Rub a Dub Dog

Oh Lucky; he's such a cutie pie!

Lucky is a Maltese Shih Tzu mix. I adopted Lucky from the Seattle Animal Shelter in November 2003 - he was 3 months old when he was surrendered to the shelter and he spent a whole 10 minutes in the shelter before I whisked him home. Once home, we realized why Lucky might have been taken into the shelter - even at 3 months he was a handful! Very mouthy, very determined, very stubborn and willful . He LOVES to wrestle, play tug, and most of all, retrieve tennis balls / play flyball. He's a joy to have around and I couldn't imagine life without him.

Now, Lucky is nearly six years old and is still quite active (and stubborn). I retired him from the sport of flyball last year after he started slowing down (he wasn't that fast to begin with) and his knees began to give him trouble (fluxating patellas and signs of arthritis already setting in). He has pretty jacked up teeth too. I suppose his poor conformation is really the product of where Lucky likely originally came from - a pet shop / puppy mill situation, I can only imagine. Lucky's determined temperment is probably what got him through his early puppy-hood so smoothly; he has no real behavioral issues at all and will eat anything I put in front of him.

Being mostly white, 98% white, Lucky gets baths with a bit more frequeny than Scott and Mattie do. Today was Lucky's unlucky day....

The 16lb pooch fits perfectly in the Utility Sink / Doggie Wash station

Mattie and Scott look on... you can tell they are there to support Lucky through this horrible ordeal but are also secretly laughing inside - better him than me!

Mattie is starting to get concerned that as we near the end of the conditioning session of Lucky's bath that perhaps she's next...

That's one wet puppy!

After a blow-dry. Viola; one Super Fluff Puff! Sometimes Lucky does get called "Fluff-n-Puff", at least when he's not be called "Turd Burglar"

Spring Flowers

Before summer officially begins, I thought it would be good to showcase the Spring flowers we have here around the house.

Admittedly, I didn't put a lot of time into the gardens and lawns we have on our property this past Fall/Winter/Spring. It's not like we have a castle-sized lot or anything, but we do have a full acre and much of it is fully landscaped. The majority of the plants and flowers we do have are hearty perennials and as a bonus, the elk don't seem to bother them too much. And the vegetable / flower / herb / berry patches we have seem to take care of themselves (can you kill rhubarb?). Regardless, we plan, this October, to overhaul the lawn, fill in patches/holes the elk have made and re-do the vegetable/flower beds altogether. I foresee a lot of work ahead of me and A LOT of trips to the Home Depot.

One of two White Rhodendrons we have. Overall, I think we have about 30 individual rhodies, all different colors. The colors bloom at different intervals but around June 1, they're all in some stage of bloom.

A traditional purple rhodedendron

The stairs from the house to the "triangle garden"

Staircase again. There's a Japanese Maple in there too - it appears to be around 20-25 years old.

My pooch Scott posing with the poppies and alium. These flowers share the same bed with the very few garden veggies I invested in this year - tomatoes, Swiss chard, pepper, basil and a bunch of cucumbers since those grew so well last year. We have two other beds in this Triangle Garden as well for vegetables but I just didn't put the work into them so I've let them go wild this season.

Rhubarb, sage, rosemary, red current, raspberry, mint and a variety of other herbs all in this zone (oh, and a bunch of weeds too)

More pink rhodies... I like them though. They're tropical looking and it makes me think I live in Hawaii.

This is part of the main lawn. When we moved in there was a litlte garden already established in the middle of the yard. Last year, Jerill totally redid it - added rocks and beauty bark and now we have heather, a baby oak tree and a plant I call "lambs ears" in there.

This is our lower yard. It a lawn about 200 feet long and 40 feet wide. Once it's fenced I will build some traditional dog agility equipment for Mattie and if they're up to, Lucky and Scott can run through some tunnels too. You can see most of the fence posts are in, just waiting to link it all together with the rest of the yard!

I liked this plant at the nursery and bought it new this year. It's one plant but the blooms are different colors. It's supposed to attract hummingbirds, which we have a lot of but they seem to be most interested in my homemade raw-sugar mix I put out in those red hummingbird feeders you can get at the store.

Washington Wine Country Tour

This past weekend was a bit yucky weather-wise. On Saturday I had no dog-events planned so Jerill and I decided earlier in the week that we wanted to go on a 1-day road trip. I asked my mom if she would watch the 3 dogs for us as we didn't think that it would be safe to take them with us and leave them in the car when we would go do those touristy things.

Mom agreed to watch the dogs and Jerill and I went to Barnes and Noble and purchased, with his gift card, a travel book on Washington Wineries.

We decided to go to the Yakima Valley / Prosser / Richland area of the state. We took the Hybrid and averaged 42 mpg on the 400+ mile round trip. We visited four wineries and had a greek-lunch at a winery too. It was a nice drive, the weather was wonderful and we were able to buy some good wines right at the source.

Here are some pictures from the trip!

The Prosser wine valley

Columbia Crest Winery

Columbia Crest Winery - lots of barrels!

Jerill at lunch time

I consider it my duty as a car enthusiast to take a picture of a nice red Ferarri when I see one.

This is where we ate a late lunch in Richland; The Tagaris Winery. Their Pinot Gris was really great.

Terra Blanca Winery in Benton City, WA. A very nice place!

More from the Terra Blanca

Seriously, this marks the first time that Jerill or I have ever stopped here. I-90, exit 101

What Do You Get a Smithy For Her Birthday?

May 31 was not only my birthday, but Mattie's too. I declared her birthday on this day (she was a rescue, found as a stray) because we're pretty sure she was only 6 months old when I picked her up from the shelter on Thanksgiving Day 2006. This makes Mattie 3 years old now, yet she still acts like a puppy. Mattie is our Smithfield Sheepdog, a working beardie type who has drive off-the-charts and is a total athlete. She and I are still herding every week and I hope to get her some agility equipment at home as soon as our fence is fully build. Mattie LOVES jumps, ladders, chutes and tunnels. We took a 5-week agility class about a year ago and she learned almost every skill by name, except those dang weave poles!

Anyway, Mattie had a good birthday - she got one present this year...

Here's Mattie, opening up her present. See Lucky on the left, waiting anxiously.

The newspaper stuffing is no match for Mattie - she tears into it with no reservations...

"Holy Smokes! Just what I needed! A Hide-A-Bee!" Mattie exclaims.

"Open it! Open it!" Jerill had to help pop the box open. Once open, Mattie readily grabbed the hive full of squeaky little bees.

"Killlllll"

After the intial "kill" thoughts subsided, Mattie settled to start loving her new Hide-A-Bee toy.

And Lucky got to share in the excitement too.