Kaylee and the Sprout

Diametrag and her Sprout came to visit today. He used to be the Bean, but he's big enough now I should call him the Sprout.

Kaylee hasn't been around little ones a lot, and I've been a little nervous. Kaylee gets pretty excited and jumps when she greets people. I was afraid she was too rough to get along with the Sprout.

Kaylee was in the back yard, and Diametrag, the Sprout and I went to visit her. I brought along a box of kookies, and after I told Kaylee to "sit" the Sprout would feed her a kookie. It worked very well.

It was such a beautiful afternoon, we walked to the park. Kaylee and J. sat at the picnic table while the Sprout played on the jungle gym.

When we got home, it was snack time. J. gave the Sprout a peanut butter cracker. After he licked it clean, he said "All done" and gave it to Kaylee. They had a good time, and Kaylee waited politely while the Sprout ate his cracker.

Here you can see both of them waiting for their next cracker. J, the man with the jar of peanut butter, has their attention.

There's a Fungus Among Us

We've had enough rain this month. I would wish for it to stop raining, but it would probably snow instead.

With all the rain, we've had a lot of mushroomy stuff growing in our yard. I was inspired by Alwen's post with a picture of an earthstar fungus she found, and thought I would post my find.
Kaylee is a garbage hound lately, so I've been doing a quick patrol in the mornings. There was no trash, but I did find these mushrooms, or fungus. I didn't notice when I picked them up, but they are lavender on the underside. I don't know if they would make Kaylee sick, but they're on their way to the garbage can.
I'll have to keep up the morning yard patrol at least until the snow flies. There's someone in the neighborhood who feeds squirrels, and I occasionally find old corncobs and chunks of bread. Our back yard abuts the teachers' parking lot, and I find litter from teachers as often as students.
Kaylee turned 3 this month, she's not a puppy anymore, but she still eats the most disgusting things. I tell J, “She's a dog, that's what she does!”

J finished DWE's guitar, and has started another. Here's a picture of his latest rosette in progress. It's the same one he did for Diametrag's guitar, but a different choice of colors. There's no bleeding, and the background is nice and clear. It's about 6" across.

Kaylee's Excellent Vacation

Kaylee and I went on vacation last week. We took J. with us, since he's the one that does the heavy lifting, trailer hook-up, and all the important stuff. We like to camp at Hoeft State Park, north of Rogers City on Lake Huron. We especially like the empty campground after Labor Day, one of the benefits of being empty-nesters.

Here's our campsite, with our little trailer and screened tent. Kaylee is guarding our site, checking all the dogs and dogwalkers that passed by. J is in the screened tent, reading a book with his eyes closed, he has the method down to a science. Years of practice, don't you know.

Kaylee got a lot of attention this year. Almost every day someone stopped by and said "Oh, is that an Airedale?" Kaylee loved the attention, and got to sniff lots of new people and dogs. One woman said she had an Airedale, but he wasn't with her right then. It would have been nice if they could have played a little. Two park rangers stopped and mooshed her face and ears, and another lady had a new dog from rescue. She thought her dog might be part Airedale, and asked questions about Kaylee for comparison. Kaylee also got to touch noses with a spunky little Boston Terrier, Chloe. Her humans were a little skeptical, but Kaylee plays well with little dogs.

Most of our vacation is spent reading and relaxing alternating with long rambles with Kaylee. We found a nice city park on the beach, and followed an interpretive trail. It was a 1 mile trail, and since it wasn't a loop, we had a 2 mile walk when we got back to the truck. Kaylee and I took a minute to admire the lake. We had perfect weather, cool evenings, sunny days in the 70s F and not a drip of rain.

I love the colors of Lake Huron. It has shades of green, turquoise, green-blue, blue-green, and the sun makes the water sparkle! The colors make me think of my birthstone, a turquoise (I'm a Sagittarius).

J. took this picture. We were all loaded up and heading home Friday morning. The sun was brilliant, the clouds looked ominous. J. stopped the truck, grabbed the camera and ran across the road to take a picture or two. That one is now wallpaper on my desktop, what good memories! We had a great vacation this year.

Where's Kaylee?

Let's play a game of Where's Kaylee? Is she in the lettuce? Maybe she's under the lilac, waiting for the groundhog.

There's Kaylee! Hiding behind the green beans.

She's found a nice spot to rest, didn't even have to dig a hole.

Here's my lettuce garden. I planted a second crop of lettuce 2 or 3 weeks ago, but it is having trouble getting started. Kaylee has claimed that side for her spot in the shade, and just won't leave it alone. I look at it this way. The left side of the garden has bibb lettuce, the right side has butt'n lettuce. Kaylee's butt, that is.

If it's a bird bath, there must be birds nearby

One of the hardest things we've had to do this summer was sell the family 'homestead' in Marshall. J's great-great grandfather (maybe another great in there, I'm not sure) came from Ireland, settled in Marshall and built a house. It's been in the family since before the Civil War, every generation adding to the house, but now it belongs to some other family.

We don't have plans to return to Marshall in our retirement, and our kids are established elsewhere, too. It was hard to let it go, but we sold it to a couple who intend to restore it and perhaps make it better than it ever was.

J. always admired the bird bath, built by one of the greats. On his last trip cleaning out the basement, he lugged the bird bath up the hill to the driveway and hoisted it into the truck. It was quite a job, but he's glad he did it.

It's concrete and stone, and breaks down into 3 pieces. It's missing a few stones, and generally starting to deteriorate. For years, J's family moved the bird bath into the garage for the winter, but the last 15 years or more, no one has bothered. J. has no idea how it was built, but he'd like to repair it if he could. I'll have to do a search on the internet and see if I can find some information about this kind of masonry.

We're enjoying it for now - it still surprises me when I see it in the yard. My mind still thinks of it in my mother-in-law's flower garden, surrounded by snap dragons, lupines and zinnias. In spite of its homely appearance, it holds sweet memories for us both.

You talking to Me?

Kaylee has trouble with the concept of Garden. Especially "No Garden". Why shouldn't she lay in this empty dirt? It's soft, it's clean, it's simply perfect for a preliminary "lie-down" leading to an energetic "hole-dig" when the mood strikes.



She's telling me to calm down, it's just dirt. What she can't see are the tiny seeds that just sprouted in my "lettuce bowl". She can't see them because they are under her butt. Kaylee understands the general idea that the humans don't want her walking on the green stuff. Except for grass. (Humans are so picky). But she refuses to stay off empty dirt. Dirt and holes fall under her jurisdiction, and that's not going to change.

And just for a change of pace, we saw a skunk on yesterday's late night walk. We were walking through the school courtyard and I saw something black to the left of us. At first I thought it was a bag, or some other garbage, but then it moved and I recognized it was an animal, maybe a big cat? I didn't see a stripe, and I couldn't smell anything, but I recognized the pointy snout and bushy tail.

It moved again and I could see a sandwich or something in its grasp, so I said to J. "Be careful, we've got a skunk over there."

He wrapped the leash around his hand an extra time, and then Kaylee saw it, or maybe smelled it. It triggered her prey drive, and she was pulling and lunging as she tried to break away and chase it. Thank doGness J. has weight on his side, and a strong collar on Kaylee. I didn't want to spend the next hour washing a stinky dog in the backyard. It might be a good idea to make sure I have the ingredients for skunk remedy on hand. We might not be so lucky next time.

Odds and Ends

More Guitar Guts. J started to finish the body of Jake's guitar. Kaylee gives her approval, the color is so bright and vibrant.

The lettuce, kale and radishes have finally sprouted in my cold frame. It gets dry in there when I keep it closed. Things started popping when it rained this weekend and I left the top off. I intend to replant the first rows, they are not coming up very well. Still no snap pea sprouts. Grandpa Guy's advice isn't working well this year. (grin)

Looks like a fine crop of rhubarb. Kaylee likes to run through this area, and J. put tomato cages in to give the rhubarb a fighting chance.

It's been amazingly resilient, but I'm afraid I will lose it if I don't pick some this year. I can't/shouldn't have rhubarb pie, so I'm on the lookout for sugarless freezer jam. Maybe sugar-free Jello will be my solution.

The End.