Our Pets

Yes, our pets.
What a topic.

We've had Chelsea the longest...going on 12 years now.  She was a "gift" from our son.  Chelsea was about to be taken to the pound in Utah where our son was visiting.  He phoned us and asked us if we would like a dog, as this little dog was so nice.  We had recently had Kim's cocker spaniel, Buffy, put to sleep after his long life of 16 years.  But how could we say no?  Besides, we had a safety net; Casey's friend's mother said she would take Chelsea if we didn't like her.

And just look what we ended up with....half husky, half corgi is what we were told.  And she was adorable.

Chelsea has been a great addition to our lives.  We estimate her to be around 14 years old so we don't expect many more years from her.  But she's been great.
She's mostly deaf now, and likes to sleep, a lot.  But she's been tolerant of our chickens and many cats. She's been a sweetheart.

Then there's Jessie.

Jessie was a stray kitten from next door.  He came to us three years ago.
Jessie is a large cat, but a big scaredy cat.  He's a lover, not a fighter.  And he's also a drooler.  Pet him and you'll get wet.  He is by far the shiest of our cats.

The cats next door just wouldn't stop making babies.
Felix was our next adoptee.
How could we resist???
Just look at this guy.

But, I'm sorry to say, I probably pulled Felix away from his mother too soon.  And I don't recommend it.  But the result was a sort of bond between he and I.  Felix was quite needy when I brought him home and he got into the habit of sleeping across my neck at night.  Which he does to this day.  I have to admit I love it, as it feels like a warm scarf across my neck at night and is very comforting.

He also enjoys rides on my back/shoulder through the garden.  (Not sure why, he's just weird I guess.)

Felix is a smaller sized cat but he has the cajones of a much larger cat.  He stood up to Scarface upon his arrival to our household.  Something none of the other pets have EVER matched.  So never doubt Felix's courage.


And then there's Frankie.

I never should have adopted Frankie. (The clipped ear is a consequence of neutering at the pound for a feral cat/mother combo.)
But just look at those eyes!  Those beautiful blue eyes.
Frankie was one of the seven kittens we rescued, along with their parents, and had spayed/neutered and adopted out.
Just look at him as a kitten and tell me you could have resisted him.

My first mistake was in naming him.  Don't ever, ever, ever, name a kitten you intend to give up for adoption.  Because if you do, you're dead.  Well, not dead, but you're not going to give that kitten away are you?

And why "Frankie" you ask? (If you have to ask you've probably never heard of Frank Sinatra.)

Give me a little credit for not also keeping his cousin, "Francine".  There was never such a beautiful pair.
But I sucked it up and adopted her out. (I know, it wasn't easy.)

Frankie was a spit fire when we caught him as a kitten.  No longer.  He is a WHINER, all caps intended.
Frankie will wake you up in the middle of the night, not with a love pat, but with claws out, crying. And what does he want, you ask?  He wants you to PET him as he EATS.  Yes, you read that correctly.

And finally, Scarface.

Yes, SCARFACE.  We did not name him.
Our son did.
Scarface is now ten years old.  He was on his way to the pound when I told my son to bring him over.
This is a dog who doesn't like other dogs.  Or strangers.  Or children.  Or cats.
A dog who will bite, and has bitten.
A grouchy dog.
A dog with problems.
He was supposed to have had a home but it didn't pan out.  Our son needed to move on with his life;  I get it.
I just couldn't get Scarface ending up at the pound.  So he ended up at our house.  (How many parents out there end up with their children's pets????)

And he has managed to fit in somehow.  Now he is "my dog" and Chelsea is "Kim's dog".  Scarface has managed somehow to fit into our lives and into our hearts.
He tolerates the chickens and has learned to tolerate the cats, exception being scaredy cat Jessie.
Kim and I are accustomed to his peculiarities as he had lived with us prior to his arrival ten months ago.
We don't expect many more years from this grey boy, but we intend to make his final years comfortable.

Look how brave Felix is.
He enjoys playing with Scarface's tennis balls.

Check out our pet chickens in the sidebar to the right.
How many pets do you have?  How many stories do you have?

In Between

So I have been doing something, just not blogging, obviously.

Can you guess what this object is that I knitted?  I included the eyeglasses in the photo as a size reference.

A hat!  A warm one, I hope.  It's a double hat. You stuff one part inside the other when you've finished it.
The pattern is here.

I also made some mittens to match.

My friend Carol gave me the mittens pattern.  They're the type that open up in case you need your fingers for something.  It's a great pattern.  Leave me a comment if you want the pattern.  (Update:  I've included the pattern at the bottom of this post.)




I finished these just in time for our upcoming second trip to the yurt. I hope they help keep me warm. It was quite cold on our last trip. This yurt is at the top of a hill and the wind blew mercilessly.  I wore both an ear wrap and a hat most of the time we were outside.  We had a great time though.  I'm looking forward to one more trip up into winter weather before spring catches us here at home and gardening time begins.

Some pics from our trip two weeks ago.
Gorgeous view from the yurt.

I "get down" to get the picture I want.

It dumped 8 inches of snow on us while we were there. Wonderful.

Don't get me wrong, it's quite cozy inside the yurt.  Stayed around 75 degrees in there all day.

Kim roasts a kielbasa for his dinner.  The two pots on the stove are melting snow for water.

Chelsea did great up there.  She could use some little doggie snow shoes since she sank a bit this time.  But we were impressed with how well she's done since her ACL/tumors/dental surgery.  And since she's around 13 years old we're just happy she's still with us.  The husky half of her loves the snow.  The corgi half keeps her low to the ground so she ends up picking up snowballs on her chest.

Final note;  no more kitten giveaway pictures!  We finally adopted out the last cat/kitten.  It's taken 6 months but we did it.
Thanks to Angie for adopting Lulu and Mr. Handsome.
Thanks to Josh for taking Pepé.
Thanks to Heather for adopting Francine.
Thanks to Tammy for adopting Brewster.
And thanks to that wonderful couple for adopting Lil Sis.
(We're keeping Frankie.)

It's Not Too Late to do some Holiday Baking!

Along with my usual holiday baking of sugar cookies, etc, I decided to try a couple new recipes this year.  The first one is for Candied Citrus Peels.  I found the recipe in Sunset magazine.

The first step is to section your chosen citrus fruit and then carefully peel.  I tried to keep my peels in nice looking sections.  (It didn't always work.)

The tricky part for me was getting the membrane off.  After slicing away for quite a while I really understood why candied citrus peel is so expensive to purchase.

Here's a slice with membrane still attached and one where I've carefully cut the membrane away.

After boiling in water three times to help remove any bitterness, the final cooking takes place with sugar water and goes on for about 1 1/2 hours.

The final result are these translucent lovely looking peels which are sweetened from all that sugar.

The recipe calls for drying them overnight and then rolling them in more sugar.  I couldn't get any sugar to stick to mine after they had dried.  But it didn't matter, they still tasted great.

I did as the recipe suggested though, and dipped some of them in chocolate.  Yummy!
I used the amount of fruit the recipe called for; one grapefruit, two oranges and two lemons.  (I also added two lemons that a friend gave me earlier.)  I'm glad I didn't buy any extra fruit, cutting all that membrane off the peels is very time consuming.

The results were delicious though.  Here's the recipe:

The second new recipe I made this year was for Fruit Jellies.
This recipe is much easier to make.
Here is the finished result as I'm cutting it into squares.

You can make any shapes you like as you cut it out.  I would suggest adding just a bit, 1/4 teaspoon or so, of flavoring to this recipe.  It wasn't quite the sharp flavor I would have liked.  Still good though.  I made two batches, one from orange juice and one from lemon juice.

Here I've rolled them in sugar as suggested.

Kim came up with the bright idea to dip these in chocolate also.  Great plan.
(Of course what can't be improved by being dipped in chocolate?)

Kim likes them chocolate covered so much that he wants me to dip the rest of them.
Here's the recipe: 

And Frankie is enjoying our Christmas tree almost as much as we are;

And if you're local.....we still have three cats to adopt out to good homes, so please, please pass these pictures along.  These cats are up to date on their distemper and rabies shots and have been spayed/neutered.  They are 8 months old now.  We're asking $20 per cat.

Do you have any plans to try new things/traditions/recipes this year?

Busy November

Our hens are laying their heads off.  And we recently gathered this huge egg;

Too big to fit in the egg carton.

Peanut and Brazil in the compost pile.  Not sure who to credit with the over-sized egg.

It was a double yolk.  Our first.

Beautiful fall colors during our walks.  Finished now though with winter coming on.

And our daughter Vanessa was married this past week.  It was a nice laid-back wedding.

We're thrilled with our "new" son-in-law, Chris. 

And if you're local and in "need" of a cat......we still have four to give away.

Oh fall...

Random pictures from some of our walks lately.

Great blue heron on the Boise river.

Some rarely seen chukars.

I can't tell to which species of swan this one belongs.  But it expected a treat we didn't have.

This tree is a perfect example of our weather lately;  between summer and fall.

And yes, we're still overrun with kittens. They're getting bigger. And tamer.

A rare picture of Frankie (in front - who we're keeping), together with his cousin Francine (who we're not planning on keeping.)

And no, to answer your unspoken question, it's not smart to name the ones we're not planning on keeping but we've done so just to know which one it is we're discussing.  So, she's "Francine" until she gets a more permanent home.

And yes, their ears have all been notched.

That's what happens when you take in cats/kittens to the local humane society for spay/neuter.  They insist on the ear notch in case these cats end up living as ferals.  Which they won't.  That's part of why we rescued them.  Doesn't "Francine" look worried?  She is.  She's the shyest of the kittens.


Two of the kittens were outside with Felix playing with...

...this little guy.

First time we've seen a snake of any size in our garden.  (This one was very small.)

Kim rescued and relocated our visitor.