Puppies!

So, above, you see the brand new family. A single parent family. Cute little fluffy dog (looking sad in this picture) is the little dog I found lost and lonely in February in the parking lot of the Kingdom Hall. I didn't want to take such a sweetie (and she is absolutely sweet, even with my dogs who are all marginal at best) to the pound, so I decided to foster her while we looked for her owner. I filled out lost dog reports with both of our area shelters and put up ads and posters all over. The county shelter informed me that after 2 weeks she would be considered my dog, "nonreturnable" in other words.

Or, in a nicer way of looking at it, adoptable. Enter a good friend from Fresno, who indicated that he and his new wife were kicking around the idea of adding another little fluffy dog to their family, which already included a charming, pleasantly spoiled dog of similar description, named Honey Bear. This is how Sad Little Lost Dog became Polar Bear, beloved member of a wonderful family.

As you may have guessed, Polar Bear came with some surprises of her own. These lovely 5 pups arrived a week ago (they are only 4 days or so in this picture, though). I imagine they will have personalities just as sweet as Mama, who is shy but utterly without aggressive tendencies, and to whom everyone is eventually a friend.

Good job, Polar Bear. I know you'll be a good mom to these great puppies.

Where does the time go?

I would love to say I'd been superbusy with this or that. But it turns out to just be an awful lot of this'n'thats (and an unhealthy dose of Farmville) but I can still come up with some updates.

First of all, the little lost fluffy dog we found in February has surprised us. She was adopted by William and Rachel in Fresno, after we gave up hope of finding her owner. Apparently, she was a week or so pregnant by the time we found her and she has given birth to five healthy, adorable puppies. Whoever daddy was, he must have looked a lot like Ms. Polar Bear, because her puppies look just like her. She couldn't have picked better people because Will and Rachel are delighted with them, as anyone who's Facebook friends of theirs can attest. Lucky girl.

Next, and nowhere near as exciting as puppies, my garden is starting to produce. I've been harvesting lettuce and other greens. I've eaten all my broccoli raab. I've learned that I should plant these kinds of things earlier in the year (and I'll probably have a better time of it in fall, too). The dogs have helped, such as it is. When they dug out the bed I had in the backyard, they seem to have spread radishes far and wide. I have so far found five radishes that managed to tough it out and grow in the most difficult of circumstances. Who knew a radish was so determined? Forget The Landscaping Ideas of Jays, next time I'll just ask Sasha's opinion.

Finally, I am working on the design for my first Yudu screen project, loosely based on these photos from the Desert Botanical Gardens. I just love the idea of those poppies and bluebells together. (The images are large size so I can print them off the internet later. Our printer is too cheap for nice prints)

Arizona Blitz

We got back early this morning from a three day whirlwind tour of Phoenix and Sedona Arizona. We had a wonderful time and saw and did many post-worthy things. Unfortunately, there isn't enough time this evening to do the trip justice, so I'm going to put up a selection of the best pictures and fill in on the rest of it later.

Desert Run

I had a wonderful invitation from Maryanne and Karen to bring Cyrus out to Reno to run with the big dogs. We had a lousy time getting over Donner Pass, what with the snow and road closures, but the great time we had in the desert was worth it. Here are some pictures.

Cyrus, pretending he's lost in the Sahara. He spent much of the time about 8" from my heels, as is his preference when strange dogs are about.

Getting ready to set out, here are Karen and Jan along with dogs Zoe, Sansar (I think), Summer, and Mystic.

Maryanne's Keno, having a postcard moment.

In the foreground is Maryanne's Blaze, zooming along. The beagle in the middle distance is 12 year old Trooper. I have never seen a dog more aptly named.

My camera is too slow to catch any real running action, but we had a wonderful time.

A breath of sun

The dogs have gotten sick of the rainy weather. They love the couch, of course, but there is only so much curling-up they want to do. Especially Sasha.

What's that? Dog park, you say? If she had hands, she'd be clapping. Instead, she roo-roos, as should not surprise anyone who's ever been to my house or talked to me on the phone when I've just come home.

He is just a lovely looking dog. If he was this happy and relaxed at the dog shows, he would come home with a ribbon for sure.

Happy dogs come from California dog parks. See how the weeds very nearly make a lawn? All the dogs were frisky that day, even the little old Lab mix with the gray face.


The mallows were growing up rather clumpy, which provided endless fascination for all concerned. "Have I sniffed this one yet? Peed on it? Has someone else peed on it since I sniffed it last?"

Only dog owners will think this is funny. Everyone else, just enjoy the pictures... :)

Garden Time

One of the things I looked forward to in this new house was the possibility of a garden. The majority of the yard is slated for a native/wildflower sort of scheme (though I'll have to make sure and avoid anything with feathery/stickery seeds. They felt up in Cyrus' fur like crazy). But I picked the least clayey (it's a real word), sunniest part of the yard for a veggie garden.

In preparation for starting work on this section, I've been doing what I always do before I start a new project...

Check out people's blogs. And put about 30 library books on hold. This made me realize how lucky I am, gardenwise. I know, I live in California where you're supposed to be able to stick a stick in the ground and it'll grow. I am not sure I'll be able to garden that well, but I'm referring more to seasons. Granted, the summer is pretty hard to growing things. But while most of the garden bloggers are bemoaning the inactivity of January, February and March, gazing at their brand new seed catalogs or new seed packets in impatience, I can start up with anything that says "Plant as soon as the ground can be worked" or "Sow 2-4 weeks before your estimated last frost date". (By the way, did any of this matter a month ago? No. Welcome to my hobby-gathering.)

So, I did receive some of my seeds a few weeks ago. But I've been waiting for a fence to protect the veggie patch from the furry tornado that is the dogs. Matt took care of that today (Yay, Babe!), but unfortunately that was after the following pictures were taken. I'll post that next time. But I can sow my peas (Sugar Sprint Snap Peas), the free carrots (Nantes, we'll have to see if they can take the clay), the Broccoli Raab, the Bok Choi (for Matt) and the radishes.

Hopefully I don't kill everything. I did already plant some sprouting garlic that volunteered in my pantry. It's doing well. The greens are about 8 inches tall after 3 or 4 weeks. The dogs knocked one over, so in the picture, they are protected by the lawn chair.

Anyway, here is what I'm working with, as of the end of January. This is a poorly stitched together "panorama" of the vegetable patch area. Notice that the dogs (Sasha) has pitched in by digging holes for some drought-garden-friendly buried watering jars. Good dog, Sasha.

Here are my foes. The round, scalloped-leafed weeds are commonly called mallows and aparently a sign that your garden has rich soil (I think that's what I read on the internet, anyway). The clover lookalike is actually goatshead/puncture vine. Evil. Mallows, who cares. Puncture vine must be eradicated. Have you seen Cyrus' feathering?

These, I'm not so sure about. I think the lighter ones are...um... those plants whose seedheads look like little swords (and little kids make scissors out of them) and the dried seeds have the little tails that wind around and around into a corkscrew by themselves. You can tell I know this one from childhood. Other adults I've asked don't even have a glimmer of recognition in their eyes when I mention this. Where did they grow up?

And the ultimate nemesis: the cutworm. They are everywhere in my yard. Every weed I pull up has some of these guys curled up around its roots.

More Artwork and Updates

So I've been preparing for the ArtWalk show at the Modesto Library. Here are some prints I have in the works, in addition to the one I posted last time. They need some work, and the jellyfish probably won't be displayed with the others (I'm going for a tree theme if I can... of course, if I can't, then I'll throw in whatever's framed by then). The jellyfish linocut needs some clean-up to fix all those little black bits that printed and shouldn't have. Ditto the bird print. The last one was a drypoint attempt to see if I might can do intaglio on the press Matt built. Good news: it worked a little. Bad news: it didn't work very well. There could be a few reasons... the paper is sketchbook paper, not the $2-a-sheet etching paper I bought from Blick Art. Also, the lines might be too shallow to hold enough ink. Lastly... the press might not be able to handle intaglio. I'm hoping it's reasons 1 and/or 2.

Jellyfish - linocut with hand tools on newsprint

Bird pair - woodcut (pine) with dremel and hand tools on newsprint.

Tree/birds (can't see the birds, huh?) - plexiglass drypoint on sketch paper.

Updates: after reading up on Team Small Dog blog, Susan Garrett's blog, and Silvia Trkman's website, I've been shamed into taking up the clicker with my wild three again. So, Mya's working on her down and some directional commands to targets I point out to her. Sasha's doing remedial leash-prep - free heeling with me around the house. With his hurt knee, Matt can't walk a dog who pulls anymore, so I need to get at least one dog reliably heeling. I'm particularly proud of Cyrus. We've been working with shaping only, and he's got a pretty good Moonwalk going on. He can back across about half the room. We're working on more distance and a straighter path. I'll post some videos if I can get them.

Well, that's the zoo. Thanks for your visit.