Visiting the Junk Dealer

Yesterday was the day that William started to bring back the scrap metal that he’s been gathering. He’s really good at recycling, so keeping back scrap metal – especially for money is right up his alley. Daryl took William’s car to work so we had the pickup to use. Neither William or I had ever been responsible for weighing any equipment at the Co-op so today was the day that we did that the first time. It wasn’t hard at all, and they are starting to get used to us coming in there now. So off to the junk dealer we go. It took us quite a long time to get there because we couldn’t go over 28 mph otherwise the wagon would start to go crazy. The load settled as we were driving and William tightened up the ‘come along’ that was holding the load together. After it was unloaded at the dealers place, back home we went for another load and then to the Co-op to get it weighed. It took most of the morning, but William made over $300 so far. He’s got more to bring in but he’s not ready to yet. The farrowing crates need to be broke down and there is some other things that can be scrapped. The dealer told William that scrap metal will be going down in August, so he’ll want to get it brought in the next few weeks. Well with Ragbrai the last week of the month, he’ll want to get that done this coming week.

William's first load of scrap metal

Apollo has been acting really weird lately and I have become a very big worrier it seems. When it was so hot the other days he started to only eat very small amounts. Then yesterday he seemed not to have any appetite. I scrambled up a dozen eggs put in on a couple of pieces of bread and smothered it all with milk and he still didn’t want to eat that. OK, I was starting to really get scared for him. THEN he must have run over the ground where the old hog barn was and he cut his foot bad on some glass. It bled most of the morning and is really a deep gash. So I called our local vet and made an appointment for the afternoon. I did some investigating on why dogs stop eating and I thought maybe I was a little kooky on this subject but found out that there are others much worse than I am. On the internet they said that dogs can get anorexia, depression, lonely,…. and they will stop eating. Good grief! So I spent a lot of time with him in between junk loads yesterday trying to coax him into eating and being a little perky. He just laid on the ground and wouldn’t hardly walk because now his foot was hurt. Off to the vet William and I go, we found out that he has a temperature and for his foot they really couldn’t do anything for it because it was on his pad of his feet and it has to naturally heal. BUT… on the way home he was a changed dog. He sat up, was extremely happy to be going for a pickup ride and there wasn’t anything wrong with him. We did get some antibiotics for his temp but we didn’t start those yet. I think he just wanted the attention and a pickup ride out of the deal. Whatever the case is, this morning he’s back to normal for eating and stealing all of Reno’s food from her. What a good thing, but what drama those dogs bring!