Pepe now has a leg support that works, although it takes two of us to fit it, which isn’t ideal. However when walked with the support, he doesn’t seem to suffer afterwards, without it, he is off his feet for the day.
We made the decision not to continue with Pepe’s chemotherapy treatment, despite the ultrasounds giving a positive indication. The priority for us is Pepe enjoying his last days, however many that might be, and to do that, his back legs have to be our priority. We went and talked it over with our Vet, he understood our argument, and has put Pepe on tablets for life, to reduce inflamation, and help with the pain, so our decision certainly wasn’t financial, as this will take up most of the money we were already spending.
As a result, last Thursday, we agreed to attend a meeting with the Oncologist, who likewise could see our argument, but said that he would have continued with the treatment, I suspect that was a financial decision on his part, as it was him, who told us at the outset, that the chemotherapy would never cure this aggressive cancer.
Narla seems to have found her position in the household, she accepts that both Pepe and Tito are older, and higher up the pecking order, but still wants to play, which doesn’t go down well. She has started taking more liberties, yesterday, I tidied up the garden, so she lost some of her wood, which she chews on, as a result unseen by any of us, she went out on the balcony, pinched one of the chair cushions, took it down the garden, and ripped it to bits!
During one of their confrontations last week, Tito bit me, I didn’t think he could with his broken mandible, but he sank his teeth right into my hand, fortunately missing anything vital, I had 10kg hanging onto my hand, I wasn’t happy., it’s still painful, but healing.
As a result, we spoke with the Vet again, and he has prescribed a homeopathic tablet for Tito, initially three times a day for a month, in the hope of calming him down, it has made a difference, although we still have to watch him.
I decided on my next project, either two or four Adirondack chairs for the patio, since robbing the other furniture for the balcony, it is looking a bit bare, and the chairs we have there, are not that comfortable. The following picture is an example of what will be built, definitely not one I have put together.
Because it won’t be just a one off, I decided to make life easier, or so I thought, I bought Plans, which is unusual for me. There were three options for using these plans, the first to draw out a grid on timber, to make templates, and use that grid to copy the plan. The second was to set my Printer to print the plan full size, but unfortunately my Printer doesn’t have that facility. The Third option was to put the plan on a memory stick, and take it into town and find someone who prints ´Plotter´, that means they print way bigger than a domestic printer, in my case I needed 34″ x 44″.
After a couple of failed visits, we found a place that could help us, but it meant collecting it the following day.
I collected the Plotter print, and back home taped it on the wall to see what I was playing with
At this stage I didn’t notice the mistake!
For the templates, I decided to use old MFD boards, I had stored down the garden, I had them left over, from when I over-ordered shelving for the Larder, and had also used them as covering when constructing the decking on the balcony, so if not used, they would probably have ended up on the fire.
I cut out the individual patterns and spray glued them onto the MDF, which I then cut out on my Band-saw, I ended up with buckets of scraps for the garden fire
I then laid the template out on the floor, some of the template parts would end up being reversed, so not every part, or the seat slats had to be formed, but on laying what I had, out on the floor, I immediately saw that I had a problem.
It took a few minutes but I realised what had happened, the Printer had reversed the design on the paper, instead of printing 34 x 44″, they had printed 44 x 34″ so every piece was the wrong size, and couldn’t be saved… They made a nice fire!
I could have just returned to the Printers and asked them to print it correctly, but I suddenly have a brain wave, one I should have had at the outset, years ago I followed Jayscustomcreations with Jay Bates on Youtube, and he provided access to software called ‘Big Print’ ( https://woodgears.ca/bigprint/ ), at the time I used it a lot, but had forgotten all about it.
This program enables you to print plotter size plans, pictures, photos on your office printer, you just have to feed the dimensions in correctly, and then tape the printed pages together.
I had the program in my download folder, so installed it again, and Bingo! I had a new set of correctly sized plans.
The incentive was there to get the parts cut, before the tape pealed off the paper! I cut the individual parts out, some spanned three separate pages, so the tape did it’s job.
Again I used spray glue to stick the paper to the MDF (my supply has dwindled rapidly) and cut them all out on the Band-saw.
Now I have all the template parts needed, and when I have time, I will have to visit the town timber yards and source the timber for the chairs.
However there is no rush, and I have other interests calling for my time. I have decided, mainly due to Nala, that I want to do some more interesting photography using my Smartphone, I had already bought a 3m selfie stick, and now I have bought a DJI OM4 Gimbal, which I need to learn to use. Since I have never used a gimbal of any type previously, this is going to be a learning curve, thank goodness, for good instructions, and Youtube!
Must go… my Gimbal is calling.
An Englishman in Colombia 