Good week so far

At the risk of jinxing it...

Sunday - Hubby and I went to a BBQ for families of incoming freshman for college. We even though Anthony is in Taiwan, and had a lovely time. People were great, kids were polite, the games of volleyball was quite competitive. An excellent day.

Monday - All my kids at the jail passed their CGC tests! 100% pass rate, first attempt for each, I'm very proud of them. The past couple of months I have been working inside the maximum security facility, a population I haven't worked with before. All are felony-level offenders, now learning all-positive dog training methods. And they're doing great.

Monday night we got a brutal thunderstorm, a free-standing pot outside had over 3" of rain in it Tuesday morning. But the storm finally broke the back of the heat we've been having.

Tuesday - Got a nice e-mail update from Anthony on his far eastern adventures, here's an excerpt:

i think the last thing i mentioned was the barbeque this past weekend. well, turns out it wasn't actually a barbeque (at least not in the usual sense of the word); rather, it was more of a picnic. only, it wasn't just albert, his mom, aunt, uncle, and me--as i discovered once we got there, we were tagging along with a group of people who were doing this as part of their preparation for climbing the tallest mountain in taiwan. oh, i guess i forgot to mention: we were hiking up to a waterfall, where we would then make lunch. which meant two things: first, we were going to have to carry all of the food we were going to make; second, that i would be carrying a disproportionate amount of stuff. so, after assuming my role as pack mule, we hiked for roughly 45 minutes through tropical rainforest. that is to say, take the usual heat and humidity one finds in taiwan, and then make it about ten times stuffier--absolutely no hope of a cooling breeze. at least it looked really pretty?

anyway, we eventually got there (i want to emphasize the word "eventually" because it took about twice as long to get there as it should have. guess i'm spoiled hiking with New Mexico family) and it turned out to be well worth the trek. granted, it was kinda like the waterfall in canada we went to in that there were lots of people on slippery rocks where they probably shouldn't have been (i think it was sunshine falls or something like that?) but the waterfall itself was incredible. just waves of cool water cascading down that dropped the temperature about 15 degrees and created a nice cool breeze. made me wish i had a camera :-/ regardless, we spent about 2 hours just hanging out there, eating and relaxing, before we hiked back to the parking lot, where we sat around for another half hour or so drinking tea and talking. oh, which reminds me. remember that last email i sent you where i was complaining about taiwanese and how it makes my brain hurt? well, these people spoke in taiwanese at least 50% of the time, which meant i usually had no idea what was going on. fortunately, when they were talking to directly to me, they just used mandarin.

Tuesday afternoon I took my car into the shop; it had been running very poorly at low RPM's. They had it all fixed for just a few hundred dollars, so now I'm set for my trip to Colorado in 10 days. And finally overnight it was in the mid-50's - now THAT's what it's supposed to be!

Wednesday - Had a new client whose Jack Russell Terriers are from an ethical breeder and gave my first 20% discount. The client was happy and the dogs were lovely - just what I would expect.

Tomorrow is Thursday, I'm spending the day with my Dad. Friday has a morning appointment, and Saturday we're all off to see the new Harry Potter movie.

Barring a catastrophe, this entire week is turning out to be a great one.

Wild Side

Out the car window during morning roadwork...

Today we went 9 miles, my beasts are rock-hard and rarin' for more.

Crows and ravens are everywhere, and they are HUGE.

FINALLY I spotted a rabbit before the dogs did; this Eastern Cottontail (note distinctive eye ring) hit the deck and froze.

I'm crazy about this guy - and he's crazy about eating cholla. Ouch!


These two are new on our route; if they don't gain weight over the next week I'll be making a phone call:



And finally, an experiment with the camera and this blog: a video. Not very exciting stuff I suspect, but I'm trying to figure out how this works. And this bull is just magnificent.

Wings

Time flies.

Seems like just yesterday we moved back to New Mexico and Anthony started middle school - it was actually 2003. And in reality, yesterday he flew to Taiwan for 3 weeks... a little graduation vacation and opportunity to beef up his language skills (he has a placement test in 5 weeks). His plane landed about an hour ago, so I know he's there safe and sound.

I was asked by a relative if I didn't worry about him being a stupid teenager on the other side of the globe. Sure, of course. But if he doesn't know how to make good decisions by now, there's really not a lot I can do to help him regardless of geography. I'd never admit this to his face, but it's his life and he's a grown up.

Just wish he'd clean his room...

Dog Days of Summer

We're coping with the hottest couple of weeks of the summer; days like this I do begin to wish we had a swamp cooler on the house.

Our routine is pretty dull: up at 5:30 a.m. to roadwork a couple of dogs, laundry, watch le tour, a siesta during the worst of the afternoon heat, and preparing an evening meal that doesn't require a stove or oven.

Speaking of laundry, over birthday cake the other night we had a long and lively discussion of various clothesline configurations. Amazing the creativity of my relatives with something so essential. Among the tips: turn colored items inside out so they don't fade; bang jeans and towels in the dryer on "fluff" cycle to take the hardness out of them; topsheets get a crisp centerline if hung with that objective in mind; using the winter sun to enable year-round use; various center-support options. I envy those with south-side portals; retractable wheels were very popular.

And speaking of roadwork, more wildlife for you. Driving along at 8 MPH makes for great viewing.

Mourning Dove

Turkey Vulture

no idea

Red-tailed Hawk

This young mule deer buck was a joy to behold.


This elk had been poached and dumped; despite calls to NM Game & Fish the carcass has been rotting for the better part of two weeks. I can not begin to describe the stench.

No pictures of roadrunners, cottontails or jackrabbits - the dogs go bonkers when one is sighted and I can't manage a camera at the same time. The jacks are in peak breeding season... hope they are making lots of babies.

Believe it or not

This is my very sweet and very white pony:

She loves mud as much as I hate it. I suspect her expression reflects her perspective of how much grooming will be involved to restore her to a presentable state.

Guess what expression is on MY face.

Google is a mother's best friend

Anthony's roommate and dorm assignment arrived via e-mail last night. So naturally, I checked the new roommate out.

Gotta say, while I treasure my privacy, it satisfies my maternal paranoia to be able to read up on Anthony's roommate in advance. As an only child, the only roomate he's ever had is Jake, his 8 year old border collie. This will be a big change, in a lot of ways.

Jesse's Facebook and MySpace pages are public, so I know a lot more about him than he may realize. I learned that he is from a small town in northern Illinois, got a 35 on his ACT, GPA of 4.71, and was his class valedictorian. Um, wow. And he has eclectic taste in music. Several pictures from his high school paper show a lanky kid with messy hair and an easy smile. Sounds good so far.

I have to wonder if Jesse's parents have googled my kid...

Cesar Millan

I was wrong: he's not dangerous - he's a criminal.

Hear me now, this is evil footage. Pay attention to the first 5 seconds - what the dog does to provoke the kick from Millan is subtle. And absolutely, the dog's reaction to the kick is extreme - we can only speculate as to the reasons. But it pales in comparison to the deliberate cruelty Millan then inflicts on the dog.

Strangling a dog until it is unconscious is right out of Koehler (don't buy the soft-pedaled approach of the website; get the book from the library and read the recommendations on when to "hang" a dog). And the rationalizations Millan gives afterward are so misinformed it would be laughable if it weren't so damn stupid.

Even the description "like a wolf" hammers home Millan's incompetence. Anybody the least bit familiar with the research coming out of Wolf Park knows what a steaming pile of BS that phrase is.

I'm going to go throw up now.