Upside Down Dog

No, not a yoga pose, our dog Shaak Ti.

Shaak Ti spends more time upside down than any other dog I've ever met.  And not just when she's sleeping, oftentimes she'll be awake, just hanging out, upside down. 

That's our little girl. The deaf, blue-eyed, upside down dog. 

Just Married

It's been a little quiet here on Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes over the last week.   But we have a good excuse. Perhaps the best excuse.  You see Alycia and I got married.

The wedding was in Yosemite National Park in California at the historic Ahwahnee Hotel.  It was a small crowd of 40 people, and we beheld the natural beauty of Yosemite in late Spring and basked in the delicious food, refreshing beverages, and splendor of our family and friends. 

Alycia looked amazing in her dress and I couldn't have been a happier camper or prouder groom.  Our photographer Patrick Pike spent almost the whole day with us and the shots we saw on the digital display of his camera looked fantastic, I can only imagine how great the actual photos will look.  And Patrick, if you're reading, this isn't a passive-aggressive "OMG where are my photos already?!?!?", I just thought we'd give you a shout out on this world famous blog.  Seriously, this is like six figures of free advertising.

And to all my regular readers, sorry for the superfluous and flowery language.  At least I didn't describe anything as "magical" (even though it kinda was). Your regularly programmed cynical and sarcastic author will be back shortly in the next post later this week...

Homemade Tomato Cages - Cost Benefit Analysis and Final Thoughts

It's the third year of using our Homemade Tomato Cages and with that experience under my belt, I thought it might be useful to perform a final cost benefit analysis to determine if it was worth it to go through the trouble of making these Homemade Tomato Cages.  There are also a few pros and cons of these tomato cages that I'll pass along in case you're interested in replicating these for your garden. 

In case you missed the previous posts about these tomato cages over the years, you can read the First Post, the Second Post, and the Third Post in chronological order.  These posts offer the full story along with details on how to make some of your own. 

So was it worth it to build these myself versus buying them?  Right off the bat my knee jerk reaction is yes since there just aren't commercially available tomato cages that are this big and this sturdy.  But how much did each tomato cage cost?  Well I purchased the following materials:

5' x 50' Reinforcing Mesh, 10 Gauge -        $29.99
10" End Cutting Pliers (to cut wire mesh) - $19.99
Spool of Wire for securing cages -                 $3.49

New Pages on the Blog

A few months ago we added some additional pages to the world famous Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes blog.  These started out as the garden variety "About Us" types of things, but quickly and predictably took on a life of their own.  You now have a lot more back story of the three pooches here at the homestead, and we'll add more later.

So please take some time, if you haven't already, and read the background story, pictures, and blog entries about the three furry critters that make our lives so dang entertaining.

The Tale (or Tail) of Tito

The Saga of Shaak Ti

The Story of Shadowfax

A Guilty Dog

Wanna see what a guilty dog looks like?

Shadowfax the puppy had a dilly of a time digging up the clematis vine that I had just planted, her toes were caked with dirt.  At least she looked appropriately guilty. 

Being bad can make you tired, tired as a sleepy dog. A pink-tummied, spotted, sleepy dog.

Homemade Vanilla Extract Follow Up

It was over a year ago that I wrote about Making Homemade Vanilla Extract.  That post detailed how to make the vanilla extract, but I never got around to mentioning how it turned out.  Well, it turned out great.  We've been using it for six months or so and I can't tell the difference between the homemade and the store-bought, except that the homemade stuff is 1/10th the price.

This is what it looked like after about six months.  Since we have two bottles this size, we took one bottle, ran the contents through a coffee filter (to get the vanilla bits out) and left the second bottle in the dark pantry to keep infusing its vanilla-esque goodness.

A few months later, it was even darker and more chock full of vanilla flavor.  Since it's pretty much just alcohol with vanilla beans in it, it will stay good for quite a while.  This is a good thing since it might take us another year to get to this bottle. 

Glimpses of Yellow

We saw glimpses of bright yellow this week on the homestead.

Yellow tulips are almost spent, this is probably their last day of full blooming glory.

Brilliant yellow American Goldfinches.  This picture doesn't do them justice, but click on it and see how many you can count.  Their cheery active songs and yellow feathering make them a tiny orb of sunlight, flitting around the yard.

Cavalier Evacuation Update

We learned today that Cavalier, North Dakota is re-opening (Grand Re-Opening?) Friday morning at 7:00 am.  Our house guests will probably have some breakfast with us and then hit the road.  It's been fun to have them here, but they're clearly stressed, anxious, and concerned about their house. 

They actually have a friend in town who ignored the evacuation order and scoped out their house.  They learned from their friend that they have about four inches of water in their basement, which isn't catastrophically bad, but certainly is going to be a significant clean up. You can read more about the damn that held and how the town is re-opening on the Grand Forks Herald or WDAZ website.

And even though residents are being allowed back in, the situation is by no means resolved.  The water behind the dam is slowly dropping (by 1/10th a foot per hour) but could realistically still be a problem.  Anyone who comes back in town is being warned that they could be evacuated again, and it's suggested to keep a bag packed in case the order is given to high-tail it out of town again.