Home Grown

LOLCats on Salon.com

2008-11-17T14:15:00.001-05:00

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/11/15/pathos_lolcats/

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It's Time for Energy Independence!

2008-09-20T17:15:00.004-04:00

"Sometimes it takes a crisis to awaken us from our slumber. But once aroused, the American people can accomplish miracles." - T. Boone Pickens

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Martha's Got Lungs

2008-07-29T00:25:00.004-04:00

I crated the new girls together in a size 500 varikennel in the kitchen around 9:30 pm. Martha started hollering. She hasn't stopped yet. After half an hour I removed her from the communal crate, put her in one by herself, and covered it with a sheet. She continued to holler. Finally my nerves just couldn't take any more; I put her in the laundry room, with the light off hoping the darkness would encourage her to go to sleep, and closed the door. It's 12:30 am and she's still hollering. She's not lonesome, she's not hungry, she's not scared, she's mad. "Nobody confines ME, lady! Let me OUT of here!! " The other two have been sleeping soundly since shortly after I put Martha in the laundry room.

Martha was Daddy's Girl, and indulged. She's confident and very, very stubborn. Martha, you've met your match. I'll out-stubborn you if it takes all night.

Time Flies

2008-07-22T16:06:00.009-04:00

I can't believe it's the end of July already. Summer's short enough as it is, why does it have to fly by so fast?! I already notice it's getting dark earlier in the evening and light later in the morning; makes me grateful for every minute of daylight, and loathe to waste a minute of it.

Sydney will be going to his new home the first week of August. And I may be placing Max with the mother of one of the parents of Sydney's family. (I'll miss the hell out of Max, I absolutely adore him, but he's so adoptable I can't justify keeping him myself, and I know he'd absolutely love living somewhere he could get all the lap time and all the cuddling he wants.) I just got a great application for Hambone, I'm hoping to do this home visit this weekend. They feed super-premium food, believe in crate training, intend to take him to obedience class, are advocates of positive training methods (and used words like "redirect" and "reward" on the app) - basically, everything I'm looking for in a home for a puppy.

It's been 5 weeks since Ginger broke her leg. We went for a re-check yesterday, Dr. B took the splint off and did a new x-ray. The bones are healing beautifully and Dr. B said "that's a lot straighter than I thought it would be!" (Gee, now you tell me! She cracked up.) She also said "if you can keep her quiet/confined for the next couple of weeks, I think she could go home without the splint." But I don't want to take any chances, and I know Ginger is a lot happier running around on her splint than she would be confined to her boudoir, so I had the vet put the splint back on. I can take it off myself in a couple of weeks. Ginger will have to be closely supervised (and confined when I can't supervise) for a week or so afterward, while putting weight on her un-splinted leg hardens the new bone, but that's OK.

Ginger loves me. I discovered she loooooooves to go for rides in the car, so I take her along whenever possible. She curls up between and just in back of the bucket seats, and allows me to pet her. She also gives my right elbow kisses when I'm not petting her. I took her to my mom's with me last week and she did pretty good, but when I had to run up to the corner store for something and left her there with Mom for the 10-minute round trip, mom said she didn't stop running back and forth looking for me until I walked back in the door. She's back to sleeping in bed, and with our morning cuddle sessions she gets less and less timid every day. I coo "come clooooooser, sugar, come cloooooser" at her and she inches forward playfully until she reaches my face, then she gives me lots of kisses before backing off a few feet. Then she'll settle down there and wait for me to pet her. A couple of days ago I was even able to roll her onto her side and tickle her tummy. (She loves tummy tickles, but usually prefers to stand up to get them.) She still is afraid to let me catch her so she's still dragging a piece of leash I can step on if necessary, but she's even getting better there, too - she'll come within a foot or two of me instead of running away from me, and most times she doesn't try to get away from my hands reaching for her. This morning, when I wanted to lift her down off the bed and told her "up" as I reached for her, she didn't try to get away from me but hunkered down and waited for me to pick her up. I talk to her, and she wriggles and dances and her tail wags wildly. We still have a long way to go before she's adoptable, but she's made huge progress in 4 months.

Chu Chu is the funniest little dog. The serious, plodding little fluffball of a couple of months ago has metamorphosed into a running, jumping, wagging, all that and a bag of chips little girl whose antics make me laugh. Even a month go, if she was out in the big yard and I called her, her gait was still careful and plodding. But that all changed when I made the decision to keep her and told her she was staying here. (Actually, she made the decision. I just gave in.) The dogs who sleep with me (Penny, Dudley, Sparky, Chooch, Ginger, Ruby, and sometimes Max) get access to the big yard first thing in the morning, before I bring them in and put the big dogs out there and close the gate. Yesterday morning when I called Chooch she came running and bouncing with abandon, such a confident, happy, normal little Shih Tzu. I got all choked up remembering what she was like when she first got here, how amazing her transformation has been. I'm so grateful she was able to survive and escape the horror of the puppymill where she was held captive for four years. I adore this little dog.

My summer term obedience class didn't get enough enrollees to make it worthwhile, so we cancelled it. After I'd sent my information in for the fall term I got a note from the Parks and Rec director asking if I would consider a night other than Monday, because she just couldn't make it work. I said sure, I'd be happy to do Wednesday or Thursday. It might allow folks who wanted to come to class but couldn't make Monday night for one reason or another to enroll. It'll also avoid the scheduling problem with elections. The building I teach in is a polling place, and they set the machines up the night before. Whenever there's an election of any kind I have to hold that week's class later in the week, and the schedule change wreaks havoc on class attendance, not only the off-week, but for the rest of the term. When I only have 7-8 dogs to begin with and half the class stops attending half way through the term, it makes some of the important practice exercises we do later in the term very difficult to do. Pass the dog. Practice the CGC test "friendly dog distraction" exercise. I work a lot harder and have to be much more creative when there are fewer students than when I have a full, or nearly-full, class.

I got the carpet up in half of the dining room, and the floor underneath is in much better shape than the floor in the kitchen was. I got another gallon of primer, and bought the paint for the living and dining room floors a couple of weeks ago. I love the color, and can't wait to see it on the floor. I got more wood filler - for the crack between the sheets of plywood that occurs at the kitchen threshhold - late last week and got the crack filled on Sunday. I need to sand it down and do a little touch up, then it'll be ready for priming and then painting. I've been getting the tack strips up little by little, and removing baseboards. (All the baseboards need to be repositioned almost an inch lower so they meet the floor. But it'll be a lot easier to paint the walls without them, and I'll be able to paint the baseboards outside on newspaper all at once, so I won't have to do any taping to protect the walls or floors before I paint them. All I'll have to do is nail the baseboards back on and touch up the tiny finishing nail holes with a q-tip dabbed in paint.)

After taking a couple of months "off" from knitting regularly, I'm back to knitting - and crocheting - about 6 different projects, working on one or two different ones as I sit in the evening and watch/listen to the baseball game. I'm knitting a feather-and-fan shawl in Wool-Ease that may end up being my mom's Christmas gift, and I'm crocheting a rectangular granny-square afghan using all the Wool-Ease I have left over from other projects. (This might end up being my sis and DBIL's Christmas present if the colors come together and aren't too wild and crazy. If it looks tacky, I'll keep it for myself. I don't care what it looks like, as long as it's warm!) I'm knitting a pair of pastel purple socks for my mom to go with her Red Hats outfits, and I'm working on 3 different pairs of socks for myself. One pattern is cabled (not difficult, but slower because of the cabling), one is an easy pattern, and I just started the third last night and am only still on the cuff. Once the cuff is long enough I'll see how the colors are working together; from what I see so far, a plain stockinette stitch may show off the yarn best. It's a very pretty hand-painted yarn with all different shades of blue with a little purple.

A few months back I got some undyed super-wash merino sock yarn that I want to try hand-painting myself. There's enough yarn in this hank for 4 pairs of socks, so I can do 4 different colorways. Last month, I bought a dozen different colors of Kool-Aid to use as dye. Before I do any of that, though, I want to make myself a yarn swift, so I don't have to do all the winding manually. I think I can make a pretty satisfactory one with stuff I've already got here, I've just got to get motivated to do it. But if I'm going to use any of this yarn to make Christmas presents, I'd better get my tush in gear. Which takes me back to where I started this post - the summer is just flying by!

Busy, Busy

2008-07-07T12:07:00.007-04:00

I've been neglectful, again. In my defense, I've been busy.

Ginger's broken leg is healing, and she's getting a little more socialized, but she is still leery about being picked up. She comes close, almost close enough to touch, and her tail wags wildly while she happy-dances, but she's still not sure it's OK for me to pick her up. Even with her cast she's so fast I can't catch her, so she's back to dragging a leash again. But she does come close enough so I can step on her leash, and she knows that's what I'm going to do so she's deliberately putting herself close enough to catch. She doesn't mind sitting on my lap so much any more, and she's even fallen asleep there a couple of times. Now that she's got a regular splint on and she can get around more easily - and there's less chance she'll get stuck on something - I've been giving her a little more house time. She loves the other dogs, and I was amused to see she's got a special affection for Ruby the Cavalier. She loves Ruby as much as she loves Penny, and she loves to be able to curl up with one or the other, so as long as I can supervise I let her be free in the living/dining rooms.

Mrs. Parker went to her new home yesterday. I'd gotten half a dozen applications for her, but none of them were a good match. But this home has turned out to be perfect for her, and she's just what they were looking for, so everyone's happy. She was a bit of an odd-dog-out here, she tolerated the other dogs but preferred not to interact with them. She'll be very happy to be an only dog. And she could be an annoying little noodge, when she wanted something she'd bark-bark-pause, bark-bark-pause. Persistently. She's one of those dogs I'm happy to see go, both for her and for me. And the timing is serendipitous, I got a call this morning from the woman I got Sparky from, someone dumped a puppy in her yard last night and she wanted to know if I have room for him. I didn't have room yesterday, but I do today! She's going to see if perhaps he's just lost, but she's pretty sure he was dumped so he'll probably be coming in a day or two. She thinks he's about 3 months old, he weighs 6 pounds; hopefully he's cute and will place fast.

I got the carpet up on the stair between the kitchen and the front hallway. As I do every time I pull up more carpeting, I found sloppy work below. It's a cement step, it used to be outside. It's got chips in it, some of them very large, and it doesn't go all the way across the hallway. They put a couple of wood blocks next to it, to extend the width. I can't paint it the way it is, I can't remove the blocks without having to patch in a couple pieces of drywall. I decided the best thing to do is make a plywood cover for the step - one piece the depth of the step and placed on top of it, a short riser from the front to the hallway floor, and a short riser from the back to the kitchen floor. Didn't have a clue how I was going to get a sheet of plywood home, though. I stopped at the lumber yard this morning on my way back from the s/n clinic (Brie and, finally, Ruby, plus I transported a mini-Dachsie from this area) and they had a 2' X 4' piece of 1/2" plywood. It's exactly what I needed, and it fit easily in the car. I forgot to get nails, but maybe it's better to use screws anyway.

When I go back to get the dogs this afternoon, I'm going down a little early so I can stop at Costco and get food, and then at Home Depot to pick up another gallon of sealer/primer and a gallon of the Behr floor paint I picked out for the living/dining room. I've re-thought the color I want to use on two of the dining room walls, and on the trim for the other 2 walls and the living room wall. I'd picked a pale blue-green for two of the dining room walls and the trim in the living room, and I'd picked a pale green-blue for the bedroom walls. I picked a color that falls right between the two, and I'm going to use that color on the bedroom walls, two of the dining room walls, and for the trim on the other living and dining room walls. One gallon ought to be enough for both the BR and DR walls, so it'll save me the cost of a pint of paint for the two DR walls if I'd gone with the original color. That blue works very well with the dark teal floor paint I like, so that's what I'm going to use in the LR/DR instead of the "Cedar Plank" brown.

I've moved The Chooch's Petfinder listing to the Happy Tails (adopted) page. I got a few apps for her, nothing quite right, and she decided she wants to stay here. She loves Dudley, she loves Penny, she adores Sparky, she thinks the cats are great to snuggle up and sleep with, and the other day I caught her snuggled up to Lumi's rump, with her head resting on his hip. She doesn't want to go anywhere else, she likes it just fine right here thank you very much! Who am I to argue with such a determined little missy?

The cats emptied the dry food bowl this morning, and I don't have anything to fill it up with until I get back later. By that time, they'd have gotten into everything they could possibly get into, looking for food, so I put out 8 6-oz. cans a few minutes ago, and now I've got sated, sleepy cats who'll last until I get home with more dry food in 5 hours. Sleeping cats, sleeping dogs, and I'm off for an hour nap myself.

At Last, a Break in the Weather

2008-06-15T12:41:00.007-04:00

Last week was just plain nasty. Very hot, very humid, and lots and lots of thunderstorms and just plain rain. I was uncomfortable, the cats and dogs were uncomfortable, everyone I met was uncomfortable. It was a little cooler yesterday, but it was still quite warm (83). Today the humidity has gone and it's dry and breezy, and supposed to reach a high of 80. The week coming up is supposed to be sunny, dry, and in the mid 70's, so I should be able to get a lot of work done outside during the day, and a lot of work done inside after dark. It's been too humid for paint to dry quickly and thoroughly, so I've gotten nothing done this past week as far as that goes. At least I have more energy now that it's cooler.

The change in the weather has had a profound effect on the animals, too. Everyone's raring to go. Sparky and Dudley have been playing tag and wrestling for over an hour straight so far, and show no signs of slowing down. They are awfully cute together, and it's clear they really love each other. Of course, ChuChu loves Sparky, too. A little too much. But he doesn't seem to mind.

I've got 3/4 of a gallon of paint leftover from the bathroom. I think I'm going to use that in the L-shaped hallway that goes from the kitchen to the family room, past the front door. I'll have to check that color, and the hallway tile, against the color I've picked for the living room trim, but I'm pretty sure it'll work. I'll have plenty of trim paint left over from the living room, and I can use it in the hallway.

I'm taking Sydney and Ginger to be speutered tomorrow. I'll make a quick side trip to Costco for food when I go back to pick them up. Then I've got to get home and get them settled in pretty quickly, so I can leave to be at my Mom's by 6:30. There's a come one, come all choir up there that does a gospel concert every summer to benefit Habitat for Humanity. Mom's participated for years now, and last year she finally talked me into going up for the concert. I really enjoyed it, and there was lots of opportunity to sing along. Afterward, the director mentioned that I'd be welcome to join them this summer. I haven't sung in a choir in 20 years, so both my voice and my sight-reading skills are pretty rusty, but that should come back fairly quickly once I'm working it again. I'll have to find out what the rehearsal schedule is, and whether or not it would conflict with my summer-term Monday night class before I can commit, but I hope I can participate. (My summer class might not get enough enrollments, anyway.)

Last week, the bank along the creek that I pass on the way to the spay/neuter clinic was covered with flowers. I took these pics a week ago Thursday, on the dismal rainy day:

I was past there yesterday, and the flowers are all gone now. Such a brief display, but such a pretty one!

Ginger continues to progress, a teeny bit more every day. Right now she's sitting about 6 feet from me, and every time I look at her she grins and her tail wags like crazy. Her tail wags when I talk to her. Her tail wags when I look at her. She readily takes treats from my fingers now, and actively solicits more. She still doesn't want me to "catch" her, or hold her, but she''ll even tolerate that when she's in a pickle, like when she's stuck on top of the woodpile and needs help getting down. She and Ruby climb the wood pile on the patio and nap on top of it, where they're not bothered by crazy puppies. Ruby can get down by herself, but Ginger can't. She barks at me to come get her, and her tail wags like crazy even though she hunkers down like she doesn't want me to pick her up, but she doesn't move away from my hands, either, and allows me to lift her up and carry her inside. She's a funny little thing. She sure loves Penny, whenever she can she snuggles up to her big, solid, non-threatening friend. I want to start some clicker training with her, see if that helps her come around more quickly.

I've got jelly jars in the dishwasher, and cherries draining in the collander. I need to make a quick run to the store, but I'm going to make cherry jam when I get home. I need to get the rest of the meatballs and sauce bagged into individual servings and into the freezer. I got a ham last week that I need to cook tonight; tomorrow I'll grind up a lot of what's left and take some to Mom tomorrow for sandwiches. I've had a craving for scalloped potatoes and ham. I don't know if I'll get around to making it with this ham, but if I've got time and it's cool enough to use the oven in the next couple of days, I might give it a shot. I need to finish getting things into the garden, too, or I'll still have all unripened veggies when the first frost hits!

Rainy Days and Thursdays

2008-06-05T11:35:00.005-04:00

It's a very dismal, wet, foggy day here. I was up very early this morning because I had to take a group of dogs to the spay/neuter clinic, and the fog was so bad I could barely see my pole barn from the house. Despite the gloom, the ride down to the interstate was beautiful; everything is so green, heavy with drizzle, and softened by the fog. There's one spot that's always pretty, but this morning it was absolutely gorgeous - wild blue-purple flowers carpeting the south bank of a little creek, cupped in a hollow of hardwood trees in full leaf. I'm going to try to remember to take my camera with me on the return trip, and take a few pics along the way.

I saw a dog standing at the end of a driveway at the edge of the road, and though I was already running late I couldn't just leave him there to get hit, so I turned around and went back. I chased him up the driveway and he ran behind a tree, when I followed him I saw he'd gotten back into his yard. I found the spot I think he got out and did what I could to block it at least temporarily, then I left a note on the door saying I'd found the dog in the road and had put him back in the yard, but they needed to fix that spot! I didn't see him on my way back, so I hope he was still in his yard. I'll check again on the return trip this afternoon.

I took Sparky and ChuChu along for the ride, I like to have company coming home after dropping dogs (and cats) off at the clinic. (On the way down, I had a pile of three beagle mix puppies snuggled in between the bucket seats, next to my hip and under my elbow. Sweet, snuggly babies.) As we got about 5 miles from home, a line of thunderstorms caught up with us. ChuChu got very agitated, and tried desperately to get into my lap, or under my feet. I had a hard time holding her to prevent her from getting there. Poor thing, I'll bet she went through lots of thunderstorms unsheltered. It wasn't until we were almost to the house that she started to calm down a little, perhaps realizing that the car was protecting her.

I'm going to be a sort of sattelite scheduler for the s/n clinic. When I book appointments in advance, they're going to tell me how many other slots are open, and for what (cat or dog, male or female, large or small). Then they'll give my number to anyone from this area who calls and is interested in transport, have me schedule the appointments for the day I'm going down, and get the consent paperwork ready. Then I can have folks drop their pets off here and transport them down and back with my own, for $10 per dog, or per carrier. That'll at least pay for my gas, and the bagel and coffee I like to get at New York Bagel for the morning drive home. All I have to do is call them a couple of days in advance and tell them what I've already booked, and they'll schedule any other open slots themselves.

I stopped yesterday and picked up a few plants for my garden that I didn't have seeds for - regular and pickling cukes, habanero peppers, another heirloom tomato, regular watermelon (instead of the Sugar Babies I grew last year), and a Big Bertha bell pepper. If we get a break in the rain, I'm going to do a little planting this afternoon. It would be the perfect day to transplant. I also got a tall, double shepherd's hook plant hangar last week, for two more hanging tomatoes; I hope it's easier to get into damp ground than it was trying to get it into dry ground. I may have to use a sledgehammer anyway, to put it in the spot I prefer it to be.

After finishing the half bath (except for a little touch up), I've reconsidered using the Sensations paint on both walls and trim. I think I'm going to use Ace's regular semi-gloss for the trim, I can get it tinted to the colors I want and I think it'll cover the white semi-gloss that's already there in one coat. (The Sensations satin finish needs 2 coats.) I like the look of the semi-gloss better, and it's less expensive; not by much, but it'll save a couple of bucks and hours of re-coating.

I got one corner of the family room cleared, and I'm going to get a patch of the carpet and pad pulled up by bedtime, so I can put it out with my trash tonight. I've been kind of stuck, not knowing what order to do things in so it'll flow the smoothest, but I think it makes most sense to get the carpet out of the family room first even if I don't paint the floor in there until later. The concrete will clean easily enough until it's painted. And once I've got some room in there I can move stuff out of the living room so it'll be easier to get the walls in there painted. I haven't checked yet, but I suspect I'm going to have to pull the base molding off the walls before I paint them. If the folks who lived here before put the carpet down and then the baseboards, there'll be a gap between the baseboards and the floor so I'll have to pull the baseboards and reposition them after I paint the walls so they're flush with the floor. It'll help to have somewhere to move enough furniture (and crates) out of the living room so that I can easily access a whole wall, and then work one wall at a time. When the walls are done, I'll pull the carpet, replace the baseboards, and paint the trim. Then finish by painting the floor.

I did some stocking-up grocery shopping yesterday. Ouch. You know, when you look at the price on a single item you think "yeah, well, it's gone up in price, but 20-30-40 cents really isn't that much." But the cumulative total is shocking. I gasped when I heard it. And this was at Sav-A-Lot, where the prices are lower, sometimes lots lower, than other grocery stores. I got a 2.5 pound package of ground chuck, I'll make a big pot of meatballs later today or tomorrow, divide it into individual servings, and freeze. (Speaking of which, I need to clean out the refrigerator and freezer later, so that'll go into the trash that'll be picked up tomorrow too, and won't sit for days in the sun in the trash cart.) I'll take a couple bags of meatballs and sauce to Mom, too. I got a picnic shoulder ham, after a dinner of ham and slicing up enough for sandwiches, I'll grind and freeze the rest to make ham salad with. (And take some to Mom.) I'm going to start making my own bread again, too; even if it doesn't save much off the grocery bill, at least it won't be stale in a day or two.

This rain makes me want to crawl back in bed so bad. Guess I'd better get up and get working before I give in and do just that.

Slowly but surely

2008-05-29T13:57:00.005-04:00

I'm getting the painting done slowly but surely. I've got the half bath done except for the baseboards, a bit more of the window trim, and a couple little touch-ups. It's so pretty, I just love it.

So much nicer than the flat grey-beige with white trim that was in there before. When I get the floor cleaned up, and touch up one spot where the floor paint peeled off the wood filler below it, I'll try to get a pic of the whole thing - walls, trim, and floor - all together.

I picked a paint color for the living room walls, and painted a test patch to see how it would look. It's a little lighter than I thought it would be, but part of that might just be the spot I painted. It doesn't get a lot of light, either natural or artificial, in that spot. I thought about taking it back to the store and having them add the tint necessary to get the next darker color on the paint chip, and I still might do that. Or I might just go with it as it is - I don't want to go too dark or it'll make the rooms smaller. I'm going to use the same paint on two walls of the dining room, and swap trim and wall colors on the other two dining room walls. You can't really tell the color from the following pic, but it's a pale pinky-peach. I've picked a pale minty-green for the trim/2 dining room walls, and I think I'm going to go with a medium brown with just a hint of red called Cedar Plank for the floors.

Test patch in the living room
I picked up some 10-gallon storage tubs for the tomatoes I'm going to grow outside the garden. I just need to pick up potting soil for them, and I'll be ready to put tomato plants out. We're still getting frost warnings - there's one issued for tonight - so I haven't put anything out yet. Actually, I haven't even tilled the garden yet. I'll be a week or so late getting everything in. So what else is new?

The grass got horridly long because of all the rain we had earlier in the month. I can't get my lawnmower started by myself, I'm just not strong enough to pull the cord hard enough to get it started. (Even my stronger sis had a hard time getting it started last year.) So, as much as I hate to spend the money, I put up an ad on the bulletin board at the little grocery store in the village for yard help. I got a call from a very nice young man who came this morning. It seems my mower deteriorated over the winter, he worked with it and could get it started, but couldn't keep it going. So he went and borrowed his dad's mower, and he's out there now cutting my grass. We agreed on $10 an hour and this first cut's going to run me $40 because the grass is knee-high already, but after this it should only run me $20 each time he comes. He's a good kid, a hard worker, he's doing a better job than I would, and he's saving me days of aches and pains from doing it myself, so I think it's going to be worth it to have him come do this, and perhaps some other yard work, for me.

I lost a rescue pup to parvo this week. Poor little guy was pulled from a shelter last Thursday, got transported on Saturday and Sunday, got sick Monday morning, and died on Tuesday. Such a heartbreaker. And what a truly awful disease. I've been so lucky in my rescue efforts, I've never had to deal with parvo before. And I hope to doG I never have to deal with it again. Not only is it heartbreaking to watch a pup keep getting sicker, it's an awful lot of work. In just 32 hours I went through a jumbo roll of paper towels cleaning up gelatinous vomit and bloody stools, and filled an empty 40-pound dog food bag with paper towels and newspapers. And after he passed, I used so much bleach scouring my bathroom, bowls, crate, and anything else he touched that even 48 hours later I can still smell it. I probably overdid it a little, but I just don't want to take a chance that I missed something. I've got the already-bleached crate and the bowls out baking in the sun (ultraviolet light kills the parvovirus) just for good measure. I think I'm going to pry off the shoe molding on at least a couple of the bathroom walls, so I can bleach underneath/behind it. None of the diarrhea was anywhere near the walls but some of the vomit was, and though it's likely the virus was shed only in the feces, I don't want to take any chances. And if I get in any unvaccinated puppies in the next 6 months, they're going to be quarantined somewhere other than my bathroom. I was very careful not to track anything out of the bathroom - I even stepped out of my shoes (Crocs) as I left there and stepped from my shoes to the floor outside the bathroom so as not to bring anything out. Afterward, I bleached the shoes, too.

I've had the beagle/fox hound pups up on petfinder a little over a week without any interest and I was starting to worry that I might have them longer than I thought I would, but I got a couple of inquiries today (an application request for Scarlet, an inquiry on Chance), and a request for an application for Ernie the Shih Tzu. So, we'll see what the apps look like. These pups are very sweet, and have come around beautifully. They're not shy any more, they're attention hogs now. Sydney is a big-time cuddler, he'd rather be on my lap than anywhere else. (Don't tell anyone, but Syd's my favorite of the 4.) Scarlet's sweet but she's one tough little cookie, doesn't take any guff from anyone, period. If another dog even dares look at the toy she's playing with or the rawhide chip she's working on, she really gives them what-for. I've had to correct her for it more than once. A little finger-tap on the nose with "oh no, missy, that's not acceptable here!"

Rosie the Borg dog is cute, but she's a little stinker. Stubborn and sneaky. She got out into the yard with the big dogs today and I couldn't get her back in. I warned her if she messed with Nellie she was going to get herself a good thrashing. But it's been a couple of hours and she hasn't gotten herself beat up yet, and it's been quieter on the patio without her there, so if she and Nellie continue to be congenial I think I'll let her out into the big yard more often. She can get a lot more exercise out there, and that can only result in her being quieter and easier to get along with inside.

Ginger the Papillon is gradually coming around. Last night she took some spaghetti from my fingers, and came back looking for more. Even put her front feet up on my leg, asking for more. She still doesn't want me to touch her when I'm upright, but enjoys having her ears rubbed and her tummy tickled when she's on the bed and I'm lying down. I'm hoping that getting spayed will help, too; she's scheduled for June 16, along with Syd and Ruby the Cavalier. Scarlet, Holly, and Chance are all going in next Thursday. She absolutely loves Penny - who doesn't? - and can almost always be found curled up with her.

I got a great update on Rosie the Cavalier. She's settling in very well, and is bonding with her boy. She even sleeps in bed with him now. I also got a picture update on Seal/Toby this week. Oh my goodness, he's huge, and he's only 6 months old. He's going to be one very big adult!

I need to do a follow-up for both Parchesi and Livvy, see how they're doing. I think I'll go do that now.

Procrastinator Nonpareil

2008-05-22T14:58:00.005-04:00

That's me. There's no more accomplished procrastinator in the world than I. I should be working, but I'm sitting. Waiting to hear that a little 4-month old beagle/poodle pup got pulled from a shelter this afternoon (before he's euthed tomorrow morning) and will be arriving here on Sunday. They also had a 4-month old Mountain Cur puppy. She, and a big Lab/Deerhound mix, are the only ones slated for the gas chamber tomorrow that haven't been spoken for as of about an hour ago. As much as I'd love to help, I'd have a heck of a time finding an appropriate home for her and I'm afraid that, even at 4 months of age, she'd be too prey-driven to live safely with cats. I hope someone else can take her.

I seem to have "will take beagle mixes!" stamped on my forehead. That's OK - they're cute, sweet, are usually good family dogs, and are pretty easy to place. The beagle/fox terrier pups - box terriers? feagles? foggles? - are doing very well. Scarlet and Sydney are both very social, snuggly little stinkers, and both enjoy just crashing on my lap. When I reach out for them, they lie down and roll onto their sides or backs to get belly tickles. Chance and Holly are still a little shy, but coming around. They're all over me until I reach out for them, then they move back out of reach. But they're easier to "catch" than they were a couple of days ago, so I think they'll be fine in another week or so. I listed them on Petfinder on Tuesday afternoon, and haven't had a single inquiry. It could be because of the upcoming holiday weekend, people thinking they'll be able to take a puppy right away and not wanting to do it until after the long weekend. Or it could be because their descriptions say the pups came from a puppymill, with the word 'puppymill' being a live link to Prisoners of Greed.

I got a decent application for Nellie today. I don't know if she's the right dog for them, but they're worth checking out. It might be a very good situation for her, and it sure would be nice to get her out of here and into a permanent home.

When I woke up this morning, Ivy was curled up against my thigh. I just reached down and started rubbing her head - she didn't flinch, didn't try to get away, just stayed relaxed and enjoyed her head rub. Either she wasn't totally awake and didn't realize that it was me touching her, or she was too relaxed and just didn't care. In any case, I enjoyed being able to pet her. Snickers has almost completely come around. I can even reach out and touch him now when he's on the table and I'm standing. He sleeps next to my feet, and comes for cuddles every morning. I'll be lying on my back petting cats and little dogs when I'll feel him getting on top of my shins, and then up my body to my stomach, where he settles down and waits for me to notice him through the crowd and reach through to pet him. He's a very heavy guy, at least 16 pounds. It hurts when he walks on me!

Poor Chu-Chu. She was getting really shaggy, so I gave her a haircut last night. I had given some thought to letting her coat grow out, I think she'd be stunning in a "show" coat, but I figured she'd be more comfortable, not to mention it would be easier to keep her clean, if I just gave her a summer shave-down. I didn't realize that her head's so tiny in comparison to her body, she looks a bit like a cartoon alien now. I'll have to get a pic, she's pretty funny looking. Oh well, she'll be cooler for the next couple of months, and now I know not to shave her head completely next time, but to leave a little beard and topknot to balance her out!

After my last class of the term on Monday night, I stopped at Lowe's on the way home and got the paint for the floor in the family room. "Grey Blue Sky" - a light bluish grey. I've decided I'll get 3 quarts of Glidden's bright floor paint - one red, one yellow, one blue - and mix some of those together to get orange, green, and purple, and splatter those on the grey floor. Anything that's left over from those bright colors can be added to a quart of white to make medium-bright or pastel colors, and I'll use that to paint the bookcases/shelves I want to put in there. I'm going to start removing some of the carpet in there tonight; not all of it, just enough to finish filling my trash cart. I don't want to wait to start removing carpet because I don't want to waste the trash cart space now and then have to wait 2-3 weeks to get rid of all the carpet later.

I'm going up to my mom's in the morning. There's a huge community garage sale where she lives, tomorrow and Saturday. I'm looking for a futon and a rocker/recliner, but I'll settle for any seating that's a) in better shape than what I've got now (that's not going to be hard to find), b) comfortable, c) something I can fit in my car to either bring home or get to my mom's to put in her garage until my sis (with a van) or my brother (with a small SUV) can get it here for me, and d) cheap. The old leather sofa I have now was destined for the curb when I took it from an acquaintance 3 years ago, and it's in a lot worse shape now than it was then. Like the carpet, it's got to go! My rocker/recliner is still in relatively good shape, but the seat cushion's not cushion-y any more. I can feel the wood slats when I sit in it, and have had to put the cushion from an old couch on the seat part. I'll hang onto it even if I find a replacement, and just move it out to the family room. I'd also love to find a small computer desk on wheels. The desk I'm using is a good sturdy office desk, but it's awfully darn heavy. Too heavy for me to move easily, even if I empty it out and clear it off. I need something that rolls. I'd move this desk out to the pole barn, and either sell or chop up the old but not antique wooden desk I've got out there. I'd like to find a smaller, lighter dining room table and chairs, too. The table I've got is OK, but it's heavy. The chairs match each other but not the table, and they're heavy too. I'd really love to have one of those old tubular-leg, formica-topped kitchen tables from the 50's, and chairs to match. Again, something lighter weight that I could move easily myself. I'm also sort of looking for an entertainment center cabinet. Nothing big, just something that will hold my 21" TV, the cable box, and my VCR all in one convenient place.

There's a devastating predator in my yard. Flint, who likes to spend his days out on the patio with the little dogs, has recently taken to dashing out to the big yard when I open the gate in the evening to bring the big dogs in. He wants to prowl. He never leaves the yard or I wouldn't let him stay out there after dark, he just stays in the yard until I let dogs out at bedtime, then he comes in with them. Almost every morning, I have to take a dead mouse away from Sparky. Flint's catching and killing them and bringing them onto the patio for me, and Sparky finds them in the morning and runs off with them. I have to chase him around the yard ordering him to "drop it, DROP IT!!" then pick the mouse up and dispose of it when he complies. It's gotten so I don't even open the door in the morning without sticking a paper towel in my pocket so I'll have it in case I need it as a shroud for one of Flint's victims. If I sound cold-blooded about Flint dispatching mice to the great cheese wedge in the sky, I am. Since Flint's been on the job, I haven't seen a single mouse in my garage. Organic mouse trap, indeed.

OK, now I really am going to get up and work on the kitchen floor some more. Yes, I know I said I hoped to have it done by tonight. But I also told you I'm very good at procrastinating. *grin* It's coming along, just slower than I'd planned. I'm hoping the flooring under the carpet in the living room, dining room, and bedroom is in better shape than the stuff in the kitchen. I'm on my third pint of wood filler, and not done filling cracks and evening off the height differences between all the different pieces. I 've been putting off pulling up the carpet from the stair between the kitchen and the hallway, I'm afraid of what I'll find underneath. But I guess I'll bite the bullet and just do it. Might as well get that stair done at the same time I paint the floor in the kitchen in that area. Here we go......

Busy Week

2008-05-10T14:14:00.004-04:00

I should be working on the house, and did do a little earlier, but I ran out of gas pretty early. Thursday was a very long, very busy day for me, and yesterday was just as long and busy. Ah'm tarred. Ah well, I'll have a little nap in a bit, and do some more work in the kitchen later. I'll prime some smaller areas in the kitchen - areas I can easily block off overnight - before bed tonight, and paint those same areas before bed tomorrow. That'll leave just the open area in the center, and if I play my cards right I'll be able to get that primed Tuesday night before bed, painted Wednesday night before bed, and the whole kitchen second-coated Thursday night before bed, and then the kitchen floor will be done.

Beau, Bailey, and Max were neutered on Thursday, and Beau and Bailey went to join Roux in their new home on Thursday night. Their new mom couldn't remember 'Roux' (Roo), so she's been calling him 'Boo'. So now she has Boo, Beau, and Bailey. I did a home visit for Rose the Cavalier on Thursday afternoon, and both Rose and I liked the family. She's going to be spayed Monday, and her new mom will pick her up at the clinic and take her home from there. She'll have a 2-year old Boxer mix sister, and a pair of gentle, well-behaved children to dote on her. It's a lovely home in a lovely neighborhood, with people who are experienced in dealing with shy/timid dogs. I think she'll do very well there. Parchesi the boggle puppy and Ernie the Shih Tzu are also going to the s/n clinic on Monday, and Parchesi will be going to her new home the end of the week.

Yesterday I went up to my mom's early in the afternoon, to escort her to a doctor's appointment. From there we went to the Ace Hardware store nearby, to look at and collect some paint color strips. Ace has a paint called Sensations that has Scotchguard in it. Even marks like crayon wash off with just soapy water. I think it'll be much easier to keep clean than most flat paints, so that's what I'm going to use on all the walls and trim. I spent several hours over the past week playing with color combinations of wall, trim, and floor paint. (I've used Valspar porch and floor paint in the half bath and kitchen, but I think I'm going to be using Behr floor paint in the rest of the house. The Behr paint just seems a little more colorful, and I like the color choices, too.) I think I've chosen the colors for the half bath - the floor is a color called Chinaberry, a kind of medium dusty rose. (Remember Teaberry gum? It's that color!) I've picked a pastel greenish-teal for the walls and a medium tone of the same color for the trim. (Mom says "I don't know about using a different color on the trim..... won't it look funny? Do people do that?" Yes, mom, they do, and no, it doesn't look funny!)

I'm still not 100% set on the colors for the rest of the house, but as of now I'm looking at a wine color for the floor in the bedroom, a pale robin's egg blue for the walls, and trim that's a dusty pink just a shade lighter than the half-bath floor. The half bath is accessed through the bedroom, and the bedroom trim (and the bedroom side of the pocket door to the half bath) being close to the same color as the bathroom floor should help tie the two rooms together and make the whole space seem a little larger. For the living room/dining room I'm looking at a medium-pastel peach for the walls. It's a nice bright color without being garish, and should help warm/illuminate the living room, which only has one large window and has a tendency to be a little dark. I'm playing around with trim and floor colors, but I'm looking at a floor in a medium sea-green (like the crayon, but darker), or a medium or darker teal, and a trim in a medium-pastel shade of the same color. I'm going to do all the walls in the living room and the north and south walls of the dining room the same color, but I'm going to do the east and west walls of the dining room and their trim in reverse of the way they are in the living room and the north and south walls. The peach walls (and trim) in the dining room will blend harmoniously into the darker peach floor in the kitchen.

I'm still not sure what I want to do about the family room, either. It's a very dark room, the only natural light comes from the sliding door which opens onto the covered patio. It faces south which would ordinarily provide quite a bit of light, but there's a big pine on the east side of the patio that blocks the light in the morning, and the house blocks it from the west in the afternoon. It's a cold room, too, except when I'm using the wood stove, because there is no HVAC ductwork to that room. I'd love to use a nice, bright peachy-yellow on the walls, something that'll both light and warm the room. Whatever I use in there will also go on the walls in the hallway leading to it, and has to harmonize with the ceramic tile on the floor in the hallway; it's got some peach and bluish-grey tones in it. I want something on the family room floor that's not going to make every single little muddy footprint clearly visible so I don't have to mop it every time dogs come in, but I don't want to use anything really dark in there, either. Behr makes some really bright floor paint colors - orange, sunshine yellow, primary blue, grass green, primary red. I'm thinking about maybe doing the family room floor a medium-light bluish-grey, and getting pints of some of the bright colors and using them to "splatter" or drizzle over the grey. It would add color without being overwhelming, and I think it'll also make doggy footprints less noticeable. I've got a couple of wood shelves/bookcases I'd like to put in there; they need to be sanded down and painted first, and I could use the leftover bright floor paint to do the shelves with. That would give me more bright, but not overwhelming, color in there.

Anyway, after checking out paint we went back to Mom's. I got the ham in the oven, then gave Daisy a bath, combed her out, and clipped her nails. While she was air-drying, I got the asparagus, carrots, rice mixture, and baby portobello mushrooms ready to start cooking when it was time. Then I gave Daisy a haircut. I finished her just in time to start cooking the rest of the stuff for dinner. We had a Pepperidge Farm frozen lemon cake for dessert. I didn't get home until about 10. My brother called while I was there, he's going up tomorrow to take her out to lunch and she wants me to come too, but unless I wake up early tomorrow bursting with energy - and I doubt that'll happen - I think I'll skip it. I've got too much I want to get done here, and a busy day on Monday.

Blizz is OK, she only had two small wounds that have healed without needing any more attention than initial cleaning with hydrogen peroxide. I kept her and Ten separated through Monday, but then I let him go out in the yard with her. I stood inside and watched them through the window for a while, and since everything was copacetic I went about doing what I had to do and kept checking on them every15 minutes or so. At one point I looked out and they were lying on the grass a few feet apart, just hanging out and napping on and off. I know that Blizzard would not go and lie down by Ten, he has to have been the one to go lie down by her. They've been fine together since. Actually, it's been unusually peaceful out there since Lumi hasn't been out in the yard with the other big dogs.

Lumi is healing well. It's not pretty, but he's healing. I've kept him and Ten separated for the last two weeks. I let Lumi and Blizzard out together for a few minutes first thing in the morning along with Tansy, Penny, Dudley, Sparky, and usually Chu-Chu and Ginger (the Papillon, fka Pittypat). I leave the gate from the patio to the yard open, anyone who wants to go out into the yard can go, then I close the gate behind them. Then I let Lumi, Penny, Dudley, Sparky and Chooch back into the patio as they come back to the gate, and then bring them all inside. Then I put Ten, Nellie, and Spot out in the big yard, then the rest of the little dogs out in the patio. Once everyone was out this morning and the yard was "locked", I let Lumi back out onto the patio with the little dogs. (I have a panel from a big wire crate attached to the bottom half of the patio gate. It extends past the gate on the latch side, and I use a snap bolt to fasten the extended end to the fence on the other side of the gate post, once the gate is closed. Not only does this prevent small dogs from wriggling through the gap there and into the big yard, it prevents the dogs in the big yard from getting the gate open and getting into the patio to rearrange the furniture, up-end tables, chew on the hose, etc. Except it doesn't keep Nellie out, she just climbs the gate and jumps into the patio. Little stinker.) Lumi and Ten greeted each other through the fence. They each seemed happy to see the other, there was no tension in their postures, and both tails were doing relaxed, scooping, happy wags, instead of sharp, on-alert waving.

It looks like this is going to be easier to manage than I thought it was going to be. The last time I had to keep dogs separated - Eiger had to be kept away from both Blizzard and Lumi - an instant attack was certain. But with Ten and Lumi, if I slip up they wind up in the same space together accidentally, I think the risk of an instant conflict is probably pretty low. I think they'll probably be able to be together for a few hours out in the yard again, too, at least occasionally if not on a regular basis. I'll just have to make sure they come into the house separately, Lumi first and crated before I let Ten in.

Ten's been his usual sweet self, and he's been extra compliant and well-behaved too. I'm less stressed about him than I was a week ago, and much more hopeful that his recent behavior is due to transitioning from adolescence into adulthood, and that I can manage it and work through it with him. I'll have to be ultra-vigilant and consistent, and he's going to have to prove he's worthy before I'll trust him again, so it's going to take time and work. But I'm feeling much more optomistic about the whole situation.

My brakes are a little funky. There's either air in the brake line, or the master cylinder's going. I hope it's just air, the master cylinder was replaced 2.5 years ago and really shouldn't need to be replaced again. (It's not under warranty any more.) If it's the master cylinder, there goes the check - which should arrive this coming week - for this term's Monday night obedience class. I had other plans for that money. *sigh*

Difficult Decisions

2008-04-30T13:31:00.005-04:00

I think I have to euthanize Ten.

A month ago he went after an 18-pound male cocker that got snotty with him. He got hold of the little guy and shook him and would not let go. I don't know how the cocker came out of that encounter alive, but he did. Friday night he went after Lumi. They've tussled in the past but it's never been serious - nobody's ever gotten hurt worse than a tooth scrape or bloody lip - and they've either been easy to separate or they've stopped on their own after a minute or so. And then they've been fine together again. But Friday night, as they were coming in from their bedtime 'out', they got into it and this time it was serious. I'm really not quite sure what set it off, whether Lumi made a warning face at Ten or whether he might have even gotten into his "come another inch closer and I'll beat the crap out of you" stance and Ten was just fed up, or what. Whatever it was, Ten attacked him and this time it turned into an all-out fight for dominance. I couldn't separate them, after trying for a couple of minutes with no success (and having pulled muscles in my back trying) I had to step out and let them fight until they started to tire. Only then was I able to get a good grip on Ten's collar to twist it and cut off his air, and get my back up against a wall where I was able to use my foot/leg to keep Lumi from coming back at Ten once Ten let go. Lumi got beat up pretty good, it wasn't just spit and toothscrapes, there was torn skin on his flank from where Ten grabbed him and shook, and a pretty good gash on his thigh.

Ten's been on NILIF ever since. I moved his crate out of my bedroom and out to the family room. I've kept him and Lumi away from each other, giving Lumi time in the yard first and then putting Ten out in the yard only when Lumi's back inside and back in his crate. He's been spending time out in the yard with Blizzard, Spot, and Nellie, and sometimes Tansy. Every once in a while Nellie gets a bug in her ear and takes a couple of chomps at Tansy. I holler at her, she quits, and that's that.

Some of my friends from the volunteer thing I do maintain a 2-mile stretch of highway, picking up trash a couple of times a year. I live right in the middle of that 2-mile stretch. I saw these friends in front of the house this morning and went out to say hi. Blizzard, Ten, Spot, Nellie, and Tansy were in the yard. The friends wanted to see the dogs, and came up to the fence. Tansy's got a bad habit of pushing past/over other dogs to get to people. It's very rude, from a canine point of view, and any dog with any sense of canine manners just doesn't do it. But Tansy has no canine manners, is frequently very rude with other big dogs, and often gets scolded by them as a result.

(I had another foster dog a long time ago with the same insensibility of canine manners that Tansy has. Like her, he was a great dog. Very sweet, very people-oriented, and just a little too needy. He used to bump other dogs out of the way to get to me, or walk on them if they were on the floor between him and me. He used to get smacked for his rudeness on a regular basis, too. And, also like Tansy, he never learned the lesson.)

Anyway, Tansy wanted to see the people, and pushed Nellie. Nellie objected with her teeth. I yelled at her, she quit, but just that little bit of tension was like a flash in a powder keg. Blizzard saw her opportunity to take a swipe at Tansy, too. Blizz hates rude dogs in general, and dislikes Tansy in particular, but doesn't mess with her beyond a warning because she knows she'll be in trouble if she does. (She has learned self-restraint over the years. It took a long time, though.) Blizz jumped into the fray and it probably would have ended there pretty quick, but Ten jumped in on Blizzard. By the time I got out to them, only Ten and Blizzard were involved and Ten was winning. I finally got him to let go of her, and kept her from coming back at him immediately by pushing her away once with my foot on her shoulder.

Ten has gotten too big for his britches. He doesn't have much impulse control to start with, and he's gained a new sense of power from the altercations of the last few weeks. He's gone from the somewhat submissive boy who takes a scolding, backs off and says "hey, I didn't mean anything by it" to being king of the hill with no idea how to handle the power he's recently discovered he has. I don't know if I can fix it, or if he'll grow out of it (like Blizzard did), or even if I should try/wait. After Friday's fight with Lumi, I said "that's two strikes, one more and I'm going to have a hard decision to make." I can't decide if this qualifies as the third strike or not.

I know exactly what provoked this morning's fight, and the circumstances were unusual. I can absolutely prevent the occurrence of a similar trigger, and I can keep Ten apart from everyone but Spot and Nellie while I put him on an intense program of exercise and discipline. They've always been submissive to him, and he's always known it. He has nothing to prove with them, and they're not interested in provoking him. They're good friends, it's safe to put them out together.

When Ten and Lumi fought, only a physical barrier would have prevented either of them from trying to get to the other one again. Even if I'd been able to get them apart, a dirty look would have been all it took to get it started again. This morning, once I got Ten and Blizzard separated and pushed her away when she made her one attempt to come back at him and teach him a lesson, he did not try to re-engage even though she was glaring at him, but stood vigilant yet calm by my side. (I had my hand through the loop in his martingale collar so I could stop him if he tried to re-engage, but he's 105 pounds and if he really wanted to go back at her he'd have dragged me along with him.) I don't know whether that's because she doesn't make him as angry as Lumi does, if once he took a step back he remembered that she's higher in the pack order than he is, or if it's because he's beginning to learn how to regain his self-control after he loses it.

On the other hand, I don't know if I can fix him. And while I will do my very best to be as vigilant as possible to keep him apart from dogs other than Spot and Nellie - and Tansy, who is so far beneath his radar that she basically doesn't exist in his world - and I'm better set up here to keep dogs separated than I was before, I'm not perfect and I can't be sure I won't screw up. I have before, when I've had to keep dogs separated. It's not fair to Blizzard or Lumi for me to keep a dog that's aggressive toward them. I'm not sure I'm physically capable of handling him; I could have ten years ago, but handling him when he's not complying is a lot tougher now and I hurt more and longer afterward. Shoot, I was sore for a week after wrestling him into the bathtub a while back. My wrists still hurt this morning from Friday's incident; they hurt worse now, and after a couple of hours my forearms still feel like jelly. I can feel the muscles in my back and my hamstrings tightening, and I know I'm going to be stiff and sore tomorrow.

I don't know what to do. I know what I should do, I just don't know that I'm ready to. I don't know if I can unless I know I did my best to try to fix him, and I don't know if I could forgive myself if someone else gets hurt while I tried. If I thought, by any stretch of the imagination, that Ten was aggressive toward humans, the decision would be simple and inarguable. It's not so clear cut when a dog is safe with humans but not with other dogs.

(No, I will not re-home him if I can't fix him.)

Home Improvement

2008-04-28T12:48:00.005-04:00

I got started on my flooring project this weekend. I decided to start with the kitchen rather than the family room, simply because my sis came Saturday afternoon and I had her help to move the two large cabinets in the kitchen that I can't move myself. The paint I bought last Monday actually works well in the kitchen, being a deeper shade of the pale peach highlights in the kitchen panelling. I really wanted a deep blue in the family room anyway but had settled for the "Tile Red" (which is actually a brownish-coral color) because the paint guy at Lowe's hadn't been able to figure out how to tint the paint the color I originally picked. (I'm going be checking elsewhere when I'm ready to get paint for the family room, I'd really like blue in there. If I can't get the deep blue, I know I can get a light sage green color in this paint and that would be my second choice for the family room.)

I knew the kitchen flooring under the carpet was probably not perfect. Nothing in this house is. The young couple who lived here before me did a lot of "renovations" here themselves. He was a whiz with car restoration and building custom hot rods, but really had no idea what he was doing when it came to home construction/repairs. He had replaced the plywood sheet in front of the sink and set it in a little crooked, so there's gap on one side that tapers from just 1/8" at one end to almost half an inch at the other. And next to that there are a couple of small pieces that had replaced a small section of a bigger piece of plywood. None of the edges are flush, the edge of one piece is either higher or lower than the piece next to it. I did some research today, and I think I should be able to fix the problem for less than $10 in materials - some acrylic wood filler and sandpaper. I'm sure that someday, someone will look at my "fix" and say "geez, she did really sloppy work...." but as long as I can get it fairly level I don't much care what posterity thinks of my techniques. I'll stop at Lowe's on my way to class (if I get going early enough) or on the way home and pick up the wood filler and see what I can do about getting that down tonight, and sanded tomorrow when it's dry. I need to remember to pick up a craft knife, too, to cut the carpet along the edge of the cabinets, and a small foam paint brush for priming/painting along there, too.

I got a 3-foot strip along one wall primed and painted this weekend, and got the cabinet and microwave cart back into place there. I also got a 3-foot strip done along another wall, and got the refrigerator and floor-to-ceiling cabinet back into place over it. My sis helped out by duct-taping the carpet and padding I pulled up into easily lifted/handled bundles and piled them up in a corner of the kitchen where I wasn't working. Unfortunately, it was in front of the coffee maker and while I managed to lean over the pile yesterday morning to make coffee, my poor aching muscles started screaming this morning when I tried to do it, so before I even got my coffee started I removed that pile of carpet and padding, putting some of it in my trash cart and some of it out in the garage to go into the trash cart over the next couple of weeks. Then I got the coffee brewing and ripped up another big piece of carpet and padding. Just one more big piece to go, then all that's left is a strip of carpet along the front of the cabinets (they put the cabinets down over the carpet, I'm not pulling out the cabinets to get to it!), the patch under the stove, and a small patch in the corner where I have to crawl under the kneehole of a small built-in "desk". Oh yeah, I have to pull everything on the floor of my pantry out, and get the carpet in there up too.

I need to get at least the perimeter primed and painted as quickly as possible, before anycat decides to pee on the plywood. I don't have anything scheduled for tomorrow, so I should be able to get the primer down early in the day when the dogs are all outside, and then I'll paint those areas before bedtime tomorrow. I've got some sections of a plastic exercise pen that I can use to block the areas off so they can dry overnight without getting kitty footprints in them. When I'm ready to put down a second coat of paint with a roller, I'm going to lure as many cats into the family room as I can and close the door so they're shut in there overnight, and use a baby gate with a wire crate panel on top of it to block the doorway from the dining room to the kitchen so anycat who's not closed up in the family room won't be able to get into the kitchen. If I keep working at it and don't have any setbacks, I should have the kitchen floor finished by the end of next weekend.

I did the home visit last Monday for the Low Riders. Very, very nice people whose last Dachsie lived to be 19. I'd taken Roux along with me, and I left him there. The other two will be joining him in that home a week from Friday, the day after they're neutered.

I did a home visit on Saturday for Parchesi the boggle puppy. Lovely family, they're going to love her to pieces and I think she's a great fit for them. They have three children, and Parchesi's got a sweet, gentle nature so I think this is a very good match. The Cheesy-puppy is scheduled to be spayed 2 weeks from today, and I'll keep her until 2 weeks from Friday. Max the Shih Tzu is going in the same day as the Low Riders, so he'll be ready to go after that. I've gotten one application for him, but I'm going up to my mom's on Thursday and taking him along to see if he'd be a good match for her and Daisy. I'm taking Ruby the Cavalier to the vet on Thursday morning; I'm pretty sure she's got a perineal hernia. If that needs to be repaired it should be done when she's spayed, but that's beyond the scope of the s/n clinic, so it'll have to be done by the local vet. We'll see what she says about whether or not it needs to be repaired, and how much it's going to cost. It'll be at least $120 (for the spay) and the repair will be extra. I've gotten a couple of donations from some Cavalier people, and I've got a good home lined up that's willing to kick in for it up to double the adoption fee, so that should cover it. We'll see.

I made the mistake of putting Rose the Cavalier up on Petfinder already, at the same time I had a cute baby puppy listed. I've spent hours and hours answering e-mails about the two of them the last week, sometimes not being able to get away from the computer for 6 hours straight. I've gotten at least a couple dozen inquiries on Rose, and from all over the country. I had to amend her description to read that we're only considering homes within a 4 hour drive of us right now. I've gotten half a dozen applications back, but only two of them are worth considering. One of them is almost exactly what I was looking for, but they have a 3-year old Cavalier that's not spayed - though they're supposedly planning on having her spayed soon - and I won't place a dog in a home where there are intact pets. I have to question their judgement, too. If they weren't planning on breeding her, why would they wait until she's 3 years old to have her spayed? Nevermind the annoyance of dealing with twice-yearly heat cycles, what about the risk of mammary cancer? (Besides, I already denied another otherwise-good home because there's an intact Lab mix there.) The other home feeds Beneful, and needs a little updating on their discipline techniques. *sigh* It's a good home otherwise, though, and they're close to Costco, so getting them to switch to the Kirkland food shouldn't be a problem. I think I'll schedule a home visit, and see how I feel once I meet them and have a chance to talk with them a little.

The day I'm taking the Low Rider and Max to be neutered, the blade sharpener guy is scheduled to come to the groomer south of me. I'll drop my clipper blades off there in the morning on my way to the s/n clinic, and pick them up that afternoon. Then I'll be able to get Ernie the Shih Tzu groomed, and get The Chooch cleaned up a little. I'm also going to talk to the woman who told me about the puppymiller close to me, and find out for sure if I spoke to the right people. Later that afternoon I'm doing the homevisit for Ruby. If I don't get it done before then I'll do Rose's HV that day too, since they're all in the same geographical area. In 2 and a half weeks I should have gotten at least 4 little dogs placed, and maybe 5 or 6. For the rest of the summer I'm going to stick to taking in only one or two at a time so I'll have more time to work on getting the house done and working in the garden.

I think I'm going to try something new for tomatoes this year. I have a dozen varieties of heirloom tomatoes I want to plant, and I think I'm going to get 18- or 22-gallon totes, put those together in the sunny part of my back yard that's outside the fence, and grow one plant of each variety in each tote. I'll put either a piece of rebar or a t-post into the ground at the end of each 3-tote row and use that to anchor the "Florida Weave" trellis system I'd like to try. I'm going to see what it'll cost me to get a half-yard of topsoil delivered, and then amend that with manure compost and peat to go into the totes. It's got to be cheaper than buying 40-pound bags of potting mix. I'll still put some plants in hanging baskets, and a few in the garden proper too, but the fewer plants I put into the garden, the more room there will be for peppers, zuccini, watermelon, cukes, pumpkins, and beans. I'm going to do pole beans this year, I saved some seeds from last year and I can easily make a couple of trellises for them, so I'll get a larger harvest out of fewer plants and a smaller space than I did last year with bush beans. I need to get out to the garden and get it ready for planting, but it's not going to be warm enough to do that until at least the end of the week. My sis brought me a peony plant, and yesterday we prepared a place for that to go in this coming weekend, when it'll be a little warmer. I bought myself a Concord grape plant; I know where I want to put it, I've just got to get that place prepared too. (Won't have grapes for jelly this year, but should have them by next summer!)

Time to get back to work. I'm tired, and I didn't sleep well last night, and I'd really like to have a little nap instead, but I'm going to practice self-discipline and get some work done.

Busy Week Ahead

2008-04-20T23:30:00.004-04:00

I got an inquiry on the Low Riders from someone who wants all three of them. She's a little technologically challenged and has had trouble returning the application I e-mailed her. But she gave me quite a bit of information in her initial inquiry, including contact info for her vet. Her husband built ramps in their house for her old Dachsie, so he could go everywhere they did. She says "it's only two steps, but that's a lot when you're only four inches tall!" She's had Dachsies for 40 years. I spoke with her on the phone today, and I'm sure she's going to provide a great home for the boys. I'll check the vet ref in the morning, and then I'm going to do her home visit tomorrow afternoon. She's an hour the other side of where I go to teach my Monday class, about 2 hours from here, so as long as I have to go into class I might as well go the extra hour and get the home visit done. Roux is ready to go now, since he's already neutered. I'll take him along tomorrow when I do the home visit, and if everything's OK and they want to have him tomorrow, I'll leave him there. The other two can't go until they're neutered on May 8.

I put Parchesi the Boggle puppy up on petfinder last week and have been deluged with applications, most of them either bad or just mediocre. But I got a good one tonight, so I'll check the vet ref on that one tomorrow and maybe get the home visit done next weekend. My sis is coming out next weekend, I think, maybe I can get her to do the driving if I pay for the gas. Parchesi's scheduled to be spayed May 12, which is a Monday, so she'll probably be with me until Friday that week.

I got a great application for George. I struggled with the decision to make him available for adoption, because I love him dearly and he adores Dudley. But I feel strongly that he belongs with someone else, and when I got this application I knew I'd found the right home. I'm even more sure after talking to his potential adopter today. They're in southeastern Pennsylvania, and though I'm usually reluctant to place an animal so far away, they're going to love George and he's going to be just fine there. They'd be willing to drive all the way here to get him, but shoot - it's 11 hours one way, so coming to get him would take the entire weekend. (Not to mention cost them a fortune in gas.) I'm trying to figure out a way to get him transported part of the way, somewhere close enough to them that they could get there to get him and get back in one day. Eastern OH or western PA would be good, I've just got to find a ride for him that far. The other option would be to try one of my flight attendant contacts, and if I can't find overland transport for him I might have to do that. But I'd have to wait until I could afford to get a health cert ($40) and buy a Sherpa carrier (George is too big to fit into an 11" tall hard carrier), and then it might still run $75 for him to ride in the cabin with the flight attendant.

I got the floor in my half bath primed this afternoon, and spent a sweaty, frustrating hour and a half getting 2/3 of the floor - just 12 square feet - covered in self-stick tile. That was the "easy" part, the only place I couldn't put down a whole tile is where the heat duct comes up through the floor. And I had a hard time even cutting that opening out because, of course, the rectangle wasn't square at the corners and the sides weren't straight. This house.... there isn't a straight line, square corner, or level foot of flooring anywhere in the place. I'm having a helluva time trying to get the tiles down so there are no gaps between them. I managed to get them nice and snug in most places, but there are a couple that have small gaps. They're not easy to see when I'm standing up, but there's enough of a gap there that any liquid that hits the floor is going to seep down through. I'm going to have to fill those gaps with something, maybe a little tub caulk applied with a toothpick? The tough part is left to do, cutting to fit around the commode, the water line, and the threshold. I'm so disgusted right now I'm not even going to think about touching it again until Tuesday or Wednesday.

I did some research into paint for the cement floor in the family room, and I think I've found a paint that will give me the durability I'm looking for but not run me an arm and a leg (about $22/gallon, and $12 for a gallon of sealer/primer). An oil-based paint would be even more durable, but it's got a long drying time - not even light foot traffic for 24 hours. That's just not practical, as the sliding door in the family room is how the dogs get out into the yard and they have to go through the room to get to it. The latex-based "porch and floor" paint is OK for light foot traffic after just 6 hours, so if I put everyone to bed and paint the floor, it'll be dry enough in the morning for dogs to walk on, though I might put down some cardboard for the big dogs to walk on just to be on the safe side. I haven't decided on a color yet.

I'm so tired of looking at these plain light beige walls. Dull, dull, dull. I played around with the color painter at the Behr website, and I've got some ideas now about what colors I want. I found an interior paint that has Scotchguard in it. It's called Sensations, and it's available only at Ace Hardware. I'll have to go to Home Depot to pick up the Behr color chips and have Ace match them. (I want the paint with Scotchguard, it'll make cleaning so much easier. Not just on the windowsills, either (dirty little cat feet), but on the walls themselves, particularly on the corners that tend to get dirtiest.) I'm going for some bright-ish colors, a light robin's egg/sky blue for the living room and 2 dining room walls, with a rich rose for trim and the other two dining room walls, and the palest tinge of pink for the ceiling. It's not as garish as it sounds, I think it'll be pretty when it's done. At least it won't be boring any more. For the bedroom I think a pale dusty pink, with a rosy-taupe for the trim. For the half-bath, pale blue on the walls with a delft blue for the trim. It's going to take me all summer to get it done, but I will get it done. I need to finish getting pet screening in the rest of the screens and the sliding screen door, too.

I checked the ruby-throated hummingbird 2008 migration map the other day and the first hummers were seen south of me early last week, so I made nectar today and got the feeders filled and hung out. I can't wait for my little friends to return.

Contact, I Think

2008-04-16T16:30:00.004-04:00

I drove down the road where I was told the commercial breeder was. I saw two places that looked like they might be the right place. At the first one a couple was sitting outside, and I figured they'd be a good place to start. I went onto another road and found a good place to park for a minute while I thought through what I wanted to say. I got my wallet out to get a business card for the rescue, so I could write my name and number on it to give to them. Then inspiration struck - Monday night I'd stopped at Chris's to drop something off; she wasn't home, but had left some stuff there for me, including 3 coupons for a free 20-pound bag of Pedigree. Although I'd never feed it, I thought the coupons (no expiration date) might come in handy, maybe to give to someone who was considering giving up a dog because they couldn't afford to feed it. When I saw those coupons in my wallet, I knew I could use them to break the ice.

I asked if they were the folks who bred dogs and they said no, of course. "I don't know anyone around here who breeds dogs." But there was a dog pen with a plastic tarp roof over half of it right there, and it had clearly been used by small dogs. And I heard several small dogs barking in the back, and had caught a glimpse of some rabbit cages, so I'm pretty sure I got the right place. Besides, the road is only half a mile long - if he wasn't the breeder, he darn well knows who is. I told the guy "maybe you can use these, I feed something else," and gave him the coupons. He asked me if I was interested in a little dog. (Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!) I told him that no, I wasn't interested in a little dog right now, handed him my card, and explained that I do dog rescue and I'd be interested in taking unwanted breeding dogs and/or unsaleable puppies, or any dog that a commercial breeder couldn't sell for one reason or another. I explained that I'm not an animal rights activist and I'm not looking to cause any trouble for anyone, I was just interested in the dogs. Explained that I run on a pretty tight budget so I couldn't afford to pay much, but would be willing to pay a nominal amount for dogs. I told him I live close by and could pick up dogs almost immediately after I was called. He never acknowledged that he was the guy I was looking for, but if that wasn't the right place I'll eat dog food for a week.

Now, we wait and see if I scored a hit. The next time I'm down past the place where the woman told me about "some guy on XXXXX Rd. with 100 dogs in rabbit cages", I'll stop and ask if she knows for sure which place it is. If I got the right guy but haven't heard from him in a month or so, I'll stop back again.

As the Revolving Door Turns

2008-04-15T13:19:00.004-04:00

Duke, Duchess, and Olivia all went to their new homes over the weekend. And 6 more little puppymill survivors arrived Friday night - two male Shih Tzus (age 1 and 3), two Cavalier King Charles Spaniel girls (both 4, I think one might be pregnant), a very scared little Papillon girl, and an 8-week old, deliberately-bred Boston Terrier/Beagle mix puppy. (It's one of the newer "designer mixes" - a Boggle.) They're at various levels of socialization, from Max the little Shih Tzu boy who's as outgoing and snuggly as they come, to the little Papillon (as yet unnamed, because I have no clue what her personality is going to be like) who's absolutely terrified and tries to dig herself a hole in the corner of my bathroom to hide in when I open the door.

I'm sure she'll come around, though. Chu-Chu was almost as scared when she got here 5 weeks ago, and she has absolutely blossomed. She loves going for rides in the car, so I take her along whenever it's feasible. She still isn't much on being a lap dog, but she loves her skritches, pets, and kisses. At bedtime, she comes into the bedroom and waits for me to pick her up and put her on the bed. (And in the morning, she stands there and waits for me to lift her down.) When I lie down, she comes up for a goodnight kiss, then settles in somewhere about halfway down the bed, snuggled up to whoever's close. When I'm doing morning cuddles/pets, she gets right in with the rest of the gang demanding her share. When I went to teach my class last night I took Chu-Chu, Sparky, and Penny with me, intending to use Sparky as my demo dog and bring the Chooch in just to hang out. Sparky wasn't in the mood to be compliant so I ended up putting him back in the car and bringing Penny in to demo with.

As I was waiting for my students to arrive I got out my baggie of bait - tiny pieces of hot dog - and started a little warm-up with Penny, but I was also treating the Chooch. Just for the heck of it, I thought "she probably won't do it, but let's see if I can teach her to 'sit'." Much to my surprise, she got it almost immediately! And then she got "watch me" just as fast. She was eager, focused, and more than happy to do what I was asking (as long as I was rewarding her with "food! food! give me food!") I ended up using her to show my students how to teach their dogs "watch me" and "sit". I'm going to work with her this week, see if she can learn "down" and "come". I'm betting she'll catch onto those just as quickly.

What a little doll-baby she is, and such a little character. She insists on going out in the big yard with the big dogs when she needs to poop. She'll pee in the patio, but wants the wide open space of the big yard for her bowel movement. Actually, she's got a favorite potty place out there. The big dogs race around, she just does her little Shih Tzu bounce around the yard and doesn't pay them any attention. And they don't bother her. I was standing out there watching her this morning, and I was laughing out loud. (She makes me laugh out loud half a dozen times a day.) And now she's an obedience dog. What a hoot! It's going to be very, very hard to let her go. Maybe nobody will want a tiny, nearly-toothless little girl?

I've got Max the littler Shih Tzu boy scheduled for his neuter on May 8, along with the two intact Low Riders, Beau and Bailey. 4 days later, I've got Parchesi the Boston/Beagle puppy, Rose the littler Cavalier girl, and the grizzly grey Shih Tzu boy going in. I'm going to hold off scheduling Ruby the Cav (in case I'm right and she's pregnant) and the little Papillon (to give her time to start coming around) for a couple of weeks. I'll need to get one or two of the others adopted out first, anyway, so the adoption fees can be used to pay for the surgeries. The spay/neuter clinic is offering rabies vaccines for $10 now, which is both convenient and a budget saver - I don' t have to make the 18-mile drive in to the vet for just the rabies vaccine, which is administered by a tech, not preceded by an exam first, and costs $23.

I received some very disturbing information last week. It seems there's a puppymill practically right around the corner from me. Less than a couple of miles from my house there's someone who (supposedly) has over 100 dogs in rabbit hutches. I'm going to take a drive down that road in the next couple of days and see if I can figure out where it is. Then I'll work on a plan to insinuate myself with this person, to see if he'll let me have his discards (or sell them to me cheap) - breeding stock that's not producing any more, unsaleable puppies, etc. Maybe I can help clean up my own backyard.

The weather was horrible over the weekend, but it was nice yesterday, it's nicer today, and it's supposed to keep right on getting nicer through the weekend. It was so nice to be able to stand outside to dump litterboxes this morning, and it sure makes life easier - anything that spills just gets hosed into the flower beds (I use wood pellets, it's fine to use it for mulch) so I don't have to do any sweeping, and I can wheel the trash cart right over to the bags of waste and not have to carry them through the back hall and garage to get to the cart. I'm going to get all of the dog crates out to the yard and scrubbed down this week, a couple a day. It's so much easier to do it outside than it is to do it in the tub! The 400 Varikennels fit through the doorways (but don't fit in the tub unless they're broken down) and only the 500's need to be broken down to get them outside, I can scrub them and then hose them off to rinse them, turn them door-down and let them air-dry, and there's no flooded dirty bathroom to clean afterward.

I've decided the only way I'm going to have my house the way I want it is to do it myself. I'm never going to get the help of my male relatives and I can't afford to hire someone else to do it, so I'm just going to do it myself. I pulled up the carpet, pad, and tack strips from the half-bath floor, and treated the plywood with a wash of Odormute. It's all ready for the latex primer (and I'm using Kilz latex sealer) and then I can put down self-stick tile. I couldn' figure out how I was going to make a pattern for cutting the tile to fit around the toilet, but then I realized I could use the carpet I removed, so I just rolled that up and stuck it in the garage for now. Once that's done, I'm going to tackle the family room. It used to be the garage, it's a square room and has a cement slab floor. I'll pull out the carpet and padding, wash the cement, seal it with Kilz, and paint it. Something bright and cheery, that room's a little dark. Once that's done I'll be able to use the family room for rescue purposes - crating, grooming, supplies storage, whelping area/nursery room when necessary, even training. I'll know in a few weeks if I'm going to be able to get vinyl in the rest of the house. If not, then I plan to pull up all the rest of the carpeting, sand the plywood floor, seal, and paint it, one room at a time. Might even do some stencilling on the floors if I get really ambitious. That can even be done in the winter, a little at a time.

I've sat long enough. Time to get up and get back to work.

Geriatric Delinquent

2008-04-07T00:00:00.003-04:00

OK, so I'm not the most regular blogger. It seems that whenever I have the inclination I don't have the time, and when I have the time, I don't have the inclination. Or I'm just too darn tired. I do want to post more often, though; things happen here every day that make me think "Gee, I'd like to share this with someone". If I blog, I do have someone(s) to share with. So I'm really going to try to blog more regularly.

It's been a long day. I was thinking earlier "man, the weather was gorgeous today and I didn't get anything done!" But then I realized that wasn't true. I broke down and scrubbed out three big varikennels and three large cat carriers (currently in use as small dog crates) this morning, washed dog bowls, got Que ready for her mom who came early this afternoon to get her, carted a big folding crate Que's mom gave me out to the pole barn, while I was there I searched through my stash of collars to see if I had anything that would fit the short boys, did 3 loads of laundry, emptied wastebaskets and gathered trash and took that all out to the cart, updated the folks about the Dachsies, got crates set up for them in the living room, paid bills, got the schedule info submitted for my summer obedience classes, and did the heel flap and turned the heel on the first sock of a pair in the Pembrokshire Pathways pattern (in a gorgeous hand-dyed yarn from Pagewood Farms in the colorway Turquoise). So it wasn't true that I hadn't gotten anything done.

Then I fixed myself a little dinner, repaired an extension cord, hooked up the clippers, and removed Duchess' beautiful feathers. Her new mom "doesn't do the cocker cut", and offered to pay me to groom her. She looks really good, weight wise, and you can see it even better without the feathering. She was pudgy and flabby when she got here, she's svelte and sleek and at a perfect weight, now. Duchess, Duke, and Olivia are going in to the spay/neuter clinic in the morning, so they all had to have baths tonight. I figured I might as well clip Duchess now instead of waiting until the end of the week, it would take less time to shampoo her and less time for her to dry. (Mrs. Parker, Chu-Chu, and Sparky are going to the clinic on Thursday. While I'm there tomorrow, I'll get the two intact Dachsies scheduled .)

Three baths given, three clean dogs tucked into clean crates with clean blankets. Three Dachsies taken out and supervised, then given their first lesson in crating (they got their dinner in their crates). Two more shifts of dogs out, then dinner for everyone. Then I decided it was time for a treat, so I sat down here with the last Leinie's Creamy Dark Lager to check e-mail. Too tired to get up and go to bed, here I sit.

I am having so much fun watching The Chooch find herself. Her most recent step into real doghood is to play, with Sparky. She has such a crush on him, it's the sweetest thing. She follows him everywhere, and takes every opportunity she can find to mount him - her idea of a play invitation. Sparky, bless his sweet, easy-going heart, isn't bothered by Chooch's crude approach, he just rolls onto his back so they're wrestling face to face. She's started to play growl, and if it weren't for her body language indicating clearly that she's playing, I'd interpret the sound as pre-attack aggressive. Sparky's not bothered by her vocalizations, either. (He really is the most easy-going, loving little dog in the world. I absolutely adore him.) She asks to be petted now, and actively seeks me out for attention. She's so funny, such an odd, determined little mite. I get such a tickle out of her.

Oh, it is so quiet here without Que. The energy level in here has dropped by half. Sure is nice.

I'm Official

2008-01-27T20:50:00.001-05:00

The rescue is official, we got our Petfinder approval a week ago last Thursday. I spent most of Thursday night, Friday and Friday night, and Saturday getting the home page set up and getting pics and bios of all the adoptables posted. I started getting inquiries in less than 24 hours.

Violet, one of the estate sale kittens, is going to her new home tomorrow afternoon. Her adopters are 3 hours away, so I'm meeting them in the middle to do the contract and transfer Violet into their care. I need to get a little adoption packet together for her - her paperwork, a ziploc of food, a couple of toys, a few pipecleaners. They're a young engaged couple and they're thrilled to be getting their first pet together. Violet will be living with her mom until the wedding, in August 2009. She's such a good, sweet, gentle kitten, I'm sure they're going to adore her.

After I do that adoption, I'm taking Simon to meet his potential new people. They wanted to wait until a weekend to take him, but I think I'll take the contract and his paperwork along with us tomorrow, just in case they decide they can't wait until Friday for him. This is an excellent home, and very close to being exactly what I was hoping to find for him. They don't have any children, yet, but they're young (under 25) and, since he's a pastor, there are often children from the church that come over, so Simon should have lots of children in his life. He'll also be living with a couple of cats.

I've had inquiries on George, TJ, and Nellie, too. I'm going to deny the app for George, he'd be the tenth cat in the house and I think he'd be happiest in a home where he can be the star. One or two other cats, or even no cats if there's a little dog or two. (He just adores Dudley. Dudley used to carry George around by the scruff when he was little, George thinks Dudley's his mama.) I'm mulling over the one on TJ, I don't know if he'd be good with a pair of older cats or if he'd be totally disruptive. He likes dogs, and there IS a cat-friendly dog there. I'll check the vet ref tomorrow, see how I feel after that. And the inquiry on Nellie just came in this evening, so I just sent off an application. Sounds like a possibility, she'd be living with a large, playful male lab, and a large, playful male would be the perfect companion for Nell. She's a little rough with the little dogs, she's a little dominant when it comes to other female dogs (though she's never dared even look sideways at Blizzard), but she's awesome with the boys. I put Nellie, Simon, and Spot all out together, and recently have allowed Seal out there with them for short periods, and they've always been great together.

I did a home visit today for Seal. He's not scheduled to be neutered for a week and a half yet, but I wanted to have a home lined up and waiting for him when he was ready to go. His mom-to-be works half an hour away from the spay/neuter clinic, and she'll just meet me there when it's time to pick him up and we'll do the paperwork then. I think he'll be very happy there, and I think they'll love him to bits. He was so dirty this morning, I had no choice but to give him the bath I'd been dreading. I should have remembered he's half Lab - I put him in the tub and started to spray him and he just stood there with a happy smile on his face. Easiest puppy bath I've ever given. And oh man, once he dried he was so silky and glossy and soft. (I used diluted Palmolive dish soap!) He's really a very sweet puppy, and he's finally starting to become a little more civilized. He's still a spazzy lab mix puppy, but I think something's finally flipped the "ON" switch in his brain. He got 'sit' today, and I finally saw a glimmer of understanding in his eyes as far as housebreaking goes. "Ahhhhhhhh, that's what you want me to do when I'm outside!!!"

I drove up to my mom's and picked her up, then she and Daisy made the 1.3 hour drive with Seal and me. Mom thinks he's absolutely adorable, but "man, he's a live wire, isn't he?!" Oh yes, live wire indeed. I handed her the google maps directions I'd printed out this morning. She got me lost 3 times before I finally got through to her how to read them. "One step at a time, Mom. We do this (pointing) for this many (pointing) miles, then we go on to the next step." It was frustrating. On the other hand, by the time we passed the same pedestrian walking on the shoulder for the 4th time (2 times in each direction) we were laughing pretty hard. We decided to come back a different way so we could make a couple of stops, so while I was inside doing the HV Mom got out the map and figured out a return route. And then, if I hadn't had a pretty good idea of where I was going and so ignored her directions, for the most part, she'd have gotten me lost 3 more times.

Mom used to be so sharp with a map, but not any more. She used to be so sharp about a lot of things she's a little vague about these days. She's still good to live on her own, in the environment she's used to, but for the first time I'm realizing the time will come when she won't be able to live independently. It won't be soon - a matter of years rather than months - but I know I'm going to need to be increasingly more aware of what's going on in her life. I've been going to her house every couple of weeks, I think I should probably increase the frequency of my visits to once a week.

Snickering at Snickers

2007-09-16T13:15:00.000-04:00

Heh, heh, heh. Mr. Untouchable is thisclose to being a lap cat. I said he'd be there by Christmas. One morning this week he snuggled up behind me and rested the top half of his body on my hip - butt on the bed, elbows on my hip with his belly up against my tush. So I revised the timeline and said he'd be a lap cat by Thanksgiving, but now I think he'll be there by Halloween. Maybe even Columbus Day.

I was lying in bed this morning, listening to Meet The Press and dozing on and off, snuggling cats when I was awake. One of the times I woke up I was lying on my side, and there was a very heavy weight on top of my leg, from my knee to my hip. I turned my head to look and saw Snickers. I couldn't believe he was actually on me. All of him. And he was looking at me, waiting for me to open my eyes, so he could let me know he wanted some petting. I gave him a good 5-minute head/chin/neck/chest rub and when I stopped, he inched even further up the side of my leg/hip so his nose was up to my waist. Apparently I'm not only not a threat when I'm lying down in bed, but I'm safe enough to actually lie on and pester for petting.

I am just so darn tickled at his progress over the last 6 months. Such a silly boy, now that he knows what he's been missing, he's doing his best to make up for 6 years of not having it. I'm betting that he sits or lies on top of me in bed again at least one morning in the next week, maybe more. And I think once he's doing that regularly, it's just a matter of time before he jumps up on my lap when I'm sitting in my recliner. He looks like he wants to come up on my lap, but he's not quite sure it's safe. It is, Big Bubbacat.

Spot is growing like a weed - he's doubled in size. He's such a sweet boy. High energy and full of the dickens, but sweet. He's learning to speak Dog, and Friday I put him out in the yard with Dudley, Penny, Tansy, Nellie, and Simon for the first time. He's been going out with that shift for the last week, but coming right back to me when he'd taken care of business. Sometimes he didn't even want to go out at all unless I went out with him. But Friday I sat on my patio for a while - it was cool here, but the sun shining on the patio roof makes it 5-10 degrees warmer under there - and I put him out in the main yard with the others. After fretting for a couple of minutes because he couldn't get back into the patio to be with me, he became aware of the fun going on behind him out in the yard and decided he'd like to participate. Yesterday I let him stay out for a couple of hours with Nellie, Simon, and Tansy. (Dudley can't stay out because he barks at everything, and he'd rather be inside with me and Penny anyway. And Penny won't stay outside unless I'm out there with her, she just stands at the gate and barks and barks and barks and barks for me to come let her in.) Spot had a great time. Simon, bless his sweet, tolerant little heart, was more than happy to play with Spot as long as he wanted to play. Spot would launch himself at Simon, and Simon would flop to the ground as if Spot had physically overpowered him. Letting the baby win and teaching him gentle play at the same time. Letting Spot win boosts his self-confidence, and developing good play/social skills will stand Spot in good stead the rest of his life.

I really love Simon. Such a nice, nice, nice dog. Sweet tempered, gentle, affectionate, patient, tolerant, easy-going, happy, submissive. I like my dogs a little smarter, but with smarts comes independence and its associated behaviors. Even the nicest smart dogs can be a challenge to deal with. Simon's not stupid, he's just a little dim. *smile* I'm sure the right family is out there looking for him, I just need to find them. He deserves to be an only dog, with a passel of kids to shower him with attention.

When I take the auction kittens in to the vet for FeLV testing the beginning of October, I'm going to ask them to write the letter Petfinder requires to approve rescues that are not 501(c)(3) organizations. I'll also have to submit a copy of my adoption contract. But if I can get approved for Petfinder, it should make it a lot easier for me to find homes for my rescues. I think the local rescue will let me bring Simon and some kittens to their adoption event next Saturday, and the Saturday after that. I just need to confirm with them.

I washed windows yesterday, I can't believe how grimy they get. Well, actually, I can. Dust adhering to dog and cat noseprints. Did a few loads of laundry, ran to the grocery store, spent some time with the Auction Girls after I got their "room" cleaned. (I can't believe how fast young kittens can get a floor dirty. *sigh*) Went out just before dark and threw sheets over my tomato plants; there was a scattered frost advisory for my area for last night, and I wanted to save the tomatoes so they'll have time to ripen in the 80-degree weather we're supposed to have all week. I was worried about my pumpkins, but I just don't have enough sheets to cover all the vines. I was glad to see the leaves unwilted this morning. If we had frost here overnight, it was very, very light. I've got three beautiful jack-o-lantern pumpkins growing. Actually there might be more, I haven't looked too closely at a couple of the vines. The pumpkins are the taller, oblong-shaped kind, and they're about half-grown. All 3 are almost perfectly-shaped. They're going to be beautiful when they're ripe.

I've been having a nice, lazy day so far. I treated myself to a pot of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. Chris gave me a pound of it, along with my thermos decanter, for Christmas last year. I've been using it sparingly, usually only on a Sunday morning when I have the time to relax and savor the whole pot. But I've got one cup left, and then my lazy day's over with. I've got too much more to do to laze the whole day away. At least I don't have to cook today. I put a pot roast in the crockpot before bed last night, so I'll have that when I'm ready for dinner. I do have to bake a couple of loaves of zucchini bread this afternoon, but that'll make a great snack for later and will do for breakfast all week long.

Another Giant Leap

2007-08-21T16:52:00.001-04:00

Snickers came up on the bed for cuddles this morning.

One morning last week I was doing the wake-up kitty-cuddle routine, I looked over to see him sitting on the floor meowing at me to reach over and pet him, so I did. This was new - I'm safe if I'm sitting in my computer chair, and I'm safe if I'm sitting in my recliner, but I'm a potential threat if I'm anywhere else, especially if I'm on my feet. But he'd decided I was safe when I was lying in bed too, and he might as well get his share of the attention. I looked for him each morning after that, but he didn't show up. This morning I was lying on one side cuddling kittens when I looked over to see him sitting on a rubbermaid tub full of clothes I have sitting by one side of the bed to make it easier for both Dudley and Penny to get up on my slightly-elevated bed. I greeted him with a cheery "Good Morning, sweetheart, are you going to come up here for some cuddles this morning?" and, to my amazement, he hopped up onto the bed. He made his way down to the end of the bed and around my feet to come up behind me. Then he stuck his head out toward me. So I reached over and skritched him. He stuck around for about 10 minutes getting occasional skritches. At one point, he even relaxed enough to lie down and lean up against my hip. Tickled the heck out of me. I bet he's back for more before the end of the week. I'd also bet that he'll be a lap cuddler before the end of the year.

The morning cuddle is getting longer by the day. Not only are all the kittens coming for morning cuddles now, but Irenie and Isis are regulars now, too. The only cats who don't come for morning cuddles are Ivy and Onyx, but Onyx is working her way toward it. I found her sleeping on my bed one day last week; to my knowledge, that's the first time she's been in my bedroom. I see her regularly in the kitchen and dining room now, and she's appearing more frequently in the living room. Gertie doesn't come for morning cuddles every day, but she comes a couple of times a week. (Her idea of an insurance premium, so I'll keep feeding her. She doesn't need me for much more than that. lol!!)

The weatherman lied again. He said it was going to be cloudy but dry today. It's not dry, it's spitting. Just enough that dogs don't want to be outside. I hope it's not enough to delay/postpone the baseball game tonight; yesterday was an off day and I'm already in baseball withdrawal.

Five-Dollar Kittens

2007-08-07T18:51:00.000-04:00

Just got this through a freecycle list:

Ready September 18th, pick out the one you want now, Can take a pics in a few day and email for they are only a day old now and i want to wait for their eyes to open to take a picture. 2 tiger, 1 pure black unknown sex at this time. They will be raised around dogs, and very young kids. Will ask $5.00 for each kitten. I know kittens are usually free but i want to ensure they are going to go to a good home and not to someone who wants to pick up a free kitten just to torcher.

*sigh* Five dollars, to ensure they're going to a good home at 6 weeks of age.

Overwhelmed

2007-08-05T13:48:00.000-04:00

I'm so discouraged about the stray/feral cat population here. It's a lot bigger than I thought it was. I recently acquired a Tru-catch trap; the first two nights I baited it I caught two males I'd never seen before. I was hoping to catch the dilute calico, her kittens would have been plenty old enough to manage without her for a few days, and I wanted to catch her before she got pregnant again. This morning I looked out my front window to see her dead on the side of the road. I'm going to the s/n clinic tomorrow with Irenie and family and I try to take a feral - or even two - with me when I go down there, but I couldn't have afforded anyone else with tomorrow's trip anyway. I don't know how I'm ever going to get them all TNR'd. By the time I get around to getting them all fixed, they'll have had more kittens. I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't; I don't think I can stand to see another one smashed on the road.

I'm worried about placing Irenie's babies, too. So far all inquiries have either flaked out or haven't met my requirements: no declawing, inside only, other pets in the home spayed or neutered. They're only going to be adorable little kittens for a short time, it's going to get harder to place them as time passes. I've put up flyers all over the place, but since I'm charging an adoption fee, it's hard to compete with the "free kittens" that are already advertised in every place I put a flyer. I don't think $75 is unreasonable for an altered, tested, wormed, healthy kitten (or $120 for a pair of kittens) - having a male cat neutered runs a minimum of $90, not to mention FeLV/FIV testing, worming, etc.

I had to go see my doc this past week, to get new prescriptions. I complained that the prescription Claritin wasn't working so well any more, and when she examined me she discovered I had a sinus infection. So she prescribed antibiotics (that make me dizzy) and a different antihistimine - one of the older antihistiamines that make me so drowsy I walk around in a zombie-like state. I don't know which is worse - having a heavy head from congestion, or having a heavy head from the antihistimine. Add the dizziness from the antibiotics and the dizziness on standing caused by a drop in blood pressure, and I'm really out of it. I ran a whole bunch of errands yesterday, was in and out of the car a dozen times, and each time I had to stand next to the car for a minute or two until the dizziness passed.

I'm tired, sick, discouraged, and now I've got to go scrape a cat off the road. I'd really like a week's vacation from my life. Starting right now.

Quislings, Misanthropes, and Narcissistic Personality Disorder

2007-06-26T11:55:00.000-04:00

First, let's start with a few definitions:

Quisling: traitor. Traitor: one who betrays another's trust or is false to an obligation or duty. (Source: Merriam-Webster Online)

Misanthrope: a person who hates or distrusts humankind (Source: Merriam-Webster Online)

Narcissistic Personality Disorder: A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
requires excessive admiration
has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

(Source: American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

The Quisling. Laws are for the protection of society in general, and written contracts are for business dealings. In social groups, however - and particularly in closed social groups - laws and contracts do not apply. The binding agent in such a social group is honor, a commitment and a tacit promise not to violate the trust which holds the group together. It is dishonorable - indeed, it is morally bankrupt - to breech that trust, to break that tacit promise. Someone who breaks their word - whether given directly or tacitly - should expect consequences for such an act. Anger. Distrust. Loss of esteem and good will. The more egregious the group perceives the breech to be, the more long-lasting and widespread the consequences are likely to be.

The Misanthrope. It is no wonder the misanthrope finds herself on the fringes of society. The unwavering hatred for human beings (clearly evident in attitude and in unfailing incivility), and the belief that any and every animal - even one that's clearly a threat to the safety and well-being of humans - is superior to humans, does not engender admiration, respect, or even liking from those humans. Someone who neither likes nor respects other human beings should not expect liking or respect in return. Someone who speaks to other people with vitriol should not be surprised when they are responded to in kind.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder needs no further elaboration. I leave you to your own observations and conclusions. (It's really rather fascinating, when one can observe it objectively.)

I truly admire those who can turn the other cheek, even when directly and repeatedly beset. Unwavering pacifism, however, is not one of my virtues. I am but an imperfect human; I neither claim, nor aspire to, sainthood. Does that demonstrate weakness? Perhaps. A low reactivity threshhold? Certainly. Poke me, I poke back. That is both an acknowledgement and a promise.

The Death of the Compassionate Response

2007-06-24T12:05:00.000-04:00

Compassion: sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it. (source: Merriam-Webster Online)

When did it become acceptable to kick someone when they're down? It's not like it hasn't happened before, it has. For years there have been some people who've taken the opportunity of someone's loss to take them to task for how that loss happened - or didn't happen soon enough, in some cases - or how they responded to it, or how they feel about it. But those displays of a total absence of empathy came from people we knew were empathetically-impaired, from people who are unable to see things from any perspective other than their own, and they didn't happen all that often. Today, it happens frequently, and it makes me angry.

What's the purpose in telling someone with a dead kitten what they should have done? Especially someone who's not stupid, who learns from everything she reads and experiences and who retains that knowledge, who is perfectly capable of administering competent first aid, who is perfectly capable of making sound decisions for the animals in her care, and who has done some pretty amazing things with the very limited resources available to her. Someone who's saved a lot more lives than she's lost. How does telling her what one thinks she should have done, castigating her for not doing it, express empathy or even sympathy in any way? How could anyone consider such a response to be compassionate?

Whatever happened to a simple "I'm so sorry for your loss"? Why is that so difficult, if not impossible, for some people to say? Where is their compassion for another human being's pain? (Though I seriously wonder, sometimes, if some of those people ever had any compassion in the first place.) When did it become more important to beat someone up for the circumstances of a loss than to express sympathy for the loss itself, and the accompanying grief?

(And let's not even get started on someone who'll jump into something because they see it as a platform to advance their own agenda. They're the lowest of the low, in my opinion.)

Strong, knowledgeable, compassionate voices have been stilled by such behavior. They've left the community rather than suffer repeated ill treatment. The loss of that knowledge and compassion has been huge, the void unfillable, not only for the remaining community members themselves but for the animals in their lives. It's a damn shame.

Grow, Little Plants, Grow!

2007-06-05T21:28:00.000-04:00

For better or worse, the garden's basically done. I finished planting seedlings tonight - the rest of the peppers, the three yellow bean plants, the sugar baby watermelons - and planted seeds for the rest of the vegetables. Green beans, Lima Beans, Zucchini, curly lettuce, Bibb lettuce (I put the lettuces in the shadier spots), regular cukes and lots of pickling cukes. I have some room left along the fence in a couple of places, I'll plant dill there, some marigolds, and some straw flowers if there's room. I've got basil to plant in among the tomatoes. That should just about do it for the garden proper. (Oh! I forgot! I need to get pumpkin seeds! I can get those in the morning.)

If it's still cool and not rainy when I get home from dropping Simon off to be neutered, I'll get the weeds pulled from the raised bed and plant some flower seeds in there. Snapdragons in the middle, some Bachelor Buttons, and I'll have to see what else I have, I've got packets and packets of flower seeds that I either picked up 10/$1 or even 25/$1 plus a bunch that were given to me. I need to finish up the planters, too, and I should be able to get those done tomorrow. I have to remember to put my morning glory seeds in a dish to soak overnight tomorrow, and Thursday I'll plant them on the outside of the pool fencing. Those, plus the plastic tarp on the inside of that fence, ought to make a pretty decent privacy screen.

It's supposed to get very warm again, starting tomorrow. At least the heavy work is done, and after I get the raised bed planted tomorrow I can do just about everything else in the shade. That includes cleaning up my poor messy, dirt-y patio, and getting the party lights hung up. I bought a very cool pink paper globe shade on clearance over the winter, and I picked up an extension cord and a couple of bulbs for it on Saturday, so I want to get that hung up. And I have two sets of string lights that have pink, burgundy, and white paper globe shades that I want to hang along the front edge of the patio roof. I put one set together and stapled it up there, but I missed with one of the staples and it punctured the wire, so I need to splice that first, and then put the second set together. And this time I'm going to make little "tags" out of strips of duct tape and I'll staple the duct tape to the wood instead of the wire itself this time.

I want to get my pool up, too. You know, by the time I get everything finished, it's going to be the 4th of July.

I was standing out on the patio one day last week when a male ruby-throated hummer flew up and hovered a couple of feet in front of me; I figured maybe he didn't know about the feeder out front so I picked up another hummingbird feeder on Saturday to replace the one that goes in the back. I ran over it in my garage this winter (it fell off a shelf) and smashed it to smithereens. The one I got to replace it has the same feeder base as the one in front, but it's got a purple tulip-shaped reservoir instead of a red trumpet-shaped one. I got it cleaned, filled, and hung out this afternoon. Both feeders were seeing action this evening. I love the little hummers!

Lily Goes Home

2007-06-05T15:57:00.000-04:00

I was sitting here when my doorbell rang, and when I looked out the window it was John who used to live next door. When I opened the door he said "I'm here to get my dog!"

I had told him to ask his new landlord about letting them keep the dog. I told him to tell the landlord that she's quiet, she's kept inside when they're gone, and she's always crated when left alone. To tell the landlord that Lily's a really good girl, and not going to do any property damage or cause any problems with the neighbors. I'm glad he finally worked up the fortitude to do it.

She was so excited to see him she couldn't stop spinning. She did stop briefly, though, turning to me and coming up on her hind feet - which she never does, I taught her to sit for me when she was just a little stinker and she's been very good about never jumping on me - to give me a kiss and let me give her a big hug.

Oh! I'm so happy Lily gets to go home to her family!

And I'm glad to have one less dog here, and one less dog to worry about having altered. Simon's going in tomorrow; once he's done, everyone will be fixed and vaccinated for rabies and my pocket will get a break.

Now, if the damn county would just get around to returning my spay/neuter deposits, I'd be a happy woman. They've had the paperwork on Toby for 5 weeks already and I still haven't seen a check. I'll be turning in the paperwork on Nellie, Lacey, and Simon tomorrow. That'll be $200 they owe me.

An Open Letter To My Brother

2007-06-04T13:15:00.000-04:00

I wish you'd reconsider your decision to declaw Lucy. She is already using her mouth - whether in play, or to make a point. Amputating her toes, removing her defenses, may very well result in Lucy becoming an aggressive biter. Quite apart from my feelings about the issue, I think declawing this particular cat is a big mistake, that it's going to result in aggressive biting. I hope not, but my instinct (and people pay for my instinct, both as an experienced owner/rescuer and as an animal communicator) tells me that it's going to have that result with Lucy. Will you then have her teeth pulled?

A few facts:

cats are digitigrade, meaning they walk on their toes. Toes go down first, then the back of the foot. Removing the last digit of their toes permanently alters the way they walk and can lead to severe arthritis when they're older.
declawing is considered inhumane, and is illegal in much of Europe, South America, and in Australia. And a growing number of cities in the U.S. are making it illegal, too.
laser surgery merely limits bleeding and inflammation at the time of surgery, the long-term consequences of toe amputation remain the same
Declawing is so painful that drug companies testing the effectiveness of pain killers use declawed cats as subjects.

When there are so many alternatives available to eliminate scratching as a problem - Soft Paws (plastic nail caps, Lucy would look pretty cool with hot pink or purple toes!), keeping the claws blunt (takes less than a minute to clip a cat's claws), training, Sticky Paws (double-sided sticky tape sheets), or even a Scat Mat or Scat Strip (electrified mat or strip you put where you don't want the cat walking or scratching, gives them a little shock, like static electricity) - declawing is strictly for owner convenience. Unlike spaying, or neutering, there is no benefit to the cat.

Would you have a dog declawed? Why not, what's the difference? Would you fail to train a dog to stop engaging in unwanted behaviors? They why would you fail to train your cat?

With all the clawed cats in this house, there's only one spot where they scratch inappropriately (i.e. not on one of their many scratching posts, boards, poles, pads, etc.) - one arm of my already cosmetically-challenged sofa. The reason they still scratch in that spot is because I've done nothing to discourage it. If I'd put a scratching post in front of that sofa arm, or covered it with Sticky Paws, they'd have learned not to scratch there, too. A Scat Mat or Scat Strip would have worked, too. (Oh yeah, they shredded the edges of a plastic table cloth that hung over the table. They sat on the chair seats under the table and batted at the table cloth. Big whoop.)

Please take the time to read this article: http://declaw.lisaviolet.com/declawdrjean2.html It's not by some crazy cat lady, it's by Dr. Jean V. Hofve DVM, a cat-only vet who's very well-known and very well-respected in the feline fancy. And please re-think your decision to have Lucy declawed.

Hah! Gotcha!

2007-06-03T13:09:00.000-04:00

I looked up from the computer to see Snickers sitting about 3 feet away, watching me. Looking up at Spooky lounging on the table, then looking back at me. So I coaxed Spooky off the table onto the floor for skritches and Snickers came right up. I skritched Spooky's head then moved my hand over to Snickers and started petting. Spooky jumped back up on the table, Snickers stayed on the floor. Under my hand. Turning around and coming back for more. Tilting his head so I had better access to under his chin. Standing rock still while I reached underneath and tickled his tummy. None of his "I know you're touching me but I'm pretending you're not" schtick today, in his wary way he was actually asking for petting. He stayed for probably 5 minutes, without his "beard", who was back up on the table having a snack.

Heh. Heh, heh, heh. Hah, hah, hah! Gotcha!! Bwahahahahahaha!!!!

Slowly But Surely

2007-06-02T22:26:00.000-04:00

My planting is coming along slowly but surely. I picked up 3 more cubic yards of a lightweight potting mix and one cubic yard of Miracle Gro garden soil this afternoon. I mixed some of the MG garden soil into the potting mix, we'll see if that makes any difference. I also picked up 9 small wastebaskets and 4 16"-diameter grey plastic buckets to use as planters. I had two 3-cell packs of peppers and two 4-cell packs of peppers - jalapenos, habaneros, red and green sweet peppers - so I planted all but one of each variety into 6 of the wastebaskets and 4 laundry-detergent-bottle planters from last summer. The remaining 4 plants, one of each variety, will go into the garden Monday. I had four 4-cell packs of red and white petunias, I planted 4 in each of two of the plastic buckets and 4 in a pot I had that was basically the same size, then planted 2 each into two more of the wastebaskets. I have one small wastebasket left, I'll probably plant some Verbena in that. I also have two buckets left - more verbena. I also picked up 4 more fence hangars for 6" pots, and the last 4 begonias will go into them and all 8 begonias (4 white, 4 pink) will hang on the patio fence on the inside where the dogs won't get them. I did a bigger pot with 4 begonias in it, that's out front by the light pole. I still have some impatiens to plant, those are going on my patio shelf and in hanging baskets. And I have the rest of the verbena, I'm not sure yet where I'm going to plant them.

I picked up the last of my tomatoes today. I wanted another Cherokee Purple, because I didn't start seeds indoors this year using seeds I saved from last year. I may try starting one directly in a "pot" (probably a wastebasket) and see if it can catch up, but maybe not. I picked up two Red Brandywines (heirlooms), something called a Sunset (orangey-red on the top fading down to yellow on the bottom of the tomato) and an Early Girl (fruit in 51-60 days, a whole month before the others). I got all 4 of those into the garden this evening. The lumberyard was closed, I'll have to wait until Monday to get the cages for them. (I'm not going to fiddle around with staking this year, I'm going to get re-usable wire cages for $1.69 each.)

I also got the hanging pole for my hanging tomatoes - went to Lowe's and got a 10' length of 3/4" galvanized pipe, had them cut it to 8'. Tomorrow, I'm going to work on building the two uprights that'll hold the pipe. I'm short a few 3" wood screws so I won't be able to finish it until the lumberyard opens again on Monday, but then I should be able to finish it and hang the buckets. When it's all done I'll take pics.

While I was sitting here having coffee this morning, Spooky walked up and asked to be petted. Right behind him came Snickers. He looked up at me, then walked up to headbutt Spooky while casually placing his body where I could reach it. So I reached over and started to skritch, which he thoroughly enjoyed. We played this game for 10 minutes, Snickers pretending he didn't know I was petting him but coming back again and again for more. He was so transparent I had to bite my cheek to keep from laughing out loud. I suspect he's going to be a major lover one of these days, but I'm going to have to play by his rules to get him there. That's OK, I can't even tell you how thrilled I am that he's giving me these opportunities to pet him, and I'm willing to be patient and wait for the day he actually asks to be touched.

Irenie's a terrific mom. She's doing such a good job that I cuddle the babies a couple of times a day so they get handled, but I haven't had to spend much time in there with them. I make time for a couple of cuddle sessions with Irenie, too, and tell her how proud I am that she's doing such a good job. This little window of quiet time will be coming to an end shortly, though; they'll be a week old tomorrow and they should start opening their eyes soon. Then the fun starts!

Plugging Along

2007-06-01T00:09:00.000-04:00

12:30 am:

Well, I worked in the garden tonight and made some real progress. I'm probably halfway done with the cultivating, and the rest should be easier because it's just weeds, not wheat. Yes, wheat. Last year I used straw to cover the walkways in the garden to prevent weeds from growing. The problem is that there was still some seed attached to that straw, and I had wheatgrass-covered walkways in the garden last year. It didn't get real tall because I kept walking on it, and it didn't appear to be interfering with anything I was deliberately growing, so I left it alone. This spring, the remaining wheat sprouted and started to grow and it's already a couple of feet tall with almost mature seed heads. It really clings to the dirt, it's very hard to uproot. But I've gotten most of it out of there now and the weeds that are left have shallow roots and will be easy to pull out.

I got 4 tomato plants into the ground, duplicates of the ones I planted in the buckets to hang upside down. The 4 varieties are Bonny's Best (which produces a deep red, 1/2 pound fruit), Lemon Boy (deep yellow fruit), Pik Red (4 oz. fruits), and a Roma. I also put one of each variety into pint-sized cardboard ice cream containers so they'd have a little more root room and will last until Tammy can take them home and plant them. Yesterday I cut out one cell of each of the 4 varieties and then put those cells into an empty 4-cell seedling pot and took them to a woman I met in my Wednesday class (which finished, for me, last Wednesday); I'd offered my extras to my classmates and this woman said she'd appreciate them. So I'm done with tomatoes. For now. Got a couple of less-urgent seedlings that can wait until Saturday or Sunday.

I didn't do the watermelon, beans, or extra peppers tonight. I'm going to try to get them in tomorrow morning before it gets too warm to work comfortably. (I was half blind from sweat dripping onto my glasses and into my eyes tonight, I ended up having to push my glasses down on my nose and look over the top of them to make sure I'd done what I thought I'd done while peering through what felt like gallons of sweat. Yecch.) I did get some variegated deep orchid and white impatiens into the little half-barrel planter in the middle of the front of the house, on what used to be the front stoop, as I passed it on my trips from the garden to the seedlings or the water. And I'll do some more container planting tomorrow morning too, I can sit in the shade on my patio.

Then I'll have a shower and a quick lunch, catch Dudley, and head off to Mom's and, from there, off to my sis's for my brother's 50th birthday dinner.

I planted one pot of purple and white Alyssum for my mom when I did a hanging basket with the same combination for me. I'm not sure the spot where she wants it will get enough sun, though, so I'm going to plant another pot the same size with Impatiens and take them both to her tomorrow. I'll be able to check the amount of light that spot gets and put the appropriate pot there and find a good spot (either shadier or sunnier, depending) for the other one. I've also done one hanging basket with a smaller variety of white Verbena, and two with just white impatiens of a variety that likes a little more sun than most impatiens. I put the Verbena out front with the Alyssum basket, and the two white Impatiens on the hooks on the light pole in the back yard, one on the yard side of the fence and one on the pool enclosure side of the fence. (I'm planning on getting my pool up early next week, too.) I still have a couple more hanging baskets of Impatiens to do, both the sun-loving white and the shade-loving variegated, and I'll have a few left over for the patio shelf. I still have to pot the Begonias (to hang from the inside of the patio fence), and the red-and-white petunias and the rest of the Verbena in the raised bed.

Speaking of the raised bed, I've got a German Chamomile hedge in there now! From organic seeds I planted there last year that never grew. They were the first non-bulb plant to break ground this spring, and now I've got a very thick row of them along the front of the raised flower bed. They're dense, and they're loaded with flower buds, some just beginning to open. Go figure. Now I can't tell if the other green things in the raised bed are weeds, or more Lazarus stuff from last year's seeds that didn't grow. I think one of those 'weeds' might be the organic Tarragon I planted last year. I'll have to go look up pictures and compare, before I go pulling stuff out.

Wow, The End of May Already!

2007-05-31T13:53:00.000-04:00

I can't believe it's the end of May already. I'm so far behind on my outdoor work. *sigh* But now that the babies are here and Irenie has settled into being an excellent mother, I can take advantage of the next kitten-care free 10-12 days to get everything squared around. I did manage to get some of my hanging baskets and the hanging tomatoes planted, but I've barely gotten 1/4 of the garden proper cultivated so I can get seedlings into the ground. I need to get that finished as soon as possible, but it's been very hot and very humid and airless here, making it almost impossible to work outside for more than a few minutes at a time. I'm going to try to get at least the front half of it - the area with the longest period of full sun - finished late this evening when it's shaded again and the wind is expected to rise a little ahead of an approaching low-pressure system. If I can do that, and get the 4 remaining tomato plants and maybe the 4 sugar-baby watermelons into the ground, the beans and extra pepper plants can wait until Monday when the temperature is supposed to be 15 degrees cooler and dry. But the tomato plants need to go in the ground today, come hell or high water, and I'd like to get the watermelons in too, so both will get the benefit of the off-and-on rain that's predicted for tomorrow afternoon through Sunday.

I was out on my patio just before lunchtime, switching out a couple of dogs in the yard, and I looked up to see all 4 kingbird babies sitting on the edge of the nest. As I puttered around with some potting stuff out there, they took to the air and zoomed off. So, another successful reproductive cycle for the kingbird pair this year. I'm glad. I hope they all keep coming back to raise their clutches near here, they do a good job of reducing the flying insect population. I wish mom and dad would pick a spot with a little more shade than they do, I thought this clutch got baked to death like the first clutch did last year. At least this clutch had the benefit of shade directly over the nest from that plastic foot-square table top I put on top of my patio roof last year for that purpose. Maybe that helped.

I'm sure one of the reasons they pick that beam under the patio roof is that, in addition to being sheltered, it's warmer than the open air when the weather is still cool. The translucent green corrugated fiberglas roof over the patio allows heat to build up under there and it's almost always 10 degrees warmer on the patio than it is in the open. That's an advantage when the weather is cool because they can leave the nest untended for longer periods of time to search for food. Both mama and daddy can forage at the same time instead of alternating, so their babies get fed very well.

My mom called this morning. My brother and his girlfriend are going up to where my sis and BIL are building their current vacation, and future retirement, home for a few days. (My sis and BIL are on vacation this week.) My brother's girlfriend called mom this morning and asked if she and I would like to come up there for dinner tomorrow, she wants to surprise my brother for his birthday. Maaaaan...... I really don't want to leave for that long. It's a 45-minute drive to mom's, a 2-hour drive from there to my sis's. So I'd be on the road for 6 hours. And probably gone from the house for 9-10 hours. And that doesn't thrill me at all. So my immediate response was "I don't want to be away from home that long." But mom won't go if I don't go along and do the driving and I know she'd really enjoy it. And it's his 50th birthday, so it's a special one. Guilt won out; I called her back and told her I'd go. *sigh*

I'm taking Dudley with me. He doesn't like riding in the car but he loves Daisy and she'll be going along, he loves my mom and he adores my sis, and this will be a good opportunity to continue his socialization. They'll all be willing to do what I ask them to do as far as interacting with him goes, this should be a very successful experience for him. If I can't be doing things here tomorrow, at least I can still get something accomplished.

Babies, At Last!

2007-05-27T14:32:00.000-04:00

Irenie finally had her babies late this morning. There were 8 born, but only 7 survived. There was nothing wrong with the one that didn't make it, but he was born in a flurry of 4 births and neither Irenie or I saw him until it was too late to revive him. I had to tear the sack open for 3 of the kittens, but other than that Irenie did the job all by herself.

She's exhausted. I'm pretty tired myself. I think we're both going to have a nice long nap this afternoon!

Here's a link to a video of the newborns and their mama: http://www.noofies-zoo.com/ireniesbabies/irenieandfamily.avi

Cautiously Optomistic

2007-05-27T02:28:00.000-04:00

2:30 am. I had a little chat with Irenie about 12:30 am. At 1:30 am she hopped into the nest box and settled down. A few minutes later she was out of the box and on my lap again. BUT........ as of 2:15 am, unless I'm misinterpreting what my fingers are telling me, she's having contractions. Mild, not enough to even interrupt her breathing yet, but contractions. Will update when there's something else to report!

A Walking Spectacle

2007-05-26T18:22:00.000-04:00

This weekend is the annual Springfest in my little village. It's a weekend full of activities that started yesterday and ends on Monday afternoon. This afternoon was the antique car show, they close off half a mile of the road through town - which is a major annoyance to those who are using the state highway to travel north or south through town! - and park the cars along the closed road. I took Ten with me last year, he'd been with me a month and I figured he was ready for his big debut. (He'd been timid, never been off the farm, when I got him, but after a month he trusted me enough to believe that I wouldn't take him anywhere he'd be hurt or scared.) He had a blast, and was very well-behaved.

I took him back again today. And I took Lacey Jane with me, too. She's such a polite little girl, walks along nicely and doesn't yaw all over the place, so I put her on a thin braided leash and tied it through my beltloop so I'd have both hands for managing Ten. A baggie of chicken in my pocket, and we were off. OMG, you'd think I never took him anywhere! He was so excited. All the people! All the other dogs! The ponies at the pony ride! The dropped food on the street! All the children! He had a blast. But he was not very well-behaved. He wasn't horrible, he just was too distracted to "listen". And I had the wrong leash; I thought my 1"-wide leather leash was in the car but it wasn't, so I had to take him on a 1/2" leash. Not nearly as easy to control him with the thinner leash, and it hurt my hands. (Now I know never to take him on anything other than the 1" leash. I can easily control anyone else on the thinner lead, but not Ten. Gad, he's strong!)

People got a big kick out of seeing the huge white dog on my left and the tiny black dog on my right, so both of them got all the attention they wanted. They were both in seventh heaven. Lacy is such a social little thing, and she loves people of all ages and sizes. She was just as happy to meet toddlers as she was to meet adults, and she was very patient with their awkward petting. One little boy, maybe 5-6, spent 10 minutes on his knees petting her, stroking her under the chin, and letting her give him kisses on the nose, while his parents did the same with Ten. Lacy was in love with that little boy, she probably would have followed him home if she could have. Ten gave out lots of kisses, too, and got lots of the hearty petting he really enjoys. He enjoyed the attention of one man so much he sat on the guy's foot, leaned against him, and was groaning in almost-orgasmic pleasure at having his head, neck, chest, and shoulders rubbed and thumped. People watching were all laughing at him.

But the outing did me in. My hands ache, my back aches, and I'm worn out with the physical effort of keeping him under control with that thin leash. I'm probably going to be one sore pup tomorrow, but I bet I sleep well tonight!

I really hate to even suggest this, but I think tonight might be the night for Irenie. Her belly is taut and lumpy, the babies are kicking hard, and she's been digging in the nest box quite a bit. And I think she's as tired of waiting for them to be ready to come into the world as I am.

Oh Heck, What's One More?

2007-05-25T12:16:00.000-04:00

The tomato snitcher's family moved last weekend. Last night around 9 pm my phone rang, it was the mom. "We moved, and we're not allowed to have dogs here. We took Lily (a treeing walker coonhound mix) to one of John's brothers' houses, and she was growling at them and howling. They took her to one of John's other brothers, but she doesn't get along with his female dog. John's out of town working and won't be home until Sunday morning, and I don't know what he's going to do about her, but she can't stay where she is. Can she come stay with you until John gets back? It would have to be tonight, she's got to go tonight."

*Sigh*. I'll make you a deal, I'll hang onto Lily until John makes other arrangements for her if he'll cut my grass. (I can cut my grass, I just can't pull the starter rope to get the mower started in the first place!) Shelly thought that was a fair trade, so she brought Lily over last night. I expect John to come Sunday afternoon or Monday to cut my grass.

He's probably not going to be able to find a placement for her, I'm probably going to end up trying to place her. Which means one more spay I've got to find funds for. *sigh again* And Lily needs some work before she's placeable, just basic obedience and socializing, but it's going to take a while. So I've got her all set up out in the family room, next to Simon. At least they'll have each other for company, and they're far enough away that any barking/howling during the night won't keep me awake.

Irenie's still pregnant. Still lounging around, grooming herself, napping, asking for belly rubs. She hasn't eaten much in the last 48 hours, only about 1/4 of the dry food she'd have normally eaten in 48 hours, plus some yogurt (twice) and about 1/4 can of wet food. The kittens are either sleeping or jumping around like crazy. They're going to kick their way right out of there if she doesn't go into labor soon!

I had to run out to the store and the lumber yard briefly this morning, on my way back I stopped at a yard sale. Bought a small deco-style glass-shaded lamp ($3), a nice size rectangular tupperware container (25 cents) and - the jackpot - 14 melamine bread plates, the whole lot for a quarter. They're the perfect size for a can of cat food, they're unbreakable, they're dishwasher-safe, they won't blow away easily, and they're disinfect-able (unlike plastic dishes). It's a pretty sad state of affairs when I get such a kick out of acquiring some used melamine plates.

Happy Homeowner Day, Tammy! Congratulations on owning your first home, I wish you many happy years and scads of pleasant memories to come!

Babies, Babies, Everywhere

2007-05-22T13:59:00.000-04:00

As I was sitting in the bathroom with Irenie I looked out onto the patio and saw a baby bird doing little hops in place on the dirt right at the edge of the concrete slab of the covered area. It was one of the kingbird babies and he'd fallen out of the nest. I flew through the house and out onto the patio, because I knew Nellie was there, she jumps the fence from the yard into the patio. I don't know how she missed him, except to guess that she was sleeping when he fell out and didn't hear him. As soon as I opened the door she woke up and I barely beat her to him. As I grabbed her he flutter-hopped away. I snatched him up, opened the step stool, climbed up to put him back in the nest. He wouldn't let me put him all the way in, he perched on the edge, but he had a good grip and I figured he'd be OK. His wings are fully feathered, he's just missing the longer feathers at the tip of the wing and on his tail to be able to fly. They'll be ready to leave the nest within a week or so, I think.

Mama kingbird was sitting on the fence, watching the rescue. Apparently she didn't mind that her baby smelled like me; she flew to the nest and fed him, so I guess he's going to be OK. Then she flew over to the phone cable by the kitchen window and 'talked' to me. I don't know whether she was thanking me for saving her baby, or scolding me for touching him. Cheeky little thing.

TG for DWTS

2007-05-14T23:52:00.000-04:00

I had a mostly rotten night. I've been uncomfortable about one of the dogs in my class. She's a mutt, no way to know for sure what component breeds might be in her make-up, but I'd bet that one of them is Basenji. Maybe Shepherd/Basenji? Very smart dog, learns very quickly. But if the payoff isn't exciting enough, she just blows people off. Her handler is an 11-year old girl. The mother came to class and observed - and did some practice with the dog, at home - but the handler in class was very young. She, too, is very smart and learns quickly, but she just doesn't have the presence and physical strength to manage this dog. The dog's been learning and doing well on most things but it's all a game to her and when she gets bored, she does whatever she darn well pleases and screw you.

I've been concerned because whenever she doesn't like what she's being asked to do, she gets aggressive. It's a timid aggressiveness, but that's only because she's only 10 months old. As she matures, and gains the confidence of maturity, I think she could be a real threat. A few weeks ago I tried to check her teeth. It's a non-threatening thing, it's not painful, most dogs don't have previous bad experiences with having their mouths touched (they way they can with having their feet touched, nails quicked, etc.). It's OK for a dog to object, it's OK for a dog to pull away, but they shouldn't respond with their mouths. She didn't like it, she let me do it, then snapped at me - and connected, but didn't break skin - as I took my hand away. "I held still and let you do it, but you didn't get away with it." I had been thinking I'd have to have a talk with the mom, tell her I didn't think the dog was a safe dog, especially in a home with children whose friends come to visit. But it's hard to convince someone their dog is dangerous before the dog actually does something to prove it to them.

She got me tonight. We were practicing the grooming/handling section of the CGC test, in which the dog must allow the evaluator to brush/comb them and touch each front foot. She wasn't happy about me touching her feet, she growled and threatened. As I removed my hands from her she snapped at me. I ringed her snout with my thumb and index finger and said "oh no, I don't like that, not one little bit!" I removed my hand and started to stand up and she flew up into my face. Thank heavens she didn't break skin or I'd have lost half my upper lip. As it is, I've got a bruised lip and a bruised cheekbone. I'm probably going to have a shiner tomorrow.

So I had to have a talk with the mother. I told her I was going to say something to her tonight, anyway, but now any doubts I'd had about the need to do so were gone. I told her I didn't think the dog was safe, would not only not get better but only continue to get worse, and that I would euthanize her if she was my dog. I explained that she couldn't re-home the dog herself, that even if she didn't tell rescue groups about the dog's problem they'd discover it during a temperament test and they wouldn't take her. That the only really responsible thing to do would be to euthanize her themselves.

I gave her some reading suggestions (Jean Donaldson's books), and I also suggested she call Chris, and have Chris temperament test the dog. I told her that Chris is a well-respected expert in dog behavior, someone who knows the difference between fixable and non-fixable problems, and would give her an objective opinion, so she'd have as much information as possible in making her decision about what to do with the dog.

I don't know what they'll decide to do. It's a hard decision, especially since the dog belongs to the 11-year old, because everybody loves her. Sadly, sometimes love just isn't enough.

Of course, the rest of the class was shaken by the incident. I explained that if a dog is doing to have a dominance issue, I'm the one they're going to have it with. Same with Chris. A dog that's been able to dominate everyone s/he has ever met takes one look at me and knows right off the bat I'm claiming the pack leader position. That's when they say "oh, no you don't, bitch," and have a go at me.

(The un-rotten part of my night was Raven, my star pupil. Some dogs are fixable, Raven was one of them. He improves by leaps and bounds, the difference from week to week is clear. He flew through my obstacle course tonight, did everything he refused to do last term. Every last one of them. He's confident, poised, relaxed, and an eager worker, a completely different dog than he was just 3.5 months ago. Warms the cockles of my heart to see a basically good dog overcome an early lack of socialization and become the dog nature intended them to be. Makes me proud to have had a part in that.)

I was so grateful to have the tape of tonight's Dancing With The Stars to watch when I got home. All the brilliant performances tonight really lifted my spirits. For the first time, it's hard to pick a favorite to win based on dancing ability. I hate to see any of the remaining four couples lose.

Today, Maybe?

2007-05-14T13:00:00.000-04:00

Irenie's got to produce those babies in the next 24-48 hours. I don't know how she could possibly hang onto them any longer than that. The other day her hindquarters were damp and I thought she must have lost the mucus plug, but I guess it must just have been damp from a post-potty cleanup. She's had a lot of gas and diarrhea and there's an odd odor to it, I'm guessing she has giardia. We're both going to have to suffer with it until the kittens are 8 weeks old, she can't be given metronidazole until the kittens are mostly weaned.

But last night she did lose the mucus plug. I'll spare you the details of how I know that for sure, but I do. And she has clearly "dropped", so I think things are moving into place. The babies sure are an active crew. I hate to disappoint any of the pool participants who guessed a low number of kittens, but I've felt at least 5 different kittens moving and I'm guessing there are more than that. There's one little (?) guy (actually, he feels pretty big) just below her last right rib down toward the bottom of her belly who's been very, very active, I can feel the separate movements of all 4 legs. I think he's been practicing his litterbox digging technique. There's another one - a little quieter - right on top of him, but up under the rib a little. I feel that one kicking when I put my hand on Irenie's back from the top. There's another closer to the rear than the first one. That one feels like it has littler feet, and feels more toward the middle than the right side like the others. Probably going to be the first one born. And there are at least 2 on the left side, too. At one point, I felt all of them move within a few seconds of each other, so I was sure nobody had relocated during that brief period.

Irenie likes me to hold her in my arms and support her belly. She puts her front legs across the crook of my elbow and I close my left arm around her putting my palm along her side. I put my right arm through her back legs (which she then relaxes and lets dangle), hold her belly in my palm, and hold her close to my chest/stomach so my body helps support her. I can feel the babies moving not only with the palms and fingers of both hands, I can feel them on my chest/stomach where Irenie's belly is resting on me. It tickles, and it's hard not to giggle.

With my luck, she'll have them while I'm gone to my obedience class tonight (this is the last class of this term) and I'll miss the whole thing. But I know she likes having me with her, so maybe not. Maybe she'll wait for me to get home.

On my way home from class I've got to remember to stop at Meijers. They sell bulk rawhide in chips, rolls, bones, and rings, every day price $4.99/pound (sale price $2.99/pound) and I'm starting to run low on "pacifiers" for the big dogs. (I still have a whole bunch of the little twist sticks for the little guys.) A big bag of Kitten Chow for Irenie, some multi-packs of canned food, too. I also need to pick up a big bag of the Meijer store brand dry cat food, there's been an increase in the amount of food being consumed at the outdoor dish (despite the increased availability of live food outdoors) and I need to stock up on "feral food". (The ingredients are about equivalent to the Friskies or Whiskas dry foods, and it's only $7 for a 20-pound bag. If it's on sale, it's only $5/bag.) I need birdseed for the feeder, too. Yogurt for Irenie, half and half for me.

Now...... who do I take to class with me tonight? Tonight is split into two sections - Fun and Games, and a CGC practice run after the break. In the Fun and Games part, I talk about dog sport, trick training, and then I set up an "obstacle" course. What looks like a fun obstacle course to them is actually a course of traps and triggers, designed to ferret out how each dog will react to the kinds of things they may encounter on walks out in public. At the beginning of the course are two "traffic" cones, the task is to walk the dog in a figure-8 around them. Next comes a low jump. (A broom handle held up at either end by the low railing at the back of a couple of folding chairs, maybe 4" off the ground.) Another cone, where they are to sit, down, and stay. Next is group of 6 cardboard blueprint tubes separated by 3-4", the task is to walk the dog over/through the tubes. (Awareness of foot placement, simulates something like tree branches across a path.) Next, heel past a flock of "ducks". (Some wicker duck and turkey baskets, I want to get some plastic decoys to use instead, but it's surprising how many dogs bark at those baskets!) Another jump. Another down/stay. An 8' length of plastic floor runner to walk across (unusual texture underfoot). A hula hoop on the floor, get the dog inside the hoop and do a sit-to-down. A low plastic storage tub, walk the dog through the box. (This one is really tough for a lot of dogs, even without water in it.) I need a tunnel, and I need it to fit into my little car for transporting, I'm still trying to figure something out.

People are always amazed at their dogs' reaction to the obstacle course, at what the dogs handle with aplomb and what they react unexpectedly to. (I usually know ahead of time which dogs are going to have problems and which aren't, but they catch me off-guard at times, too.) By the time they've been through the course twice, they'll have a good idea what sorts of things their dogs might react to so they can work on those areas.

After that I talk about agility, flyball, formal obedience, therapy dog work, rally obedience, whatever I think might be satisfying to each dog and handler, and give them some suggestions for local trainers/classes for those things. I demonstrate and explain clicker training. Then a short potty break, and the CGC run-throughs.

I've got one student whose sweet chunky little pug/beagle mix is just about ready to take the test; he and his handler have come so far in the last 6 weeks and she's really pleased. Those are the students that make teaching fun. After I run her and Benny through the test and tell her what needs to be polished before he's ready, I'll give her Chris's number and tell her she should call Chris when Benny's ready, and Chris will test him. (I'm not an AKC CGC evaluator, Chris is.)

I've also got the big Malinois boy Raven, who is close to being ready to take the test too. His handler hasn't started moving away from him on a 'stay' yet, but once he's got a good 'stay' he'll be ready. This is Raven's second term with me. His handler is perfectly capable of teaching him the basic obedience stuff (sit, down, stay, come, leave-it, off, etc.), but he was extremely timid and spooky - and highly reactive - when he first came to class. He desperately needed socialization. I'm so pleased with how he's progressed. He's a totally different dog than he was when I met him the beginning of February. I was a little afraid of him then, but I'm very comfortable with him now. When I met him I had to be very careful not to even appear to be leaning over him, now I can bend over him, wrap my arms around him, and hug him. The first time I touched his leg just below his shoulder, he snapped at the air next to my ear. Now I can pick up both front feet and play with them and he doesn't protest. If he were a rescue dog I wouldn't place him with the general public, I couldn't trust that he wouldn't bite if he felt insecure. But his owner is aware of his issues and committed to, and capable of, managing them, and I feel confident she'll be able to handle him so he's safe.

It'll be nice to be able to stay home on Monday nights for the next few weeks.

Still Waiting......

2007-05-11T15:38:00.000-04:00

I sat up with Irenie until 4:30 this morning, I was sure she was getting ready to queen. Nothing happening, so I finally went to bed.

She hasn't eaten since late yesterday afternoon. Isn't even interested in the food dish.

It really can't be very long now. I can't stand waiting!

Tonight's the Night?

2007-05-10T19:30:00.001-04:00

Well, at least I think it is. Irenie's appetite disappeared this afternoon. This evening she's lying on the cool bathroom floor purring like crazy and grunting softly from time to time. She'd rather be on the floor getting petted than be on my lap getting petted. I checked her bottom, she's swollen and it sure looks like something's going to happen soon.

She's too rotund to reach her bottom, so I'm going to have to keep a close watch on her in case I have to help out with the first few.

If something happens I'll update this post later.

Getting To Know You.....

2007-05-05T21:16:00.000-04:00

It's always fun to get to know a new dog, to discover the temperament and personality of the dog behind the initial impression. I'm enjoying my new girl, very much. As I was on my way back to the pound yesterday to get her, the name "Tansy" came into my head. "Eh," I thought, "we'll see." When I discovered she was full of "dreadlocks", Jamaica popped into my head. Then I remembered a friend and co-worker from... gosh, about 20 years ago already. She was Jamaican, and her name was Pansy. Tansy, Pansy, close enough for me! So yesterday I was calling my new girl Pansy. But it just doesn't sit right, and Tansy does. So now she's Tansy. Tansy T. Nannydog.

She's very gentle. And she loves kids. She enjoyed visiting with the tomato-snitcher and her little brother yesterday evening. This morning when I let her out, the tomato-snitcher came flying over to the fence. Tansy's head and tail both came up, her tail started to wag, and she ran right over to the fence and sat down to be petted. I love dogs that love kids! And it's going to be a strong asset in matching her with a good home.

She let me cut out some more mats today, I've gotten all the mats that ringed her neck around her collar. She's lots more comfortable. There are still some mats on her flanks and rear, but she's touchier about me messing with those so I'll just work on them a little bit at a time. I did manage to clip her front feet this afternoon; when I held her foot she yelped and tried to pull away but, when she realized I wasn't going to let go (I was just calmly but firmly holding her foot and waiting for her to settle down) she tucked her head under my arm and let me clip. That's got to feel better, too, I took off at least half an inch of nail and now her feet are flat on the floor, instead of having the toes twisted sideways by the long nails. I'll work on the rear feet tomorrow.

She moves pretty good for a fat girl. She really covers some ground when she trots, and she's graceful despite her bulk. She's very easygoing and inoffensive, and she's very well-behaved in the house. She's been loose in the house since this morning, except for half an hour when I fed her earlier, I think I probably won't even crate her at night after a week or so. (Maybe sooner. Might just move the Springer boy into Tansy's crate when I bring him home on Weds.)

Tonight, I discovered Tansy already knows how to sit when asked. I'll have to see what else she knows. She takes treats very gently, and does not resource guard - I was able to take a rawhide chip out of her mouth without the least sign of protest. I'll wait to place her, and I'll test her in different situations to be sure, but I'm thinking she could go to a home with even young children.

When I woke up this morning, I was lying on my left side and Ivy was tucked into the back of my knees. I just reached down and started petting her, she rolled onto her back and stretched while I skritched her tummy, then she curled back up and nudged my hand with her head, so I rubbed and massaged her head and ears for almost 5 minutes. She's such a funny little thing, most of the time she's really spooky and I have to sneak to pet her, but not this morning! Watch, she'll go back to being aloof now.

Irenie's enormous, and she's eating close to 3 cups of kitten food every day. I'm starting to think she's carrying a litter of Great Dane pups.

I'm a klutz. Thursday, I slipped on a plastic bag on the floor in the garage and ended up doing the splits. Nice to know I'm still flexible enough to do them, but a little stretch and warm-up first would have been nice. I pulled the muscles in my left thigh and my left hamstring, and overstretched the muscle in my right inner thigh. Probably because I was sore and moving a little stiffly yesterday, I tripped over the Springer boy when I was at the pound and went sprawling on the concrete floor. Banged my right knee, pulled my back. By last night I hurt so bad I couldn't sit comfortably, anywhere. I'm still sore today but it's dulled a little from yesterday and at least I'm not as stiff as I was last night. Another good night's sleep and I should be feeling lots better.

Yes, I'm going back to the pound on Wednesday to get Simon. The Springer/BC mix. (I don't know where 'Simon' came from, but that's his name.) When I get him cleaned up, I'll get some good pics of both him and Nellie and get bios of them off to BC rescue, who'll do a courtesy listing for them on their site. I'm also going to contact the local rescue group. I met one of their volunteers at the pound yesterday, same woman I met the day I pulled Nellie. I know she liked Tansy and wished she could have taken her. I'm hoping they'll be willing to do courtesy listings for me, too. I'll do an 8-1/2 X 11 ad with pic and "bio" for Tansy and post it on the tackboard at my mom's grocery store. I think she'll appeal to the population in that area, and I just feel that's where I'm going to find the right home for her.

You know who Tansy would be a really good match for? Bobbie. But I'm not going to ask her, and the logistics of a transport would be tough anyway.

The Hummers are Back!

2007-05-04T19:05:00.000-04:00

As I sat here looking out the window and thinking, a little dark blur darted up to the feeder outside the window. First one. Little guy looked thin, I'm glad the feeder was there to refresh him after his long journey. I love these little guys, I'm so glad they're back!

Snickers is getting easier. He let me pet him yesterday afternoon. He saw my hand coming and not only didn't move away but stood still and elevator-butted so I could skritch at the base of his tail. Then he came and curled up on the floor about a foot away from my feet. I think, I hope, he's going to be a big-time cuddler some day.

Ivy let me pet her yesterday, too. That means the only cat I won't be able to Frontline this year is Roo. I'll have to be sneaky with Snickers and Ivy but it's doable. It's not, with Roo.

Tap....Tap....Tap....Tap....

2007-04-29T16:43:00.000-04:00

We're still waiting. Irenie's so big that her belly's gotten taut. She's not lactating, so she's not quite ready to pop yet, but I don't think it's going to be much longer. She usually enjoys me rubbing her belly; today, it irritates her. I had her out on my lap, and on the bookcase behind the cat tree where she likes to lie, for a little while earlier today, but then she wanted back in the bathroom. First time she's wanted in instead of out. And when I popped in there half an hour later she was curled up in the box, instead of on top of the carrier where she usually hangs out. 24 hours? 48 hours? With my luck, she'll have them when I'm gone to class tomorrow afternoon/evening.

Nellie has learned to leave the cats alone. Mostly. She still needs a verbal reminder to "leave it!" once in a while, and only when Dudley or Ten get her fired up by chasing Flint. Nellie doesn't understand that Duds, Flint, and Ten play like that, and it isn't a hunt. Other than that, she's a very good girl. She can entertain herself, which is an unusual trait in Border Collies or mixes. When she has "Nellie only" house time (Penny and the little dogs are loose in the house all the time, the others rotate, usually in pairs but one at a time, sometimes) she goes and finds herself a hoof or bone to chew on, then settles down and works on it for an hour. She's very social, but is less demanding of personal attention than most other youngsters her age I've fostered. Ten and Dudley love her, she's a great playmate.

I sleep with a bedful of little dogs, now. Lacey Jane likes to be under the covers. She's taken over the spot on my left side that Dudley used to occupy, so now he sleeps on my right side down by my knees, or even down by my feet. Penny sleeps on the bottom half of the bed, Toby either sleeps just above her, next to her, or up by my shoulder. I also have the bedcats with me. (Or on me.) Getting up in the middle of the night is tough; getting back into bed is tougher. Mornings are fun. Dudley wants cuddles, Lacey wants cuddles, Toby wants cuddles, Ellie and Doobie want cuddles. I could use a couple extra pair of arms/hands.

The bulbs I planted last fall have been a mixed success. Some of the crocuses came up but not all, but then the ones that were already here didn't all come up either. The miniature irises came up and were pretty, but they got buried beneath the snow we had and didn't recover well when it melted. The narcissus bulbs my sis planted did very well, three different color varieties that bloom sequentially rather than concurrently. And I have some rose-with-white-edges tulips in the south side flower bed, so my sis must have sneaked those in there when she was planting narcissus. All the hyacinth bulbs I planted came up. There were 10 of them, 6 were purple. One is white, one is pale pink, and the other two haven't blossomed yet (I didn't check on them today, though) but it looks like they're going to be deep pink. They smell heavenly. Here's the pale pink one:

I'm waiting for my hummingbirds to return. The feeder's been out for a week and I haven't seen one yet. But I remember last year I didn't see any until a couple of weeks after they were first spotted in my area (according to the migration map: http://www.hummingbirds.net/map.html ) so it shouldn't be long before I see some action.

I had to stop at the dollar store last week, and while I was there I browsed some of their windcatchers/windchimes. The twirly purple one I had last year didn't make it through the winter, so I was looking for something to replace it. I found a nylon wind spiral with a pink flamingo at the top and the swirl in hot pink, purple, green, and yellow. It was so lightweight that it didn't spin right, but I used a paperclip to attach a penny to the bottom of it and now it spins beautifully. I'll have to get a pic of it. This winter I was in the lighting section at Meijer looking for either a clamp-on light reflector or a clamp-on swing-arm reading lamp and, after I got that, I checked out the clearance shelf. They had strings of little paper lampshade globes that fit over the (provided) white christmas-type lights on clearance. Well, I had to have 'em. The shades are white, hot pink, and burgundy and they're beautiful. I bought one set and hung it up in here, and bought two sets for the patio. I also bought a larger paper globe shade in the same hot pink; it fits over a regular lightbulb (40W max), so I think I'm going to put that out on the patio, too, over the seating area. If I put a compact fluorescent bulb in there it'll only cost pennies to have on in the evenings over the summer. I'll take pics when I get it all set up.

I've switched almost all the bulbs in my house to compact fluorescents. They're great, even brighter than incandescents and they're so much more energy efficient! The added bonus is that they're guaranteed for anywhere between 7 and 10 years (depending on the brand/type) so I don't have to worry about changing light bulbs for years to come. I've still got a couple of places that have round, decorative incandescent bulbs (over the bathroom and kitchen sinks), but I'll be replacing those with round, decorative fluorescents as the budget allows.

Time to Buy Cigars?

2007-04-23T15:30:00.000-04:00

I think Irenie's closer to queening than I thought just a couple of days ago. She has gotten a lot bigger in just the 6 days she's been here, especially in the last couple of days. And I think she may be "dropping"; either that, or there's no more room to get rounder and her belly's just elongating.

I put a nesting box into the bathroom last night. Irenie's too big to use the bottom of a large cat carrier, which is what I usually use. But one of the cardboard boxes Kass sent my crate back in is a generous size and I think it'll work well. I lined it first with a quarter of a heavy fleece blanket to pad it, then put a towel down on top of that. I didn't think I was going to have to worry about it for another week or so, but now I'm starting to think it'll get used in pretty short order.

Irenie is a doll. Ultra-affectionate and cuddly. I hope she passes that on to her babies!

The Bigger They Are, The Harder They Fall

2007-04-22T02:00:00.000-04:00

It seems that Snickers has a new crush - Lumi. Now that he's been spending more time out and about, Snickers has decided that Lumi's OK. When Lumi's lying on the floor near my computer chair, Snickers is lying under one of the dining room chairs, no more than a couple feet away from Lumi. He has approached Lumi on more than one occasion to have a good sniff. Last night, Lumi was standing perpendicular to me with his tush next to my thigh, and Snickers was winding around Lumi's legs headbutting him. I sneaked in a couple of strokes, he knew it wasn't Lumi touching him but didn't appear too worried that it was probably me.

The cats have always liked Lumi, once they've spent some time observing him. I'm tickled that Snickers has apparently fallen for the big guy; Lumi likes to be close to me, and I'll be able to sneak in more petting when Snickers comes to headbutt him. Hmmm..... I wonder if the reassurance of both of his buddies on the bed would be inducement enough to get Snickers to come up and sleep on the bed the way Ivy (another buddy) does. She comes up on the bed after she thinks I'm asleep and curls up against my ankle/foot. She sleeps down there all night, but the instant she realizes I'm awake in the morning she's off and gone.

Got another odd couple becoming ever closer - Amalie and Onyx. They're both black, both about the same size (though Onyx is much cobbier), and lately they've been joined at the hip. Sometimes they stand side by side, touching each other; they look like a very odd pair of conjoined twins. *snrk* From the time I brought Mena's cats inside, Onyx has preferred to hang out in the laundry room. The laundry room door is a pocket door; I've attached an eye bolt to the edge of the door and another to the door frame, and I use a double snap-bolt to keep the door open wide enough for the cats to come and go but narrow enough to keep out the dogs. (Dudley fits through there, though. Little stinker.) The laundry room is right off the doorway to the kitchen, cats hanging out in there are able to keep an ear on what's going on in the rest of the house. It's a quiet spot, with lots of soft places to nap, and Amalie likes to sleep on the pile of crate blankets on the counter.

Apparently Amalie and Onyx made friends in the laundry room. Onyx has been gradually getting braver, coming in to the kitchen in the evening looking for me to come pet her. And her new hangout spot is in the family room. Last weekend my sis helped me carry the old sofa from there out to the pole barn (seating for the training room) and carry in the twin box spring, mattress, and brass head and footboards. I got it assembled and put it where the sofa used to be. When I let the dogs out in the evening, while I'm waiting for them to get finished in the yard and come back to the door, I flop down on the bed and kitties come out of the woodwork for cuddles. Onyx is one of the first ones there, and I'm pretty sure she's hanging out under the bed in there instead of in the laundry room. That's good, she'll have much more company out there than she had in the laundry room, and I think she'll be happier.

I'm crazy about Toby. Absolutely crazy about him. He is such a sweet, cheerful little charmer. (Oh! And there's the third new odd couple! Toby loves Ellie! He ignores the rest of the cats, but he follows Ellie when she's out and about, and insists on sleeping next to her on the bed. If she moves, he moves to stay close to her. I don't think she's terribly impressed with her suitor, but she doesn't appear to mind him.) Anyway, he's simply adorable. I'm going to have to find him a very special home. Gee.... Lacey likes him a lot, I wonder if her new mommy might be interested in two dogs......

By the time Lacey's new mom comes to get her, I should have some kittens for her to play with. The lovely, large, long-haired dilute tortie in the bathroom - Irenie - is definitely pregnant. She's still carrying them "high", but she's quite well-rounded so I don't think it'll be more than a couple of weeks, if that. This cat is so not feral! She can't get enough snuggling. (She can't get enough food, either, she's eating me out of house and home.) Last year my neighbors mentioned something about a cat having kittens under the skirt of the mobile home on the other side of them, I was wondering if it was Irenie. But I asked John about it and he said that no, Irenie was probably one of those kittens, the mother cat was a calico. So Irenie's still pretty young. It'll be interesting to see what color(s) the kittens are, and it'll be fun to have babies around.

I filled the front hummingbird feeder for the first time today, I can't wait for my little buddies to come back. I never got around to removing the kingbirds' nest from last year; I noticed earlier in the week it's been refurbished with some new fluff (probably dryer lint I put out for the birds) and mama's sitting on the nest. I hope we don't get any unseasonably hot weather this year....

Ten's Gotcha Day is coming up in a week. Hard to believe that scared-of-everything little guy grew into my big, beautiful, confident boy. He's still puppy-crazy at times, which can take a physical toll when he's bouncing around. I'd forgotten how physically demanding Dogo youngsters can be. When Blizz was Ten's age I often said, "I hope we both live through her adolescence"; I hope both Ten and I live through his. I don't know if I'll ever have another young Dogo, I'm not sure my aging body could handle the three-year maturation process of another. All that said, I wouldn't trade Ten for anything. He's a wonderful, loving fellow, I couldn't ask for anything more in terms of temperament.

Gotta get my seeds planted tomorrow. I'm two weeks late.

The Things I Do For Love

2006-11-28T16:24:00.000-05:00

I was thinking it had been a while - a long while - since I'd made fishbiscuits for the dogs and little fishbits for the cats. I picked up a couple cans of salmon a few weeks back when it was on sale, and I had an unopened bag of rice flour in my pantry, so I decided I'd make fishbiscuits today. Salmon, eggs, oil, garlic, and a splash of water get pureed in the food processor, then I add the rice flour until it's sugar cookie-dough consistency. I rolled it out and used my medium dog bone-shaped cookie cutter to do 2.5 dozen biscuits for the dogs, then mashed the remainder together, rolled it out, and cut it into small squares with a pizza cutter. Got them in the oven about 20 minutes ago, and now I remember why I make these so seldom even though everyone here goes nuts for them - my house stinks to high heaven. Garlic and fish, it's enough to gag me. I had to open a window; I'm glad it's near 60 here today so I can do that without heating the outdoors! It's going to be another long while before I make fishbiscuits again!

I called yesterday and scheduled Dudley for his neuter. The first opening at the low-cost clinic is two weeks from Thursday, so it's going to have to wait until then. I'm going to start feeding cats in my wired-open trap, hopefully they'll be so used to going in there to eat that I'll be able to trap Roo the day before the appointment so I can get her in to be spayed at the same time. (She's very tough to get hold of, which is why she's still not spayed.) I need to go introduce myself to my neighbor to the south and ask her if any of the cats that are hanging around belong to her. If not, I'm going to see what I can do to trap one or two of them and get them in, too. This clinic does ferals for free, so as long as I've got to make the drive down there to get Dudley done anyway, I might as well get as many cats spayed/neutered as possible at the same time.

Speaking of Dudley, I've been having a blast training him. My clicker technique is improving rapidly, and Duds is learning quickly. Sit, watch me, down, and wait are all almost perfect, and he's learning to "be tall" (stand on his hind legs) and "ask nicely" (sit up and beg). He's such a hoot and he fits in here so well. I still haven't decided whether or not he's staying, but I'd like to keep him if possible.

I've got one boarder dog coming for a week over the Christmas holidays - an adolescent Newfoundland pup. I'm hoping to get one or two more boarders - or even three or four, depending on size - over the holidays. I love having canine company, I love the opportunity to work with different dogs, and it's a nice little income for doing what I like to do. I need to get either a permanent-installation pet gate or an old, solid-wood door I can cut to size and make a dutch door out of, to put between the kitchen and the front hallway, so I can divide the house in two. That will allow boarders to have the family room and the long hallway and my own dogs can have the living room, dining room, and kitchen. And the pet gate, or a small pet door in a solid dutch door, will allow the cats to come and go between areas as they please. I'll have to make a "wanted" post on the freecycle list, see if anyone's got a door I can have.

Spam, Spam, Go Away

2006-11-11T15:27:00.000-05:00

Attention spammers: Comments to this blog are moderated. They will not appear unless they have been approved by me. Spam will not be approved, so save us both some time and find someone else to bother.

Sleep, Little Bulbs, and Dream of Spring

2006-11-08T15:53:00.000-05:00

Last spring, as the snow melted and the sun began to shine, I was delighted to discover crocuses coming up in my front lawn. By the time the grass grew long enough to need mowing the crocuses were finished blooming, so I was able to mow without hurting them. I promised myself then that I'd plant more crocuses this fall. My sis brought, and planted for me, a couple dozen mixed daffodil bulbs for my birthday a few weeks ago, but I hadn't had time or money to get more crocus bulbs until today. I had to make a trip down to where I used to live, and I had $10 to indulge myself, so I stopped at Home Depot to pick up some more crocus bulbs. Since it is so late in the season, all their bulbs were on sale for 75% off. My measly $10 bought me 4 dozen bulbs. A dozen crocuses, a dozen anemones, a dozen miniature irises, and a dozen hyacinths. All but the hyacinths are early and very early spring bloomers, the hyacinths bloom mid-spring.

I split the crocus bulbs into two groups, and planted those in the lawn between the northern tree and the bird feeder - right outside my window here. Between the bird feeder and the southern tree, I planted all the anemone bulbs in a group. Those should eventually spread outward and become an early-spring blanket in the middle of the lawn. Out toward the road a little more, I planted the miniature irises in another grouping. I love the idea of having a lawnful of early spring flowers; I'll probably continue to add groupings of bulbs each fall, filling in the gaps. I planted half the hyacinths along the walkway to the front door, and the other half in the front flower bed with the grape hyacinths and hostas. Next to that bed is a small half-barrel planter, my sis planted some of the daffodils in there, so there should be a nice display of spring flowers along the front of the house, too. The nice thing about having hyacinths right underneath the windows is that during their flowering season there are usually some days warm enough to open windows a little, and I'll be able to smell the hyacinths on the breeze.

The scent of hyacinth is one of my favorites and has been since I was a child. It is a promise of warmth and sunshine and light. My maternal grandmother always bought my mother a potted hyacinth or lily for Easter; the scent of hyacinth returns me instantly to my childhood. I feel the closeness of my family, and the excitement of new spring coats and hats, a new Easter dress, and a new pair of white patent leather shoes. I don't know what Mom did with the lilies once they were spent, but she used to plant the hyacinths in the flower bed that ran along the back of our house. Many of those hyacinth plants were right under my bedroom window, and would "double my pleasure" each spring - the scent of the hyacinths in the pot on a cabinet in the living room, and the scent of hyacinths wafting into my bedroom on a soft, sunny spring breeze.

Deep in January, when the wind is bitter and the ground shrouded in white, I will smile when I think of my little bulbs slumbering snug in the ground, waiting for spring to rouse them from their beds.

The Tougher They Are, the Harder They Fall

2006-10-28T15:42:00.000-04:00

My semi-feral girl Ivy finally condeded the struggle to remain untouchable this morning.

It was Ivy who caught my eye when I first saw this litter of feral kittens. Tiny and white, probably no more than 6-7 weeks old, she took one look at me, puffed up like a big cotton ball with a bottle-brush stuck in one end, and skittered sideways across the stoop away from me back into the litter's safe hole under one of the concrete steps. "It's time to trap this litter and tame them. And I want that little white one for myself."

(Seven years ago I acquired a fluffy white kitten; four months later she died of FIP. I've always been sad that she didn't get a chance to have a long and healthy life. But in the last couple of years I've come to believe that every animal that comes into my life has something to teach me, and I think now that Vera's lesson was to teach me about FIP at a time when most cat owners had never heard of it, so I'd have the facts and the personal knowledge to help others whose cats developed FIP. When I saw little Ivy, I knew that I had to give her the opportunity for a life I hadn't been able to give Vera.)

I left my live trap with the owner of the house, who wired it open and began feeding in there. After watching them through the window for a few days, she was able to sit on the steps a couple feet away from the trap while they ate. She became such a familiar part of their feeding routine that one evening when all four kittens were in the trap eating, she was able to lean down and untwist the wire holding the door open and get them all at the same time. (She was able to trap Mama cat a couple of days later, and we TNR'd her.)

There were four very unhappy kittens in the trap when I got them home. One at a time I got them out of the trap, clipped their nails, gave them a dose of wormer, treated them for fleas, then put them into the large wire dog crate that was to be their home while I was taming them. I chose the black kitten that seemed to be the calmest first. (That's Doobie, and he's still the calmest.) Then the other black kitten (Amalie) who bit me and then quit struggling and let me treat her. Then the little spitfire tabby girl (Roo) who fought wildly the entire time I was holding her. The little white kitten was last. She bit me twice and then quit struggling, frozen with fear.

After about a week of forced handling Amalie was the first one to give in, though Doobie was neck and neck with her the whole time. After Amalie had gotten away from me one afternoon while I was holding her on my lap and petting her and letting her explore my lap and the arm of the sofa, I figured she was taming down well enough that I'd be able to catch her easily and just let her go and explore. I fell asleep on the sofa, and when I woke up she was snuggled up next to me, purring. Doobie gave in a day later. Roo continued to hiss and spit and fight me, but Ivy just froze in fear every time I touched her. I've been working on them ever since.

At about 17 months of age now, Amalie and Doobie are so loving and friendly you'd never guess they were feral kittens. Roo is still untouchable and wary, though she's very, very slowly relaxing more all the time as she becomes more confident that I'm not going to try to touch her. She's comfortable enough to take food from my fingers, and will even come looking for treats when she knows I'm doling them out. Ivy has also been very wary and doesn't want me to touch her, but sometimes she's OK with touching me if she thinks I don't know about it. I've awakened more than one morning to find her curled next to my ankle/shin, though she takes off the instant she realizes I'm awake. A couple of months ago, she didn't move when I woke up. Some of the other cats were on the bed sleeping, but when I woke up they did too and started asking to be petted. I sat up very slowly, trying to get myself into a position where I could reach her while not moving the lower half of my body so I didn't spook her. Once she was within reach, I just casually began petting the cats closest to her and, when she didn't move, I started sneaking little strokes on her hindquarters between strokes on the other cats. I was eventually able to lengthen my stroke when I touched her - from her shoulders to her rump, instead of just on her rump. She stayed on the bed for a good 5 minutes, allowing me to stroke her in rotation with the other cats. Then I sneezed, and she was gone.

She's been watching me very studiously ever since. About a month ago, she started coming to curl up with other cats in one of the cradles on the cat tree behind my computer chair. If I sit in my recliner, she often comes to sit on the end of the coffee table, about three feet away from me, and just watch me. Sometimes she sits on the floor a couple feet away from my feet, and watches me. When I use my half-bath, she'll often stick her little head around the doorway so she can see what I'm up to. She's been watching me scoop litterboxes, lately; I guess I'm not as threatening when I'm bent over digging in her "dirt". I always greet her, but never reach out toward her. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting to feel that she would be open to being touched.

This morning when I woke, Ivy was snuggled up to my shin just below my knee, facing the bottom of the bed. Within reach. The dry food dish had been emptied during the night; when that happens, I have a lot of company on the bed in the morning. They want to know the instant I wake up, so they can alert me to the dire hunger situation. Doobie, Amalie, Misu, Gertie, and Mookie were all sleeping on the bed with me. They were awake a split-second after I was, and immediately began clamoring for attention. I was hoping to be able to include Ivy as I'd done before. Well, not only could I include her, she wanted me to. After I'd stroked the length of her back a couple of times she began to knead and purr. Emboldened, I stretched forward and began gently skritching behind her ears. She began rolling her head on my hand, so I began stroking the sides of her head and even up her face, over the top of her head, and down her back to her tail. She rolled onto her back, so I skritched her tummy. Then a dog barked, and she was gone.

Two minutes later, she was back. First sitting below my feet, then lying down and putting a front paw over one of my ankles. After a minute, she moved up to my thigh and flopped down next to me. Her body was relaxed, but there was still a speculative look in her eyes - "is she going to grab me?" She wants to trust me and, finally, the need for love is conquering fear. This morning was pivotal, I think the scales were tilted from fear to trust with enough momentum to prevent them from tilting back.

Perhaps Ivy's lesson for me is a review course on the virtue of Patience.

What Happened to Autumn?

2006-10-10T14:58:00.000-04:00

It was lovely here over the weekend. Sunny, in the upper 60's/low 70's, perfect fall weather. Yesterday it was cooler and cloudier, today it's cooler yet and overcast. There's a storm a comin', supposed to arrive by midnight tonight. It's going to be cold and rainy tomorrow, and it's supposed to snow on Thursday. Might even be some accumulation Thursday night. It's supposed to stop raining/snowing by late Friday afternoon, but Friday night is supposed to be miserable - damp and very cold. The overnight temp on Friday is supposed to drop to freezing or below. Brrrrrrrrr! It's supposed to warm up and be more seasonable after that, but I'm afraid this approaching weather spells the end of my garden for this year.

So today I'm working outside. I finally finished draining my little pool. (Couldn't do it when the weather was nice, nooooo. Had to play in the sunshine!) It's draped upside down over some lawn chairs to drip off as much moisture as possible; before dark, I'll move it into the pole barn and let it hang in there for a couple of days. Then I'll use towels to remove any remaining moisture, fold it up, and put it back in the box until May. I'm taking a short break now, then I'm going to go out and pick all the green tomatoes. I've got a couple of good-sized cardboard boxes and a stack of newspapers, so except for the tomatoes I'll use in the next couple of weeks as they ripen on the counter, I'll wrap all the rest in newspaper and stash them in the boxes. With careful storage, I should be able to enjoy "fresh" tomatoes until December. I also need to review my green tomato canning recipes to see which ones I'd like to try. Might try to pick the rest of the chokecherries, too, though I might have a chance between rain showers tomorrow to do that if I can't get it done today.

I'm afraid my pumpkins might bite the dust with the upcoming weather. I'm going to try to protect the vines/pumpkins with plastic, and then with blankets on top of the plastic for the cold temps on Friday night and see if I can pull them through. If they make it through, there might be just enough time for them to get big enough to carve. (Note to self: start the pumpkins earlier next year!)

I took in a "free dog" yesterday. Young Blue Heeler. They said he was 11 months old but I doubt it; he's still got his puppy molars though his adult canines are fully in, so I think he's closer to 8 months. Very nice little guy, sweet and even-tempered, smart and affectionate, cat-safe and appears to be dog-congenial. I can't keep him, and I can't keep him here for long, so I've got some feelers out to several rescue groups to see if they'd be willing to take him. I sure hope someone can make room for him.

Half way through my Monday night obedience class for this fall. This is a really nice bunch of dogs, not a one in the class I dislike, and I like the handlers, too. Got a sharp little rusty-black Pom fellow - sharper than his owner, but sweet enough to wait for her to catch up. *smile* Sweet, happy, enthusiastic young chocolate Lab with the attention span of a gnat. Middle-aged black Lab mix rescue girl, never been off the dairy farm she used to live on, sweet and good-natured, her owner is a sweet, gentle, inept older man. A sassy young Samoyed who's mischievous but smart and sweet; I'm trying to teach her elementary-school teacher owner how to be a little more firm. A shy little pet store-purchased Jack Russell who's gradually gaining more confidence in himself and his handlers. (Mom, Dad, and daughter all come and whoever's not handling the dog is taking notes. They're putting in the daily training time, too, and it shows.) Incredibly smart, eager, willing-to-please, but very barky little guy who's the size of a Jack Russell but looks like a Red Heeler/Basenji mix. OMG, the sass from that one! But so smart and responsive, and a total blast to teach! (His owners are very nice, but not nearly as sharp as their dog.) And a young couple with a very sweet, smart, energetic young girl that I think might be an English Shepherd or mix. Very good class.

I've been checking my impatiens plants daily for seed pods, and collecting them when they're ripe enough. I should have plenty of seeds for next year's pots and hanging baskets. Picking impatiens seed pods makes me think of my dad; he used to get such a kick out of carefully picking them and handing them to unsuspecting victims, who'd inevitably put just enough pressure on them to cause them to pop and curl in their hands, startling them. It's a very odd sensation, feels like you just caught a bug in your fingers. As I carefully pick seed pods - holding a paper cup underneath to catch seeds as I pick, just in case I put too much pressure on them - I'm remembering my dad and his little prank, and grinning from ear to ear.

OK, I guess break time's over. Tomatoes, here I come!

A Garden Report

2006-10-03T14:24:00.000-04:00

I can't believe it's been almost 3 months since I blogged. It's the beginning of October already!

The kingbirds are long gone, I never saw them after that fluttery farewell. The hummingbirds left on their migration south a couple of weeks ago. I still have the feeders out, in case there are any stragglers who need a meal on their way, but I think I'll probably take them down this weekend and put them away until next April. The year-round local birds are still coming to the feeders, but much less frequently than even a month ago. I think it's probably because there's such a wealth of wild food available at this time of year.

My impatiens are still blooming, but they're starting to look a little anemic. I think they'll last until the first freeze, though. I thought my geraniums were done blooming for the year, especially since we've been in a cool, rainy weather pattern for a month and they haven't gotten much sun. But when I went out yesterday, both plants have several new blooms. When they're gone that'll be it for the year, and I'll bring them into the garage for the winter. The begonias, too. In the spring, I'll transplant them to larger pots.

My garden produced mixed results. The cucumbers were a huge success. The plants bore continuously, and provided plenty of both pickling and eating cucumbers. There are a dozen small pickling cukes still on the vines and they continue to grow, though very slowly. I'm hoping they'll be big enough next week to pick and make one jar of gherkins. I'll probably make them sweet gherkins, and give them to my mom. The peppers were also a success, I had enough jalapenos and habaneros to do everything I wanted to do with them. I also had a decent lettuce harvest. From two zucchini plants, I got 4 zukes total. I should have gotten more, there were plenty of flowers but they never produced fruit. I think they need to be in a sunnier location, I'm going to find a new, sunnier spot for them next year. My carrots were a mixed success; I planted them too close together and didn't thin aggressively enough when they were small, I'll know better next year. My string beans produced quite a bit, considering that the plants never got above 12 inches tall. The spot where I planted them and the lima beans wasn't sunny enough for vigorous growth, they'll be going elsewhere next summer.

My tomatoes were also a mixed success. I got lots of Purple Cherokees from one plant, and they were wonderful. Meaty and sweet, beefsteak-type, and a nice blue-red color. I've saved seeds, and have enough for myself and extras to share. (Want some? e-mail me!) I also got a good harvest from what I think was the Burpee "Fourth of July" plant. Baseball-sized and round, they were great for slicing and salsa, and had the added bonus of having a long "counter life" - they could sit on the kitchen counter for over a week and not lose texture or taste. The Romas were prolific and produced a nice steady crop of uniformly-sized fruits. But I got them planted too late, as I did with many of the other varieties; I have plants that are heavy with green tomatoes, most of which won't ripen before the first heavy frost kills the plants. I got some small Golden Jubilees, they were a beautiful yellow and very tasty. The plants in pots produced a lot of fruit but both the plants and the fruits stayed small. It's because the pots were too small - when I found myself with more tomato plants than could fit into the garden proper, I planted some of them into discarded laundry detergent bottles, the largest of which was 2 gallons. It was hard to keep them adequately watered, when it was hottest outside I had to water them at least twice a day. The spot where I placed the pots was a good location, though, so next year I'm going to try growing some plants upside down in 5-gallon buckets in the same spot. It shouldn't be too expensive or difficult to build a hanging rail to hold them up, all I need is some 2 X 4's and a length of galvanized pipe, and large S-hooks for hanging the buckets from their handles.

The garden was too shady for some of the things I planted there. Next year I'm going to plant that plot with things that did well there (cucumbers, lettuce, carrots, peppers, and some tomatoes), but I'm going to make another garden plot, or maybe a couple of raised beds instead, at the back end of the driveway. That area gets sun from about 9 am until evening, and I'll plant more tomatoes, zucchini, watermelon, and beans there. I'm going to try again to raise some herbs in the raised bed at the side of the house. The dill did well there, at least. But nothing else came up. I'm not sure why. (I know that bed was built over a stump, maybe that has something to do with it. Maybe they tried to dissolve the stump with something that poisons the soil there?)I'll also plant herbs in the vegetable garden; I know the soil there is good so if herbs don't grow there next year I'll know it was something I did wrong.

I think the key to having a more successful garden next year is to get started earlier, and to have more vigorous seedlings to transplant. I'm working on the logistics of setting up an area in my family room where I can keep the seedlings protected from the cats, and where I can hang a couple of grow lights. The only place I can put seedlings where they'll get natural light is on my dining room table, and that's a north-facing window and it just doesn't get enough sunlight to grow vigorous seedlings. I'm thinking a sheet of plywood over a pair of saw horses, with dog crate panels set up around the perimeter of the plywood so the cats can't jump up there. I should be able to suspend at least one long grow light from the crate panels, maybe two. That should give me a much better start next year. I'm also keeping my eyes open for old wood windows or doors; if I can find the right combination, I'll build a cold frame out in the patio.

Empty Nest Syndrome

2006-07-12T18:56:00.000-04:00

My baby birds have flown away. For three days they sat perched on the rim of the nest - and on top of each other - without flying. Yesterday morning, I put the dogs out in the yard and closed the gate to the patio. I headed back into the house, walking beneath the nest on the way. As I got a step past the nest there was a big whoooosh! accompanied by a wild fluttering of wings around my head, and then all the babies were flying out into the yard, swooping around in ever-increasing circles until they took off in different directions. A couple flew back and perched on the fence briefly, cocked their heads at me and dipped their tails a couple of times as if to say farewell, then flew off. I haven't seen any of the family since.

I'm so glad they made it! I really enjoyed waiting for the clutch to hatch, and then watching them grow. And I hope the parents and the offspring come back next year to breed.

A Green Explosion

2006-07-10T15:58:00.000-04:00

We had a line of strong thunderstorms, accompanied by heavy rain, blow through here last night. When I woke up this morning and looked out the window into the garden, I was shocked. Plants practically doubled in size overnight! The Cherokee Purple had gotten top-heavy and was leaning over a little, so I went out to tie it to the stakes I put in when I planted it. It's got a dozen flowers on it! I wonder how long it takes from flower to fruit? Some of the other tomato plants are getting big, too, with nice thick stems and lots of foliage. I had to tie one of them to a stake, too. They've only been in the ground 3 weeks, I can't believe how big they've gotten during that time! The zucchini plants got huge overnight, as did the cucumbers. The watermelon is coming along nicely, and the pumpkins I planted a couple of weeks ago are growing like crazy. (I planted them in the mound of the sod clumps I pulled out when preparing the garden. I wasn't sure the mound had compacted enough for roots to take hold, but I guess they have.)

We're supposed to get more rain on Wednesday. Until this summer, I'd have been unhappy with any forecast calling for rain. Not any more! When I see rain in the forecast, I smile with anticipation of the growth it'll bring to my garden.

The hardware store just called, my lawnmower's fixed. I've already done my errand-running for the day, I'll pick it up tomorrow.

Ahhhhh, Summertime!

2006-07-09T15:17:00.000-04:00

The weather has really been nice this last week. It was too hot last weekend, but temps and humidity dropped on Tuesday. Wednesday was lovely - dry, sunny, and in the low 70's. It's been getting a few degrees warmer each day since then, and it's back up into the mid-80's, sunny, and not too humid. Good growing weather - everything in the garden is flourishing - the tomatoes continue to grow, the trampled string beans have recovered nicely and are flourishing, the limas I re-planted a week ago already have 4 leaves and are 6" tall (maybe I won't have to wait until September for limas after all!), and a couple of the pepper plants are flowering. The tomatoes in pots are growing at an incredible rate - two weeks ago they were just 4" tall seedlings, now they're over a foot tall and really filling out. I had potted a couple of sweet pepper seedlings (or yellow Hungarian pepper seedlings, I can't remember which) in a pot but it didn't look like they were going to make it. I left them there but planted a tomato seedling in that pot, so the growing space wouldn't go to waste. Yesterday, when I watered that pot, I was amazed to see that one of the two pepper plants had taken off. It went from a seedling that had been an inch and a half tall since I planted it to an 8" tall pepper plant in just 4 days. And the other little pepper seedling is still alive and looking good even though it hasn't grown at all, I wonder if it's going to take off and grow, too. So maybe I'm going to have more than just jalapeno and habanero peppers, too!

I think I finally fixed the fence so the Big Sister won't slither under it into the garden any more. I staked it down in three places with 24" long crate pins, and she's stopped trying to go under.

The kingbird clutch made it through last weekend's heat. I got out a box fan on Saturday and angled it upward so it would dissipate the heat that builds up under the patio "roof". Sunday was even warmer, so I climbed up on the step ladder and slid a foot-square plastic end table top onto the roof over where the nest is, to shade it from the sun. Between the shade and the air circulation, the nest stayed just cool enough not to bake the baby birds. It looks like they're fully-feathered now, and getting ready to fly. One has been perching on the rim of the nest for a couple of days; though I haven't seen the others perching on the rim, the amount of bird droppings on the patio slab is evidence that they're all perching up there - at least long enough to eliminate. I wouldn't be surprised to see some short, trial flights in the next 24-48 hours.

A week ago Friday, I bought a little pool. Little pool. The kind with the blow-up rim. It's only 10 feet in diameter and 30 inches tall (and holds only 24 inches of water), but it's big enough to float on my back in, or to sit on the bottom and have water almost up to my armpits. It's big enough for cooling off, and small enough to maintain easily. I fenced an enclosure for it just off the yard fence where it attaches to the house and put a gate in the fence between the yard and the enclosure, so the only way to access the pool is from the yard. I made it a little more private by cutting a tarp in half and attaching it to the fence on two sides - cut edge folded over the top of the fence and held in place with binder clips, the bottom edge with grommets secured to the bottom of the fence with zip ties. The third side of the enclosure is the house, so the only "exposed" side of the enclosure is on the yard side. The big pine in the yard hides the pool from the house on the south side, and through that fence I can see the road out front but it's really tough to see the pool from the road, so it's still pretty private. The pot of moonflowers my sis brought me from her MIL finally took off after I divided them and transplanted them into three pots. I re-transplanted them from the pots into the ground on the uncovered fence, so if they thrive (and it looks like they're going to) they may provide a little extra privacy.

After I finished the fencing I prepared the ground and got the pool set up. My neighbors had come to talk while I was working and had slowed me down, so by the time I got the pool up and started filling it was almost dark. When I got up Saturday morning, I realized the half-full pool was on a slope. I drained it, removed it from the enclosure, and excavated into the slope to get a level base for the pool. That was a heck of a project. It took me most of the afternoon. But I finally got the pool back up and started filling, and finished filling it on Sunday morning. I've been in it twice, very briefly, Monday and Tuesday. The water was still too cold both days to even think about getting completely wet. Both the water and the air were too cool on Wednesday and Thursday, and on Friday I went up to my sis with my mom for the day and didn't get home until late in the evening. It was hot here yesterday and the water feels warm enough now for a swim, but I got busy yesterday and by the time I got around to getting ready to go in the pool, the temp had already dropped below 70 and the air was too cool to get wet. It's warm out there today, and the sun's had another day to heat the water, the pool is filtered and skimmed, and I'm going for a dip in a little while.

On our way out from Mom's to go see my sis's weekend/future retirement place, we stopped at the orchard to pick up some sweet cherries. We've been going to that orchard since I was a teen, they've always had exceptionally nice fruit at exceptionally reasonable prices. Their cherries have always been the best, and this year's no exception - big, plump, juicy, sweet, tender-skinned. I've saved a couple of pits, I'm going to try to start a cherry tree to go with the peach tree I intend to get next year. The Amish family who bought the orchard maybe 20 years ago added blueberries since the last time I was there a few years ago. They were gorgeous, perfect berries and I'll bet they tasted as good as they looked. I'm sorry I didn't get some. They'd have made some great muffins for the houseguests who are coming to visit in a couple of weeks. I might try to stop in there when I go up to Mom's this week.

I'm having a hard time getting motivated, today, and I've got so much to do! But I think I'm just going to do what absolutely has to be done today (like cutting up, bagging, and freezing bananas that will be too ripe tomorrow) and maybe a coupld of loads of laundry, and give myself a little break.

Cheep, cheep, cheep!

2006-07-01T19:40:00.000-04:00

I climbed up on the step stool this morning to have a look in the nest, I wanted to make sure everyone made it through yesterday's heat OK. There are four little beaks in there, not three, and they're all active and noisy. (That explains why both mom and dad are such frequent visitors to the nest - there are four little mouths to feed!) They don't even have their eyes open yet, but they're already getting feathers. It got very hot this afternoon, over 90 in the shade, and it's humid. I looked for and found one of my box fans, and got that set up out on the patio blowing air upward toward the nest. It did a good job this afternoon of dissipating the heat that builds up under the translucent patio roof. At one point I took a break from what I was doing and sat down to rest; I looked up at the nest and all 4 little heads were resting on the front rim of the nest, I think they were enjoying the breeze. Tomorrow's supposed to be about the same weather as today, I'll turn the fan on for them tomorrow, too. If it gets any hotter, I think I'll go out to the pole barn and get a metal crate pan; I can put that up on the roof over the nest and weight it down with a couple of rocks so it doesn't blow away, and that should shade the nest.

Disaster! (or, Attack of the Giant Dogs)

2006-06-29T15:19:00.000-04:00

Tuesday afternoon, somedoggy managed to pull the bottom corner of welded-wire fence loose from the chain-link at the end of the patio. Through the hole it created, the Big Sister and the Goofball got into the garden. The lima beans were planted in the area where they broke through, and were completely destroyed. All four of the string beans were trampled on; one was completely destroyed, two were flattened, and the fourth was bruised. One of the flattened ones died, the other is recovering.

The empty dirt in the bottom half of the picture is where three lima bean plants were, including one that was already over a foot tall as it was a survivor from the indoor seedlings. Of the three string bean plants in the top half the pic, the bottom one and the one above it survive. I planted some more limas and a couple more string beans.... I'll be lucky if I get limas by September!

(I rewired that corner of the fence, then put up a new piece of welded wire attached on one side to the welded-wire section of the fence and on the other to the chain-link section, completely covering the "seam" where they were originally joined together so the dogs can't get to it at all. Hopefully that'll do the trick!)

They they also got the smallest of the "new" tomato plants, the ones I only transplanted into the garden a week and a half ago. Oh well, there are two more of the same variety, either in the garden or in pots. The others are doing well, though! The "newer" tomatoes:

The "older" tomatoes are thriving. Here's the heirloom Cherokee Purple, it's almost 3 feet tall already! To the right of it are two very small plants, survivors of the indoor seedlings. These plants are roughly a month or a little more behind the "store bought" tomato plants, but this is a variety that's supposed to produce tomatoes in 45 days from being transplanted into the garden and produce continuously until fall, so they should still yield well. In the background, you can see the cucumber plants really starting to take off.

Here are the two original store-bought tomato plants, one a Roma and the other a beefsteak-type. On the left are the two small "Fourth of July" plants that were in the pic with the Cherokee Purple. In the lower right corner is the Sugar Baby watermelon.

The begonias I transplanted into pots a week and a half ago are doing well:

The pot of impatiens I've got sitting on my air conditioner in the patio is thriving, and I'm so pleased with it.

I had a round clay flower pot I bought years ago when I lived in California. I'd only used it that year, had never lived in another place where I'd been able to have anything in pots outside. I got it out of the box it had been stored in for over 10 years, filled it up, and planted it with cosmos seeds. When the seedlings emerged a couple weeks later, I put it out on the air conditioner. Less than an hour later it was smashed on the ground. (Another reason the dogs are closed out of the patio unless I'm there to supervise!) The seedlings were smashed along with the planter, but apparently there were some still-unsprouted seeds in the soil. I've got cosmos growing at the base of the air conditioner:

The plants on my home-made plant-shelf are filling out beautifully. If you look in the background, you can see some of the roses that are blooming all along the pole barn:

Yes, the grass is long. No, I don't have a working lawnmower yet. I asked my neighbor to take a look at the "new" one on Tuesday; he fiddled with it for over an hour and didn't get any better result with it than my sis and I did. It'll start easily on starting fluid, but then dies quickly as gas isn't flowing into the engine. I'm going to have to take it into the hardware store in town (per recommendation) and have them fix it. I've got to work up to putting it into the car to get it there, though, it's a heavy sucker.)

Finally, a so-far success story: I climbed up on the stepstool yesterday and got a pic of the new clutch. I could see three baby birds in the nest, and all are kingbirds. I'm keeping a close eye on the weather, and I'll do whatever I can to keep this clutch from dying because of heat like the last ones did.

A Working Weekend

2006-06-26T16:55:00.000-04:00

Boy, it was a busy weekend! My sis came up after work on Friday to spend the weekend. Her approach to a weekend is "let's get things done!" so the little slave driver ran me ragged for a couple of days. Friday night we got the firewood ring set up and got the firewood transferred to it, then we swept and rearranged the patio.

Saturday morning we drove down to Chris's to get a 6 X 6 chain link kennel panel with a gate in it. When we got home with it, we fixed the end of the fence by the pole barn where I'd had a gate and a couple of crate panels wired in. Took out the crate panels and the gate, moved a couple of poles, and wired the kennel panel in that spot. Now I can get from the yard to the pole barn and vice versa without having to go through the house. If I ever get my new project lawnmower started, I won't have to take that through the house either to get it into the yard. (We worked on that yesterday, got the frozen wheel loosened and rotating again and got the spark plug changed, but it doesn't seem to be getting enough gas. My neighbor offered before to have a look at it for me, I might take him up on it. I don't think it would take long for someone who knows what they're doing to get it running.) I put a lock on the gate, so nobody can open it without the key.

We were still working on the fence when Mom arrived to visit. When we finished the fence we came in, and my mom and sis visited while I cooked meatballs and sauce for dinner. After dinner, my sis did some weeding in the rose bed while I fertilized the potted flowers.

Yesterday we replaced the plastic "feet" on my coffee table with new ones, got the queen mattress off my bed and carried out to the pole barn, and got my old queen mattress into the house and onto the bed. (My mom had given me her spare room queen mattress and springs, thinking they were better than my old ones, but they weren't. I've been sleeping on an uncomfortable bed since January because I couldn't get my comfy mattress in from the pole barn by myself. I slept really well last night!) Got my sis to give me a haircut - I can do the front myself but can't do the back, and have a hard time with the top, so she got the back and top short and I finished the front after she left.

I got tired of seeing the Youngster with a mouthful of cat litter, so I finally installed a couple of eye hooks on my sliding laundry room door and hooked either end of a bolt snap to them, so now the laundry room door is only open wide enough for the cats to get through to the litterbox but the bolt snap prevents dogs from nosing the door open. I brought my "shelf" boards in from the pole barn and got a couple of milk crates emptied; in a little while I'll go empty out 4 more milk crates and then set up some shelves in one half of my bedroom closet, to hold piles of jeans, t-shirts, shorts, etc. I've been trying to switch wardrobes - get my winter stuff stored away, get the summer stuff out, but everything's piled on the counters in the laundry room because I just don't have anywhere to put it. Once I get those shelves up I can put away everything piled in the laundry room and then finish organizing the laundry room. That's this week's major project.

I finally quit procrastinating and mixed up three more stepping stones today. Now that I've gotten one 60-pound bag of quikrete emptied into a bucket from which I can easily measure it (and the other bag standing next to the bucket for easy access), I'm going to try to pour three more every other day and get as many stones made as possible in the next 4 months.

Last Monday I finally transplanted the other little tomato plants I picked up the previous Thursday. They were a little peaked, but man did they take off once they were transplanted! I put 7 more into the garden (two of 3 different varities, one of another) and put another 5 into "pots". (Two of my pots are 2-gallon laundry detergent bottles with the tops cut off.) They've tripled in size in just a week, and the ones I put into the garden have nearly tripled in size. The Cherokee Purple tomato plant is over 2' tall already and is doing really well. The three tomato plants in the rose bed are also thriving. The beans, zucchini, and cukes are doing really well. I fertilized the garden today and thinned out the carrots; I planted too many carrot seeds too close together so I'm not going to have as many carrots as I'd like, but now I know how I should have planted them instead and I'll do a better job of it next year. The peppers are doing well, too.

I need to fertilize the herb bed, but it doesn't need watering yet so I'll do it the next time I need to water. Things are growing slowly there, but they're growing. Fertilizer should help. When I bought the extra tomato plants I also got a couple small begonias which are growing quickly now that they're into pots. The purple petunias I got are starting to get new flower buds on them, they should be very pretty in a few weeks. My impatiens baskets and pots are really starting to look nice, they make the patio such a pleasant place to sit! On our way back from going to get the kennel panel we stopped at a "barn sale", and for a buck I picked up a pair of heavy glass votive holders. I put those up on the plant shelf in the patio and they look lovely twinkling away there in the evening. (I'm not going to lose this pair the way I lost the last ones, to dogs knocking them down. They come in and sit on the mantel in the family room when I come in for the night.) I put a pot of impatiens on either side of the center roof support pole on the edge of the patio, and tied the pots to the pole so they couldn't be easily knocked over. So far, so good. I just have to keep an eye on my plant-chomping Goofball, so he doesn't bite all the flowers off.

Saturday morning I climbed up on the step stool to see if I could see anything in the kingbird nest. I can't actually see inside of it, but I can see anything that reaches the top of it and I saw one little yellow beak opening and closing. Saturday evening I could hear at least three different little voices peeping for their dinner. It looks like mama successfully hatched this clutch without being parasitized by a brown-headed cowbird. The weather is supposed to be baby bird-friendly until at least the weekend, but I'll keep a close eye on the temp under the roof and put something onto the roof to block the sunlight, and put a fan on to circulate air if necessary. Mama's become a lot less fearful of me, and will fly back and forth feeding her babies even if I'm sitting outside. I have high hopes for this little family, that the nestlings will make it and the whole family will stick around and help keep the flying insect population down.

Break's over, time to get back to work. I wonder where those other milk crates are.......?

Grow, Little Green Things, Grow!

2006-06-18T12:17:00.000-04:00

I went up to Mom's on Thursday to help her with some housework she can't do by herself any more. When we were done, I asked her if she had an extra hose she wasn't using; she said she had several, and I should help myself. So I grabbed what I thought was a very long hose but which turned out to be two hoses, so I don't have to keep switching my long hose from the back yard to the front. I also mentioned that I thought maybe I'd remove the soaker hose from the flower/shrub bed north of the driveway over to the vegetable garden, and mom said "gee, there's a brand new soaker hose in the garage that I'm never going to use - take it!" Don't have to ask me twice, so that hose went into my car too. I also did a little more "shopping" in the garage, and took the sledge hammer (which Mom can't even lift, much less use) so I could use it to pound in fence posts (I had to return my borrowed post-driver), a big tubular ring to hold firewood (when I get it put together, I'll put it out on the patio to hold the logs that are just stacked out there), and a 5-foot step-ladder (I left the 8-footer there) so I can hang a wire-fence canopy over the well-house to keep kitties from reaching the roof, and I can also get up high enough to clean the leaves and debris off the patio roof and make sure the gutters are clean.

I put the soaker hose in the vegetable garden. It had been coiled up so long it wouldn't lay flat, so instead of putting it on the ground I've temporarily draped it over the top of the fencing, back and forth so it would cover the entire area. I may just leave it there - it's not pretty, but it reaches every corner of the garden and I'm not sure it would if I laid it on the ground on the paths. We'll see. In any case, it's been a life-saver and a life-giver to the garden, everything's really starting to take off.

Carrots (needing to be thinned out) in the front, lettuces in the back

Tomatoes in front, peppers in back

Zucchini

Cukes

The lone watermelon vine

There are beans - both string beans and limas - along the back fence, and there are a couple of tomato plants on the left side of the pepper bed. There are also moonflowers coming up along the left fence, and Cosmos coming up along the front fence. On my way home from Mom's on Thursday I stopped at the garden center again; they had all their vegetable plants on sale, a 4-cell tray for a quarter. I picked up 4 more varieties of tomatoes. I haven't had a chance to transplant them yet, but later this afternoon I'll put one plant of each variety in the garden (there's room in the pepper bed) and one plant of each variety in pots, maybe one or two more plants out back, and I'll give the rest of the plants to my neighbor if they want them. I also picked up two trays of begonias (white, I think) and two trays of petunias (two shades of purple, one a single flower, the other a double) and I'll put those into the pots where I'd transplanted my butterfly impatiens which didn't make it. Total expenditure for tomatoes, begonias, and petunias - $3.95. Good deal. The geraniums I got from this place are in full bloom, and are absolutely gorgeous:

And my Stella D'Oro lilies are blooming:

Mama kingbird is still sitting on her nest, so the eggs haven't hatched yet. They should hatch any day now, as far as I can figure it's been about 13 days since she started over. So far, the long-range weather forecast isn't calling for nestling-killing temps, so I have high hopes for this clutch of babies. Mama's not quite as spooky as she used to be, as long as I don't stand around under the nest she'll stay there and not fly off when I come out. When she does fly off, she'll usually come back pretty quickly; she'll sit on the fence and give me the eye for a few seconds, then fly back to her nest. I think she's finally figured out I'm not going to mess with her or her nest.

The Youngster and I had a great time at the dog show on Friday. It was nice to see the gorgeous dogs who were competing, meet their owners, renew the acquaintance of a breeder/handler I really like, and I got the opportunity to meet someone who's been a cyberfriend for about 4 years. They even fed me lunch! The breeder/handler did all the cooking, and he makes the best darn potato salad I've ever had. His grape-and-walnut salad wasn't too bad, either. This attractive, gentle, funny man is single and unless my instincts are impaired - and they might be, I'm seriously out of practice - he was flirting with me. He only lives about a 4-5 hour drive away....... I'm hoping to see him more frequently in the future. A couple of pics from the show:

The beautiful Posey, with her breeder/handler. Posey took "Best Opposite Sex".

The girl who took Reserve

The handsome Best in Breed winner
(Very nice dog, not only gorgeous but very sweet, bred by Posey's breeder/handler)

The little whiskered packages arrived Friday. They're very sweet, and I'm having so much fun with them!

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary...

2006-06-14T23:48:00.000-04:00

How does your garden grow? Did you have better luck with your seedings than I had with mine?

Only two of the original tomato seedlings are still doing OK. They're small, but they're hanging in there. Same with 4 of my pepper plants - one habanero and 3 sweet peppers. The others didn't make it, so they've all been replaced with store-bought plants. (I found a place that had a little container of 4 identical vegetable plants for 99 cents. Bought two varieties of tomatoes, two varities of peppers.) There are two Big Boy plants and one Roma out in the rose bed, the other two Big Boys and three Romas went into the garden, as did a larger, single heirloom tomato called a Purple Cherokee ($1.19) . The store-bought habaneros and jalapenos went into the garden too.

Hopefully I'll have better luck starting seeds next year. The biggest problem this year was that I had no heat during the germination period and the indoor temp was too low. It was very hot the weekend in April when I planted all my seed trays and I turned the furnace off so I could turn the fan on to circulate the air indoors. Two days later, when the temp dropped back to normal April temps, I switched the furnace back on and the burner wouldn't ignite. I didn't bother to get it fixed then; since I'm used to cooler temps and the little electric heater kept most of the living space in the mid-60's, I figured I'd wait until later in the summer to get the furnace repaired. (If the problem is what I think it is, it's a quick fix that'll run under $100, but it isn't something I can do myself.) But the cooler temps weren't conducive to strong seedling growth, and cats reaching in through the crate bars to bat at the seedlings that did grow combined with too little light where they were sitting didn't do anything to help. Next year I'm going to start some things earlier (impatiens, tomatoes, peppers) and others later (beans, melons), line the sides of the crate with cat-proof but transparent/translucent material (I'm thinking clear kitchen cutting mats, the kind you can get 2/$1 at the dollar store, might be just the right size), use heating pads under the crate to encourage germination, and hang a grow-light above the seed trays inside the crate which can be raised as the seedlings grow.

On the other hand, the watermelon plant is doing well - it about doubles in size every day. And some of the seeds I planted are starting to come up - cucumber plants, a couple of moonflowers just peeking out of the dirt, and little lettuces all in a row. In the herb bed there are tiny green things coming up all over but I still can't tell which are herbs and which are weeds, so I've been weeding very carefully. (I didn't plant rows there so much as I planted areas, to be thinned out as necessary as seedlings develop.) If I hadn't seen just-sprouted dill at a friend's house yesterday, I probably would have weeded out my dill sprouts today - they look just like little grass sprouts. It should get easier to tell the difference over the next couple of weeks, and if I planted right, the herbs themselves will shade the soil and prevent at least some of the weeds from growing. Four of the bush-type morning glories I planted in the tub out front are still growing, and the three little hibiscus plants I planted along the south side of the pole barn have survived 48 hours inside the yard without dog damage, and have doubled in size in just 2 days. Dare I hope they're going to make it? One of them bit the dust before it ever got into the ground; I had the 4 paper cups holding the little plants sitting next to me while I dug the hole for the first one, and didn't pay any attention when The Goofball came up beside me. But when I looked over to get the first plant to put in the hole I'd just dug, the only thing left in one paper cup was the stub of a stem and The Goofball was happily chewing away. I forgot that one of his favorite activities as a pup was grazing around the yard biting the heads off dandelions. Sometimes I think I live with a herd of big white cows.

The color cartridge for my printer arrived Saturday, so I printed up some flyers advertising classes to start in July. One during the day, one in the evening. I got some of them posted around today, and will get the rest out over the next few days as I go in different directions to run errands. I've gone public, no going back now. I've got a month to get the training center and the office ready for business. Summer's not usually the best time to hold obedience classes; vacations too often conflict with the 6-week run of class. But out here, where there is a large summer population, I'm hoping that between local folks and summer people there will be enough students to have two good classes, and that'll give me a jump start for fall.

I've got another "project" lawnmower. This time, a gas-powered, self-propelled model with a nice wide deck. It's an extra Chris's landlady had, she gave it to me on Sunday when I was there. I haven't had a chance to work on it yet, one front wheel isn't turning and it hasn't been used in a couple of years so it's probably going to take some fiddling to get it started. But I know that the only reason it was an extra is that they needed a smaller mower to make it easier to mow the agility yard (with its tight angles and small spaces), and that the mechanically-capable landlady takes excellent care of her tools so I'm sure that once I get it started it'll run well. It's just a matter of finding the time to work on it.

I've been really busy the last week. I'm tired, but it's a good tired. Tomorrow I'm going up to my mom's, to help her out with some cleaning she just can't do by herself any more. I'll stick around and cook dinner for her, and I know she wants me to stick around to go with her to the community band concert in the evening. I dread the thought - she'll parade me around and introduce me to everyone she knows - but I'll probably go anyway, unless I'm just too beat or too grubby. At least it's the community band, which is a lot easier for me to listen to than the community chorus my mom sings in. (Gad, don't ever tell her I said that! But I can handle instrumental mistakes a lot better than I can off-key singing.) Friday's a busy day, too, there's a big UKC dog show a couple of hours away and some of the folks I know from the rare breed community will be showing their dogs. The owner of The Youngster's maternal grandmother will be there. I need to go down there anyway to meet a cyberfriend who's bringing me a pair of little whiskered packages, a certain torxie and her creamsicle brother. *smile* If I can get everything I'd planned to do on Friday morning finished by tomorrow night, I'm thinking about getting up before breakfast so The Youngster and I can be out of here by 7 am to make the 9:15 am ring time so we can catch up with the breed folks. Good socialization opportunity for The Youngster, great opportunity for us to educate breeders and advocate for placing deaf pups in responsible homes rather than killing them.

Amalie nearly gave me a heart attack this afternoon, she managed to get up onto the roof from the patio. She went from the top of the wellhouse to the roof, and it's a long jump up. I didn't think she could jump that high. She came down pretty quickly when I called her, despite the panic in my voice (or maybe because of it), going from the house roof to the patio roof and jumping down from there. (Scaring the heck out of the kingbird mama, too, when she walked on the patio roof over the nest.) I'm going to have to attach a piece of fencing from the eave of the roof to canopy over the entire top of the wellhouse so nobody can get up there that way again. I don't recover from adrenaline rushes as fast as I used to.

It's All Up To Mother Nature, Now

2006-06-09T20:41:00.000-04:00

I finished my garden this evening. I got it fenced in yesterday afternoon, and got half of it planted. Got my bean plants in and planted a couple extra seeds of both regular beans and limas - my seedlings had been in plastic cups indoors for too long, they were tall but spindly, and all but one plant of each type ended up breaking. So there is one seedling of each in the ground, and two more of each kind of seed planted. Those are near the east (back) fence, which is shared with the yard. Along the fence on the south side, I planted zucchini, pickling cucumber, and cucumber seeds. Along the north fence, which is the chainlink fence at the south end of the patio, I planted moonflower seeds, and along the west (front) side I planted flowers - cosmos and bush-type morning glories.

This afternoon, I transplanted 6 little tomato plants. I hope they make it. I'm going to buy a couple of small potted tomato plants, just for insurance. I also planted 2 eggplant seedlings and one sugarbaby watermelon seedling in the same area. I did another area with just peppers - habaneros, jalapenos, yellow banana peppers, and a "carnival" mix of sweet peppers. There are 5 colors of peppers in the carnival mix - red, yellow, orange, pale green-white, and purple. I only had room for 8 of them, I hope I'll get at least one plant of each color. Of all the pepper seedlings, the habaneros are the sturdiest; they're only about 3" tall, but they already have several sets of leaves and look like miniature pepper plants. I had a couple of good yellow pepper seedlings left over, I planted both of them in a large planter and put that in front of the garage. In another area of the garden I planted lettuce and carrot seeds. So that's the vegetable garden, except for the pumpkin seeds. I'm still trying to decide whether to plant them up front, outside the garden fence, or to plant them out back in the leaf pile. There are 10 seeds, that'll make 4 hills (two with 3 seeds/vines, two with 2 seeds/vines), so maybe I'll plant two hills in front and two hills in back.

I also transplanted my baby impatiens seedlings. These are the "butterfly" mix - pastels with deeper colored throats. I had enough seedlings for one large planter (6 seedlings) and two 6-inch pots (3 seedlings each); after they've had a couple of days to get settled into their new homes I'll move them out to the patio with the rest of the non-hanging impatiens. I'm going to bungee-cord the larger planter to the middle post of the patio roof, so it doesn't get knocked over by dogs or cats. My sis had gotten a pot of moonflowers from her MIL for me; she told me to separate them, not to plant them all in the same place, so I split them into three deep, 8-inch pots and put those pots on the north side of the fence, outside the yard. If they make it, they should grow up the fence and give me a little privacy screening in that corner.

The wire crate I kept the seedlings in is empty now; if I get a second wind I'll get it cleaned up and taken down tonight, otherwise I'll do it in the morning. It'll be nice not to have it up on my dining table any more! I still have a couple of little plants in paper cups on my bedroom windowsill, I'll get those planted out in the yard tomorrow. If I plant them along the south side of the pole barn they'll be inside the yard, but the dogs aren't bothering the daylilies there so hopefully they won't bother these other little plants either. I'm going to plant some catnip there, too, and more out in back of the yard. I still have some perennial herb seeds to plant. I decided today to plant lemon balm and peppermint in the flower bed on the south side of the house along the bedroom wall, there isn't much there now and it'll be nice to have the lemon balm under the bedroom windows, it's got such a fresh, lemony scent. I'll do that tomorrow, too.

It's all up to Mother Nature now - all I can do from this point on is weed, fertilize, and water! Now I can turn my attention back to the lawn. *sigh* I'm not going to try to cut it all at once, I'll just do a little every day until it's done, wait a week, and start over again.

I found my stash of lye, so I got the soap made for Weim Rescue today, too. By tomorrow afternoon I'll be able to unmold and slice it, and I'll take it down to Chris on Sunday - I'm going down for the monthly open house - and it can finish curing at her house. It smells good in here - lavender and lemongrass. Yum. I'll get at least a couple of soap balls out of it, from the trimmings, they'll smell great in a guest soap dish in the bathroom.

I'm behind on housework, and I've still got some unpacking and organizing to do, but now that I don't need to be outside working on getting the gardens set up, I'll have more time to work inside. This week's projects are to get the living room, dining room, and kitchen carpets steam-vacced, get some blocks made to raise the foot of my bed and then move it back to the outside wall, and get my summer and winter clothes swapped out of and into storage bins. The printer cartridge I ordered should be here soon, maybe tomorrow, and I'll get to work on advertising flyers for obedience classes to start in July.

I think I'm going to put clean sheets on the bed, take a shower to get the garden dirt off, then have a nice soak in a tub full of hot water and scented bath salts. Then I think I'll have a cocktail or two. I've earned an evening's pampering.

If At First You Don't Succeed.......

2006-06-06T15:19:00.000-04:00

try, try again. All last week, I kept looking up at the kingbird nest on the patio rafter, thinking "I really need to take that down and dispose of it," but I never got around to doing it. I hadn't seen the kingbird pair anywhere, I figured they'd started over elsewhere. While I was working outdoors on Sunday I saw mama kingbird a couple of times, perched on the fence. Last night, when I was sitting out on the patio, mama buzzed my head on her way in to the nest. And she sat on it overnight. She's trying again, in the same spot. Fortunately, it's not hot enough to be a problem for her or the eggs, and the 7-day forecast doesn't include any high temps that would threaten the new family-to-be, so I've got a little time to work out a way to shade the roof panel above the nest and work out placement of a fan to circulate cooler air upward to dissipate the hot air that collects under the porch roof when the sun's shining on it. I wonder if just a large sheet of aluminum foil, shiny side up, over the nest area would help keep it cooler there to begin with. I could probably just put little rocks around the edges to hold it down in case it gets windy. I think I'll try that first, then develop a "Plan B" if it doesn't work. I've got one small oscillating fan, a very old one which can be adjusted to aim from straight up to about 135-degrees downward, that I'll try first to provide air circulation. It could be problematic simply because the Big Sister is a little OCD about things that flash - as the blades of fans do as they rotate. I know she's OK with box fans, though, so if the little oscillating fan sets her off I can always use one of the box fans instead.

I've been a little "off my game" the last week or so. I'm not sick, no major problems, just a lot of little stuff combined that's had me operating at less than full productivity. I haven't gotten as much done as I wanted to, but at least I've gotten some things accomplished. I stopped at the lumber yard on Friday and picked up two 60-pound bags of Quikrete; that's enough for about 22-24 stepping stones. (Last night, I finally wrangled one of those two bags out of my car. 60 pounds in such a small, compact package is hard to lift!) A new 3-stone batch of plain stones is on today's schedule. I also picked up a ten-foot 1 X 10 board and some shelf brackets. Sunday, I got the board cut to the right length, covered it in light-tack Contact shelving paper, and hung up on the chain-link fence at the yard end of the patio. It's crooked; it is, at least, level from side to side, but it slants downward from back to front. I don't care. It's not so bad a slant that flower pots will slide off, and the flowers should eventually hide the slant. I sat on the patio and finished potting the last of the two flats of impatiens I got a couple of weeks ago and got those up on the shelf:

I also hung up the plastic-bag hanging planter that I transplanted impatiens into late last week. Once that really starts to fill out it's going to be gorgeous:

The hanging basket of impatiens I hung up under the patio a couple of weeks ago is really starting to take off, and I've got enough baby lettuces that I can have a small, fresh salad every day:

I went to visit with my mom yesterday, and once again I stopped at the little rural garden center on my way home. I wanted a couple of geraniums. I was thinking I'd get red ones, or orangey-red, or maybe even white, but then I saw these:

(I seem to be on a pink kick lately. Hot pink flowers, hot pink pitcher and glasses, hot pink plastic ashtray for out on the patio. Plus a pink depression-glass sugar and creamer, an addition to my sugar/creamer collection and my very-small-but-destined-to-grow collection of depression glass.) Now I just have to go out to the pole barn and find a couple of planters for the geraniums and get them transplanted. Also on my schedule for today.

Sunday afternoon I got the raised bed re-cultivated and got my herb seeds planted. Tarragon in the middle, Rosemary on each side of it and in front of it. Moving outward from the sides is a row of lavender, and then a row of Blue Hyssop closest to the side rails. In front of the tarragon and rosemary is two rows of German Chamomile; in back of the tarragon (no rosemary behind the tarragon) is a row of Dill, and behind that a row of parsley. In a week to 10 days I should have a lot of little green growing things in that bed.

I've just about got all the sod clods out of the vegetable garden. By the time I get that finished, and get my seedlings transplanted and my direct-sow seeds in, I'm going to be about 10 days behind schedule. Getting this patch prepared has been a lot more work than I anticipated. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this area is going to work out for the vegetable garden and I'll be able to plant there again next year. Parts of it get a little more shade than I'd calculated on; if I plant carefully it should still be OK, not everything requires 8 hours of full sun and that can be planted in the areas that get shade for a couple of hours mid-day or in the early evening. The center gets full sun from morning until early evening, so the tomatoes and peppers should do well there. If I get a lower-than-expected yield this year, I'll probably prepare a different area next year - now that I know for sure what the sun/shade pattern of my yard is - and plant flowers in this year's vegetable garden instead. It would actually be a pretty good spot to have my perennial garden.......

The grass is getting very long again. I'm having difficulty getting motivated to get out there with the little electric mower and cut it; pushing that little, dull-bladed mower around is a lot of work. I'm actually considering buying a brand-new push mower, and using that instead. They're pretty light weight these days, and take less effort to push than my electric mower. I was reading an article on organic lawn care, and it suggested the way to a lush lawn is not to mow any shorter than about 3". That cuts off the tops of the weeds (which is where they get their nourishment) but protects the roots of the grass (which is where it gets its nourishment), strengthening the grass so it can choke off the weeds itself. Keeping the grass a little longer also keeps it from drying out later in the year when there's less rain, and should reduce and maybe even eliminate the need to water it. I'm thinking that just trimming off the tops of the grass with a push mower might actually require less physical effort than using the electric mower. Before I get a push-mower, though, I'm going to adjust the height on the electric mower to the highest setting and see if that takes some of the work out of pushing it around. Not today (it's supposed to rain in a little bit) and not tomorrow (supposed to rain most of the day), but I'll pencil it in on Thursday's schedule.

I've got to find my storage box of soap-making supplies/tools; I need to make a batch of lavender/lemon-grass shampoo-soap for Weim Rescue. The Weim National Specialty is being held in MI in a couple of weeks, and Weim Rescue will be making up small decorative bags containing essential oil room spray, essential oil mosquito repellant spray, and a bar of the essential oil shampoo-soap for sale. Weim Rescue supplied the oils, I'm supplying the other ingredients. (I'm donating my labor, and trading the essential oils I'll use in the soap in exchange for a microchip for the Youngster.) I need to get that delivered within the next week, and it needs to cure a few days before I pack it up. I originally wanted to do a color-swirled-into-white soap but I'm going to be molding this soap in cardboard quart half-and-half containers because I'm not going to be making the 10-pound batch my box mold holds. The half-and-half containers mold a soap shape I like, a rounded-side square that fits nicely in the palm and is easy to hold onto. It would be really tough to swirl colors in a tall, narrow mold so I'm going to dig out some old, colored practice soaps and cut them into "confetti" pieces and add to plain white soap before pouring it.

Rest in Peace

2006-05-29T12:16:00.000-04:00

My baby birds are dead. It got very hot here yesterday, 95 degrees in the shade. Under my covered patio, it was even warmer. The "roof" of the patio is make of green corugated fiberglas-reinforced panels; they're translucent and let the light in. The nest is only a couple of inches below the roofing. I think it got so hot up there either yesterday or Saturday that it killed the babies. I didn't see or hear any activity from the nest yesterday, and haven't seen mom and dad since Saturday, so I think the babies are gone and the parents have abandoned the nest. I was beginning to think the Kingbird babies were dead, anyway - one baby was quite a big larger than the others, and when I climbed up on the step-stool to have a peek on Friday I could only see the big baby. I'm guessing he was from an egg that a bird other than the Kingbirds laid in the nest. Since there are so many Brown-Headed Cowbirds around, and since they're notorious for nest parasitism (http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/manbook/nestpara.htm), I'm guessing the bigger baby - the one in the picture below - was a Brown-Headed Cowbird.

I'm going to wait another 24 hours, and if I still don't see/hear anything from the nest, or see the parent birds, I'll take the nest down. I'm sad about the baby Kingbirds, but not so sad about the baby Cowbird. Cowbirds are really not nice, they lay their eggs in everybody else's nest and are often the only babies that survive, while the babies of the birds who built the nest starve to death.

I hope the Kingbirds have time to start over, in a better location.

What happened to Spring?

2006-05-28T17:22:00.000-04:00

It was cold here this Spring. Temperatures averaged 10-15 degrees below normal. As late as last week there were frost/freeze warnings, and it got down to about 30 degrees one night a couple weeks back. It was cool and rainy earlier in the week, too. But Summer has arrived with a vengeance. Yesterday it was 90 degrees, sunny and humid, without a breeze to make it more tolerable. Today, it was 95 degrees in the shade, less humid though (thank heaven!) and there's a nice, if not steady, breeze. The Big Sister and the Goofball are napping quietly in their crates, enjoying the central air-conditioning; the Youngster and the Senior are relaxing in the shade of the big pine tree out back, enjoying a frozen venison bone.

The Youngster had a big day, yesterday. He's been here a month, but we haven't done an awful lot of socializing yet. I've been teaching him some manners both at home and in controlled-distraction environments, and teaching him to walk on-leash. He led a sheltered life his first few months, and there's a whole big world of things he's never seen before. He was very cautious when I got him, but he's been gradually overcoming that as he's bonded to me, learning to trust that I won't deliberately expose him to something scary and I'll handle the situation if something does turn out to be scary. My little town is having an annual Spring festival this weekend, there are lots of activities and lots of people around and I thought it was time the Youngster got out and did a little socializing. So I gave him his first bath (and he did very well, relaxing once he realized the spray hose wasn't SO very scary and there was lots of skritching involved), trimmed his nails, grabbed a slice of Natural Balance roll out of the freezer and put it in a baggie in my pocket, and he and I went to town.

He is a delight on a leash. He learned very quickly that rushing ahead or pulling off to the side wasn't permitted, and he did very well at walking along by my side on a slack lead. I have him in a martingale collar, and when I did need to give him direction with tiny tugs on the leash, he responded beautifully. He's naturally a very polite fellow, it doesn't take him long to catch on to what's expected of him in the manners department. We stopped and watched kids on a pony ride, and on little carnival rides. Then we walked the length of town and back, through the car show. (There were 104 cars entered in this show! That's huge for such a little town!) He met lots of people who wanted to say hello, and was very polite - didn't jump up, and either stood or sat politely for petting. He met lots and lots of children, and it was love at first sight (on both sides) with every single one. His soft kisses generated a lot of giggles. He saw bicycles, and wagons, and scooters, and strollers, and roller-bladers, and running kids, and wheelchairs, and canes, and walkers - lots and lots of new and potentially scary (or reaction-provoking) things. He responded to all with a reserved curiosity but no spookiness or shyness. He's got a lovely, solid temperament and he's going to grow into an absolutely awesome adult. He's got the makings of an exceptional therapy dog, he's very sensitive to peoples' size and strength. Sometimes he really had to struggle to keep all four feet on the ground as I've been teaching him, but he always managed to do it without prompting from me. Even when one man sitting in a lawn chair wrapped his arms around the pup and was smooching him, the Youngster kept his front feet on the ground. He acquitted himself well yesterday, and I was very pleased with, and proud of, him.

Wednesday, the Youngster lost two of three remaining baby canine teeth, an upper and lower from the same side. I was checking out his teeth, saw that those two baby canines were very loose, so I pinched them out with my fingers. Along with the baby tooth he lost the day I got him, that makes three I've gotten. He's got one more baby canine still, even though the adult canine is half grown-in already; I'm watching that and hoping the baby tooth will fall out on its own. Sometimes they don't, and need to be removed by a vet. Maybe that venison bone he's gnawing on will do the trick. I'm keeping an eye on his baby pre-molars, maybe I'll be able to get one or two of those when they fall out, too. He's got the first of his big-boy molars - holy cow are they BIG! And very, very white. He has a beautiful bite, he's going to have a very nice, correct mouth. He's beautiful, period, and going to be breathtaking. (You don't think I'm in love with this pup, do you? I'm wondering if he's The Man reincarnated.)

An Aging Body Is a Pain in the Shoulder

2006-05-25T15:23:00.000-04:00

I spent some time yesterday afternoon shaking dirt out of the sod clods back into the garden area. Today, I finally finished pulling up the rest of the sod in there. I won't be able to finish de-dirting the clods it until at least tomorrow, probably not until Saturday, because there's some really nasty weather brewing and it's supposed to last through at least tomorrow afternoon. At least the sod-pulling is done. When I finished, I sat and weeded the flower bed around one tree in the front. (The bed around the other tree needs very little weeding, it's planted with Bishop's weed http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/components/7566-49.html which grows before the weeds get started and prevents the weeds from getting any light to grow.) Now my hens-and-chicks, violas, and mums have some room to breathe. But after leaning on my left hand yesterday afternoon to de-dirt clods, and again this afternoon to weed, my left shoulder hurts so much I can barely lift my arm. Time for some ibuprofen. Getting old stinks.

While I was weeding I kept thinking of how I'd do anything to get out of weeding when I was a kid, and how I don't mind doing it now. I could practically hear my mom, "You hated weeding when you were a kid, how come you like doing it now?" Well, I don't hate bugs any more (for the most part, anyway, there are still some bugs that give me the shudders - like the grubs I saw in my garden today, I'm going to have to break down and get some Grub-ex), I don't mind getting my hands dirty any more, and I don't have a gazillion other things I'd rather be doing, as I did during summers when I was in school. Besides, the flower beds are mine now, and I like when they look nice.

My beautiful oriole kept me company while I was weeding, sitting in the other tree and singing to me. He's spectacular, and his song is so clear and sweet. I stopped weeding and just sat and watched him for a bit. During the time I sat and watched the male cardinal visited the feeder, as did a blue jay and the house finches and goldfinches. So much avian color! Bright red, blue, orange, yellow, and rosy purple. I don't think I'll ever get tired of bird-watching.

And speaking of bird-watching, I haven't gotten up on my step stool to peek at the kingbird nest since Tuesday, but there were at least 3 babies in there then. I managed to snap a pic just as the oldest one stuck his head up and cheeped for his mama:

When I took my mom's dog back to her on Monday, I stopped on my way home and picked up a couple flats of impatiens. My impatiens seedlings are still small, and I wanted to get a couple of hanging baskets planted with already-flowering impatiens for my mom. I planted one basket (for myself) Monday evening, and did all the rest on Tuesday. That used up one flat. The next time I go up to Mom's, I'll take her baskets up to her. I also did one planter for myself, and have another half-dozen or so I'd like to do with the remaining flat, and some other planters I'm setting aside to fill with the seedlings I've started. The ones I started are pastels with deeper centers, they should be beautiful when they finally get growing.

This weekend's projects are the gardens. Once the heavy rain is gone, I'll get my herb seeds planted in the raised bed. Then I'll get more sod clods de-dirted, get the soil in the vegetable garden amended with peat moss and a manure/compost mixture, and get it fenced in. I'm hoping to be able to get at least some of my seedlings planted by Sunday, and the lettuce, carrots, zucchini seeds into the ground. My heirloom tomato seeds have finally sprouted, I need to get all the little seedlings out to start hardening off before I plant them. I'm hoping to be able to get everything into the garden by mid-week.

Here comes the rain! Hmmmm..... the dogs are sleeping quietly, I can't get outside to do any work... I might just have to take a nap. *grin*

Welcome to the World

2006-05-22T13:34:00.000-04:00

The Youngster woke me up early this morning, needing to go out. As I stood in the doorway watching him, I heard a tiny cheep-cheep-cheep coming from overhead. I looked up to see a wide open baby beak above the edge of the nest on the patio crossbeam. One of the babies hatched overnight! He hasn't been joined by any others yet, but I'm hoping to see siblings by later today. I found his shell on the patio a little later this morning, either he or his mama had kicked it out of the nest. And thanks to that shell, I've finally been able to identify the breed - they're Eastern Kingbirds. http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i4440id.html Their diet consists of flying insects; they'll find lots to eat around here!

I love the variety of birdlife here. The populations are different from the front yard to the back. Out in back are the robins and this pair of kingbirds. I've never seen the kingbirds out front, and I've seen a robin out front only rarely. There are other birds in the woods in the back that I haven't identified yet. Out in front, the goldfinches, house finches, and purple finches that were eating me out of house and home for the last couple of months have been visiting the feeder much less frequently. They still come around, but only one or two at a time and they don't stick around all day the way they did. The chickadees, nuthatches, titmice, and juncos are also less frequent visitors; they must all be sitting on nests. (Gosh, just as I typed that sentence, a titmouse flew up to the feeder!) The cardinal pair is still coming to feed in the early morning and the mid- to late-evening (they are breathtakingly beautiful, even the duller female), and the sparrows and brown-headed cowbirds are still hanging around. The male red-winged blackbirds have apparently found their mates and begun their clutches; until the last few days I could just about count on seeing a male red-winged blackbird displaying out front, strutting around on the grass surrounding the feeder, wings half-spread and the colored bars fluffed out for maximum exposure, bright red epaulets on the shiny black cape of his wings. But now they, too, fly in to eat and fly out again. I sure did enjoy the show while it lasted, though, and I'm looking forward to an encore performance next spring.

(Postscript - I just went out to take the pic above, and saw two baby beaks in the nest, so at least two eggs have hatched so far.)

I Hate Lawnmowers!

2006-05-21T16:51:00.000-04:00

The gas mower turned out to be a pull start. I primed it. I gave it a shot of starting fluid. I finally cleaned the spark plug. After working on it for half an hour, I got it started. Yay! I got about 36 square feet of my front yard done when something caught the blades and it quit. Now the pull cord is all messed up. I sat on the lawn for an hour taking the darn thing apart and trying to fix it, to no avail. Just when I'd given up and was sitting there shaking my head, I heard the sweetest birdsong coming from directly behind me. I turned around to look and sitting there on a tree branch was an oriole! He was watching me, and singing. What a handsome, bright orange fellow! As I watched, he flew to the oriole feeder and had a little snack. Since he apparently doesn't mind my company, I'll have to sit out front for a bit when I get a chance, and see if I can get a pic.

I'm tired and even more sore than I was earlier, but I don't care. That oriole made my day!

Oh, My Aching Back

2006-05-21T11:54:00.000-04:00

I ache. All over, not just my back. In fact, it's my forearms that hurt the worst. I worked on the vegetable garden-to-be on Friday, pulling up sod. I'd worked on it last Friday and only gotten about 1/4 of it done; last Saturday, my lats ached so badly I could barely move. It rained most of the week so I didn't get a chance to do any more work on it. I really want to get it finished so I can get it fenced in and start transplanting seedlings into it next weekend. (I borrowed a fence-post driver on Thursday that's got to be returned this coming Wednesday, so I need to have at least the fence poles up by Tuesday evening, if not the fencing itself.) I had to go into town Friday morning, so I swung by Tractor Supply Co. and picked up another 100-foot roll of fencing and 5 more fence posts.

The first thing I did when I got home was drive one of those fence posts outside the fence in the stretch between the house and the lamp post for the backyard vapor lamp, which I'd tied the fence to. It was a little too long a stretch to go without additional support, and I always intended to put another pole in when I was able to buy more. While I was at TSC, I splurged and bought myself a really good pair of needle-nose pliers with wire cutter. These pliers have cushion grips, and spring action. Sweet. They made getting the fence attached to the new pole with fence clips so easy! Fencing the garden is going to take a lot less effort thanks to the new pliers.

Just as I was finishing the last twist of the fence clip my doorbell rang. Mom had arrived. She stopped by for lunch - and to drop off Daisy, so I could watch her for the weekend - on her way to my sister's house. Mom, my sis, and my brother left yesterday morning and drove to a suburb of Buffalo, to attend the wedding of the son of my mom's cousin. They're coming back today and mom should be home by early evening, but she's going to be too tired to stop and get Daisy so I'll be taking Daisy back to Mom tomorrow afternoon. I would have enjoyed going to the wedding too, but weekend trips just aren't do-able for me. Even over-nighters aren't do-able. When I'm finally earning enough money to pay a pet-sitter, and if I meet someone I can trust to pet-sit, I'll be taking a couple of small one- or two-night trips I've been wanting to take for a long time. I want to go visit with Elaine, and I'd like to be able to go down to Linda's for the weekend with Chris every now and then, too. Anyway, Mom and I had a nice lunch together, then she left for my sis's. Poor Daisy didn't stop looking out the window for her until yesterday morning. Daisy loves me, she gets so excited when I go to my mom's that she can't keep still and does zoomies in circles. But Daisy adores Mom (the feeling's mutual), and is desolate when Mom leaves her here.

I put Daze out into the yard with the Senior dog and the Youngster, got my 4-pronged long-handled cultivator out of the garage, donned my suede work gloves, and attacked the garden-to-be. I pulled up sod until I was dizzy, then took a break. I went back to it, and worked at it until I didn't have the strength left to pull up a single more clump. I didn't get it finished, but it's more than 2/3 of the way done. You can't see it in this pic, but in addition to the larger area I did a 2-foot wide strip along the fence to the front edge of the area I want to clear. That's where all the long grass was, the stuff that was really tough to pull up. So when I get back to it - hopefully tomorrow - I should be able to get it finished in one work session. Then I'll have to de-dirt all the sod clumps. (Most are in the garden area, but you can see a pile by the first green fence post, some of that is from the garden area and a little of it is from a thin strip of sod I cut out along the fence line from the first green pole to the second. I planted morning glories in that strip early last week, but they haven't come up yet.)

My forearms ached too bad yesterday to even attempt to get back to work on that project, so I did some other things instead. The "grass" in the patio area was getting pretty long, but I was still trying to decide on the best way to get it cut. I didn't want to use the electric mower, with its narrow deck and dull, chipped blades it doesn't handle thick grass very well. I would have had to bring the gas mower I got from Mom in through the house to get it into the patio area, and I didn't want to do that either. And there is still chicken wire under the dirt/grass in half of the patio, and it sticks up out of the ground in places. That would wreak havoc on either mower. I finally decided to use the weed wacker I brought home from Mom's when I got the lawnmower.

It did a pretty OK job, but it's not something I want to continue doing for the next 20 years. I've decided to pave the entire patio area with stepping stones, except for a flower bed at the end. I'll plant perennials there. (Chris has a perennial flower bed that's absolutely gorgeous, from the first crocus in the spring to the last mum in the fall. She's put years of work into it, I've watched it fill out gradually over the years, always wishing I could have something like that myself. When I was there Thursday, the iris were starting to bloom.) Now I've got the room and the time to make it happen; I'll put annuals in there this summer so I'll have color and blooms this year, and get started on the perennials by planting some bulbs there in the fall. I also found my Moonflower seeds at TSC on Thursday, I'll plant those along the fence at the end (maybe this afternoon) so I'll have blooms and perfume to enjoy when I sit out on the patio in the evenings.

I only have 4 plain stepping/paving stones made at the moment. While I'm out tomorrow I'll get a couple more bags of concrete mix so I can start making more. I decided I might as well get at least those 4 stones set, so I did that yesterday afternoon.

I need to adjust the stone on the right, to raise the lower left corner just a tad. That corner's a bit tricky - it's high where the threshhold blocks are set in, so I need to slope the stones down a little in that corner to meet the rest of the patio (which I'll level before placing stones in). I checked out the threshhold blocks to see if maybe I could lower them a little so they'd be flush with the patio and the yard, but they're really dug in deep and they're helping support the fence posts, so I think it's best to leave them as they are and just slope the paving stones to meet them. When the prior owners poured the cement patio slab (you can see the edge of it on the right) they didn't bother to level it first so, like all the rest of the floors in my house, the whole slab slants. In this case, it slants downward from back to front; I had to put some shims under the front legs of my glider so it would be level. I want to make sure the stone-paved area of the patio is level, so I can put a table and chairs out there eventually. I think it'll look nice when I get it done.

Then I spent some time rearranging everything in the roofed part of the patio. I took my 3 windchimes down from the end opposite the fence and moved them over to the fence end. Mama bird was off the nest but I still didn't want to do any more nail-pounding than was absolutely necessary, so I used medium screw hooks to re-hang the wind chimes. (By the way, I think mama bird is a titmouse. I got a pretty good look at her and her mate yesterday, I'll have to try to get some pics.) I left room for the big chime that I need to re-string when I get a chance to look for the pieces and get it done. I moved the bamboo shade over into that spot, and put the wider plastic mini-blind in the spot where the bamboo shade had been. At night, my neighbor's vapor light illuminates the sitting area on my patio, shines right in my eyes, and spoils the ambiance; the mini-blind completely blocks it out and the bamboo shade helps, so now I have a private little sitting area I can illuminate with luminariae and little oil lanterns. If I ever find my string of pendant star lights, I'll put those out there too. (I'm sure I bought two sets. I gave one to Chris last year for her little pool area, but I know I've still got the other set. It's probably in my box of Christmas decorations, but I'm not sure exactly where that is at the moment. I need to go out to the pole barn later and get a bigger crate for the Youngster, so I'll look for that box while I'm out there.)

It's partly sunny and cool today, it would be a great day to finish de-sodding the garden, but my muscles just aren't up to it. I think I'm going to try to get the gas mower started; I haven't had a really good look at it yet so I don't know if it's an electric start or if I have to pull a rope. If I have to pull a rope, it's going to have to wait - there's just not enough strength in my aching forearms to pull anything. If it's an electric start I should be in pretty good shape; I'll probably need to use a couple squirts of starter fluid, but I should be able to get it going. When and if I do, the front lawn is going down! That, and getting the Moonflower seeds planted, is about all I'm planning on getting accomplished today. Then I'll give Daisy a bath, and once she's dry I'll trim her. She's getting a wee bit shaggy. At least I won't have to start her schnauzer-type cut from scratch with 3" long fur all over her body, I'll be able to just zip along and it shouldn't take too long. Then she'll be clean and pretty when I take her home tomorrow.

Hordes of Hummers

2006-05-17T13:30:00.000-04:00

Well, maybe not hordes. But my hummingbird feeders are now well-established among the local Ruby-Throated hummingbird population, and they see a lot of activity. One feeder is about four feet from me as I sit here at my desk; it's just outside the window, hanging on the brace bar for the metal awning over the window. This feeder has perches - the one in the back at the end of the patio roof doesn't - so I get to see them not only hovering and flitting around, but resting on the perches while they eat. They know I'm here, they watch me between sips at the feeder, but seem not to be bothered by my presence.

On the other hand, the silly bird who made her nest just outside the sliding glass door between the den and the patio flies off every time I open the door. Because the dogs go outside through that door, it's opened many, many times a day. The nest is directly above the path the dogs take from the doorway to the yard. She seems not to mind the dogs coming and going (perhaps she knows they can't reach her), but she's afraid of me. I still haven't figured out what she is yet! She's maybe 6" long, has a white body and breast, slate- grey back, wings, and tail, and her head's a deeper charcoal grey. I can't see all of her when she's sitting on the nest, and when she flies off she doesn't perch close enough for me to get a good look at her, so I haven't seen her head/beak close enough to help in indentifying her. I'm thinking she's either a slate-grey junco, or maybe a titmouse. She's been sitting on the nest for a couple of weeks already, shouldn't be long before the eggs hatch. The nest is above the cement slab of the patio, once the eggs hatch I'm going to put up a table with towel-lined box lids on it, in case a baby falls out of the nest.

I got about 36 square feet of the sod in my vegetable-garden-to-be pulled up yesterday. A little less than a third of the space I'm planning on. I have to admit, I was grateful when it started to rain and I had to quit. I did a little weeding in the plants around the front yard trees after the rain stopped, and I planted some bush-type Morning Glory seeds in the little planter out front, but I wasn't going to mess with soaking wet sod after the rain. I just took 600mg of Ibuprofen, as soon as that kicks in and the muscles I abused yesterday don't ache quite so much, I'll get outside and remove another stretch of sod today. I need to get the front lawn cut, too. My mom doesn't need her lawnmower any more, she has someone come and cut her lawn every couple of weeks and he uses his own mower, so I brought her mower home last week. It hasn't been used in a couple of years, it's probably going to be a little tough to get started. I may just wait on that until the weekend, though, it's supposed to rain tonight, tomorrow, and into Friday morning then clear for 2-3 days. I want to get the garden ready for planting this weekend, the bean, lima bean, and watermelon seedlings need to get out of their pots and into the ground as quickly as possible.

While it was raining yesterday I made up a plan for both the raised herb bed and the vegetable garden. I've decided to plant several of the smaller perennial herbs in the raised bed - rosemary and tarragon in the center, hyssop in a border along each side. The German Chamomile, an annual, will go in front as a double border, the lavender will go along both sides and the front behind the smaller border plantings, and I'll put the dill and thyme in the back section. I've got four perennial herbs I'll be planting along the edge of the wooded areas, outside the fence - peppermint, catnip, lemon balm, and a couple of mulleins. I've got a tentative layout for the vegetables, too, with the vining plants (cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, and zucchini) and eggplant along the patio fence, the peppers across the back, the tomatoes on the side opposite the vining plants, and the carrots, lettuce, and watermelons in the middle. I'll probably plant the pumpkins outside the vegetable garden fence, in 3-4 mounds, and put down straw for them to grow on.

Along the wooded lot-line that separates me from my neighbor to the south, there's a very long patch of violets that goes from the corner of the fence back. They're beautiful. Behind the violets is a big patch of lily of the valley. There's nothing behind that, though, so that's where I'm going to scatter the Dutchman's Breeches seeds. Behind that, and across the back of the yard is where I'll plant the perennial herbs. I might plant some of those this afternoon, too.

OK, the sun is shining, I've finished the last cup of coffee in the pot, so I guess it's time to get outside and get working!

Moms, Dogs, and Cheesecake

2006-05-15T16:23:00.000-04:00

I took dinner to my mom yesterday - pot roast done in the slow-cooker, fresh asparagus, biscuits, and home-made cheese cake with fresh blueberries on top. In fact, I got started out of the house almost an hour later than I intended, because I'd made a double-recipe cheesecake (dratted Keebler with their bigger graham cracker crumb crust - a single recipe only filled the shell halfway) and it was taking forever to cook all the way through the middle. Once it was finally ready, I spooned on the sour cream/sugar/vanilla topping, popped it back into the oven for 10 minutes, then went and got everything else loaded up into the car - including a bud vase with Narcissi I'd cut from my garden:

Took the cheesecake out of the oven, waited 15 minutes for it to cool a little, then put the plastic lid onto the pan, put the pan in a cardboard box with a hinged lid, and put that in the car. Then I got a panel from an old wire dog crate, and slid that down between the back of the driver/passenger bucket seats and the folded-down back seat, to form a barrier to prevent the dog who was going to be sitting in the passenger seat (my goofy AB boy) from getting into the back of the car and messing with stuff. Loaded my big boy into the front seat, and hit the road.

I had to make a very quick stop on the way, to pick up the asparagus at a roadside stand I knew would be open. I swear, I wasn't out of the car TWO MINUTES, and that darn dog had squeezed himself over the top of the crate panel into the back of the car, had pawed/nosed the lid to the cardboard box open, managed to get the plastic lid off the cheesecake (folding the pan in the process, flipping one side of the cheesecake over onto the other) and was thisclose to getting his tongue onto the cheesecake itself. I was able to get to him before he did, but my poor beautiful cheesecake looked like a graham cracker crumb omelet. When I got to my mom's I flipped it back open and stuck it in the fridge to chill. It wasn't pretty, but it tasted good when we had it for dessert later.

We had a nice long visit, and before I left I split the leftovers, leaving my mom half of everything. Including cheesecake. I covered the pan with my share of the cheesecake with foil, put it in the box with the hinged cover (along with a few other things), put that and the slow-cooker in the back of the car, my dog into the front passenger seat, and headed for home. I had to stop at the gas station to pick up milk on my way home. Do you know that darn dog got into the back of the car and had gotten the box open by the time I got back into the car? He was going for the cheesecake again!

Next time I'm carrying food in the back of my car, I'm taking a different dog along for the ride! The big girl doesn't touch groceries, and is trustworthy when left in an unbarrier-ed car!

A brief intro before I jump in with both feet......

2006-05-15T15:58:00.000-04:00

Shortly after my 50th birthday last fall, I finally realized what I wanted to be when I grew up. I've always loved to teach, and I've always loved animals; after having some success doing dog training and cat and dog behavioral counseling on a part time basis, I've decided to see if I can make a living at it. I also want to retail healthy homemade cat and dog treats, specialty handling equipment, other cat and dog specialty items, plus herbs, herbal salves and ointments, and my cold-process soap. I bought my first house in January, a quirky little one-bedroom house "out in the country" with an acre of land and a large pole barn perfect for a small retail shop/consultation office on one side and a training center on the other.

I've been busy these last months getting moved in and settled, getting part of the yard fenced for the dogs, preparing the raised-bed herb garden and the vegetable garden for planting once the threat of frost is past, starting vegetables and flower seedlings indoors, pruning roses and cleaning up the flower beds, learning to make mosaic (and plain) stepping stones, filling existing bird feeders and adding a thistle feeder, two hummingbird feeders, a small window feeder ("cat TV"), and an oriole feeder. (I don't know whether or not I'll ever see an oriole, but I know for sure I wouldn't see one if I didn't have a feeder!) I'm continuing to teach my "household obedience" dog classes through parks and rec programs while I work on developing the clientele for my new business; I'm hoping to be able to offer a full schedule of dog classes at my facility in the fall.

And here we go...........