'Tis The Season

I started getting ready for the Holiday Season on Thanksgiving weekend. Decorations up, online shopping completed, some knitting and sewing projects completed and others started, but then I fell behind. Finally mailed my packages last week with fingers crossed they will arrive by Christmas. I'm doing Christmas cards while I wait for pictures to be uploaded to blogger.

(Dear Santa, Could you please bring me a faster internet connection for Christmas?
"Only if you move to a better neighborhood Mary where such things actually exist."
Okay Santa, I figured there was no harm in asking.)

Knitting and Sewing

I've finished knitting several small projects and still have one more hat to complete before Christmas.

Here's a scarf knit in Misty Alpaca Chunky. I think I've made at least half a dozen of these over the years. It's quick knit and the yarn, 100% baby alpaca, is so soft and luxurious. I finished this on Thanksgiving and stuff it in a plastic bag! Good thing I got it out today to take a picture of it as it needs a good washing and blocking now.  And there's ends to sew in also.

I made another reversible hat of one of my brothers. It's much more attractive on than it looks here.

When completed, it looks like a closed tube.

But once shaped, it becomes a reversible hat. This is knit in Elann's Sock It To Me yarn on size 3 needles. Miles and miles of mindless stockinette knitting. I did a lot of this over a three day agility trial and yes, I still need to wash the dog hair out of this hat and block it.

One last hat, this one done in Cascade Cloud Nine with a pattern from The Rainey Sisters. Yet another hat I need to wash and block yet.

My quilting skills are improving bit by bit. I finished this table runner and am very proud of it. My blocks fit together almost perfectly and my quilting stitches are very nice. Still struggling with the binding though. This was made from a kit by Connecting Threads in fabric "Wrap It Up".

I received a Kindle as a Christmas present (yes I open my presents early!) so made a cover for the Kindle. This pattern is loosely based on The Bookeeper pattern I found in the Moda Bake Shop. I loved it and was proud of the job I did - right up until the binding. Still struggling. Oh well, practice makes perfect right?

Birds

We've had so much snow this year feeding the birds has become somewhat of a chore these days what with having to wade through all the deep snow. It's a lot of fun though to watch the birds from inside a warm house.

The pheasants are back.

And of course the turkeys.

I buy cheap, mostly corn based, bird seed for the pheasants and turkeys because they eat me out of house and home. However, cheaper seed attracts the house sparrows who then compete with and kill the bluebirds in the spring for housing. It's a dilemma for sure.

Dogs

I had a successful year with my dogs.

Ch Kantishna Make Believe
Fancy finished her championship in 4 weekends in May making up my 26th champion. She's already entered in agility trials in January and starting to work on her heeling and retrieving. She is a fun, fun girl.

Ch Busy B's Dakota's Bright Sunshine UD RE AX AXJ VC
Dak completed his OAJ, AX and AXJ. Dak should finish up his MX and MXJ in early 2011 and we'll see where we go after that.

Ch Kantishna Star Kissed CDX RE AX AXJ AXP AJP VC
Dot finished her OAP, AXP and AJP this year. She will soon be 10 years old so is retired - I think, might go back and do some Rally with her as she hates being left out of all the activities. In addition to her own accomplishments, Dot has produced several wonderful working dogs. Thank you Dot!

Ch Kantishna Jump For Joy PT AX AXJ VC
My wonderful JJ. With a lot of hard work and I'm sure every jumping exercise ever known to the world of agility, JJ managed to keep the bars up long enough to finish his Excellent titles. I'm pretty sure he's retired now from agility. However, JJ's back taking herding lessons and doing very well with his obedience training.

Kantishna Keep'n A Secret MX MXJ
Whisper finished her MX and MXJ this year. She's very consistent in agility but not very fast. I've yet to decide what goals to set for Whisper next year. Perhaps some obedience...

Kantishna Keep'n In Motion CD RN
Shy little Bunny held it together long enough to capture her CD. This is a huge accomplishment for Bunny. I will continue to torture :) her in 2011 with more obedience training and trials

Ch Busy B's Dakota's Moon Dust CD PT MX MXJ VC
There was a new CD title for Dusty in 2010 and definitely more obedience planned for Dusty in 2011. Dusty produced two litters of puppies this year and we have high hopes for successful conformation and performance Pembrokes for these puppies. One already has her TD!

Ch Busy B's St. Patricks Day Parade CD RN
Shamrock also finished her CD title this year and should be starting on her open title in early 2011.

Kantishna Believe In Me OA OAJ
I sure do believe in you Tinkerbelle! After a rough start where Belle and I had to work through some injury issues, team work and training issues, I think we're back on track for a successful 2011. In addition to agility, Belle is also doing lots of obedience training.

Whew, I think that's everyone!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

We Need To Talk

It's time for a confession. I am a breeder. Yes, one of those horrible, politically incorrect breeders of purebred dogs. I've owned and bred Pembroke Welsh Corgis since 1980. Thirty years. I've finished 25 AKC champions, many of them group placing dogs and 3 breeder/owner/handler group winners and almost all of them with more than one performance (obedience, tracking, herding or agility) title. I'm not bragging, I'm just saying. 

In this day and age, it's extremely unpopular to be a "breeder" of purebred dogs. Yep, I know all about those dogs in shelters. I am as sad for them as you are. I hate to see any dog suffer. I don't care if it's a purebred dog or a mutt. I don't even care if it is a new designer dog which, let's face it folks, are sweet, lovable mutts. But those dogs in shelters are not my dogs!

I follow up with all my puppies. My dogs all live in my house. I clean up my yard constantly. I buy the very best dog food available. Each of my dogs are individually trained and worked with daily. In contrast, my neighbor breeds "quality pets" in her unheated quanstet hut. What is a "quality pet"? It's any little furry, fluffy dog which can be bred to another little furry, fluffy dog. Health cleareances? None. Temperament testing? Nope.Early puppy training? You've got to be kidding.

My neighbor once asked me how I kept my puppies alive in the winter. Excuse me? I honestly did not understand what she was asking me. Me, I have heating pads and heat lamps, my puppies are kept in my bedroom until old enough to move into the dinning room/kitchen area. My neighbor, on the other hand, hangs a 40 watt light bulb over her winter litters out in the unheated quanstet hut. And yes, she has muliple winter litters. So sad. Again, I'm just saying.

This is what my "breeder of quality pets" neighbor dumped along my driveway last week. I didn't take a very good picture of it so I'll tell you, it is a winter's worth of pee and poop soaked sawdust scooped out from under the wire cages her dogs have for living quarters in the unheated quanstet hut.

Why am I blogging about this? Because I want you to think about the difference in "breeders" and think before you purchase your next dog, purebred, designer dog or shelter rescue. Because you could very well be "rescuing" a dog from my neighbor, which will only keep her breeding more (cough, cough) quality pets.

So let's move on to more enjoyable topics.

Dogs

We've had some nice success in agility trials lately. Dot finished up her Excellent Preferred titles and the next day picked up her first double Q. Yeah Dot. Dak also completed his Excellent titles and the very next day his first double Q, go Dak! Whisper and Dusty have also been doing nicely. Whisper has gained so much confidence and speed lately it's difficult to remember she's the same dog who spent 5 days in the ICU at the U of MN Vet Clinic where we twice talked about letting her go.

Tinkerbelle, my 16 pound wonder, my little "corgette", made her novice agility appearance for one day and aced both her Standard and Jumpers With Weaves (JWW) runs. Belle is so much fun to train and run. You should be able to view her JWW run here.

And my JJ? Well, after taking forever to get his Open Jumpers title, he whizzed through his Excellent Jumpers title but now is taking a little longer than forever to get through his Excellent Standard title.

It's a good thing I love you JJ!

Food

I've been so in love with quinoa lately. Here's my rendition of quinoa with sauteed peppers and onions along with some grated lemon peel, lemon juice and parmigiano reggiano cheese. Yum!

Birds

I love my cardinals. Love how they always show up in pairs either very early in the morning or far into dusk in the evening.

Springtime

I've been absent from my blog (and yours too!) for a bit. Busy with job work, springtime yard and house work, agility trials (definitely not work), and having to travel for work. Ugh to the traveling. It's not that I object to traveling so much as I objected to the reason for my latest trip, and it's not like there's a lot new to see in Silicon Valley. It is what it is. Though I will say there seemed to be less traffic and far more office space for lease then my last visit to the Mecca Of High Tech. A not so good sign of the times I'm afraid.

While I was gone I left my numerous dogs in the very capable hands of Heidi, who did the most amazing job. She not only took great care of the dogs, and Percy, but left me a nice paragraph or two on each day describing who got their required meds, if Percy was in or out, who had loose stool, who didn't eat all their food, but she also left many great pictures of the dogs. My dogs not only survived without me, they also seemed to have a great time while I was gone. If you're in the area and looking for a dog sitter, I highly recommend Heidi. And I don't do that lightly or often.

Knitting

I do have a new finished object. It's the baby blanket I have been knitting for my nephew's new son. I think it turned out quite nice. This blanket was very simple and quick to knit. This is the Eyelet Squares Blanket from Vogue Knitting On The Go Baby Blankets Two. This is a reverse stockinette pattern so here's the wrong side of baby blanket:



And this is the "right" side:



I think either way looks just as nice, an important aspect for a baby blanket if you ask me.

The blanket was knit in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino. I enjoyed working with this yarn as much as I did not enjoy working with the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran for my Amelia sweater.

Here's another picture of Amelia, all block and already worn once or twice.



My current project is a pair of Dropping Elm socks for my mom for Mother's Day. Yes, I know Mother's Day was a bit ago. My gift is late, what can I say. Worse yet, this is not the second sock, this is only the first sock. I have some catching up to do.



Dogs

I think I last showed a picture of Dusty after his neuter surgery. Well, Dusty managed to pull his stitches out not once, not twice, but three times! It took forever for his incision to heal. I guess he let me know what he thought about being neutered. Here is Dusty with the huge E-collar he wore for almost three weeks. He was not too happy about it, then again, I was not too happy about the 3 extra trips to the vet - nor the three extra vet bills.



I'm happy to say Dusty is all healed now and running in agility again. He's also frozen for posterity too. I love science. I now have the best of both worlds, all neutered males in my house and their sperm in the bank for future use. Life is good.

Percy

Last fall I hired a tree company to do a bunch of clean up around here. It really needed to be done but I was worried my birds might not return to nest this spring as they have in the past. All those old, storm blown trees in the fence rows and those weedy trees along the driveway might not look too pretty but they make excellent bird habitat. I'm happy to report I have an abundance of birds again this spring. Grosbeaks, orioles, larks, warblers, blue birds, they're all here.

The blue birds are not in the nesting boxes I have set out for them, but they are all over my yard each day, perching on the agility equipment before they swoop down to catch their meals. Since they are not in their boxes, I decide I could let Percy continue to be an indoor/outdoor cat. That is, until I found a dead Indigo Bunting this morning. I'm not sure Percy killed it, in his defense I will say Percy eats his prey and this bird was not mutilated. Still, I decided Percy will stay in the house now until mid-July. It's torture for him and torture for me too. He howls and whines and scratches to get out. It's close to intolerable for me to listen to him. Here is Percy finally catching a nap in his favorite old bed in the basement. It's not a very good picture but the sound of the camera was starting to wake him and I was not ready for that, I needed a few more minutes of peace and quiet. It will be a long 6-8 weeks for Percy and me. Wish us luck!

Poor Percy

You know it's been a bad day when you sit down to eat supper while Jay Leno is doing his monologue. Definitely been that kind of day here.



My dear Percy is in trouble. Tomorrow he will have at least a part of his tail amputated. It all started so innocently. As you may know, Percy is an indoor/outdoor cat most of the year. He is a fantastic mouser and rabbit-ter. He is also a birder beyond compare and thus spends a few months each spring and early summer confined to the house so the birds have at least a chance to nest and fledge. Percy gets frustrated being in the house all the time and has invented a fun game of hopping from chair to chair under the dining table all the while teasing and taunting the dogs. Percy loves the game, the dogs love the game, it all seemed like so much fun to me.

This morning one of the dogs, and I have no idea who, managed to nip Percy's tail while playing the musical chairs game. I dropped Percy off at the vet where they sedated him and stitched up his tail. When I picked him up later this afternoon they warned me he might lose his tail. I thought that was too silly. He's the healthiest cat I know. It was just a little nip. However, after being home a few hours, Percy was in serious pain. He would circle and bite and rip at his tail. He ripped the stitches out. I had to take him into the vet on this evening and spent an hour or so there. We were able to give him pain meds and a bit of sedation. I have meds to give him again at 3:30 a.m. (hey, who needs sleep). Tomorrow I will bring him back to the vet and most likely he will have at least the tip of his tail amputated. Hopefully not more but the vet thinks probably more. We had a chance of saving his tail before he ripped it apart.

Birds



Before Percy's accident I thought I would start my blog off with this picture. Isn't she fantastic? I caught the turkey feeding in my front yard this morning. I was almost ready to get a picture of her stretching her neck and eating right out of bird feeder when the dogs also spotted her and starting barking up a storm. Naturally, the turkey left when the barking started, but she wasn't in any big hurry to leave so hopefully she'll be back. My sister in KY just laughed when I sent her this picture. She said the wild turkeys in KY are much fatter than this skinny hen. My sister said you can actually eat the wild turkeys in KY. Ha-rumph! The MN winters must be tougher on our turkeys.

In other bird news, I have a pair of blue birds nesting with 5 white eggs. The Bluebird Mad tells me white eggs are somewhat rare but not unheard of and it is not an indication anything will be wrong with the baby birds.

The Indigo Buntings are still here. I thought they had left but I see them at my feeders almost every day. A few days ago I had 3 pair of Red Breasted Grosbeaks at the feeder all at the same time. They are such beautiful birds. The Orioles are back too, along with the Eastern Phoebes, Chipping Sparrows and Wrens.

Oh, I forgot to mention about a week ago I saw my first American Redstart. He was flitting around my crab apple tree. What a pretty little bird!




Now my crab apple tree looks like this. Very pretty, but also very good camouflage for birds. I predict I'll be seeing fewer and fewer new birds now that the leaves are out.

Dogs



A few days ago the puppies came in looking like this. This is Fancy. Tinkerbelle and Rumor looked much worse but I was only able to catch a picture of Fancy. Believe it or not, they smelled even worse than they looked. I don't know what they found to roll in but ... yuk!

I spent my Memorial Day weekend at 3 days of agility trials. We had a blast. Dusty managed to pick up his OA (Open standard) title and 2 legs toward his OAJ (Open Jumpers) title. Dusty is so good, he even makes me look good!

The agility trails were blessed with good weather and we managed to escape the tornadoes. My manager, who lives in Western WI, was not so fortunate. They lost their barn and roof of their house. Luckily, they are all fine as are their horses and cattle.

Knitting

I do still knit, just no recent pictures to show. I'm working still on my lacy scarf and my Mr. Greejeans II.



Send good thoughts to Percy tomorrow. I could not care less what length or look of tail he ends up with, but I definitely want the "pain free" part of all of this. I think it's going to be a long night here.

Is it spring yet?

Gosh, seems like we Minnesotans have waited a long time for spring, and we're still waiting. I hope it comes soon. Actually, I'd be quite happy to skip spring at this point and go right to summer.

Birds

I haven't been posting much about my birds this spring. I think it's been so cold and gray most of the time I just can't get excited about it. But I am excited about this - Indigo Buntings!



Can you spot the Bunting on the thistle feeder here? I noticed a small, gray bird sitting in my large feeder a few weeks ago and thought to myself, that's a female Indigo Bunting. But I figured I must be wrong. I haven't seen Indigo Buntings here for about 10 years. Then, last week I spotted two males sitting in my large feeder helping themselves to the food. Two at once! I tried to get a picture but they flew off as soon as I moved towards the window. I did manage to capture a few, blurry, though the window pictures of one at my thistle feeder. The buntings were around for about 4 days, now they seem to have moved on. I wish they would spend the summer but at least I saw them while they were here.

I have bluebirds again but they haven't started nesting. According to the Bluebird Man, it's just too cool yet. I've heard some bluebirds further north are starving to death this year due to the cool weather and lack of food. Mine seem to be doing great in the food category. All this wet weather makes for plenty of worms for the bluebirds. Still, they have started building a nest on the few warm days but abandon efforts as soon as it turns cold and rainy again. This isn't a very good picture but it is proof of my bluebirds.



I spotted my first bluebird this year on April 14th. That's about 3 weeks later than normal. The first Orioles appeared on Monday, May 12th, about a week to 10 days later than expected.

Knitting



I don't think I have published a picture of my Mr. Greenjeans completed with a button and all. My sister Rita wore it to my nephew's college graduation and my mom tells me Rita was the best dressed of the group. I know moms tend to say these things but I must say, it does fit my sister very well and the color is perfect for her.



So, I decided to start my own, my second, Mr. Greenjeans. I turned a few skeins into center pull balls tonight. The way this spring has been going, if I hurry I might still get to wear my own Mr. Greenjeans before summer comes.

Meanwhile, I'm knitting on my lacy scarf. Here it is as a blob of lace.



And here it is stretched out a bit so you can see the pattern.



I think it will be quite nice once I block it out, but it's so boring. I usually manage one pattern repeat before I'm too bored to continue. I definitely need another project in addition to this scarf. I've used up one skein of the Karabella Terrain. I have three. I will definitely use a second skein to complete the scarf. I don't think I can manage knitting up three skeins. Maybe, but it seems too boring at this point. I think the scarf will be plenty long enough using two skeins.



This weekend I knitted several swatches for a project I bought back in . . . 2002? 2001? I can't remember as this project has been marinating on my back shelf for a long time. It's a stranded knitting project, not only stranded but done in cotton (eek, all my errors will show as cotton isn't as forgiving as wool) and it's not done in the round so I will be stranding on the backside (purl stitch). I can't imagine what I was thinking when I bought this. Yikes! Yet I'm sick and tired of looking at this project and am determined to get it started this summer.

I've made several swatches, more than shown here. I've swatched with different needle sizes, different stranding techniques, you name it, I think I've tried it. I want this project to turn out as nice a possible so I'm taking my time at the beginning. My biggest fear is that I don't have enough yarn for the body of the sweater. Now that will be a big bummer! I don't think I have much hope of finding the same yarn in the same dye lot should I run out. One of the perils of retiring a project for so many years!

I'm usually much more monogamous with my knitting projects but looks like I'll have three going at once for a while here.

Dogs

No new puppy pictures. JJ and Bunny go to NADAC trials this weekend so perhaps something new to show next week.