Christmas and other things

Things have been very hetic since I last blogged. Thank goodness things are starting to get back to normal now that the holidays are over. We had Christmas at our place again this year. Mom and Dad came along with my brother and his family. It was a nice day and everyone had a good time. I posted some photos below:

My nephew Tyler with my mom and his mom. He was singing us songs.

My mom and Kathy, my brother's wife

my dad along with my husband and Kathy's mom

Ken opening up his gift from me

Kathy and Tyler and Kathy's mom behind Tyler

Ken finally fixed my floating shelves and we hung the drawing of him and Ikon I gave him.

This is what I gave Ken for Christmas. That is CH San Jo's Ikon he is carrying. Ikon is totally Ken's dog. :-)

This is a hoodie that Ann got me for Christmas. That is a hand painted picture of my Magic, BISS Am/Can/Intl Ch Magical Memories v Riata Edan. I just love it.

I know my blogs have been hit and miss this year but I promise to do much better starting tomorrow. It is almost midnight and so Happy New Year everyone!!

Trouble

Trouble went to his new home on Sunday, I was suppose to drive him to Austin in two weeks but they decided to come get him after the show on Sunday. It was very tough letting him go, I was not ready but Paul will be a great home for him. Below are photos of Trouble's new kennel that Paul and his son built for him. I still co own Trouble so I will always know what is going on in his new life.

Here is Trouble in his new Kennel at his new home. He is only in the kennel when Paul is at work and then he is in the house.

This photo is of the kennel when it was finished before Trouble arrived.

They Call Me Mr. Trouble v Riata

Finally I am able to upload photos again. That is why there is such a gap with my last blog and this one, could not get photos up to the site.

The pictures below are of my Trouble and his new family. Trouble was born March 17, 2008. His dam was my Moka, Witch Witch Witch v Riata and his sire is CH Been There Done That of Edan PT. My friend Paul who lives in Austin started talking about getting a German Shepherd from me a few months ago. I thought he would be getting a puppy from the litter I will be breeding in December but instead he is taking my Trouble. This is going to be a great home for the dog, Paul does a lot of hiking on trails and wants Trouble to be able to go with him on some of those adventures. Paul's son claims that Trouble will be his dog, not his father's. :-) They came for a day visit to see Trouble in person and to play with him. Trouble loves anyone who will throw the tennis ball for him! I have had some people ask me how could I give up a dog that I bred and raised for 2 years, the best answer I can give is, I want what is best for this boy. They will give him the one on one attention that he so deserves. Trouble has to share me with 9 other German Shepherds and I know he does not care but I do. It will tough going for Paul and Trouble to begin with, but with unconditional love from Paul, Trouble will return it 100 fold. I am happy to say that Paul has allowed me to be a co owner on the dog. I will be taking Trouble to Austin in December to start his new life and when I will leave Austin I'll be leaving a piece of my heart behind.

This is Paul's son, Paul playing with Trouble. He does so love those tennis balls!

This is the picture I sent them, showing what Trouble looked like. He is a handsome dog just needs to fill out and finish growing up. Paul is going to take Trouble to obedience classes. He wants to put an obedience title on the dog, which I think is great. It will help with the bonding process.

This is Paul on one of his adventures. Not an adventure Trouble would be going on. :-)

Another photo of Paul. I love this one, that is a chickadee sitting on his fingers

The Wild Life

I realized that I had some photos of the wild life that live in and move through our property. My husband has been telling me that we had a turtle that lives in our woods. He had seen it twice when it came out to eat some mushrooms that were growing after a rain. Last Sunday when I was on my way back from visiting my friend Peggy, he called me and said the turtle had been up close to the house eating. He caught the turtle and put it in a pool we had out front for the dogs to play in it. Of course he did empty it first. The photos below show our friend the turtle.

I do not know what kind of turtle this is, but he was glad when I released him. I gave him some lettuce which he ate before heading back into the woods.

This photo I had taken right after I started my summer vacation in June. This is a baby hawk that flopped into the top of one of our pine trees. He was learning how to fly and was not a happy camper. He screamed for his parents who were circling over head trying to get him to come to them. He must have sat there for 20 minutes before he tried to fly again. He landed on the roof of a house down the road from us and hopped around calling for his parents. We see him now and then and he did learn how to fly very well.

Here is one of my does. It is hard to get good photos of them. Even though they will let us sit on the deck and watch them eat the corn we put out for them, a sudden move as in to take a picture sometimes spooks them. I really wanted to get some photos of the babies this year, but so far, no luck on that.

We feed the deer a mixture of deer chow and corn. We also have a mineral block that they lick on.

They will even eat the sunflower seeds that we put out on the ground for the squirrels. And they like to eat the grasses that grow up from the bird seed that falls on the ground from the bird feeders.

Here are my Monarch caterpillars eating the butterfly weed I had planted for the butterflies. I love the color of these guys. We must have had over 25 caterpillars eating the butterfly weed before they cocooned themselves.

I really enjoy the woodpeckers that show up to eat the sunflower seeds.

Here is one on the ground picking up some sunflower seeds that fell from the bird feeder

After getting a seed she flew up to this broken branch.

And finally I caught a humming bird eating at my humming bird feeder.

It is so much fun watching all the animals. I need to get a good camera with a telephoto lens, I just might then be able to catch photos of the baby deer!

The Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend was one of the best weekends Ken and I have had at the house. The weather was beautiful and it was cool. Ken work in our woods clearing out some more of the underbrush we wanted to do away with, although most of it will stay so the deer have a place to hide. Clearing out some of the underbrush is a heathly thing for the woods. While walking with Ikon and Seuss at the back end of our woods, I found these berries. They are very pretty even though I do not know what kind they are. I am sure the birds, squirrels and deer will enjoy them!

Below is the path in our woods that the deer travel, this is looking towards the back of our property, way down there.

In this picture you are looking down the path in the opposite direction. To the right over a fence is a small creek and more woods. Sometimes when there is very heavy rain the water will turn this path into a small creek, but it drains right off. It is very peaceful and the deer just love it. I even found out we have a turtle living in our woods, not a snapping turtle but a turtle. I hope to get a picture of it one day.

On Monday, Ken and I went out to Hempstead where our herding club gets together. We had some herding tests and so Trouble and Angelus came out with us to see if they would like to herd sheep. Below is Trouble and yes he will start his herding lessons at the end of the month. If all goes well he should be ready to show at our spring herding trial in March 2011.

Another picture of Trouble and Joy, who is not only an AKC Herding Judge but the President of our club.

Below are some of the folks who came to have their dogs tested. Sitting is our friend John, his shepherd and his step sister. We got John to join the herding club. :-)

The picture below shows Socks being pushed away from the table where we were setting up food for the lunch.

Nothing could keep Socks away from the table!! Thank goodness the food was not on the table yet.

I call this picture, "If I stare at the ball long enough...." LOL This is Lite who belongs to Joy, she is an awesome herder and ball freak!

Below is my Angelus who said he did not want to herd. Joy and I are still going to work with him, sometimes it takes a few times before the instinct kicks in.

This is John's dog, he is just a year old and has great instinct. He will start herding lessons with Trouble.

Yes even Standard Schnauzer can do herding. They were bred as farm dogs so the AKC has allowed them to compete for herding titles even though they are not in the Herding Class.

This is a new addition in the AKC, the Finnish Lapphund. The dog was bred in Lapland and was used to herd reindeer. They are great sheep herders. This pup is only 8 months. You can find more info on the Finnish Lapphund at the AKC website.

She was really enjoying herself.

Joy talking to the newcomers about herding and lessons. I think we got 4 new club members today!

And finally here is Ken fixing a panel we use in herding trials. We have a trial coming up Halloween weeken.

Family Visit

I have not done so well with my getting back to blogging, I need to do better. I am letting too much time pass by between blogs and there is so much to blog about! This past Saturday, 8/21/10, Mom and Dad along with my brother Jimmy, Kathy, Tyler and Kathy's mom, Kathy came over and delivered a dresser Dad had made for his and Mom's bedroom at our house. I will have to post a photo of the dresser later, but it is really nice! We sat around and talked, Tyler played out side some and Ken and I cook a great early dinner. I made a salad and zucchini corn fritters(recipe for fritters down below) while Ken fried some beautiful jumbo shrimp fresh from the shrimp boat. Everything turned out great and we sucked down the shrimp and fritters as if we were starving!! I always love having the family come and visit and hopefully Mom and Dad will come back soon and stay with us so Mom and I can go back to the tea house we love so much. Of course there will also be some antique shopping done also.
Here is master chef Ken cooking the shrimp.

My beautiful zucchini corn fritters. They tasted as good as they looked. Yummm

Kathy, Kathy's mom on the front porch.

This is Tyler who said he was making small holes for ants. Not sure why, we certainly don't need anymore ants.

Here we have my brother Jimmy and Kathy along with Tyler in our livingroom. I think Jimmy and Tyler were watching Sponge Bob Squarepants or something along those lines. :-)

And last but not least, my parents enjoying the afternoon on our front porch. Looks like Mom was frowning. Probably did not want her picture taken again!

Recipe for those great Zucchini Corn Fritters:

1 chopped small to medium white onion

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup corn meal

1 tablespoon baking power

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/2 cup of Splenda (you can use sugar, but trust me the splenda is great!)

1/2 teaspoon salt

fresh ground black pepper (to taste)

2 eggs, beaten

1 cup milk

1/4 cup butter, melted (I use Smart Balance)

2 cups grated zucchini

1 1/2 cups fresh corn, kernels cut from cob
1 cup finely shredded cheddar cheese

oil for frying

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, cumin, splenda, salt and pepper.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, and butter. Whisk wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Stir in zuchini, corn and cheese; mix well.

3. Warm oil in a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. Drop batter by the tablespoonful in hot oil. Fry until crisp and brown, turning once with tongs. Remove to paper towels.

Be sure and try this recipe, these fritters are better than hushpuppies and they go great when just having a salad for supper.

What I did on my Summer Break

Well, as you can tell I did not do any blogging. We just got so busy with things we were trying to get done during my 7 weeks off. Ken was mostly studying for his Real Estate licence, while I took care of our dogs, the house and stuff outside. I was also walking 3 miles every morning, which now moves to the afternoon since today I am back at work. In 7 weeks, I have lost 14.6 pounds even though to me you can't tell. But the scales say I have and I am hoping for at least a pound a week. We also finished clearing out the house in Houston and have people in getting it ready to put on the market. We had a new front and back door put on, they are painting the inside of the house, including the cabinets in the kitchen. We are replacing a window in the back bedroom, the floors have been sanded and will get a new stain, the carpet is being replaced in the den/bedroom and a new floor will be put down in the kitchen. Wish we could do a few more things like put in central air and heat, replace the almost 20 yr old roof and fix the drainage line from the washer to the city line, but we just don't have enough money to do that. As it is what we are doing has cost us 6500 dollars so far and we still want to put a nice screen door on the back and replace one of the ceiling fans. We are going to have the house appraised and then price it fairly. I have some photos of the work being done and I will post those maybe tomorrow.

Dad and Mom's Visit Part 2

I guess I am calling this blog Dad and Mom part 2 because dad's birthday blog was probably part one. I did not want to blog while they, my parents( Hi Mom), were here because we just were so busy and having so much fun. After they left, two weeks ago, I have been going through all the photos I had taken and picking out the ones I wanted on the blog. The photo below is my brother and his son on Tyler's little jeep. Tyler had driven his jeep from the front of our house to the side where the deck was to deliver some fresh corn on a cob for our Saturday feast. Jimmy decided to sit on his son's jeep for this photo.


This is Tyler driving through our woods in his jeep.

Here is Tyler watching one of his movies along with my mother drinking her tea and Kathy on the left and her mom Kathy on the right. I took this photo while I was making a great salad in the kitchen.

Here is Dad and Mom, my brother Jimmy and Kathy and Kathy getting ready to eat. Oops, Tyler is at the end of the table.

Here is Dad looking at a wallet, one of the gifts he was given for his father's day/birthday gift on Saturday.

Dad reading a card with Mom and Kathy in the background.

Here is my husband, Ken reading his Father's Card from our German Shepherds. They are so amazing, they got him a card and a gift for father's day!

Dad reading a Father's Day card from me.

Dad blowing out the candles on his second birthday cake. He had his first birthday cake slice the day before.

Here is the cake with the candles.

Ken looking at the pocket watch the dogs gave him for father's day.

Of course the parties for my Dad took place on Friday and then again on Saturday when Jimmy and family came. It was sad that Patricia, my sister, her husband and nephew Robert John could not be here. On Sunday, which was Father's Day, we had a great supper of beans, cornbread, fresh tomatoes, onions, etc. for supper.

The above is my Mom's wonderful cornbread. I have the recipe and it is great!!

Here above are the fresh vegtables from our little garden. We also had Navy beans that we cooked with sausage. Dad said it was a great Father's Day dinner.

I still have to blog about the great Tea house Mom and I went to twice while they were here, so keep posted.