climate rally in Melbourne today

Police estimate there were around twenty thousand people at the huge rally in Melbourne today. We gathered to tell our government that we do care about the environment and that we - the voters - demand they take out insurance against disaster by supporting sustainable energy use.

The organisers said they believed there were thirty thousand at the rally.

Whichever number you believe, it was a lot of people standing up for the environment.

And there were dogs, too!

Penny and the limp

Penny's limping once more. Or still limping, to be more exact.

After a month of seeing her limp when she gets up from lying down, and having tried complete rest; partial rest; massage; icing her front shoulder, swimming, we decided it was time to go back to the vet.

Of course she had no limp at the vet surgery. It was pretty difficult to assess Penny's gait, seeing she loves her vet so much that she throws herself at his feet all the time for a tummy rub, but he did his best, and of course he did all that disturbing limb manipulation, trying to find the soreness. Penny, like so many other dogs, is incredibly stoic, but the vet concluded that it is indeed her left front shoulder that is giving her trouble. Probably arthritis, sigh...

So she's having a course of cartrophen. One injection each week. She did have this once before, after her cruciate surgery, so we know she can tolerate this medication. The information on the site says it has no side effects, and our vet said the same thing, but I'm cynical enough to think that NOTHING has no side effects. But we'll settle for 'minimal side effects'.

The difference this time is that the vet suggested continuing with 'moderate exercise'. He used to advise resting a troublesome joint, so it was a pleasant surprise to be encouraged to keep her active. Given that in human medication the doctors and physios generally suggest keeping active after injury, I'm glad to get the same advice for Penny.

It's easy to restrain her from over-exercising, because the weather is awful lately. Hot, hot, hot every day. I've never known an autumn like this. Seeing we've just had the hottest summer ever recorded in Australia, it's frighteningly like what the climate change scientists have been predicting.

Good weather for swimming, though, and there's a nice little beach on the Yarra river up at Warringal Parklands.

And another swim at Kepala Canine Resort wouldn't go amiss.

overflow from dog baths can damage our gardens

I've been shampooing Penny with Malaseb recently, in a successful attempt to resolve the problem of her licking her paws.

Now, because of the drought - or is it permanent climate change? - we run most of our grey water onto the garden. I began to wonder whether a product that is promoted as an antifungal with potent activity against fungi and yeast might be bad for the garden, so I rang the company and receivedthe answer that it was not good to run this greywater onto a garden. If I understood the reply correctly, it was because some of the constituents in it might last a long time in the soil.

Here's are photos of two ivy geraniums in our garden - both plants are in basically the same position regarding shade, sunlight, soil composition, etc. They are about two metres apart. (I pruned them massively recently.)

Here's the first one, that does NOT get the run-off from the dog bathing.



Here's the one that DOES get the run-off from Malaseb.