New Dog Child, Miss Brandi

I guess I haven't been very attentive to the blog this year. We have done some minor projects that I haven't posted. I may take some photos and post about them.

I am posting because we adopted a new dog. We weren't planning on it, but someone came across my feed asking someone to take in Miss Brandi because she was on the euthanasia list. She is a senior citizen (around 9 years old) and overweight.

She has a sore on her front leg so we've been trying to keep her from licking it so she has been spending far too long in a cone. She goes to the vet tomorrow and hopefully they'll fix her up and help us choose some diet dog food for her.  I'll post more photos when she escapes her cone.

Bailey is not entirely thrilled to have a new sister, but after a week she is getting along better. They still sometimes quarrel when the treats come out, but they're doing pretty well during quiet work time.

Shasta Has Left Us

This morning Shasta could not walk. She's been on painkillers for several months because she's been struggling, but this morning she was done. Sadly, we made an appointment with a mobile vet to euthanize her this evening. We spent her last day petting her and trying to spoil her with favorite foods, like bacon. She was a wonderful dog child and we will miss her.

Oct Friday Night Sew In

For this month's FNSI, I had planned to finish the overnight bag I started in August. I still need to finish sewing the lining.

But instead, I ended up spending most of the evening cleaning my sewing room. A couple months ago I started sifting the boxes that were stashed in my bedroom closet. I had boxes that moved here from California ten years ago and I'd never unpacked them. I finally did. I found quite a lot of stuff that belonged in my sewing room.

I've spent several hours this week trying to unearth my sewing room tables again. I thought I'd get the room cleaned by this evening, but there was still a pretty big pile of fabric stacked up and I spent probably three hours ironing and folding everything so I could put them up in my fabric stacks. My table is finally clean and I can work again.

It took so long, I barely got any sewing done. All I managed to finish was a new collar and leash set for Bailey. 

I also got everything ready to start a new project. This is actually not a UFO as I just bought the fabric to make a new train quilt for my father. This is a design offered by eQuilter and I know my father will really like it. Since these are mostly printed panels, it should go pretty quickly.

But I won't be starting tomorrow as I finally got my first box of 160 flower bulbs and I need to get started at planting them tomorrow. I hope it won't be raining all day.

Denim Quilt for the Dog

Bailey sleeps in the corner of the foot of our bed. The same spot, every night. I decided it would be good to make her her own little quilt to lay in that spot so it could get laundered more often than the queen-size bed quilt.

This was a quick and fun little project.

I think I'll make some more projects with cut up jeans. Now that Jeff and I have lost so much weight, we have several boxes of jeans available to cut up. It's nice to have large tote bags to take shopping so I think I'll make some more of those.

I am sort of quilted out. I've got several finished flimsies sitting around waiting to be quilted so I'm not feeling super motivated to make more. I would like to make the Harvest Quilt before the end of the year, but I'm ready for some small projects for a while.

Finally, Shed Started

We had a beautiful sunny day last Thursday so Jeff, Eric and Aaron got started on our chicken coop/garden shed. They spent about half a day and got the base built. It has started raining again, so who knows when they'll get back to it. This is all pressure treated lumber so it should be fine exposed to the rain until we get more good weather.

After the busy day working out in the yard, Bailey found herself a nice spot to rest up.

So Much Snow

In the 20 years we've lived in the Portland area, we have never seen this much snow. Ever. In past years we could usually count on about a week of snow, and that was it.

This year, however, we have had snow and ice almost everyday since my last post on Dec 8. Though we haven't had snowfall since a week ago, our streets are still covered with ice pack. The City of Portland has shown itself to NOT be the City that Works as they seemed to adopt a policy of "let it melt," so most arterial streets are still covered with icepack and dangerous to travel.

During the day, our temperatures just aren't getting warm enough to make much headway in melting the snow.

January 16 at noon.

January 17 at noon.

And, sadly, we didn't get the wood cut for the bathroom during the tiny one-day window we had in December. The dogs were way too stir crazy and Jeff spent the day outside wearing them down and restocking our provisions.

Last Tuesday, we had an eerie night when it was so bright outside, Jeff took this photo at 11PM.

For the most part, our fur children are going stir crazy inside as they are no longer getting daily visits to the dog park. But sometimes it is nice enough to play outside.

View out in front of our house this morning.

Today's forecast calls for freezing rain, on top of this snow already there. At this rate, we can expect to dig ourselves out of winter sometime in April. :)

I wish I knew what pile of boxes the bird feeders were in, I'd go and try and dig them out. I feel sorry for the birds who are quite unaccustomed to winters like this.

For now, we're just hoping the power stays on.

Shasta's New Toy

I had seen advertisements for the CleverPet many months ago, but at the time they didn't have any units for sale. They had a sale on Cyber Monday so we picked one up,  trusting it wouldn't be a waste of money.

We set this up yesterday evening. This is Shasta, barely more than 24 hours after we got it! Go Shasta! It's already getting harder and I don't think it's "paying" her every time now.

Yes, she's eating a lot today, but she's still learning how to use it. Our plan is to actually feed her all her regular food through this delivery method as soon as she gets the hang of it.

Bailey, so far, isn't interested. We plan to set it up so she can watch Shasta playing it while we hang out on the couch together. We're hoping she'll learn it too.

Happy 4th of July!

I hope you all have a great Independence Day! We don't have anything special planned, but we'll have a nice meal and enjoy our wonderful weather.

The girls like hanging out supervising Daddy's activities.

Our friend, Storm, has been giving us ferns dug up from her new yard. For now, we're mostly putting them all in the rain gardens. Once the hardscape in the yard is more finished, we'll probably relocate some of them.

Bailey's Growing Up

Bailey is already more than 8 months old. It's hard to believe it's been that long. Bailey is a sweet happy dog, but she still makes it hard for Jeff to get a full night's sleep. She does seem to be house-trained now and was fairly easy to train.

Bailey is like Daddy velcro. She is pretty much always stuck to him.

It's hard to get a picture of Shasta and Bailey in the same frame.
Bailey is about half the size of Shasta.

French Drain Finished

The side yard French drain is finished.

This is what 51 bags of hazelnut shells look like

They spread out the plastic to cover the dirt before putting down more gravel. The hope is it will prevent most of the water from filtrating into the soil.

They then covered it with gravel,
then with a thick layer of hazelnut shells

I think it looks pretty nice

I called all around trying to find the hazelnut shells. After a couple hours of calling around and a few emails, I was finally directed to Happy Valley Ace Hardware where you can get three 25 pound bags for $10. We bought 51 bags, but we didn't need them all for this side of the house. We still have some left for another area in the yard.

Jeff is still planning to build a planter for this side of the yard, but it's not the next project.

Bailey is getting so big. She already weighs twice as much
as when we got her two months ago.

Long legs too

Backyard Progress

We've really enjoyed this great weather. Jeff and his friend Aaron have continued to work on the yard, cleaning it up. It's been a really long time since we could drive down our driveway all the way to the garage.

Bailey Puppy Photos

This post is mostly for grandma who asked for more photos of her grandpuppy. LOL