I know, I promised...

I have been telling everyone I know that I won't be fostering any more dogs until I sell the house. The constant attention required to tend to a foster dog takes a lot of time away from doing some things that need to be done to prepare the house for potential buyers. My own dogs are pretty civilized and behave themselves most of the time (oh, except for Jota digging in the yard and occasionally peeing on the otoman) but rescue dogs, in most cases, have been through the ringer of street life, and come with a lot of unpredictable behavior. Anyway, that may seem obvious but you don't always remember that aspect when you look into their eyes. Ok, I kept on telling everyone that I was going to be good and work on the house, and I was telling everyone that because I needed to convince myself that that is what I was going to do. (I do that a lot, I realize.) Well, as you can see, I've taken in another litter of puppies and their mom. But, there is a caveat, it's only for a couple weeks and they'll be ready for new homes. Meanwhile, we are enjoying the fun of 6 week old puppies (the BEST time of puppyhood!) There are 6 of them (2 boys, 4 girls) and they look like little cows with their black spots.
The mom's name is Tara (following the Gone With the Wind theme, I'm told) and she is a Treeing Walker Coon Hound**. She's very sweet and came with an orange hunting collar. She was very thin and exhausted when she was picked up in Ramsey and no one claimed her at animal control.

Miss Pittypat























Rhett, above Prissy, right.



***According to AKC standards, the Treeing Walker Coonhound is described by the following:
Qualitative Characteristics
Energetic, intelligent, active, courteous, composed, confident, fearless, kind, graceful in pose and while active. Super abundance of sense, endurance, trailing, hunting and treeing instinct and ability.

Ilana and Jota

Jennifer's baby Ilana visited us some months ago. Here are two videos of Ilana and Jota, as well as a short clip with the puppies that we were fostering at the time.



Ilana and Salem's puppies

Let the kids play!!

I'm stealing another fellow unschooler's blog idea! I came across this video on Kelli's unschooling blog and felt compelled to share it here. Here's a brindis to getting our kids out of a lot of these structured activities and letting them explore the world through play! Heck, while we're at it, we adults need more playtime, too. The highway would be a happier place if people were enjoying the ride.

Every 1st Wednesday of the month...

Every Wednesday Selena and Xavier deliver papers for their routes. Selena uses the money to care for her ferrets. Xavier is paying back a loan from Grandma and Grandpa for his classical guitar. In the case of the paper routes, I am the driver. Generally, the routes take a couple hours each and we pass the time by listening to podcasts from public radio. Well, this is a roundabout way of explaining why I'm never at home on Wednesdays, but by chance, I was at home this month when the civil service sirens went off. We are only within 1/4 of a mile from the Ham Lake siren and the dogs really respond to the blare. Well, yesterday I got Jota's reaction on video for posterity!

Recent Pleasures

Selena and I are in the middle of enjoying the Masterpiece Theater series, "Cranford". For some reasons, which I don't feel like revealing here, we both LOVE these English period pieces. Xavier does not get too enthusiastic about them but he did stick with this one through the first two hours, but then he got tired of it and went back to his guitar and video game. But Selena and I were giggling and sighing through the first half of it. We were having SO much fun last night that we didn't get to bed until midnight. Selena had a full day of classes but had a hard time stopping the VCR and saving the rest for tonight!

Anyway, Cranford is based on three novels of Elizabeth Gaskell. It takes place during a period of intense change in England in the 1840's. Cranford is a small town with a set of interesting, funny and endearing characters. And we LOVE Judi Dench! I'll watch anything in which she appears. Recently we saw Masterpiece Theater's production of Oliver Twist, which was really good, and Xavier really liked it, too.

On a different note, I might add that I am asked at times about how my kids are acquiring knowledge of certain subjects. Well, it's easy to see in this case what kinds of things we are learning by enjoying a film like this and freely talking about it (as opposed to, for example, doing homework for a class on English literature or history, or economics, or, let's see, sociology etc..) If I had forced Selena and Xavier to watch these films and given them follow up questions afterward I'm sure that we wouldn't be enjoying the experience, and thus, learning as many things. The beautiful thing is that I can see it happening right in front of me. This life can be great indeed.

Northern Pine Float

Every year Lino Lakes has a parade and for the past couple years Northern Pine Studios has presented a float. Although Xavier is studying anymore at Northern Pine he was invited to play the banjo on the float. They pretty much stick to Bluegrass so there were banjo, guitar, mandolin and fiddle players.
Our friend Laura joined us for the day. We walked behind the float and passed out candy and brochures about the studio. Although Laura is undergoing kemotherapy she was determined to walk with us this year (last year we were rained out.)

The band is ready to go. Rick Taube (owner of northern Pine) set up a loudspeaker so he could sing as well as project the music out to the crowd.Laura Giefer and Selena. On the 18th (Monday) Selena turns 17 years old!!

Andy Troska, Rick and Xavier are warming up.

Five Dogs in the Kitchen

Tonight our city Ham Lake celebrates the end of the summer with fireworks and a party in the local park. We live only a half mile from said park and can sit outside and watch the fireworks and listen to the music. This evening we decided to stay in and watch the Olympics. For some of you that own dogs you know what I am talking about when I say that fireworks instill terror and drooling in our dogs. Xavier took this photo of me trying to prepare shrimp scampi for supper with a kitchen full of scared dogs. Jota, our Great Dane, poor creature, is terrified of the noise and lights! Apparently he feels much better if he can lean against me or at least touch me. A little rum always helps a little!

And kitty makes nine...

It's been a couple years since we had a healthy, family cat. We've had foster cats but never a cat that decided that we were family. Recently I met "Jack" at a pet adoption day and we hit it off right away. I decided to foster him for awhile to make sure that he would get along with the dogs and (except for Jota, the Dane) they have all done well together. We are still working on convincing Jota that the cat is not a play thing but we are very optimistic that we will be able to work things out between them.

"Jack" has been renamed William or "Billy Bob." He is fearless with the dogs (which is exactly what we needed in a cat) and he is cuddly and affectionate. He is also overweight from sitting in a crate since last November. Unfortunately, this is the fate of many unwanted cats and dogs; they sit in a tiny space waiting for a home. Many times a home never appears and they are euthanized. Not for William.