Don't Fence Us In

Work on the new fence continued on Monday. Here's John, working on the gate. We still have to install a metal post that will go down into the walkway to keep the gate closed.

We have been able to sit on the bench in the evening with the dogs, and the weather was pleasant through Saturday.

We didn't leave them unattended in the yard, so when Sandy escaped (as he did several times) we were able to retrieve him. Here you can see his escape route. We anticipated that this place would be a problem, so we had blocked it off with wire fencing. We have a temporary solution, blocking it now with an old baby gate and a large work bucket, but we're working on a permanent solution.

It looks rather nice. The wood will eventually weather to a grayish color.

The Portland kids were coming on Thursday, so we spent a good deal of time during the early part of the week straightening up, cleaning and putting the sheets on the beds, and then making a large casserole for when they arrived. We had a luncheon to attend on Tuesday, and Wednesday we took Dusty to the vet for his annual physical.

One of the first things the boys did after they arrived was let me read them my new book (which they already have at home). It was fun to hear what their answers to the "Reader's Challenge" questions were.

Johan helped me practice the bells. He reads music and plays the French horn fairly well. I gave him one bell and I played the other one. We went through the piece I have to learn. Then we switched bells and went through again. We got a lot of them right. There was no bell practice this week, because so many people would be missing on Sunday.

On Friday we all went to Good DogTrail off-leash area and hiked a little over three miles with the three dogs (our two and our granddog Louis). Here you can see Sandy and Dusty, but that isn't Louis in the water. Maybe Louis is camera-shy. I didn't find any photos of him from this trip. I didn't realize that until after they had left on Sunday.

Sandy loves going into the water, and it was warm enough on Friday to be pleasant.

Sandy and dusty really loved chasing sticks. Louis not so much. He seemed more interested in the other dogs who came and went while we were enjoying the little beach on the river.

It was nice to have a place to sit down right there at the beach. It makes a good break at more or less the hike's halfway point.

We spread out a bit, and Sandy kept tabs on everyone, running back and forth along the trail, from the first person to the last. I thought about how I could make a jacket for Sandy that had a pocket in it where my phone could be fastened in securely. Then, when I started the Walk for a Dog app, the mileage would be Sandy's, not mine. It would be interesting to see what his mileage was. It had to have been easily three times mine or more.

We met a couple of ladies who were intrigued with our poodles. One of them said she was interested in getting a miniature poodle and asked for the name of the breeder we got them from. I was happy to tell them about Ash's Mystical Poodles. When we left them, the one woman was looking up Marie's website on her phone. I wonder if we will have another Mystical Poodle in Bend. We had one, but the family has now moved to Eugene.

We had a tuna hot dish Thursday night, Poblano Chili Soup on Friday night and a stir-fry with rice on Saturday night. I didn't have to do all of the cooking, which is always nice. I basically just made the casserole for the first night and then put salads together, while Peter and Alexa did the rest. Our visitors brought a lot of vegetables with them and left some behind.

We also have leftovers.

We played "Screw Your Neighbor," one of our favorite card games. Johan is old enough now, that he can make reasonable plays without help.

We had some Madroña wines with our dinners, and a couple of times we had some scotch, which the kids bought because of the name.

Elsie's Christmas doll has arrived at the Portland Stuarts' home. Her name is Emily. I had her shipped directly there, because the box takes up a lot of space in the car, and they had four people and a dog. Here's a photo.

She needs more clothes that just what she comes with, so I'm putting together a wardrobe. I cast on for a little cardigan.

Here's a photo of the things I've collected to send for the doll. To go with the cardigan, there's a purple T-shirt, sparkly silver tights and a piece of fabric to use for a pleated skirt. The red pinafore and blue blouse came with the Ayelet doll (my Olivia). I added some shoes and tights to go with it. The T-shirts will go with the stretch capris I plan to make out of the dark navy fabric with the dots on the far left, so just two things to sew. Every doll needs some pajamas or a nightgown. I have ordered pajamas with slippers. That should be here soon.

LAIKA's "Wildwood" is getting good reviews so far. The film comes out on the 23rd. It's rated PG-13, and reviewers are saying, as impressive as it is, especially considering that it's stop-motion, not computer animation, this is not a show for small children. For one thing, it's too long for young kids, but besides the scary topic of kidnapping and going into a creepy forest world, there's the depiction of war and death. Here's a trailer:

https://youtu.be/bJQGtSeLPII?si=kw7OCugPYeI2xMOG

For some cuteness, here's Daphne in a number from her show choir performance. It's both singing and dancing. She has regained her normal weight and has been able to add back physical activities like marching band and tap. Soon she should be able to go back to ballet.

On Saturday, we took the dogs to the playground near the senior center. They went two other times, but I didn't go along. I went to church on Sunday, and it's starting to get cold here.

The plan is to go camping at La Pine on Wednesday. Jim is planning to go on Tuesday. Our visit will overlap with his. We're taking the electric space heater, as we will have electricity. They turn off the water on Thursday, so we will have to fill up Wednesday and then use the dump station on the way out. 

It will be time to winterize when we are home again. 

I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry, BlueSky or Spoutible if you need information.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon or B&N and search for Mandy's Little Science Lessons: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart". Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil, Mariah, Classic Tales Retold, Our Favorite Verses, More Classic Tales Retold or Billy: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them. 

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Speculoos Sweater and the Gracie Cardigan for Elsie's doll Emily (name subject to change when she reaches her new home).

What's on my iPhone: Just finished listening to Wildwood by Colin Meloy. I'm still picking out the next audiobook.

What's on my sewing machine: Doll clothes.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: We look back at the days when Billy and Emil first got their wigs in A Hair-raising Adventure, this week's story from The Doll's Storybook.
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What's my tip of the week: We're coming up on the end of Daylight Savings Time. I've been trying to stay up a little later and sleeping later, so it won't be such a big change. 

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog, and they are reproduced in print with a few changes.

Book #7 is available in BookBaby's Bookshop right now. Amazon, B&N and other booksellers has it available for presale. The release date is October 27th.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less, only 8%, because the vendor gets a cut. My author's page at Book Baby is here. Scroll down and click on any of the books that interest you. Find my books at Barbara's Bookstore as well, or ask your local library to order the books.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Running Free

By the time you read this, we expect to be at Timothy Lake, in Mount Hood National Forest, where we plan to do some hiking. Much of my time during the week was taken up with preparations, but we managed to work in a trip to Good Dog and Rimrock Trail for a three-mile hike on Thursday.

A couple of friends met us at the trailhead with their dog, Winger, who is known for absconding, the way our Rocky did when he was young. Winger did pretty well coming back to our group during our hike, though. (I had brought along a squeaker in my pocket, and that may have helped.) It wasn't too hot, but a lot of people were there, considering it was a work day for most people.

We ate our lunch at the beach, where the dogs had access to water and got to chase each other. They had a great time running around and playing, either in the water or in the dust. 

I imagine the water was cold, but it didn't seem to bother the four-leggeds, who delighted in going after sticks thrown into the water.

We had a couple of issues, first with the Walk for a Dog app, which somehow thought we were starting at Pine Nursery. I had to restart the app after we had walked for a bit and I discovered the problem. That's why the map shows us starting in one place and ending up in another. We actually started at the parking lot and ended up there (red icon). The green icon shows where we restarted the app. The other issue was where we took the wrong trail at one point and had to turn around. That trail ended at a fence, and you can see this on the map, with a detour that ends at the park boundary, in the northeast quadrant of the map.

I was happy to rest after we got home. So were Dusty and Sandy, who undoubtedly put in a lot more mileage than the human participants did, and many more steps, even if you divide their steps by two.

We've been getting the trailer ready for our trip. One of the big jobs is making the bed, after washing the sheets and duvet cover. What makes it difficult is that the mattress is surrounded on 3+ sides by walls. That means making the bed while kneeling on top of the mattress. Fortunately, it isn't too hard to pull the mattress up one corner at a time or one side/end at a time. Eventually it gets done. Not extremely neat, but this is as neat as it gets, because what you see is before anyone has slept in it. 

Tuesday was our biweekly Madroña Vineyards pop-up Zoom meeting. Some of the people had gone on a cruise with the owners to Portugal, where wines were discussed and consumed. For these meetings, I usually try to fix something halfway decent for supper to go with our wine. A few days before, we had cooked some cod, which fell apart. We had eaten the larger pieces that night, then had some of it in fish chowder. There was still some cooked cod left that needed to be eaten, so I made fish tacos. Taco Tuesday!

Our Walmart doesn't sell fabric by the yard anymore, so when I bought the nylon tulle to make scrubbies, I had to get three yards of it. I made two last week and another scrubby this week. This time I used this pattern. It had the advantage of being different from the others I made, and therefore more interesting. It has rows of double crochet and half-double crochet. You make two circles and then join them together with a slip stitch. It was pretty easy.

The Love of Spiders shawl is coming along. The rows are very long!

The whole-cloth quilt is also showing some progress. I've been trying to work on it more than the shawl when we're home, because I can't take it with me when we go camping. I don't know where I would put it in our little Pod. However, I'm almost done with the cross-hatching. I'm on the last corner. On to finishing the swags and other decorations around the whole border.

I love seeing things grow. I started some sprouts, and in a few days they were ready to eat. I've thrown a few into salads and made whole sandwiches mostly from the sprouts. Also pictured is my jar of sourdough starter, which I had just fed as I was making bread.

I've been trying to use up food from the fridge in hopes of not having to come back to spoiled food after camping. We had a lot more mushrooms than I thought we could use up in salads, so I added about five of them, sliced, to this Tofu-zucchini Custard Casserole. The zucchini and most of the sliced mushrooms are on the bottom, but I saved some sliced mushrooms to decorate the top. This recipe also helped me use up the leftover cottage cheese we had in the fridge.

Here's the recipe, although it doesn't include the mushrooms I added.

I made more granola and another batch of those Carob Fudge Brownies we took with us on our last camping trip. This recipe is better than the first one I tried.

I read through the new book again and found a few things that needed editing. My main goal, though, was to look to see where I needed to provide credits for things I was using. 

Soren was going to miss his 6th grade graduation because the family was going to Ireland, so they gave him his certificate early. The man by the door clapping for him is Mr. Klapton, Soren's SPED teacher. Soren has a lot of challenges to deal with, but he has a supportive family, and I'm sure Mr. Klapton earned his pay. Go, Soren!

I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry or Spoutible if you need information.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for More Classic Tales Retold or Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart". Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil, Mariah, Classic Tales Retold, Our Favorite Verses or More Classic Tales Retold, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still working on The Love of Spiders shawl by Melanie Berg and my Cables and Herringbones Cardigan for dolls.

What's on my iPhone: Still listening to The Widow of Fallbrooke Court by Kasey Stockton using the Chirp app.

What's on my sewing machine: Still waiting on some dish towels or something.

What's in my hoop: My whole cloth quilt. I have moved the hoop several times, so I know that means progress is happening. 

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Billy and Emil have some questions about a doll in their class who has trouble getting words out in A Different Kind of Talking.

What's my tip of the week: I have a bamboo cutting board that's big enough to cover most of my stove top. I use it as extra counter space.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes. 

The stories in More Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Welcoming a Stranger, The Rescue, Unmasked, Fuzzy Town––A Play and Sky Blue.

Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook. Poems included are Valentine's Day, Keeping Pets, Back to School, Victor the Vulture, The Week Before Christmas, Insomnia and Veronika's Vocabulary Verses.

The stories in Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

The stories in Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less, because the publisher gets a cut. Find my books at Barbara's Bookstore as well.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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