Day 272 - dog's not getting much fun...too hot

Here's the beef.  And potatoes and okra and fruit salad with strawberry yogurt.  I need to get a vote on the fruit salad with yogurt--I forgot to taste it.

Day 270 - dogs hate maintenance

Got the dog claws cut.  And Callie's computer is at the repair shop.  She has a new desktop unit, so she's able to function without the laptop.

I'll post a picture of my Boeuf Bourguignon tomorrow--after I've tasted it.  I don't want to brag about something that might taste one cut below Dinty Moore.

106 degrees today.

Day 268 - tomorrow is claw cutting day

My lovely little cart.  I won't be able to play with it tomorrow--got to get Callie's computer fixed.  And cut dog claws and start the take a treat from my hand lesson.

Day 267 - finicky eaters and stupid human tricks

Clouds and lightning--I can see it.  But according to the radar, there's a real good chance it's going to bypass us to the north and south.

Izzy ate very little breakfast and only the top part of her supper.  Drat her.  I have the choice of throwing some chicken broth at it or throwing it away.

Day 266 - dog's quiet but my stomach ain't

The rest of my cooking from Sunday--and with any luck, I'm having it for supper tonight!  My 180 calorie frozen lunch just didn't fit the bill.

Day 265 - hundred day goals

In a hundred days it will be one year.  I have to have taught this little dog more than go out the door, come in the door, walk on a leash, and play hide-and-seek.  Come would be nice.  Sit would be awesome.  But the absolute next trick needs to be: take a treat from my hand.  We'll start tomorrow.

My Sunday creation--Dr. Bruce's Awesome Grilled Salmon, Shrimp Fried Rice, and broccoli from my garden.

Day 263 - dogs don't see things that don't move

Blankety blank blink!  We headed out for our walk today and nearly stepped on a big snake in the driveway.  And where was my camera?

By the time we'd gone back to fetch it, he was gone.

I dealt with another small avalanche of tomatoes today and then piled my big aluminum bowl full with the rest and put them in the refrigerator.  I'll be sorry tomorrow.

The tomato harvest is very nearly over, anyway.  I have one plate full on the counter and maybe another ten tomatoes on the vine.

Day 262 - nosy the dog

Mowed around the garden today.  Sigh.  Also opened a few boxes and did a couple of loads of laundry.  The real agenda for the day was helping Callie with her room.  We got a start--a late start and a slow one.  But a start.

Izzy played hide and sort-of seek with me today.  Her version of the game is more like sneak up and run away.

Day 261 - demon kitty

Great.  She finally came to see me at my table--she used to come frequently but she'd stopped for a long time.  And what happens?

The stupid cat spatted her.

Talk about your negative feedback.

Day 260 - dog be curiouser

When I get home and don't immediately take them for a walk, Izzy sneaks into the bedroom to see what I'm up to.  I hated to explain to her that I was getting dressed for jogging--and she couldn't come.

Later, when the weather cools down, I'll start taking her.  Right now it's good that they all three get to go together...even though it drives me crazy with the amount of "smell" and "mark" breaks we have to make.

Picture from the posponed July 4th festival--

Day 259 - happy dogs

Doggies were so happy to see me!  But now we're back in the same old routine--breakfast, work, walk, supper, outside, bah!

We got to get out of the rut.

Day 253 - dogs going to boarding school. Again.

Off to the Ark and I don't mean the Anomaly Research Centre.  Wish it were.  Postings will be slim for the next few days.

Day 252 - walks are fun, finally

So now I find out there's a strong chance that after I feed her in the morning, Werewolf sneaks over and steals all her food!

Maybe...maybe not.  Now that I'm adding the yogurt, when I leave I always see her standing over or sitting right at the bowl.  Odds are she's getting a part of it.

New rule:  don't feed Werewolf and Zack until one second before I walk out the door.  That will give her a fighting chance.

She's an active participant in our walks now.  Which makes it even harder--now we have to stop for three different smell-opts instead of two.  But I don't have the heart to deny her.

Day 251 - dog eating...slowly

The doctored dog food is sort-of doing the job.  She's getting really good at digging out the pieces that touched the flavoring.  But she's still leaving the rest.

I feel kind of hypocritical for encouraging an lovely, skinny dog to eat more than she seems to want...it's not like she's anorexic or something.  She's just a slow eater.

I bet she needs more exercise--it's a real shame my back yard is about half the size it used to be, dang it.  Talk about the stupidest things I ever did....

Day 249 giving up on dry dog food

As I said, Izzy's nighttime dog food is getting a light drizzle of broth.  Her morning food is getting a well-mixed spoonful of yogurt.  I'm tired of her looking like a dog pound refuge!

It's funny how the world turns.  In the move Julie and Julia, Julie concludes her story by saying that Julia taught her, most importantly, how to cook.

I had my own cooking conversion with Harriet Hands and her More Taste Than Money cookbook.  Harriet taught me neither how to cook nor what to cook, but why to cook.  My mother cooked every day, out of necessity--her hard work kept us healthy and nourished when we couldn't afford packaged dinners or carry-out.  And even if we could have afforded them, in those days packaged dinners and carry-out were low in protein, high in sugar and salt, and never featured fresh, nutritious vegetables.  Face it--McDonalds didn't used to have grilled chicken salads and maple nut oatmeal.  And have you ever looked at the nutritional composition of a Hungry Man TV dinner?

Now, with plenty of money and all sorts of options in the frozen food section, I don't have to cook to ensure my family has a decent meal.  When the kids were little, frozen chicken nuggets and steamed vegetables were the staples of our diet.  We cooked some, too, things that were fast and friendly and pretty decent nutritionally.  But now I could fill up my grocery cart with Stouffer's lasagne; Tai Pei instant stir fry; grilled fish and sauced vegetables.  The carryout options are endless and we can even afford to dine-in if we could just find the time.

So why do I feel a yearning to cook?

I think it was Harriet.  She's the one who showed me that for pennies more than my mother's menus--pork chops, fried potatoes, and cream-style corn--I could be making Oysters Johnny Reb, Chicken Pie, Mushroom cream omelet and Bean Sprout Melange.   Her recipes weren't fancy but they were always good and came from simple ingredients.  Flour and butter and sugar; not cake mix and instant pudding.  Garlic and onion and fresh lemon juice squeezed out of a lemon.  Her food didn't come in a box with cooking instructions.


Cooking at home, from scratch, was a necessity in my parent's generation and a luxury in mine.  What will it be in the next generation?

Day 248 - no dog-snake encounter, whew.

Copperhead by the outside faucet.  I didn't think to take a picture of it, but copperheads are so common around here I didn't think it anything out the usual.  It has been relocated to a new habitat.

I wasn't even surprised.  For some reason we've been having a plague of frogs in and around the faucet, probably because of the slow leak whenever it's turned on.  The ground is always a little damp there.

Here's a treat--I haven't been cooking so I haven't had any yummy pictures of delectables to post.   But here you go--cobbler from peaches fresh off our own tree.

Day 247 - another baby step maybe

Izzy went Number 1 on the leash today.  Well...not ON the leash...but you know what I mean.  I think that's another step of progress.

I've decided to give up on hoping she'll put on a little weight without encouragement, so I put low-sodium beef broth on the grocery list.  I'll dose her morning food lightly with beef broth and her evening food lightly with yogurt.  I want her to stay thin and healthy, but she's just too thin.  Come winter she's going to need a little fat and a good, thick undercoat of fur.

Mother Nature turned on me today and attacked me with A Swarm Of Wasps.  Good book title, don't you think?  My thumb still hurts.

Day 246 - boomday not birthday

We should celebrate Izzy's birthday on Independence Day, symbolic of her day of liberation--the day when she got free of that dingy cage; acquired a family, a big brother and a little brother; a home of her own and a pretty big backyard with plenty of toys and treats.  Let's see...if we got her on October 26, 2011 and they said she way 18 months old at the time.  So she was born on...April 26, 2010.  So she needs to have a birthday in April--bummer.

She was all over the bedroom this morning, trying to play with Zack.  I hope he'll eventually learn to play with her.  He plays with Werewolf, why not her?

There won't be a lot of fun for the next three months.  Summer.

Day 244 - no news

I haven't seen gold kitty since Zack chased him away, so I couldn't get a picture.  Instead, here are pictures of the rest of the family.

Werewolf watching for bees

Zack on a bad hair day

Day 243 - waiting for weather

Waiting for it to quit raining so I can turn the sprinker on....

Zack chased gold kitty up the pecan tree today.  See, Zack isn't really aggressive to cats, he just thinks they're interesting.  He got a claw in the face and backed off, then he kept trying to get closer and closer, to sniff--and the cat kept getting lower and lower on the ground.  Finally I went inside to get the camera.  Before the door closed I heard a yelp!  And when I returned, the cat was up the tree.  Photo op over.

The gold kitty is a stray who comes around daily so I've started giving him food out in the garden.  Winston doesn't go outside much anymore--probably because of the stranger cat smell.  But I'm okay with that.  Winston is old and doesn't need to be going outside.