Raccoon Encounter Ends Wrestling Tourney for N.D. Team

Here's an article from the Grand Forks Herald this morning.  I'm not making this up.  I don't think I could make this up.  Sorry it looks kind of goofy, but the links to the Grand Forks Herald require a subscription and disappear after 7 days, this way you get to read it forever.  For those of you short on time, I've highlighted the important pieces or quotations. 

You get some interesting news here in North Dakota....

Raccoon encounter ends wrestling tourney for N.D. team

A raccoon ended Carrington’s bid for a fourth consecutive championship in the North Dakota Region 2 dual high school wrestling tournament. 

Carrington earned a berth in Saturday’s region tournament final in Grafton after winning its first two duals. But when Carrington school officials discovered the school’s athletes had been exposed to a live wild raccoon over the weekend, they quickly pulled the team out of the tournament before the championship dual was held.

“We (school administrators) found out as the tournament was going on that while our students were on the way to the event, they were exposed to a raccoon,’’ Carrington school superintendent Brian Duchscherer said.

Udi's Gluten Free Bread and Muffins

Ever since Alycia learned of her Celiac disease and need to lead a righteous gluten free life, we've searched the four corners of the earth and Internet for a good gluten free bread.  That search has taken almost three years and countless experimentations with dense, grainy, chewy, terrible tasting, poor textured crappy bread.  Good gluten free bread became the white whale (which would make me Capt Ahab, who shares more personality characteristics with me than I care to admit), something to be searched for and never found. 

I heard about Udi's gluten free breads last summer from a client (who is also a Celiac in a family of Celiacs) in San Diego who claimed the bread was so good "you didn't even need to toast it".  Now I'd tried enough gluten free bread in my day to be able to sniff out some serious malarkey, so I scoffed at this, and called BS on that claim.  It didn't really matter though since Udi's wasn't carried anywhere in North Dakota, but that all changed last week when I saw it stocked at our local natural foods co-op, Amazing Grains.

Our Little Graduate

Our littlest graduate recently earned her degree from the highest canine learning institution here in Grand Forks, North Dakota - Petco.  Yes our little puppy attained the third highest degree offered by this learned and historic institution by graduating with high honors from puppy class. 

Here's a photo of graduation day.  Due to the inclement weather conditions the classes are actually held inside Petco, in the aisles.  This is the dog food aisle where we had our classes.  It's quite an odd set up, instructions are briefly interrupted by people searching for a sack of dog food, puppies are distracted by the stock boy in the aisle over, wandering puppy noses are constantly sniffing out the lamb and alpaca byproduct snacks, etc. 

We brought Shaak Ti in on the final day of class to celebrate her little sisters graduation and smell all the lovely smells in Petco.  Big sister Shaak Ti couldn't have been prouder of her little sister.  A good time was indeed had by all.

Baby Pictures - My New Nephew

As promised, pictures of my new nephew Jacob. 

And props to my Dad who upon reading my last post promptly sent me a real, full sized picture of Jacob, thus proving that he not only reads the blog, but has very strong computer skills.  I didn't ask how long the picture sending process took though, or how many people were involved in assisting. 

Uncle John

Prior to a last week, my only experience with Uncle John has been the fabulous and satisfying collections of the Uncle John's bathroom reader series.  These books come in many editions and have been given to me through the years by friends and family.  Apparently for those who know me, the assumption is that I spend a large amount of time in the bathroom.  This is actually untrue, I am quite efficient.

If you are the type of person that needs some diversionary fun and educational enlightenment whilst taking care of daily activities, I would highly recommend the Uncle John's bathroom reader series, they're full of small vignettes that leave you both enlightened and lightened.  (This is probably the first/only poop joke, poop pun, or extensive scatological reference we've had here at the normally very high brow Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes, so quit yer whinin'.)



But now the title of "Uncle John" has new and special meaning, mostly because I am officially an Uncle.  Uncle John to be specific.  My sister and her husband had their first child and I'm officially an Uncle. 

I don't have any photos of the new baby to post (Jacob Brent is his name), since all I've gotten are cell phone pictures of my new nephew.  As soon as I get some real photos, I'll be sure to post them. Unfortunately since sister and her hubby are in the crazy first weeks of dealing with the new arrival, we have to rely on my Dad to supply pictures, which is why I don't have any real pics yet.

Deaf Puppy Picture of The Week

I've been alternating between dealing with the basement finishing (much more on this in another post) and working at the computer.  Puppy has been curled up behind my chair in a "too-small-for-me-but-I-don't-care" sized dog bed.  They're all leg and awkward neck angle at this age. 

Jungle Gym For Dogs

For Christmas we decided to purchase a jungle gym for the pups to play on.  But since we frequently have weather that isn't conducive to outside playing, we chose an indoor jungle gym.

Just climb right up there.  Don't fall.

All the way up to the top of the jungle gym you go.

Shaak Ti wanted to play on the jungle gym too, so she hopped on up. 

In case you couldn't tell. the jungle gym is actually Alycia's Dad.  Whenever he sits in this particular chair the dogs (Tito excepting) feel compelled to climb on him and sit on his lap/chest/neck.  He's a pretty good sport about it. 

Morning Temps

It's -18 this morning, with a bit of a breeze from the North makes the wind chill about -35 (or so says the Grand Forks Herald website).  We're currently under a wind chill advisory from the National Weather Service and headed for a forecast high of -5.  These are the rough days, when the high temperature is still negative.  Ugh. 

We're supposed to stay cold all week with a possible break on Friday for some light snow.  It could be a good week to spend most of our time inside, today for sure.  I hope you're warm and dry wherever you are.