Sally has done pretty well today. The one "accident" was for attention. I was in the kitchen and not complying with she decided she wanted at the moment- to play. A good housetraining day, I think. She got her rabies shot and did well. She had no reactions. Small dogs can have a lot of problems with vaccinations and medications. Her vets are better than some, luckily. I decided to get her chipped next week. It was not an easy decision for me. It is so... fascist-like getting her tagged and bagged. It is the only safe method of identification. Sigh...


I opened one of the jars of meat I pressure-canned last fall. It looked and smelled right. I put it in fresh filtered water and boiled it for 15 minutes to look for foaming. It is a recommendation in one of my canning books. No foam. I then put it in a fresh batch of beef broth, slightly caramelized-in-butter onions and simmered it for a short bit. We had it over rice. Yum! First try at canning meat was a success? We hope the meatballs will fare as well. Since I am typing at the moment and we had the meat yesterday and today, I can safely say it has not made us sick or the new approved verbiage for dead- the side-effect of "fatal occurrence".

Today I opened a jar of my pressure-canned pumpkin I managed to save from the killing frost last fall. It was the jar with the missing magnet for my lid-lifter. The pumpkin's head-room was enough so the magnet was not sitting in the pumpkin. JG, (who's blog is listed over there... you know... to the right of this), had a disaster with her canned pumpkin. I was a little worried on how mine fared. No orange blotches and it smelled nice. I made two loaves of pumpkin bread. We each had a slice after dinner, warmed with butter. Yum! It was delicious. I read on some posting that it is not recommended to can mashed pumpkin. I know it dehydrates well, especially if you then powder it and use it like one would for mashed potatoes. One of my pressure-canning books disagrees with the current experts. "They say" that one can pressure-can in chunks if one must do so, but mashed is not ideal, if recommended at all. The so-called experts are all over the map, most erring on the side of the commercial producers. Who is one to believe any more?

Speaking of bugs... Danged carpenter ants made their appearance the first warm day this last week. We both spent the day smashing the danged things. I had Sally out for a potty break this afternoon, when she spotted one and snapped it up before I could see what it was and stop her.  She started whimpering and wiping at her face. The dang thing was lodged in her molars. I have no clue if it was alive and biting her mouth. Himself came out and helped us. She was so upset, we both got a nip as she thrashed her head about while one of us tried to pry her mouth open and the other removed the ant. Finally, Himself got the vile thing. No parts were left behind and she seems to to be okay. I bet it is the last time she goes after one of those things. They are a good inch long, huge and nasty to see. I cannot imagine they taste good.

My recliner-rocker has been approved for play and naps, as you can see to the right here. Yeah, the cell phone was handier than the camera.

She leaps into the air to get moths. One was on the porch this morn and became a morning snack. Ick! with a sigh. She is a taster of everything. We will have to be careful and make sure she does not get anything nasty when we go down for the birth of our second grandson. Being a puppy, the trip will be a major thing for her. We hope she handles it well. She loves people. She also likes other dogs. Oh yeah, another we will have to be careful of in case someone has a dog with a bad temper or aggressive tendencies. Life seems to stay interesting for us all.