Garden and Dog Status

Hey! Let's take a trip around the garden! We will work our way from the front yard around to the back.

Look $50 bucks worth of fresh oregano growing right by the road. This bush is really taking off!

Is this a weed? Not sure, but it makes nice flowers!

Our rock wall plants are really getting established and making some nice flowers

More flowers from the rock wall. You can see the raspberries trying to expand their territory.

Wide angle view of the rock wall flowers

Another weed? Or should we consider it a wildflower?

Daisies and lupin going crazy

Strawberry patch is going to be productive this year. And the cherry tree is making cherries.

The artichoke and rhubarb are going to take over this bed. We need more space!

The plants on our back wall are filling in too! (tilt head left)

Foxglove and hostas growing poorly in terrible soil.

Herb bed is filling in a major way.

Raspberries are expanding despite the dense crappy soil. I am just going to let them go.

Most of the shrubs are doing well, but the ferns are getting burned.

Can't remember the name of this flower.

Thimbleberry for the birds and the bees.

And now on to the dog update.
Ari is a happy boy. He still has an injury in his back leg, but he can run around with his new little brother Epic without much trouble. He still doesn't get to chase the ball too much, but at least he gets to go to the park for a jog.
Epic is starting to get into chasing the ball. He gets very excited when I wave the ball in his face and say 'ready'. I do this and then roll the ball and let him go get it. When he brings it back I 'click and treat'. I usually only do this about four times and then take a break when he is still really amped. He has started really tugging on a little snake toy, but I think it's about to rip apart. Maybe I will have to keep buying the same snake over and over again, possibly up to 14 times.
He responds well to the clicker, but he still sometimes wants to run off with the ball or the tug. To help with this I am playing ball possession games and lots of tugging. I am trying to make him want chase after me even when he has the ball and tug in his mouth. Luckily I do this in my basement where no one can see me.
I am also working on basic obedience, just to enforce things he already knows and make sure he listens to me. We should probably take an advanced obedience class at some point this summer.
Well if flyball is going to take some work, at least herding comes very naturally to Epic. Last week we worked on increasing the length of his outruns and his ability to fetch even a widely spread bunch of sheep. He did really well with little help from me. He is pretty reliable doing about 100 yard outruns, and he even went way around the pond to get some wandering sheep. He and I are also getting better at sorting sheep together. It's still a lot of pressure for him, but he listens well and my command of the gate has greatly improved- we both just need to approach it with more patience and confidence.
I am going herding tomorrow and this time I promise to take some picture.

Motivation

After a playing frisbee

My internship is over in 2 weeks. I am so unbelievably ready to be done. Its dragging on and on. I am actually really enjoying clinical nutrition more than expected. Its very challenging and surprisingly rewarding. I have been pleasantly surprised at how receptive people are to learning about nutrition. Not everyone is, which is understandable when they are worried about their illness. For the past two weeks I have been doing "staff relief". I act as a dietitian for the most part and then at the end of the day I review my patients with the teaching dietitian. Im relieved to be enjoying this, considering that this is the easiest area for a dietitian for find work, however right now working for free is getting very old.

This past month has been tough. Not seeing Ben since March and living in this tiny apartment alone is getting old right along with my internship. Ive been less motivated to cook and work on projects and injuring myself 3 weeks ago hasnt helped anything. In the past few days Ive been feeling motivated again and am pulling myself out of my slump, knowing that I will be on the road home in about 2 WEEKS!

In the process of trying to use up all of my food before I leave, I found some dried currants. What else is there to do with currants, besides make scones!!! I forgot how happy it makes me to bake; I should remember not to go so long without it.

Cream Scones with Currants and Pecans

adapted from a recipe from foodnetwork.com

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 teaspooons baking powder
  
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes and refrigerated
• 2 teaspoons finely grated orange zest
• 1/4 cup dried currants
• 1/4 cup chopped pecans
  
• 1 large egg
• 4 to 5 tablespoons heavy cream or half-and-half

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Add the butter and work it into the flour mixture with your fingers or a pastry blender, until it resembles a coarse meal. Stir in zest, currants, and pecans.

In a small bowl, beat the egg and 4 tablespoons of the cream together with a fork. Add to the flour mixture and mix with your hands until the dough just comes together. (If the dough seems dry add the extra tablespoon of cream.) Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Pat the dough into a 6-inch round about 1-inch thick. Cut into 8 equal sized wedges. Space the scones evenly on the prepared baking sheet. Bake until golden brown, about 12 to 15 minutes.

More box pics

Hopefully these pics will fill in all the gaps!

Speeding up our flyball box

Upon viewing videos of our dog's box turns we noticed that some dog's are really having to adjust their box turns because the ball is not coming out fast enough. We want the ball to shoot out faster so the dogs can hopefully do a faster box turn. I took some pictures of the thrusters so that I might get some help from Dave, a great guy on Deborah's current flyball team. He knows flyball boxes inside and out!

Front of box

Side view, from slightly above

Bottom view (small and large ball thrusters)

Rear view of all 4 thrusters (the horizontal metal bar is on the angled trigger mechanism)

Another bottom view

Rear view from slightly below

Side view

Another rear view from slightly below

Another from the rear and below (zoomed in)

View from directly below the thrusters

Top view
The spring slides back, and provides the force for shooting the ball. The collar that adjusts the tension on the spring is easily adjustable with the hex screw. The other, longer collar is not easily adjustable.

Dog Park Photos - Plants & Swimming

Last week was sunny and beautiful. Indigo and I thoroughly enjoyed being outside at our favorite place. It wasnt her favorite when I forced her to go in the water by crossing the river without her, but she got over it.

PHLOX

HONEYSUCKLE

My Almost Perfect Weekend

My weekend started out early Saturday morning for an outdoor flyball practice. Indy never had issues running on grass, so we worked on ball holding a little bit. I spent most of my time taking photos of the team.

This is Spree who just found her drive. I love that everyone is cheering her on....such a supportive flyball team.

Amanda obviously had some fun with the camera!

Joe and Mustang

Spring and Mustang racing

After a nice long practice we took some of the dogs for a boat ride on a pontoon boat. It is the perfect set-up for the dogs to run and dive into the water.

I was feeling a little better about Indy's future as a swimmer after our past few visits to the dog park. The water there is not too deep for me to go in, but too deep for her to cross without swimming. I crossed the river and after a bit of screaming, she gave in and crossed to get me. On the boat Indy spent most of her time on the doggie dock wimpering about all the dogs going in the water and how scared she was to jump in herself.









She had much more success just going for a full jump of the edge of the boat. By the end of our adventure, she was happily diving off the boat with all the other dogs. Now the real test will be if she will swim off the shore.


After swimming we went to one of the coolest bakeries I have ever seen called Wrights Dairy Farm and Bakery in Rhode Island. Its a working dairy farm with a bakery on site! I was extremely overwhelmed, but ended up leaving with a birthday cake (chocolate strawberry shortcake), dinner rolls and a broccoli & cheese pie. Next time I want to try their chocolate milk and scones.

Poor Indy is scared of cows and had to pose with one. Im guessing that cow herding is not in her near future.

*****************************************************************

After the bakery, I hit the road for the 4 hr drive to visit Rachel and Teddy in upstate NY. Their friend has a beautiful cabin-like house in the middle of the woods. I got in at just in time for dinner. We sat around talking and watching TV before going to bed.
We took turns getting Indy to jump into our arms. She will jump into anyone's arms if they ask nicely.







We had a slow start to the day on Sunday, taking our time to make breakfast and lounge around. Eventually we make it out of the house and went to visit the Woodstock Museum on the site of where the concert happened in 1969. My mom was there! I would recommend the museum, although it was a bit overpriced.


After that we went out to a restaurant right on White Lake and had a nice relaxing lunch on the water.


It was on our way to the Fiddlers Flea Market that the weekend went bad. We stopped to make our left turn and then in a split second I was in a lot of pain and covered in water. Someone from behind us didnt see that we were stopped and hit us....hard. It didnt even sound like he slammed on his breaks. I was really dizzy and my ribs hurt and I was soaked from Rachel's water bottle. Otherwise we were all okay. It turned out that Rachels body flew into mine and our heads slammed together and her body smashed into mine. Right now as I write this (more than 24 hrs later) my head feels fine, but my ribs are still in quite a bit of pain. Also my back is fairly bruised.

The police, fire and EMT that came to help were incredibly and unbelievably unhelpful. When the ambulance got there the EMT walked up to me and said "so uh....do want to go to the hospital or something?" I said, "no". And she said, "okay well then can you sign this piece of paper saying I suggested you go?". She was not the least bit concerned at all. I asked her for an ice pack and she managed to get it to me after getting everyone else to sign her paperwork...about 10 minutes later. Then a K9 unit patrol car stopped and asked if we needed a ride. We said, "yes we would appreciate that". He then remembered that he doesnt actually have any seats in his car, since its all dog kennel and drove on. Nice.