Dog Days

A busy weekend with the grandkids ended at the beginning of the week, with (among other things) a trip to Lava Lands Visitor Center just south of Bend, where we did a couple of short hikes. Short, because it was very hot, and our granddog, Louis, was having trouble with his feet on the hot pavement and sand trails. 

I think poodles must have tough feet, because our dogs didn't seem bothered by it, but they were happy to drink a lot more water than usual. We had some beautiful views, and it was fun just being together.

The boys both wanted to hold Sandy's leash. I remembered the trick I learned with Therapy Animals of Utah of adding a second leash to the collar (or harness, in this case) so one of the boys could hold one leash and I could hold the others. They had to take turns.

After the visit, Louis decided he had had enough of being in the car, so he shredded his car bed.

On July 4th, the kids left to go home. I was singing in the Festival Chorus for the Fourteenth Annual Sound Fourth! Fourth of July Concert. It was a lot of fun, and the imperfect but charming performance by the Cascade Horizon Band brought back memories of celebrations from my childhood, where a small band performed on a bandstand set up on the shore of Jamaica Pond, where we lived then, just outside Boston. This was my view of the audience and our director, the only downside.

That night, I took Sandy out to our front yard to watch the fireworks, hoping the experience would inoculate him against fear of the loud bangs we're subjected to every July 4th. I held him up to see, and every time a rocket when up, I pointed to it and raved about how beautiful it was, and weren't we having fun. He seemed very interested and not at all frightened. (Photo from The Source Weekly.)

Later in the week, we took the dogs to the off-leash dog park at Pine Nursery. The meet-up group was supposed to have an event there during which dogs of participants could socialize with each other, followed by beer and eats at 10 Barrel Brewing's East Side location. When we got to the park a few minutes late, we couldn't find anyone, but the dogs got to have some off-leash time. While we were looking around, another person came, a lady with a silver miniature poodle a little smaller than Dusty. She was also looking for the group. We talked and decided it was late enough they must have cancelled. The three of us decided to go to the brewery and meet there.

We had a nice visit with Maggie and Asta. The dogs exchanged sniffs and we exchanged phone numbers. After we got home Maggie sent a text saying she received notification that the meeting at the dog park had been cancelled due to excessive heat. We had tried to sign up at the last minute but couldn't, so maybe it had already been cancelled then.

Sandy had another puppy training class on Sunday. Among other things, we got some tips on loose-leash walking. Sandy amused the class with his nonchalance when the trainer gave each dog a chew stick. Sandy played with it like a cat with a toy, then took it in his mouth and rolled around on the floor, stopping on his back as if he were just going to take a nap. One of the other dogs is pretty high-strung, and two others are a little nervous, so he got a lot of attention for being laid-back.

After the kids left on Tuesday, I got back to the quilts. I have finished all of the pieced blocks now. I'm using a pattern called "Disappearing Hourglass." You take an hourglass block, cut it up, move things around and put it back together to form a new design. This is an hourglass block, one I made for Johan's quilt to go with green.

You measure the block, divide the size by three and then cut it into thirds vertically and horizontally. After you rotate the nine resulting pieces and sew them together you can end up with this (but there are other variations):

Here's what the block looked like after cutting:

This is how the pieces were rotated before sewing them back together in their new orientations:

There's a YouTube video demonstrating the technique.

I had decided to put the blocks on point with setting squares. First I had to figure out how to arrange the blocks, because they are all different from each other. I gave up my design wall when we moved, but I decided I could do it on my computer just as well, so I took a photo of each block. Then I put them into a word-processing document and arranged them in rows, moving them around until I was satisfied that the individual fabrics and other characteristics of the blocks were dispersed. Here's a screen shot of what I ended up with. (They aren't very evenly spaced, because I didn't think that was important.) There is one block where I forgot to turn the center square. Can you find it? I think it make the quilt interesting, as do the blocks where the pattern just about disappears.

Now all I have to do is sew them together in diagonal rows, with the blocks in each row of my screenshot in the same locations, only on point. I hope to get that done this week.

While the kids were here, Johan found a beetle that had a body about one inch long and striped. He said it hissed at him. When we went to look, the beetle had run off. However, a few days later, I found this fellow in the dog water dish. I "rescued" him and left him on the rail. He was there long enough for me to get a photo. Peter looked him up and learned he was a Ten-lined (hissing) June Beetle. Perhaps I shouldn't have saved his life, because the larvae feed on roots of grass, bushes and trees, but I did, and he left after he dried out.

In other dog-related news, we found another one of Sandy's teeth, this time on the mat the dog dish rests on. We now have two souvenirs of his early puppyhood.

I've continued to experiment with using the pressure cooker to heat food that normally would go in the gas oven, since our new trailer won't have one of those, just the microwave/convection oven that needs electricity (shown below, with the sticker on the door).

We will have the gas cooktop, so if we are camping where we don't have electricity, we should be able to heat things up in the pressure cooker on that.

Here's what I have to work with, shown here on the stove in my house kitchen.

This is a Presto 6-quart pressure cooker with several choices of racks. I found a silicone "sling" online that can be used to put around a dish or bowl in the pressure cooker for reheating. I'm also getting a springform pan I can use. As I've done with the plastic food storage containers, I can line it with heavy-duty foil and freeze a casserole. The springform pan will be easy to remove from the frozen meal and then replaced for cooking, so I can use the same pan over and over. The square containers will not go into the pressure cooker, obviously, so I will need to put the food on a metal rack.

I have bought new sheets and a new duvet cover to replace the old ones, which are worn out. 

Now I'm knitting a new dishcloth with some of the yarn I used for warp for the rugs I made for our fifth wheel. 

I decided that grey, aqua and teal will be the mail colors in the new trailer. The woodwork is grey, and the upholstery is an exciting beige. The rugs have grey and beige in them, but also some aqua. I can probably only use two of the rugs at a time in the new trailer, but it will be good to have a spare in case one gets muddy.

We hope to be able to pick up our new camping trailer next week.

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 "Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. 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 and Mariah, 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 Kultainen käki cardigan and the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating), but also the dishcloth.

What's on my loom: I only made a few picks on the placemats.

What's on my sewing machine: Still the quilt, but ready to put the blocks together.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In Reading Things, Mandy reads her knitting, but also other things.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Die Unendliche Geschichte by Michael Ende. I'm really enjoying listening to it in German at .7 speed (70% of normal). 

What's in my wine glass: Bodegas De Olmo Garnacha 2019, from Spain. Very...Spanish.

What's my tip of the week: I should have worked back from a finished size for a block that was an even number, such as 10" or 11" instead of 10.5", which is what I got starting out with an arbitrary 7" square to make my original half-square triangles. When you divide a finished block size by 3, it's nice if it's something you can measure accurately with a ruler divided into eighths and sixteenths instead of decimals.

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

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

Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are also still available from booksellers. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories in Emil are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The three 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. 

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.

<a class="blsdk-follow" href="https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/highfiber-7365001" target="_blank" data-blsdk-type="button" data-blsdk-counter="false">Follow</a><script>(function(d, s, id) {var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if (d.getElementById(id)) return;js = d.createElement(s);js.id = id;js.src = "https://www.bloglovin.com/widget/js/loader.js?v=1";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, "script", "bloglovin-sdk"))</script>

<a href="https://www.bloglovin.com/blog/7365001/?claim=kkvctsdtf4n">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a> 

Interesting Times

Scotch tasting!

We met with about 18 other members of the meet-up groups for single-malt scotch tasting Tuesday evening. This is the second of these events we have attended. We sampled four different scotches and ranked them according how we liked them.
Our samples were small, but they are pretty high in alcohol, so we had food. Everyone brought something.

My favorite scotch was Ardbeg, which is produced on the Scottish Island of Islay (pronounced EYE-lah).

During one of our walks this past week, we encountered more deer. There were about eight of them, all young males. They were pretty spread out, so it was hard to get them all in the photos. The pups found them interesting.

I finished the first Trickle Brick Sock. I had a lot of knitting time in the car on Monday when we came home from our trip and while watching the two days of hearings.

When we arrived in Beaverton last weekend, I discovered I was missing one of my earrings. It must have been caught up in my shawl, but it wasn't there. We combed through the leaves next to where we parked the car. I kept the remaining earring, thinking I could put it on a chain for a necklace. When we brought our things in from the car after returning home on Monday, I went through each plastic grocery bag for receipts. At the bottom of one was my missing earring. Here they are, reunited.

Last week's story was "Parts of Things," taking a look at fractions, their uses and how they work. I had to take a lot of photos for the story.

Rocky had his yearly wellness exam. The vet recommended a dental cleaning now, even though his teeth were still pretty clean, with only a bit of build-up. The recommendation was to do it now because he is 15 and he may not be healthy enough later on when he really needs it, so a preventative cleaning. All his blood work came back normal (excellent, actually, considering his age), so we decided to go ahead with the dental. 

Sunday we went to another concert.

Here's the program:

The musical groups here are amazing, and the drive to the high school auditorium, where the performances take place, is only about seven minutes.

On our way home, we found the sky filled with contrails. We found an explanation here. It isn't from today, but I'm assuming the explanation still fits.

Not deer, but still interesting.

The trip to the vet, the hearings on TV, our walks, the concert and two choir rehearsals pretty much used up the time this week.

There is a Chinese curse that goes, "May you live in interesting times." I guess we do.

What's on my needles: The second Trickle Brick Sock; just starting the pattern.

What's on my sewing machine: Back to trying to get some winter clothes made for Emil.

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. Another week with no progress.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Parts of Things. The dolls explore fractions and what they can be used for.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still The Tower by Gregg Hurwitz and Blowout by Rachel Maddow. DH and I are listening to The Tower together while driving, so it may be a while before I finish it. I'm finding Blowout fascinating.

What's in my wine glass: Charles Shaw Red Blend 2016 (aka "Two-buck Chuck"), appropriate to go along with the small herd of bucks we saw on our walk.

What's my tip of the week: Onions and potatoes stored at room temperature will sprout sooner than those stored in the refrigerator, but if your garage is warm enough in the winter, you can keep them there. We put them in the refrigerator in the summer, because our garage gets too warm

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.