Naughty Ike rides alone (Mostly)!

It has been a heck of a month here in the Burg!  We went from blazing sun early in the summer - 90 degrees every day - almost a drought even- to pouring rain nearly every day for 47+ days in a row!  It was about to make everyone in the Valley crazy from the rain - including the dogs!

Brix is allowed on the couch - he is old and has been allowed all along - Ike is not - he chews the plants and the pillows and makes a general mess as well as kicking Brix off the couch and not making room for people!

Brix and Ike are great companions and they get along great - as long as they can get outside and get some exercise daily - especially Ike!  If he don't run - he don't sleep and he is extra naughty when we have to go to work during the day.  Ike is the epitome of "I can do bad all by myself!"  They are a full on comedy team together though!

And then there is this.....what is left of a 15 year old Poinsetta and an 8 year old Greek Myrtle!

Hubby thinks he was only trying to bury a chew bone - so Brix couldn't steal it and since he couldn't be outside! I think he just wanted to dig in drier soil and play with some sticks that weren't water logged!

Almost got them cleaned up and put back together!  They seem to be recovering all right - we shall see as the time goes.

And..... I had round two of Covid at the end of August as well!  This round was worse for me than the first go round and I was pretty laid up for about a week!

Ike is not a fan of reading quietly!  

He does like to snuggle while we sleep though!

I finally put on the "Dog Show" movie - not kidding - it was like when I put on Barney (Rye) or Bob the Builder (Reed) when the boys were little and I was sick and no one could watch them.  TV babysitter!  Ike loves dog movies!  He watched the whole thing and then took a nap!  Thank Goodness!  Dog Show is his favorite so far.  Yes - I am a terrible dog mom!

This is a hole - one of many - that he dug in the yard!  Then he and Brix would take turns laying in them in the heat - presumably to cool off in the soil?

When I hollered at him for digging yet another hole, he pretended he couldn't understand what I was saying - "Huh?"  "Who Me?"

And then.... trying to make up for it by literally sitting on my lap and "helping" me weed!

"Mom!!!! Brix won't let me lay with him on the Nest!!!"  The "Nest" is a floor couch made of a futon mattress and some couch cushions that we made up when Reed shattered his elbow and couldnt "roll out" of a bed.  The kids and dogs all use it - and sometimes I do too depending on how much a wrench my back doing yard work!  Brix sometimes loses patience with Ike - Ike has no idea of his own size and when he is snuggling with people or other pets - he is so heavy that it hurts and you can't get him off of you!  Hubby had to help me the other day when he climbed up on the couch with me and I couldn't get him off of me!

Sometimes he kicks in his sleep too - and his paws hitting you are like getting punched in the face by Muhammed Ali!  No butterfly and I'd rather have a bee! 

Then he gives you a little kiss to make up for it!

And tries to "help" with whatever you are doing!  Look at the size of his head!  He is 8 months old now and weighs about 110 pounds we estimate - because we cant lift him to weigh him properly!

This is how he helps with the dirt from digging potatoes!  He's holding down the tarp that covers my winter soil storage area!  Goooood helper!!  He did help dig the potatoes, and we got about a 5 gallon bucket from our five "hills" of potatoes - I did have to chase him down because he would dig them and run off with them if I didn't get them first!

One hill of "Gold Rush" potatoes - minus the ones with Ike bites in them!

Pepper harvest and part of the potato harvest.

Helping again!

Helping harvest apples now!  We had a good apple harvest here on the farm!  Stay tuned for that post next week!

Brix knows how best to help - lay in the sun and stay out of the way of Ike and any wheeled item or shovel and flying debris!  Keeping in mind that he was a bit naughty when he was younger, and actually ate half an apple tree that I was trying to plant!  Read about it here.  He is much more mellow now and he does try to guide Ike in the ways of the dog, but Ike pretty much give him the "middle finger tongue" also!

Sometimes they are naughty together and wander (or run hells bells) to the neighbors to see what they are doing- luckily the neighbors are mostly nice people who like dogs, and it has even let us meet one of our neighbors who we have a lot in common with so it turned out to be a good thing- just like having the boys is!  

May the sun shine on you more than a bit and your dogs be more joy than naughty!

Blessed Be!

The Sixth Year - That Which Has Been My Delight!

I have started and re-started this post a hundred times now - trying to grab the fleeting moments of clarity that occur on this day - the day you were stolen from us so harshly six years ago.  

1st birthday - a wagon and lots of balloons that you loved!

I am tired of loss.  I am exhausted from keeping up the faces and facades.  I am tired to my soul. It seems that just when I get my feet under me and I am feeling like I have strength to go on, another wave of loss hits.  Or another loss is had.    We have survived 6 years without you now and sometimes it feels like yesterday still that you left.  YES  I KNOW!!!  YOU DIED!  You didn't leave, pass on , go away, go around the corner.  You died.  It still sits on my shoulders and whispers in my ear every day! 

You now have some more friends there from this side of the veil....Gramma Morgan, Ripley, Todd, "Big Mike", and the baby who came to you without a name.  I'm certain I know who it is and I am even more saddened for his parents who have to walk this path of loss now too.  Just a few of the losses we have had this year.  All so freaking hard.

The bear hat that we couldn't go anywhere without.

I always try to honor you on these days - I have talked about that before in posts, trying to honor you somehow...even just looking at pictures, doing things you liked, or doing good out in the world.  So far all I have accomplished today is keeping the dogs from fighting over a stupid bone (that Brix doesn't even really want - he just doesn't want Ike to have it), and taking a nap! And writing this I guess too.  Im counting it!

I don't fish, but I would love to go read a book while you boys fish today!  I miss Rye and Reed- brothers together - even when you run me over with a trailer and crash me in the Razr and everyone laughs. I miss Rye and Reed and the Fellas too.

I miss all of it so so much.  I miss you so so much! All of us here do, even your damn dog!  The people who always reach out to me on these days miss you and remember you with us.  I appreciate them so much for that.  Remembering that you existed.  I miss the Rye Sign.

So today, although I am once again writing my pain, I am also remembering you, remembering things we did and planned that we never got to do.  Through my tears is also delight that we got to have you at all, for any time. "When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you will see that in truth, you are weeping for that which has been your delight." - Khalil Gibran.   I am weeping, for that which has been my delight and that which has caused me such pain.  It is year 6 without you here and I weep often, but this time is really the first time that I could see that it was also my delight.  We March into year 7.....blessed be.

Brix and Naughty Ike Ride Again!

It has been an eventful summer here in the Burg and Brix and Ike have been having a heyday trying to keep up with it all!  As you may have read in my last post "Why is it so Friggin Hot here" it has been really friggin hot here! 80's almost every day and one day in the low 90's which is really too hot for the Humphreys - and their dogs!

Even though we live lakeside, when it gets this hot the dogs don't really like to go in the lake very much - and when they do they end up getting the barfers!  I think the heat lets some bacteria grow that isn't there when it is cooler! So we got a kiddie pool for the dogs - mostly Ike because Brix will swim anyway, he just wades and doesnt drink the lake water. Ike however, does not like to swim and really did not like to get his belly wet even!  He would go in  just until the water touched his tummy and then bolt out like a rocket!  

So we set up the kiddie pool and put it in the shade of the Rowan tree and we tried to get him to play in it.  He would drink from it and wander around it and paw at the water, but he would not go in!  I had to go in and water the greenhouse and when I came back out......

Kiddie pool down!!!  He was using it as his own personal frisbee and flipping it around the yard like a kite instead of a 48" round pool!  NOT COOL IKE!!

Then he was mad that it wouldn't hold water!

So we tried again.... 

Meet the 48" "Dog Proof Pool"!  Ordered from Amazon after a cousin showed her son and his dog rough housing on one just like it - she also has a big dog that may or may not have destroyed one of the plastic ones like Ike did!

Fun in the sun is so much better now that he can safely cool off without the lake touching his belly!  He will play for a bit in the water then lay down in the sun for a few minutes - back and forth, until....

Ike sleeping after a long day at the pool- yes on my pillows!  Arrgh!

His favorite sleeping spot (after my pillows) has been the space right in front of the oven!  During the fall and winter when the furnace is on, the floor there is nice and warm from the heat zones that run through that part of the floor.  In the summer, anytime I cook the whole area around the oven warms up.  Brix has much thicker fur that Ike so he is not about laying in front of the oven.  He does sometimes like the warm floor in the winter though.   Always sleeping upside down, like a two year old!

They really are handsome boys arent they?  I did a Paint Night with Sara a couple of weeks ago and it was a "Paint your Pet" event! Reeds girl Keyona got us going to it and it was super fun!  This was my photo that I sent (above) so that they could put it on the canvas for me and help me paint.  See below for the finished product!  If you get a chance - do the paint night (or day) - learning this new craft was really fun and good for me to get out of my comfort zone for a minute!

Sara did help me do the eyeballs and the whiskers on Brix.  I could not get the line on the nose right either - those are tough for a first timer!  I did finally get the brown patch on Ike's chest right finally - it full on started out looking like a uterus!  Ugh!! I have this sitting on the shelf in my office now and its so nice to be able to see the boys during work too!

Ike does not always want to listen to me, and this is mostly the look he gives me.  Since he doesnt really have a middle finger - ya know?  Brix was in this picture but he doesn't want to be associated with the middle finger tongue giver so he tries to sneak out of the photos!  It's hard to get them both looking at the camera!  We are working on manners, and on understanding our own size as well - Ike does not know he is bigger than everyone - including Brix!  

I hope your summer is just how you like it and that you have a little funny Naughty for that parts that aren't!

Blessed Be - Stay Cool!

A Little Help to get things Growing - A Houston Garden Update

 Thanks to a generous grant for our garden from the Meadow Lakes Bloomers Garden Club,  this year was a ton of fun and learning at Houston in the garden! We used part of our funds to order seeds and to purchase plants for the garden and so the kids could “grow one – take one” and have gardens at home.

Above:  Corn, Alyssum, and Marigolds.  Students grew the corn and the alyssum and Marigolds came from a local greenhouse.

We worked with Mr Brandt’s classroom which is a Special Education Life Skills class.  There are three adults and 6 kids in the class and then we had some other students who came from the Culinary arts classes to help planting seeds as well.  Our Youth360 group that has summer program also helped to plant and keep the garden hydrated in the heat!  We (they) did a ton of watering and they did a great job with the planting too!

This is a group of our Youth360 students and leaders helping to plant.

Snowpocalypse hit in January and we got a few weeks off of school so we were not able to make seed choices until February and order them.  We let the kids pore over some of the garden seed catalogs and make choices of things they thought they might like to grow.  They used a color coded system to mark the seeds, and each student had a different color sticky arrows.  I then made a list of the choices and ordered as many as I could get or substituted for ones that would not grow here/take too long.

Here you can see one of the flower pages that the kids chose Calendula from.  We did get Calendula seeds and we have a few that will go in the garden.

Here are some of the Veg choices and the color coded sticky notes show up well on this picture!

I did have to make some adjustments for things that the kids were convinced would grow here but were way too long season items to produce here.  It was still good to have them dream big about what they could grow.  Okra and Eggplant were two that we chose not to order this year as we do not have greenhouse room to start those.  We did order the asparagus however, and now we are making an asparagus raised bed in the garden for a permanent area for them.  We do have at least 6 plants up and I hope to have a picture of the asparagus bed in our Fall Followup!

We do not have room enough to start everything here at the school right now so we did have some of our tomatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli started for us by Snowfire Gardens and the Carneys.  Their greenhouse system allows them to start very early in the season.  We have those plants back now, ready to be planted in the raised beds.

Our students started a big mix of veg and flower seeds.  We also took a trip to Jacobsens Greenhouse and to the Fred Meyer Garden Center and the purchased some flowers and herbs.

Our herbs and pollinator pots to go out into the apple orchard to help draw in the bees and pollinators for the apple trees and berries.

They made hanging baskets with part of the flowers to take home for Mother’s Day, and they also made three large flower and herb pots to leave here at the school as pollinator attractor’s for the orchard and when fall comes they will bring them back into the classroom so they can use the flowers and herbs in their cooking classes.

Top left Jon and Alex plant seeds.                          Top Right Jon and Camille plant seeds.

Our seeds came from all over the place this year!  There were some shipping issues, and companies that shipped to Alaska last year would not this year.   Seed sources include:  Foundroot – A Sitka based company of Alaska Growers and included our “Silvery Fir and Honey Drop” tomatoes (watch for those in the end of season "tomato roundup"), “Dark Star” Zuchinni, and cabbage.  Totally Tomatoes which included our “Big Boy” Tomatoes (Germination was poor for this variety for some reason this year).  Strictly Medicinal Seeds which included our Nasturtium, Calendula, and Cosmos seeds among others, Territorial Seeds which included our Green and Burgundy Beans, some peppers, cabbage, and we had a donation from a school staff member of Pepper and tomato seeds because his “eyes were bigger than his garden”! 

We got a grant from DNR “Tree Grant” for $400.00 last year as well that paid for the Apple Trees and part of the wire surrounds for them.  With a portion of our remaining funds from the Bloomers Grant for this year we will be adding some donated Cherry trees (probably Crimson Passion, Bali/Evans and Carmine Jewel), including purchasing some soil amendments for the trees and our raised beds, and will be purchasing the fencing materials to make the protective rounds around them like we did for the Apple trees last year.  We did lose at least one top portion of an Apple surround that blew away in the big January storm and we have not been able to find it, so we will be replacing that as well.

The weather has been so hot that we have not been able to plant anything out in the garden without worrying about it being shocked, we have had to keep things in the shade.  When the classrooms closed for the summer we had to move some of our products out to the garden as we might not be able to access them due to the building cleaning schedules and of course, it froze that first night (28 degrees) that we put plants out!  Even though we had hardened things, we still lost a few items to that freeze but nothing that isn’t easily replaced.  The corn and asparagus survived, as did the herbs and a few of the zuchinni.  The tomatoes look a little rough but might make it. 

Above you can see the flower pots in the orchard to help get the bees to our apple trees!  Above right you can see the pots and the flowers and herbs in them.  Flowers included our calendula, cosmos, nasturtiums, which our students grew.  We purchased some lobelia, Alyssum, Petunias and a few Pansy as well.  Not all are edible and we will be teaching those skills when the students return n the fall and we move the pots back inside.  Herbs in the pots included Sage, Thyme, Rosemary, and Pizza Oregano!

This is a better view of the blooming September Ruby Apple with the Red Pollinator Pot next to it (left) and of the Parkland in full bloom (right).

Above you can see the September Ruby apple tree with one of the Red Pollinator pots to the left of it!  Can't see any red can you?  The students planted all but the Petunias in this particular pot and it has thrived!  We so enjoy having the flowers in with the veg this year!

That’s the update for now and Ill post an update after the summer is done so you can see harvest and additions to the garden then!  Happy Summer  and Blessed Be!