Our Canines

Tippy has always been a fairly laid-back dog. She sticks close to home, doesn't demand a lot of attention, doesn't steal food off the counters or tables. We fill up her food bowl and she eats when she's hungry. She's generally sweet, though she does jump on folks when they come by, which I would have to say is her only fault.

Spotters on the other hand, has been a bit more high-maintenance from the beginning. He barks whenever he hears a noise--for a long time after we adopted him he would bark at us if we were upstairs and made a noise. He scarfs his food down as though we have been starving him for weeks (and though he could, he doesn't steal food off the table or counters--or Tippy's bowl, she sees to that). He also jumps on people--being a much bigger dog, this can be dangerous. He runs. Fortunately we are far enough from the road that this hasn't been a problem. Yet.

But Spotters biggest issue is fear. He's afraid of his leash. He's afraid of the vacuum (to be fair, a common canine and feline issue).

He's afraid of unfamiliar men, especially. But he has also exhibited some fear around our kids' friends.

The vacuum and the leash I can deal with--the people, not so much.

So, in order to avoid any altercations with our pets, we have started a training program. We met with a Madison-based certified dog behaviorist and trainer--Sarah Kalnajs of Blue Dog Training.

She gave us a lot of homework.

I felt like I was back in school again.

We have a whole series of tasks to complete every day. Lots of treats, lots of positive reinforcement and no visitors to our house for a month. As we are nearing the end of the month I am seeing some changes in Spotters. He's able to settle down more readily. He doesn't bark at every outside noise he hears.

Certainly this training will continue~as my friend K* said~for a lifetime.

One of the major changes we made, and part of Sarah's program was to create a safety-zone room. This is a place in the house where the dogs spend time every day and specifically before any transitions happen in the house (Ie. people coming or going). And they always are in their zone when we aren't home. This is quite different, as Tippy and Spotters used to have full run of the house whenever we went somewhere.

At first I was skeptical. I feared the dogs would gouge our bedroom door to pieces trying to get out. But they have settled in. I have to say it is nice to come home with groceries and not be "attacked" by excited doggies. You see--they can't come out of the zone until they are calm. This I like.

There is clearly a "next phase" of training (we've known that from the start) to address the fear issue. Desensitization, I believe it would be called.

They're good dogs. Really. Both of them are very sweet and loyal.

They're both excellent couch potatoes (except this month--they're not allowed on the furniture--we're using plastic carpet runners with spiky thingies to keep them off). They leave the chickens alone (mostly). For the most part they're just great big lovers.

This training is so important. If it doesn't work out, Spotters will need to find a new home.

And the kids would be heart-broken.

Sorry to be AWOL

I've been busy and tired.

But, as a dear friend just reminded be--I haven't let folks know that we do indeed have a new batch of chicks. They all arrived healthy and alive and thirsty! Even though we did this last year, I forgot just how teeny those guys are when they are brand spanking new! So cute. and fuffy. Love.

So, our upstairs bathroom is now occupado. You can use it, but accessing the toilet is a bit tricky.

Bees are still not here. With the cold spring, the delivery has been delayed. Hopefully this week or next and our second hive will be buzzing again!

I'm so excited that spring is here again and that the weather has decided to warm up a bit. We've gotten some of our early seeds into the ground and I am so looking forward to those first tastes of radish, spinach, lettuce and peas.

In closing, here's a couple of pictures of Mother Nature's little joke last week (April 20th). At least she loves me~note the heart shaped snow on my garden shed window.

Fortunately it melted quickly.

Waiting for Babies and Bees

This is the week we are to get our new batch of chicks and bees. We were told the bees may arrive a week late, due to the cold spring. But the chicks should arrive at our post office tomorrow.

Very exciting!

We'll keep you posted...

Hard to Believe

We had a beautiful end to a day 

that started out grey. 

(Poetic, yes, I know).

The sun came out and it warmed up to about 60. I think this is our warmest day this spring. So warm that apparently summer attire is warranted.

Hard to believe the clear blue sky and calm when they are calling for severe thunderstorms later tonight.

We had noticed on a visit to Madison last weekend a variety of flowering bulbs coming up all over peoples lawns and wondered when ours would poke their heads above land. Sure enough we found these today.

And what did I do on this glorious, fine spring day? I sat inside in front of my sewing machine for a few hours and completed these:

Vegetable bags for grocery shopping. I made two small ones and a larger one for things like onions and potatoes

This is a drawstring bag with four cloth napkins inside for when we dine at a restaurant with paper napkins.

This is our chopstick holder for when we dine at Asian restaurants~then we don't use disposable ones that will just be tossed.

Finally.

Don't look too close at the sewing--I'm no super sewer. Just like to get the job done.

Before I came up with the name for this blog I had tossed around Sassy Gardener. And I liked it because to me "sassy" implied a certain disregard for rules and perfection. I have no staff or house elves to help keep my home clean and beautiful; my garden weed-free or finish the myriad projects that chisel around at the back of my brain.

Things are very much lived-in and to a certain degree, neglected. 

I'm not always comfortable with that, though. And I blame that partially on glossy magazine photos and home and garden shows on TV. 

And on my grandma.

OCD when it came to cleaning. And yard work. Grandma and Grandpa's house and yard were impeccable. I swear she cleaned every day and he lived outside. When my sister and I went to stay for a week or two in the summer, she and grandpa would pay us money to pry up the moss that was growing in-between their back patio stones.

Now that I think about it, that moss was really pretty~lush and green the color of pine needles.

And I loved my grandparents dearly. I believe I inherited many positive traits from them as well as grandma's cleaning compulsion.

But see, I can't keep up with that and frankly I don't want to.

Sassy.

In the end I chose Dancing Apron Farmer because it hit me like a thunderbolt one evening when my daughter, while wearing my cooking apron, started doing a little jig in the hearth room.

And because I love to dance.

And cook.

And farm.

And because I love the joy in the sound of it. 

And because someone else was already using Sassy Gardener. In Oregon.

Oh well.

A Sure Sign of Spring

This week, the spring peepers (listen here) were serenading us. They do every year around Aidan's birthday and we always tell him they came out just to sing Happy Birthday. He just eats that up.

It was a symphony of sorts on Dead Rat Hill~along with the peepers, we heard sandhill cranes, a lone duck and either a coyote or a wolf (not being experts, we are completely unable to tell the difference) all in one night.

The sounds of spring and summer~music to my ears.

Really it's thanks to the chickens that we heard these welcome songs of warmer weather. For if HE hadn't gone out to lock them in for the night, with all of our windows and doors closed up against this cold vernal season, we would have missed that first night.

And for some reason it is the most magical of all.

Speaking of music (and magic), Aidan received a new keyboard for his birthday and is quite smitten. It's [almost] receiving even more attention than the Lego Harry Potter Diagon Alley kit.

Whoa.

Seeds and things

We finally got our seeds started. It has been on the to-do list for a couple weeks, but always seemed to slip to the bottom of said list. Until yesterday.

HE put up the Seed-o-Matic 2010 in our upstairs loft.

As you can see this is very high-tech stuff. Really it's just HE's method of avoiding putting holes into our ceiling from which to string the plant lights. 

HE, Erica and I then sorted through our seed packets, labeled craft sticks and planted seeds. Aidan was too busy working on lego structures for his next stop-motion lego youtube movie (say that three times fast).

This morning I tromped through the garden, checking for any growth and found some chives and a bit of parsley trying to make a go of it. Our strawberries are also greening out quite nicely.

 Hopefully in six weeks or so we will be transplanting healthy, robust seedling.

I came in from the garden and, a bit later, our weather radio alerted us to severe thunderstorms coming our way.

Shortly thereafter, a hailstorm began.

 Isn't that just like spring....

 get you all excited and then, WHAM!

"Just wanted to make sure you were paying attention, puny human."

Aidan remarked on the hailstorm, "I've never seen anything like that in my entire life!"

True enough.