A Snack for Gino

Gino enjoys some homemade bread.

Dog Product Reviews

As promised, I have a couple of dog product reviews.

First, this leash, which I bought at Pet Expertise.  It's "hands-free" and a whole bunch of other cool and useful things including a traffic leash, and over-the-shoulder leash, a tether, and a nice 6.5 foot leash.  So, for example, I'm walking to school with Katie, carrying stuff, and in a hurry.  I tie the leash around my waist, my hands are free to carry things and/or treat Katie for keeping up with me.  But later on the way home, there's no rush, so I convert the leash to its full 6.5 foot length and Katie has lots of slack to sniff stuff as we walk.  Two kinds of walking situations, one leash.  Another plus?  This leash is affordable ($14.75-$19.75).  Not as upscale as the more expensive leather Euroleads I've been coveting (and which I still want), but it does the same job.  I haven't tried this leash out in a training class yet, but I imagine it will be really useful there too.

Next, for the first time this week I used a dog training food tube (also purchased at Pet Expertise @ $5.75, or $4.50 for 2 or more).  This one (made by folks at The Well-Mannered Dog came recommended (on Facebook) by Casey Lomonaco at Rewarding Behaviors Dog Training.  She mentioned it as a good option in cold weather--instead of juggling gloves and treats and then having cold slobbery fingers, just give your pup a lick from the tube.  I'd read about using food tubes before, but Casey's point about the cold-weather convenience convinced me to give this a try.  I don't mind the slobber, but I hate cold fingers.  And after yesterday morning's walk, my fingers were much happier.  Katie was too--this was a nice change from her usual treats, and because I'm not fumbling around in my pocket, my delivery time is much faster. :)

A couple days ago I also used the food tube in a training session with a client, and I really liked the results.  For example, instead of cutting up treats which takes awhile, in no time at all I mixed up some cream cheese and canned chicken in the food processor.  (Katie was kind enough to give this recipe a test-lick before I headed out.  She gave it four paws up.) And of course because I wasn't doling out treats, my hands weren't all slimy (again, while this doesn't bother me, it might be a plus for some people). The tube is also handy for luring behaviors, should you need to.  And--probably the biggest thing--the dog I was working with totally loved the cream-cheese-chicken combo.  I could imagine testing all kinds of combos to keep a dog interested.  Finally, this particular tube comes with good instructions and recipe ideas.  I just bought two more so I can have one filled and a couple clean ones ready.

I hope everyone's new year is off to a good start and filled with many happy training adventures.

Smitten

For my first post of 2011, here is my last FO of 2010.  Sprig Mittens by Eli Stubenrauch in Lamb's Pride Bulky.  (Details and more photos available on my Ravelry page.)  I finished knitting these just in time for the weather to warm up a bit, but I've been wearing them anyway.  They are really warm, and the LPB yarn is totally snuggly.  Spring is still a long way off, so these will be keeping my hands toasty for awhile.  (If the current forecast is right, I may get to see how well they do in the snow this weekend.)

I had a couple dog product reviews to share but stupid Blogger is not cooperating, so they'll have to wait until next time.

Fall Planting

 Garden season is winding down.  This afternoon we planted garlic and shallots, and it felt really good to be digging around in the dirt one more time before the weather turns too cold.  Fortunately, we had a lovely sunny day for working.  It took us about 3 hours to turn over a couple of beds, plant everything, and clear out the last of the dead plants.  We left our broccoli plants which to date have produced exactly three tiny heads of broccoli.  I'm curious to see whether the heads will get any bigger.

In some ways, this year's garden wasn't as successful as last year's.  We battled heat, drought and bugs.  But as a result we also learned some things and the stuff that did really well--like eggplant, tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, and beans.  Because we doubled the size of our plot, we had room to try new things.  We also started much earlier in the spring and kept going through the fall.

This was the first year that we tried lettuce, and we were really happy with all the varieties.  Especially tasty was Black Seeded Simpson, which grew nicely in spite of the very hot, very dry weather.  We tried spinach too, but it didn't do well at all.  Other firsts this year included garlic, peas, snow peas, buternut and acorn squash, watermelon and cantaloupe.  We were so happy about the garlic that we planted twice as much for next year.  Peas were yummy, but we needed to plant a lot more!  We munched our way through two crops of snow peas:  what a treat.  Watermelon was pretty successful--we ended up with six good-sized melons.  More importantly, they were delicious.  Cantaloupe tasted awful (we probably won't do those again next year).  Squash, zucchini and cucumbers were all devastated by bugs.

Possibly my most favorite vegetable for 2010 were the Nardello peppers, which I probably would never have tried or even known about except that CR gave me a packet of seeds.  Another fav would have to be the zinneas, which brightened up the garden entrance all summer long.

The whole set of garden photos for 2010 is on my Flickr page.  In a few months, we'll be looking at seed catalogs and planning for 2011.

My Little Dumpling (Bag)

How cute is this bag?!  Like many other knitters (okay, maybe I should qualify that:  like many other knitters also challenged by project monagamy), I immediately CO for a dumpling bag of my own when I spotted the pattern in IK (way back in fall 2008).  Dumpling is a super-fast knit, great stash buster, and leaves lots of room to improvise.  (If you don't believe me, check out the 1000+ project photos on Ravelry.) As knits go, this one is instant gratification to the max.

Except I couldn't find any lucite rings I liked for the handles.   So while I searched, this little Dumpling lived in my WIP pile.  I don't know why I had so much trouble finding the rings (again, there are OVER A THOUSAND Dumplings on Ravelry, so this was obviously not an issue for other knitters), but I did--until last week when I found what looked like perfect ones online at The Beadin' Path.  They arrived yesterday, and they WERE perfect.  So this morning I sewed up the handles, weaved in all my yarn ends (not a quick chore BTW with all the ends left over from the embroidery), and tossed my Dumpling into the washer to felt.  The pattern says 15+ minutes, but I got the right fabric after just 10 minutes (with two pairs of jeans in there).  I was worried the French knots might unravel during the felting process, but they came out just fine.

I'm thinking I'll keep this Dumpling as a project bag (it seems like the perfect size for a sock project).  But I may make more of these for gifts.  Except not for GK, who has requested mittens anyway and who is probably "still wondering what the point is."

Once my Dumpling is dry and I add the inside snap, I'll post an FO pic on my Ravelry page.

Crate Re-Training

In another month, Kate and I (and another friend and her dog) will be attending this workshop.  Because Katie will have to spend a little time in her crate (while I'm listening to lectures), we're doing some intensive crate re-training.  Kate was crate trained as a puppy, and I used to crate her when we were doing agility, but in the past few years, except for going to the groomer or vet, she hasn't had to spend any time in a crate.  At the workshop, she'll have to stay on her own in a room with other dogs in new surroundings.  I'm hoping that I can get her (us) ready for this.  (If I can't, my friend has kindly offered me one of her dogs to train for the weekend--now that's a real friend!)

So about two weeks ago, I set up the crate and, without making a big deal about it, I started leaving goodies in there for her to find.  Of course she went in there, snagged the treats, and left.  But still, I'm continuing to do that and hoping it teaches her that good things happen when she goes in the crate.  After about a day of this, she went in on her own and took a nap.  And that's happened a couple more times--usually in the evening when we're all down there watching TV.  She learned pretty quickly (or maybe remembered from puppyhood) what "go in your crate" means, and gradually I've been leaving her in there for longer periods.  I give her a stuffed kong, close the door, and  do some chores on the 1st floor where she can see me.  She can now do about 20 minutes before she gets restless.

In this clip,  I'm asking her to go to her crate and then reinforcing when she does.  At first I'm reinforcing for just going in, but then she offers me a down, so I reinforce that.

When your dog is "bad," roll up a newspaper and give yourself a whack

Ordinarily, Kate is the best of dogs.  I can take her anywhere and count on good behavior.  But like the rest of us, she has her bad moments too, and one of those happened last week at the local (and very dog friendly) farmers' market.  I'd stopped at a favorite stand to buy some honey and, as I usually do, asked Katie to sit next to me.  As I was talking to the stand's owner, suddenly behind me I heard very loud and unfriendly barking.  I turned around to see my dog nose-to-nose with a service dog.  I quickly removed her from the situation and apologized to the dog's owners.  It didn't help matters that at the same moment a motorcycle roared by.  Kate hates motorcycles, so she kept barking for a bit until I managed to get her attention and return her to a sit.

I was mortified not only because she was so rude to a dog who, so far as I could tell, wasn't bothering with her at all, but also because this is the same farmers' market where yours truly recently offered free "market manners" dog training classes.

Oy.

Putting aside my feelings, though, it's worth thinking about what can be learned here.  First, what happened was hands-down my fault.  I wasn't paying attention to my dog (who clearly needs some proofing work on sits in public places).  Second, to say that my dog was "bad," is anthropomorphizing.  After things had calmed down, the stand owner observed, "something must have set her off."  And he's exactly right.  That kind of behavior isn't normal for Katie, who is generally dog-friendly, so something happened that made her anxious.  Maybe it was too crowded, maybe a person stepped on her foot or startled her somehow, maybe the other dog gave some kind of signal.  Who knows.  None of these are excuses for what happened; they're just possible reasons why she may have reacted as she did.  As the stand owner also pointed out, "Sometimes you don't know what gets to them.  We're all animals, you know, but we humans forget that."  As Jean Donaldson might say, we idealize dogs to the point of making them "honorary humans," but of course they don't think in the kinds of moral categories that we do.  Thus, in trying to understand what happened, it doesn't make sense to label her behavior "bad." 

As I understand it, there is some debate over whether anthropomorphism is helping or hurting non-human animals.  That debate might be a good topic for another post, because I'm not sure where I stand (I see good on both sides).  In this particular situation, I can, for example, emphathize with what may have been Katie's feelings of anxiety in the middle of a crowd.  Maybe she did check in with me before she reacted (she usually does), but I didn't see it and she was on her own.  At the same time, that empathy is really a starting place for thinking about a training solution (one based on a scientific understanding of dog behavior) so that this situation might be avoided in the future.

So this week, we're proofing our sits around town, and we'll take another (more closely-supervised) shot at some market shopping again on Saturday.

In closing, I'll add that the stand owner's reaction reflects just how wonderful the market sellers are about their customers bringing dogs along.  He might have given me a disapproving look, or made a comment about Katie's behavior.  Instead, his response mitigated some of my embarrassment.



Works Cited:
Jean Donaldson, The Culture Clash.  Berkely CA:  James and Kenneth, 1996.

Saved!

Mild panic yesterday afternoon when I handwashed my pinwheel blanket and blue dye bled all over the yellow and white sections. Ugh. The weird part is that the blue yarn comes from a cone I've had for, like, a year and used in other projects with not problem at all.

So, anyway, not knowing what else to do, I spot cleaned the stains, rinsed, and got most of the dye stains out. But then I started thinking that there was no way I could gift a baby blanket that wasn't washable. So, I held my breath and put the blanket through a wash cycle. This time, no blue dye stains, but a lot of blue lint which--fortunately--is not a project-ruining outcome. A spin in the dryer on low produced no additional problems.

Phew.

Project details are on my Ravelry page.

Garden Notes

A couple weeks ago, we were battling drought conditions. Thankfully last week brought some much needed rain. This week we have different challenges: weeds and bugs. For the past three mornings, we've been out there weeding away. Today, finally, we have the weeds mostly under control (see the photo above or see an annotated view). Not that things will stay that way for long, but we've turned a corner and so long as we keep up with the weeds, it shouldn't get as bad as it was again for the rest of the summer.

Re bugs: earlier this week, we discovered our zucchini was infested with squash borers. Then, a few days later, we noticed lots of cucumber beetles flying around. We ended up pulling out the zucchini, but it may not matter in the end since mostly every plot in the community garden has the same problem. So no matter what we do, these guys will be in the soil next season.

To discourage cucumber beetles, Helena whipped up a batch of garlic pepper spray, which we applied to the leaves of our cucumber plants and other CB favs.

Scary looking stuff, no? And it smells pretty bad too.

On a happier note, we're proud to announce the appearance of two lovely cantaloupe. (See them there under the leaves?)

Knits from the WIP pile (!) and why dogs are so cool (not related)

I'm on a mission this summer to get control of my WIPs. A long time ago, I knit several pairs of this Easy Mittern pattern (by Sue Dial and available in Judith Durant's One-Skein Wonders). At the time, I had just discovered the wonderfulness that is Kraemer's Alpaca Yarn, and I was looking for reasons to knit with it. So I tried knitting the smaller size on US 9s. With a few pattern mods, I ended up with a mitten that was only slightly too big, and rather than frog, I decided to set it aside, knit a second slightly bigger mitten later, and either add a lining or felt them. "Later" turned out to be, like, three years later but fortunately I'd kept good notes, and I was able to complete the second mitten. Okay, well maybe not perfect notes, because mitten two was just a teensy bit bigger than mitten one--which confirmed for me that felting (lightly) was the way to downsize. (It also underscored the wisdom of GK's advice to always knit two mittens or socks at once.) I now have two, same-sized mittens for my Christmas 2010 gift stash. I confess that I did have a pang of regret when I tossed these into the washing machine. This yarn (on US 9s at least) knits up into such a lovely, drapey fabric,and it's kind of a shame to felt. But considering that the alternative was frogging both mittens, in the end I think felting was the best option.

Okay, I don't have a good segue here to my next topic, so here's a gratuitous Katie pic. Friends will recognize her are-you-gonna-give-me-that-biscuit face.

So, speaking of dogs, here's a cool thing that happened last week with clients whose dog, let's call him Rex, wasn't responding to "sit" but who, I noticed, was offering me a lovely sit as we were all standing there chatting. I decided to see what would happen if I tossed a treat far enough for him to have to get up to eat it. Would he come back to me and offer another sit? So I tossed a piece of lunch meat and waited. He looked a little surprised, but went for the treat. Then he looked at me again, thought about things for a minute, and went back to his spot in front of me and offered a down. Okay, so not a sit, BUT since Rex needed to learn the down command as well, I reinforced with another treat and then repeated the sequence again. Toss a treat so he has to move, wait to see what he does next. Again, he offered a down. And after a few more repeats, he offered a sit. The point here is that he was offering stuff, and what gets me every time I see this kind of thing is that moment when the dog stops to think about what's going on. Who knows what goes on in their doggie brains, but something clicks and they understand how the game works. And, because Rex's people are smart, they noticed this moment as well and were really impressed with their dog. After a few more reps, they took over, and we started saying "sit" or "down" as he did one or the other and following with a tasty treat. What I also appreciate is that Rex didn't just figure out the game, he also changed up the rules a bit and we ended up playing on his terms. I expected him to offer me a sit after the first toss because (1) that's what most dogs do and (2) that's what he had just been doing. But alternating downs and sits turned out to be more his style. And really, when you think about it, isn't that a more interesting game? Rex learns that offering sits and downs makes good things come his way. And the owners end up having to observe Rex very closely in order to correctly name the behavior as he offers it.

Adventures of Tiny the Dog

This is the third summer that Kate and I are participating in Reading to Dogs at the Easton Library. Above, Kate chillaxes while she listens to a story about Tiny, a giant dog who gets into all kinds of trouble. It's one of her favs. Many of the books in the reading room are about dogs, and I think the dogs appreciate it. I also think they appreciate the air-conditioning and the cool tile floor. The library provides mats for the kids to sit on, but sometimes the dogs claim them instead.

Kate is a surprisingly patient listener. When we first started coming to the library, I was worried that after 10 minutes she'd be giving me her "let's go" bark. But as it turns out, she's pretty happy to lay around listening to the kids read and hearing from the adults about how "she's such a good dog." (I like that too.)

These days, when Kate's not listening to stories, she's camped out in front of one of the AC vents at home. We still take a long morning walk, but it's already pretty hot by the time we get back around 7. And dinner walks are considerably shorter.

In spite of the heatwave (and thanks, probably, to diligent watering on our part), our garden is doing great. Helena and I have been documenting as we go so that we have a record to guide us for next year. This week, the big event was harvesting our garlic, but we also have snow peas, radishes, beans, zucchini and more lettuce.

No Sew Bandanna

Tomorrow I'm teaching the first of 3 free "doggy manners" classes at our farmer's market. We thought it would be fun if the Market Manners dogs in training wore bandannas, so I came up with these (with some good advice from cauchy along the way). Nothing complicated, just squares of fabric cut with pinking shears so they don't frey, and then cut across the diagonal. I made a few different sizes. And I added a "Market Manners" label along one side.

Googled

Google "garlic scape," and you'll discover just about everything you needed to know about this delicacy. Which is exactly what we did this week when it was time to de-scape our garlic crop which, I know, you've been dying to hear more about. Garlic scapes are not only delicious, but they're fun to photograph because they're so weird looking. When I Googled "garlic scapes recipes," I found lots of options. Fortunately, I have plenty of these things to experiment with. For a first try, I added them to stir fry. Totally tasty. Garlic scape pesto seems to be the big thing, though, and that's probably next on my list.

Also--weirdly--while on Google maps recently, A. discovered that if you click on the image icon for one of the intersections near our house, you get the following shot of me and Katie. Pretty unnerving. I know there's no privacy on the internets, but on my own street? If, like me, you're asking how did they do that, you can read more here. I am of course aware of the irony of my posting this photo on my blog (i.e., in public) in order to complain about an invasion of privacy. Such are the contradictions of our wired culture.

Garden Views

After a week-long stretch of pretty cold weather and a couple frost warnings, spring seems to have settled in. Some of the first things to bloom in my back yard were these lupines. And shortly after, the yellow flowers on the right appeared, but I'm not sure what they are! I don't remember planting them, and I can't find any photos in my notes from last year.

The community garden plot--now double last year's size--is also looking good. More photos of both gardens here.

The weather could have been warmer for Mother's Day

We're still having frost warnings here in eastern PA. :( Normally, we wait to plant warm weather stuff until after Mother's Day, but temps might dip below freezing tonight. We just finished bringing in plants in from the porch.

Even so, bright and early tomorrow morning I'm meeting H. at Leiser's to rent a tiller and then head out to the garden. Classes ended last week, and I'm taking ONE day off for gardening before I turn my attention to grading and all the other things that demand my attention at the end of term. It might be too cold to do much planting, but we can at least get the ground ready. We do have some things up already including asparagus and lettuce.

In spite of the chilly temps, I was able to pick these lovely bunches of parsley and mint from my herb garden at home.

I used them to make some Tabouli, which I brought to my in-laws for dinner. My MIL really likes handknitted cotton dishcloths, so I made her this one to add to her collection.

Some Spring Planting

Right now, our plot at the community garden looks mostly like a big weed patch. Actually, since we opted for a second plot, it looks like 2 big weed patches. Thus the name for the new plot:

(Excuse my fingers in front of the lens on that photo.) The ground was a little too wet for rototilling, so we dug out a couple of beds by hand. As Helena put it, "we don't need no stinkin' tillers." Actually, true. We did just fine with a couple shovels and my trusty garden claw.

This year, since we have more room, we're trying some new things, including asparagus--which, can I just say--no one seems to agree about how to plant. Esp in terms of how deep to dig the furrows, and then how much soil to cover the crowns. In the end, we dug our furrows about 6" deep, and covered the crowns with loose soil almost to the top of the furrow.

If you've never planted asparagus, the crowns look kind of like big spiders.

We planted 10 crowns total of Jersey Giant, ordered from Seeds of Change. Asparagus takes several years to mature, so we won't be harvesting anything from these plants any time soon.

We also planted some lettuce, something we didn't try last year because (1) we got a late start in the spring and (2) the fall was pretty wet and we didn't do much then except to plant garlic (which you can kind of see in the first photo at the beginning of this post).

You can't tell from these photos, but it was pretty darn cold out there. And windy too. After two hours, we packed it in.

Garden 2010: It begins

Last weekend we officially kicked off the 2010 garden season. H. and I started a bunch of seeds inside, including the ones I received from CR for my birthday, some of which are pictured here. For most of this past week, there was no activity at all. And then yesterday we started to see some activity. First, as Katie and I headed out for our morning walk, I noticed these little bean sprouts.

Then later in the afternoon, suddenly the peppers had sprouted.


And by the end of the day, they were looking like this. Amazing.

Dogs and Frogs

Happy birthday to Katie, who turned eight this past week! We had a fabulous bday party in The Dog Course, complete with balloons, presents and, of course, cupcakes.

I was kind of short on time, so these are just from a box mix. They tasted ok. They're all human grade, but the ones with the biscuits were for the dogs. After Katie ate her cupcake, she snagged the paper off the table and ate that too. (More bday photos on my Flickr page.) Personally, my favorite thing about the cupcakes was transporting them in the nifty carrier I bought especially for the occasion. I may go on a cupcake-making binge just so that I have more excuses to use it.

I am far LESS enthusiastic about the gloves I've been knitting for A. The pattern is unnecessarily complicated at times. And the sizing is weird between the thumb gusset, which seems to be sized for a smallish hand, and then the hand and fingers, which are ginormous. I spent the morning fiddling with the fingers which, as written, were at least an inch too long. I guess part of the problem could be that I'm not using the yarn called for in the pattern, but I am using another worsted weight yarn (Cascade 220 Heathers, which I really like), so I shouldn't be that off, right?

Why.

Sometimes I learn from my knitting mistakes. Sometimes they just make me want to cry. For reasons I don't understand, my second Bird-in-Hand mitten is about a quarter of an inch smaller all the way around. It's the same yarn, same size needles, and same me. WHY is this happening? This is my second try on the second mitten, so I can only assume that the bigness of the first one is a fluke and the second one is more likely my usual gage. So I guess I'll be frogging mitten one.

Nuts!

Kindle Love and Other Things

Last month I treated myself to a Kindle. I blame CMR and some other friends who kept talking about how much they loved theirs. And I have to say, now that I have one, I see what they mean. In case you're admiring my Kindle case, you can buy your own on Etsy from Janine King Designs. In addition to the terrific construction and cool fabric, I'm loving the extra zipper pocket on the front.

I had a bit of a delay with my BIH mittens. As I was working on mitten #2, I broke a fav pair of Knit Picks circs. :( But an email to Customer Service got me a brand new set. Thanks Knit Picks. You rock! :)