts of nefarious motives to my actions. I think I saw her about a dozen times, all told, throughout my nearly 50 year history. We didn’t talk on the phone. We rarely exchanged letters.

I never knew when her actual birth year was. Like many in her generation, she was probably born at home and there was no hospital record of her birth. Her birth date was in December, but the year continued to be mysterious. Like many women of her generation she wanted to be older when she was young (so she could get married) and then she wanted to be younger when she was old (to collect Social Security and be on Medicare). Everyone claimed that she was 102 at her death, and that sounds like a good compromise. The range could have been as old as 105 or as young as 100. What it actually was, we’ll never know now. In any event, she was old enough.

My first memory of her was being dropped off at her house on Country Club Road in Eugene. It was a cold, formal, oppressively quiet house with a grandfather clock that ticked ominously in a corner, bursting out in a gonging noise at the top of the hour. It stood a hundred feet tall and mesmerized me until she hissed at me “Don’t Touch Anything!” Everything was white, cold, immaculate, uncomfortable. Our house at home was worn, messy, probably a bit dirty and lived in. We had a noisy chaotic family and no part of the house was off-limit to the sticky curious fingers of young children. To arrive in this mausoleum was a bit much for us youngsters, and it left an indelible impression on me that visits to these grandparents was a hushed event.

A few years ago I read an article in a Catholic magazine disparaging young couples of today for using birth control and not having children – the writer had interviewed one childless couple who reported facetiously that they had just installed white wall-to-wall carpeting and therefore couldn’t have children. When I read that, I burst out laughing because it reminded me of my grandparent’s home on Country Club Road where children really were not welcome.

Mom dropped John and me off to babysit while she grocery shopped, although this was not a normal event. Normally we went with Mom, and why she dropped us off this day is not known to me. Maybe she wanted us to get acquainted. Maybe she was just sick of us. I don’t know. John and me, caught in whatever cross-fire was going on between my parents and grandparents didn’t know what to do or which way to turn. John looked outside and saw a fountain with some sort of stone statuary in it of a young boy peeing in a pond. There were goldfish in the pond. We were country kids and we knew that you fished when you saw fish in a pond. John and I found a string and some sort of paperclip or diaper pin or something and we sat outside fishing in the pond. For some reason I remember John singing a song as he fished. My grandfather appeared about that time bellowing at us that we’d better not be harming his goldfish! I think he was kidding, but he scared the living daylights out of us. It set the tone for our relationship together – John had little to nothing to do with them; I made some attempts to get to know them, but would always be rebuffed.

my new kitchen

You remember my wretched kitchen before, right?

Well, drool on with my new kitchen: newly painted and most importantly a BRAND NEW FLOOR. It's a thing of beauty.

Beauty, huh?

Trip to Asia....

...well, at least the Asian part of the Oregon Zoo...

David and I took the train to the Zoo Sunday - a celebration (of sorts) of our 12th wedding anniversary. I wanted to see the new baby Asian elephant that was born there earlier this year.

Kitchen Update

Here's how far I got with my kitchen re-do in a week. Not bad for somebody who has a bad back, a bad knee and a broken tooth. :)

Kitchen Spruce-Up

I've been wanting to spruce up the kitchen in the Omaha Street house for over 10 years now....and finally I have a week to do it. Unfortunately, my back isn't cooperating with my will, and I have to do everything very slowly and rest lots inbetween. But here's where we start today - and I'm just cleaning lots:
























I am taking off the doors and sanding before refinishing them with a new paint color. The same color will go on the woodwork. I am going to leave the plaster walls and ceiling white, I think, just freshen the paint, but honestly I haven't decided yet.

I decided to have a professional do the floor - had a guy measure for an estimate yesterday for marmoleum, which looks like a nice old-fashioned product. My back just won't support me doing any floor work right now.

Thank You Note

Recently our friend Tom Kayser turned 18. Tom is the son of Anne & Jeff Kayser. He had several birthday parties this year and we were invited to one of them. We brought Tom the movie "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" which he hadn't seen. And then we all enjoyed chocolate birthday cake. Anne didn't want to have cake left lying around, so she had me take home the cake.

This week we received a thank you note from Tom. It said the following:

Hockey - My New Favorite Sport

One night a few weeks ago David and I had the chance to see our friends' son Kyle play hockey at Valley Ice in Beaverton. We were impressed! Beth sent us pictures of us sitting in the stands in the arena - to prove we actually went. Hockey, even in the high school league Kyle belongs to, is incredibly physical and violent. Yes! Loved it! But I found myself saying things like "Watch out Kyle!" whenever I saw these guys come slamming at him with their pads and sticks.

Economic Downturn

I spied this funny on a blog recently: the caption reads "the economic downturn has gotten so bad we may have to lay off Andre"

Emergency!

Last night I came home about 7:00 from a long day of work to greet my lovely family.

My little dog had a slightly swollen face. I asked David about it and he hadn't noticed at all. As I sat there and watched, her face grew in front of me, her nose growing in size by the second. I panicked! I called Dove/Lewis Hospital and they said to bring her in.

Evidently she got into something that disagreed with her. We'll never know what the culprit was, but she was having an acute allergic reaction. They think she either ate/got bit by/or otherwise ingested a spider or ant or some other critter that she wasn't used to and her system reacted. After a bit of benadryl and some steroid, the swelling started to dissipate, but she went to bed last night a little lumpy-jawed. She's just a little swollen this morning, but her appetite has not changed. She chowed down her food this morning like normal. Thanks to the excellent service at the emergency room at Dove/Lewis for taking good care of Fergie!

For a virtual tour of Dove/Lewis, click here