All posts by laurahinnj

Dog days

Monday pupdate

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My husband and I don’t ordinarily talk on the phone during the workday, but that’s changed since bringing home little Luka. We call one another throughout the day with *pupdates* as the need arises. Since he works close enough to home to drop by at midmorning for a potty break for the puppy, and I’m temporarily working in an office where I can make it home on my lunch hour for another potty break, and then the DH can be home from work by 4pm or so, we have Luka’s bathroom needs covered at 3 hour intervals. That’s helped him to be pretty successful with housetraining so far. In the evenings when we’re at home is another story – you know how puppies like to wander off and get into trouble… mainly on the new wool braided rug beneath our dining room table!

On his first workday alone, Luka had busted out of the kitchen by midmorning and was napping in the spare bedroom beside Peeper’s cage. By the second morning he had figured out how to plow through the gate blocking entrance to the porch where the big bunnies live like a little bull, forcing me to call my husband to come home and rig something up just so that I could finish getting ready for work. Peeper’s used to living in close quarters with a dog, but the big bunnies are not so enthused with a yappy puppy on either side of their gate. I think we have the puppy containment issues handled, for a while at least, until he’s big enough to jump over the gates…

He’s as mouthy as you’d expect from a Lab pup, but we’re working on that. He tends to go for my husband’s toes, yet he favors the backs of my ankles, or worse, the meaty part of my calves. Youch – he’s all teeth! And baleful looks when corrected.

We had our first appointment with the vet tonight, for his second round of shots, and he did quite well when distracted with a handful of biscuits. I asked the vet if he wouldn’t mind filing down those shark teeth some, but he says that’s part of the price we pay for having a cute puppy.

Puppyhood is so short-lived. I’m trying to endulge myself without spoiling him too much. I bring him up onto the bed at night for a quick snuggle only. I carry him down the stairs and across intersections on our walks while he’s light enough for me to lift. I inhale his puppy breath as often as possible. Caress the soft pads of his paws as he sleeps. Laugh at him when he encounters a wheelbarrow or bicycle for the first time. I’m forever pulling rocks and flowers out of his mouth. He’s obsessed with the refrigerator and closets. But he’s so adorable that my heart sings.

Garden, Pond, Snapshots

Lily and cats

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Remember the new purple waterlily I mentioned in this post, well, here’s one open. Nice, huh? I like the color combination, but wish it would bloom a bit more. I feel like I ought to fertilize the pond plants, but with so many fish at the moment, it’s probably not necessary!

We had an odd frog incident: I found a smallish bullfrog dead on the slate floor of the gazebo next to the pond. At first I thought maybe it had hopped out and baked itself somehow on the oven-hot slate, but then I noticed one of its’ legs was a few feet away and half-chewed up. This afternoon brought a possible explanation: my husband startled a cat from the pond area this morning. That explains how yesterday’s dead frog moved itself a foot or more by this afternoon! I also found a black swallowtail dead on the floor of the gazebo – wings only! I expect cats to hunt birds and baby rabbits, but bullfrogs and butterflies?

I wish my neighbors were more responsible with their cats. I could never get away with the same behavior with a dog – why should it be any different for cat owners? At any rate, my husband set a trap out – I would hate to see a neighbor’s beloved pet end up at the pound, but we won’t have a well-fed housecat using our garden as a hunting ground.

Whatever

Perfect summer supper

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Fresh mozzarella, tomatoes fresh from the garden, and just picked sweet basil – can culinary perfection come any more simply?

I’ve become totally spoiled by handmade fresh mozzarella in the last year. I’ve always loved mozzarella – the milkiness and nutty flavor of the fresh stuff is just so delicious! Growing up I remember how I loved to pilfer a few slices of the Polly-O brand my dad made lasanga with – I don’t think I could ever go back to eating that. For years I looked forward to the fresh mozzarella my Italian sister-in-law would have on holidays from her old neighborhood in Staten Island – even that can’t compare to this stuff!

I like to cut it in large chunks and mix with quartered tomatoes and fresh basil with a sprinkle of balsamic and lots of black pepper. Roasted sweet peppers are a nice addition, I think, if you have them handy.

My only complaint is that you really can’t refrigerate the stuff without the flavor being affected. My DH and I mix it up early and then *graze* throughout the day and night so that it’s gone before bed. Once decent tomatoes are available, we’ll have this treat most summer weekends. Yummmmm.

So, what’s your idea of the perfect summer supper?

Bunnies, Dog days

8/2/07 Mid-week bunny fix

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Peeper has a new playmate! Not really, but they seem to share a mutual interest in tormenting one another. For the first day or so, little Luka approached Peeper’s cage in the spare bedroom on tippy-toes, scared of the strange creature inside. That changed pretty quickly to a play-bow and little yaps from Luka. Peeper comes right up to the bars of her cage to meet him nose to snout and sometimes boxes him if he yaps at her.

It will be years before Luka meets any of the bunnies any closer than this, but I hope with enough positive reinforcement of any gentle behavior on his part that he will come to ignore the bunnies the way that Buddy did.

PSA, Snapshots

Summer shade

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If you need a break from puppy antics, be sure to stop by Via Negativa for this month’s Festival of the Trees. There’s nothing more refreshing on a hot August afternoon than the respite found under the canopy of a great tree, like the shade of these weeping hemlocks in the rockery at Deep Cut Gardens.

Dave’s got lovely katydid pics to accompany his post and I can hear their scritching outside the open window now; a sort of late summer lullaby. If only that cricket hidden away somewhere in the house wouldn’t insist on piping up now and again.

Dog days, Pastimes

Crabby day

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We tried out a few new crabbing spots on the Navesink River yesterday, but this one was my favorite because it has such a nice view. We were there at a bad time in terms of the tide, as this little creek leads into a quiet cove. Due to some crabby logic that I don’t understand, a cove like this should be best when the tide is coming in. We spent very little time actually crabbing, more time moving from one bridge to the next. The first new place we tried became crowded with other crabbers early in the day and wasn’t very safe as it’s along a busy road. Then we drove to the other side of the river to this scenic spot, but the tide was going out by then and we only stayed an hour or so.
We caught a few crabs, but nothing to brag over. Well, except for my nephew – he was thrilled with anything that was big enough to keep and show off! His older brother came along with us. He’s going away to forestry school at the University of Montana in a few weeks – he wants to be a smokejumper by next summer. I’m so proud of him for going to school and being a good kid.
Little Luka came along on our crabbing adventure and was pretty cranky after a few hours without a nap. Finally he just crashed on the sidewalk of the bridge while we worked around him. We wore him out good yesterday so that he slept through the night last night – straight through til 5 am – thank heavens!

Dog days, Snapshots

Life is good

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Yes, it’s soon, but really I’m surprised we lasted the few days we did. I found my husband surfing the SPCA websites this morning and that was that. We hadn’t spoke of it yet, but I guess we were both thinking the same thing: the house is lonely, it’s too quiet when we come in with no one to greet us, the bag of dog food is going to waste in the closet, etc. (insert other lame excuses).

So now there’s this puppy. Crying and mouthing and being utterly adorable. I’m not looking forward to the next few nights; his first away from his parents and littermates. But the house didn’t feel right without a dog. We’re taking the easy way out of our mourning for Buddy, I know. There is no distraction from sadness like a puppy. We do what we have to to heal a broken heart.

I apologize for being away for a few days, but I didn’t have anything to say that wasn’t pathetic. I appreciate your concern and the love you sent our way. Thank you.

Life is good with a lab pup at your heels.

Dog days, Remembering

Dear heart

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“Warm summer sun, shine kindly here;
Warm western wind, blow softly here;
Green sod above, lie light, lie light–
Good-night, dear heart, good-night, good-night.“
–Robert Richardson (adapted by Mark Twain)

In the words of my vet, after I apologized for making him go over the necropsy results for the second time in as many hours, “It’s hard to lose a dog that’s been with you for so many years.” Yes it is, but would it be any easier if it were two years instead of twelve?

My old man dog Buddy died today. Just like that. He was a little off this morning and wouldn’t settle or eat his treats. He was sleeping alone in the living room when we woke up this morning and was hard to rouse. Nothing unusual, really. We were both concerned enough that my husband stopped home at lunch time to check on him and found him dead. Dead in front of the door so that it couldn’t be opened and my husband had to climb in through the kitchen window to get in the house.

My husband brought him to the vet for a necropsy so that we might understand what happened to him. The vet found that he had hemangiosarcoma; an aggressive cancer of the blood vessels and a tumor on his heart. The tumor had ruptured and caused his heart to stop. The vet said that he felt no pain, just tired and weak, and likely collapsed and just went peacefully to sleep.

I had fretted over him getting older and worried that we might have to put him to sleep one day when he couldn’t walk any longer. I dreaded that, but never expected anything like this. I have to think that a kindness was done for us – a disease we didn’t know about, couldn’t worry over and couldn’t even have done anything about had we known. No guilt, no what-ifs. I’m just so thankful I took the time this morning before leaving to hold his head in my hand and tell him that he was a good boy and that I loved him. A lot of mornings I didn’t take the time for that, but this morning I did.

“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.“
–Crowfoot, Chief of the Blackfeet Nation