Boat Maintenance Flowchart

Many of you who follow this blog regularly know that I undertook a great many projects on Drift Away.   What you don't know is that I used this flowchart to figure out how to fix many things.

Everybody should have a system.

Prolabs Cat Tape Worm Tabs Warning

I write a lot about our dogs. I really should include a bit about our cats too. And I know a lot of you boaters have pets aboard.

Meet Sassy and Leo Pard. Sassy is scowling at Leo, who is wearing the sweater.





Sassy belonged to a good friend of ours in Norwalk. She got into a situation where she couldn't keep Sassy in her apartment, and Sassy was stuck living in a crate at the vet's office where she works. We were overrun with mice in our rental Unabomber Cabin, and so Sassy came to live with us. For the record, she is a champion mouser.


Pam was in the barn feeding Jeremiah the Horse a few months ago when she heard meowing from up in the loft. The next thing she knew, Mr. Pard was on her shoulder, purring up a storm. The next thing I knew, we had another cat. Leo is also a champion mouser, birder, and anything else that moves that is small.


So what's the deal with the sweater? I used to take Ruby to work with me every day from the time when she was a small puppy. The furnace broke and I only had a small electric heater, so I bought that sweater for Ruby. She hated wearing it, but soon outgrew it anyway. Pam happened to find it in the dogs' toy box and put it on Leo. Leo was less than pleased, as you can see, but he was a good sport and let Pam put it on.


Catching so many mice, Sassy caught a bad case of tape worms. I picked up this bottle of tape worm pills at our local Tractor Supply. The bottle comes with three pills. Pam and I looked everywhere on the bottle and the instructions inside. Amazingly, there was no dosage instructions. Anywhere.


Pam ground up one pill in a bit of canned cat food, a real treat that our cats never get. Like the dogs, they get dry food. The next day, we were debating whether to give Sassy another pill. Three pills, one a day? I decided to google the company, but the print on the bottle was so small that I couldn't read the company's name. Lacking a magnifying glass, I took a photo of the bottle and blew it up. Prolabs. I then googled for instructions, and what I found was very unsettling. The dosage is one pill. That's it. And actually, if your cat is four pounds or less, the dosage is a half a pill. If your cat contracts worms again, you have to wait 30 days before the next dose. Otherwise, your cat will overdose and possibly die.






I didn't find this information on the Prolabs website. I found it on an internet message board, where someone posted who actually called the company. I'm not the only one outraged. Many people are.

How can a drug company be so careless? So incompetent? So... stupid?

Tape worms are common in cats that eat mice, since many mice have tape worms. It is also easily spread to other animals through feces. I wonder how many pets have been lost due to poor instructions on medications?

A Quarter Million Hits! A Toast!

Our Seinfeld-esk blog about nothing has passed a quarter of a million hits.  I know that if each hit was a dollar it would mean nothing compared to our national debt, but if each hit was a beer...

I think this is pretty awesome.  Especially considering that I no longer update it everyday since we're no longer on Drift Away, and that it is for sale.  There must be some nuggets of information in there that keeps people finding it, and coming back.

I think our boating life is over.  My accident last summer has left me incapable of doing many boat related things, and it is time to move onto a more sedentary life style.  We bought a motorhome, which doesn't need to be docked and doesn't rock and roll.  Some have suggested that we name it Drift Away and continue this blog.  That doesn't sound like a bad idea.  Perhaps we will.

I am somewhat humbled, though, that a whole bunch of you clicked on our blog's links a quarter of a million times.  To me, that shows that a whole lot of Americans (and some others overseas) have a great sense of humor.

For sure, Pam and I had a blast on our cruise.  We did it in a dumb fashion, with large dogs.  Not that I would change a thing.  I wouldn't.  I love our dogs.  I also love our horse, and bringing Jeremiah would just be plain stupid.

But then again, no one has ever accused me of being overly bright.  So here's to a quarter of a million hits, and many more adventures to come.  And a toast.

Friends may come, and friends may go.
And friends may peter out, you know.
But we'll be friends through thick and thin,
Peter out, or peter in.