Tag Archives: dogs

The Up Side

Over the past few days I told people that one of the things I have enjoyed about blogging is that it gives me a chance to focus on something positive that happened in the day. Lately Clara has been having some trouble and a little positive focus has made a bit difference!

Today was yet another challenging day because Clara looked like this:
She spiked a fever, didn’t nap well, hadn’t slept well last night, and didn’t want to be put down when she was awake.

But as I went through my day I thought about all the things I could write about that made me smile.

First I found Ivy “reading” out loud to herself:
Next I saw more new leaves on my Tulip tree:
I considered writing a post about laundry. To explain that while I hate doing laundry my favorite part is when it is hanging on the line:
Then I saw Piper NOT causing trouble and remembered that I would like to elaborate on her craftiness one day:

And at the end of the day the sight of broiler chickens on fresh pasture made me smile:
All in all it was a tough day. When Clara needs more attention Ivy gets less, causing her to act up more, and to top it off John got home hours later than normal. But when I returned from moving my chickens, just in time to sit down to dinner John looked at me and said, “You seem happy.”

And he was right!

Sleeping Dogs

Some nights when I’m up after everyone falls asleep I wash eggs, or sweep, or e-mail, or read books, but not tonight. Tonight I’m bothering my sleeping dogs with my camera flash.

These are our dogs.

First we have my dog Piper. If given the option she would really prefer to be sleeping in our bed under the covers. I realize that this is ridiculous given that Piper is a 110 pound dog who can take up more space than I can our our full sized mattress. Which is why most of the time we make her stay downstairs on the couch.

I think Piper snuggles with the elephant she pulls out of the kids toy basket and hangs her feet over the edge of the couch so that she can try and look more pathetic when I walk past on my way upstairs. It doesn’t work. The food bowl she is wearing as a hat tonight, that’s a new one. I’m not sure what her plan is with that. But Piper is a crafty girl, she’s probably up to something.

Storm on the other hand, she’s not up to anything.

I’m sorry to report that sleeping upside down on the chair is a normal nighttime occurrence. Of course normal for Storm, isn’t necessary, normal.

OK, John will yell at me in the morning if I’m not nice to his dog, SO, truth be told this isn’t totally normal. If given the option, Storm would be sleeping upside down in the blue recliner, but there was a toy on it.

New Respect

When I was little I often remember trying to “help” my dad. While I have many memorys of watching dad work in his work shop I also have quite a few of being told he didn’t really want my “help” any more. If memory serves those were usually the times he was fixing cars, lawnmowers and the like. At the time I didn’t understand what could possibly be unhelpful about my presence.

Today I understand.

Today I put the cutting deck back on the lawn mower. This is something that I’m sure would have taken any of my male relatives 5 minuets tops. It took me about three hours.

Three hours in which-

-I made a makeshift ramp to get the lawnmower out of the barn
-I put kid number two down for a nap
-I tried for way too long to “slide” the stupid thing back under like it says you can do
-I called John to find out that that doesn’t really work and that they had to lift the mower off the deck when they took it off
-I made a ramp
-I drove the mower up on the ramp to get the deck under it
-I pulled it back off the ramp and smashed my fingers
-Then enter help of Ivy
-I got handfuls of grass
-I got rocks
-I got a phone
-I got sticks set on my back courtesy of Storm
-I got a pto engager shift thingy smashed into my knee so hard I couldn’t feel part of my leg (that wasn’t due to the kid or dog, that was just me being a klutz)
-I got a diet coke (I needed a diet coke)
-I called my dad to find out what to do with a random part I couldn’t figure out
-I went up to the barn for wire to fix the part
-I was given more grass
-I was given flowers
-I was given a screwdriver (but I asked for that one)
-I got it on!
-I turned it on!
-the belt fell off
-I started putting the belt back on
-Kid two woke up
-I changed a diaper
-I made lunch
-I cleaned up lunch
-I nursed a kid
-I changed another diaper
-I went back with two kids and two dogs in tow
-I got the belt on
-I turned it on
-It worked!Then we all sat down and made dandelion crowns in the grass, because we only had 20 minutes before nap time.

So today I have a new respect for my Dad’s grumpiness when I wanted to help. And all those male relatives of mine who could get the job done in five minuets, I’d like to see them do it in five minuets with “help”!

Hide and Seek


Ivy, John and I played hide and seek in the yard tonight. Ivy is still a pretty terrible at hiding, but she’s gotten smarter at seeking, now she enlists the dogs help!

Yard Work


I don’t like yard work, I think I could blame it on the child labor that was extracted out of me growing up, but I think my mom might read this so I won’t. Instead I would just like to say, (Mom and Grandpa are you listening?) That I do have SOME standards!

1) Green is good. Well unless it’s purple (creeping charlie), yellow (dandilions), white (clover), or brown (well this color isn’t good but the cow pasture from the neighbors floods parts of our yard with…umm… “dirt” and it’s brown and there isn’t much I can do about it).
2) It should be short. Unless short means that I have to mow it more than once every 7 (or 14) days, then it can be a bit longer. Or if I lose a kid in it, then it’s time to mow, but they yell really loud so that takes some serious length.
3)I want to walk in it barefoot.

Ok fine I have ONE standard, but it’s something right???
So that leads me to my problem. I have too many thistles, and since this directly violates standard number 3 I have been trying to do something about it. The problem is my lack of an other standards are making it sort of difficult. A weed killer you say… well then I would have no lawn (see standard number 1) . So I have been digging thistles, a LOT of thistles, three wheelbarrows full and counting, that kind of a LOT of thistles. Now I have about half my lawn thistle free, Horray! New problem: driving the wheelbarrow is getting difficult due to all the ankle breaking holes left from the thistle removing. This leads me to my big problem with yard work. You spend time, lots of time (if you are a certain kind of person all your time, if you are me as little as you can get away with) because it’s always SOMETHING, and what do you end up with, a short green thing you can walk across…

While I have been digging thistles, Ivy and Clara have been playing on a blanket together while storm wanders around the yard (she finally figured out it’s not a good idea to catch the thistles I throw on the pile). See…

Oh right… so what’s actually happening is that Storm is eating sticks and grass and creating lawn shrapnel all over the blanket while Clara has crawled off the blanket in search of her own lawn to chew on and Ivy found a toad.
Just after this picture was taken Storm and Clara noticed the toad and both tried to eat it.

Tomorrow I’m going to work on the flower beds!