Thought for the day

"In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn’t merely train him to be semi-human. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming part dog." Edward Hoagland

I borrowed this from Sara's Blog. She has adorable shelties. Thanks, Sara, I enjoyed your blog while sitting here waiting for pages to proof on what is becoming a very late night at work.

I've missed supper.

I've missed NCIS.

At this rate, I'm going to miss my bed time.

But my dogs and the Farmer will be happy to see me when I get home.

Thoughts on too much time off

Back in November, I started using vacation hours before the end of the year and took some time off. Then there was Thanksgiving and the office was closed for two days. More time off. The ICDOC agility trial was the first Friday/Saturday/Sunday in December and I took time off for that. Then we had the first big winter storm of the year and I stayed home a day because the roads were bad.

This was followed by Dad's funeral and more time off. Then here came another snow storm and Christmas. You guessed it, more time off. Followed by New Year's, which equaled time off. Then we got whammied by another snow storm and I took another day off.

Holy cow! I haven't worked a full 5-day week in nearly two months! This week may very possibly kill me!

I truly hope this has not come to the attention of my editor (Hi, Nick! You're a great guy, have I told you that?) because I would prefer he NOT realize I am doing my job on four days a week (and sometimes less). I am not doing it particularly well, just skating along, trying to keep ahead of the avalanche of crazy demands, and would like to be at work 5 days a week but that just hasn't happened.

Deciding to drive to work - or anywhere else - in horrible winter weather is a very individual thing. Some people will drive through anything. I used to be one of them. I'm not any more. Not sure when that happened. Maybe when I realized I am fortunate to have a job that does not demand I be available 24/7 and if I miss a day, the world is not going to end. Honestly, that's one of the reasons I'm still at this job. It's incredibly flexible that way.

Part of my job is writing obits. Every year I write obits for people killed in car accidents in the winter. Sometimes they were driving too fast for conditions. Other times, they were killed by other people who were driving too fast. Either way, it ended the same. You have to wonder what they thought was so important they had to venture out when road conditions were so awful. Sometimes I wonder if I'm finally getting good sense or just being lazy when I look out the window at howling wind and snow and say, "Forget it. I'm staying home today."

It's a lot easier to say that at the end of the week vs the busy production and deadline days at the start of the week. Those would be more likely to find me slip-sliding my way to the office, swearing all the way and cursing the gods, the DOT, the weathermen and the %$#@! idiot driving three feet from my rear bumper. Yeah, some days I still drive when I probably shouldn't but welcome to winter in the Midwest. If we all stayed home every time it snowed, the county would shut down from December through March. I'm just a lot more selective about those days than I used to be.

I was talking to our neighbor over the weekend and she said when her kids were living at home and wanted to go somewhere when the roads were bad, she always told them, "Go ahead. You might get there but you might come home in a body bag." She sure has a way with words.

Today, I'm thankful for a week with temperatures above zero and no big storms predicted. Jamie and Phoenix are, too. While my guys enjoy playing in the snow, they are most definitely not into the Arctic tundra/Siberia scene. They'll happily leave it to Jazz and Coach.

I didn't go to work today . . .

. . . here's one of the reasons why:

I sure wasn't tackling THAT with a shovel. If I didn't already have a heart condition before I started, I would have had one by the time I was done! The Farmer cleared it later in the afternoon with a blade behind the tractor. He spent most of the day moving snow from one place to another.

Here's another good reason to stay home. This is the road in front of our house, looking north. By the time I took this pic in the afternoon, the county had been through with the maintainer and opened it up. C3PO and I wouldn't have stood a chance this morning.

Here's another view from the end of our lane, looking northwest. Country roads will be a rodeo for the rest of the winter. 

This is our front lawn. I love Iowa. I really do. But this is a little excessive. Really glad I didn't leave any agility equipment out this year.

It was actually nice (and I use that term loosely) enough to let the dogs run outside for awhile this afternoon. They chased a toy out of the wind and ran and ran and ran. Air temp was 5 degrees, wind chill was about -10. Air temps are supposed to be -17 tonight, wind chill will be some ridiculous number I don't even want to think about. I'm having a lot of trouble with the concept of global warming right now.

Snowy day

It's another snowy day in Iowa. The really exciting part? It was 11 degrees ABOVE zero this a.m. and no wind! That's supposed to change later in the day.

Here's a picture of our church, St. John's Lutheran, yesterday afternoon.

The snow on our old front gate was kind of artsy
when I went out to shovel at 6 a.m.

Here are the evergreens on the west side of the dogs' yard. They were scrubby little ditch cedars we dug up and planted after the straightline windstorm in '98 took out pretty much our entire windbreak. Not bad for ditch trees.


Without any wind, the snow piled up on the top bar of the fence. A pheasant was cackling in the evergreens. Phoenix is thinking about having pheasant for a morning snack.


This is timber along Hwy. 6 on the way to work. Yes, I did actually stop in the middle of the road to take a picture. It was okay. There wasn't anybody else on the road.

Can you feel the love?

"Pa! Git a bucket o' cold water! Them dang dawgs is a killin' each other !"

This is what happens when there are below zero windchills for too many days in a row and the Belgians can't get outside to blow off a little excess energy. Not to worry, they find plenty of ways to blow off energy in the house.

Right after I took this picture, they stopped face-fighting, stood up, shook off, then launched into round two. Although they show the most horrible facial expressions and "I have advanced rabies" growls, it's all in fun. They constantly amaze me. I've never had two dogs who love to play together like these two. My Shelties NEVER played like this but the Belgians thrive on it. They read each other incredibly well and take turns being the chewer and the chewee. If Phoenix crosses the line, Jamie will put the smack down on him, 'Nix will be meekly humble for about 5 seconds and then they'll start all over again.

In an effort to relieve some cabin fever, I took both boys to the ICDOC building this morning to train. The wind chill was -24 when we left at 7 a.m. Enough already!

After a good session, I took the dogs home and went to work. I pulled up at the office and immediately realized I'd forgotten my lunch - homemade chicken and rice and nice fruit salad, dang! - at home in the refrigerator. A little later, I went to the bathroom, looked in the mirror and realized I'd forgotten to put in my earrings this morning. Not a big deal but enough to make me stop and do a careful analysis to see if there WAS anything else important I'd forgotten.

Fortunately, for everybody, I appeared to have remembered all the appropriate clothing. That is not anything to take for granted, since more than once I have tried driving to work in my house slippers.

This cold snap needs to end soon. It's making us all mental.

What winter is good for

I have finally succeeded in making yeast bread I am not totally embarrassed to be associated with. Seriously. I love to bake. I bake a lot. Pies. Cookies. Drop cookies. Bar cookies. Cut-out cookies. Cakes. Layer cakes. Cup cakes. Fudge. Candy. Quick bread.

But not yeast bread.

I don't know why. I tried it a time or two with very little success. I was getting a complex. So I quit trying.

Then I found this recipe and thought, "That sounds amazingly yummy and what could possibly go wrong?"

Well, apparently nothing! So here they are, my first two loaves of yeast bread success.

It's called English muffin bread. It's chewy. It has the most wonderful crust.

It has the most wonderful texture. All those little holes hold a lot of butter or honey or what-have-you.

ENGLISH MUFFIN BREAD
Cornmeal
6 C. all-purpose flour
2 packages active dry yeast
1⁄4 tsp. baking soda
2 C. milk
1⁄2 C. water
1 T. sugar
1 tsp. salt

Grease two 8x4 2-inch loaf pans. Lightly sprinkle pans with cornmeal to coat bottoms and sides; set pans aside.

In a large bowl combine 3 cups of the flour, the yeast and baking soda; set aside. In a medium saucepan heat and stir milk, the water, sugar and salt just until warm (120 to 130 degrees). Using a wooden spoon, stir milk mixture into flour mixture. Stir in remaining flour.

Divide dough in half. Place dough in prepared pans. Sprinkle tops with additional cornmeal. Cover; let rise in a warm place until double, about 45 minutes. (It only took 30 minutes for my dough to double in size and our house is not what most people would call warm. The next time I make this, I may try letting it rise a little more than double to see if that changes the texture at all.)

Bake in a 400 degree oven about 25 minutes or until golden. Immediately remove bread from pans. Cool on wire racks.

This has excellent flavor and texture. It was awesome hot with butter the first night, then toasted with jam the next morning, then I made grilled ham and cheese sandwiches with it the next night, then more toast . . . and . . . oh . . . it's gone. Bummer.

Happy New Year!

I love this time of year (not the double digits below zero windchill part so much) because it represents a fresh start. I love hanging up a new calendar and filling in all the weekends with promises of trials, matches, seminars and training get-togethers with friends. I'm already looking forward to a Bridget Carlson seminar in March and my first American Belgian Malinois Club nationals in May. Who knows what else the year will bring.

Phoenix and I kicked off 2010 with a morning obedience session w/Michele, Kate, Jen, Paula and Tracy and all their fur-kids. When I count my blessings, I count my dog friends twice. 

I learned a long time ago that making resolutions doesn't work for me. Resolutions seem so black and white. Either you're doing them or you're not. And if you're not, you've failed and who wants to feel like a failure? So forget the resolutions.

I'll stick with setting goals for the new year. Goals are friendlier. They have wiggle room. They're flexible. Goals give you something to work toward and while you're doing that, you can look back over the months and see progress and think, "YES! We rock!"

I have what I call independent goals. What I mean is, my goals don't rely on someone else's evaluation or judgement to become reality. For example: I won't set a goal of earning a 200 with Phoenix because a perfect 200 score is a judge's opinion (and those opinions are frequently very subjective) and I have no control over that. 

However, I will make a goal of training for animation and precision and someday, if the planets align, maybe a judge will look at our performance and find it perfect. Even if that never happens, I'll still have reached my own goal of a happy, driven, focussed, confident dog in the ring and who could ask for more than that?

Having said all that, here are a few goals for me and Phoenix:

1) Be ring ready for Open by March. 

2) Teach more tricks. Because they make me laugh. I think they make Phoenix laugh, too.

3) Challenge myself as a trainer to become more creative and motivational. (Don't bore the malinois. Or else.)

4) Show in Graduate Open.

5) Be ring ready for Utility by fall.

6) Continue to improve my timing and cues in agility and always run like there's a million dollars on the line.

7) Continue to polish joyful, confident teamwork in both obedience and agility.

8) Above all, have fun and enjoy every minute of the time I spend with my dog and my dog friends, staying positive and open to learning and throwing all negative thoughts in the trash.

Have fun making a few goals for you and your dogs for the new year. Just think of the potential this year holds!

Today, I am thankful for warm socks!