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.

Hah, I really can’t even call it a harvest, our largest carrot was about 3 inches long, and it was by far the largest — many weighing in at a few centimeters, and the largest beet was about 2 inches in diameter, the rest about 1/2 inch. But, I patiently cleaned and chopped the bunch of them for dinner last night, and they were tasty {added to some potatoes, parsnips and carrots from our first Berkshire Organics box, that is}.

Normally I would listen to my mother’s advice and leave them in the ground until after the first frost (tonight?), to add some sweetness to the roots. But this year I had to get ‘em out sooner, because the plot where they were planted was all part of the big landscaping project (remember Operation Rain out of the Basement? It’s about done, I’ll show you soon!). There are some grass seeds there, now trying their best to sprout before the long winter.

I also had to cut these bad boys down, to make room for landscaping. These three were all that came of an entire package of seeds, though I have to say that bottom sunflower was mighty impressive. Dinner-plate-size!

I got to go apple-picking with some of my favorite folks, too. A perfect fall-in-new-england activity.

This lineup is a few of my apple-picking finds, plus some pears, apples and plums from the afore-mentioned Berkshire Organics box. Not sure how often we’ll have a delivery from them, but I’m thinking every other week will keep us eating well through the winter. I missed visiting a CSA this summer, and being forced to cook something healthy with all that produce that I didn’t even pick out myself. Having to look up recipes and try new things, it’s really one of the best ways to learn to cook, don’t you think?

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?

I’ve been reminded these last few days (wherein we have not had perpetual rainstorms, as the rest of the summer), why we are so lucky to live here, why hordes of tourists visit our fair Berkshire Hills each and every summer, why we indeed chose to live here. It’s gorgeous. and amazing. and awe-inspiring. love. it. so. much.

I went kayaking in a little pond not too far from here at sunset with John and his dad yesterday, and then we stayed out on the lake under the full Sturgeon Moon until it got too cold to stay. It was so gorgeous. I can’t even really describe it, that’s how gorgeous it was. (er, “Sturgeon Moon” has something to do with the fish being very numerous around this time of year. Or something.)

And my garden is growing. Finally. We’ve even enjoyed some home-grown tomatoes. They are very small, but very tasty and even red, to boot!

This is the scene on my kitchen table today. The Meadow Rue (little purple flowers in big sprays) were tipping over in the garden, so I decided the flowers would be happier on the table and the plants would be happier without all that weight. The yellow is Rudbeckia and the other purple stem is a Hosta flower, along with its own huge lime green leaf. These are all transplants from my mom’s amazing garden. I am so in love with each and every one, and I’m planning to fill every space I find next year with more Rudbeckia, plus maybe more daisies and some bee-balm. {also, those are some of my favorite Ana candles}

Why don’t you go ahead and be the single speckled one in a basket full of plain old brown eggs?  I dare ya!

These are my two newest, to add to the growing batch of original paintings on wood. Boy I love this stuff. I also really love these two little buddies. The magpie just told me he needed to be painted. The bunny idea has been brewing for a while, and I think I will have to paint a few more.

These are both mostly gouache (pronounced gu-wash, as far as I know), with some acrylic. I find the gouache is really nice on the wood because it’s semi-transparent (like watercolor) but it covers pretty well (unlike most watercolor colors). I mix it with acrylic to get a little opacity (and more permanence and durability) going on and to give a little more life to the creatures. I also love that dried gouache can be rewetted and used again, when I come back to it later, unlike acrylic which dries right up unless stored in an air-tight container or mixed with some kind of extender. {Though I can’t deny how fun it is to peel old acrylic off a palette in one big piece. Very satisfying.}

Here’s a link to the Wikipedia article on gouache, in case you want to know more. I think it’s my new favorite medium. And how fun is it that it is made of pigment, binder (what makes it stick to the painting surface) and chalk?

one of my acrylic painting palettes

I was so inspired by the painting we did in Marisa’s class at Squam on wood panels that I had to go ahead and order up some blank ones for myself. While I wait for my archival wood panels to arrive from Plywerk, I am working on painting on un-treated wood that I happened to have around. These are both mahogany, salvaged from one of my dad’s construction jobs, I believe.

These are both in acrylic, which I also pulled out as inspired by Marisa. I have been painting in watercolor mostly since my classes with the lovely and talented Pat Hogan a few years ago. I have really loved watercolor, but getting out the acrylics reminded me why I used to paint with them all the time! They can really go on any surface and they dry so quickly! This is a blessing and a curse, of course, but so far I’m really enjoying the change of pace. These little friends (about 3 and 4 inches tall) will be for sale at this Thursday’s “Third Thursday” street fair in Pittsfield, and if they don’t sell there I’ll be sure to pop them in my Etsy shop this weekend. I’m going to be sharing a booth with Stephanie of Atoms At Work at Third Thursday — and we are crossing our fingers that these thunderstorms are all done by then!