Christmas

First my flight was canceled. Just about all flights out of pdx were canceled for three days! Then we had to take the hop, skip and a jump to Kansas. On Christmas eve, we went from Portland, to Oakland Ca (but we didn't have to change planes), then to Los Angeles (still on the same plane) and then to KC Mo. The flight was delayed and we got into MCI at 2AM on Christmas morning. I am sure we passed Santa in his sleigh!

Then, we changed our flight to come home by three days so our trip wasn't shortened in length. Then I got sick. Sigh. But, we still had a great time with my family! My mom's sisters were able to join us this year. I have not had the opportunity to hang out with my aunt's (and my Uncle Ed) for many, many years. Not since I have been considered an adult. We had the best time! Here is a picture of the entire family.

Tigger Too CD TD FCh SC - 01/31/94 to 12/13/08

Just about every kid has an imaginary friend at some point while growing up and I was no exception. However, mine was not your typical imaginary friend. Mine was a dog called Androcles. More specifically, he was a Doberman Pinscher, tall and elegant, black with tan points. He was the shadow at my side and was there for me through some really rough spots growing up. Eventually, I grew out of Androcles but I could never shake the feeling of having that slim shadow at my side.

Eventually, as I was struggling with some tough decisions during graduate school, I decided to get a dog. I brought home a bony, red brindle, 6 month-old greyhound puppy. He was bouncy and exuberant so I called him Tigger.

Looking back on it now, he was my Androcles brought to life. He was tall and slim and a constant shadow at my side. He was there for me through some really rough times and some really joyful times and was a constant that I could always count on.

Tigger was my first dog and my door to so many things. We discovered lure coursing together and the friendship and thrills that it entails. We stepped into the obedience ring and earned an obedience title. Though many folks tried to judge him based on his breed, he was steadfast and loyal and came through for me. We tried out agility and spent time tracking in the cold Kansas winters.

Truthfully, Tigger was a pivotal influence on my life. If not for him, I would not have been working at Fort Riley and would not have met Richard, my husband. I would not have had Winnie or Devo grace my life. The lessons I learned while training Tigger benefited those that came after him and will impact every dog that passes through my home in the years to come. I would not have had the opportunity to move overseas and would not have ended up in Oregon. Consequently, without Tigger, I would not have the friends that I do and would not be the person I am. Sounds a little crazy but looking back, I can draw you a map and show you where all the lines intersect. That point of intersection is the day I brought Tigger home.

For an unregistered pup out of cast off parents, he was a remarkable hound. I believe that every dog has a lesson to teach us. Tigger’s lesson was loyalty. He was a source of stability when the rest of the world was falling to pieces. He was a reason to get of bed in the morning and a reason to come home at night. When I brought other hounds into my life, I thought they would be there to help me when I lost Tigger. Instead, my loyal and steadfast Tigger stood by me when I had to let the others go ahead. These last few years his body grew old and was riddled with arthritis. He was bony and thin. He couldn’t chase his Frisbee anymore although he would carry it around the yard with a grin on his face. He never lost his joy and truly lived up to his name. Eventually, I realized that with his loyal nature he would not leave me. I had to make the decision for him when it was time to go. He went happily into the vet clinic and greeted those that he knew. He laid on his bed with his head on my lap and with my permission, trotted on ahead of me to the clearing around the bend. After 14 and a half years with this magnificent gentleman by my side, it felt odd to walk out to my truck with an empty leash and collar in my hands.

It still feels odd. However, as in my childhood, I can’t shake the feeling constant feeling that there is a slim, elegant dog walking at my side.

Thank you, Tigger, for the many, many years of companionship and support. Good bye my Heart.

Tracking

This morning I went tracking with a friend. I am handling one of her dogs, a harrier named Lola. This is me and Lola. She is a tracking fiend!














My friend brought along her beagle that she is tracking with. This is Nika's second time in harness. She's a natural!















And this is Shine. We did two left turns on her 30 minute old track. Shine really had to check them out. She indicated the turn right away but then broke off to circle and make sure. Each time she circled, she indicated the correct track. She just wanted to make very sure that it was correct! She did much better on the second turn. I don't mind having a dog that breaks off and circles at the corner. But I think she will do it less and less and she gains confidence.

Tracking test

This is the weekend of my club's tracking test. We had three dogs earn their TD this weekend! It was a beautiful day for it! The fog that made it difficult for us track layers to see our flags and landmarks also held the scent close to the track. Here are pictures of the passing teams with the track layers and judges.

I think my cub does an excellent job at our tracking tests! Great judges, great conditions, great camaraderie and excellent food! I took an apple cake and an apple crisp and it all disappeared!

Introducing Ember

This is my cat Ember.

I adopted her from the local humane society about 5 years ago. When I was visiting the shelter to pick out a cat, I specifically looked for a cat that had a lot of confidence. In the end, I narrowed it down to two: Ember, who was called Duchess at the time, and a younger male named Bearclaw. I decided to take Ember because she was already 5 years old and I figured less adoptable than the younger cat.

When I brought her home, I had to integrate her into a household with three sight hounds. Fortunately, the canine crew had all lived among cats at one time in their lives. However, it had been 4 years since they had any sort of civil interactions with cats and they had, in fact, been chasing cats for the last 4 years.


I kept Ember in a cat cage behind an X-pen for the first couple weeks. I gave her the run of the place when I wasn't home and left the dogs locked up. When I was home, I had one dog at a time out with her while she was behind her safety barriers. Any barking, lunging, staring or pacing earned the dog a prize (a free trip outside alone for a few minutes, a horrible fate for any hound). I moved to letting Ember choose to come out of her cage while one dog was in the room. The same rules for the dogs applied. Eventually, I realized that I had gotten very lucky with Ember. She was very good at interpreting the situation and responded accordingly. I was quickly able to move up to having two dogs out with her and then all three.

To be honest, Tigger was never a problem. Once he was reminded that this was "our" kitty he treated it as such. He has always had impeccable manners around smaller critters in the house.

The other two took a tad longer but eventually complied. It helped that Ember was willing to punish investigating noses with a well placed paw and occasionally, a claw.


Ember has shown herself to be a good judge of the character of visiting dogs too. She also discovered the dog door and how to use it. I used to really worry about it but noticed that she rarely left my back yard and then only to prowl in the neighbors back yard.

She is a very friendly cat with a lot of character. I clicker train her along side the dogs and often put her in the sit stay line up for kicks. Recently I discovered that she thinks Salami is the primo cat treat!

She is also very photogenic and is always dressed in fall colors!

Fall Dog Photos

I took this picture of our canine crew during the fall of my first year in Oregon. This is Winnie, Devo and Tigger. Tigger is the oldest one in this picture and he is the only one from this cohort that is still with me.
I was very please with how well this picture turned out and I tried to take some similar fall pictures of the critters this afternoon. The light was beautiful and the leaves were thick. I got some nice pictures of the cat and I will post them separately. Here a few I took of Tigger and Shine. I didn't pose them together since Tigger is either up and moving or laying down.








Here is Shine. Perhaps I shouldn't have played ball with her first? But it was such a beautiful day! Big tongue=happy dog!














And here is Tigger. It is hard to get a good picture of him but I like the way this one turned out!

I went down to California the weekend before last for the Northern California Greyhound Club's fall specialty. I had a blast! The best part is always hanging out with my friends but I also really enjoy checking in with my puppy. What puppy? Well, this requires a back story so bear with me here.

This is my Winnie. I lost her in May of 2007 and I still miss her every day. Her breeder, Helen, is someone that I did not know before I got her. I am grateful that Helen was willing to send a puppy to me in Kansas from California having never met me before. Fortunately, since then, Helen has become one of my best friends.

Winnie was a show dog. We did conformation, agility, tracking, obedience and lure coursing. We had a lot of fun together. Although, it wasn't the original plan, Winnie did produce this little muffin before we lost her.




Helen sent some of these old photos to me today and they are so cute, I had to share! It is hard to believe how fast she grew. I remember when this little girl was the size of my hand, she was a little bean bag. Now she is big and she is rambunctious and she has Winnie's personality times ten!

When she was this little, we called her Panda. It took some time for Helen to decide on a proper name. Eventually she settled on Whisper.

I'll share a few more super cute photos and then show you what Whisper is like today.















This is Winnie and her brother and sister taken in 2006. Her brother, Apollo (in the middle), still lives with Helen but we lost her sister, Spirit, earlier last year.


Let me show you what Whisper is like now.



Not quite as small now, is she?

But the best view of what she is like can be seen on this video on YouTube. Click here to go to that page.

Whisper has a lot of drive and a lot of desire to work. She and Helen have worked hard and have developed into a good team. It's a pleasure to watch them work in the agility and obedience rings. Although, I must admit, I just enjoy hanging out with the Whisp and enjoying her zest for life!

My Heart

This is my old man, my heart and soul. I got Tigger when he was 6 months old. He has been with me for over 14 years. I remember looking at his cute little face wen I was bringing him home and thinking that this was the face I was going to see every day for the next ten years. I never imagined that I would have him this long. We have had a quite a journey together and he has seen me through many hardships and challenges. He has never left my side. I think that every dog has a lesson to teach and his is loyalty. He has outlived all expectations. The greyhound lifespan is typically 10-12 years. Yet here he is.

He had a ciliary body adenoma in his right eye about four years ago. We took the eye out when the tumor started to cause him discomfort. He was already blind in that eye from the tumor so it wasn't a big deal. But it did take some time to get used to his permanent wink.

This is a picture of him with his favorite toy, his Ty ball. He still loves to come "running" into the living room to attack it. He also likes to use it for a pillow.


Other than that, he has had very few health problems. He does have arthritis and is getting pretty crippled in the rear. He has lost most of his muscle mass. I took him for a walk around the block tonight and some folks in their yard stopped what they were doing and watched us walk past. I wonder, did they think I was starving him? Did they think that there was something wrong with him? Or, did they recognize that a grand old gentleman was passing and did he perhaps remind them of some other grand older dog that had graced their lives?



For his age, he looks great! He is alert and curious. He still likes to carry his frisbee around the yard, I just don't throw it anymore. He still wants to be trained. I sometimes send him through the jump uprights with the bars down and then tell him what a great dog he is. He will come to heel, I just don't expect him to sit. He does his nose touches and grins whenever he hears the clicker. He makes me smile every day.

Trouble comes to visit

Our friends Trouble and Emily came to visit. We canned some tomatoes and played with the dogs and talked and talked. It was a great visit! Trouble and Shine didn't become bosom buddies but they learned to tolerate each other.



Despite his name and reputation, Trouble turned out to be a wonderful guest. He and Emily are welcome back any time!

A man and his chainsaw

It isn't uncommon for me to me to come home and find my driveway blocked. Blocked by 30 or cubic yards of wood that was diverted from the landfill and brought to my house instead. Other times, it is blocked by a few very large pieces of tree trunks. Richard makes short work of them with his chainsaw. You might think that the neighbors would complain. But, they don't. They know that a neighbor who knows how to use a chainsaw comes in handy!

So here is Richard hard at work making big logs into little ones. This wood will keep us warm and toasty this winter!

Canning Tomatoes

I thought I would share some pictures of the canning process.

First we wash and then blanch the tomatoes. We put them in very hot water for about 30 seconds.


When they come out of the hot water, we put them in some ice cold water to cool them enough that we can handle them. You can see here that the hot and cold water treatment causes the skins to split.

Here is a close up of the split skin on a Cherokee Purple. At this point, we take the skin off the tomato.


This is a skinned tomato. We put these in jars. As we shove these into the hot jars (they have been a hot water bath of their own to this point) they produce enough liquid to fill in the spaces between the tomatoes.


They can be processes in a boiling water bath or in a pressure cooker. We added some lemon juice per the USDA recommendations to increase the acidity.

When they are done, they look like this:




Of course, we did all this on the woodstove too!

Saving tomatoes

It started to rain so I ran out and picked every tomato that had started to ripen. I brought them into the house for safe keeping. It will take some time to get through these!

Extras? We don't have any extras!

Last week, I was talking to a coworker about my garden. She asked me how many tomato plants I have. I answered truthfully, "about 40". She replied, "Wow! Well, if you have any extras I can take some off your hands!"

Does this look like I might have some extra?

I'm not saying that I am offended or anything but I do find a large chasm existing between folks like me and the general public. I mean, if I am going to plant 40 tomato plants, I must have a reason, right? Why would someone like me, with a family of two plant that many tomatoes unless I have a plan for them? It would be just crazy otherwise! I realize that most folks buy a couple starts and maybe get a tad carried away and plant several and then have extras to share. Not us, we planted 40 so that we could dry and can. Gardening is a more than a hobby, it is a little bit about self-sufficiency a little bit about independence and a little bit about really, really good food. Asking me for a tomato is akin to asking me for $5.

With that being said, I am not completely heartless. I am selfish with our garden goods but I do occasionally have it in my heart to give one or two to a friend. I always ask them not to tell anybody, though.

Happy Slappy

We have a guest staying with us this week. Slappy belongs to a good friend. When my friend, Julie, and her husband decided to take advantage of the last week of summer before school starts at the university, they asked me to watch Slappy. Of course, I said yes! They have watched Tigger for me a couple of times so I was happy to return the favor. This is Slappy.
She is very sweet and quite sensitive. She would like to chase the cat but is willing to lay off when I ask. She is happy and playful and pretty laid back. She and Shine are doing well with other as long (as they ignore each other). Having Slappy here has been fun and I have enjoyed getting to know her.

Drying Tomatoes

These are the tomatoes that are drying. It turns out, that the steam from the dehydrating device on the wood stove wasn't able to adequately vent from the room. So, the tomatoes had a hard time drying. We aborted the attempt and I used the electric dehydrator. I hooked it up to the Kill-a-watt and discovered the process only uses 4.25 Kwh of electricity. So, it costs less than a quarter to make a quart of dehydrated tomatoes. Richard has a great plan for making a ventilation system for the dehydrator. However, we decided that the cost-benefit isn't as big as we thought it would be. So, we will use the electric dehydrator for now.

Sun-dried tomatoes

Well, maybe not sun-dried but it's the next best thing. The smallish tomatoes are starting to ripen in large enough numbers that my pockets are no longer big enough. I finally collected enough that I could feasibly dry a batch. I love drying tomatoes! My friend Helen recommended it to me one year and I am forever grateful! So much so that I give her some every year.

Normally, I would dry them in my food dehydrator. However, a couple years ago, Richard's grandmother gave us the dehydrator that her family used to use when she was growing up. You know, back in the 20's and 30's. It is very, very cool. How to describe it? It is large and square with a flat top and reservoir on the bottom for water. Richard's grandpa had thought it was an oil drip pan for a car. I am not doing it justice so look at the pictures to get a better idea. The brilliance of it revolves around the fact the water boils at 100 degrees celsius. Therefore, water can never be hotter than 100 (unless it is contaminated with certain other chemicals but we won't get into that right now). Anyway, when fruit or veggies and what not is put on the top of the pan, it won't burn like it does if you try and put it on top of the woodstove on a cookie cooling rack (don't ask me how I know).

When we first got it, we brought it home and immediately and wide-eyed put it on the wood stove we use to heat the house. The first lesson we learned is one I should have known. Boiling water takes up more room than still water so it's best not to fill the resevoir to the top. Once we got that straightened out we noticed the condensation on the walls. Hmmm, that much steam inside the house had to go somewhere. So, we sighed and put up our nifty device and I went back to the electric dehydrator.

Fast forward to now and the recent installation of a wood cook stove on the back porch. With the fall bounty I hauled this evening we realized that now was the time to try again. So, the wood cook stove is sitting out on the porch chugging away with the food dehydrator sending up a line of steam. The tomatoes are starting to get dry. The problem now is that I want to go to bed but I hate to halt the process and have the partially dried but still warm and moist tomatoes hang out all day tomorrow until we get home and can tend the stove again.

I'll post an update when the tomatoes are dry and show you how they look!

Labor Day Weekend at Rokki's

I have one cousin that lives near me. That's pretty much it for my family. So it is a really good thing that we adore my cousin! It is equally great that we also adore her family. Rokki and her husband and kids live about 4 hours away on 0ne of the Peninsulas in Washington. It's a beautiful area and their house is on a dead end road surrounded by scenery and peace and quiet (at least compared to where we live!).

The one person that I trust to dog sit for Shine was out of town herself for the weekend so we had to bring Shine with us. Tigger does not like to travel so we had a neighbor come over and watch him for us.

I was nervous about bringing Shine because she has some issues with dogs she does not know. Rokki has two dogs. One older lab, Jack, that is pretty much benign and a young English Shepherd, Indy, that is pretty energetic. I was concerned that Indy would be too forward and I would have to segregate Shine the entire weekend. I thought it would not be very much fun.

After careful introductions and much micro management, the dogs developed an uneasy truce. They could hang out together and would ignore each other as long as things were quiet. From there, the situation progressed to outright tolerance by all three dogs. Eventually, though, Shine and Indy developed a comfortable and downright friendship. They not only hung out together, they played! They wrestled and tussled and kept us entertained for hours! Because Shine was able to work through her issues, she got to hang out at the campfire, relax in front of a movie, repose in the dining room and literally be one of the family the entire weekend! I was very proud of her and very happy that we were all able to enjoy our weekend. On Saturday night, she did not want to stop "doing stuff" but when we went into our room to go to bed, she went straight to her bed, curled into a ball and fell asleep. Come morning, she couldn't wait to get outside to play with Indy some more! She slept very well on the way home and sacked out when we got there.

In addition, we had a good time with family. Richard helped with a project. They wanted some storage space in their garage so Richard and Kevin (Rokki's husband) built a mid floor in the garage.













I made cheese with the girls Catherine, Brittany, and Uda. We ate a lot of good food while we were there. That's what it's all about!


On Saturday night, Kevin fired up the smoker and cooked up an assortment of food. They invited some friends over and we all ate too much food and then sat around the fire and had S'Mores. It was Uda's first time eating S'Mores.


These are the requisite pictures taken on the front step as we were getting ready to leave.