Wednesday, February 5, 2020

Snow Day at the Homestead

We're having a snow day here at the homestead in Boise, Idaho. No it's not like the snow days in North Dakota where we'd get a foot or two of snow, sub zero temperatures and blizzard conditions. Here it's just a pleasant snowy day, a few inches of accumulation and some slushy footing for a little while.
The dogs aren't taking any chances though, and they're certainly not going to fret over trivial matters such as the amount of snow. They're just going to get all warm and snuggly under as many blankets as we can pile on top of them.
We'll rest up for now. There are some slushy and wet paws in our forecast this afternoon.  

Friday, January 24, 2020

New Dog Collars

Alycia had a convention in Orlando last Fall and spent some time at Universal Studios and Disneyworld. Naturally there was some gift store browsing.
Shadowfax got a cool new Star Wars collar.
 
Shaak Ti got a collar from Harry Potter World at Universal Studios. Alycia got it at the Magical Menagerie and it says "Magical Menagerie" on it.

I know, I know. It's all backwards, I know better than anyone. Shaak Ti is a character in the Star Wars universe and she absolutely should have the Star Wars collar...they just didn't have her size. But if there was ever a creature that belonged in a Magical Menagerie it's Shaak Ti. 

Saturday, December 21, 2019

Shadowfax Approved

Shadowfax can easily be described as a heavy chewer, she's easily plowed through dog toys designated as "tough.
The green stick in the picture is her Goughnuts Dog Toy (Amazon link here). We don't endorse many products here, but this stick is really awesome, we've had it since 2014! We even wrote about it back in 2014. Five plus years is an eternity it Shadowfax toy-time. If you have a power chomping pup who destroys toys, you might consider a Goughnut for them this Christmas. 

Friday, November 22, 2019

Japanese Maple - Emmett's Pumpkin

We planted a couple of Japanese Maples (acer japonicum) in 2017 when we moved to the homestead. They took a year or so get fully acclimated and last fall they had some interesting colors. One variety that we planted, Emmett's Pumpkin, is an upright Japanese Maple that is closer to medium sized shrub than a small tree.

We really wanted this particular variety because it's main feature is turning bright orange in Fall, thus the name Emmett's Pumpkin. Last fall we weren't terribly impressed with the color but figured since it was the first year it might need more time to fully produce spectacular color.
This year it put on a terrific show of orangey-pumpkiny goodness. We look forward to many more years of fall foliage from Emmett's Pumpkin.

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Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Evening Snuggles

Yesterday was pretty typical evening here at the Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes homestead. We snapped a quick photo of the dogs getting all snugly.
This pose lasts until feet or legs fall asleep and the people have to stand and get the blood flowing again. 

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

New Birds at the Homestead - Evening Grosbeak

Fall migration saw a new bird (new to us anyways) pass through our area. These evening grosbeaks stopped by intermittently for a few weeks for some snacks, likely on their journey south. We hopefully look forward to seeing them again in the Spring.
This is the evening grosbeak,they're pretty striking. We had rose breasted grosbeaks on a regular basis in North Dakota, but this was our first time seeing the evening grosbeak. 

Monday, October 21, 2019

Long Term Forecast

This is the forecast for the next 5 months or so.
Compelling indeed. We've said it before and we'll say it again, these dogs have a pretty rough life here at the homestead. 

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Fall Grape Harvest

When we bought our house a few years ago it had two large established grape plants on the outside of a South facing fence line. The grapes made a nice visual addition to the fence, softening the hard line of 50+ feet of wooden fence and gave us some fruit too. Our first Fall harvest was modest and we made enough grape juice to fill two gallon containers. 

This Spring saw much more rainfall and we deliberately irrigated over the Summer with our flood irrigation a few times per month. As a result the grapes got much more water on a more consistent basis. This translated into a whole lot more grapes that were much sweeter than prior years. These are 5 gallon Home Depot size buckets.

Alycia's parents also bought us a cool Christmas present last year - a Stainless Steel Steam Juicer (Amazon link). We had actually found this online a few years back and bought one for them and they enjoyed it so much they figured that we needed one as well.

The juicer makes the process much simpler and tidier. Fill with water and grapes and set on the stove on high. Then it took an hour or so of steaming and we had about a half gallon of juice and some steamed grape mush (which we happily composted). The grapes are dark, Concord-ish. They're sweet with lots of seeds and will probably be turned into some grape jelly forthwith.

The end result of a few hours of picking grapes and another several hours of tending the steamer was about 6 gallons of tasty grape juice. It's in our chest freezer for now and we'll make some jelly and unfreeze the rest periodically throughout the Winter for a fresh, tasty treat.