Category Archives: pets

2026, animals, chickens, crops, Farming Update, Theatre

SHELF CHICKEN

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Thursday night, I stepped outside before bed and it was so nice to see the stars. There was my friend Orion and I said hello. After the cloudy days and rainy weather, it was so nice to have a clear sky.
It was a bit brisk at 34°, but at least it was calm.


It has been a busy week. Saturday afternoon will be the 11th performance of the kids play at the college this week. We opened last Saturday, had one show on Monday, and then two shows a day the rest of the week for area second – fifth grade. The show Dragons Love Tacos, was well received by the visiting school children, and it was a nice cast, and I think I’ve gotten a new work study out of the deal. The young lady running lights is in the band and choir, and came in as a friend of one cast member and she’s got the right spunk and attitude to be a good match for me. She’ll start in January.
It was fun talking to the school kids as they came in. We had some college students help as ushers to meet the busses and I’d hold a door and talk to the kids: “Hi! Welcome! Thanks for being here! Enjoy the show! Where are you from? Have fun! Nice hood! Love the sparkles!” and as many other tidbits as I could come up with.

View from the booth
Oops! Too much smoke but it sure looks cool.


A few other meetings on top of things and some homework and I didn’t get a whole lot done this week.

Last weekend, Kelly cleaned up the flowerpots in front of the house, moved a few of the perennials over to the machine shed, pulled out the tomato plants for the chickens to work through, and put the plant stands away. I spent Sunday afternoon picking up hoses, cutting some grass and mulching leaves in front of the shed, and backing the chisel plowed into the shop to do some work on that. It was a beautiful day. I had to wonder why I’m usually picking up hoses the day before a snowstorm is coming? I think it’s because some years we’ve already had a snowstorm by now.

Of course Tuesday was Elections. I helped open the polls and worked until 9:00, then into the College for the first play, and then back to the Townhall for Elections.
Of the 570 walk-in voters that we had, our final results tape showed they were predominantly Republican. But after all the early voters were counted and added, the Democrats won. Pretty interesting. I had several discussions about why that is. Looking at the total county votes, all the rural areas go Republican and urban go Democrat. I don’t want to speak badly about the damn old farmers, but why is that??

I had to get some plow bolts before I could change the points on the chisel plow, and there’s a thing called a buster bar on the back of the chisel plow that just kinda knocks the big clumps down so it’s not quite so rough next spring. The company that made it is no longer around, but eventually, I found another company that still has parts and I was able to order some replacement teeth. However, on the first round the dealer ordered the wrong set. On the second round was they got it right.


We had an inch and a half of rain between Monday and Wednesday and I am hopeful they will get back to harvesting corn in the next few days and hopefully mine will be taken quickly. I would like to get going on plowing right away, but I also need to get updated soil samples done and they like to do that before the fields get too rough from plowed. And all the loans that I took out last December to pay for this years crops have also come due.  The soybean check won’t quite cover all the bills, but once the corn is out, we should be doing OK.

I have mentioned before this one chicken living in our garage. Sometimes a second or third tries to move in and I chase them back out. Call me cruel and heartless if you want, but I don’t need chicken poop on another area. One area of poop is bad enough. Recently a second chicken moved in and while she sits on a garbage can the first chicken has moved onto a shelf. Daughter calls her the shelf chicken.
She even lays eggs in there sometimes. I don’t understand.


Padawan‘s birthday was Friday. He is no longer a teenager. We are taking him out Saturday. He isn’t making much progress on “becoming an adult”.

We provide lunch for the actors during the week. I take the leftovers home for the chickens. Tuesday was tacos. I had half a five-gallon bucket of beans, rice, and taco meat. It was dark when I got home so I left it in the garage. One of the dogs found it and ate 2/3 rds of it. If it was Bailey, at least her farting the rest of the night didn’t bother us.
Thursday, I saved some mashed potatoes and veggies. I forgot the bucket downstairs and Friday morning, maintenance had dumped it out, washed it, and left me a clean bucket. The chickens were very disappointed.

WOULD YOU RATHER GET A STOOL FOR A TALL SHELF, OR GET DOWN ON THE FLOOR FOR A LOW SHELF?

2026, animals, Fantasy, pets, TV

Lamb Chop Slayer

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Years ago, YA came home with the first of the Lamb Chop chew toys for Guinevere.  Guinevere was the Queen of Destruction when it came to stuffy toys.  She could disable and disembowel a squeaky toy in a matter of minutes and once it didn’t squeak, it was just a useless clump of foam to her.  I was extremely queasy about letting her have a Lamb Chop toy; it meant nothing to YA but I remember Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop from my childhood with affection. 

Seeing Lamb Chop murdered before my eyes was not something I was looking forward to.  To everyone’s surprise, Guinevere treated Lamb Chop almost with reverence, gently nibbing on it.  No ripping it’s guts out, no chewing it’s head off.  It was weirdly wonderful.  When the Lamb Chop toys went on sale, we bought ten of them.  Every Solstice she got a fresh one and when she passed, there were at least six of them still in service.

Freya has inherited all the Lamb Chops and so far, four of them have met their maker.  She is rabid about getting to the squeaker, but unlike Guinevere who would just disable the squeaker, Freya wants to eat the squeaker!  (Add this to a long list of things that Freya thinks she needs to chew/eat.)  So in addition to the awful mess that an expiring Lamb Chop makes, I am now the Official Director of “Watch-Freya-To-Make-Sure-She-Doesn’t-Eat-The-Squeaker”.  This means when she gets close (when she can get her whole snoot inside the toy), I have to take the toy and get the squeaker out myself.  So now I am the one pulling out the innards of a beloved childhood character.  From murder watch to pre-emptive murder itself.

Any childhood characters you think would make a good dog toy?  Or that you would prefer NOT to see chewed on?

2026, Family, Food, home, pets

Who’s In Charge?

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Freya is extremely food motivated.  I’m pretty sure if I left a 40-pound bag of dog food open in the kitchen, she would eat until she popped.  She’s not eating me out of house and home, although I’m going to need a separate line on my budget for dog treats.  The good news is that combined with her smarts, it makes it very easy to work on training. 

Of course, I’m not sure who’s being trained.

Nimue is not all that food motivated.  If she feels like it, she’ll show up at meal time but sometimes she comes down later to partake.  She does have dry food out all the time so she’s certainly not going hungry.   She does have one exception; she loves her Friskies Party Treats.  If I shake the jar (I keep them on my bedstand), she comes right away. 

The treat parade started when Guinevere was young.  If her stomach went empty too long, she’d throw up bile – ick.  So I began giving her a couple of dog treats in the morning to tide her over an hour or so before breakfast.  This was when I started giving Nimue a couple of treats as well.  Took a few tries to find that she loves Friskies.  I’m not sure when the two of them convinced me that they should also get a few treats at bedtime.  7:30 p.m. to be specific. 

It took Freya about a day to realize that there were treats to be had when the kitty was getting her Yums.  It took her about another day to figure out that 7:30 was the magic hour each night.  So now, they are both presenting themselves at 7:30 for treats.  See the header photo for the “Gimme treats” eyes.  And they will both lie to me if necessary.  Last night I got home late with Freya from dog class and Nimue blatantly lied to me about getting her treats.  When I asked YA, she confirmed that she had given Nimue treats at 7:30 in my absence!

Clearly where treats are involved, I’m not in charge.  And I’m not highly motivated to change that.  Maybe I should get a treat at 7:30!

Do you have any nightly rituals (with or without pets)?

2026, animals, Food, pets, Uncategorized

Snacks

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Yesterday I finished cooking a large pot of brodo, a turkey/beef stock from The Splendid Table cookbook. It calls for 9 pounds of turkey wings that simmer for 14 hours with lots of vegetables and 4 pounds of beef shank. I get about 3 gallons of stock from it.

I get my turkey wings from a butcher shop that gets a case of them for me directly from the meat packing plant. They are enormous and meaty. After simmering for 14 hours, however, there is not much taste left in the meat. I can’t make myself throw them away, so I freeze the meat in small bags for our dogs. They get a few pieces of the turkey in their daily kibble. They love it.

They also get roasted butternut squash and beef protein sprinkles every day in their kibble. I roast the squash with our Turkish olive oil brushed on it. At least once a day they get gullet strips, and they have collagen chews to gnaw on. Yes, we have terribly spoiled terriers. They get so excited it is hard to stop since they seem so happy.

I think we spoil our dogs with snacks because we spoil ourselves with good food. They don’t seem to get fat on these snacks, but they are busy, active dogs who race around and burn off lots of calories. By the end of the day they collapse and sleep soundly all night.

What are your favorite snacks? How do you spoil the people and creatures you love? How are you spoiled?

2026, chickens, Farming Update, Theatre, Uncategorized

GOOD FOR THE SOUL

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This weeks “Farming Update?” from Ben

I got a massage the other day and the salt wall in the header photo is the wall of their waiting room. It has a nice amber light that is very calming, and they say it supports relaxation to help reduce stress. I just like the look of it.  Daughter has a salt lamp that is the same color. It sweats due to the higher humidity in our house, and kinda makes a mess, but it is a very nice warm light.

It’s been kind of a busy week. 

There was no farming this week, unless you call cutting the grass and picking up sticks and feeding the chickens and collecting eggs farming. And that was done by Kelly and daughter respectively. I got diddly squat done at home between Work work, tech rehearsals for Sweeny Todd, several meetings, homework, and yes, the massage. That’s how I spent the week. Well, at least until I got to Friday. I got a few things done Friday.

Filling the drill with the seed tender

I must say, I am acing the humanities class. 100%. And this comment from the teacher: “You know you’re going above and beyond, right? I mean that you’re writing 2-3x as much as your classmates… but you’re probably also having 2-3x as much fun!”  I wrote to her and said I knew I was writing too much and I felt sorry every time I submitted a paper to her. She responded, ” No, it’s fine. Write away! At least I can hear YOUR voice in your writing and it’s both personal and wise. Plus, you really enjoy doing it.”

That made my whole day… 

Music class… eh. 8/10 on a workbook and that’s the only grade posted so far. I go see the teacher weekly and we have a good time talking. It always makes so much sense when she tells me. It doesn’t sink in from the book. Course it would help if I actually read the book first and didn’t just jump into the middle. I can “wing” a lot of things, but evidently not this so much. Geez, sounds like high school all over again. 

At college one day I made an electric cable. You know, lighting fixtures used to come with a cord, and you just put on the end you needed. It might be either of a couple specific theater kinds of ends like, ‘Stage Pin’ or ‘Twist Loc’ (new or old style) or regular old Edison like at your house.

Stage Pin
Twist loc, new style, tab in

Then they, “They”, stopped putting cables on the light. You get a ‘receptacle’ on the back of the light fixture, and you hook up a power cable. They were ‘powercon’. So, I made powercon cables and adapters and couplers, because you couldn’t simply hook one end to the other. And from powercon, now they created ‘True 1’ connectors. “New and Improved!” Here I am making MORE cables. But at least this connector can hook end to end without a special coupler. 

Power-con
New and improved! True 1

A few years ago I learned if you read the printing on the cable, the female connector will go on the right hand side, because the woman is always right, and that way you don’t need to twist the wires to connect to the proper terminal. HUH! 

Sweeny Todd opened last night, Friday, at the Rep in Rochester. I’d seen the show once before, never saw the movie. I know the plot, but I didn’t know the show that well. This version, this director, Philip, really brings out the humor in the show. There’s a lot of sarcasm. Sweeny goes off on this big song of bringing vengeance on all those that have ruined his life, and Mrs. Lovett sits for a moment and finally says, “Well yes, that’s all well and good…” 

Lighting it has been fun. We ended up with 206 lighting cues. A handful of those are before the house opens; turning on house lights, checking all the fixtures are working, etcetera, but the bulk are during the show, when Emilie, our stage manager, is also triggering 200 sound cues. It’s OK, she has 2 fingers; one for sound, one for lights. We don’t have an orchestra for this show, we have recorded music. (Musicians are busy, and it’s often hard to find enough to cover the run of a show. If they’re in a band, they’re usually playing weekends as well). Emilie is busy! And she does a fantastic job. 

Here’s some looks from the show. 

I love these colors on Mr. Todd

There was an auction again. See how this newer tractor sold for so much less? It has a lot more hours, and it needs tires. Looks like its been ‘rode hard and put away wet’. Tires will be about $20,000 for all 8 of them.

The top tractor only has 5000 hours. The bottom one has 11,000 hours.

I didn’t buy anything. I watched a few things, didn’t buy any. 

HOW MANY KINDS OF SALT IN YOUR CABINET?

DOESN’T EVERYONE HAVE A WATER SOFTENER?

2026, Family, home, Mysteries, pets

Foamy Mystery

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Every rescue dog comes with its own set of baggage to sort through.  Freya loves to chew – probably some from anxiety but more likely from being caged most of her life and now finding a whole new world of tactile sensations.

Even though I pick up the toys most nights, by 9 a.m. she has most of them out of the bin and every one is missing something – an ear, a fin, a flipper.  Once she finds a way in, then she goes all in looking for the squeaker so the white toy stuffing goes all over.  Our living room right now looks like a stuffy toy abattoir.  Even the hard rubber toys are no match for her little shark teeth.

Unfortunately, it’s not just toys.  We realized right away that pretty much anything is fair game.  It took YA a bit longer to come to terms with this – she’s lost a shoe, a slipper and a pair of shorts.  We’ve taken to limiting her smorgasbord a bit right now by putting up gates to keep her in a smaller area and by keeping a very close eye on her.

She is however quite stealthy and if your attention is elsewhere, she can get around you quite nicely.  On Saturday I spent some time on the phone with one of my BFFs from Madison.  I had been upstairs before the call and when I came down, I neglected to put up the gate at the bottom of the stairs.  A few minutes into my call, I looked up and saw Freya chewing what looked like a big chunk of yellow foam.  At first I figured she had gutted a stuffy but most toys these days are white fiber fill; I also didn’t see any stuffy carcasses nearby.  When I took it from her and headed toward the trash, I noticed more yellow foam on the landing.  I had reconfigured the dog bed situation upstairs so I thought that maybe Freya didn’t like my renovation. 

When I got off the phone, I went to check it out.  No trail of yellow foam to the landing. No cover to whatever the item had been.  Both upstairs dog beds were intact.  In fact, everything upstairs was intact.  I even checked rooms with closed doors.  I moved the gate to YA’s room and looked around in there.  Bupkiss.  I even did a slow-pan video of her room and sent it to her (she’s out of town for work) and she says it looks fine.  We haven’t replaced bathroom rug yet.  All my pillows are fine.  Downstairs everything in order.  Piano bench fine, dining room chairs fine, breakfast room dog kennel fine (I checked this twice).  Not one bit of yellow foam anywhere else.

At this point I have given up looking for whatever it was in its past life.  I’m figuring that in three months or so I’ll be looking for something, won’t be able to find it and a lightbulb will go off.  Maybe.

Have you lost anything lately that you think you might find… eventually?  Any mysteries in your life this week? 

2026, Automotive, books, Business, pets

Restoration

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The other night I had a glasses mishap.  In getting out of the car at PetSmart, I was completely unorganized, trying to grab the vet records (Freya had to have vaccine proof for her class), dog treats, leash, purse, keys.  During this mess I managed to knocked my night driving glasses out of the car without realizing it.

When we got back to the car over an hour later, I noticed something a little shiny on the ground and when I reached down, saw that it was indeed my glasses.  They were a little wonky with one arm stuck and not opening.  I’m not sure what happened.  I’m pretty sure that if I had stepped on them in my kerfuffle getting out of the car, I would have noticed that.  On the other hand, if some other car had parked in the spot next to me while we were in class, it would have had to park REALLY close.  If I had to bet my own money, I somehow crunched them.

Luckily the lens seemed fine.  I was afraid to force the arm myself, so I took myself off to Warby Parker when they opened yesterday morning.  I knew they wouldn’t charge me to look at the glasses, but wasn’t sure if they would charge me for fixing them (if they could).  I was perfectly prepared to take them back home, force the arm and use duct tape until next summer, when I can get a new pair. 

The technician started looking at them and twisting them without quoting me any pricing so I quit worrying.  Then he set them down and went to “ask somebody something”… my worry-o-meter clicked on again.  But he came back and went back to work.  They looked good to me; he still wasn’t satisfied.  At that point he went into the backroom and came out with a new frame, just the same as my old frame; I didn’t even know my frame was still being made – it’s been three years.  He quickly popped my lens out of my injured frames and squeezed them into the new frame.  Heated the bridge to make it fit me, cleaned up both lens and handed them over.  No charge.  I told him to be sure to send me a survey. 

I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about Warby Parker before but their books of haiku are still for sale in the store and still too pricey for me but I thought I’d do quick haiku to great customer service:

Night glasses broken.

Warby Parker hits a run –

Night vision restored!

Any good customer service lately?  Or absolutely rotten customer service?

2026, animals, Fantasy, home, Mysteries, pets

Detente?

33 Comments

When YA and I started our search for a dog, the #1 trait that I was worried about was “does this dog have a strong chase instinct”?  For eleven years, Guinevere chased Nimue.  It was just her instinct to chase, especially when startled.  Any time the cat surprised her (like jumping off the bed when Guinevere was snoozing nearby), the dog would lunge out of her sleep.  As soon as she lunged, the cat would run.  The minute the cat ran, Guinevere would chase; she couldn’t help herself.  Unfortunately this ended with the cat getting injured a couple of times early on.  After that YA and I set up a couple of serious gates that allowed escape routes for the cat in the two places where the trouble was happening.  That solved their problem – it was a pain for YA and me.  We did not want to have this problem repeated with a new dog.

While Freya does chase squirrels and rabbits in the yard, she’s not shown any interest in chasing the cat.  In fact, she is afraid of the cat. If Nimue is on the back porch when I open the door to let the dog in, Freya freezes on the back steps until I shoo the kitty back into the kitchen.  If the cat is on the steps to go upstairs, Freya will stay at the bottom of the steps until Nimue has gone all the way up.  And the only way I’ve been able to get Freya on the bed when Nimue is already in residence is with a bunch of treats; as soon as the treats are gone, the dog is gone.

Nimue is loving this.  After all those years, she is definitely enjoying having the upper paw.  She will turn and give the dog the stink eye.  There has been some hissing and I’ve even caught her chasing Freya a couple of times.

It’s been three months and I’m starting to see the very first signs of an eventual détente.  Freya is a little braver about coming in or up when she sees the cat.  The cat is ignoring more.  And a few times it seems clear that Freya would like to play with Nimue.  She follows behind, doing some sniffing and then plopping into that classic “Wanna play?” pose with the butt in the air.  Then yesterday morning, when Freya came into the kitchen, Nimue was sitting on top of the kennel.  Fraya approached slowly, nose stretched out.  Nimue didn’t exactly stretch to meet, but she didn’t back off and for a few moments they were nose to nose.  Then Nimue moved back a bit to lay on the blanket, out of Freya’s reach. 

I didn’t realize how much I was longing for this until I saw it.  All my other dogs and cats have gotten along well until Guinevere came along to rock the boat.  I do miss her but I don’t miss the chaos.  Now I’m eager to see how long it takes for Nimue and Freya to settle into, if not friendship, or even companionship, but détente.

Tell me about someone you’ve had to learn to deal with.

2026, animals, crops, Family, Farming Update, Kids, pets, Travel, Uncategorized, work

BACK IN THE SWING OF THINGS

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This week’s farming update from Ben

The soybeans are turning yellow and dropping their leaves. Another week will make a huge difference.

We spent a week outside of Charleston SC visiting my niece and her husband and their two cute little girls, age five and two. Boy, that two year old: She never stops moving! Better them than us. And a wonderful dog, Maggie. A female Doberman. I’ve not had anything to do with Dobermans before, but she was a sweetheart. 

These people love their hot weather. I was hot for the whole week we were there. They made a fire one night in their fire pit. IT WAS 80 DEGREES! I kept moving my chair back. But, it was a lovely night and It was a great, much needed vacation. 

Our first night and I got to take the five year old to bed. I was pooped out.
Who doesn’t love chasing seagulls?
Daughter loved the beach.

While we were gone, our house sitters, G & E, did a fabulous job keeping our dogs occupied. They left the house cleaner than it was when we left. E does a lot of cooking, which was evident by the washed cookie sheets and bread loaf pan on the counter. We need to get them to leave some left overs. And G works at a local nursery and we always come home to fresh cut flowers and even some new plants on the front step. Great people. We’re not sure the dogs were glad to have us come back or not. 

Plus our other neighbor, B, collecting eggs and taking care of the chickens. She said she loved her the dogs protected her from the raccoons.

The tree branch that fell down on the deck just before we left got cut up and hauled away. We are so lucky it missed the gutters and missed the lights hanging off the gutters. It broke a leg off one plastic deck chair, and bent one tiki torch. Driving around the farm, there are trees down all over. Lots of trees in fields, which will make harvest difficult. It’s hard to clean them up without damaging more crops. Our neighbors took their cattle out as there was so many trees down on the fence it was easier to take them out than to fix the fences. At least for now. They’ll be fixed before next spring.

And we’ve had a bunch of weird electronic issues since the power was out with that storm. Course the router needed to be rebooted a few times, and the extenders, and the security cameras… got most of them back, but it’s been a process. 

The Soil and Water (SWCD) people, and contractor Clint built the new structure to stop erosion. 

The front side with a tile inlet.
The back side. The tile drains down in the tree’s to the left.

Clint also built a ‘low water crossing’ at one of our waterways. It tends to be wet in the spring, (that’s why it’s a ‘water way’). He excavated down, placed geo-textile fabric, large rock placed underneath, smaller rock on top, and that way the water can still pass through but the equipment has a place to cross without creating ruts in the soft spring soil. 

Bailey approved

I am very proud of the work we’ve done the last few year making the farm a better place for the future. 

Including pouring concrete.

Last week Kelly and I were compacting gravel for this pad. This concrete is in the main part of the shed, right inside the main door, and is where just about everything gets parked. I’m as excited about this concrete as I have been about all the rest. 

A pack of wire ties.
Wrap the wire around the rebar, hook the loops, and spin it five times to make it tight. Six twists will break the wire.
Rebar wired together and propped up with rocks, tin cans, empty bottles; Anything I found in the garbage that I thought would be useful. You can buy 2” plastic rebar chairs, but why would I wanna do that?

We had some good help leveling out the concrete. Our son came down with a couple of his buddies. I spent a little more money and ordered a conveyor truck to get the concrete in the shed, that way I could be in there helping and not in the tractor hauling concrete 1/2 a yard at a time in the loader bucket. I am supposedly, the ‘Brains’ of the outfit. I use the term loosely. Jokes on them!

I ordered 5000 psi concrete “garage mix” with fiber and air entrainment. See, sounds like I know what I’m talking about.

You want a bunch of help getting the cement truck dumped out and the concrete spread out. Then there’s a little more time to get it level and time for it to begin to harden before the finishing work begins. And that can be a one person job on a pad this small. It just takes several good people right at the start.

On top of the compacted gravel we get the rebar laid out and tied together using a homemade wire twister. I use fiberglass rebar. I buy wire ties with a loop on each end, then use a paint roller I’ve modified to twist them.

By the time we finished I was pooped out. Man, I am not 30 years old anymore.

The conveyor truck getting set up. We were all working so I didn’t get any pictures of it happening.
Kelly was in charge of the measuring stick and the laser level to get it level. 
Looks pretty good for some amateurs. Better than our first round last year.
Humphrey walk through it first. But I’m OK with that. I left his footprints.

HOW OFTEN DID YOU FALL ASLEEP YOURSELF TAKING THE KIDS TO BED?

ANY GOOD BEDTIME STORIES?

2026, animals, Nature, pets, Uncategorized

Stickers And Prickers

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On Sunday evening Husband took our terriers for their third walk of the day. They have rather elaborate hair styles, with skirts, beards, long brows, short hair on back and tail, and longer, curly hair on their chests and legs. They have short legs with long bodies that are pretty close to the ground.

Husband is usually careful to only walk them on paved paths and not let them stray into long grass. They both got into some longer grass Sunday night though, as Husband gave some other walkers wide berth as they passed one another. He doesn’t want the dogs to jump on other people. The grass was full of tiny burrs the size of BB’s that stuck to the dogs’ coats in every place imaginable. It was impossible to brush them out as they stuck so securely.

Boommate is a former vet tech and also worked for a groomer for a while. She came to the rescue with a small electric clipper. Husband and I held the dogs securely while she patiently cut the burrs out of their fur. The dogs were very unhappy being manhandled and restrained. She said she had encountered these burrs before, and they can cause severe problems if animals ingest them or get them stuck in their mouth or throat.

After about an hour of clipping and brushing, the dogs were burr free. In the event this happens again I ordered a portable dog grooming table for easier management. The dogs go to their regular groomer next week so they can get their coats all evened out and trimmed.

Who has come to your rescue? Any incidents of burrs or stickers on you or your pets?