Uncategorized – Page 100 – This Old House 2

Inside Outside and a Me Me about You

This is what it looks like at 7am this morning at This Old House…

Inside…

two kids home from work and school, sharing cold misery.

Note the roll of paper towels at hand for nose blowing.

now THAT’S misery, if you ask me.

Think I oughta head out to CVS for tissues?… the shame of it.

Meanwhile, standing mopey on the deck are dogs who don’t

wanna get wet, but really gotta go!

I’ve got a 9am vet appointment for all four dogs for annual check up.

What was I thinking???…..

And finally, a Me Me about YOU

if you care to join in.

Leave your answers in the comments section…

please.. I need entertainment today.

1. What name would you choose for yourself if you could have been named

something other than what you were given?

2. If you could blink your eyes and be anywhere at all for a nice long weekend

of relaxation or recreation, where would you go, and with whom?

3. Three of your favorite foods…

4. If you could add a room to your current living quarters,

what would it be?

5. If you won 5 million dollars,

how do you absolutely know you would spend a portion of it?

my answers:

Rowan.

St. John, Vida de Mar Villa with my family

Guacamole with tortilla chips

A really good cheesecake

the best kind of lobster roll.. cold, salad like.

Hot tub greenhouse.

I’d open a homeless shelter for people and animals.

A Halfway house, sort of.

I have ideas about it…..

Pumpkin Blueberry Pound Cake

I was first introduced to this recipe by Hilary of Crazy as a Loom (blog)…

It’s sooo good.. I made it last night using gluten free King Arthur’s flour..

it was delicious! but I bet it would have been even better with regular flour.

I’ve noticed with gluten free flour, recipes come out a little drier.

Fresh plump blueberries are best.

picture courtesy google

Pumpkin Blueberry Pound Cake
Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

3/4 cup butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 large eggs

1 1/3 cups canned pumpkin

1/3 cup sour cream

1/2 cup 1% low-fat milk

2 cups blueberries

Glaze

1 cup sifted powdered sugar

1 tablespoon canned pumpkin

2 1/4 teaspoons 1% low-fat milk

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. -To prepare cake, coat 10 inch bunt pan with cooking spray; dust with 2 teaspoons flour, set aside. -Lightly spoon 3 cups flour into dry measuring cups, and level with a knife.

Combine 3 cups flour and next 6 ingredients (through cloves), stirring with a whisk. Place butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed 1 minute or until light and fluffy. Gradually add granulated and brown sugars and 1 teaspoon vanilla, beating until light and fluffy (about three minutes). Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add pumpkin and sour cream, and beat well. Beating at low speed, add flour mixture and milk alternately to butter mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture.

Fold in blueberries.

-Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a wooden toothpick insterted comes out clean. Cool in pan 15 minutes. After 15 cool on a wire rack or cutting board. –

To prepare glaze, combine powdered sugar and remaining ingredients, stirring until well blended, drizzle over cooled cake.

Whats growing here at This Old House

We’ve finally gotten much needed rain and I don’t mind the dreariness at all.

I love the sight of green, happy plants

and the smell of fresh spring earth.

All the shrubbery we planted around the house last year has almost doubled in size…

a mild winter saw to that.

Perennials I heisted from our old house when we moved here

are thriving.. I’ve done this every time we move..

taken a piece of my old gardens to the new..

This is an idea I got from another blogger, Pam – http://ouradventuresinhomeimprovement.blogspot.com/2012/04/ladder-for-garden.html

It will also have two birdhouses on the top step.

Now I have to figure out what to plant in all the pots and tins.

Any ideas? Full sun most of the day.

This is what you call an EPIC FAIL.

Our Italian gardener friend Louie said it would be alright to put the tomato

plants in as long as we covered them if frost were predicted.

WRONG.

It’s too early, folks.

Sometimes I think Louie just wants Mike to learn the old fashioned way.. trial and error..

instead of giving him the information straight up, the easy way.

It is what it is.

Funny Video about this very thing… (Thanks Di!)

PS.. some curse words here, so if you’re offended or have children nearby,

as a commenter pointed out… be warned.

The greenhouse that my two guys built has really come in handy…

I’m starting a small rose garden around it.

Here you see the one Julia Child I planted last year and a few peonies.

The rose is very happy – I recommend this species highly!

I’ve ordered three more to complete the border.

Inside the greenhouse are my zinnia seedlings, oregano, parsley and a few remaining

tomato plants that escaped the treachery outside.

In the big garden the blueberry and rasberry bushes are thriving…

Broccoli is happy….

peas too….

Hay fields are rich after all that chicken sh*t drama…

..and Opie, Max and the minis are grazing the good life.

Max is showing his age more this year (25!)

and it’s been more difficult to keep decent weight on him.

The horses are wormed regularly, and

he already gets the maximum amount of quality grain he can be fed safely.

They also get good quality hay besides his pasture grazing.

Any horse folks out there that have experienced with aged horses?

Any suggestions? The vet says he’s healthy and his owner isn’t concerned.

This horse is such a gentleman, we’re lucky to have him here.

Opie is fat. Middle aged life agrees with him very well, thank you very much.

For him I need to be careful that he’s not fed too much or too rich a diet.

Same goes for the minis, who fatten up very very easily.

“Who you calling FAT??”

The chickens are ecstatic about their new free-roaming ways..

I just worry about the coyotes.

My little Seaside Garden (wishful thinking at it’s best!)

has filled in nicely this winter with all the wonderful warm weather

beach walks we’ve taken. I’ve gathered pieces of shells and driftwood with each walk.

This is the first year for the phlox to bloom and it looks happy.

I need to complete the border with it.

Frasier is now a full fledged member of the family,

used to the routines.

He’s more confident that I’m COMING BACK

every time I walk out the door without him,

and he’s made a great pal – Bailey.

Ben could care less.. just stay off his bed.

This might be my longest photo post yet. If you’re still with me,

thanks for tagging along and I hope you have a great day.

I got the message…

Driving down the highway a few nights ago…

this was ahead of us.

Choose Happy 🙂

They just make me smile, you know?

Good Morning!

And please, take that quite literally!

thank you Hilary – love this.

So today is the tomorrow….

make it a good one 🙂

My favorite breakfast,which I just finished.

birds in a nest. 

Udi’s gluten free bread, my own chickens’ organic eggs..

One of these was a blue egg, can you tell? 🙂

Have a great weekend, all.

I am one of the designated drivers to the Semi Formal!

You know I’ll be taking pictures..

He said She said

This morning’s conversations…..

Manchild…silent through the car ride to the bus stop….

then…

Him: I need 40 bucks to buy a ticket to the Semi Formal for Saturday night…

Me: But you said you weren’t going! Does your suit still fit?… what color dress is your date wearing?… we’ll need a boutonniere and corsage???….. WHO is your DATE?……

All this.. mind you, flashed through my mind in about twelve seconds.. only the first sentence actually got out of my mouth… before he said…..

“Don’t ask me any questions, I don’t want to talk about it ….”

and sprinted out of the car, dashing to the bus. Use of the word “sprint” is not an exaggeration here.

Ok then.

I drive home and make a mental list of the few things that will have to be taken care of now that he’s attending the semi formal on THIS Saturday night… (Girls would be planning for this dance three months in advance. Guys? two hours before they might give it some serious thought. But probably not. )

….and now back at the ranch…. Graduate Girl comes downstairs in her work attire. There’s a pensive look… then a muttered sentence…

She: “Is this jewelry too much, you think?”…..

Now that’s not just a muttered sentence.. that’s a LOADED QUESTION. Because, you know…. even though they ask the question, it doesn’t necessarily mean they really want your answer if it diverts in any way from what they’re already thinking.

SO… I tentatively stick a toe in the waters of that deeeeeep deeeeeep pool.

Me: “Well.. your outfit looks great! I really like the jewelry too.”

and here’s where it gets sticky. Because I really shoulda just left it right there. Shut up. Zipped the lip. MINDED MY OWN BEESWAX.

Because then I said…

…”but maybe the big bangly bracelet is a bit too much for the Bank. “

Can you hear the whistle of the big 2 ton ACME weight falling down the canyon wall,

headed for Wyle E. Coyote?

SHE says… in a huff with a heavy eye roll and a good stomp back up the stairs…
“Of course you would say that… “

To her credit… she came back down about 10 minutes later and told me she caught the “tone” in her voice when I gave my opinion, and although she realized she ASKED me for an opinion, from now on she’s just gonna trust her own judgement, thank you very much.

I think that’s a great idea, don’t you?

Ooooookay then!

Saving a life

ot all of us are made of the stuff that can pull a child from a burning building, give CPR to a severely wounded victim of a car accident… have the knowledge and administer vital medical care to a patient…the list goes on. But how many of us own dogs?…. There are atleast 78.2 million owned dogs in the United States alone. 21% of those dogs were adopted from animal shelters. I’d love to see that number increase and I ask all my readers to consider visiting your local shelter before you bring home your next pet. Consider this…. There are eight to 10 million homeless animals in shelters across the country and the cold, hard reality is that approximately half of them — four million — will not find homes and have to be euthanized.

My Dane Ben, was purchased at a Pet store. I have bought from breeders before…and I wasn’t looking for another dog at the time… I just fell in love with that face in the window and felt sorry for him, being in that pet store environment, searching faces of the people gazing in. Ben has a deformed toe, an injury to his foot when he was a young pup kept in a wire cage, in a puppy mill. How do I know this? When I bought the dog from the pet store, I asked if he was from a reputable breeder, not a puppy mill. They said oh yes, we only buy from breeders. That means nothing. On his papers, I saw his “breeder” name out in the midwest. I tried to contact the man. There is no listing, no e-mail no way to contact the “breeder” to ask questions. Not only that, there is no record of Ben’s lineage. Ben came from a puppy mill. I will never again buy from stores who sell puppies from puppy mills. This, below, is what you are supporting when you do.

I can’t help but notice there is a dog just like frasier in this picture below…bottom left cage. Not only that, there are dogs just like my Bailey in the bottom right cages. Bailey also came from a pet store. Yes, I did this twice, not knowing what I was condoning.

These are kind pictures… there is much worse.

Responsible breeders do a wonderful job caring for their dogs. I personally wish there could be a moratorium on breeding dogs for five years so that we could find homes for the thousands and thousands of dogs that are euthanized each year for lack of an adopter. I know I’ll gain no friends in the dog breeding world for saying this. But it would be a solution to this horrendous problem.

These dogs will find homes, their breeder will see to it.

These two below? They will have to rely on people like you and me

to spread the word that they are available.. they are in need..

and their time is limited.

Some helpful tips if you are considering a shelter dog…

WHAT TO ASK:

• Get a complete history of the animal that you are considering.

• Age (Although sometimes there is no way for the shelter to know for sure), breed, gender

• Where the dog came from

• What was his previous living situation

• What is his medical history

• How has he behaved since being at the shelter

• Ask if the dog has any ongoing medical issues (cancer, diabetes, intestinal parasites, heartworms, etc.) and if the dog is on any medication.

• Ask what follow-up services that shelter provides, such as obedience training, consultation for behavioral problems, medical services.

• Ask about their return policy. It’s important to know if you can return the dog if the adoption does not work out.

Important to know – A good shelter is clean, smells good, friendly, and very knowledgeable. Often shelters will have a veterinarian on staff, as well as a staff behaviorist. In these cases, you can expect all the animals ready for adoption have received the proper medical care that they need and the behaviorist has evaluated his/her temperament and worked out any behavior issues.

Frasier, my newly adopted shelter dog… is the most loving animal I have ever owned. He’s housetrained, well-mannered, gets along with everyone, human or animal…. follows me everywhere. His gratitude for a better life is palpable. I’m as grateful as he.