Month: July 2012 (Page 1 of 3)

 # 10: Dende can actually follow a trail with his nose. And he can bark at the same time.

 #9: Sherlock likes to snuggle, but Dende tires of that very quickly.

 #8: Sherlock can eat quickly if he wants, but Dende absolutely inhales his food without hardly bothering to chew.

 #7: Sherlock wants to play with Dende, but Dende isn’t that interested in play.

 #6: Dende yodels and howls and makes all sorts of different noises to express himself. Sherlock simply barks.

 #5: Dende loves raw vegetables. And cooked vegetables. Particularly green beans.

 #4: Dende has sitting up and begging down to a science. Here he scores on cuteness!

 #3: Dende cannot walk by any previous source of food without checking it out to see if something was overlooked.

 #2: Dende actually attacks the vacuum cleaner. Not sure what causes that behavior, but he is pretty intense about tearing its “head” off.

 #1: Dende understands the importance of utmost concentration at all meal and snack times. His attention is constantly glued to the mouths of anyone consuming anything, on the off chance that some of whatever it is may find its way to the floor at his feet, where he will instantly make it his! Yum, yum!

Pretty hot today. Plus I got the July electric bill. I did not turn on the AC today. Pretty expensive, this keeping cool. I’ll save it for “emergencies.”

Put zucchini on pizza tonight. Thought I’d try it. Don’t. It tasted great, but as it cooked, it released juices, which made the whole pizza a little soggy. Not the way a pizza should be.

Picking beans one day and blackberries the next. Getting great crops of both, so am slowly filling the freezer. Here are a couple blackberry pictures. One of the individual quick frozen ones and one of the freezer jam.

This probably looks like a “before” picture, but it is actually after we’ve done quite a lot of work, removing what was already there and shoring up the room a lot. The second picture shows all the work that was done on that one wall, bringing things out to an even depth for hanging sheetrock. We also did more wiring for the room. Sheetrock and plumbing next!

Another exciting day of protecting the house while I was at work! This afternoon we spent a little time outside in the yard, because it wasn’t so hot.

The boys are behaving quite well. I was at work a little longer today and they were fine when I got home. Dende was ready for a snack, but that was all!  Here I had told them to sit, but Sherlock was trying some one-up-man-ship by going to a down without being told!

Today, Dende helped make blackberry jam (he likes blackberries – almost got into a fight with Sherlock over one that had fallen), make bread, make rhubarb sauce, and then clean up the kitchen. He had a good night last night, never waking up once! He and Sherlock are not the young pups they once were, so they don’t do any of that chasing around and wrestling we remember. They just lie around the house, both of them!

I only rode my cycle to work twice this week because I had other things to do that required the car. And, believe it or not, I had to ride home in the rain BOTH days. It isn’t just getting wet – that I could handle on the way home, since I’m going to change clothes anyway. But it is the rain in the eyes that is troublesome. Even wearing glasses, the rain gets in my eyes, making it hard to see. Then there is the matter of rain drops traveling at 25 or 30 mph when they hit your face. They are a bit more painful when they are traveling at that speed! And cold. Even this time of year being wet and having the wind and rain going by you at that speed cools you off quite a lot.  Hopefully I have the rainy riding done for a while!

We had the first beans out of our garden for supper last night and I’ll tell you – they were very good! We only had a few, because they are just starting and I am really looking forward to the next picking.

I was scheduled to play for a funeral up at my church today at 11:00, meeting with the soloist at 10:30. So I got to thinking, “What would happen if I forgot?” Well, I almost got to find out. I remembered when I got ready and I packed my change of clothes. I remembered when I was teaching tai chi and weight class. Then when coming out of weight class I saw a different group in the lounge than I usually see and realized I’d forgotten the board meeting starting in 2 minutes. I quick got my banana and scratch paper and headed to the meeting. It wasn’t until after the meeting as I was heading for my office that I remembered the funeral at 11:00. I looked at my watch, in horror, to see that it was almost 10 minutes to 11. AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! I ran in and grabbed my dress and ran to the bathroom to change and back to the office and hollered for the receptionist to call the church and say I was on my way. Miraculously I made it there by 3 minutes after and the funeral only started about 5 minutes late, but with no prelude and with me so frazzled that I started the first song’s introduction on totally the wrong notes on the piano. But I regrouped and finished that and it went fine, particularly since we hadn’t rehearsed AT ALL. Then when it was time for my first hymn, I’d forgotten to set the organ to the correct setting and I tried to do that while playing and it didn’t work, so the organ was too soft and the congregation kept dragging and dragging and I couldn’t do anything about it. But I figured it’s a funeral, so it’s okay if songs are slow. By the last song I had my wits about me and did a fine job on “Amazing Grace.” Then I played “It is Well” as the prelude and one lady even leaned over as she passed and said it was “just beautiful.” I apologized afterwards to the funeral director and he said it was no big deal – he’d even warned the vocalist that he might have to sing acappella. At least it was a fairly small funeral, because the woman was 98 when she died and people that age tend to not have many friends left. (one disadvantage of living to a very old age!) Anyway, I guess it could have been worse – I could have remembered sometime after 11:00, when I could have done nothing about it. I could have gotten picked up for speeding to Cameron, but I ended up behind a car going just a tad over the speed limit, so I couldn’t really pass, but I couldn’t really speed much either. I could have had people mad at me, but they didn’t really seem to be. I guess the prelude is mostly important to me. And to top it all off, this funeral home pays 50% more than the usual one, so I got more pay than I expected.

Does anyone know what these are? They are growing amidst the roses.

I came up with this yesterday and just tried the first one and it is quite good. I’m not sure it would be economical if you didn’t grow your own strawberries and rhubarb, though.

frozen rhubarb sauce

strawberries

water

Soften the rhubarb and strawberries (in roughly equal parts) and put in blender. Add a little water so it will blend and blend it until smooth. Pour paper cups about 1/2 full and stick a plastic spoon, fork, or knife in as a handle. Put in a pan and put in the freezer to freeze. Very good, almost all fruit, and only the sugar that was added to make the rhubarb sauce.