Catching Up

Thanks to everyone for your stories about your first book. I so enjoyed reading about your experiences. I'm a bit embarassed though, both Uberstrickenfrau and Guinifer mentioned the book "A Wrinkle In Time". I can't remember ever reading this book. I am planning a trip to the library to check it out.

Lauren mentioned reading a book about a witch and wanting to be witch. This reminded me of reading Silver Chief Dog Of The North and all the other Silver Chief books and wanting to be a Canadian Mounted Policeman when I grew up. Then someone pointed out to me girls were not allowed to be Mounties. This was the first time I remember being told I could not do something because I was a girl. I was so crushed! Never mind that I hate the cold and winter. I just wanted to be a Canadian Mounty and have a loyal, strong, wolf/dog hybrid exactly like Silver Chief.

My latest read is Peony In Love. I've just started it. I heard it reviewed on NPR and decided it would be my next big read. I'm enjoying it so far.

Knitting


This is suppose to be a knitting blog after all so I decided to show you a picture of the traveling shells cardigan. Sometimes I think I am making very little progress but then I spread the project out on the table and realize there's a lot of knitting here. I have added about an inch to the back of the cardigan since this picture was taken so I'm getting closer to finishing the body of the cardigan. Next I will do the collar and then see how much yarn I have left for the sleeves. I might have to re-design the sleeves somewhat as I'm concerned about running out of yarn. For now though I'm acting like Scarlett O'Hara and not thinking about this problem today. I'll think about it tomorrow.

Two Cents Worth Of Advice

I neglected my dog training for a few weeks but I'm back on track now. I had a private lesson last weekend with Dak and we picked up one gem of a piece of advice for Dak's problem with the long sit/stay exercise. Dak has always had a problem shuffling his feet on the long sit. This shuffling of his feet leads to shifting his position and finally, laying down instead of sitting and a big non-qualifying score even though he can get such nice scores on the other obedience exercises.

The instructor suggested placing a penny on each of Dak's feet while he is doing the long sit exercise. It is suppose to help Dak "think" about his feet and to be aware of his feet. When he shuffles his feet and the pennies fall off, he gets a small correction. "Oh oh Dak, look what happen" type of correction and the pennies get put back on his feet. This seems to be working for Dak. He is sitting very still the last few days and not shuffling his feet at all.





Now before any PETA folks send me nasty comments, here's a full picture of Dak with the pennies on his feet. He's quite relaxed during all this. Yes, his tongue is out but that's because it's hot out. This is not torture, it's training.




And here's a sampling of the treats I use during training. Dot would like to point out despite the variety shown, I'm out of her favorite peanut butter flavored treats. They're on my shopping list for tomorrow morning.




I wish it would rain


It can't seem to rain in the 7-10 mile radius around my house. The corn and beans are suffering, some fields are already lost. This is Percy rolling in my grass, at least it was grass earlier this summer. I'm not so sure it will recover and become green grass again even if it does rain. Sadly, the next forecast for rain is a 20% chance of rain on Tuesday. Not very good.