Airstream Bambi and Agility Trials

Happy to report that my little Airstream Bambi travel trailer hit the road again this summer. The photo above was taken during early morning hours at the MADCO USDAA agility trial near Charlottesville, where Flake and I competed in July. Much fun!! Many thanks to my dear friends Ed and Joanne for helping me get the trailer roadworthy again --- and many thanks to the nice folks at Safford RV for fixing all the things we discovered that still need fixing. Alas, there were quite a few of them, although isn't that always the case with RV's? Sigh. Bambi and Flake and I will be heading to New Jersey and North Carolina for more agility trials and competition soon, so wish us luck!!

Below are some adorable pictures of dogs belonging to friends. Of course I forgot to take any pictures of my own dog, so I will try to remedy that soon. These images were taken at the Ruff Riders USDAA agility trial in Fredericksburg, which I attended sans the Airstream. The facility there (Fredricksburg Field House) was lovely and big and air-conditioned (which made it even more lovely in the 100+ degree heat). Flake was very well behaved and managed to earn her Performance Dog I and Performance Dog I Standard titles!! :-)

Jacob

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Fawkes

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Wisp

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Fawkes and "E"

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Kittens!!

One of my favorite projects this summer was caring for the litter of kittens that stayed at my house for a few weeks in May/June. Little "Spring", "Summer", "Winter" and "Fall" were apparently ditched at my house with their mother "Persephone" in late May. Grrr. There ARE better ways to surrender animals, but that's another subject I suppose. Through the Richmond SPCA's Foster to Surrender program, I fostered these kittens and their mother in an upstairs bathroom until they were big enough to spay/neuter (i.e., when they reached about 2 lbs each). What fun!! They were (as you can see) ADORABLE and very entertaining --- and Persephone was the perfect mother, so I had very little to do beyond feeding and cleaning the litter boxes. Happy to report that the kittens were adopted within 24 hours of being placed on the adoption floor --- and I feel certain that Mom will go soon too. Interested in becoming a foster parent? Just ask me how. :-)

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Tricks are for Kids

I took several of my dogs (Flake, Gadget and Daisy) to the Children's Museum of Richmond to do some tricks this weekend. We must have seen over 200 kids and adults during the two shows we did --- and the dogs were (mostly) great. I think Gadget (above) delights in adding a little comedy to our routines, rolling over when I say SIT, sitting when I say DOWN and so forth. Sigh. I suppose there are worse things she could do --- and she usually finishes with a flourish. All of the kids seemed to enjoy the fun --- and Phyllis/Kaitlyn did a great job managing the traffic between shows. Many thanks!! Their young dog "Miley" made her demonstration debut and was very impressive. She seems oh-so-very-smart, happy to be petted and hugged, and unrattled by all the activity and noise. I see great things (and many demonstrations) in her future. :-)

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The videographer from the Richmond Times Dispatch captured some of the tricks here: http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2010/aug/07/amazing-animals-day-at-the-childrens-m-60940-vi-18935/

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Hot Vegetables

This summer has been brutal in terms of gardens and vegetable crops. I watered and watered and watered and watered --- and eventually gave up because even twice a day didn't seem sufficient in the 100+ degree heat. Sigh. Maybe next year will be cooler. We can certainly hope. :-)

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By way of a report though, I planted a bunch of earthboxes (as in prior years) and did have a beautiful crop of squash almost immediately. See results above. These were definitely labeled as yellow squash when I planted them, but the results look a whole lot like gourds to me --- and they are still hard as rocks (alas). Pretty to look at, but not too tasty. I also had plenty of delicious tomatoes for a few weeks and basil seems to be coming up everywhere still. I also had about three weeks of strawberries, three weeks of eggplants, a bunch of cucumbers, some very bitter yellow and green peppers, and some baby watermelons that look almost ripe now and are still going strong. I may try raised beds (as opposed to earthboxes) the next time around, to see if perhaps they can be watered more and will therefore wilt less. Fingers crossed. For an explanation of earthboxes, please see my earlier posts (and better photographs) here:

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http://sarahsfarmreport.blogspot.com/2008/04/vegetables.html

http://sarahsfarmreport.blogspot.com/2007/09/tomatoes.html

http://sarahsfarmreport.blogspot.com/2008/05/very-happy-vegetables.html

Go Fish!

Once again, I am making up for lost time on this blog. Will try to post several times during the week ahead to include all the fun events of June and July --- and then maybe start posting more regularly. Fingers crossed.

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For starters (and as you can see above), I now have a fish tank sitting in my kitchen, which makes me very happy. Fish tank maintenance has apparently become a lot more complicated since my childhood guppy-raising days though --- and I now know all about "cycling" a tank and testing weekly for pH, ammonia, nitrate and nitrite levels. It took over 6 weeks for my tank levels to stabilize --- but my little 10-gallon aquarium is now the happy home of quite a few fish and one dwarf amazon frog. Looks like my red platy is pregnant too, so there may be fish fry to photograph in the days ahead. I will continue to add pictures as I take them.

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1 Red Platy

3 Zebra Danios

2 Neon Tetras

2 Xray/Pristella Tetras

1 Dwarf Amazon Frog

Fourth of July

Okay --- so I got a little bored watching fireworks on the 4th of July and decided to have some photographic fun. This is what happens when you go for long exposures and deliberate movement of the camera. As Forrest Gump said, "you never know what you're gonna get", but I kind of like the effects. :-)

Hay There

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Nothing profound to post today --- but thought I would share pictures of the beautiful field next to my house. My neighbors mow the field for hay a few times during the summer, but it is really the most beautiful when they haven't mowed in awhile. The ground is just uneven enough to catch the light perfectly at dusk, stretching out in big stripes of shade and light. Click the link below to see an early blog post with pictures of the same field being mowed in June 2008.

http://sarahsfarmreport.blogspot.com/2008/06/hay.html

Copy Cat Crafting

First of all, it has been WAY too long since I posted to my blog. Apologies to anyone who has checked in recently and found nothing new. I am making promises to be better during the months ahead. And I might even find time to create a few "makeup" posts, as I have been anything but idle since February.


This weekend has been full of cleaning and catching up --- but I did find time to copy my friend Annie in a crafting endeavor. See above for the results. Much fun!! The link to Annie's post about a similar project is below --- and she was inspired by Beverly (who I have never met) at the link below that. Thank you to both of these talented crafters for inspiring me to actually make something. I think about crafting often, but starting is not my strong suit. :-)

Annie's post is here:
http://adorkableannie.blogspot.com/2010/05/for-to-serve.html

Beverly's post is here:
http://www.flamingotoes.com/2010/05/serving-tower/

I started by finding plates and cups at the West End Antiques Mall --- deciding to use blue and white "Willow Ware" --- which I love and which is readily available in individual semi-matched pieces. I used the Gorilla Glue that Beverly recommended in her post and it worked great. Started by stacking the plates and cups in endless combinations, trying to decide on the best design for my serving piece. Honestly, I could have stacked for a very long time (muttering to myself about all the possibilities), but decided I had better start gluing before the weekend was over. Making crafting decisions is apparently not my strong suit either.

I glued an upside-down salad plate to the bottom of the biggest plate as Beverly suggested, so that my serving tower would sit slightly off the table, stacking books on top of the glued stack for about 30 minutes at each "level". I actually glued some of my top pieces together and some of the bottom pieces togther and then glued my two mini-stacks to each other, which seemed to work fine and speeded up the process a bit, since I could have two sections drying at once. The finished serving tower seems very sturdy and I look forward to using it to entertain soon. Here's hoping I can inspire someone else to go try this fun and easy project. I know there are LOTS of plates and cups out there just waiting for a second career!

This was my "collection".

And this was the "super" glue.

This was my first level (actually shown upside down).

Almost done.

And here is the final tower!!

Road Trip

I drove to Maryland with a friend last weekend to pick up her newly adopted puppy (who may or may not eventually be named "Sparky Malarkey"). She found him on petfinder.com and it was love at first sight. He is probably 11 weeks old and looks like a border collie mix. The story is that he was found as a stray in Kentucky and was driven to a small shelter in Maryland by a gentleman in a pickup truck who found him and couldn't locate an owner. Now of course he is in Virginia, so this little guy has already traveled more than most dogs ever will. He may also be the cutest puppy I have seen in the past year.

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Barns

This image was taken on my way back from Maryland last weekend. The roads were clear, but (as you can see) there was still a lot of snow on the ground. I wish I had a barn like this, or even a much smaller one, on my farm. Doesn't every farm need a barn? I thought I read that somewhere. Rumor has it there was a barn at one time, but it fell down or was sold off or something like that. There is something that looks like an old building foundation behind and to the right of the farm house, so I imagine that was where it was located ---- but the area is now covered by small trees and brush. Sigh. Maybe one day I will figure out how (and where) to put a barn --- and then of course I'll need horses or other fun animals to live inside.

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Snow and Ice

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The storm appears to be over (at least until Tuesday) and the sun even came out a bit this afternoon, which was lovely. We still have a whole lot of snow on the ground in Richmond though --- and they got TONS of it up in the Maryland and DC area. Cold temperatures mean we will probably continue to have both snow and ice for the remainder of the week, although I am happy to report that roads have been easy-to-navigate so far. Also happy to report that tall rubber boots appear to have been the best investment I made in 2009!!

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