Chalcy!

Chalcy turned one year old on Cinco de Mayo! I realized, we brought her home a year ago on June 15th. A year ago today, I took this picture:



Now here's one of her with J, from a few days ago:



We like Chalcy. She's pretty good, except when people come over. We're working on that.

For Chalcy's first birthday, we bought her a Big Girl Bed, which she really likes. Periodically we've done trials to see how she will do if we leave her out of her kennel at night, and she has usually failed. Months ago she chewed a bare spot into our bedroom carpet when we tried to let her sleep in our room. A few weeks after that we tried to let her sleep in her room (aka. the guest bedroom) without closing her kennel, because it has fake-wood floor instead of carpet. She chewed the edge of trim around the window. So, even though she is kind of too big for her kennel, she kept having to sleep in it anyway. Lately, we've tried letting her sleep in her room on her Big Girl Bed and it works. She does just fine! So we tried letting her have access to the whole house at night. That works a little less well, because she will come stand outside our door, and just stay there. Her favorite place to sleep is on the floor by my side of the bed. When I get up, I have to watch out or I'll step on her. During the day she sleeps there a lot too.

Chalcy is almost always silent, which is nice, because I don't really care for barky dogs. She does alert us when she sees a strange object or hears an unusual noise. There have been a few times where she's started barking in the middle of the night. We always help her investigate, until she is satisfied that everything is okay. Otherwise she'll keep barking for quite a while. When she does bark, she is very loud. This last weekend, our city had "Country Days," which is the annual city festival thing here. As we were falling asleep, we could hear the country music from a few blocks away. That was fine. After that was all over they started doing fireworks. Fireworks make a loud "BOOM" sound, and it concerned Chalcy. She started barking and barking from her room. So, we brought her into our bedroom and opened the blinds, and showed her that the fireworks were the cause of the noise. She stopped barking right away, and we all sat there and watched the entire firework show from our bedroom window. Chalcy was fascinated.

Chalcy still knows tricks. She is still good at all of her puppy preschool stuff, usually. We've taught her a few other tricks too:

1. J taught Chalcy "Back!" which means "You're too close, scoot back." Chalcy has a different concept of personal space, so it isn't unusual for her to come up and lean against us or put her face right up close to our faces while we're sitting down (because we're her height!), etc. "Back!" has been a fantastic trick because Chalcy gets so excited when people come over that sometimes she's a little too friendly. We tell guests they can tell her "Back!" and she'll scoot away, and they try it out, and it works, and it makes them feel a lot more comfortable to know she will leave them alone if they want her to. It is also a good way to remind her that she is not allowed to be near us when we're eating.
2. For Jessica's birthday I taught Chalcy "Giddy up!" which means, "Come through my legs so that I'm standing over you like I'm riding a horse." Every time Jess would come over, she would always try to stand over Chalcy, because it kind of looks like you're riding a horse. Chalcy always backs up, though, instead of just standing there. So I taught her this trick because I thought it would be funny. And it is.
3. Chalcy knows "Jump!" which means, "Jump!" This is pretty impressive and amusing, because she is massive and she'll jump up (not just forward) and get her back legs off the ground too.
4. We taught Chalcy "Speak!" which means "Bark!" Since Chalcy is so quiet, it is my secret hope that if we wanted her to defend our house, I could motion to her to bark without the invaders noticing me, and then she would look fierce. Actually, though, an invasion would most likely be pretty unusual and it would be enough to get her barking anyway. Chalcy was surprised and a little confused when I taught her this trick, because we also taught her "Quiet!" because she used to bark if she wanted to come inside, or if she wanted to come out of her kennel because people were over. Now she just stands by the door when she wants in or out. So learning "Speak!" was kind of like teaching a kid to eat cupcakes on command, or something. (REALLY? You really want me to?)

Those are the extra ones (in addition to sit, wait, watch me, drop it, leave it, lay down, come, etc.) Most of them go along with hand signals, because she learns hand signals faster.

Chalcy also knows some "tricks" that are not really tricks.

1. We discovered this one when my brother was over last week. If you pat your lap, Chalcy will come put her head in your lap, where you pat. That's how I usually tell her she can cuddle with me that way. I didn't realize it was a trick, though, until I was demonstrating to Jason how to get her to put her head in his lap and she came across the room to put her head in my lap instead, because I'd just pat my lap. It seemed impressive. Then the next time Jess came over she wanted to see that trick. Uh, she's always done that. It isn't a trick. But it kind of is.
2. Chalcy is polite about being fed. It started because I didn't want her to rush me when I fed her, back when she was a puppy. Here's how it works: I fill her food dish, and put it where it goes. I tell Chalcy to sit, and she does. I tell her to wait. I go fill her water dish, and put it where it goes. Sometimes I'll make her "wait" a little longer, and then I tell her "Okay" and she'll go eat her food. It's a pretty strict routine now, so I don't even really have to tell her what to do. I bring food out, she sits down. I get water, she waits, and she'll only approach her food after I give her permission. It's nice.
3. Chalcy goes into her kennel very readily. This isn't an exciting trick either, but it is useful. Our main command is "Kennel up!" and that means "Please get in your kennel, and if I don't look angry you are not in trouble and you will get treats for getting in your kennel" or it means "You are in big big trouble because you did something you knew was wrong, and the only way that I will be happy with you is if you go into your kennel, RIGHT NOW. No treats." She always kennels up, immediately. Very good. There are also a lot of other things that mean "Kennel up"--"Time for bed!" and "Back to bed!" and "Sorry!" all mean to kennel up. Plus, if I put my shoes on and pick up my purse, Chalcy will go get in her kennel, because she always has to be in there when I leave (and I'll give her treats).

Chalcy still loves Paley. When we go into the hall outside and Paley is there, Chalcy wag wag wags her tail and puts her mouth on Paley, or licks her. Paley rubs up against Chalcy, too. But, if I call Chalcy to come inside, or go outside, she'll still obey. So that's just fine.



Chalcy loves toys. Any toy we give her is the Very Best Thing she's EVER seen in her Entire Life (!!!!!). It's really cute. She tears stuffed toys apart really quickly though, even "durable" ones, so she doesn't get many of those anymore. Chalcy also loves tug games and fetch games and play-rough games, and basically any game you can think of. She also likes sticks and bones.

Chalcy loves people. All of them. She wants to be near us all the time. And preferably, very close. She is very affectionate. Also with our guests.

Chalcy likes dogs. Especially little ones because puppy preschool had puppies in it, and they were her friends, and I don't think she realizes they grew up too. Big dogs are more intimidating, but Chalcy is not aggressive at all; it just takes a little time for her to warm up. When dogs bark at her she looks at them, but she doesn't bark back. This makes me proud of her when we go on walks, or to the dog park.


Chalcy loves chickens. They squeak and have feathers that fluffle all over, they flop around really cool when you shake them in your mouth, and they run on their own--until they stop. We raised a few sets of chicks inside, and that helped Chalcy realize that we do NOT put our mouths on chickens. EVER. Except, when we're outside with her, occasionally she forgets and starts chasing a chicken until we remind her not to, so now she just doesn't get to be where chickens are unless she is under close supervision.

Our puppy is probably pretty close to full size now, and I'm looking forward to her rabies booster shot this summer (who looks forward to that??), because when we visit the vet we can find out how much she weighs. Can you imagine if she were to continue growing at the same rate next year too?? She won't.

Anyway! We like our dog. That's all.

Happenings!

Real Estate:

I graduated from the Real Estate Academy I've been attending. I took (and passed!) the licensing exams. I interviewed at a couple different offices (and talked with a few others), and I found a broker to work with. I will be working for Community Property Management, which works with Community Real Estate. The broker's name is David Anderegg, and he's had his office for about a year. He's just started the property management brokerage, but he has a bunch of experience managing properties, so I think he will be great to work with. I submitted the application to actually get my license, and the Division of Real Estate is processing it, and they said I should receive my license in 5-7 business days, which should be sometime next week.



Farm:

The cow is still pretty little.

We're down to one turkey. The one that's left is doing really well. It's out with our chickens.

We still don't know whether the goats are pregnant or not. They'd better be.




Garden:

It's growing. I transplanted it into bigger pots, and it is still in J's parents' greenhouse, where it is doing really well.





Family:

My dad is visiting! He is in town for two weeks, and he's helping us with a bunch of things. He and I built a big shelf for our garage, and we organized the garage. He's been painting an apartment for us. He is also painting our barn. (So far he's put new plywood up to cover the old, really worn out plywood.) We're enjoying his visit. I think he is too. He plays with Chalcy a lot, and she gives him lots of kisses.

Something funny from today...

This made us laugh today:


Chalcy heard our neighbors' dogs barking outside so she stood up and looked out the window. (Of course.) She didn't bark at them; just watched them. She'd never done that before.

Seeing her at the window, we realized (HOLY COW!) our puppy is getting big. Our bed is normal-height. Our window is normal-height. You can see J's nightstand on the right, and my dresser on the left. Standing up like that, our little puppy is taller than me (but not J yet)!

Our silly dog.

Chalcy is eight months old now, and we've had her for about six and a half months.

We still like her.

During November and December she went through a naughty, uncooperative phase (where she just plain ignored us when we would ask her to do things). It was also a very, very slobbery phase. I started calling her "Madame Slobber-Face," which makes J laugh every time.

This month, just like magic, it seems we have our sweet old puppy back--Chalce is starting to slow down (just a tiny bit), she is back to being more obedient, and she is learning to lick her lips* when she is drooly, instead of swinging pendulous slobber all over everything.

Here are some things Chalcy enjoys doing:

Chalcy loves to play fetch. She nudges her slobbery toys into our hands and laps because she wants us to throw them for her. Again! Again! Again!

Chalcy likes chasing her tail. Sometimes she cheats by leaning her bum on the couch so that her tail can't escape! And then she just chews on her tail. Other times, after she's caught her tail enough she'll go after her back left paw. And she'll chew on that while she hops in circles.

Chalcy likes to defend us against unusual objects. This morning we have a drill out on the floor and Chalcy is barking at it. She's not a barker, but she knows when she needs to protect us. Dogs have instincts for that sort of thing, of course. We got a new (to us) washer like a month ago and Chalcy bark-bark-barked at the dolly J used to move the washer into our house.

We have chicks** again, and Chalcy loves them. They are in our office, because they don't have all of their feathers yet and it's too cold to put them outside. Every day, Chalcy spends most of her time laying in front of the chicks, just watching them. Sometimes she tries to get a little too friendly (by putting her mouth all over a chick), and then Chalcy has to kennel up as a punishment, so she's learning not to do that. Usually she takes one of her toys into the office and lays down to chew on her toy while she watches the birds. [Please ignore the pre-organized state of my office in this picture.]


Chalcy also likes to be with us. She is such cuddly dog. We stopped allowing Chalcy on the couch*** but she is so tall that she can sit on the couch without being on it. Her paws are all on the floor, so how can I complain? Clearly, she's already "off." It makes me laugh.


Last night, we had a trial run of letting Chalcy sleep outside her kennel. We put a couple towels down on our bedroom floor. We don't have a dog bed yet and we wanted her to know that it was her spot to be. We're not worried about her having accidents inside; she's totally housebroken. We just worry about her bothering stuff: getting into the trash, stealing things, getting too friendly with the chickens, etc. We closed the door to our room and picked up our phone chargers so that they weren't tempting her. Success! She came to the side of the bed to say hello a couple times last night, but she didn't bother anything at all. Way to go, Big Dog!




* Do dogs have lips? Well, she licks the edge of her mouth. (Best. Trick. Ever!)
** We have one black chick (half Australorp, half White Leghorn) and one yellow chick (supposedly Araucana, but I don't think it actually is) and we got them when we got chickens for J's mom.
*** Most of the time, which means we're breaking the Big Important Rule of having dogs, which is: "Be Consistent About Enforcing The Rules."

Thanksgiving!

This year for Thanksgiving, J and I drove down to California. We left on Tuesday and we took Chalcy with us.


On Tuesday, we spent all day driving. The trouble was, Chalcy is OCD with her bathroom habits. She will only relieve herself in our backyard--not on walks, not on hikes, not outside the vet's office on a patch of grass, not outside puppy preschool on a patch of grass, or at the dog park. Only in our backyard. It's a pretty good problem to have, as far as dog problems go. At least she doesn't chew our stuff.*


Anyway, so Chalce tried to hold it the whole way to California. We knew there was no way she could hold it for 10 hours, so we kept stopping. At first we only stopped every few hours or so, but after we had been driving for a while, we worried that she would have an accident in the car, so we stopped much more often (every 30 minutes or so). She liked all of the times we let her out of the car, but after we would walk around for 10 minutes and nothing was happening, we would get back in the car and keep going. Just past Vegas, J started to play rough with her when we took her out. Still nothing. We decided to put her in the hatchback portion of the car, since it at least has a plastic lining thing. That worked great! J put some clothes beneath her to absorb any accident. Then we quit stopping as often and we tried to just get to my grandma's house. It ended up taking us twelve hours. Chalcy totally made it, accident free. Good girl.

We were so sick and tired of stopping all the time, though, so I told J we should buy her some doggie diapers for the trip back up. We decided it would be worth it, at almost any cost. As we were heading into California, J became a little drowsy and I read him "testimonials" from fancy doggie diaper websites online. Some of them were pretty funny.

When we got to Grandma and Grandpa's, we picked our room, visited with my parents, and went to bed. It was already pretty late, and we were getting up early the next morning.

On Wednesday we went to Mexico! J had an appointment to get hookworms in Tijuana. I think I would like to blog more about this separately, so for now I'll leave it at that. It's an interesting story, though. After Mexico, we drove back up to Grandma's house and visited with my mom and brothers for the evening.

On Thursday, we celebrated Thanksgiving! It was fun because my family all came over to Grandma and Grandpa's, and the boys played with Chalcy a whole lot. I helped my mom make some posters for her Weight Watchers meeting that she was going to lead the next day. We got to meet Steph's boyfriend Alan, and we got to see Nathan look surprised (some more).

Friday, J and I attended my mom's WW meeting as guests. It was fun because there was this lady in her group who kept talking and talking, and finally at some point she mentioned being Italian. At the end of the meeting she and I talked for a little while in Italian, about all kinds of different stuff. I enjoyed that. (I don't know if J had ever really heard me speak Italian with anyone before, either, so I think it was kind of interesting for him, too.) Then we went and helped my mom move stuff to a smaller storage unit. We got my boxes separated out so that Sarah could help me bring them up to Utah. (Hooray!)** Then we went over to Tracy and Freddy's house to pick up the barbecue and see if we could fit it in our little car with the seat folded down. IT FIT! We also helped them pack for a little while, because they were moving to Phoenix the next day.

On Saturday we had a long (but very nice!) breakfast with Steph and Alan. We thought Alan was great! (Steph was too.) Then we bought doggie diapers at Petco. And J took my dad out to lunch, and I visited with my mom some more. I don't remember what else we did.

And then, we got up at 4 am on Sunday to start driving home. Sunday was supposed to be sunny, until partway through the week when it switched to being a big snowstorm. By leaving so early, we figured we could drive through Cedar City, etc, during the warmer parts of the day, and be home in the early evening. Sarah drove up with us, so that if she wanted a break from driving we could help her, or if she had any problems with the snow, we could help her. She was just fine, as it turned out. But I think she was glad she had left early anyway. The snowstorm made our drive back very slow and a little slippery.

And we made it home safely.

The end.***

Oh, and the picture of Chalcy with something in her mouth is from when we gave her pieces of ice from the cooler and she ate them.

Oh, and the other funny thing was, at 5 am on Sunday, we discovered the largest size of doggie diapers didn't fit Chalcy. So we had to use duct tape to re-size a diaper by extending its velcro attacher-things. You can see it in the picture.

* Except our chickens. Ugh.
** Except now we have Mt. Emily in the garage. Sigh.
*** Except for the story about the worms.

Dog Lake, part 2 (sort of)

This isn't actually about Dog Lake, but it is from that hike. This is something fun.

About a year ago (October 17th, the photo thing says), J and I went hiking and we had our picture taken together. I probably posted it on my blog somewhere before, but this is the picture:


This year we took a new picture together, on the same hike, in the same month, in front of the same sign.

It's kind of like those drawings where the pictures look alike but you have to find a certain number of things that are different between the two pictures. For instance, in the first picture we're broken up; in the second picture we're married. In the first picture, we have no dog to enjoy hiking; in the second picture we have Chalcy.

I kind of think we should go back every October and take another picture there. Then, someday it will be kind of neat to flip through our pictures and watch ourselves age and things change. We'll see.

(Isn't that cool?)

Dog Lake, part 1

A couple weeks ago J and I decided to go for a hike, and we decided to bring Chalcy along.*

We ended up doing one of the hikes we used to do back before we were married. I think it's called the Big Water? trail. Anyhow, it leads to Dog Lake**, and I'd heard Dog Lake is a lot of fun. So we went.

Chalcy was off-leash for the hike, and I was a little worried about that, because it was our first time taking her anywhere off-leash (except for the dog park). She didn't fall down the mountain, though, or race off after some other dog, or anything. She just had a lot of fun hiking right next to us. So it all worked out well.

We saw tons and tons of dogs on the trail. Pretty much all of the dogs were friendly. Some people could tell Chalcy is still a puppy, and she got a lot of attention from them. ("OH, LOOK at your BIG PAWS! You've got a lot of growing to do!!") We saw another Dane on the trail, too. It was fun; we stopped to chat with her owner for a couple minutes. People who own Danes seem to always love them so much. So that was kind of neat. Sometimes I forget how big Chalcy will be.***

When we got to Dog Lake, it was nice. It's this little lake where dogs run all over the beach and play in the water, etc. Chalcy was afraid to go in the water, so J and I started tossing a stick for her, just barely in the water. She would fetch it, and we would throw it for her again, slightly farther out in the water. The game worked pretty well until one time I threw the stick about 4 feet farther into the water, and she RAN out to get it, and suddenly STOPPED in the water, a couple feet before reaching the stick. The water had gotten deeper, and her belly was getting wet now. She left the stick right where it was and returned to the shore. We laughed pretty hard, and so did the people around us. Funny dog! Chalcy is getting better at socializing with other dogs. She tends to be a little shy, but then she warms up and starts playing too. She's definitely not a barker or aggressive at all. She's always very friendly with the people around us. Just sometimes when there are a lot of dogs, it's kind of intimidating.

We're thinking we may take her to California with us for Thanksgiving. She would have more fun with us than hanging out at home without us. We'll see.

* We found out that the Cottonwood canyons do NOT allow dogs. But Millcreek Canyon does.
** Eventually. After like 4 miles of hiking.
*** It just seems like other dogs are getting smaller. Like, I thought Labs were pretty big dogs, but now they look really small. On a similar note, as of a week or so ago, I can't pick Chalcy up anymore. She's too heavy for me. Not sure how much she weighs.

P.S. The last photo of Chalcy investigating the water is not blurry because dogs splashed the camera, it is blurry because it is like a dream come true for dogs. It's a dreamy-effect that just automatically happens when you take pictures there. :)

Congratulations, Chalcy!

This Monday, Chalcy graduated from Puppy Preschool!*


Our original class had Mos-B (?) (a big...retriever?), Mini (a little black fluffy puppy), Zulu (a Rhodesian Ridgeback show-puppy) and Breezy (a tiny yellow lab that looked like the Cottonelle? puppy). Plus Chalcy.

Mos-B only came the first week because his person (an older lady) had a hip problem and she wasn't going to be able to bring him anymore.

Mini just stopped coming, I think. She came consistently for the first month, and made up a couple classes, but we haven't seen her in a while.

Zulu stopped coming about when Mini did. Zulu's sister was in intermediate, and they stopped taking her, too.

Breezy missed a couple weeks towards the beginning, but she made them up, and Breezy has been at all of the classes since then.

Chalcy's graduating class included: Cougar (a bitey dog that we had never met before that class, so maybe he was making up his last class) and Breezy! Breezy is MUCH bigger than she was at the beginning, but she wag-wag-wags!!! her tail all the time and gets SO EXCITED!!! about everything. Breezy will do ANYTHING for a treat. If she can figure out what you want her to do.


Anyway, for her last class we practiced combining commands (Drop it- Leave it), "Return to heel"***, we learned how to do "Puppy-Push-ups" (sit! down! sit!) and we talked about what a great value Intermediate class is and when Intermediate class is starting. We also talked about how the Intermediate class fills up quickly and how it's even more fun than Puppy Preschool because it's building on what they already know. And then everyone got to have their picture taken--the dogs wore caps and so did their people because we're BOTH graduating. And then Robyn (the new trainer) filled out our graduation certificates. (And reminded us that we can sign up for Intermediate if we want.)

We may do Intermediate sometime, but we're ready for a break from classes for now. Life needs to settle down before we'll have time for more classes.

*Her certificate says Beginner level, because the trainer grabbed the wrong certificates. But they are equivalent classes.**
** But really, they're not, because Beginner is for dogs 5 months or older. We did NOT let our dog get out of hand and then finally try SOMETHING, ANYTHING to fix her. We were Responsible Dog Owners, so our certificate should say that it was the puppy class. Not that I'm bitter, or anything.
*** I typed "Return to hell" first. Not sure what THAT trick would be.

Little update - part 2

Aside from work, there have been many other things going on.

- We got new chickens. Did I blog about that yet? I don't think I did, but maybe I did. We got them to replace some of our older layers that will uh, "retire" this fall. I got two teenage hens* from Sunny Brooke Farm in Sandy, where we got our adult hens last year. This year I added a gray Araucana (like Gertie and Maude are, except she has no tail. It will lay blue or green eggs, though.) and a Black Australorp.

I also got silkie chicks. Silkies look ridiculous! When I went for the other hens, the lady had silkie chicks "straight run" (which means 1/2 will be girls, 1/2 will be boys). I picked a white one and a red one** to take home. They live in Chalcy's old kennel, in our garage. Unofficially, I have called the white one "Cotton" and the red one "Karl." They're the funniest. Silkies have poofy feathers that look like fur. They have fluffy heads and fluffy feet. I often giggle when I look at them. God has a sense of humor, for sure. Anyhow! A couple weeks ago, Karl started trying to crow. "Err-errrrrr-rr!" He tries to crow usually about 8:00 am. Slacker!*** It's such a funny sound, though, because he's just learning. So he hasn't quite got it yet. It's like...half a crow.

- In anticipation of..uh... "retiring" one or both of the calves this fall, we got a couple more goats. One is a papered**** doe. Supposedly she is pregnant. So we should be able to milk her at the end of January, we think. She is so, so mild. Her people called her "Caroline" and she is very gentle. Despite being gentle, she is also a jumper. She keeps going to this one weak spot in the fence (where it is just the metal 4" squares, and not wood pickets) and she backs up a bit, TOTALLY clears the fence, and then RUSHES our garden to start eating the strawberries as fast as she possibly can. HEY! NO! So I take her by her head and guide her back into the fenced area. Naughty goat! A couple times the neighbors brought her back. We chained her to a post away from the weak part of the fence, but she doesn't like being restrained like that, so she has broken 2 collars and a chain collar. Ugh. Now we've just closed off that part of the yard and everyone is in the front and middle pasture. But she's about the calmest, sweetest goat you could think of. She was a 4H project.

Our other new goat is a buckling. He was 6 weeks old when we got him. He is from a family who was just getting into milking goats, so his mom supposedly gives a lot of milk. We wanted him to eventually breed Feta (our doeling that we already had), because by the time he's interested in her, she'll be big enough to breed safely. The family who sold him to us was VERY happy that we plan to keep him, because bucklings usually become meat but they like him. He's a cute little guy. He's kind of like a puppy--he'll follow you around and play chasing games, and he jumps up on people (which doesn't hurt and is adorable). He still drinks bottles.*****

- J and I have been married for 6 months (as of yesterday)! Go us! We got our wedding pictures back like a month ago, and I want to post some sometime, but Blogger laughed at me when I tried to post some because the files were too darn big. Eventually.

- Thursday evening J and I were driving up to Ogden and we talked about wishing we were going on a road trip. So we decided to take a road trip this past weekend! We ended up going up to Wyoming and Idaho, near Jackson. Our favorite part was actually Bear Lake, which we discovered by accident. We ended up stopping by again when we were headed home. We had a pretty good time.

- Chalcy is getting bigger! A couple weeks ago I took her in for her final shots and she weighed 54.6 lbs. She was almost 4 months old then. So. She's growing up. Next week is the last week of puppy preschool. (There were a couple weeks off because of Labor Day, and the trainer being sick, etc.) Chalcy is usually a good dog, but she sometimes gets a ton of energy. It's a puppy thing, I'm sure. She does this funny thing lately where she will sit on the couch halfway. She's tall enough that she can sit her bum on the couch and keep her front feet standing on the floor in front of the couch. (Kind of like how people sit, if you think about it.) It looks pretty silly, but she'll just hang out that way. Other news with Chalcy is that we discovered the joy of dog parks! They are SO FUN.*******

- I learned to separate cream yesterday. This makes J pretty happy. Cream is his favorite thing.

- Our garden is producing! Big tomatoes. And that's it. No blueberries. Not many strawberries (although the plants keep making more plants). Nothing else.

Well, there are probably a lot of other things happening, too, but that's enough for now. I need to get back to work!


* Not laying yet, but not so little that you have to keep them under light and be careful with them. They went outside right away. (But in a separate section next to the big chicken area, so that they wouldn't get pecked by our flock. Chickens are funny that way--the lady told us to have them in a nearby area for a couple weeks, so they can see each other but not get to each other. Then, one night, after the hens are asleep, take the new hens and put them on the perch next to the sleeping ones, in the chicken coop. In the morning our birds would wake up and think "HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? ... I've seen you before, though, so it's ok.")
** GO UTES!!
*** I think it's because they're in the garage. So he doesn't get as much light as if they were outside.
**** Fancy! She took 2nd place at the Fair! She also has her registered number thing tattooed on her ears, with little holes, so you can shine a flashlight through her ears and read who she is. That's what they do with fancy papered goats.
***** When I go to feed him, I have to let him out of the pasture area and onto our driveway, because otherwise the calves see the bottle and push him out of the way because they want to drink it. LOL. They have nice memories, I guess. Also, here's something funny. The kids named the buckling "Nanny" and put a pink collar on him. I call him "Kiddo" because he is a kid, but that won't be good for when he gets bigger. Sometimes I call him "Buckley" because that's a little more masculine, but "Kiddo" comes more naturally to me.
****** Actually, she mostly just goes around and says hi to all of the people who brought their dogs. She sometimes plays with the other dogs, though, so...you have to start somewhere, right?

New Toy!

Fun things to do with Carpet Tape Roll*:

1. Roll it like a BALL (on the roll-y side)!

2. Slide it like a puck.

3. Bounce it 3 feet high, like the pink bouncy BALL! and then GET IT.

4. DROP IT off of the side of the couch because it falls on the floor and makes noise!

5. Try to fit the whole thing in your mouth by squashing it a little.

6. Hold it in your mouth with the round part above your mouth.

7. Carry it in your mouth with the round part below your mouth.

8. GET IT and DROP IT so someone will throw it and you can go GET IT.

The carpet roll kind of reminds me of Abby, because when we got her as a kitten, her people told us we should let her play with the plastic ring around the top of milk containers. She loved them. Paley does too. Carpet tape rolls are the dog-version of milk rings. It's going to stay an only-under-supervision toy for a little while, because it seems pretty durable (and Chalce doesn't destroy toys) but I don't know if she could break it or swallow it somehow. So, we'll see.

Chalcy is more and more fun to play with because we communicate better these days. Chalcy is learning so much! (Learning is a lot of fun because when you do things you get TREATS, which are Very Very Good, and Definitely Worth Sitting To Get One.)

We've been doing Puppy Preschool for a month now, and Chalcy is good at:
- Watch me.
- Sit.
- Get it.
- Down. (But we still have to do Sit first and then Down).
- Up [on the couch, usually].
- Off [the couch, but even though she knows it, a lot of times she doesn't obey for this one.]
- Kennel up! (Very good at this now.)
- Come here! (Usually obedient for this one, but not always. We still need to do "Come" in class, so I think that will help.)
- Drop it. (Learned this a week and a half ago, but she is very good at it.)
- Leave it. (Another new one that she is pretty good at, except if she is supposed to LEAVE IT [the cat or chickens] or LEAVE IT [the compost], and I don't have a treat with me.)
- Take it.**
- Fetch! (Not a class one, and sometimes she doesn't do it, or she gets it and brings it but doesn't give up the thing she fetched. But usually she does it.)

I forget what else she knows. She does not know how to politely walk on a leash, because we've only been on a couple walks--we mostly just play in the backyard. But knowing how to politely walk on a leash is important for big dogs, so we're starting to go on walks sometimes. She likes them more than I thought she would.***

This is just a little update (which ended up being longer than I thought it would) because

* It can’t be ROLL, because otherwise how will we teach her to ROLL over?
** But it usually means you're going to have to DROP IT anyway, so why take it if you can just LEAVE IT before you're asked? Shouldn't that be the same and get you a treat faster?
*** Which seems like OF COURSE, because all dogs love walks, but I just kind of figured that since she gets plenty of exercise in the backyard, walks were not really very important or interesting(it's not like she needs more exercise or fresh air...). Plus, if she knows that she needs to stay in the yard, she is safer. If she feels like she knows the neighborhood, maybe she will decide to go on adventures or run off sometime, and that's not fine. I like her not-run-over, thanks. But walks are probably about teaching her to stay out of the road, too, so they're probably good, anyway.

The saga continues! - Episode 2

[CONTINUED FROM EPISODE 1]


I suddenly remembered--our carpet has gotten WET! Remember? When I walked in the alcove that one day, my feet got wet. We pulled the carpet up, pulled the sheet rock off, and set up a fan, but maybe we didn't get it dry enough? Maybe it molded?

And then I remembered the day that I had poured gallons and gallons and gallons of water in our furnace/water heater closet*, only a couple weeks before. When our furnace was installed, it had a little pump put beneath it. After I poured so, so much water in there, we tried to use a Shopvac to pick it up, but we got, like, a pint of water. "Huh, that's weird," I said. "I know there was WAY more water than we're vacuuming, but maybe the furnace pump already took care of it?" It seemed weird, but the water just wasn't there, so it had to have gone somewhere.

Maybe more of the water was in the carpet than we realized, and we couldn't dry it fast enough with our fans. Maybe it molded.

J and I decided I would pull up the carpet to take a look. Most likely, the carpet and carpet pad were moldy, and anyway, it wouldn't be a bad idea to replace them. I've really wanted fake wood floors, and one of my buddies at HD*** told me I could put in Trafficmaster Allure**** and it would be SO easy, and SO fast, and he said it's cheap, but it actually lasts. So. I was excited that I would be pulling up the carpet that day.

I got up to go look at the carpet by the furnace area, and as I headed that way I realized something. "J, no way, I just thought of something and you're not going to believe it..."

I crawled into the furnace closet to look beneath the furnace at the pump.

Back when I installed linoleum under our kitchen counters, I saw beneath the furnace: there was a line of 2x4s. It needed to be there to access furnace stuff, I just assumed.

"Yep. The pump is self contained. J. Remember how when you were buying this house, there was a line of 2x4s out in the hallway by the garage?"

"Mhmm?" (He was listening.)

"I think...I think the line of 2x4s goes all the way down the middle of our house...And that's why the floor is not level, and kind of goes up in the middle."

"Ohhhhh..."

I continued: "Yeah. I'll BET...I'll bet when all that water poured into the furnace closet, it wasn't pumped at all. It couldn't have been, actually, since the pump is all self-contained. You know what it did? It poured into this channel down the middle of the house. No way... Hm. I'll bet that's it. I'll bet that's why you're so allergic to the house. Think about it! The floor would get wet, from when it rained, and any water that got down there would sit beneath the floor, down the middle of the house. And it would just sit there. And that's why you're sick a few weeks after I poured so much water down there."

J nodded. "I think you're onto something. We never even thought about the 2x4s in the hallway. I think we just thought it was a vent..."

"Yeah."

J: "So you'll go ahead and pull up the carpet, then, because that would definitely cause mold under the carpet."

Me: "All right."

And I pulled up the carpet while J was gone to work, so he wouldn't get super-sick from participating in the project.

Sure enough, there were boards down the middle of our main room.

I started to pull up the 2x4s and I was in for a bigger surprise than either of us had imagined!

The ends of the boards were resting on little concrete ledges. Basically, there was a trench down the main room of our house. It was about 15" across, and about 10" deep. The bottom of the trench was gravel and dirt--just like the ground outside our house! Except, this gravel and dirt was damp, and very musty.

For sure, for sure, I had definitely found the source of J's allergy problems. No question about it.

The trench connected with the section outside. Down the middle of the trench, there was a 1" PVC pipe. The pipe we already knew about--it comes up from the 2x4s in the hallway outside.

When I talked to the previous owner (and also on the How the House Works DVD), he explained that the pipe went up along the wall of the patio, out to the roof outside, and then along a fence that no longer exists. They used the pipe to water their garden outside. Now, the pipe still goes up the wall, and outside, but then it is severed--there is no fence or garden.*****

So definitely, what happened is, all of the gallons of water went into a trench in the middle of our house, and sat there. But not only that! This year, we began irrigating. Any time water runs near the house, I am quite certain we have also been irrigating the middle of our house.

I determined that we should probably remove the PVC pipe and fill the trench in, but I wasn't sure what I needed to do, so I went to Home Depot to go find someone to explain what I would need to do.



[...TO BE CONTINUED!]


* This is a story that I meant to blog before, but I'm pretty sure I never did. Maybe I'll still get to it. This can be like LOST, with flashbacks that make the present stuff make more sense.**
** This is almost everything I remember about LOST, since I only watched part of one season.
*** Online, everyone calls HD "Orange" and Lowie's "Blue." So they're like, "I was at Orange the other day and they had x on sale!" Or, they'll ask "Orange or Blue?" and you're supposed to say whether you like Home Depot or Lowie's better. I don't get it. If I were talking about Vons, or Walmart, or Smithy's, or any other store, I would say the name of the store. Is there some reason we're not supposed to name names when it comes to Home Improvement stores? Like, I could say "Red, Blue, Yellow, or Green??" and mean, "Do you like Smithy's, Albertsons, Macey's, or Reams the best?!?" but I wouldn't...So, I'm not into using secret logo-color codes to talk about home improvement shopping, I guess.
**** When I say the names of home improvement project parts, it makes me feel like I am bragging about specs for something else--'It's got a 203948320 GIG HARD DRIVE, with 38 RPM!!' 'It's a Mac.' 'You just can't beat the suspension--nobody makes a better suspension than ThisBrand!' or 'We're installing Trafficmaster Allure. [*frownsmile*?] It has a 25 year warranty.' It's just like, whatever it is, it must be so good that for some reason I need to namedrop, and can expect people to know what it is. But actually, it isn't really bragging, because it isn't Pergo, and it's in my little house that is not deluxe deluxe at all.
***** The previous owner did not mention the trench went to the furnace closet. When I asked him about the 2x4s in the hall, and asked about what it connected to, he mentioned the garden, and he told me that, you know, they didn't do everything the best way, but that it had worked for them. When he said that, it confused me, and I just told him we enjoy the house a lot.

Chalcy + Paley = BFF

Chalcy (our new puppy) and Paley (my cat) are best friends.

(Well, Chalcy thinks so, anyway.) (Sometimes Paley thinks so too.)

They're working through their differences.

Paley was initially afraid of Chalcy. She was about the same size as Paley when we brought her home*, but Chalcy looks kind of like our renters' dogs--Chalcy looked more like the lab, but was about the same size as the min-pin, like some terrible combination of Paley's two mortal enemies. Our renters' dogs are MEAN**. And they CHASE her. We kind of expected Pae to be afraid of the puppy.

Pretty soon after we brought Chalcy home, Pae realized that Chalce was not the same as the other dogs. Chalcy would notice Paley and try to go be with her (like the other dogs (!!!)), but as Chalcy would scamper toward Paley, the puppy kept tripping on grass. And then, Chalcy would get near Paley, and the puppy would suddenly lose interest in the cat because she would suddenly notice, OH WOW, A NEAT PIECE OF GRASS! So Chalcy would lay down--right by Paley, but totally disinterested in her--to chew on some grass, or whatever. Chalcy was not exactly quite the same threat Paley was expecting. So Paley started trying to sniff Chalcy, and a little bit tolerated Chalcy sniffing her. Within a few days, Paley started to rub up against Chalcy sometimes.

Chalcy liked Paley, because they were about the same size, and Paley is black like Chalcy (and her missing littermates), and Paley has a tail. Chalcy licks Paley, so Pae knows that the puppy likes her.*** Since Paley is a friend, Chalcy always wants to play with her. Her littermates always wanted to play, so Paley must want to play too, right?

This is how their interactions usually go:
1. Paley rubs up against Chalcy, or comes to sit near her.
2. Chalcy gets excited. Chalcy licks Paley and nestles her head into Paley's side. (Paley is ok with this.)
3. Chalcy begins to suck and chew on Paley's face/side. (Chalcy is little rough with Pae, but Paley is willing to tolerate it, because it's obvious that Chalcy is trying to be friendly, and not trying to be mean.)
4. Chalcy starts to play-bite Paley, which Paley will sometimes put up with.
5. Paley gets tired of playing too rough. She yowls and smacks Chalcy with her paw.
6. Chalcy is excited about the new smack-each-other-with-our-paws game, and starts wagging her tail. Chalcy backs up a couple feet, and does that playful-puppy thing, where her bottom is up in the air, with her tail wagging, and her front is crouched down, ready to pounce on Paley. Chalcy jabs a paw towards Paley a couple times.
7. Paley playfully bats her paw at Chalcy's paw.
8. Chalcy tackles Paley and pins her down to chew on her.
9. OH NO! Paley does NOT want Puppy Fun. (Also, Chalcy is quite a bit heavier than Paley, so being jumped on hurts, or is uncomfortable at least.) Paley yowls and hisses. If Chalcy does not move quickly, Paley will GRAB onto Chalcy's front leg with her claws, and Pae begins biting Chalcy repeatedly, while she growls. (GET OFF, DOG!)
10. This hurts a little bit, but it is Puppy Fun too, so Chalcy enjoys it for a minute, and then it hurts a little, so Chalcy will back off, or Paley will jump out from under Chalcy (to go sit a few feet away).
11. [Repeat.]

As I've been typing this, it sounds a little mean, but everyone is playing, and nobody gets hurt. When Paley is really done playing, she will go climb a tree, or jump up a fence, or hop up onto the car, or go somewhere else Chalcy can't get to.

A lot of times, Paley and Chalcy will play on opposite sides of a fence, batting at each other through the fence. Sometimes they'll run through tall grass. Paley will run through the tall grass, and stop somewhere, and Chalcy will run though the tall grass to "catch" her. Then Paley will run somewhere else a couple feet away and crouch down, and Chalcy will bounce through the grass to find her again, and the game continues. It is a game for both of them--Paley loves all of the attention from Chalcy.

Sometimes they're not too interested in playing, and they'll just lie down near each other, a couple feet away. Usually Paley will come sit kind of near Chalcy and I, and after a couple minutes, Chalcy will take whatever she is already chewing on ("Tug!" or "Stick!") and go lie down near the cat, so that she can keep chewing on her toy, but also be near Paley.

In the past week or so, Chalcy has realized that Paley does not like to be jumped on, so now Chalcy catches her by standing above her, instead of knocking her over. Paley likes this better (of course), so she is willing for longer.**** I think they will be better friends as Chalcy gets older and learns to be a little more gentle. Paley sometimes gets tired of Puppy Games. She does like Chalcy, though.





* Except that Chalcy's mass is all bulk, and Paley's mass is all fur. So. Not exactly quite the same.
** To cats.
*** Chalcy also licks the calves and the goat, so they know she's different than our renters' dogs, too. She likes them, and they are friends.
**** Chalcy still loves to bite Paley's tail (because it is long, and it moves, and it is covered in FUR!), and she loves to bite Paley's ears--this is tricky, though, because Chalcy's mouth is bigger than Paley's ears, so she ends up biting half of Paley's head. This is not Paley's very favorite game.

Farm Update, etc.

It's been a little while since I posted about our little farm.

Our calves are doing well! We fenced the front and back pasture areas well enough that the boys are always out grazing. That's what they do all day, every day. Pretty much. We de-horned* them and castrated them, and after that they had the worst 6 hours of their lives, but they're fine now, and they've forgotten all about it.

The calves are suuuuper cuddly. They are the friendliest guys in the world. They both love to be scratched. When I go out into the backyard, often one (or both!) of the calves will come up to me to be scratched. They stick their necks out, so that I can reach to scratch their chins, and their necks, and I'll scratch behind their ears, and their little bangs, and their foreheads, and they just soak it up. If I'm busy, or stop scratching, they'll rub their neck against me, so that I know what they want.

The calves usually come when I call them. I'll call, "C'mere boys!" and they come running. This is helpful if they have gotten somewhere they're not supposed to be.**

When we brought the calves home, they had ropes around their necks. We left them on, and it helped us tell the calves apart. I think we could probably tell them apart without the ropes, but eh, just to be sure, we've left them on. They are also helpful for directing them to particular places. The calves are getting BIG, though, and the ropes have been getting tight. So about a week ago, I got them collars. IFA was having a sidewalk sale, so I bought cheap collars in basically the same colors as their ropes were. I feel like they need bells, because don't calves wear bells around their necks? J tells me he can't think of any useful reason to put bells on them, and it's true--I can't think of any reason to bell the calves either. Oh well.

I have the funniest video of the calves with Paley. I need to figure out how to post it, I guess. See, [months ago] I used to come home, and sometimes Paley would be all wet. Half of her head would be wet, or she'd have a big wet blotch for a couple inches on her tail... and I started to wonder whether the calves were licking her.

They were!

Paley would go up to the calves, and rub against them, and the calves would lick her! Except, their mouths are so big (and they're so slobbery) that they soak her.

One time J and I were out with the calves and we saw it happen. Too funny! We laughed and laughed. We were like, that's so weird! But then I told J, cats lick each other.*** And J was like, "Oh, yeah! They speak her love language!" and that made me laugh too, because it was like, "of course!"

The calves are great. We like them. The very best thing, I think, is when I go outside and Stew first sees me. He looks up at me, kind of like the dramatic chipmunk YouTube video. I feel like he's thinking: "*GASP!* SHE'S HERE! You're here, finally!" Often he'll start walking out towards me, to say hello.

The chickens are mostly doing well.

We moved them to a different area (because the calves were EATING the chicken coop. Hey!) so they have plenty of space to dig around and eat bugs. When we put them in their area, it was grassy, but now it is just dirt, because they tear up the grass so effectively.

When we had moved them before, one of our chickens went missing. It was Gertie, from the chicks that we actually raised. I mentioned to J that I wondered whether she might have gotten out and ended up across the street with the flock across the street. She did! Our neighbor came over one time, and we were talking about chickens and she asked if we had lost one of our birds a few months ago. Actually, yes!

She said a new bird had shown up at their house, and the bird kind of stayed to herself. Our neighbor had wondered if the bird might be ours, since she thought we had birds too. J went over later and picked her up. Gertie was so skinny! And! Our birds didn't remember her. It was pretty sad. They all pecked at her, and chased her. So she started spending a lot of time on top of our chicken coop. Poor girl! She spent every night on the roof of the chicken coop.

Gradually she has integrated back into our flock. She's fattened up again, too. Now, several of our birds spend some time on the roof of the coop. It's kind of a pain, because they poop all over it, so I hose it off but it often looks dirty.

We started irrigating this year. When we water, snails come out! They slide all over our ag water pipes, and they climb all over our water access places. I pick them up by their shells and toss them to the chickens. What a treat! The girls love snails. They all cluster together and it's like watching a game of football--one bird will grab the snail, and start running, and everyone will follow, and try to get the snail. Awesome.

Yesterday morning when I went out to take care of the birds, I found that our white bird with more black was dead. I think she died of natural causes. She was one of the older ones, and it didn't look like anything interesting had happened.

We also recently picked up our final addition to our farm: a goat! She is a Nubian doeling. Nubians are the best milk goats, so J really wanted that kind. They are also the least pleasant, supposedly. Their bleat is kind of annoying. We named our girl "Feta" and she is about 4 months old, so we plan to start milking her probably next March.

She was very nervous about coming to our house, but she fits in very nicely. She feels like she is part of a herd with the calves. She just follows them around. Feta is very friendly! Especially for a Nubian. The family we bought her from had 4 young children, so the goat definitely got her share of love from them, and I think it made her a very patient goat. She lets people touch her and she is not aggressive at all**** (except with Chalcy! Poor Chalce!), so she's pretty nice.

It's very funny because the kids next door are SUPER interested in our animals. They love to come up along their side of the fence, and watch our calves. They like the goat even better, though. Yesterday I saw them outside bleating at her. It was the funniest thing! The calves are mostly quiet. (They only 'moooo' once in awhile, when they're really hungry and they think we've forgotten them.) The goat bleats fairly often, though. Not all day, or anything, but quite a bit, and a few times a day. So the boys 'bleh, bleh, bleh'-ed at her from the fence, and she would turn around and look at them, and sometimes 'bleh' back to them.

Well, Chalcy is crying because she is Not Allowed to play inside today (because of the work I'm doing), and she does not like to play outside Without Me. I think it's nap time, and time for me to get back to work. I do feel like I have so, so much to blog about, but this is a good start, eh?*****





* (Not for the weak of stomach:) For dehorning, we used a paste to burn the root of the horns. I think it hurt them a lot and they hated it. For castration, we used a band castrator, which is basically a contraption that stretches a really really tight rubber band, and then you stick the whole thing over their parts, and then let the handles close, and roll the rubber band off. I think this actually didn't hurt them much.
** A couple weeks ago, J moved the calves into the back pasture and forgot that he hadn't closed the fencing on the other side of the house. In the morning he was leaving for work and as he drove out of the driveway, he stopped and came running back towards me-- "Em! The calves are out! Come help me bring them back!" So I put Chalcy in her crate, and went to help him bring the calves back. He was trying to tug on the ropes around their necks, and they weren't too interested. They were hanging out in the middle of the road, in front of our house. (And I thought ducks in the road was funny...) So, not a good place for them. "C'mere! Chuck! Stew! C'mere boys!" I got them excited and started jogging in front of them, toward their other pasture. So they started trotting and followed me. Of course.
*** I remember at the Humane Society, when I adopted Paley they told me she was a really sweet kitten and she had gone around grooming all of the other kitties that were in the same cage as her. If cats lick each other, it means they're being sweet.
**** Except with Chalcy. Poor dog!
***** Happy Canada Day!