Can I go back to last week?

Last week I dropped Taja dog off at the vet, where she was being kenneled while we went to Oregon for Thanksgiving.  That was Friday.  I took her bed, and a chew toy, and handed her over.  I was a little sad when I climbed into the car.  I love that dog, and I was going to miss her.

I had no idea.

Monday morning the vet called to tell us that Taja had died in her sleep.  Her heart just stopped.  I'm glad it was quick, but my heart hurts that she was not home with her family.

She was a stinky, drooly dog, with floppy ears and a wiggly bum, and we loved her.  It seems a little silly to grieve so much for a dog, but she was really a member of our family.  We're going to bury her in the yard, and plant a tree to mark her grave.

Well miss you, puppy.

Taja Harley Quinn 

(she was AKC papered, and they require ridiculously long names)

AKA Taja, Taja dog, or Puppy.

April 2002- November 21, 2011

Puppy Taja

We have a lot of pictures like this.  Taja was always kind of in the background of whatever was going on.

Taja loved playing soccer with us.

Two Christmases ago

Camping

Chewing a bone, enjoying the sunshine- one of her favorite ways to spend an afternoon.

Part of the family.

July 24th (observed)

Since Pioneer Day fell on a Sunday, it was "observed" today, and my Mister got the day off work.  He went for a bike ride in the morning while I ran hills on the treadmill (he got the better deal this time...).

Other things we did (I just realized that several of the pictures are from Saturday...):

These apricots are actually from yesterday.  He picked them saturday and we didn't get to them.  The mushy ones we pureed and then canned.  8 of each kind.

We did beans on Saturday, and also had some chicken broth from the home raised chickens we ate last week, chicken broth and green beans have the same processing requirements, so we put the broth in jars and canned it.  Two and a half pints.  

The boys decided to move their fort from the bush by the front door to this pine tree.  

My Mister spent a lot of Saturday organizing the garage.  He finished (for the most part) today and we can now park in it!  He also built a bike rack out of pvc pipe so we won't have bikes thrown down all over the place anymore.

His other major project was mowing.  He mowed all around the garden, while I played with Keiko dog, she liked sniffing in the weeds, so I think she was a little sad to see the whole thing mowed.

He mowed the field.  There is so much cut grass that we really need to go rake it up.  Who knows when that will happen though.  Taja dog enjoyed the clipped grass.  She made herself comfortable in a shady spot and watched Kyle clean out the garage.

We also got 3 eggs today.  They're still pretty tiny, but seem to be getting bigger.  

Garden Update/Happy Friday

I haven't had my camera around lately, but I finally went out with my phone and took some pictures.  The corn and beans are up, a little (although I just chased some boys (not my own) out of my garden, what was up with that?).  A couple of squash plants around the perimeter are up, but I'm getting a little worried that not more are sprouting yet.  My plan was to have a barrier of squash vines surrounding the corn and beans to discourage critters from going in and eating all the corn again this year...

One of the few pumpkin plants that are up.

Black Caps.  They've liked all the rain apparently, because I haven't seen them so healthy in years.  I need to make sure I continue to water them so we get good berries.  One of my longer-term goals involves getting starts of these berries for my own garden.  It's a very old variety, they're seedy, but they taste sooo good.

Our bees are loving the black cap blossoms.  Look close, lower, middle of the picture.

Artichoke plant- I'm counting on lots of artichokes.  (I'd better get one good sized meal out of it anyway.)

Peas.  I planted these early, and they didn't do anything, but they're finally taking off, and blooming, so we should get peas here soon.

Strawberry patch.  It's nearly filled the whole raised bed.  The berries are looking nice, shouldn't be too much longer until we're picking strawberries too!

Chickens. They must sense what's coming, they all tried to hide from me.

My Mister found this in the free section of KSL classifieds.  We'll hook a hose up (and clean it really good) and use it for our work station tomorrow when the roosters buy the farm.  Taja is enjoying sniffing around the garden, it was hard to get pictures, because she wanted to be in so many of them.  Silly dog.

May Picture Round Up

Automatic chicken waterer- the end of the soaker hose (which is on an automatic timer) drips to fill the butter container (with the bigger container to catch the leftovers- the kinks aren't totally worked out yet, but I'm hoping it will allow us to be gone for a day or two without worrying about watering the chickens).

Leaves from last fall mixed with the neighbor's grass clippings make a nice hot compost pile.

Mother's day breakfast in bed (sorry it got turned sideways somehow). If you're wondering why the omlet looks neon-yellow, it's because we've been feeding the chickens lots of lettuce and other food scraps, which makes the yolks a lot darker.

A good rain storm turned our dry riverbed into a rain garden. I think this is the closest we've come to having the water overflow onto the sidewalk. It didn't, but it looked like it might for a little while.


A lot of the water comes from this downspout, but we also have a tube hooked up to a backyard downspout that runs underground until it comes out in the rocks just above the downspout pictured.

My Mister building our dog poop digester.

Digester in place, ready for use. (we've been using it for a couple of weeks now, without noticeable smell!)

J's last soccer game of the season- he really started doing well, being more aggressive this spring. I enjoyed being his coach, and I'm glad it will be someone else's turn next fall.

Tomato plants.  We used the walls of water (the green things on the grass next to the tomatoes) on about half of the plants, and the plants that are not covered are about half the size of the ones that are- I guess walls of water are useful even after threat of frost has passed.

This was our first successful attempt at starting from seed, I transplanted into cups several weeks prior to planting, and was amazed at how much the roots grew during that short time. 

Because CP is so darn cute:


J "losing" his 3rd baby tooth. The funniest thing was that the tooth went flying and was temporarily lost under the stove. We found it, and the tooth fairy found a note from J apologizing for the tooth being dirty. It was very sweet. Luckily the tooth fairy has a tooth washer.

CP helping dad build the shed (made from nearly all scavenged materials- we bought cement blocks to put under it and nails so far- gotta love dumpster diving).

A helping dad.

Moving parts into place. The walls aren't nailed in place yet, we just had them standing up to see how things would fit. It's going to be awesome.

Learning new tricks

Taja, our dog (who is no longer the puppy she was in the picture at the top left of my blog) has finally learned to ring the little doorbell we put outside for her to tell us when she wants to come in. Prior to the doorbell, her method involved scratching the bejeebers out of the frame around the door. When my Mister and I first thought of a doorbell for her, we looked at the Doggie Doorbell (pictured here), but opted to get a regular doorbell with plug-in-chime-thing instead. It cost $5. The Doggie Doorbell cost $25.00 (plus shipping). The extra $20 (plus shipping) has cost us some repair work that we'll need to do to the frame around the back door which she has come close to scratching the bejeebers out of, but it's a moral victory- we didn't have to buy the extra large doorbell button for her to be able to press it. She does just fine with the human-sized one (except for when she knocks it over- we may have to mount it to something to keep it upright).

Babies! Babies!

After a couple of days of waiting, the chicks are finally here! They are adorable, and are settling in nicely in the laundry room. The darker two are Aracauna's (the kind that lay blue or green eggs) and two are the same as our old chickens, Rhode Island Red's. In the first picture they're cold and nervous, but it didn't take long for them to warm up and start exploring their new home.

Sacrifice

My Mr. sold his motorcycle yesterday. He loved that motorcycle, and I know how difficult it must have been for him to let someone else drive it away, knowing that he won't be able to go on rides with his brothers anytime soon. It was actually even hard for me, which I didn't expect. A teenage boy is the new owner, and I kept wondering if he would take good care of "El Diablo". I felt the same way when we sold our pet Ferris the Ferret (ferrets do NOT make good pets for babies or small children). It's easy to get attached to things.

There are several things which led us to decide that selling the bike was a good idea. Here they are, in no particular order...

1.) My Mr. would like a new bike (the blue one pictured is his current dream bike, and is making the sale of the old bike easier to deal with) at some point, and this is a good time of year to sell motorcycles, and his old bike was still new enough that if we sold it now, we'd still get a pretty good price for it.

2.) Having a baby has been more expensive than we expected, and it came down to canceling some camping trips to pay the hospital bill or selling the motorcycle. We all decided it would be better to not have a motorcycle for a year or so and still go camping than to have a motorcycle that you can't ever take anywhere.

3.) My Mr. is currently in school and isn't able to ride his motorcycle much. He hadn't started the bike since february when he went to Moab with his brothers, so it didn't make sense to keep it around when he just doesn't have time to ride.

He may be going through a mourning period, but he'll be okay. I'm grateful that he was willing to sell it (it was even his idea...), and that his priorities are in the right place.

Lucky Dog

When we first got our dog, a boxer, five years ago, she was really good about staying around our yard. When she got to be full-grown, she discovered she could open the gates on the fence, so we bought locks to keep in the gates. Lately, various people have been leaving the garage doors open when they go out to ride their bikes, and Taja has been running away to her friend's house. The first time it happened, the friend's human called to tell us she was there.

Today, I looked outside and saw that the doors were all open and the dog was gone. We piled in the car (interrupting the baby's lunch, so he was not pleased) and drove over to pick her up. One of these days we won't have to make the full trip, because she'll be lying dead at the side of the road. My kids do not understand what the big deal is "we can just get another dog".

Today, we arrived at her friend's house and the humans were not at home. Taja didn't let this stop her from playing with her friend- she just opened the gate and let herself in. They were having a great time. We may have to put an end to independent bike riding if the doors and gates continue to get left open...