First thing’s first.

I have gotten the question of how on earth we figured out what kind of dog our HappyGirl is, so here’s the story:

I was standing around in the lovely “Wild Birds Country Store” (where some of my calendars just so happen to have been for sale this winter) while my mom purchased something, and I spotted some little booklets by the door on how to identify birds, as well as other things like mushrooms and flowers. There was also one about dogs. I’m always on the lookout for our little girl, so I opened it up and THERE SHE WAS. A drawing of our dog. Labeled “Munsterlander” but it said they were only 24″ tall, which is about 10 inches too short, give or take. I showed it to my mom, though, and she agreed that it looked just like her. I was sure I’d remember the name, since it was so odd, but of course I forgot. The next day I googled “M Dog Breeds” because I remembered it was a long, odd name starting with M. I browsed a list of breeds and finally came across it, recognizing the german-ness of it — and two versions, large and small. Clicked for some photos of the large version and there she was again. Pretty crazy.

In other news, relating to our little menagerie here, we are sending our goats off to a bigger farm this weekend. No, not the proverbial farm, but an actual happy farm-animal farm at the Catskill Animal Sanctuary. We have been weighing this decision for a while now, but with the baby on the way we have decided that these goaty ladies are much more work and trouble than the pleasure they give us, which is not much. They wake us up with their hungry cries (thought there is no way they are actually hungry, they have lots and lots of food) almost every morning, and they are definitely not socialized enough to ever be bred and milked. {So much for our dreams of a goat-cheese empire. But maybe someday we’ll venture into that dream again, especially if we end up somewhere with more land, so the ladies don’t have to live right outside our bedroom window.}

When it comes down to it we really think they will be much happier at their new home, anyway. I am guessing we won’t even be able to contain ourselves and we’ll end up visiting them often. It’s about an hour and-a-half away, in the Hudson Valley.  {Even though they don’t let us pet them unless we have a handful of food — preferably fruit or stale rice cakes, and even then only for a second or two until they realize what’s going on.}

Things certainly are changing around here. All for the better, but I am feeling like we’re living in the middle of a construction zone. Oh wait, we are. I have lots of photos of the big basement renovation to post, but I think I’m going to wait to make it a dramatic before-and-after. Today is paint-color-deciding day, so you know we’re getting close. All the bathroom appliances/fixtures and the vanity need to be put in, the floor installed and the light fixtures put in, as well as the painting, but it’s coming together. I’ll be moving my studio down there when it’s done, and turning the room that currently houses my studio into a bedroom for the little bean. I’ve already picked out a color for that room, a soft yellow-green, and that was easy. The basement, not so much. Maybe a gold-yellow? Maybe? I keep going back to this amazing green office, though.

Of course, that said, if you are interested in taking our goats home, and live in a hundred-mile radius, let me know. They are pretty darn cute. If loud and obnoxious.

I keep comparing the situation here to the story of Gonzo finding his alien family in the movie Muppets From Space. As we all know, Gonzo was always considered a “weirdo”, with no other creatures on earth anything like him. But in the film, he finds out he’s one of a huge band of alien creatures. A whole civilization of Gonzos!

It has recently come to our attention that our dog, previously considered quite muttly, is in fact a member of the Large Munsterlander breed of dog. Can you believe it? She might not be pure-bred, but something close! Who knew!? We had always gone with the guess of part Brittany Spaniel, part Border Collie, but it never quite added up.

I just think this one's really funny. Taken with my iPhone and the Shake It app.

Apparently this breed is quite new to North America, originating as a variation of the German Longhair Pointer in, you guessed it, Germany (Munster, Germany, actually). It’s bred in Germany, the UK and Canada, and slowly making its way into the US. And aren’t we glad for that! She has always displayed tendencies for hunting and chasing, pointing and sniffing out, but little did we know these are precisely the traits she was bred for. Including hunting birds, you know, like chickens. :::::sigh::::: Guess we won’t be having that free-range farm we dream of anytime soon. Thankfully besides chickens, she REALLY likes squeaky toys.

The above photos are of our girl, Happy. Full name “Happy Anniversary.” We tried and tried for months to come up with a new name for her after we adopted her, but it just stuck. She’s almost 4 years old now, having lived with us for the last 3. She was given up to the Berkshire Humane Society because she was a bit, shall we say, rowdy. She was very mouthy and bit us all the time and howled like we were killing her when we put her harness on for a walk. But with a bit of persistence, a very tiring obedience class and replacing the bad behaviors with new ones, she soon learned it was much more rewarding to behave herself. She’s one of the best dogs I’ve ever met. Except maybe when she jumps on our guests to greet them. I always say “she wants to give you a hug” and I think I mean it. She just gets really excited!

So these photos below are of other dogs from this breed. What do you think? See the resemblance?

Image borrowed from the Raycris Large Munsterlanders

Image borrowed from the Wild Rose Dogs' Flickr

ZOMG wasn’t she the cutest puppy ever? I mean, all puppies are cute… but can’t you just imagine this is our sweet HappyGirl? I had to include this one, mostly because I can’t stop looking at it. A few people suggested I print it out and save it and say it was her as a puppy. I mean, the resemblance is pretty amazing, wouldn’t you say?

More photos of other Large Munsterlanders here. In case you are as curious as I was.

I was recently asked: “Do you have something small, even silly perhaps, that is guaranteed to jump start your day or pull you out of a funk?” {this question is part of an exercise for this January’s session of the Mondo Beyondo e-course}

Here are my answers, in no particular order:

(feel free to add your own in the comments!)

• do a little yoga**
• go swimming**
• bake cookies**
• buy flowers
• buy plants
• garden
• meditate
• take photos — appreciating the little details and beauty everywhere
• cook a meal from fresh ingredients
• shop at a farmer’s market
• read blogs that inspire me
• write a blog post
• sew
• paint**
• draw
• design something on my computer
• write notes and letters to friends
• write in my journal
• upload and share photos
• snuggle the cat
• look through old photos/letters/e-mails/essays/blog posts
• reach out to friends and family; send presents
• take a nap
• play with dogs**
• take a walk**
• stargaze
• eat chocolate
• listen to some of my favorite music (particularly useful to me for lifting a funk: Ani DiFranco, Erin McKeown, Deb Talan/The Weepies, Modest Mouse, Postal Service, Eddie from Ohio, Ingrid Michaelson)
• read a book
• listen to an audiobook
• go for a drive (roadtrip preferable, listening to an audiobook a super-plus!)
• visit with (happy) farm animals
• play with children
• beautify: rearrange a shelf, a room, artwork on a wall. Or even just dust something.
• light candles
• read magazines
• take a hot shower
• laugh at something; call a silly friend or watch a ridiculous movie I’ve seen a million times (i.e. Office Space, Home Alone, Big Daddy), or if all else fails visit cakewrecks, oddly specific signs, cute overload, i can has cheezburger, the “blog” of unnecessary quotation marks, or autocomplete me (why DO walruses go to tupperware parties?).

**These are usually my no-fail go-to options. Proven over many trials to work wonders.

Blue Monday happens to be coming up next week, January 25th. Remember this time last year? Yeah, I’m feeling much better than I was then. Ok then. I think I should probably do one of the things on this list right now. I’m not so much in a funk, but they all sound like so much fun!

my cup runneth over. for reals.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’ with 20 family members and friends, followed by some visiting with John’s family.

Then a second round on Friday with a gang of friends at our house for our “Annual Day-After Thanksgiving Leftover Feast”. Yum! Just writing about it makes me want more mashed potatoes… seriously.

A few things I am grateful for this year:

• my family
• my wonderful husband
• our growing baby bean (almost 5 months!)
• our dry basement
• craft fairs, loyal customers and awesome fellow crafters
• art, craft and doing-it-yourself
• furry friends
• my tribe of fantastic human friends
• mashed potatoes (can you tell I’ve gotten my appetite back?)

Well, the idea is that we will NOT have a moat, at least not one full of water. My dad decided this weekend was finally time to work on a project we had been talking about for years; we’ll call it “Operation Water-Out-of-the-Basement, Part 1″.

We now have a new wall! A wall to keep the water out. We are still getting used to the looks of it, because it is right outside our front door, but I think after the first rainstorm we’ll be blessing it with everything we can think of, thanking it for holding out the flood.  After this worst-rain-ever summer, and after having inches of water in our basement — we have stone foundation, well, half of one, the other half is wood and windows and lovely walk-out-basement niceness — we were about ready for drastic action. I thought about kayaking around in the basement, maybe selling tickets, but I think this is a better solution.

It was quite a weekend’s work, though. I can’t say I envied John and my dad and my brother Brian, who came in for my mom’s Birthday and was treated to some wall-building and stone-schlepping for the day. (Thanks, Bri! and Sarah — up there in the shadows!) The excavator made an appearance and all of our neighbors were stopping by to see what the heck we were doing.

My mom, the expert gardener herself, came over today to assess the situation and come up with a plan for ’softening’ the look of the wall, and to integrate the whole thing into some kind of landscape plan. I’m excited to see what she comes up with, as I’m truthfully feeling a little daunted by the whole project.

In other news, we only have two chickens now, down from three. sadness.

They have been escaping their pen lately (that they share with the goats), apparently not content to stand on goat backs for fun anymore. Sadly, this allows them to be in the yard without us knowing, and when we send Happy out for her walkabout within her electric-doggy-fence yard, she is also in perfect proximity to chase, and perhaps catch, a chicken. {You can’t blame a dog for acting on her instincts, right?}

We had an incident a week or so ago, where the chicken escaped with only some feathers missing, after we heard the commotion and managed to grab the dog and corral the chicken back into the pen. This last time, we were not so quick. The chicken lady was ok and walking after the incident, but must have sustained some kind of unseen injury, because we found her motionless the next morning. So sad. We are actively working on reinforcing the fence to keep the ladies in, and of course not letting the dog out unless we KNOW there are no chickens out. You’d think they’d learn their lesson and not want to get out again, but…. no.

So right now, though, our wall stands tall and strong against any rain coming its way, and our dog sleeps soundly on the couch while the chickens and goats graze safely in their pen. All is peaceful today. I hope it stays that way for a little while.

I’ve been doing a little playing with my camera and image editing settings. Whatdya think? (I like ‘em! Click on each one to see it bigger — ’specially the kitty!)

It’s hot here today. Jane is staying inside today, occasionally venturing into the cool basement. Happy has been in and out of the house and in and out of the sun all day; I think despite her black fur, she’s a sun-dog at heart. She loves the heat and hates to get wet or cold. She has taken to refusing to go for a walk in the rain, which has made things a bit difficult around here this summer, as we’ve had mostly rain all the time. But not this week! It’s nice and sunny and warm and SUMMER! I’m keeping the shades and curtains drawn to keep the house nice and cool. One advantage to living on the cold side of a mountain with limited sun each day is that we haven’t needed air conditioning. Sorry to rub it in, but it’s true. It gets pretty warm upstairs on days like this (90+ with humidity), but as long as I keep the shades down it usually stays comfortable enough, especially when we add a fan to the mix.

And that …. well… I thought it was a pretty amazing sight the other day, and I just had to share. I had seen it once before, without camera in hand, but this time I caught it! I think it has something to do with eating bugs off the goats’ backs? I really don’t know. Poor Pepper (the goat) doesn’t look too happy about it, but I really think if she wanted to get out of the situation she could just shake the chicken off, don’t you?

There was sun (sun!) and swimming, babies, stories, laughing, food, desserts, watermelon, strawberries, jello, iced tea, margaritas, old-school nintendo on an outdoor projector(!), more food (seemingly as far as the eye could see — we are a big Italian family, after all), kites, lawn games, tofu dogs (yes, and lots of “real” meat, but I didn’t take part in that; reportedly delicious), a few more margaritas, more babies, more sun, more swimming, some rockin’ fireworks (good work Bri and Eric!) and s’mores around the campfire!

A fantastic 4th of July celebration all-around. Got to see two of my brothers and lots of other friends and family for a super fun time. I even got to swim with a two year-old, which really made my day (thanks, Caelin!). I wasn’t really basking in the patrioticness or anything, but thinking about it now, it was the first Independence Day in so many years that I wasn’t slighly embarrassed to be an American. Thanks Mr. President!

Here’s Happy, waiting for my cousins to invite her over for some clams. She might have had a few too many, plus (I still think it’s a rumor) perhaps an entire bowl of melted butter. oops. She gave herself a good mid-day nap in the garden, though, and was back for more at dinner time. She really likes hamburgers. In case, you know, you have any you want to send her. Also, while we’re discussing it, she does not like fireworks. not. one. bit.

My cousin Haley made this amazing graduation cake — many-layered and totally delicious. She just graduated early from high school (she’s only 16!) and is heading to Brazil for a year starting in August. What a rockstar that girly is. And she totally hates me saying it. hehe. Plus her brother Chris graduated from Elmira College and my brother Ed graduated from Parsons with a fancy-pants Architecture degree. Congrats, kids!

Check out the sweet old-school Nintendo setup, with the screen hanging from our old swing-set! My computer-whiz brother Brian had to take the console apart the night before to get it working, apparently it had some, er, Barbie hair stuck in it? You KNOW I didn’t do that. Poor Barbie.

This is the crew making s’mores while waiting by the pool for the fireworks show. It was totally spectacular!

I can’t resist. While processing pics for my upcoming stuffed birdie listings (up soon in my Etsy shop!) I came across a few more shots from around the farm lately that I need to share.

Our pretty HappyDog likes to help me garden. At least she wasn’t lying directly on top of anything I was growing on purpose. I don’t mind if she lies on the weeds, though. (check out the sweet railroad-spike sugar snap pea trellis my darling Johnnie made for me!)

And JaneCat just looks on, pretending not to know there’s work to be done. She’s really slacking on her mouse-terrifying duties lately.

And this is a for real scene, nothing staged here. Turns out the goats actually like us (when we bring them food, that is)! This is from before we moved the chickens in with the goats. Apparently they have now taken to laying their eggs all over the place and  in the goat barn. Oops. We’re going to have to work on the chicken-training, I guess.

Things are growing! Tomato blossoms and even a few tiny green tomatoes, these plants were grown from seed by my green-thumb Mom!

Last week John moved the chicken coop in with the goats, so they can graze together safely within the fence. The only real predator we’ve seen around here lately (knock on wood!) happens to be our HappyDog. She looks innocent enough, but after a little, erm, “incident” we are keeping her a safe distance from the Chickens. Well, at least on this side of the fence. She loves watching them, though. And the goats are trying their best to get to the chicken food, which we seem to have managed to barricade from them, at least for the time being.

And look at this photo below! Seem familiar? Quite uncannily like my radish painting, I GREW this one from seed, along with a whole slew of others. And they are delicious! Amazing how those tiny tiny seeds can grow something that can nourish our bodies so well, eh?