A Good Day at Doggie School

I probably haven't said much on here about Cooper's classes.  He's the sweetest little guy - almost three years old, so a bit past the age for "puppy classes" but a friend in Nevada, MO had told me about her dog that was afraid of everything and a trainer in Nevada had helped her dog so much. I contacted the trainer and we got Cooper enrolled in classes. Today he finished his fourth class. Two more to go. He has come so far but I don't think the trainer had expected things to go so slowly and she's probably going to suggest more classes but . . it's a bit over an hour there and a bit over an hour back and an hour there twice a week. With the garden, I'm not sure I can do it.

Honestly, I think I learned more than Cooper has. Apparently Cooper needs more self-confidence and I'm always doing things for him and shielding him from the experiences he might learn from . . very nicely, she said (I think) that I need to stop being a mother hen.

Today was Class 4 and this was the first class where he hasn't seriously tried to bite her.  The first class, I kept him back and didn't let him get too close to her. She kept telling me not to pull back on the leash when he got too close but she didn't believe he would bite her. I was pretty sure he would. The second class, he lunged at her and had I not yanked back on the leash, he would have bit her and she thanked me for keeping the leash tight. At the end of that class, she asked how I felt about using a muzzle. I told her I would be a lot calmer if he was wearing a muzzle. She showed me the kind to order - he can eat and drink through it and he can pant so I ordered one . . actually I had to order two because even though I measured, the first one was too big.

Class #3 he had his muzzle on but when she got too close, he flipped out, barking and screaming like she was killing him (she hadn't touched him). You may remember that he did that once at the vet - he started screaming when the vet walked into the room before she ever touched him. Class #3 he was on a leash with a muzzle so she took him farther from us, sat down on the floor. He backed as far away from her as he could with his leash, growled every time she made the smallest move, screamed if he thought she was coming close to him. After about half an hour of that, he moved over closer to her and before class was over, he crawled up on her lap and let her pet him.

The worst thing he did at Class #3 - the trainer had a small-ish stuffed dog. She got him down to show me how I could put food through the front of the muzzle and he would stick his nose right in and I wouldn't have to fight him to get the muzzle on. As soon as she sat that dog on the floor, Cooper attacked the dog - seriously attacked the stuffed dog!

We've been taking him out in public, far away from people and other dogs but he can see them and today he didn't growl, didn't bark at her; didn't try to bite her.

Near the end of class, she got the stuffed dog out again and put it towards the end of the room. We were instructed to walk him towards the dog, pay attention to his body language and when he tensed up, we would turn and walk away from the dog. We did that several times and then she moved the dog so we would walk just a bit closer and he never reacted to the dog. She was teaching us to read his body language and remove him from situations that made him uncomfortable before he over reacted.

She had one of those tunnels and she wanted Vince to get at one end and I would get at the other and we were to see if he would run through the tunnel. She didn't think he would but wanted to see how he reacted. He ran right through it . . THREE times! Then she had a bar kinda like jumping hurdles but for a dachshund, it was barely off the floor. She wanted us to use food to see if he would jump over the bar. He did!

Today was a great day. Next week, instead of going on Tuesday and Friday, we're going to take more "field trips" with him, expose him to more and see her on Friday.

He did so much better today and we were so happy with his progress.

WIPS I'll Work on Through June

 A few days ago a reader left a comment that when I work on G. Leger again, she'll get hers out and work on it with me. Thanks Barbara! When y'all comment about my stitching (or lack of stitching!), it inspires me to do better!

I sat down and made a list of the projects I'll work on through June so if you see any of these that you would like to start or pull yours out and work on, please do it and let me know that you're doing it.

Now that I'm stitching on one project for a week, starting each Monday with a different project, these are the ones on the radar (and on my calendar in red ink!) for the next 7 Mondays (because June has 5 Mondays).

May 18 - Prairie Life Sampler (Heartstring Samplery)
May 25 - Autumn Moon (Plum Street)
June 1 - G. Leger (Reflets de Soie)
June 8 - Winter Rose Manor (Brenda Gervais)
June 15 - Noel Sampler (Brenda Gervais)
June 22 - New Year Sampler (Owl Forest Embroidery) Etsy - pdf
June 29 - The Lord's Prayer (Lila's Studio)

I've linked all to 123 Stitch or to Brenda Gervais' website because I don't think 123 Stitch carries all of her charts. Some of these - if you prefer a PDF, The Lord's Prayer and Prairie Life Sampler can be found on the designers' websites or on their Etsy sites.

With our mail being . . I want to be kind . . not so great, and since I stitch using the Markup app and have to make a PDF anyway, I much prefer to order the PDF vs. the paper chart and waiting/hoping it gets here.

More Jam!

 Dearest Vince! Please do not pick any more strawberries! 

Seriously, I have never had strawberries this good and I wouldn't mind if he picked some every day but maybe just enough to eat. I can't think of anything else I could can with strawberries!

The first thing I made was strawberry syrup and I think I made about 24 pints of that. Then Vince picked more strawberries and I made Strawberry Rhubarb Jam. I think I made about 18 half pints. Can't remember and am too tired to go upstairs and look. This morning, he picked more strawberries! We had to take Cooper to Nevada for his "school". We left here about 2 and got home about 5. I had hulled and sliced the strawberries before we left so I immediately started making jam when we got home. I made two batches . . well three really. I made 4 pints and 8 half pints of more strawberry rhubarb jam and I made two pots of strawberry jalapeno jam. That's my favorite! I made 8 pints and 1 half pint of that one. So . . for today's jam making, I made the equivalent of 33 half pints of jam. I can't wait to have toast with the strawberry jalapeno jam!!

Tomorrow I sit and stitch all day with Debbie. I always look so forward to spending time with her and being able to sit and stitch without any interruptions! 

Oh, and the whole l reason for making this post:  A reader had left a comment asking for my strawberry rhubarb jam recipe. This is the recipe I use. I like it because it doesn't call for added pectin. When using pectin, I've always heard you shouldn't double the recipe. I wanted to double or triple this recipe so I chopped my strawberries, measured them out, then decided how much rhubarb I needed. If you're buying rhubarb and it's expensive, I'm sure you could cut back on it and maybe add more strawberries. The first batch of jam I made, I used 15 cups of chopped rhubarb. It helps that I have it growing in the back yard.

When I made the strawberry jalapeno jam, I wanted to double it so I made two separate batches instead of actually doubling it since it uses pectin.

Who knows . . maybe you can double the recipe even if there's pectin. I've always heard you shouldn't so I don't.

Tweaking the Stitching Plan

 The stitching plan I came up with a few months ago was this: Put all the WIPS I want to work on until they're finished in a big tub. The project bag with the floss and working copy of the chart in the tub with the project so I don't have to search for anything. I would grab a project, work on it for five days, put it away, grab another one and work on it for five days but then I had to wait for two months before I could work on any project again. That worked out fine but, because when I'm with Debbie once a week, we have specific projects to work on so my five days working on a given project could be Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Or it could be Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. That got a bit confusing - not terribly because I look at my calendar every day but every day, before I looked at my calendar, I would think . . is this the day I start another project??

So, the new plan is this:

Start a different project every Monday. Work on it Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Same rule applies - can't work on a project til it's been set aside for at least two months.

It's kinda the same plan as the original but I think this one will work better for me.

2026 Garden!

 The garden is finally planted. Here, I usually plant by mid to late April. 

This year, it was May 9 and 10 when I was finally able to get the plants in the ground. I still have three mineral tubs I can plant something in. I'm probably going to leave at least two of them not planted and use those for planting zucchini at various intervals to try to outsmart the vine borers.

Here are a few photos of what the garden looks like today.

This is the little compost bin I had in Texas. I used it when we first moved here but then Vince built a nice, wooden compost bin but I think it attracted mice and I don't want mice in my compost! We couldn't find the base to this plastic bin but this weekend Vince trimmed a big pine-ish tree that had grown out of control and found the base to the compost bin so I can begin using this again.     

You may remember that we had a volunteer tomato that came up last year. It has tiny (a bit bigger then spoon tomatoes), super sweet tomatoes and Cooper LOVED those. Every time he went outside, he went straight to that tomato plant and I would give him a tomato or two. I saved seeds but so many of them came up volunteer again this year, I didn't need to any that I had started. That's three of them in that tub that I moved but any bed that was near "Cooper's tomato" now has more tomato plants in it.

There are other tomatoes. I think I planted about about 24 tomatoes - some slicing, some canning.

The rabbits love sleeping in the raised beds. You can see where at least one of them made his bed in the potatoes. Those rabbits are such a pain and about the time we think they're all gone, we see more baby bunnies. Vince had already put chicken wire around some of the beds but this weekend, he added it to those that didn't have it. 

 

You can get an idea of the garden layout here. To the left where there's an open area, we had a couple of raised beds but Vince moved those this year. We're putting up a chain link fence, about 20' x 20' in that area so the dogs can play. We have a wood fence but there are places where they might go under it plus on both sides of the house is a retaining wall and I'm afraid the dogs will get to running and go over those walls and land 4 - 5' below on the concrete patio so . . they're getting a fenced play yard within the wood fenced area.

These little peppers are already producing. There are four purple peppers on two of those plants! I hope this means I will get a good crop of peppers. I think I planted about 25 peppers - giant Marconi, bell - green and purple, jalapeno, cayenne, poblano and I can't remember what else.

Above are the candy roaster sprouts. I love these and am so hoping I can keep them safe from the vine borers.

The rhubarb is doing great. I made a triple batch of strawberry rhubarb jam last week - 13 half pints. I hope to get that much made again this week. I'm trying to get the strawberry rhubarb jam made while the amazing strawberries are available. Thank goodness I don't have to replant rhubarb every year.

Yesterday I repotted the bay leaves. I had two bay leaf trees (way smaller than these) when we lived in Kentucky. I would bring them into the garage when nights were going to be colder than about 30 degrees. They say they will survive down to 20 degrees but I bring the in if it's going to be 30 or colder. But, one night in Kentucky I forgot to bring them in and they both died. I looked for years for more bay leaf trees. In Texas, either the Fed Ex or UPS guy told me he had seen some at a nursery in Abilene. Since we went to Abilene, about 70 miles from us, for most of our medical issues and for the vet who treated Rita's eyes, we ran by the nursery on one trip and got two bay leaf trees.

They both were fine for several years, then one of them started looking sickly. Both were in pots and they had ants in the pots. They were just full of ants. I would pour Neem oil/water through the pots often and one of the plants did fine and one seemed to be dead. I kept treating it and babying it but it appeared to be dead. The greenhouse was near the woods so one day I threw the dead bay leaf out in the woods. 

A couple of years later, we were out in that area and something bright green caught my eye. That "dead" bay leaf had started growing. I grabbed it, put it in a pot of dirt and it grew. 

Now you can't even tell which tree was the "dead" one. I keep them in pots because we have to bring them in and out of the garage all winter. The two big pots are the bay leaf trees. The 5 gallon bucket has a basil plant in it.

Last but not least, the fence guys are here. They will set the posts today and be back "later this week" to get the fence up. I think Cooper and Oscar are going to love being able to go out there and play.

Patriotic Finishes

Back in February, Debbie and I decided to work on patriotic pieces on the one day per week that we get together to stitch.

This week I finished the last piece I had on this one piece of linen. I do have other patriotic WIPS. Some of them will be finished in time to add to my Independence Day decorations; some will hopefully be finished by next year.

Here's the piece I finished a couple of days ago. There are 6 projects on here. The flag (third on the left) was my Finish #3 for 2026 so, with the other 5 projects, I've finished 8 pieces now.

I'll try to give a bit of information on each piece.

I'm kinda confused because I thought I stitched that flag (third one down on the left). I know I stitched that and finished it on February 13 so I'm not sure how it ended up in the middle of that piece of linen. But . . it's there so we'll just go with it.

The linen is 36 count Vintage Country Mocha.

Top left:  All American Cross Stitch by Primrose Cottage Stitches.

Second from Top left: Sarah Jane's 1776 Saltbox (freebie at Pinker N Punkin.

Third from Top left: One of the Grand Olde Flags  by Brenda Gervais (three different flags).

Bottom Left - Old Glory by SubRosa. She has several other pieces that coordinate.

Top Right - Fourth of July Rules by Primrose Cottage Stitches.

Bottom Right - 4th of July Hoopla by Brenda Gervais.

There are a few blank spots but I was afraid by the time I left room for finishing, I might not have enough room so I'll save what I can and use if when/if I need a really small piece.

I don't know if any of these will be framed but I hope to get them all fully finished by the first of June.

Tomorrow's Storms

 For once, I'm not complaining about bad weather predicted for tomorrow. I pray no one has tornadoes or hail or any serious bad weather and I certainly wasn't hoping for storms,  though I may have hoped for rain.

As I mentioned, we picked about 22 pounds of strawberries Saturday. Then we came home, Vince helped stem them and I chopped them ALL and made strawberry syrup, then canned 24 pints and 1 half pint of the syrup.

Then Sunday, also as I already mentioned, I spent hours getting the kitchen clean from that big canning session. 

I was looking so forward to spending all day today stitching (Monday) but Taco Salad was on the menu for today and I somehow overlooked buying lettuce when we were at the store last week so I told Vince I needed to run to Walmart to get lettuce. He needed some things. I needed a couple of other things so it wasn't as quick of a trip as I had hoped. Vince wanted to stop at one of the dollar stores and I said "Can we please just go home?" Yes. A one stop trip . . rarely happens but it did.

After lunch, I was happy to go down and start stitching. I sat down and . . fell asleep. I slept in the chair with the dogs for at least two hours.

The strawberry patch isn't open every day. Some days they're closed because they're all "picked out". Some days they're closed for ripening. They were closed today and were going to open 9 - 12 in the morning. Vince wanted to go back and get more and I do want to make strawberry rhubarb jam. Because we have to go to Nevada tomorrow for Cooper's class, I figured today I would pick rhubarb, get it washed and chopped. Then tomorrow after we pick the berries, I would come home, wash those, chop them and be ready to make the jam and get it canned when we get home about 6 p.m. I would also wash the jars, get the water in the canner so I don't have to do any of that tomorrow.

I really want to get the strawberry jam made because once rhubarb and strawberries are gone . . that's it for this year. But, I also have a "meet and greet" at a neighbor's home tomorrow at 1, then I have to leave for Nevada about 2:15 so that doesn't give me much time to get anything done.

When I woke up from my nap, a message popped up on my Facebook that they've cancelled the strawberry picking for tomorrow because of weather!! They will pick Wednesday during the day but I'll be with Debbie so Vince will go pick. How nice! I don't have to do the picking but I'll have lots of fresh berries to make the jam.