Lemon Plum, Anyone?

We interrupt our usual Daisy posts to bring you this little touch of summertime fruit….. 😉

DH is off this week, and we’re trying to get a LOT done around the house in preparation for some big renovations this summer. I won’t have time to post as much as usual, but I did want to pass along a picture of one of the most unusual plums I’ve ever had:

This is a lemon plum. I’ve never seen one before or since we got this one at a local farm market. They always have some unique fruits in season at this wonderful place, and DD and I like to try almost every new thing we find there.

The lemon plum was fabulous! It started out summer-yellow and reddened to a luscious color as it ripened over the next couple of days. It actually did have a slight lemony taste mixed with the plum flavor – we loved it! And the fact that it was shaped like a heart just made it all the more appealing. 🙂

Daisy Likes It Messy….

As embarrassing as these photos are, I had to post them because “messy” is Daisy’s favorite state of being.

She just loves it when the pillows are randomly scattered, blankets have been left in disorder all over the sofa, or DD leaves her ultra-soft pink robe there.

But to have all three happen at once is the “Perfect Storm” for this little girl!

All these things make my nap EXTRA soft!

::snuggle snuggle snuggle::

That was gooo-oood!!

A Simple Wordless Wednesday – YUM!

YUM! 😀

It’s Wordless Wednesday! Happy Hopping! 😀

We’re So Honored! :)

Many thanks to our blogging buddies Oscar and Pauline and Green Dog Love Blog for nominating us for the Versatile Blogger Award! You made our day! 😀

Thank you so much for honoring my silliness! 🙂

So, to continue the tradition, we’ve linked back to both (along with our sincere thanks!), and now we’ll share seven facts about us and pass on the award.

Fact 1. Daisy’s new favorite “toy” is the little round cap that covers the bolt at the base of the toilet. (Might as well start off with the most embarrassing one, right?) She’s chosen one in particular as her target, and now it’s got teeth marks all over it. ::sigh:: Gotta remember to keep that bathroom door closed at all times!

Fact 2. We love British television. Yes, we’re Yanks, but we’re really captivated by a number of Britcoms and the way the Brits bring 19th century books to life (I love 19th century books). Sometimes we plan entire evenings around a good British show. ::blushing:: We find it hysterical that so many Britcom characters talk about their favorite TV shows being American!

Fact 3. Daisy tries to catch butterflies and bugs through the glass door. She still doesn’t understand that if there’s thick glass between her and the flying creature outside, she’s not going to win.

Fact 4. We’re foodies. Big time. We love trying new foods, new restaurants, and new recipes. In fact, I was a restaurant reviewer for a number of years.

Fact 5. One of Daisy’s nicknames – at times – is “Lunatic”. But it’s said with love and always in the midst of a big laugh. 🙂

Fact 6. We love love love books. All kinds of books. Contemporary, 19th-18th-17th century and beyond (DD is big into Shakespeare’s original language), fiction, nonfiction, and memoir. We cross all genres. You name it, we read it. And no matter how boring a book may be, once I start it, I have to finish it. Inevitably I’ll pick up some gems in even the dullest literature.

Fact 7. Daisy hates putting her harness on. She gets all excited when she sees it or the leash, but we have to chase her around before getting her to stay still long enough to get the darned thing on her. It’s a struggle, believe me. Once it’s on, she’s all happy and excited again!

Okay, so if you’re still with me after all that, here are our nominations for Versatile Blogger Award (in no particular order):

Granny1947 – a lovely woman who looks at life with a great sense of humor
Passionate About Pets – real quality blogging, great stories, beautiful photos
Happy Bark Days – I know she’s already received several nominations, but Miss Maple is so darned adorable and the blog is just so well written, I had to add another
Live, Bark, Love – great blogging about great dogs with great photos
According to Gus – fabulous dog blog; it offers too much to even list here!
Snoopy’s Dogblog – one of the sweetest dogs you’ll ever meet; he melts our hearts
The Hook – not a dog blog, but lots of really funny behind-the-scenes hotel stories
Roxy the Traveling Dog – a new blogging buddy with a really interesting and versatile blog
Chancy the Gardener – lots of personality in fun blog posts!

Living the Wheat Free Life – this is a fabulous, upbeat blog that’s helpful for anyone who has wheat or gluten allergies or has celiac disease – and very helpful for the people who cook for them.

I hope I didn’t miss anyone!  I guess I’m not supposed to re-nominate Oscah Baby or Green Dog Love Blog, but they’re certainly among our favorites too! Thanks again! 🙂

Daisy The Purple Paper Post-It Eater

For a dog who’s so finicky about her food, Daisy sure isn’t finicky about her “snacks”.

Daisy is part goat, I’m convinced of it.

The other day, DD asked where her purple Post-It bookmarks were. We looked high and low, until Daisy walked innocently into the room with something weird looking sticking out of her mouth.

Hmmmmmm……

I reached down and pulled a purple Post-It bookmark out of her mouth – it looked like a dark cigarette dangling out of someone’s mouth! When I realized what it was, I opened her mouth and swept my finger over her tongue, where I pulled out a thoroughly soggy, scrunched-up Post-It that looked like a chewed wad of gum.

Chewed Post-Its....or what's left of them....

Uh ohhhhh……

I went into the family room – lo and behold, there was a thin pack of DD’s purple Post-Its lying on the floor, chewed and soggy. Around it was a bunch of smaller Post-It bits, again looking like chewed purple gum.

“I think I found your Post-Its….” I called to DD.

When she looked at them in horror, I knew something more was wrong.

“That was a full pack of Post-It bookmarks!”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I only used two of them! The pack was really thick!” She indicated at least half an inch with her fingers – at least.

“She couldn’t have eaten them!” We searched and searched – we shook out Daisy’s blankets as well as the blankets that protect our sofa from Daisy’s torturous nails; we looked under furniture and even in places where she couldn’t possibly go.

Nothing.

This silly puppy ate a WHOLE PACK OF PURPLE POST-ITS!! We were so worried! Immediately we went online and Googled “Are Post-Its safe for dogs to eat”. We thought it was a ridiculous query – and it was. Apparently Daisy is one of very few dogs who find Post-Its to be an irresistible culinary delight.

This is what we half expected Daisy to look like after her Purple Post-It dining extravaganza! 😉

There wasn’t any real help for this, so we followed the rule for dogs who eat a lot of paper – wait it out and see if they continue with normal eating and normal stools. If not, there could be a blockage.

Great.

We watched her like a hawk for the next 48 hours (we do a lot of hawk-watching since we got Daisy!). DD moved Daisy into her room for the next two nights so she could immediately hear if she vomited or anything else sounded wrong.

I’m happy to report that Daisy suffered no ill side effects from her exotic dining adventure. We were also concerned as to whether the purple pigment and sticky stuff on the back of the Post-Its could have any long-range toxicity issues. We’ll mention it to the vet at her regular appointment in September – I guess I know the story he’ll be telling at dinner that night!

Guess Who Came To Dinner….And Breakfast!

Wild turkey family!

Yup, a proud mama turkey and her three little turkey-ettes! Early yesterday morning, DD heard what she thought was an injured dog call outside, but when she opened the sliding glass door blinds, she saw the Wild Turkey Family hanging out on our patio!

The Three Turkey-ettes

They left after a while but came back again in the evening; apparently they’re just strolling around the neighborhood, hanging out, finding food, and bringing smiles and awe to all who see them.

That Mama Turkey is one BIG bird!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! 🙂

Where'd the turkeys go??

The Effect of Dog Toys on Humans….

Haven’t we all experienced those freak-out moments when we unwittingly step on one of our pet’s toys and it scares the living daylights out of us?

Hehehe...I wonder how far she'll fly when she trips over my trap??

Stepping on Daisy’s bunched-up blanket in the dark is one of those things. It’s so soft, it makes me think I’m stepping on Daisy, which sends a major rush of adrenaline through my body, makes me do a crazy sort of twist-dance to get off it before I do any damage to her, then finally results in a major expletive explosion when I turn on the light and realize it was only the blanket, and Daisy is staring at me from across the room, quite entertained by the whole show.

And then there’s Daisy’s Nylabone, the toughest, hardest one they make for “extreme chewers”. Once Daisy starts in on it, it develops these tiny sharp bits all over it (not harmful to her, just painful to us) – beware the barefoot walker! This thing feels like hundreds of teeny-tiny spikes piercing the bottom of your foot, not to mention being thrown off balance by the awkwardness of its shape.

But one of my favorite stories was written up by my blogging buddy Mumsy and Chancy, who has been so terrorized by her dog’s one particular innocent-looking squeak toy that she saw fit to warn other dog owners about it! I laughed so hard at her post, I had to share it with you here. I’ve read it twice and it still tickles me! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! 😀

Now, where can I put this to scare Mom and get the best laugh?

Daisy the Finicky Gourmet Havachon

When it comes to food, Daisy gets bored easily. Makes things a bit difficult, since new dog foods need to be introduced slowly so we can’t just switch her to something different when the winds of change hit her.

::yawn:: I'm just so darned bored with the same ol' food day and night....

Leave it to Daisy. Our previous dog ate whatever was put in front of her, but Daisy’s got quite the sophisticated palate. 😉

Daisy was enjoying a beef-based dry dog food for months, when she suddenly started turning her nose up at it. Turned out she’d decided it was too dry for her. I found this out on a whim, when I added water just to see what would happen.

She scarfed it down as if it were a fresh roast.

Now that another few months have gone by, Daisy’s Finicky Gourmet Palate has struck again. We’d put her food down and she’d just sit there, staring at us as if to say, “That again? You expect me to eat that?”

Vets always seem to say that if a dog gets finicky and refuses to eat her food, you should just leave it there for 20 minutes to half an hour and then remove it. They’ll eat their next meal because they’ll be hungry.

Not Daisy. When she goes on a hunger strike, she won’t budge. She’d rather starve to death than give in. You should see the theatrics!

So we made a trip to our local dog store to see what we could find. Wow, were we ever happy to see that they had an abundance of trial-size dog foods that they were giving away for free! The owner was very knowledgeable and helped us sort through the dozens of brands and flavors – she ended up filling a shopping bag with everything from lamb, beef, venison, pork, and bison-based foods to vegan varieties. All organic, and all quite different from each other.

Now that's MUCH better! Smells more like "people food"! 🙂

We still have 16 pounds left of a very large bag of dog food we’d purchased on sale, stupidly thinking Daisy would always like it. Hah! No way were we going to toss that much expensive food out, so I rifled through the samples we’d brought home and found one organic brand that was dehydrated – you just add water, wait 3-5 minutes, and voila! Instant dog food.

What we didn’t like was that there was no chewing necessary. Except for a few veggie slices, the stuff was like oatmeal and could be eaten easily by a toothless granpup. 😉 Daisy doesn’t do well with moist dog foods in the “aftermath” – I’m sure I don’t need to explain! BUT – it was very flavorful.  We could tell just from sniffing it that it was well seasoned – the garlic aroma was evident.

So I got the idea to mix a small bit of reconstituted food into Daisy’s regular food just until we finish the rest of this big bag. Success! She gobbled it up like it was Thanksgiving dinner!

And since we’re just putting a little bit into her food, these trial-sized bags of dehydrated food will last a long time. Now, instead of Daisy refusing to eat, she practically watches the clock – around 5:00, she starts pacing around, then comes in and stares holes in me.

So now we have a happy puppy again. One very small drawback for us, though – she actually does end up with tiny garlic breath…. 😉

Lesson learned, though – we’ll never invest in 30 pounds of dog food with this picky eater again!

Mesmerized Bird

I had plenty of time to take a photo of this guy – he landed on the perch, ate a bit, and then stared into the bird feeder for more than 5 minutes straight. Just stared. Absolutely motionless.

Did the sight of all that food mesmerize him?

Was he trying to figure out a way to eat all of it at once?

Was he counting the grains?

Did he eat too much and fall asleep?

Was he playing a game of 1-2-3 Freeze??

Was he listening to Madonna’s song “Vogue” on a tiny bird iPod and he “struck a pose”???

What’s he doing?!?

Have a happy weekend everyone! 😀

The Rose Bush That Wouldn’t Die

When we moved here, there was a split rail fence around our 3/4 acre yard. For some reason, the people who put it in also had split rails extending across the center of the yard, with a wide opening in the center. It was as if they were delineating the front half of the back yard from the back half, but we couldn’t figure out why.

Roses on the never-ending rose bush

Anyway, there were rose bushes planted all along that part of the fence that cut through the yard. It looked pretty, but when we eventually took the split rail down, the rose bushes had nothing to climb on and looked weird standing meaninglessly across the center of the yard. We tried transplanting some of them, but they didn’t take.

Removing them opened the yard up to its full size, which we liked much better. Even though we didn’t want to, we had no choice but to cut the rest of the bushes down to the base, which did away with them.

Except this one. It hung on year after year, defying the odds, no matter how far down we pruned it.

We decided that any living thing that shows that much tenacity for life deserved to continue living, so we left it plopped in the center-left of the yard, and now we just prune it normally to keep it from growing out of control. And every spring it proudly rewards us with a bounty of red roses. We give it no special treatment, no fertilizer or anything, but yet it thrives better than anything else.

I’ve come to love and respect that little bush. To me, it’s nature’s way of saying that no matter how much you may get cut down, pushed around, tossed aside, or ignored, you can still shine if you just keep pushing on. This beautiful bush is living proof.