Puppy Watch

Knitting

There won't be much knitting in this post. I finished a second doily. I think I'm well and done with doilies for awhile. Someday I'd like to knit a Niebling and the doilies have been good practice. Perhaps I'll start next winter. I'll need to find a period of time when I'm staying home and not off to dog events every non-working hour. I don't think knitting a Niebling is very compatible with agility trials or even obedience trials. Maybe an obedience trial...

The doily above is the Knit Flower Doily. It honestly looks better in person than in the picture. It's quite small. It was knit on 2.25 dpns using DMC Baroque crochet cotton thread.

Dogs

We're on puppy watch here. Fancy is expecting 6 puppies Wednesday, May 11th. It's a very impressive breeding on paper if you look at championship titles, performance titles and most importantly, the health clearances of the parents. These little puppies will have a lot to live up to. But at this point, all I'm hoping for is a safe delivery for the babies and for Fancy. It's so nerve wracking. I've been breeding for 30+ years but I haven't had a litter in 3+ years. I'm hoping I haven't forgotten how.

After using nothing but little kiddy pools for so many years, I decided to invest in a "real" whelping box this time. I set it up last weekend and Fancy hopped right in and started nesting. However, in the last few days she's gotten too big to get in and out by herself. Her temperature is still up and she's still eating all her meals and treats, so no puppies for at least the next 24 hours.

Meanwhile, I've started a shape-up program for Tinkerbelle, Rumor and myself. All three of us need to be in better shape for the summer agility trials. We're up to two miles, not much but better than nothing. We use the Sakatah Singing Hills trail. It was raining this morning but I'm proud to say I stuck with the program. Can you tell Rumor is related to Bunny? Who knew no-ears-up-for-the-camera was hereditary!

My view on the walks.

Yesterday, when it was so sunny and warm and the lake so beautiful, I forgot my camera. Today it was cloudy and gray but at least there was no ice and snow on the lake.

JJ gets a walk also. He's finally getting a little bit better. Still limps on occasion but can actually walk quite a ways before he starts to limp. JJ gets a separate walk as he isn't allowed yet to go at the speed Belle, Rumor and I move at. JJ is suppose to go at a 'smell the daisies' pace. It's not a pace JJ is too familiar with.

Despite getting a little better, I'm afraid this could be the end of JJ's performance career. Even if he walks perfectly after this, I can't imagine allowing him to do herding again, and certainly not agility. Maybe he can do a little obedience. I'm bummed, JJ is such a fun dog to work with, he loves working with me, never tires or gets grouchy. To think it all started with a little limp when he came in the house after his bedtime potty break.

Birds

Spring has finally come to Minnesota and all the summer birds are back. They seem extra colorful and noisy to me this year. I suspect this is related to the extra long, extreme winter we had. My only disappointment so far is no bluebirds in any of my houses. They are here, they are back perching on the weave poles looking for food. Maybe they have decided not to nest yet. Maybe they have found natural nesting spots in the trees which would be great. I hope they stick around for the summer, I'll miss them so much if not.

Summer Time

Let's see, if I can still remember how blogger works, I can update my long lax blog.

Percy



Percy has pretty much recovered. He still has episodes of phantom pain and will start to attack his tail all the while growling and hissing in such a non-Percy personality I can barely recognize him. These episodes have slowly started to recede but I can't wait until they are gone forever. As my vet told me and I have slowly learned, tails are funny things with cats. As much as I love my Percy, I don't love the almost vicious Percy who appears during his tail attacks.

I'm not sure why Percy his sticking his tongue out at me in the above picture, then again, after all he has been through, guess I can't blame him.



It was difficult for Percy to eat while wearing the E-collar. I finally settled on the large pasta serving bowl from a set of pasta bowls I have. The individual bowls were not quite large enough but the serving bowl worked fairly well. He still spilled cat kibble all over the counter while eating in his E-collar. Glad that phase is over with.

Knitting



I made good progress on my second Mr. Greenjeans before the heat set in and I couldn't bear to knit with wool. I'll finish it soon enough. I've already learned this is fast knit. I'm knitting it in Dream In Color Classy, colorway Beach Fog.



Meanwhile, I started the Drop Stitch Lace Tank using Lana Grossa Point from my stash. Humm...not quite sure what I think so far. This yarn is very similar to Rowan Calmer and like Calmer, I find it difficult to hold gauge with this yarn and it has a tendency to want to split. Most of all, I think it will be a heavy piece for a sleeveless summer tank. We'll see...perhaps I'll frog it all soon and start something else.



I did finish my diamond lace scarf knit in Karabella Terrain. I think it turned out quite nice - other than I finished it in mid June and it was a birthday present for my sister's birthday in May. Ah, those best laid plans!

Dogs

I've been very busy with the dogs. Dusty finished his Open Standard and Open Jumper with Weaves agility titles. JJ has started showing in Novice Agility with some success and Dak managed to pick up one "leg" (passing score) on his Utility title. We're heading to Duluth this weekend in hopes of Dak completing his Utility title. He needs two more passing scores to complete the title.



I had to laugh over the puppy girls playing "The Princess And The Pea" on the stack of dog beds I made a few weeks ago while I was cleaning the floors. Above is Tinkerbelle and below is Rumor, hopping off in order to hide from that nasty flash on the camera.



Birds

Not too much new in the bird arena. Four of the five bluebird eggs hatched successfully and the 4 birds fledged without event. I think they must have been all males as I have a slew of male bluebirds around here suddenly.





My turkey made daily visits for several weeks but now is not to be seen. I was hoping she would continue to return each day and bring her summer chicks with her once they hatched. However, she has not made an appearance for about 10 days now. I hope she is too busy with her new chicks or has simply moved on, but I'm afraid she made have become coyote or fox bait. I miss her.

Hope you had a great July 4th!

Mr. Greenjeans

I have all but completed my Mr. Greenjeans. Unfortunately, it's a bit too small for me. I love the sweater, I just might have to knit another in my size. However, it fits my sister nicely. Here she is modeling it.



I need to sew up a few loose strands, find a nice button, wash and block it and the sweater is ready to go to my sister Rita. A very fun and easy knit done in Dream In Color Classy, colorway Blue Lagoon, size 7 and 8 needles. As I said above, I just might have to knit this again in my own size.

I knit the button band 3 times and I'm still not satisfied with it but it will do. I can't bear to knit it again I think. I have to thank Pam at Knitters Palette, my LYS. I called her long distance and she gave me the excellent advice which finally helped me knit the button band as close to correct as it is going to be.

I haven't decided what I want to knit next. This is odd as I usually have my next project all lined up. I have the yarn and patterns for several lovely scarfs and I will start on at least one of these. However, I do love to knit sweaters. Here's a few of the projects peaking my interest - mostly sweaters but perhaps a toy.



Meanwhile, the dogs have been doing great. Dusty completed his Novice Agility Standard and Jumpers titles and already has a leg up on his Open Standard title. Dusty is such a willing and loyal little dog. I'm so proud of him. He's not the dog I would have ever predicted to be good at agility but he certainly is.

Today Dot and Dak were entered in Open A and Utility A Obedience classes respectively for the first time. Dottie won her Open class with zero points deducted for the heeling exercises - a remarkable accomplishment. She is truly a little heeling machine. Dak also did very well, just missing one of the scent articles because of his speed and missing his go-out spot because of sure greenness. Congrats kids, you are great dogs.



Fame went to her first conformation show - that's the part where you run around in circles and show off your hairstyle says Fame - and managed a 2nd of 4 in her class. That's fine with me. I've never doubted Fame's potential is definitely in the performance arenas and neither I nor Fame could be happier about that. Fame was beside herself with glee the last two weeks as her older brother Moby was here. My goodness, would the two of them play as above for hours.

Meanwhile, the little puppy girls are growing on and are very pleasing.



Here is Fancy with her mother Shamrock. Fancy loves to stick by and imitate everything her mom does.



This is little Rumor, a very pretty sable girl, so attentive and so watchful. Can't wait to to start serious performance training with Rumor.



And we couldn't forget my precious Tinkerbell.

Knitting, cooking and puppies of course

The blogs I enjoy the most are the blogs updated regularly. Unfortunately, that's not what I seem to be able to do. It is always my intention, just not my reality. I hope the regular bloggers I enjoy reading will keep it up. Meanwhile, I will work at not feeling guilty for my own irratic blogging.

Knitting



I am making good progress on my Mr Greenjeans. This picture is not very flattering. I can't seem to get a photo which shows off the lovely colors of this Dream In Color yarn. I've made more progess on the cable and rib pattern than shown here. It's a fun project.

I also blocked my Clapotis and re-hung it on the back of Dottie's chair.



Before Christmas I bought this yarn at my LYS to make the Fiber Arts Paws To Remember scarf. I decided to start this scarf in addition to Mr. Greenjeans. I am hoping it will turn out nice enough to send to a friend. The only problem is...this scarf requires size 7 needles and I am currently using my only size 7 needles on the Mr. Greenjeans. Oh oh, I sense a need to visit a yarn store!

Vegan Day



I am not vegan, heck, I am not even vegetarian. However, I do enjoy cooking and experimenting with new cuisines. A few weeks ago we held a Hot Dish Lunch at the office. One of my work mates brought a recipe based on this. I don't think this dish qualifies as a Minnesota Hot Dish, still, so delicous! I made it today and it was very good. I stayed with the basic recipe since it was the first time I've made this. Next time, I'll taste and add salt and a bit of sugar as needed. The worst mistake I made today was roasting the sweet potatos before the rice was ready. I love roasted sweet potatos and ended up snacking too much while waiting for the rice. I had to roast a few more potatoes to round out the dish.

Since I was into a vegan experience today, I made chocolate cupcakes filled with peanut butter cream from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. OMG! These are so good. I will definitely be making more cupcakes from this fun little book. I think I make excellent 'regular' coconut cupcakes so I'm anxious to try coconut and lime cupcakes from the book.

Dogs And Puppies



This picture is already a week old. I'll have to work at getting some new shots. The puppies are doing great though I can't say the same for the beating my kitchen floor is taking. The girls are having visitors for the next few weekends. That will be a lot of fun for the puppies and I'm anxious to show them off.

Fame, always my Wild Child. Fame had agility lessons today. Agility is definitely her sport but she needs to learn to listen and "chill" a bit. Fame tagged along to obedience class on Friday also where she was a big hit. I thought my friend Heidi was going to steal her away from me.

My Life For The Near Future

It's a girl fight!



We need to get out of here!



Oh my, our human mom says it's above freezing and we can be outside for a few minutes.



We do not like this at all, please take us back inside!



Ah, this is better.



We think we'll stay here until spring.



Our human mom says, "Please God, could you hurry up spring? What did I do before they invented these?"



Meanwhile, she tries to take comfort in the progress of her Mr. Greenjeans.



And remembering, this is what it is all about - a Pembroke who can not only excell in the show ring but also in performance events! Yes indeed, when you are washing your kitchen floor for the 5th time in a day, the picture above is definitely what keeps you going.

Finished my Clapotis

I completed my Clapotis since the last time I blogged. I finished it the last day of January. It still needs a good blocking but the only space I have to block such a large item is currently filled with the puppy whelping box (alias, large size Kiddy Pool). I think it will look much better once it is blocked but that project is going to have to wait another week.



Meanwhile, blocked or unblocked, Dot approves of the new adnornment to her chair.



I started a new project, the Mr. Greenjeans pattern from Knitty. I'm using one of my favorite yarns, Dream In Color Smooshy. The colorway is Blue Lagoon and so far, this knit is going quickly and I'm enjoying it very much. I hope to complete the sweater in time to wear it yet this season. The way this winter has been going, it should not be a problem at all!



The puppies are doing great. Don't they look cute here? You should have seen them a few hours earlier as they pooped and peed their way through my kitchen. Maybe someday it will warm up enough they can actually go outside. I have to go into the office tomorrow and can't imagine the mess I will come home to! I've raised Pembrokes for 28 years and only worked from home the last 3 years, yet, I've somehow forgotten how I did this while I was commuting. In all seriousness, these girls are as cute as they can be and I'm so happy they have all made it to this age and are healthy and strong.



And the best news of all, Fame thinks the new puppies are the best! She loves them and plays with them very appropriately. I'm so happy to know this as Fame was basically a singleton and it's great to see she has such good dog manners.



Good night!

Just A Little Knitting Content

These little preemie hats are all the knitting I accomplished so far in January. The hats themselves were quick and easy enough to make but I struggled over getting my pompoms to look nice. Finally, I just gave up on the pompoms. Besides, while searching the web for preemie hat patterns I found one site which stated NICUs prefer hats without pompoms so that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! These aren't my best work, I thought I'd get many more finished and do a better job on them but January brought several interruptions and minor crises. Such is life.

I have been horribly remiss in posting puppy pictures - as I've been reminded in several emails. The pups are all doing great. The little tri has stayed quite small but she was never without strength and energy so I continued to supplement her. I was anxious to get her started on solid foods, or more correctly at this age, "puppy mush" so I started all of them yesterday when they turned 21 days old. This is a bit earlier than I normally like to, but it has paid off as Tri Girl has gained 3 ounces in the last two days.



The puppy at the top right is Two Spots and that's food stuck on the top of her head. Not at all unlike babies first learning to eat in their highchairs, a puppy's first meals are messy business. I must have snapped this picture before Shamrock had a chance to clean her up. Two Spots has her head draped over the smallest red girl, Fussy. And of course that's the little tri color girl in the center. Isn't she tiny compared to her sisters? Still, you can see she does know how to keep herself warm! Next is the puppy I call Necklace and on the bottom left is the biggest girl, Splats. Notice her lovely smile? She must be dreaming of the great meal she just finished. I had to spend some time teaching Tri Girl and Fussy how to eat off of a platter but there was no need to teach Splats how to eat.



This is a picture of the puppies at 17 days. They had just discovered each other and were biting on each others ears and barking for the first time. It's so funny when they make their first bark as they usually bark and then fall over. They aren't so steady on their feet yet at 17 days.



While her four sisters were learning to bark and play, Necklace was zonked out.



And finally, Shamrock spends less time in the whelping box these days and more time supervising from the leather chair in the puppy room. She thought it was rather insulting for the flash on the camera to disturb her nap here.


Did you survive the bitter cold weekend? I did, but barely. I'm very good at hibernating during the cold. My sister Rita came out on Sunday afternoon. Rita enjoys football just as much as I do not but I did want to sit down with her and watch at least 5 minutes of the Packer game simply because I had to see what kind of crazy fools would sit outdoors in -20 wind chill to watch football. I ended up watching the entire game and what a game it was. I'm sure it's the first entire football game I've watched in 10 years. I do know how to pick them don't I? My sister Rita has Down's so I don't think she quite understands the whole Packer mystique. I told her from the beginning I was cheering for the Green team so naturally Rita was cheering for the White team. Boy, did she have a good time razing me when her team won!

Sorry I don't have a current picture of Fame to post. Fame has been busy learning a few show dog lessons. I despair of ever training her to stand still and let a stranger examine her bite. My little Fame does have a stubborn streak.

No Knittng Content

It's a good thing this blog is not just a knitting blog as I've no new knitting progress to chat about. I am having to bottle feed my little tri-color girl every three hours and though I have it all down to an efficient system, I'm still longer for a full nights sleep. Whenever I find myself with a few minutes to knit, I find myself dozing off before I can even pick up my needles.



Here are the little treasures, all doing very well. Even the tri girl is strong and active as long as I keep up the feedings. They made it through the first week and we're into the second week now so hopefully everything will continue to be copacetic.



Look at Fame, she's getting so big. She's out grown her little dog bed. I left her at home today when we went to agility lessons. Oh my, was Fame unhappy about that!



And finally in this picture heavy blog, here's Percy, wondering where all his feathered food friends have gone. I've even neglected feeding my birds while I'm preoccupied feeding my puppy. I'll have to get out tomorrow and fill the feeders before the forecasted frigid weather comes.

Preemie Hat knitting

Jeanne and Chell over at k3tog have started up their annual January preemie hat knitting for the Children's Hospital of St. Paul. I wanted to contribute a few hats this year and I have quite a bit of baby yarn left over from various baby blankets I've made. The hats are so teeny tiny! It does not take long to make one and it takes very little yarn. Here's my first, sans a pompom on top because I've forgotten how to make pompoms so figure I'll knit up a few hats and then sit down one evening and make all the pompoms at once.



I so wanted Fame to model the hat for a picture but Fame was having no part of it and I feared for the survival of my newly knitted hat!

I have a bunch of green baby yarn and a whole bunch of blue I'd like to use up but I figure I best stick with the white and green so the hats can be worn by either boy or girl babies. I'm not sure how many I will finish but I will play around with these until the end of January. If you'd like to contribute just check out their web site for details.

I am starting to catch up on some of the sleep I lost while tending to puppies the last few days so am hoping to also finish up my Clapotis which seems to languish for long periods of time while I work on other projects.

I wanted to show a picture of the green traveling shells cardigan which took up so much of my 2007 knitting. My mom wore it at Christmas with a black blouse and black slacks and it really showed off the pattern.



It was so sweet of her to wear it on Christmas. Makes me want to fix all the mistakes I see in it -- or even consider making a second one since it would be better than the first. Eh, don't worry, I'm not about to tackle that project again!

Since I have no other knitting progress to talk about or display, here's some pictures of what has been taking up all my time the last few days.



Shamrock is looking rightly proud of her new brood.



From top, going clockwise is Necklace, Splat, Blackie, Two Spots and Fussy Mussy. Don't worry, these won't be their permanent names. (At least, they almost never become a puppy's permanent name.) These are their "weigh-in" names, names usually based on distinquishing markings I use to chart their weights for the first few weeks.

And of course Fame is still the delight of the house. She is getting so big and adult looking. For a while I thought Fame would not make it as a show dog but suddenly, she's looking rather nice. I think I might have to train her for the conformation ring in addition to obedience and agility. Here's a picture I caught of her being still. It's a bit out of focus but it is so difficult to get a picture of busy, constantly moving Fame. I managed to take this as she stalked watched the cat who was trying to get down from the kitchen counter.