Watching Brody's improvement these last couple of weeks has given me a whole new appreciation for the baseball steroid scandal. Here was a dog that was completely unable to stand on her own and now can run up and down the stairs in the house, run after a ball, and go for walks (the ball was thrown by a neighbor kid, which we put a stop to). So, she is doing well for the time being. She will be on the steroid for the next couple of weeks and then we'll see how she does off it. It is not a long term solution because it has negative side-effects. The mailman said the other day that his lab bit his hand when his dog was on steroids. We have not seen any Brody roid-rage yet but are keeping an eye out.
Speaking of steroids, did any general manager in baseball history more underestimate the power of steroids than Tom Grieve did in 1989? He had the all steroid team that may have gotten the Rangers to the World Series if he had left them alone; Sammy Sosa, Pete Incaviglia, Ruben Sierra, Rafeal Palmiero, Long-Juan Gonzales, Dean Palmer, Pudge Rodriguez. Seriously, that's a lot of juiced power. By 1995, this is a lineup that could have gone deep in the playoffs every year even with zero pitching, which is a staple of Ranger's teams. Here's a guy who traded Sosa for Harold Baines and Palmiero for Will Clark! That's 100 juiced HR's a year for 4-5 years.
Now, this is what our house looks like! We changed the color to a light sage green to hopefully keep the house from fading so badly in the intense Colorado sun. We really like the color but now we think we need flowers in the front to add some color to contrast all the green! 
Brad finished the yard this weekend! In the front he planted 5 bushes in front of the the white fence, tore out all the old weed barrier (and had to dig up all the rocks in the process) and put down new bark. In the back he put in new edging around the grass and put new bark down. It looks great! Pretty soon everything will start to flower and we'll post another picture.
It's been one week since we took Brody to the emergency vet and they told us we could put her to sleep if we wanted. She has been on a pharmacy of drugs this week and they seem to be helping. The steroid she is on has allowed her to regain use of her back legs (however stiff) and the pain meds are keeping her from shaking. She's getting her sassy attitude back and is able to go to the bathroom standing up. :) While we don't know how long these meds will remain effective, they are helping her to feel better and function more normally. Praise God!
This weekend Brad and our neighbor, Pat, tore down and rebuilt our mini retaining wall behind our house. Our yard was erroding away under the existing wall (with only 2 layers of railroad ties) so they decided they could fix it. They tore out the old ties, dug through the crazy, wet clay (it rained Friday while Brad was tearing down the old wall), and put together a fabulous, strong, massive wall. It is 5 layers of ties (one completely buried) and has a drainage system and fabric to prevent errosion.
Here is the finished product of the wall from the backside. We still have some finishing touches to put on the yard to put it all back together, but it looks great!
