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Old Dog: New Tricks

23 Dec

I have been trying for ages to get Blazer to “give paw” or shake hands. He always stays in the hallway until I come down in the morning, and I will sit on the step below him, grasp his right front paw and repeat “give paw” while I lift his foot and hold it for a few seconds. We do this five or six times. After a few weeks – months? – of this, he is no further along than he was when we started, so I decided this morning to try it with treats.

He was sitting beside me while I ate breakfast, so I got down on the floor with a bit of egg, grasped his right forefoot and said “give paw”.  He immediately flopped down on his side and rolled over for me to rub his tummy.

Somehow, I don’t this this is a battle I’m going to win.

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Dinner Bowl Rock

20 Dec

Blazer’s favorite pastime is to carry his dish around in his mouth, in the (generally) vain hope that someone will put something in it. If he is distracted – or disappointed – he will throw the bowl on the floor. Not drop it. Throw it.

He had a metal bowl that finally developed a round bottom from being dropped so many times, and I replaced it with a heavy plastic one that I picked up at a thrift shop. It was a children’s bowl, so it was pretty sturdy, but after about two years, he’d thrown it around so much it had developed a bad crack, which The Squire mended with duct tape. Earlier this week, the bowl broke completely in half.

Yesterday I purchased a pack of three plastic bowls at the local Dollar Emporium. Last night Blazer ate his dinner and then proceeded to chew the bowl to pieces.  I think another metal bowl is in the offing.

You’d think he never got fed.

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Breakfast on the Patio

18 Dec

The Squire and I put out peanuts for the squirrels every morning. We have two lengths of PVC pipe, into each of which we put about three cups of peanuts, shoving them in as far as possible, so the blue jays can’t reach them.

I overslept a bit this morning and when I opened the door to tie Blazer outside, a squirrel came up to within about two feet of me, sitting on his haunches, obviously expecting to be fed. I had the dog by his collar, trying to figure out how to get him on the rope and still keep him from going after my morning visitor.  I managed to flick my fingers at the squirrel enough to convince him to take a short hike, and the dog raced off in search of who-knows what.

By the time I had gotten the peanuts to put in the pipe, the dog was ready to come inside, and I had about five squirrels hanging upside down on the oak tree, waiting for me to get breakfast. There are one or two critters – maybe just one, as they all look alike – who will actually take food from my fingers; the rest will hover just “this far” out of reach, and dart in to pick up whatever I toss to them. Stale crackers and corn chip crumbs, but they don’t like popcorn.

I wouldn’t want to live anyplace else in the world.

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Drizzle Fizzle

10 Dec

Last night, the forecast was for three to five inches of heavy snow, which is always bad news, so The Squire brought down fire wood, and dragged the snow shovels out of the barn.

We got about two inches of snow, and then it turned to rain. By lunchtime, it was all over but the slush.

Eldest Daughter lives fifteen miles north of us, and they got about seven inches. Her husband took the truck and left for work, so she had to shovel the entire drive, and she is such a fuss-budget that she will shovel all the way to the very, very edge of the drive. Not as long as ours, but long enough. She had an errand which absolutely had to be done, weather or no, so she took her car out to the main highway – about a mile.  She said she was all over the road both coming and going. Fortunately, she has anti-lock brakes, and they were “stuttering all the way”.

Our youngest daughter lives in Virginia, and they always get a lot more snow than we do.  They got five inches on Sunday, and then a quarter inch of freezing rain. In her email at 9:30 this morning she said they already had three and a half inches, and it was still coming down.

So much for moving south for better weather.

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The North Wind Doth Blow

8 Dec

We were supposed to get one to two inches of snow, beginning this afternoon. It started to snow on the way to church, and by half past the sermon we were in full whiteout.  North of Baltimore, we got about four inches of snow, and now, even though it is 28-F, it is raining.

Things should be just lovely tomorrow morning.

It is supposed to go up to 45 tomorrow, which will melt a lot of this, but then the temp will drop again, and the forecast is for more snow on Tuesday.  Our grandson is a lineman for the electric company. Pray for him, and if you see a crew out clearing branches, take them some coffee or hot chocolate. And then there are the poor souls who pick up the trash at O-dark ugly every morning.

The dog is loving this stuff. He races around in circles, “snoveling” tunnels all over the yard, and playing “gonna getcha” – running straight at me, and then veering off at the last possible second. The cat, however, is taking the weather as a personal insult, and wants to go outside every ten minutes to see if things have cleared up. He seems to feel it is my fault, and doesn’t hesitate to tell me so. Loudly and often.

We were supposed to have a tree lighting and caroling party this evening, but that has been postponed.  Friday is supposed to be clear and cold, but at least it won’t be raining or snowing.  I’ve made a batch of spiced cider to be heated, and there is a good supply of hot chocolate at church, so we’re good to go.

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Making His Point

7 Dec

As I’ve mentioned before, we generally keep our dog on a 40 foot wire, with a 30 foot line. This gives him plenty of space to run; he can reach the kitchen door, but cannot get as far as the barn, or the spot where we feed the foxes.  Almost every night, he will convince me there’s something out back that needs barking at, usually deer or the foxes.  I’ve seen the foxes sit down, just out of his reach, while the poor dog dashes back and forth in frustration, and I swear I can hear them laughing.

Last night, Blazer went racing out with his rope already tangled around the tree (I need to keep an eye on that), and pulled the hook clean off the end.  This morning, I had to let him out without tying him – always a risk, but I figured he wouldn’t go far on an empty stomach, and he didn’t. Pretty much out and back. The Squire replaced the hook after he had eaten his breakfast.

A little while ago, The Squire took the compost out for me and came back chuckling.

It seems that while Blazer was out taking care of business, he left a “message” in the foxes’ dish.

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The Ravens are Playing!

1 Dec

??????????Came downstairs this morning to see these guys in the front yard. “Cronk! Cronk!” I don’t know if they were annoyed that the squirrels and blue jays had eaten all the peanuts, but they did try some of the dog food I put out for the jays.

They are about two feet tall, about twice the size of a crow, about twice as loud, and very glossy.  They don’t sound at all like a crow, but unless you see them together it’s hard to tell one from another.

Happy Anniversary!

28 Nov

Today is OurWeddingour 39th wedding anniversary, and neither of us are any the worse for wear. We actually got married on Thanksgiving day, and this is only the third time the dates have coincided.

I was working at Blue Cross at the time, and December through the end of March was our busiest season. We had Open Enrollment for the Federal Government, students and Medicare recipients, as well as 19 years olds coming off their parents policies. If you died you had to send in your next of kin to take your place.  Fortunately, we did have a four day weekend for Thanksgiving, so The Squire and I decided to jump at it. That or wait until after April 1st.

This was a second marriage for both of us – a second wedding, but a first marriage, and there’s a big difference. Oddly enough, we had both had civil services the first time around, and we wanted a religious ceremony this time.  I wanted to look like a bride, without being Queen of the May, tra-la, tra-la, and this is the dress I found. It was actually a bridesmaid’s dress, but it was just what I wanted.

And so was The Squire.

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Surprise, Surprise!

24 Nov

The Squire will be 70 on the 29th, and I was determined to throw him a party for this landmark ocassion.

After a bit of mental mumbling, I decided the easiest and best place was to have it immediately after the late service at church today. I passed around a note during the Annual Meeting on the 10th. “Surprise party on the 24th. No gifts.” I did call a few folks who don’t attend our church; my brother-in-law, our closest friends, our eldest daughter and her family – but even people who normally come to the early service came back over at 11:30 to wish The Squire a Happy Birthday.

Eldest Daughter baked her dad a birthday cake, and one member of the early church group (do you have two separate congregations at your church?)  went over to the grocery store to pick up a deli tray I had ordered. I had hoped to have everything in place before the service ended, but it didn’t run as long as I had guessed it would – will have to ask Fr. M to preach longer sermons – so The Squire was coming into the hall from the narthex door as Eldest Daughter was coming in the back door.

My husband was well and truly flabbergasted, and nearly moved to tears.  Lots of birthday cards, a number of gift cards to Barnes & Noble, and a very happy husband. Ta-dah!

And not a single person had a camera.

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Doncha’ Hate It…

20 Nov

…when something goes missing right out of your hands?

Almost my entire married life, payday has been every two weeks, and to avoid extra trips to the grocery store or hit-and-miss meals, I have always picked one cookbook for each week, selected all of my recipes from that book, and put the recipe and the page number on one side of my little steno pad, with the ingredients/shopping list on the other side of the page. I even made a note of which book it was. After I “retired” from the health insurance company in 1983, I registered with a temp agency, and this method has made it easy for The Squire to put dinner together when I am suddenly off working.

Last week, I made up my list, did the shopping, put the page from the steno pad on the fridge, and made one of the meals – a red and white cabbage stir fry with tofu and walnuts. The Squire didn’t care for the walnuts, and I made some notes in the cookbook, and then – I thought – put the book on the shelf. Except that today, I wanted to put together the ingredients for a quiche, so I could slide it into the oven when I got home from a meeting – and the cookbook  is gone.

I have checked page 187 of every book on the shelf. I even looked through some of the books I’ve put aside for a yard sale. Nada.

It’ll turn up next week, I suppose, sitting on the shelf, looking smug, and acting as if it had been there all along.

In the meantime, if anybody has a good recipe for stuffed Chinese cabbage with mushrooms, let me know. I have the ingredients right here.

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