Hello my name is Scout

In the several months that we have lived with Scout we have discovered several things:

1. Puppies are absolutely adorable but they don't stay that way for long. Pretty soon the little six pound, eight week old pup that was the picture of cuteness when he gently mouthed your slippers or jumped up to see you when you got home is a forty pound teenager who destroys your shoes in five minutes and pulls you down the street as he gasps and chokes at the end of the leash, making you look anything but in control (and let's face it - you're not.) On the plus side, he pees outside most of the time now so let's celebrate the small victories.

2. The grass is always greener. Scout has come to the decision that any treat any other dog has is better than the one he's got and will complain bitterly about the injustice of life having served him up a treat (bone, rawhide chew, peanut butter filled Kong, etc) that is clearly sub par to the one that Axel and/or Molly have. After about five minutes of his incessant barking in the particular tone that we have come to learn can be translated as, "I want what they have! My treat isn't nearly as good as their treat and if I only had their treat I would be completely satisfied for the rest of my life!!" we will either take all the treats away or we will switch treats with Molly who generally couldn't care less what treat she has, so long as she has one. Scout is perfectly happy for about two minutes until he realizes that Molly now has his former treat and suddenly that treat is the best one and the process starts all over again. For Scout, the grass is always greener on the other side, or the other treat is always better than the one he's got.

Scout has been jealous of the other dogs treats from the beginning

3. Toys are awesome and toys with squeakers are even more so. Scout loves toys, the noisier the better. Apparently, the purpose of toys is to either A) interrupt dinner with the loudest squeaky toy in his arsenal by running in circles around the dining room table merrily squeaking away, or B) cover the living room floor with the stuffing from whatever toy has fallen victim to Scout's ruthlessness, leaving the sad, empty shell of the toy lying forgotten on the floor amid it's own innards.

4. The purpose of life. The purpose of life, according to Scout, is to eat treats. And he's not picky about our treats either - treats can, and do, include traditional dog treats: food, bones, Zuke's treats, cookies, rawhide chews, homemade dog treats, and any assortment of items found in the aisles of both Petsmart and Petco. But let's not overlook the benefit of nontraditional treats - peanut butter straight from the jar on the counter, regular butter from the [now broken] butter dish, cat food, pre-digested cat food (otherwise known as sand cookies around here on the Unfarm), duck food, chicken poo, duck poo, rabbit bunny berries (do you detect a pattern here? if it came out of any animal other than a dog it's fair game), plastic of any kind (water bottles and milk jugs are a particular favorite), and food of variety that gets left out on the counter.

5. Life is full of obstacles - it's how you deal with them that matters. Nontraditional treat inaccessible? Use your surroundings: Scout will crawl, climb, jump, and stand on tiptoes to get to what he wants.

Scout stands on my desk to look for treats

Scout searches for bunny berries in Jojo's hutch

6. Make yourself at home. Scout will turn almost any object into a chance to relax; the world is his pillow. Literally. He will sit on just about anything: beds, couches, rugs, carpets, Molly, Mom, Dad, me (especially when I am trying to get my shoes on for a walk), and - believe it or not - actual pillows. 

The end of an era

I have tried and failed numerous times to start this post. There is no way to make light of the loss of Maia, nor should there be. So instead, here are a few memories of her:

*Fair warning: disjointed memories follow... watch for awkward - or even no - transitions ahead. 

Years ago, we took Kita and Maia up to our family's vacation home on the Puget Sound and one time we decided to row her and Kita out to the floating dock to hang out with us, thinking it might be fun to spend some time with the dogs out there. Maia apparently disagreed. Almost as soon as we got the dogs out to the dock, Maia jumped off and swam to shore. We jumped back in the boat with Kita to go retrieve her but halfway to shore Kita jumped out of the boat and joined Maia on the beach. The beach there is a rocky curve of land below a cliff, upon which the houses stand; to reach the house you have to climb a tall staircase to get to the top of the cliff. When he reached the beach, Kita led Maia up the stairs before we could get to them - unfortunately, he led her up the wrong stairs, sending us on a chase through the neighborhood to track them down again. Maia would - and often did - follow Kita anywhere, when they finally came back Maia had found something in what must have been an advanced state of decomposition to roll in - she stank to high heaven and it took multiple washes to get her smelling anywhere near approachable again. 

We used to camp every summer on the southern Oregon coast, at a small campground with beach access that was generally fairly unpopulated so the dogs could run free to have a little fun and stretch their legs. Since the beach was bordered by a tall cliff on one side and the ocean on the other we considered it a fairly safe area to let the dogs explore off leash. On one occasion, Kita and Maia took off down the beach and disappeared. When next we saw them, they were running along the top edge of the cliff. How they got up there is still a mystery. How they got down was terrifying: Maia tripped and started to fall. I panicked and ran in terror to the cliff edge, ready to try climb up to get her or catch her if she fell all the way to the bottom. When I looked up again, she was happily running back down the cliff to the beach. To this day I could not tell you how she recovered from her fall or how she found her way around on the cliff so quickly. She was, apparently, a lab/beagle/mountain goat mix.

Maia lived to the ripe old age of 19 years - a pretty good feat for a dog of medium (about 45 pounds) size. To the end, she loved going with us on trips and to the beach. Unfortunately, she was less and less able to keep up or walk for very long the last year or two. We were then faced with two options: 1) leave her at the house and take just the younger dogs, or 2) get creative. Clearly option 1 was off the table so we got creative. We bought one of those big-wheeled garden carts from Costco and loaded it, her dog bed, and the dogs into the Suburban and headed to the beach. We put the dog bed in the garden cart and pulled it along the beach behind it us. When Maia got too tired to continue on we would set her in the cart, on her dog bed, and wheel her along with us, her ears flapping in the breeze, her eyes blinking in the sun. She seemed to not mind being treated like a princess and she always got a lot of attention from the other people on the beach. She has always adored being the center of attention and in her opinion the more people, the merrier.

Maia in her princess cart, with a blanket to keep her warm on the windy coast

The name of the game: procrastination

Back in the beginning of January I made the resolution to post on here at least twice a month. As it is now mid March you can see how well that resolution has gone. Much has gone on here on the Unfarm since I last posted in (oh, the procrastination, the embarrassment!) November. Here are some of the updates which I hope to be following up with more in depth posts.

An out of sorts sort of year: The whole of 2014 was unusual in that much of what we traditionally do each and every year did not get done. I had planned on taking Axel and Maia camping but my sister couldn't come out here from Colorado during the summer and I know too well Axel's desire to be near me that I feared if I attempted a solo trip I would come out of the campground showers to find him sitting outside the building waiting for me, having left an Axel-sized whole in my tent. In addition to a lack of camping there was a similar lack of berry picking. I don't think we went out once that summer. Usually we visit local farms to pick most of our strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and peaches. In addition, we had a bunch of home improvement projects planned that never got done. Let's hope we can get at least a few of them done this year - if not I think the chances are pretty good that someone is going to fall through the rotting pile of wood that we call a deck (the result of building a deck out of wood in a climate that is nearly perpetually wet.) As it is we have roofing tiles nailed to the deck to keep us from looking like a cartoon character who has stepped on a banana peel, windmilling our arms as our legs slide out from under us on the algae/slime that no amount of scrubbing and washing seems capable of reducing. The year went out with a fizzle as well when we failed to decorate gingerbread houses and bake our usual assortment of cookies and candies to give out to friends and relatives. We did manage to make a batch of fudge, some butter toffee, and rocky road but that's about it. No sugar cookie decorating, no cranberry coconut cookies (they are actually much tastier than they sound), and no chocolate covered cherries. We barely even decorated the tree for Christmas. Let's hope that this year is better than the last one.

Addition, then subtraction, then addition again: No, I didn't take a math course at the local college (child, please!) I bought a pet mouse back in August and named her Bernadette. She was a secret mouse in that Dad knew nothing about her (I figured ignorance was bliss.) Unfortunately she died after about a month (here is where that subtraction comes in) and I decided to get a new mouse (addition) and name her Caroline. In November we finally told Dad about our secret mice. He took it surprisingly well.

Another addition: The Saturday before Christmas we decided that we needed to add another dog as Axel seemed somewhat down since his friend Stella died of cancer recently and we know that Maia probably wouldn't be around much longer having just turned 19 years old and the thought of having only one dog seemed too lonely to bear so we added Scout, an 8 week old pointer mix from the Maui Humane Society. He was adorable which was good for him since puppies are, as everyone knows, rather obnoxious.

A loss: On January 3, 2015 we made the tough decision to put Maia to sleep as she had started whining, unable to get comfortable and her quality of life was diminished. It is never easy to make that decision but we try to do what is best for our little ones and I want to make sure that it is understood that it was not motivated out of a desire to reduce any "hassle" on our part. She got to leave with all of us (except Liz, who had gone back to Colorado already) around her.

A gain: We discovered that Axel likes having a dog to walk with but doesn't really care to actually play with anyone so we decided to add another dog for Scout to play with - enter Molly, an unknown small dog mix who is supposed to be about the same age as Scout (about 4 or 5 months old.) Two puppies at once. Clearly we would be good candidates to enter some sort of in-patient psychiatric facility.

Another loss: In February we lost Sakari, the last of our original three chickens. She was my personal chicken and would have been 11 years old this spring. She got a sort of throat infection and despite treatment she was unable to beat it. We had been hoping she would make it to old age - 11 is actually only middle aged for a chicken. Poor Penny is on her own for now.

And yet another loss: Just a few days ago we lost Basil to a gut upset. I have come to hate gut upsets in rabbits as they have taken several of my little ones now. Basil was an especially sweet little bunny who was the best cuddler of the group and preferred to spend his time out of his cage next to me so that I could pet him the whole time - he would actually demand it if I stopped for more than a minute.

Departures on the Unfarm

I have sad news to report: another departure from the Unfarm. This time it's Beauty that we lost. Over the last few days we had noticed her being less active than usual, and it worried me but then she seemed to recover the next day and was out chasing squirrel treats with the other ladies. Today, though, she was back to sitting around hunched up on the deck or under the eaves by the duck pools which was where I found her this evening when I went out to close up the chicken coop. I brought her inside, wrapped her in a towel and curled up on the couch with her in the hopes that warming her might help as it had a few months earlier when she was under the weather. We sat together for a couple of hours with her softly breathing when she bowed her head and stopped. 

She was always a fairly skittish chicken - we adopted her when she was already four months old so we missed out on the early days and weeks of life when we spend lots of time with the chicks getting them accustomed to us - but she was a nice hen nonetheless and we will miss her. 

With this loss we are down to only two hens now, and going into the coldest months when the girls huddle together in the coop at night to keep warm. I worry about how Sakari and Penny will handle the winter without Beauty, who was probably the biggest, fluffiest of the three. I am afraid I might have to spend the next few weeks knitting chicken sweaters, comb covers, and wattle warmers just to keep the girls cozy. In thinking about it, with all the rain we get I should probably break out the sewing machine and whip up some ponchos and rain hats while I'm at it. Now, where does one look for patterns for the fashionably minded hen? 

Beauty, curled up on the couch with me this evening

Rest in peace, Beauty. We will miss you.

Upheaval on the Unfarm

Life on the Unfarm has been rather more chaotic than usual of late due to the fact that we had to refinish the wood floors last week. These would be the floors in the kitchen/dining room and on the landing, which also meant we would lose access to two of our three doors to the outside.

We were told that the crew would start sanding the floors on Tuesday so we spent Monday evening cramming all the dining room furniture into the living room. This annoyance for us proved to be a blast for Maximus: so many places to hide, so many new things to jump on. Tuesday we spent the day rearranging our schedules so that someone would always be at home when the crew arrived. They never did. Wednesday was more of the same: the crew said they would show up in the morning, then in the afternoon, and then in the evening. They didn't, they didn't, and they didn't. The less than reliable crew finally showed up on Thursday and then the real upheaval began. 

It's blurry, and this is after half the furniture is back in the dining room, but this gives an idea of the mess that was the living room/Max's playground.

The dogs and cats were moved downstairs where we had our only access in and out of the house, through the garage and out into the (unfenced) front yard. This meant that every time the dogs had to go out we had to round up the leashes and walk them out - which I realize is probably what people in apartments have to do every single day, but we are unaccustomed to this inconvenience and in addition we had to deal with Maximus who was determined to launch himself through the doorway the second it was opened. Our indoor only cat was then outdoors and we had to chase after him and fetch him back again from whatever bush or plant he had hidden himself under.

The other problem with the downstairs is that the whole thing is in laminate flooring which means that the trouble Maia already has with walking - or even remaining upright, at her advanced age of nearly 19 years - is made even more difficult by the slippery floors. In an effort to combat this problem we ended up laying out all of our rugs, blankets, yoga mats, and dog beds in a line from the main room, down the hallway, and up to the garage door. 

The finished dining room floors. Hallelujah! Bring on the pets! (Literally - the pets can finally walk on it.)

Needless to say, everyone was more than happy when we were finally able to walk on the floors again: the dogs returned to the (largely carpeted) upstairs and greatly appreciate the freedom to come and go as they please (unless Una is on the deck, in which case the dogs have to wait until she finishes her meal.) The humans on the Unfarm are enjoying the ability to once again access the kitchen and the backyard. Una also appreciates our ability to access the kitchen as that is where we keep her sunflower seeds and almonds, and the window she looks in to let me know she is hungry. Mynx is relieved to have the downstairs returned to her so that she can enjoy the relative solitude again. The only one who seems unaffected either way is Max, who enjoyed both the play land that was temporarily set up for him in the living room, as well as access to the kitchen where he can sit on the counter to watch Rat TV. As for his excursions in the out of doors, his view on the floors finally being finished appears to be that he once again has three potential places from which to escape the boredom of the house so we have to step up our game again to block the black streak that is Maximus on his way out. I am embarrassed to admit that Max wins more times than I would like. We are at times little match to his speed and flexibility.

The duck days of August

I finally managed to set up my pool today. Sadly, the Unfarm is not blessed with the in-ground infinity pool my mom and I have been drooling over, and as I would rather have a colonoscopy than wear a swimsuit in front of even one person at the public pools I must content myself with cooling off in our small inflatable pool. Swimming is pretty much out of the question for me. It is another story when it comes to the ducks. The pool that barely fits an adult fully stretched out is an aquatic wonderland for the ducks, and they are well aware of the potential of this giant oasis of wet. When fully filled, it is too high and there is no way for the ducks to get into the pool. Before that, however, for a good hour or so while the pool is filling up with water it is vulnerable to invasion by ducks and they know it. This then necessitates me to stand guard poolside during this time period. And even then, if I am not careful, the ducks will hop in at any opportunity. Despite the fact that the ducks have two year round pools of their own, they know a good deal when they see one.

Maggie peeks over the edge of the pool, checking to see if I'm looking.

"How long is Mom going to sit there?"

Maggie sits on the edge of the pool. This allows him to stay near the pool without actually breaking any rules, and thus avoiding a spray from the hose. Not that getting wet is that serious a punishment for a duck.

Maggie is pushing the limit a bit here, but still not technically in the pool. Ducks have a very good grasp of the rules.

I turned my back for a second and Maggie took advantage of the opportunity. He was in the pool before I could even turn around. Ducks: 1, Mom: 0.

Updated weather report

I am relieved (to say the least) that the weather seems to have taken a turn and sunnier skies appear to be in our future. The grouch storm is dissipating and the glasses are starting to look like they might be half full again. Hallelujah!

It's not all sunshine and roses

Life on the Unfarm lately is not all sunshine and roses, despite the fact that the sun is actually shining and the roses are actually blooming. No, the dark cloud over the Unfarm is coming from inside the house. Dad has been cranky of late. Cranky with a capital C. And R. And A, N, K, and... Y. This then makes life somewhat miserable for the rest of us. Any bit of happiness or enthusiasm on any subject is met with a gruff, if not downright surly, response on why we can't be enthusiastic, happy, optimistic, excited, etc about such and such or thus and such. It's not realistic; it will cost too much; I don't approve; no; I won't allow it; not gonna happen; because I said so and I am the king of everything; etc, etc. Nope, on the Unfarm the glasses are all half empty and there are no silver linings and nothing we can do will have any impact on the situation. Believe me, we've tried. All we can do now is try our best to weather this grouch storm and hope it somehow passes. Soon. Very soon.

Chocolate chip zucchini bread

It is summer and time for fresh vegetables, which means that we have an abundance of zucchini and we need to find something to do with it all. My mom likes to roast it and eat it seasoned with other vegetables but that doesn't work for me as I do not actually like zucchini unless I can't taste it. Enter zucchini bread. But even that is too healthy for me so I added chocolate chips to the recipe and it turned out pretty good - edible, even. In case you are also suffering from a glut of zucchini here is the recipe to try out.

2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
3 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups of peeled, shredded zucchini
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a large mixing bowl beat the sugar, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla together until well blended. In a separate bowl combine the flour, salt, cinnamon, baking soda, and baking powder and mix well. Slowly beat the dry mixture into the wet mixture until the dry mixture is well incorporated. Stir in the zucchini and the chocolate chips. Grease two 8x4 inch loaf pans and split the batter between the two loaf pans, filling them approximately half way. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the loaf comes out clean. Let the loaves cool for 10 minutes and then turn the loaves out onto racks to cool completely. If you want to bake mini loaves, try cutting the baking time down to about half an hour.

This produces a loaf in which you can't really taste the zucchini and you get little bits of sweetness from the chocolate chips throughout the loaf. Enjoy!

Projects on the Unfarm (an illustrated account)

In an effort to make this a productive summer, I have been working on knocking out a few of our bigger projects that have been sitting around on the to-do list for longer than I care to mention. With that goal in mind I tackled a patio and a barbeque restoration a few weeks ago. I didn't think to take a "before" picture of the area where I installed the patio but let me assure you that it was your standard weed-choked patch of dirt strewn with bits of old fencing from a defunct vegetable garden that never quite got enough sun to thrive. After several days of weeding, tilling, raking, smoothing, and hauling large loads of sand, cement, and bricks in very hot weather I managed to produce a fairly decent patio.

A view of the patio from above. It ended up being somewhat avocado shaped, which I didn't realize until it was finished.

The patio from ground level.

I should mention that my preferred method of patio building is rather informal: I level out an area, set out path liner to create the desired shape, put in sand as the base and smooth it out, then place bricks inside the border. After that I pour dry cement on top of the bricks and use a broom to sweep it into the cracks. Once the cement is in place I set the hose on mist or fine spray and wet the whole patio down until the water pools on top of the cement. Then wait for it to set and voila - (not so) instant patio. The amount of patience you have when it comes to doing the prep work (getting a perfectly level base) and how uniform in size your bricks are will determine how smooth your patio turns out. I am not generally blessed with an abundance of patience, but more than that I like to use recycled materials when possible so my patios tend to turn out less than perfectly smooth. (This is my third patio built in this style.) This doesn't bother me - they still function as intended and I like the rustic look and the fact that the bricks each have their story: some were extras from when the neighbors built their walkway; a few came from the construction of the new local library; and others are over a century old - rescued when a nearby cannery was closed down years ago.

Project number two: a barbeque restoration. This time I did get a "before" photo:

Our grill, before the restoration.

Our grill was in bad shape. We had gotten it years ago second hand from a garage sale. It was old at the time and it is even older now. And years of exposure to weather hadn't helped the situation. In truth, at this point the grill consisted more of rust and holes than it did of metal. This begs the obvious question: why bother? Why not just get a shiny new grill that has a functioning temperature gauge and doesn't have an ash tray so rusted out that an old license plate is the only thing keeping the deck from burning down? Why indeed.

The answer is simple: it is my mom's grill, and it is just like her father's grill, so it reminds her of him. He used to grill fish and corn on the cob out on the covered patio overlooking the lake in the summer at the Lakehouse. When all of us - our family, and my mom's sister and two brothers and their family and my grandparents - gathered at the Lakehouse we would sit down around the huge picnic table that grandpa had made and eat the dinner that grandpa had cooked. Grandpa is gone now and the family is fractured - fighting over money and control - I'm sure Grandpa approves. (That was sarcasm, by the way.) So that is why Mom loves the grill, and that is why the grill stays, no matter what the condition.

Thus began the monumental task of sanding and scrubbing and sanding again. For hours. And then taking apart as much of the grill as I could and finding new parts: screws, trays, planks, grill plates and thermometers. I bought special paint and repainted the grill, inside and out. I bought sheet metal and made a new ash tray, retiring the old license plate. The grill did not come out perfect - I was afraid that if I continued sanding until there was no more rust there would also be no more grill. So I did the best I could and had to settle for less than perfect - a difficult task in and of itself, to know that there was still rust under there and I could do nothing about it. At any rate, the finished product:

The "after" photo. It isn't perfect, but it's better than it was.