Beautiful Vomit

My corn has had a hard year. This spring only about ten plants came up out of the 50 or so seeds that I planted. I did not expect to get much corn at all, thinking that it would not pollinate well so I was pleasantly surprised when I harvested 7 ears and they were all beautiful and full.

My family left the house for a few hours and when we returned we immediately noticed that there was something wrong with the dog, Thea. She was panting and looked very uncomfortable. It was then that we noticed it, 3/4 of an ear of corn on the floor, the other 6 ears...GONE!

Well, no wonder Thea looked so sick, she had 6 ears of corn in her belly. So we were off to the 24 hour emergency vet in Lebanon. The vet took Thea into a back room where they would give her something to make her throw up.    As we sat in the waiting room, we could hear snatches of conversation coming from the back room. After a few moments of waiting someone on the other side of the door said "wow, look at this, you have to come see this," followed by laughter. Three or four other voices joined the conversation, "that is incredible, its so colorful." "I've never seen anything like that!"

A few minutes later the vet brought Thea and a large tub of colorful vomit back to the waiting room. It was truly spectacular. Two or three inches deep in a pan that was about a foot long and a foot wide was blue, red, purple, and yellow corn mixed with dog food and other things. 

A few days later I harvested the remaining ears of corn and put them up on the top shelf in the kitchen. It looks like I will still have enough corn to make some cornbread!