Meet Chance

This is Chance, a yellow lab pup that my sister in Ontario is 'puppy walking'.  Chance will be living with my sister and her family for 12-18 months, before he goes on for more advanced guide dog training.  It is her job to teach Chance the basics and to expose him to as many people, places and experiences as she can.

I tried to convince her to start a blog to chart Chance's training, but I'm afraid that fell on deaf ears:(

If you are interested in sponsoring Cathy and Chance in a fundraising walk, click this link
Canadian Guide Dogs For The Blind Walk 2011
Let's get Cathy a t-shirt:)
Oh, and there is an American connection.  Chance and his littermates were born in the U.S.

“DOLLARS FOR DOGS”

 FUNDRAISING WALK

SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2011

Andrew Haydon Park3169 Carling Avenue
Ottawa, Ontario

Registration 9:30am
Walk starts 10:30am

You can assist Canadian Guide Dogs for the Blind by obtaining pledges and participating in the Dollars for Dogs Fundraising Walk.

Bring your friends, family and as many dogs as possible! Please leash and clean up after your dogs and enjoy a walk in beautiful Andrew Haydon Park.

If you don't have a dog, you can still come and walk with us!

To register and create your own personal fundraising page through which your family & friends can sponsor you, please click the "Sign Up" button on the top left.

BONUSRaise or donate $100 or higher and receive a free CGDB T-shirt
$500 or more gets a t-shirt, plus a CGDB briefcase
$1,000 or more gets a t-shirt and a $100 gift card from a major
retailer

RETURNING PARTICIPANTS:
Sign-in to fundraise and review results

SUPPORTERS, you can:
1. Sponsor an Individual
2. Make a direct donation to Canadian Guide Dogs For The Blind

LIVE OUTSIDE OF THE OTTAWA AREA BUT STILL WANT TO HELP?

You don’t have to live in Ottawa to participate in the Dollars for Dogs Fundraising Walk.  Register for the walk and no matter where you live, you can participate.  Simply obtain sponsors on this site.  Then on Sunday, May 29, 2011, walk 4-km in your own community.  You can choose your own regular, safe, scenic route.  Have your friends join you, or do it on your own.  Anyone can walk the 4-km with or without a dog.  Register for the Dollars for Dogs Fundraising Walk, obtain sponsors, walk in your own community, and support Canadian Guide Dogs for the Blind.

Canadian Guide Dogs for the Blind provides professionally trained guide dogs to the visually impaired across Canada, and now everyone in Canada can give back on this very special day, Dollars for Dogs Fundraising Walk, Sunday, May 29, 2011.  

The Best Part of Their Tuesday

They being Calli, Jake and Luna of course.  Our default walk if it's a nice day and we want to go somewhere off-leash is to drive down to the dyke.  After all it's only 6 or 7 minutes away, and that's enough when you have dogs whining in your ears.

When we got down there the first thing Calli did was to stand right on the edge of the bank above the creek and chew on some nice fresh grass.  The dogs seem to prefer that wide bladed stuff that ends up growing about five feet tall.  She managed to not fall in or cause any of the bank, which is undercut in some places, to collapse.  I've never seen a dog enjoy munching on grass the way Calli does.  We used to joke that she was part moose.  She would stand in the shallows of the creek and chew on the grass growing along the edge.

Jake, while enjoys the occasional chew, is more concerned about getting to what he thinks might be a suitable spot for his favourite thing

Which of course was playing fetch. 

 I was actually 'on the ball' and had remembered to take some balls with us this time, but then was reminded that I'd rather have something thinner so they don't have their mouths open so far.  I figure that makes for less chance of sucking some water into the lungs as they're swimming.  In a pinch a stick works just fine in the water, but we can't always find one.  Or if we do find one, it is so water laden that it just sinks.

I don't really like throwing a stick on land...too much chance of the stick taking a bounce and jamming itself down the dogs throat or into an eye.

I've heard all the horror stories:(

But, sometimes we do end up throwing a stick.  My solution to that is to fool the dog into thinking the stick is going one way, and then throwing it the other.  That way by the time the dog gets to the stick, it has already landed and has stopped moving.  I know, still room for injury, but the chances are less.

Larry threw a ball for Calli over to the sand on the other side (just by Larry's head)

Calli couldn't be bothered about the ball though.  When she goes to the 'beach', it's all about a rock and some sand and digging holes.  We eventually had to get Jake to go and bring her ball back.

Luna is enthusiastic about the swimming to a point, but the water is cold and she isn't as obsessed about the retrieving as Jake.  Eventually she starts hesitating on going to fetch the ball, which usually happens when we've made a particularly long throw.  So then that involves a lot of throwing rocks at the ball to get her to look at it and eventually take the plunge.

Jake doesn't have the sense to stop, he'd probably retrieve until he dropped from exhaustion.  

And we ran into Donna and Breeze again.  This isn't a good picture of Breeze, as I was looking downhill at her.  She is a tall lab, not a spare ounce of fat, and in excellent physical shape. A fantastic ball retriever and potential dock dog.  A pretty darn good agility dog too:)

Calli carried her rock all the way back home with her, drool and all.

Minimal Monday

Blissful bone chewing

Beautiful daffodil

Bad hair day?

Blue something or others...I'm sure someone will tell me ...Far Side?

Blessed, blasted, dandelions.  The first one!

Blue grape hyacinth

Finding Phineas

Got an email yesterday from people I know, regarding a missing border collie.  Phin had come up from Portland to a foster home in Mission (about half an hour from us).  When they got him home and were getting him out of the car, he got scared and since the leash wasn't on him yet, he had a chance to bolt, and he did.  It was 7 in the evening.  The foster parents searched until dark and beyond but no luck.

Photos from PNW border collie rescue site.

I know that sickening feeling when a dog has gone missing.  It has happened to me twice, but thankfully with a good ending.  I said I was willing to come over and help them this morning.  Jake and I got there about 8am.  Since Phin is nervous with strangers, I thought walking around with a dog might be a good idea.  'M' and 'S' had stopped for something to eat when I got there, so I said I would walk up the side road where Phin had last been seen running.  The first house I passed, there just happened to be someone pulling out.  I talked to him, showed him Phin's picture, and he said he had seen a dog just like that, running through some yards about half an hour before.  I ran back to the house to tell 'S', and we set off down the road.  The guy I talked to went ahead to see if he could see the dog again, but he couldn't.  We walked on, but in the area where he thought he saw Phin, 'S' saw an australian shepherd that we think the guy mistakenly thought was Phin.  After more walking around, talking to people, handing out the phone number in case they had a sighting, talking to a police officer who was going to pass the word on to the rest of the patrol cars,  we returned back to the house.  By this time more people had shown up.  Posters were made and taped up on signs and mailboxes.  Someone with a golden retriever was doing some tracking.  She thought they found a spot where Phin bedded down for the night, in the bush next to where he had gone missing.  'S' had searched through there a few times.  Jake and I walked up the road where he had run, calling gently, taking our time, stopping to just listen.  This is a very rural  thickly wooded area, with a small mountain behind the property. We walked to the top of their back pasture, played a bit of ball, called, whistled, and just waited and looked and listened.  The Food Lady from Wootube, showed up with her pack.  She walked around with Tweed, but no luck.  I finally left about 11.  Hopefully flooding the neighbourhood with signs and posters will help bring Phin home.

It's Miserable Out, so Let's Eat!

At the beginning of last year I made some lemon marmalade that turned out really dark.  I didn't really want to  sell it, so just put it aside, not knowing really what I was going to do with it.  It's really frustrating when you have put a lot of work into something, and it doesn't turn out like you wanted it to.  It tasted fine, but time passed and then I just felt like it was too 'old' to sell, so it sat in the cupboard.

Larry and I really like fruitcake, so before Christmas we decided to make some, or maybe it was more like we decided that I was going to make some.  I started checking out the ingredients, and got really put off when I was looking at some of the candied fruit and the ingredients and additives that were in them.  In the end I used some dried fruit and a jar of runny seville marmalade and a jar of the lemon marmalade, and the fruitcake was great!  I think I made 6 or 8 loaves all together, and I have a feeling there should still be one at the bottom of the freezer, but so far I haven't come across it.

It's a rainy miserable Sunday morning, and there is nothing good in the house to eat.  No bags of dark chocolate dipping wafers sitting in the fridge.  Did I ever tell you that we buy them just to eat, not to bake with?  Anyway, I decided to bake something.  I dug out a couple of jars of the dark lemon marmalade, and made lemon blueberry muffins.

Here's the original recipe.  I keep a lot of the recipes that I've saved in an old photo album.  The kind that has the plastic over each page that sticks to those sticky strips on the page.  This page has lost it's plastic.

And here's what I did.

First of all I doubled this.  If you are going to dirty bowls etc, you might as well make it worth your while.

So the two cups of milk became two cups of a bit of leftover cottage cheese (1/2 cup maybe?) plus enough milk to make the two cups. Yogurt would work too, well maybe plain or vanilla yogurt.

The one cup of margarine became 3/4 cup of oil. Gotta make it healthier you know! 

I left out the orange juice and rind and dumped in two cups of marmalade.  It would have been 2 1/2 cups, but I ate nearly half of one jar before I got started:(

Here's all the wet ingredients.  The marmalade sank to the bottom.

Jake was hoping a few ingredients would sink to the floor

Here's the wet ingredients added to the dry.  I only put in half a cup of sugar total, since there is sugar in the marmalade.  The recipe calls for a mixture of wholewheat and white flours.  If it hadn't, I would have done that anyway.

I was daydreaming and almost put in two tbsp. of salt instead of baking powder.  Thankfully there was only a tiny bit of salt in the box, so I came to my senses while I was opening the new one.

Mix it all up and add some blueberries.  I probably would have added a couple of cups, but there was only about 1/2 -3/4 cup left in the freezer in the house, and I couldn't be bothered to slog out through the rain to find some in a freezer in the shop.  Maybe that was just as well, as I do tend to overload on things sometimes.  Some blueberries are good, so wouldn't more be better?

Nope, not always.

I ended up with 2 dozen medium size muffins, and 6 small ones.

One of our favourite variations on this recipe is to leave out the orange, and put in a can of mandarin orange pieces, and the chocolate chips of course.  Or instead of the oranges, some cut up dried apricots, heated with a bit of juice or water so they plump out.

I think I've figured out now how to avoid ending up with such dark marmalade.  Making marmalade is a long process.  First you cook the peel and juice and membranes with water, until the peel is tender.  Then you add the sugar and cook to the setting point.  It seems if you have to cook the marmalade for a long time on this second step, the sugar causes it to go dark.  I've decided to cook it for longer in the first step, so that more water is evaporated.  Then it takes a shorter time in the second step to get to the setting point.

That's my theory anyway, and so far it seems to be working.

France and Farm Friday

So about the time I was heating up my leftover piece of french toast for lunch, Meredith was in Paris, France that is.

After finishing off her champagne and escargot, which would be a first for snail dining for her, and which she described as being like a garlic flavoured chewy mushroom, they visited the Eiffel Tower.

Meanwhile, back on the farm.....

The new hens have got their act together, and are now getting with the program.  Eighteen eggs from them today!     Yesterday three hens were all jammed in the same laying box.

         

Also yesterday,  I stopped by the vet's on my way back from the corner store, where I had mailed a couple of letters.  One was an agility trial entry, and one was for the agility regionals.  Can't believe it, but that trial entry, which was being sent to an address in Abbotsford, got there this morning, and I received the trial confirmation less then 24 hours of the entry being dropped in the mailbox. Wow!

Anyway, back to the vet visit.  It's real handy having the vet live just around the corner, well 1 1/2 miles away.  So I got some wormer for Pride, and some for the sheep.

I told Larry I would worm Pride, so Luna and I went out there after lunch.  Larry, after a couple of visits to the chiropractor this week,  is spending quite a bit of time alternating between cold and hot packs on his back.

The horse wormer is just a paste stuff in a tube that you stick in the horse's mouth and push the plunger.  Since it required two hands to do that, and Luna hasn't quite mastered the art of photography yet, you'll just have to imagine it.  Pride wasn't totally cooperative, but it got done.  

Since it was such a nice day, I took his blanket off.  A couple of weeks ago he had it off most of the time, but then we got back into some cold wet weather, so we put it back on.  Considering he's had it on for four months, and has been outside, wandering around the field grazing, I think he's done really well.  There is only one small rub spot on his left shoulder.  The blanket hasn't been torn at all.  I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out.

He's lost a bit of weight over the winter, but doesn't look bad for a 29 year old, and he'll put that weight back on now that the grass is growing again.

I was trying to get a picture with Luna on this side of Pride, but it suddenly came to me that she mostly balances Pride between herself and whoever is out there with her. Duh! 

Funny though, she doesn't really do that so much with the sheep. 

And hooray!

The parts for the rototiller finally came in.  It took David a couple of days to get at it, but yesterday he got it running.  It took him about an hour and a half.  We were told it would cost about $175 in labour at the repair place.  Sounds like it would have a been a royal rip-off to me!

So since yesterday afternoon, I've done an awful lot of rototilling.  The pull cord broke this afternoon, but that was simple enough for me to fix.

Since it had dried up enough, Larry brought loads down from the manure pile with the tractor, and drove through the chicken field so that he could dump them over the fence.  Not hard on his back, and less work for me.  We, or probably me will still have to bring some down by wheelbarrow, but a lot less now.

And the broad beans are finally coming up. This was taken three days ago, and then this morning I noticed that something has been eating them or pulling them out.

So I put some gauzy fabric strips over the rows

Had to do the same thing with the peas a couple of days ago.  They were coming up well but the birds were pulling them out.

The arugula is coming up too.

I'm also seeing the radishes and spinach up, and a few shoot from the potatoes are showing as well. 

Spring is slow, but we'll get there eventually!

Join the blog hop over at Verde Farm

Who's Been Rolling on My Cat Mint?

This afternoon while I was at the front of the house, again taking my 365 photo, Luna was taking an unusual interest in the cat mint.  I was wondering if the orange tabby that we've seen passing through occasionally, had been rolling on it.

The little wire fence is to keep the cat mint sort of contained once it grows tall, otherwise it flops over everything close by.

Red sky at night, shepherds delight.....

Yep, the forecast is good for tomorrow, and wasn't too bad today after the showers and hail passed by this morning.

We worked on the canopy over our travel trailer this afternoon, and after a few hours work it is all fastened back down and the bent poles are straightened out as best we can.  There wasn't as much damage as we thought, thank goodness.