One Dog: Free to a Good Home

I am very tired today. Why, do you ask? I'll tell you.

I worked a day shift yesterday, and Keith was off working on a commercial. Ordinarily we crate Patch whenever we leave the house, because he snacks from the litterbox, knocks over the trash and strews it everywhere, jumps up on the kitchen table, and wreaks general havoc. But I took the bus to and from work yesterday, plus work itself, and it seemed cruel to keep the dog locked up for 8 or 9 hours. So before I left, I shut up the cats in the back of the house where the litterbox is, left the dog in the front of the house, moved the recycling bin out to the porch, and stacked the heavy compost bucket on top of the trash can to weight the lid down. Then I took the dog out to pee but he refused to go, so I put him back in and left.

I returned home in the evening to a very guilty-looking dog. He had knocked over the trash, compost bucket and all; fortunately the lid stayed on the compost bucket so at least the rotting compost wasn't scattered everywhere. The trash, however, was. In the trash was a huge mound of spiced flour we'd used for making chicken wings over the weekend; we weren't composting it because it'd had raw chicken rolled around in it. The flour was all over the kitchen floor, creating an unholy mess. To cap it all off, the dog had also peed on the kitchen floor.

I got that cleaned up and went to the back of the house, to discover the cats had managed to climb into the back of the bathroom cabinet and pull out a roll of toilet paper, which they shredded into confetti all over the bathroom and all down the hallway. It looked like the morning after a ticker-tape parade. I cleaned that up too.

By this time all the animals were wailing for their dinner. I told them to wait. "I'm going to go check on my pets who don't trash my house," I snapped. "The good pets. The ones who give me good food and garden fertilizer. The ones who earn their keep." Then I went outside. The chickens were fine; Jane and Lana had laid eggs. So I brought them back in and fed the mammals and made my own dinner.

Later on, Keith came home, and we went to bed early because he had to get up at five in the morning for work today.

So, shortly after three a.m., we woke up to the kind of noise you'd expect to hear if you turned on a faucet full blast but the pipes were clogged with mud. Keith got up to investigate, and the dog was sitting up in his kennel, looking guilty and also very ill. He had thrown up once or twice, but the sound that woke us up was that of absolutely FOUL diarrhea. At that point we realized that there had been quite a bit of chicken bones, chicken fat, and other waste in that trash, and I hadn't seen any of it when I'd cleaned up the mess earlier. All that chicken was about three or four days old (our trash doesn't fill up very quickly and it has baking soda and a lid so that it doesn't stink).

Retching and gagging, Keith put the dog out into the yard, and Patch was eager to go. Keith bundled up the bedding and took it out to the trash, and we cleaned up the rest of the mess with a strong vinegar-water-alcohol solution. We decided to leave the dog outside for a bit - clearly he wasn't feeling well and we weren't eager for a repeat occurrence - and I lit several strawberry-scented candles around the room. Finally, an hour and a half before Keith had to get up and drive an hour for work, we managed to doze off to flickering candlelight.

Thirty minutes later, we woke up again to a tap, scratch, scratch, tap. Roxy, our mama cat, was displeased to be shut out of the bedroom and wanted back in. So Keith got up and let her in (she woke him up first), at which point she glanced around the room and walked right back out.

The dog seems to be feeling much better now but I'm still tired, and I know Keith is exhausted. When they say pets are good practice for having babies, is this what they mean?

Spring!

I got that picture of Patch when I was hiking on Sauvie Island with Peta recently. We did a seven-mile hike through the woods and along the beach; I think the beach was Patch's favorite part, as he tore through the sand and ran like I've never seen him run. He splashed around in the river and had a terrific time. He was a bit more subdued in the woods, though he did find lots of interesting smells, and we all enjoyed the walk.

The hike ended at a tiny curved beach with a lighthouse on it. We sat there for awhile and ate peanuts and threw sticks for Patch to chase. Then, behind the lighthouse, we found this:



It must've been where the lighthouse guy lived, when there was one. Charred wood still surrounds it. There was a big flagpole hidden in the woods between the house and the river, and the whole area was overgrown with blackberry brambles. In the summer I'm coming back with a bucket to get as many of those blackberries as I can!

Closer to home and the present, it's looking like spring here. We might get a bit more winter - it's raining again today - but look what I found in my yard! It's the first crocus, starting to come through!



I planted the bulbs back in October and they're all putting out shoots now. I planted irises too, and look at this fancy spotted iris that's starting to peek out through the mud!



I also have garlic shoots coming up absolutely everywhere. I planted a ridiculous amount of garlic. Soon I'll be cutting and eating those tasty garlic shoots, and at the end of the summer I'll have the bulbs themselves. Yum!

The roses are putting out leaves all over the place, and the rhododendrons are covered with little buds. Even if it is still raining, spring is definitely here now.

Big Week, Dairyffic!

Whew! It's been a busy week.

I've been trying to get through 7000 words on another revision of the damn novel (aka "the thing that is eating my life"), I went to see The Informant! at the Laurelhurst, and last night there was a cast and crew screening of Extraordinary Measures at the Bagdad. On Wednesday our littlest cat, Fry, was spayed and she's recovering nicely. We've also been taking the dog on long walks and runs through the park.

We had two very nice people from Independence Gardens out to start working on our landscape design; we're building raised beds and going functional-farm in the backyard, but we wanted a pretty, natural-looking garden in the front yard and I'm not good at landscape design. So Independence Gardens is going to show us how to turn our front yard from The Ugliest Lawn In Portland (seriously, it's overgrown weeds and poorly laid-out rose thorns) into a beautiful landscape of edibles and flowers that will attract lots of bees and hummingbirds. I'm very excited about this!

In the evenings I've been playing with dairy. We're still really enjoying that raw milk - especially after a workout; the protein and healthy fat is exactly what you need to repair post-workout muscles - and I've made a big batch of the most spectacular crumbly ricotta cheese. With the leftover whey I made a very tasty and healthy potato-turnip-parsnip soup, and I drizzled it with homemade creme fraiche! The creme fraiche is the easiest thing I've ever made - just stir a tablespoon of raw buttermilk into some raw cream and let it sit for a day or two, and it cultures itself without any work from me.

I got the raw buttermilk by making raw butter, which was also crazy easy! I just skimmed the cream off the milk and went at it with a beater until the butterfat separated from the buttermilk, and then I rinsed the butter clean and that was that. Here's my pretty homemade delicious healthy grassfed raw butter (whew, adjective overload!)...



Here's my delicious ricotta cheese...



And here's how they came together in a mind-blowing hot potato salad! This is fingerling potatoes, celery, green onions, and pickled garlic, cooked together in the homemade butter and rice vinegar, and then served over lettuce with the homemade cheese sprinkled over. I don't mind saying this was one of the most satisfying meals I've ever had.



Tonight I'm going to try my hand at homemade mozzarella, which will find its way into a casserole with mushroom bolognaise, some whole-wheat penne pasta, and the homemade ricotta. That ought to be good for one dinner and a few lunches too!

Nice morning, long walk.

This morning, "I'll just take the dog for a walk" turned into two hours and four miles around my neighborhood.

In my morning routine I discovered that the chickens had, once again, pulled out the little hook that hangs their feeder off the ground. I couldn't find the little hook but honestly, this isn't the first time this has happened and clearly I needed a bigger, sturdier hook. So I figured I'd head out and get another one after I walked the dog. Instead I did it while walking him.

We headed first to His Bakery, one of the best little features of our neighborhood. It's been there since the early 1960's and it's still owned by the same (obviously very Christian) family, who create cakes and pies that are almost too beautiful to eat, and scones that are completely unparalleled. I tied up Patch outside and grabbed a medium cup of local microroasted coffee and a huge, fresh-baked cranberry-orange scone for a total of $2.50 and then headed for home.

Along the way I got to admiring everyone else's landscaping and picking up tips for fence building, original ways to make compost heaps reasonably attractive (yes, really), etc. I found several hidden alleys lined with wild blackberries, so I'll go back there and harvest later in the summer. I was enjoying the walk so much that I decided, what the hey, I'll just walk another mile in the opposite direction and swing by the hardware store. By then I'd finished my scone and coffee, so I dropped into Mehri's Bakery & Cafe for another coffee, and then crossed the street to 52nd Avenue Hardware.

As always, the people inside were very helpful (and kind enough to give Patch a treat, making lifelong friends with him) and I got a heavier, sturdier hook for the chicken feeder at a cost of 49 cents. Patch and I then headed for home, once again taking the scenic route through the neighborhood to admire everyone else's garden setup.

As soon as we got home, it began to rain. Perfect timing! And the Seed Savers' Exchange catalog was waiting for us in the mail!

I got the feeder set back up and now I'm going to get some work done before I head out to run some errands and get to the gym for another swim workout. I swam for a solid hour yesterday and I'm really feeling it in my upper arms today! Then tonight I'll make that hot chile chocolate I was talking about, and get a bit more writing done. But before I get started I need to go whip up some egg foo yung for lunch - with Keith out of town I'm not going through as many eggs, and I have a backlog of two dozen eggs in the fridge and more arriving every day. Kind of makes me miss the molt a few months ago when they stopped laying - now they just won't stop!

Ahh, productivity.

Last night I went to bed early. My glasses are off at the optometrist's office getting new lenses put in, so I'm on a contacts-only basis for this week. Unfortunately I can only wear my contacts for most of a day before my eyes get dry and then my contacts get all sticky and blurry and I can't see anymore. At this point I generally take them out for the night and put my glasses on, but last night I had no glasses, so I sat around blind for an hour making screenplay notes with my nose four inches from the paper, and then I finally decided to call it a night.

So this morning I woke up at about five, did the usual morning routine of snuggling cats in bed, getting up, taking the dog outside to pee, feeding the cats and dog, starting coffee, checking chicken food and refilling their water while they graze around, collecting eggs, then sipping coffee over the computer while I finish waking up. By noon today I'd swept the house, put away two loads of laundry, added fresh pine shavings to the chicken coop, cleaned out the catbox, taken out all the trash and recycling and sorted them and put them out for the garbage men (who come before dawn on Mondays), and organized two massive containers of paints and craft supplies.

The afternoon was spent in errands - to the co-op for fruit, to Trader Joe's for milk and cheese, to the Urban Farm Store for dog food, and then to the park so Patch could run himself out. (I saw a bumper sticker recently that said, "A tired dog is a happy dog!" How very true that is.) I thought about going to the gym next but I think I'll just go in the morning since they close early on Sundays.

So now, if I don't go blind again too early, I'll spend the evening on a screenplay overhaul I'm trying to complete this week. Hot bath and a cup of tea first though - I think I've earned it today.

Tomorrow I'll be making a chocolate ganache out of a fresh bhut jolokia pepper from my dad's garden - the hottest pepper in the world, many times hotter than a habanero! Stay tuned as I figure out how to do it and see what the end result will be.

New Year's Day 2010

So here we are in 2010. Another decade down the hatch!

I did my Recap Of The Decade back on the eve of my birthday this year, so I won't go through that again. Besides, I don't feel like today is a day for looking backward. I'm looking forward, to a great many projects and aspirations I have for this year. It seems like everyone around me had a bad 2009 and is looking forward to a creative 2010, so maybe this will be a positive year for us all. I, for one, intend to try my best to make it one.

Got off to the right start on that front today, by having blackeye peas for luck and greens for wealth in the coming year. I braised the mustard greens with garlic and cider vinegar in broth and crushed red pepper; the blackeye peas were slow-cooked with toasted sesame oil, balsamic, and some spices; on the side we had my honey cornbread and a mix of balsamic roasted fresh root vegetables - potato, carrot, parsnip, turnip, sunchoke, rutabaga, garlic cloves, and onion. Now we're all stuffed and tired - it's been a big day. Keith's banana waffles for breakfast, walk to the dog park to play and frolic with Patch, exploring the nether regions of 82nd Avenue (haha), playing with the chickens, then this slow-food dinner...

Now Elizabeth and Patch are snoozing hard in front of the fire, music is playing from the next room, Keith is sitting quietly down the sofa and thinking quietly or listening to the music, and I'm drowsily posting here while relishing the beginning of a new year in a warm, snug, firelit house with a bellyful of my favorite foods. Really, if the whole year is as good as today has been, we'll do very well.

Hurricane Dog in our house.

Here we only just got our first dog, and we've had his Uncle Harley (Keith's father's dog) visiting us over the holidays. Man. If one high-energy dog is demanding, two will killya! Father-in-law left Harley with us for a few days while he went up to Seattle to see Keith's brother, and yesterday I took both dogs to the park by myself. That was a humbling experience.

Our dog has been renamed Patch - it suits him much better than Milton, we think - and he's settling in a bit. He's had a wonderful time this week playing with Harley. They'll be sad when they're separated.

For those of you who said my dog didn't look like he's half Corgi: Get a load of those sawed-off Corgi legs!