Christmas 2009

It MUST be Christmas!  There were reindeer hoof prints and boot prints on the sidewalk leading up to my front door.

Christmas morning started with a hike for me and the coonhound.  A little storm had cleared out all of the icky inversion and it was a glorious morning. 

When I returned from my hike I checked my cell phone and found a message from Mom letting me know that her plane was on time and that, because Rick had forgotten to take his employee ID badge to the airport, he and the dogs had been forced to stay behind.  We missed you Rick, and we missed meeting the wiener dogs.

After I picked up Mom from the airport we stopped at the Hugoe/Tilley home. Colton arrived home from spending Christmas morning with his dad not long after we got there, and we were able to watch him open his presents.

After the presents were opened Colton wanted to have a Nerf gun war.  Me, Mom, Denise, Brian and Colton had a great time shooting at each other with foam bullets.  Jo was sick and Sean was out fixingsomeone's furnace, so we didn't see much of them

 

After the war it was time to eat.  Once again, Brian deep fried a turkey for us.  When he originally pulled the turkey out of the fryer after about and hour and a half it was still pink on the inside.  He put it back into the fryer and unfortunately we left it there a little too long.  When he took it out of the fryer the second time around it was burnt to a crisp.  We were able to salvage some meat by cutting deep into the bird.

I found another source of meat that we could use, but Denise was not amused.

After spending the day in Woods Cross we packed up some more presents and went to the

Thompson home in Ogden.  Unfortunately most of my pictures at their house didn't turn out, so I am hoping that someone else took some pictures that they can blog.

The girls each got a My Generation doll either from their parents or Santa, which they insist on calling Liv dolls.  Grandma gave each of them a horse to go along with their dolls and they spent the evening bathing, grooming, and putting make-up (my contribution) on their horses.

On Saturday we spent all afternoon at the Murray house eating yummy food, chatting, and opening gifts.  I forgot to take any pictures at all, so again, I am hoping that someone else thought to take pictures for the blog.  After we left the Murray home we went over to Sean's house for some seafood gumbo and another Nerf war.

Sunday morning we relaxed a little bit, then we went out to lunch with the Thompson's before I had to take Mom back to the airport.  It was a whirl wind weekend, but lots of fun.

Life With a Coonhound

So, nothing much has been happening lately.  My life consists of going to work, walking the dog, and cooking.  Since I'm cooking for myself I decided to get crafty and see if I could make some dog treats too.  I found some recipes at http://www.twodogpress.com/ and I got to work.  I made a triple batch of the big boy beef biscuits and as far as I can tell they turned out well.  Shady certainly seems to like them.  Next time I will try the peanut butter bones.  Mom, as I was doing research on dog recipes I read that grapes and raisins are toxic to dogs.  I think it was you  who told me that you had been feeding your dogs grapes.

Shady is loving the snow and I am tolerating it.  I broke out the snow shoes earlier in the week when we had our first good snowfall.  Since then the snow has settled and I have just been trudging along in boots.  It snowed again today but we only got another inch or two.  You would think that spending an hour racing around in the snow would be enough to wear her out, but it is not.  She has been very interested in playing fetch lately.  The other day I was in the shower when suddenly her head popped around the curtain and she dropped a squeaky ball into the tub.  She then proceeded to bark at me until I threw it back out.  We spent the next several minutes playing fetch while I finished my shower.  That dog exhausts me sometimes!

Thanksgiving

This year our Thanksgiving feast was held at the Hugoe/Tilley household.  The participants were Sean, JoLyn, Denise, Brian, Brian's friend Cody and me.

Here we see JoLyn slaving over a huge vat of mashed potatoes.  You wouldn't believe how much food these people prepared.  Sadly, the rolls deflated before they could be baked, but since I couldn't eat them anyway I didn't feel too bad about it.

Here we see Brian lowering the Cajun spice infused turkey into the deep fryer.  For me nothing says redneck like a deep fried turkey, and it is the most heavenly bird I have ever tasted.  We were all relieved that we didn't end up with some horrific deep fried turkey explosion disaster like you see on the news every Thanksgiving.

In this picture you will see JoLyn's oven roasted turkey in the foreground, Brian carving the deep fried turkey, and beyond the warming pans you will notice a plate of ham.  Did I mention that only six people were there for the feast?

After dinner everyone settled down in the living room to watch a rousing episode of Speeders (some reality show that follows the highway patrol) and before you knew it Cody and I were the only ones awake.  Unfortunately I forgot to get a picture of that.

After their nap we decided to go to a movie.  It was 4:05 and Denise asked if I thought we had time to stop and feed the horses before the 4:50 movie.  Since I thought we were going to the theater behind Shopko I said yes.  I didn't realize we were going to Gateway.  The movie sold out while we were standing in line for tickets, but Brian had already picked up popcorn and drinks.  We didn't want to see any of the other movies playing there, so here we are outside the theater while Denise was on the phone with Information trying to get the number of the Bountiful theater.  The Information lady could find a number for the Bountiful theater so we just drove over hoping to find something that we were interested in, but instead we found that the theater had gone out of business.  Long story short: we didn't see a movie.

Okay, this has nothing to do with Thanksgiving, but isn't she a fine looking coonhound?

Thanks for the Birthday Treats

Thanks to my family for the birthday treats.  Grandma took me out to lunch and Denise and Jo took me out to a movie.  Mom sent me a Target gift card which I used to purchase a George Forman Grill, and Angie sent me some gluten-free brownie mix.  The brownie turned out surprisingly well.  I will remember that brand in the future.  The best surprise came from Steph and Brian.  The came over on Saturday to install a drainage system next to my retaining wall.  While I was having lunch with Grandma they also installed three new doors on my 2 upstairs bedrooms and my bathroom.  Those of you who have never seen the old plastic accordian door on my guest bedroom door can't appreciate how exciting this is for me.  The other two doors were the flat, cheap sixty year old doors that were installed when the house was built, so it was great to have them replaced as well.  I will be doing some painting this weekend to get them looking nice.

On Friday Brian brought Ava over  while he was digging a trench for my drainage system.  I took her on a little hike and we collected all of the cool rocks that we could fit in our pockets.

Here is my coonhound with her latest prize.  It appears to be the pelvic bone and part of the spine of a deer.  She was thrilled with this find, and Jef will be pleased to know that I didn't make her put it down.  She carried it for about 20 minutes before she got sick of it. 

We had our third coyote encounter today.  I tried to take a picture of it, but I only had the camera on my phone and it doesn't have a zoom feature, so you couldn't really see the coyote.  Shady is very excited about the coyote scent and she bays about it.  It was funny to watch her today because she was following her nose and she never did see the coyote, but I watched it for several minutes before it ran away.

Hmm...

I posted a blog earlier this week, and while I can see it if I click on my blog I notice that it is not showing up as a new post on my blog list. Nothing much, but I wanted to see if this would show up.

Not a Lot

I was downloading some pictures from my phone the other day and realized that I had taken pictures when we were at the horse show a few weeks ago.

Here are the adults both texting as they watch the show.

Butch and Cindy Lu enjoyed a little extra attention.

I spent some time leading Grace and Ava around on one of the horses. Ashlyn wasn't interested.

I just like this tree. If you look close at the trunk it is all broken and cracked, but it's still alive and flourishing.

The leaves in the mountain have all changed now, and they are falling like crazy. They will be bare pretty soon.

Here is my sleepy weasle lounging on the bed. She started chasing a coyote today but she came back as soon as I called to her. I was very proud. I have been worried about what would happen the first time she saw a deer, but I figure a coyote is every bit as interesting as a deer so I think we'll be okay.

If You Have a Pet You Need a FURminator!

I was talking to my dog's trainer a couple of weeks ago about shedding, and he recommended a tool called the FURminator. I've been using a regular brush on Shady but when I use it I only get a dozen or so hairs in the brush and she still sheds like crazy. I throw a sheet over my bed but after only one night of her sleeping on it it is absolutely filthy. So I went to Petco today and in a moment of reckless abandon decided to splurge on the $50 grooming tool. After one use I have to say that I am in love with the FURminator! In just a couple of minutes I had amassed this fist sized wad of fur. It would have been a bit bigger but one of us decided that it looked like something she would like to eat, so she took a big bite of it. I will be using this tool on a daily basis and hoping that I have a much cleaner house, and a much less furry bed.

At Long Last

Three and a half years ago I planted a mimosa tree in my yard. There are several of them in my neighborhood and I love the feathery pink blossoms. The first summer that I had the tree it grew from about 4 feet to about 6 feet but it didn't bloom. The next spring I waited in anticipation for it to do something but it never did. April and May passed by without any sign of it putting forth leaves and by June I admitted that it wasn't just a late bloomer, it was dead. I decided to cut the tree down before I dug up the root ball. When I unwrapped the tape at the base of the trunk I found several tiny green shoots growing out of it. I decided that since the tree was trying to live I would give it a chance. I cut it down to about 6 inches from the ground and I watched it grow. It grew really fast, about 5 or 6 feet that summer, so I was hoping that it would make it. The next spring I found that it had died down to about 3 feet, so I trimmed it back and decided to give it another chance. It grew several feet again last summer, but it never bloomed. This spring I found that it had again died back somewhat, but not nearly as much as it had in the past. Still, I was getting really irritated with the tree. I told it that it had better do something besides look weedy this year or I was done with it. Again, it has grown quite a bit this summer, but there have been no blossoms until I went out yesterday to mow the lawn and found six blossoms. Today there are nine. My poor little weedy tree is finally starting to look like a real mimosa, so I guess I will keep it around.

Fall Colors

I took my camera on my hike this evening so I could capture some of the great fall colors out there. It's amazing how much they have changed just in the last week. Nothing exciting to report. I did try to take a picture of Shady carrying a 3 foot branch in her mouth but she was always moving so fast that I couldn't get a photo to turn out. She carried that branch for about 10 minutes and she was clearly thrilled with herself.

Fernwood Trail

Shady and I hiked the Fernwood Trail in Layton this afternoon.

This is the view from the bottom of the trail.
Later we got to a spot that was burned a few years ago.

One happy coonhound enjoying the trail.

These are the tops of the mountains. We got close but we didn't quite make it all the way to the top today.

Here we are at the top looking down.

Here are a few statistics courtesy of the cool GPS unit Mom and Rick gave me.

Elevation at the trail head: 5228ft

Elevation at the point where I'd had enough: 7792ft

Total gain in elevation: 2567ft

Total miles round trip: 4.1

Trip duration 2 hrs 56 minutes