Squirrel sabotage in the garden

Along with having an organic and chemical free garden, I also like to maintain it as a no-kill zone for our furry woodland creatures. This desire is becoming harder to maintain though due to recent squirrel mishaps with our apple trees.

Here is one of our eight apple trees - the only one really loaded with apples and we're quite excited about our first apple harvest this fall.

 
Unfortunately, here is the incriminating evidence that the squirrels are amiss in the trees. The stupid squirrel didn't even bother to eat the entire apple; it just took a few bites and left it on the sidewalk to taunt us.

According to Jerry Baker (our holistic gardener referee), we could try to put a [fake garden hose] snake on the ground to try to scare the squirrels and we are going to try that. Unfortunately, I don't know if it will work since there are so few snakes in our area of North Dakota and I don't think the squirrels would know what it is and thus, wouldn't be scared of it. This concern was confirmed by one of my colleagues who said that he bought a realistic 6-foot plastic snake, complete with fangs, and that it didn't do anything to scare his squirrels. So, I'm not optimistic that my homemade hose snake will do anything. But, we need to try something before they get all of the apples.

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Raspberry Currant Jam

We had the good fortune to come into some raspberries a few weekends ago.  A friend of Alycia's has a bunch of raspberry bushes in her yard and invited Alycia over to pick some, and you better believe that we took her up on the offer.  Free raspberries?  Heck yes.

Alycia trundled off in her best berry picking outfit and went twice in the span of a week, coming back with about 8 pints and 15 pints respectively from her two trips. We took one of these batches and laid the berries out on cookies sheets in the freezer, then transferred them to plastic bags once they were frozen (this is a great trick to keep things like raspberries and strawberries from freezing together in a great big icy clump).  The rest of the raspberries went into the pot and made into jam.  Sweet, tart, delicious jam.

The recipe we used (you can skip the rest of this post and just find the full recipe here) is raspberry currant jam and since currants are used, there's no need to add pectin.  Yay!  No more fussing around with the pectin solutions to make sure I've got the right amount, and no jam that won't set because I messed up the math somehow.  Currants are chock full of natural pectin and the jam will set magnificently with no added pectin, just the naturally occurring amount in the currants.  

We have some currant bushes near the driveway that produced a bumper crop this year.  These are in their second year and the few berries that popped out last year got gobbled up by the birds (I was slow to apply the bird netting last year).  This year I properly netted the currants and gathered 10 cups of currants from just 2 bushes.  Considering that I have three more bushes that will start producing next year and plans to plant 3-5 more, we should have plenty of currants for years to come. 

Here is a Ben Sarek currant (not a tasty variety) shrub that I transplanted to the front yard near the bird feeders.  Since these weren't very tasty I'll leave them unnetted every year and let the wild birds snack on the fruit.  As far as currant varieties go, I recommend Red Lake and Titania, both very tasty, and I would shy away from Ben Sarek.  Currants are also amazingly tough and hardy bushes.  I mangled, and I mean absolutely butchered this poor bush (and one other during transplanting) and a month later, they looked great.  Today, three months after my attempted shrub-murder, both look like they never missed a beat.  

Anyways, sorry for the tangent.  Back to the jam!!  I've already gone way overboard with too many words (500 words already?!?!?), so let's get to the jam recipe. It really was easy to make, less than 2 hours for the whole process.

Here is your ingredient line up:

• 4 cups red or black currants
• 1/3 cup water
• 6 cups red or black raspberries
• 3 cups granulated sugar

It doesn't matter what color of currants or raspberries you use, though admittedly, the combination of both red currants/raspberries, or black currants/raspberries does look especially visually striking. Whatever color of berry you choose to use it will still taste great.

Cooking Directions:

• Wash currants (you don't need to de-stem) and place in sauce pan with water.
• Stirring frequently, bring the mixture to a boil.
• Press through chinois or other strainer to get just currant juice and pulp.
• Add the currant juice/pulp, raspberries and sugar to a large stock pot.
• Stirring continuously, slowly bring the mixture to a boil.
• Keep at a full rolling boil for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the jam reaches the gel stage.
• Remove from the heat and ladle into sterilized canning jars.
• Seal jars and boil in a water bath for 5 minutes.
• Remove from water bath and allow to come to room temperature.

This recipe took us under two hours to complete, it's pretty simple. In no time at all you can have jars of deep, richly red hued raspberry currant jam. There's no better way to alleviate those winter blues than by cracking open a jar of delicious summer flavor to add to your favorite bread, scone, or peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Support PBS: Mr. Rogers Remixed

As previously introduced with the Bob Ross Remixed post, PBS has started a new line of videos highlighting their quintessential hosts. This video is of Mr. Rogers, who needs no introduction. As did every child of my generation, I grew up watching Mr. Rogers - never questioning why he always had to change his sweater and shoes when we came and went from his house, just enjoying getting to "pretend".

Pretending and just playing are things that I think kids these days don't do enough of in their daily activities - they have such realistic toys that do everything, they don't have to do any pretending whatsoever. For example, when I was a kid, I had a cardboard box that served as a house, a stove, a car, etc. Now kids have realistic toy houses and kitchen, as well as battery-operated cars they can drive (I shudder when I see kids in those - childhood obesity just waiting to happen). Enough of a rant about pretending, I'll save that for another day.

Anyway, in my more recent years as an academic working with children and children with speech sound disorders, I have often dreamed of being the next Mr. Rogers. Someday, when I've made some fabulous discovery in child speech and language development, maybe I will have my own TV show for kids...

Enjoy Mr. Rogers:

Iron X Weed Killer

Due to John's desire to have an organic and chemical free garden, as well as his overall distaste for grass, he does not care much if our grass has weeds in it. However, this year, even he agreed that our dandelion population was out of control and he consented for me to look into organic weed killers.

We first tried buying locally in the Grand Forks plant and garden centers, but to no avail. In fact one worker at one of the centers suggested that we look into having a professional company come an spray our lawn (the direct opposite of what we wanted).

So then I turned to on-line research. With a lot of digging, the one product that seemed the most natural and chemical free was Iron X®. It isn't necessarily cheap, but it is something that can be diluted so that makes it more cost effective. I bought a bottle of it to try and to be honest, my first application wasn't too impressive in terms of weed death. I tried again a few weeks later, adding in some liquid dish soap (on John's recommendation) so that it would stick better to the weeds. And I really think that helped the process.

Here are a few pictures of our dead weeds.

It's a little hard to see since our grass is so dry due to the summer drought, but the dandelions are the black things. They really do turn black and crispy within a day of application. And for some reason, I get a big kick out of seeing my weeds wither and die. After this successful experiment, we bought another four bottles since we have a large yard and nearly as large weed infestation. I know that weed control will take a few years, but now that I have a product that appears to work, I can hit the weeds hard early in the spring, as well as later this fall. And add in some more grass seeding, to help fill in the patches, I'm hoping that our yard will be naturally weed free in a few years. Stay tuned for progress updates!

As a disclaimer, the one bummer is that my less than accurate spraying did hit our fence and since the concentrate is a dark brown color, it stained our fence. I am optimistic though that this will fade with time, and with some rain and snow hitting it.

Support PBS: Bob Ross Remixed

PBS has started a new line of YouTube videos honoring their quintessential and favorite hosts. This video is of Bob Ross, of the Joy of Painting fame. I used to watch him every Saturday afternoon, fancying myself a painter. Just once did I attempt to "paint" along with him. I was probably about 8 or 9 and my mom got me a canvas and some paints and I sat down with Bob. Very quickly I realized I was unable to make "happy little trees" so instead I decided to make my version of the Easter Bunny (I guess it must have been around Easter). It was a very sad painting, but my mom still hung it up. I think it might still be in their house somewhere, so if I can find it, I'll take a picture to show you why I went into academia instead of art school.

Enjoy Bob Ross:

Ask and you shall receive

So how timely is it that just ONE day after my posting about the drought we're having when this happened (Taken from the Grand Forks Herald, Wednesday July 25):

Record rainfall of 1.96 inches falls overnight in Grand Forks

By: Kevin Bonham, Grand Forks Herald

Record rain fell in Grand Forks late Tuesday night.
The National Weather Service reports that 1.96 inches of rain fell at Grand Forks International Airport. That breaks the record of 1.30 inches, set in 1993.
Rainfall totaled 2.06 inches at the Weather Service office in Grand Forks, breaking the record of 1.22 inches in 1902.
The rain fell mostly along the U.S. Highway 2 corridor.
“It was a fairly good swath,” Meteorologist Vince Godon said.
Another band, along and south of Interstate 94, produced rainfall totals of as much as 3 to 6 inches in some points between Valley City, N.D., and Wadena, Minn.
Fargo also set a record, with 2.35 inches, breaking the mark of 1.05 inches in 1993.
While heavy rain fell in the Grand Forks area, others points to the north and between the U.S. 2 and I-94 swaths received little moisture.
Devils Lake officially recorded 2.7 inches, while reports from the basin were as high as 3.8 inches, according to Jeff Frith, manager of the Devils Lake Basin Joint Water Resource District. Rainfall totaled 1.30 inches southwest of Tolna, N.D., and 0.65 inch in the Brocket, N.D., area.
Crookston, Minn., received between an inch and 1.5 inches, according to a report from Mid-Valley Grain Co-op. Meanwhile, Thompson, N.D., received about one inch, while Reynolds, N.D. recorded about 0.70 inch.
The Weather Service forecasts potential showers and thunderstorms tonight and Thursday, mainly across northwest Minnesota.
High temperatures are expected to be in the 80s today, then cooling to the 70s on Thursday, before rising back into the 80s for the weekend, according to the short-term forecast.
Here are some of the rainfall totals from around the region:
• Gilby, N.D., 1.71 inches.
• McVille, N.D., 1.25 inches.
• Lankin, N.D., 0.89 inch.
• Park River, N.D., 0.35 inch.
• Minto, N.D., 0.30 inch.
• Argyle, Minn., 0.28 inch.
• Starkweather, N.D., 0.21 inch.
• Cooperstown, N.D., 0.02 inch.

Alycia's critique: I guess I should have complained sooner - maybe we would have gotten more frequent rain this summer.

Drought in North Dakota

For those of you who haven't been following the North Dakota weather, we've been in a near-drought for most of the spring and summer. This is probably yet one more indication of global warming, but we'll save that for another post. Anyway, the most pressing need when there is a drought is obviously that the garden needs water, on a nearly daily basis.

Here's a good example comparison of two different sets of cucumber plants. One gets direct drippage from the soaker hose, while the other doesn't. See if you can tell which is which...

Cucumber plant grouping #1

Cucumber plant grouping #2

There definitely is something to the idea of having sun AND water for plants to flourish.

Changes....A New Job...A New Blog Helper

I know I left everyone in a bit of a blogger version of a dangling cliffhanger ending in our recent More Deaf Dog Antics post in reference to some large life changes.  Well I've been in North Dakota for three years now and the time has finally come for me to get a real job.  Yes, it's true, a real job.

Since moving from Southern California three years ago, I've remained an active Senior Financial Consultant (impressive sounding job title huh?) with clients back in San Diego.  Luckily I was able to perform a lot of tasks remotely, frantically e-mailing documents back and forth to various contacts.  But only so much can be done through the computer or cell phone, and I had to physically be at the client site every so often.  Unluckily the times when I needed to be partially physically at the client work site in San Diego was roughly May through November, which is also known as "the months where it's nice to be outside in North Dakota".

When I was working in San Diego I had the best of all possible worlds, family I could stay with for free (significantly reducing my travel expenses), an environment I enjoyed and was familiar with, and a great group of friends to hang out with.  But it just wasn't the same as being at home.  Living out of a suitcase in my Dad's spare bedroom just wasn't the same as being with Alycia, the dogs, the comfy confines of my house, and wondrous garden I was trying to create.

The time that I was here in North Dakota during May to November was spent working to prepare for the next business trip, feverishly getting the garden back in shape from the two weeks that I ignored it, packing in quality time with Alycia and the dogs, and trying to get healthy again and back into my familiar diet and exercise regimen (it's so easy to eat out all the time and ignore physical activity when you're on the road).

Your intrepid blogger on his first trip to North Dakota, more than four years ago. 

For the last three years I missed out on a lot of stuff, especially garden related.  I'd leave for a trip and the tomatoes would be juuuussst almost ripe, and three weeks later I'd get back and Alycia would be sick of them since she'd spent the last two and a half weeks eating, freezing, and canning tomatoes by herself.  I missed garden tours, State Fairs (I still haven't been to one in Minnesota or North Dakota!!), golf outings, volleyball tournaments, and evenings sitting on the porch with a cold beer enjoying the last rays of sun on a warm day. 

While this unusual working arrangement was great in so many ways, it also left Alycia and My schedules totally out of whack.  My busy time (Summer) was her slow time, and her busy time (the school year) was for the most part my slow time.  That left us unable to fully appreciate the dream of an academic lifestyle (aka not doing squat all summer) together.  

I'm also very much a homebody, and being a homebody while working on the road and living away from home just didn't jive with me.  Spending so much time crafting an enjoyable, cozy, beautiful home and garden and then being away from it for most of its period of greatest glory just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

This has turned into a crazy tangent, as most of my posts do. Sorry.

The bottom line is that I have accepted a job teaching accounting at a local community college.  It's going to be a challenge.  I have no teaching experience but a wealth of real world experience and a zest for BS, which I hope will be enough.  One of the courses I'll be teaching is Cost Accounting, and I HATE cost accounting, I'm gonna have to get over that.  It's only a 9 month position so I'll have summers off, which is ideal for slacking. 

Your new blogging team.

I thought all these changes would lead to the slow demise of our magnificent blog, but our newest field reporter (this is her job title for her 6 month probationary period) has really stepped up and prepared some blog postings.  She may be over-embellishing the "you must contribute our I'll shut down the blog" ultimatum she claims (in her post - The GF Girlfriend Emerges) I threw out there, but truth be told I did tell her that I would need her help to keep the blog going.  And thus far she's responded well.  You will see her posts in the coming weeks and months and I think she'll add a slightly different (less cynical) viewpoint.  A big Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes welcome to Alycia, our newest field reporter.

Fire in the potty

It might have been a slow day for news on Friday, July 20, 2012 for the Grand Forks Herald. This little diddy was on the second page of the B section. Things like this give North Dakota a bad name...sigh.

Police: Portable toilet fire was result of arson

BISMARCK — An arson suspect is on the hot seat in Bismarck.
Police say someone set a Spiffy Biff portable toilet on fire near a construction zone shortly before noon on Wednesday.
Firefighters put out the blaze, which melted the plastic and caused an estimated $950 in damage.
The Bismarck Tribune reports that police believe the fire was started intentionally, because there was nothing in the area that would have ignited the plastic.

---

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

 

Alycia's commentary: Personally, I wonder why they would have thought it was started by anything other than arson. How many times have you been concerned to go into a port-a-potty due it's potential for combustion? There are many other reasons I've been concerned about using them, but now do I need to worry about catching fire?

The GF girlfriend emerges...

Hello, Alycia (the GF girlfriend) here. Now, before you immediately surf away from the blog because it's not John writing, hear me out. John is starting a new job this fall (more on this in a later post - he promises) and with the new job, he will have much less time to devote to the blog. Due to this lack of time, he gave me an ultimatum: either I contribute or the blog shuts down. Now, who knows what the future will bring, but I thought I should at least try to contribute to the blog instead of just preemptively quitting on all of our faithful readers.

Long story short, there will (hopefully) be more posts by me in the future, as John and I start to share the Deaf Dogs blog load. If any of the readers have any burning questions for me regarding John, the dogs, the garden, or even myself, please feel free to post and I'll do what I can to address them.

More Deaf Dog Antics

Since everyone seemed to enjoy that last puppy video I posted, and since I'm swamped with work as well as life changes (much more on this in a later post) and have no time to write right now, I'll just put this video out there to sate your appetite.

Shadowfax chewed a piece off of her rubber toy (if you listen closely you can hear her scronching on it) and ran around with it, chomping it repeatedly, throwing it in the air, and just generally thinking it was the greatest thing in the world.  The piece was small enough that if she ended up ingesting it (which she did) that there was no worry about it getting stuck in her puppy innards.  For the record we usually fish the toy/fuzz/string bits out of her mouth before she has a chance to gulp them down.

Go Fighting Sioux!!

Awesome (not so) little nephew Jacob shows off his University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux t-shirt.

Deaf Puppy In The Pool

We're big believers in doggy day care here at Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes.  If our schedules dictate that we won't have much time to play and pay attention to the puppy, we take her to doggy day care for the day.  This really only happens when I'm out of town for work (this will change though...more on this in a later post) and Alycia is left to be a single doggy parent.  The puppy always returns home from doggy day care a tired heap of pup, but on warm days she is frequently wet and her "report card" talks about how much fun she had in the pool. 

Seeing as how she allegedly has so much fun in the pool at doggy day care, we figured we'd get her a pool of her own and fill it up on hot days for her to enjoy.  Since the pool was just a cheap plastic disk, it wasn't much of an investment. 

As you can see she wanted nothing to do with the pool (in spite of Alycia's Dad and his coaxing) except to have a bit of a drink. 

Unbeknownst to us we were simply using the pool incorrectly.  It's not supposed to be right side up and filled with water, it's supposed to be upside down and empty, that way you can chew on it and get a running start and jump on it like a sled. 

I try not to malign Alycia very often, mostly because there is no occasion to do so.  I love her very much, and she is a very smart lady with an enormous array of skills and abilities and talents.  Unfortunately for you, video recording is not one of them.  On the one hand, it was impressive of her just to capture this scene at all, but on the other hand, you can barely see the puppy getting a running start, jumping on the pool, and sliding under the temporary fencing we have set up to protect our new not-yet-established plants from puppy related carnage such as this. I just feel like a more accomplished videographer would have captured the scene better...

And just for fun, one more puppy video of her tearing around the house, trying to get Tito to play with her (Tito is just out of frame to the right, probably glowering with anger). 

Update on the New Ads

They are gone.  They were annoying.  They were links to sketchy sites that simply incorporated the name of our blog, and not really to any sites of substance.  They were annoying to me and I didn't want to subject my wonderful readers to these crappy/shady ads. 

So the good news is they're gone!  The bad news?  I replaced them with a few more Amazon.com ads.  But at least the Amazon ads are selling cool things like books and music and crossbows and garden gnomes.  And as always, I encourage you to click on the ads and buy things from Amazon.com, all proceeds from sales go to help deaf dogs in North Dakota.

Hand Built 3-Bin Compost System

Here's the great unveiling, the new Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes 3-Bin compost system extravaganza.  Yes it is hyperbole to call a compost bin an extravaganza, but this sucker has been quite a while in the making.  Like, a year in the making. 

Why the heck did it take so long? Well I did build it by hand, and I mean literally by hand, using only hand tools - hand saws, hand drills, screwdrivers, hammer.  So that certainly added to the time it took to construct it.  It also just sort of lingered in the garage for months in various states of semi-assembly.  Since my garage isn't climate controlled (not heated or cooled), there were many times in the summer when it was too hot to work on it, and in the winter when it was way too cold. 

3-Bin Composting system with removable front slats, which make working and turning the compost much easier.

So it ended up that the compost bin became a rainy day project, something to do indoors when it was rainy and I couldn't play in the garden.  Thus it took close to a year to build.  And yes, there was a healthy dose of procrastination involved as well.

When The Sunbeam Attacks

It's best not to fight it.

In fact, the best course of action is just to roll over and let it warm your tummy.

Deaf Dog Antics

It's been a several weeks since we posted pictures (and video!!) of any doggy antics, this should make up for that shortcoming.

Tito may be old, going on 12 years old, and half the size of the puppy, but he can still bring it.  Every week or so Tito brings his special brand of tug-of-war thuggery against the puppy for a precious few minutes.  I captured the second round, only a few seconds worth of them playing.  The previous round went about 30 seconds and was over before I could capture it on video, but I did grab this final tussle.  It's brief, but pretty impressive for an old man. 

After a rousing game of tug-of-war the puppy sat down and enjoyed the deliciousness of a stuffed toy.  If she could just sit down and destroy the toy, we wouldn't mind, but instead of simply destroying the stuffed toy, she has to eat it as well.  All of it.  She eats the entire toy, from fuzzy innards to squeaker device to plush exterior.  As such we need to maintain a watchful eye on her and actively supervise her when we allow her to play with any toy that's remotely edible.  The end result is this scene is oft repeated.

Alycia is a pretty brave lady to just stick her hands right into the angry maw of a deaf pit bull.  The puppy is really good about this, she just lets you jam your hand in there and remove the fuzz/plastic/fabric/rope/whatever from her mouth.  Despite our vigilance plenty of fuzz gets through and we wind up with multi-colored rainbow poops out in the backyard. 

Shaak Ti sat by and leisurely chomped on her own toy.  This was a Christmas present (thanks Bill and Christine) that we saved for when the pups needed a new little treat or the bit of excitement that comes with playing with a new toy. 

 It was a new toy and she was pretty enthusiastic.

Sad Peonies

Two of the main reasons that I suck as a blogger are 1) I forget to always have my camera on my person (there are 20 awesome pictures I miss every day because I left my camera in the house when I go on a bike ride or a dog walk or to work in the garden) and 2) I see something great to photograph and then get distracted and the moment passes and the photo never gets taken.

Prime example number one, the peony blooms.  By Wednesday of this week the peonies were in full beautiful bloom, and we have several varieties: white, white with pink striations, light pink, and dark raspberry sherbet pink.  There are several dozen peonies throughout the homestead and they all looked maginificent.  But I didn't have my camera on me, and by the time I got out there the next day, camera in hand on Thursday, the booming thunderstorms and super heavy downpours during the overnight hours left us with sad, droopy peonies, their blooms sagging on the ground. 

 Sigh.  A day late and a dollar short.  They sure did look great just a day before.

Cavalier, North Dakota Sets World Record

...for the largest ice cream sundae.  Yes, Alycia's hometown set the record today for the largest ice cream sundae in the world.  The Guiness Book of World Records was on hand to verify the attempt.  You can see the proceedings on the video below.

Road Trip Highlights

Alycia and I wrapped up a 4,500 mile, two week road trip the other day.  We visited some great places - Yosemite National Park and Napa Valley in California, and Salem and Portland in Oregon, and got to see many of our best friends along the way.  I'll post some good pictures and additional stories in a few days, but I thought I'd pass along some entertaining/unusual highlights. 

There was a cat show at the hotel we stayed at on our overnight rest stop in Reno, Nevada. Alycia was able to meet, pet, and photograph the Iams Cat Food Ambassador cat (his name was Dances With Mice) as well as a host of other feline pageant entrants.  Dances With Mice was apparently quite an amiable feline.  Being extremely allergic, I stayed away and let Alycia visit with the kitties. 

We ate the best gas station food I've ever had - a full rack of ribs, German potato salad, and spaghetti squash from the famous Whoa Nellie Deli (yes it is actually in a gas station) in Lee Vining on the way to the Eastern entrance to Yosemite National Park.  The spaghetti squash was so good that I was compelled to ask the cook for his secret.  I should have known the secret was butter, lots of butter.  Instead of halving the squash and baking it face down in a few inches of water, find a way to balance it face up, place a half stick of butter in each half, cover with foil, and bake about an hour.  I'll be sure to let you know when (not if) I try this out.

On a gasoline stop in Spokane, Washington we rescued a dog.  Her name was Cookie, she was an old Australian Shepard, and her name Cookie was fitting.  She looked exactly like a Cookie, like an Oreo that had been squished.  She was an amalgam of white, grey, and black splotches and we found her crossing a busy street.  We corralled her for some belly rubs and pets and called the number on her tag and got her back home safely.  That brings the number of states that Alycia and I have rescued lost dogs in to three.

We're still in the midst of getting unpacked, the garden weeded, and the last few things planted for the season.  I'll post an update of the happenings around here in the garden as well as additional vacation photos that might be of interest.  

Sergeant Stubby

The Internet can be a wonderful thing sometimes.  The other day I stumbled upon (literally using StumbleUpon) a website about Sergeant Stubby, the most decorated combat dog of World War 1 and the only dog in the history of the US Military to be promoted to the rank of Sergeant through combat.

You can read more about Sergeant Stubby at the Smithsonian Museum of American History or on Wikipedia.

Sadly if Sergeant Stubby were around today he'd find that he'd be promptly put to death if he tried to live in Denver, Colorado or Miami, Florida or dozens of other cities throughout the United States?  Why?  He looks enough like a Pit Bull (it's hard to tell from the photos what breed or mix he actually is) that Breed Specific Legislation makes it illegal for these types of dogs to be kept in the city.

While I'm horrified at the stories of dog attacks the media reports, there is far too much mis-identification of dogs, media sensationalizing of these stories, and outright incorrect information being broadcast in the news and on the Internet.  I think Breed Specific Legislation punishes good dogs/owners and doesn't address the real problem - bad owners.

Tuffy's Dinosaur Dog Toy Review

Our lovely homestead has had its share of stuffed dinosaur visitors (all the dinosaurs have been Tuffy's Dog Toys) over the years, and with the arrival of some new dino friends I thought it might be prudent to stop and fondly remember the dinosaurs of yesterday and celebrate the proud beasts of today.  Please note that these are only the names that we've given the dinosaurs, not their actual given Christian name.

Harold the Dinosaur (RIP) - Harold was memorably disemboweled in a fit of puppy energy in late 2010 (see The Untimely Death of Harold the Dinosaur).  After the vicious evisceration, Harold lasted a bit longer as a de-stuffed stretch of fabric that became a favorite tug-of-war toy for Shadowfax and Shaak Ti.  Time caught up to Harold though and he became more shredded fabric than actual dinosaur and had to be thrown away. Harold very likely would have survived longer without the puppy, and he was a great companion for Shaak Ti for more than three years, just not able to stand up to the onslaught of a larger dog like Shadowfax.  In retrospect he wasn't as tough as some of the other dinosaurs and didn't live up to his billing as an apex predator, easily succumbing to the predations of one deaf, spazzy, destruction oriented puppy. 

Stella the Stegasaurus - Stella is by far the best of all the fuzzy prehistoric beasts we've had to date.  The dozen or so armored plates running along her spine were each individually sewn down to her body and most had a squeaker in them, giving Shadowfax many individual compartmentalized opportunities to chew, chomp and destroy.  Stella also hid her stuffing well in her head, tail, and four legs, requiring numerous bouts of dedicated stuffing removal from Shadowfax.  Her long length also made her an ideal tug-of-war toy between the dogs and her multiple handles (head, tail, four legs) made for a great human/dog tug-of-war toy.  Stella has been with us for almost two years now and even though she was pricey as a dog toy, she's given the dogs countless hours of entertainment and has been well worth the price.

Triumph the Triceratops - Triumph is fairly new on the scene, having arrived this past Christmas.  Unfortunately as soon as we named him he developed a hole in his right flank and promptly gave up a majority of his stuffing.  The verdict is still out on Triumph, but I think that ultimately he'll fall in between Harold and Stella in terms of toughness, longevity and cost/benefit.  His horns, armor plating, and tail make for good hand holds during tug-of-war bouts but I'm not sure if his fabric and construction is sturdy enough to withstand intense puppy destructo-attention.  

In a future post I'll review the non-dinosaur Tuffy's Dog Toys that inhabit the house, including Boris the Bull, the 5-Legged Octopus (I think that makes him a Quintarpus) as well as the newest arrival, Sherman the Sheep.

 

 

Christmas Wreath in May

I was hesitant to write this post since I was afraid Alycia would be angered by my publicly calling out her shortcomings.  In this case her shortcoming is her blatant disregard for seasonal holidays by procrastinating/refusing to take down our Christmas wreath in an appropriate amount of time. 

Alycia and I have regular quid pro quos in our daily lives involving chores.  These are harmless exchanges of the "if you clean out the lint trap in the dryer I'll polish the door knobs" or "you brush Tito's teeth and I'll stick my hand in the blender".  So when she agreed to take down her Christmas wreath when/if I put away the Christmas lights she probably thought she had it made.  Since I am known to procrastinate on such things and I also like looking at the pretty Christmas lights, she must have thought this was quite the savvy bargain since the odds were good that those lights would be up until, well until next Christmas.

So when I took down the Christmas lights in late February I gave her a week or so to fulfill her end of the bargain by taking down the wreath.  But nothing happened.  So I started giving her grief about it.  Lots of grief.

In her defense the Christmas wreath has several things going for it.  It's hanging over a door in the entryway and really isn't in the way.  It also hasn't dropped ANY needles in five months.  I'm not sure what manner of genetically modified evergreen boughs this thing is made of, but the fact that it hasn't shed any needles is weird, freaky, and just plain unnatural.  I keep trying to casually brush it as I walk but I'm afraid that it's so dry that even casual contact could create enough friction to cause it to instantaneously combust. 

The Christmas wreath also has sand dollars and fake starfish attached to it, making it less of a Christmas wreath than a summer beach wreath.  Now I may not get out much, but I have never heard of a summer beach wreath.  Perhaps this is just another attempt by the insidious wreath industry to gain a foothold in another holiday, but I doubt it.

Head Gardener During the Ottoman Empire

Here's a rather grisly but fascinating bit of history from Smithsonian Magazine describing some of the details of the inner workings of the Ottoman Empire.

"The job of executioner was held instead by the Sultan’s bostancı basha, or head gardener—the Ottoman corps of gardeners being a sort of 5,000-strong bodyguard that, aside from cultivating the Sultan’s paradise gardens, doubled up as customs inspectors and police officers. It was the royal gardeners who sewed condemned women into weighted sacks and dropped them into the Bosphorus."

You can read the very interesting full article (it's pretty short, but yes quite grisly) at Smithsonian Magazine.  

I don't think I've ever heard of a job where I'd be mulching the azaleas one day and lopping off people's head the next day.  It would definitely give a new meaning to the phrase "dead-heading", you'd probably have to specify if you were talking about flowers or people.

New Advertising on the Blog

You may have noticed that I'm trying out some new advertising from Chitika on Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes.  After our falling out with Google AdSense over a year ago I've been searching for an online advertising shop worthy of the high standards of the creators and readers of this fine blog.  The Amazon Associates ads are good, but not generating enough action to justify being my sole attempt at website monetization.  You can still do all your Amzaon.com searching and purchasing through the "Search Amazon.com" box at the middle-left part of the blog or click on any of the Amazon widgets that look particularly enticing.

The first few days of running the new Chitika advertisements saw some really non-specific ads (pretty much just incorporating "Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes" into some semi-sketchy search engine), but the ads seem to have gotten a bit better over the last week. What's your feedback on the ads?  Annoying?  Tolerable?  Do you have ads blocked or opted out of seeing them?  Do you have any other or better recommendations for web advertisers?  If you blog, what ads do you run on your site?

And please note that any and all revenue from this site goes to help deaf dogs in North Dakota.  We're not an officially sanctioned 501(c)(3) charity or anything, but every little bit helps. 

Mulch Bonanza

The last few weeks have been a frenzy of activity here at the homestead.  Warm and dry weather started much earlier than normal and allowed me to aggressively plot out some large structural changes to the grounds and gardens.  We added some dirt mounds (see 10 Yards of Black Dirt and Front Yard Dirt Follow Up) and planted some new perennials and flowers in the mounds.  Since these are still tiny specks of green plant material, they don't photograph well and I'm going to wait a bit for them to grow and become more photogenic.

It was with some tired muscles and slightly grumbly disposition that I stood in my garage the other day surveying the land. When lo and behold a large dump truck drove by...

Then the large dump truck started backing up into the driveway.  I tried waving my arms and yelling, but it was to no avail, that truck was determined to back into the driveway.

No matter how much a yelled, the driver kept back up in to the driveway.  He seemed to be ignoring me or impervious to my yelling.  

Suddenly, to my horror, and without warning from the driver, he started to dump a huge pile of mulch into the driveway.  Was this some kind of nightmare?  A sick practical joke?  I'd just finished shoveling large piles of dirt last week and now there was more impending manual labor?    

Mulch started spilling onto the driveway!!!  Not to worry gentle reader.  This was not an unexpected delivery of mulch from the heavens or a cruel prank, I had ordered it.  A few areas on either side of the driveway around the apple trees and currants need a serious mulch refreshing and there were some areas of grass that need to be converted to vegetable beds through the magic of mulching.

The mulch guy though said he only had 5-6 yards of this particular kind of mulch (the cheap stuff) so I was prepared for a day/day and a half of work.  I fact he had more than he thought, 13 to 14 yards, even though he only charged me for 10 yards.  This was more than twice the amount of mulch I was planning on, but no big deal.  We'll get all our fabulous mulch apportioned to its proper place and snap some photos, so more to come in a later post. 

I also completed my 3-Bin Compost System (more on this in a later post) and planted more apple trees, plum trees, and dogwood shrubs (more on this in a later post as well).  Whew, I've got  lot of writing and photo-documenting work.  It's been a busy Spring here as I'm sure it is for you.  We'll try to get pictures and blog posts on everything that's gone on over the last few weeks.  Stay tuned!!

Cub Cadet Lawnmowers Are Crap!!!

I wrote and sent an angry letter to the Cub Cadet Company today.  Cub Cadet isn't even really a Company anymore, just a brand name (that used to signify a quality product) that is slapped on lawn and garden machines so they can generate a premium price.

This damned lawnmower has been the bane of my existence the for the last three years.  Alycia's Dad got it for us as a gift and I think that it was just a lemon, a dud, a bad mower, perhaps one possessed by evil spirits, it's hard to tell.  It performed so poorly I'm still partially convinced that it was a joke lawnmower, bought by Alycia's Dad at some gag gift store online to play a prank on me (if so it was a magnificent prank).

On the one hand this mower has caused lots of wasted time and energy and generated significant amounts of John-angst-rage, but the positive thing that has come out of it is that Alycia and I have decided to finally get an electric lawn mower. I'll post more information on the new lawn mower once it gets here and after it (hopefully) demonstrates its' awesomeness.

Here's the letter I sent to the Cub Cadet Company.  The letter won't do anything, it was just a cathartic expression of my anger at the countless hours spent trying to get this damned mower to work.  Regardless, it felt good to write it and send it. 

To Whom It May Concern,

I received a Cub Cadet walk behind, self propelled lawn mower three years ago as a gift from my Father-In-Law.  My initial happiness at the gift quickly turned to disbelief at the mowers performance and over the last three years has morphed into outrage and anger.  This lawn mower has NEVER worked correctly and Cub Cadet products in my opinion are complete and utter pieces of crap (I apologize for the language but since I know this e-mail won’t result in any substantive changes, it serves merely as a vessel for me to vent).   The only reason I keep trying to make this mower work is not only because I don’t want to litter (by throwing it off a cliff), but also because I don’t want to hurt my Father In Law’s feelings since this was a gift from him.   

The mower constantly stalls, sputters, and refuses to run.  I’ve spent near $300 (equivalent to the purchase price of the mower) on tune-ups, repairs, and other attempts to fix it over the last three years, all to no avail.   I’m not sure what the problem is or why the mower doesn’t work, but this situation has me frustrated and angry beyond belief.  

Since this item was a gift, I don’t have the warranty information or a receipt, and as such have never been able to make any headway with your customer service department over the telephone.  I have taken the mower to every repair shop in town that services Cub Cadet’s and each repair shop tells me that the necessary repair wouldn’t be covered by the warranty anyways.  I’m tired of throwing money down the drain and I’m profoundly disappointed by your product, your service providers, and your corporate customer service department.

I’m only one person and I realize that my opinions or anger don’t mean much to a large company such as yours, but please know that I will make every effort to communicate my experience with your product to my friends, neighbors, colleagues, fellow gardening enthusiasts, and everyone on the Internet.  I am an avid gardener and blogger and will make every effort to let other folks know that I think Cub Cadet’s are pieces of junk and make every possible overture to dissuade them from every buying a Cub Cadet product.  At a recent Garden Club meeting in my area, during a roundtable discussion of “What was your biggest gardening mistake?”, I informed the 35 or so people that the biggest gardening mistake I’ve ever made was getting within 20 feet of a Cub Cadet, they are unequivocally pieces of crap.  

Please consider this letter as my last ditch appeal to you to make this situation right.  I don’t want anything free.  I don’t want money.  I don’t want a coupon for 10% off my future purchases of Cub Cadet equipment (there will NOT be any).  I don’t want a referral to an authorized service shop in town.  I want this lawn mower to work.  Period.  I want you to make the situation right. 

I can be contacted at the e-mail or phone below:

Angry Regards,

John (last name redacted)

It's a Rough Life for Deaf Dogs

It's been a fun filled day of puppy activities and shenanigans - walks, racing around the yard, yelling at the squirrels, wrestling and chasing each other.  Plus we decided that Shadowfax the puppy is getting a kiddie pool to play in this summer, so she was quite excited when we told her about that.

Shadowfax is sacked out in her slumber ball. 

Tito and Shaak Ti are about to fall asleep in their fort of pillows next to the couch.  It's a rough life for these poor unfortunate creatures. 

Retiring Professor at UND

Alycia's colleague at the University of North Dakota stepped down as the Department chair this semester, and even though he'll probably stick around for another few years teaching classes, there was some celebration this semester at his first step towards retirement.  Since this professor is well known for his unusual tangents, funny stories, and crazy non-sequitors during lectures, a few enterprising students decided to spend the semester compiling his funnier quotes.

These are some of the more entertaining mid-lecture statements they compiled in just one semester...

• "I fancy myself an amateur mountaineer"
• "I have short eyeballs"
• "I get choked up when I talk about these hearing aids"
• "Time is ticking away while you sit there in your ignorance"
• (when handing out course evaluations to students) "I have to vacate the room so I can't exercise mind control"
• "I'm practically a saint"
• "I don't know what a serious hedgehog breeder is...I guess a breeder that doesn't make jokes about his hedgehogs"
• "Are those voices in my head?"

I'm actually bummed that her colleague is retiring.  He was by far the most entertaining person to talk to at their department events and we chatted a lot about everything from basketball to remote controller helicopters to back country hikes in National Parks.

Front Yard Dirt Follow Up

We built upon (literally) the foundation of 10 yards of dirt by making and shaping some mounds for perennial/annual flowers and ornamental plants in the front yard.

Our mound looked like this when we last left you in our previous post 10 Yards of Black Dirt.

With some manual labor and lots of shoveling, it turned into this.

We took a couple of currant plants from the front yard and transplanted them in the mound.  These are Ben Sarek black currants and we discovered that they were extremely NOT tasty.  As such we'll leave these particular currants un-netted and let our bird friends snack upon them as they ripen. 

This will all look even better in another month once we get some more flowers planted and they start blooming.  We just received a mail shipment of live plants from one nursery and I'll be out in the yard tomorrow planting Bee Balm (monarda), coneflowers, hostas, and sedum.     

Blooming Yellow Tulips

10 Yards of Black Dirt

We're in the process of redesigning the front yard a bit, replacing lawn area with flower beds and perennial shrubs.  This will mean not only less area for me to mow all Summer (Yay!!!) but also more pretty flowers to look at, and to attract birds, butterflies and beneficial insects to the yard.

I'm a big believer in working smarter, not harder.  At times I do take this to the extreme by not working at all, thus ensuring that there is never even a threat working harder.  This however is a philosophical discussion for another day.  

Part of working smarter means that I'm not going to break out the shovel and dig out all that lawn or turn it over by hand unless I absolutely need to.  Instead I'm quite fond of using some serious mulching to break down the lawn over time.  This is the so called "lasagna mulching" technique, laying down newspaper or cardboard and then covering it with a hefty layer of dirt and/or mulch.  You plant stuff into the dirt/mulch on top and over time the grass underneath dies and turns to happy organic matter that will add nutrients to the soil.  I've used this method before and will use it now to create some mounds in the front yard and turn ugly work-intensive lawn into flowering perennials and annuals. 

To this end we had 10 yards of dirt delivered to the house earlier this week.  It was an impressive full sized dump truck and dropped an impressive sized pile of black dirt on the lawn. Perfect.

When I told him where to dump the dirt the driver looked at me quizzically and and said "You know this is gonna really rut up your lawn, right?"  And he was right, this was a big ass truck and it did put big tire ruts in the lawn.  However I didn't mind at all since getting rid of the lawn is the one of the core motives behind this operation.

It was a whole lot of dirt.  This was another one of those situations where I may have gotten a wee bit too ambitious and my gardening eyes were bigger than my gardening stomach. 

Yeah, that's a whole lot of dirt.

The pile was six foot high and ten or twelve feet in diameter.  I may be occasionally envious of people who live in warmer environments and feel pangs of longing for my old Zone 10 climate in Southern California, but now is my chance to make other gardeners envious.  Take a look at the good dirt.  They just call it "black dirt" and it's sold as such.  It is good stuff.  

I started moving the dirt to the area underneath the pine tree in the front yard, placing a barrier of newspaper on top of the grass to kill the lawn below.  This should prevent grass coming up through the flower beds.

This is how the raised dirt bed looked.  I've made some additional changes since and will have more pictures up in another few days. And even better pictures later this summer when the area is fully planted and blooming. 

Spring Flowers - Tulips and Siberian Irises

We had a few flowers pop up recently around the garden here at the Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes homestead.

The first tulip of the year has opened.  I share it with you.

In a very strange development, we've found almost opened tulip blossoms on the ground, two to three feet away from the plants the last two mornings.  They're cut about 4-6 inches from the ground with a diagonal cut but there's no other damage to the stem or the plant.  I'm assuming it's rabbits or squirrels.  It's not all lost since Alycia takes the cut flowers and puts them in a vase and we have lovely tulips indoors for a few days. 

Even though I've seen a bunny near our yard the past few days, in general the rabbits and squirrels stay out of the fenced in yard (where the tulips are located) since we have three dogs who would very much enjoy chasing them, playing with them, and likely eating them.  Since we've lived here, there have been no critters that venture into the yard except for the occasional bold daytime squirrel.  Perhaps it's time to have the dogs posted outside on nighttime sentinel duty to protect our flowers from marauding flower chomping wild beasties.

In the front yard we have Siberian Irises blooming.  These are very small (3-4 inches) plants with delicate blue flowers and are usually the first to bloom in Spring.  In fact these have been blooming for a week or so now and are almost done for the season.

Alycia planted these in a semi-circle around the trunk of a large tree in the front yard.  These little flowers are supposed to naturalize and (possibly) start spreading a bit, and they look perfect nestled among the tree trunk and large roots.  They're very cool little flowers and the sign for me that Spring is here.

Germinated Seeds Become Seedlings

I thought I'd follow up with my previous post about starting seeds in the basement (see Starting Seeds Indoors) with some pictures about our progress.  We're still a good 2-3 weeks from being able to put plants outside, and even that might be pushing the timetable a bit.  Some of the more cold tolerant plants, like cabbage, might get sent outside shortly once they seem hardy.  I have so many cabbage starts that if I lose a few it wouldn't be a heartbreak. 

Honeydew melons, three kinds of watermelons, and cherry tomatoes.  These are definitely going to wait for warmer weather since they're frost averse and simply won't do anything until the soil and air temps are to their liking. 

Zinnias, hollyhocks, salvias, and coneflowers.  I may divide these up in a week or so and put one plant per pot cavity.  I honestly didn't expect this many seeds to germinate since some were from seed packets that were 4-5 years old

Cabbage starts.  These have a full second set of leaves and have graduated from sitting under the fluorescent light to the West facing basement window.   Now I have to try to keep them from getting too leggy before it's warm enough for them to go outside.

More cabbages (different variety).  I always seem to forget that cabbage, like tomatoes, have a 185% germination rate.  Even though I swore that I only used one seed per space, multiple shoots have sprung up, and EVERY seed that found its way onto the dirt germinated.  Looks like we'll have plenty of cabbage for sauerkraut and for drying/storing.

One Reason I Never Get Anything Done

Many pet owners can attest to this fact, computers are magnets for pets.  For some reason my dogs (especially the puppy) are drawn to "help" me the moment I have my computer out and am attempting do some manner of meaningful work. 

This is the initial "Hey John what're you doing, can I help?" phase.

This turns into the more intensive "John, I love you John, what're you doing? I know I can help, can I help?"

Which quickly turns into the In-your-face-and-actively-loving-you-helping-you phase.  She's usually pretty good about not violating the "4 on the Floor" Rule, which stipulates that all canine critters need to keep all four paws on the floor and not creep/crawl up onto couches and into laps. 

Once there's a doggy noggin on your laptop or on your lap, wiggling around and wanting pets, well it's pretty hard to concentrate on computing.

Morning Power Outage

Our power went out Saturday morning for a few hours.  It wasn't a big deal at all and we hardly noticed it since we were headed out the door for Gardening Saturday, an all day event of gardening learning and festivities.  The power outage itself was barely noteworthy except for the article in the Grand Forks Herald the next day. 

Here's the article from the Grand Forks Herald.  I've highlighted the relevant quote from Excel Energy company officials.  It might not be funny to anyone else, it just seems like a quote I could have given having no technical knowledge of electricity or information on the situation - "Uhhhh yeah, probably like a thing came loose or something". I guess I just expect the power company to be much less blase about electricity wires spontaneously coming loose. 

"A power outage affected about 1,900 customers in a north-central area of Grand Forks on Saturday morning, according to Mark Nisbet, a manager with Xcel Energy.

The outage, which began just after 7:30 a.m., lasted about two-and-a-half hours.
Power was back on for everyone by 10:09 a.m., he said. About 450 customers had power restored about earlier.

The outage was caused by a wire that came down, Nisbet said. “We’re not sure why. The winds we had a day or so earlier may have loosened a connector, but that’s speculation.”
It was not caused by a break in an underground connection, he said."