TODAY IS NATIONAL DOG DAY!

National (and International) Dog Day is today!  I didn't know this until yesterday!  It was founded in 2004 by Colleen Paige to encourage adoption.  Here's the link: www.nationaldogday.com.  Take a look! 

Our dogs pretty much live the life of Riley.  Their responsibilities are heavily outweighed by their privileges. 

Every day includes a minimum of three walks.  They are accompanied by their friend Addie, who lives, sleeps and eats with the neighbors and walks with us.

Treats are involved.  

Coming back from their first morning walk looks like this:

Breakfast is quickly consumed.

A second morning walk happens later, with the exact time depending on mosquitoes, temperature, and weather conditions.

Then some lolling about.  There's a choice of pillows:

Living room

Loft

Bedroom

An evening walk before dinner involves more treats.  

Besides walks, there are other occasional activities. One of the suggestions on nationaldogday.com was to groom your dogs, so I did that today, including a pedicure.  Not a favorite of either dog, but treats ease the way.

On hiking days Gypsy is happy to accompany Sue and I.

Jasmine is still enthused about Agility.  She's learning the teeter-totter Ron made for us. 

Gypsy and Jasmine stand on the shoulders of the dogs who came before them. 

 

Fidelia

Blackie

Lady

Frisky

Jeff

Chief and his 3 rescued siblings

Diablo

Sheila

Molly

Jackie

Tatum

Katie 

Echo

Kid

Bridget

Mariah

Chaka

Caitlin

Betsey 

Shadow

Diamond Rio

Booger

Tessie

 Penny

Maggie

“Because of the dog's joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as well as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. What would the world be like without music or rivers or the green and tender grass? What would this world be like without dogs?”

― Mary Oliver, Dog Songs

Is That Whining I Hear?

     

Source:  flickr.com

  
We've lived in Flagstaff since 1989 and never had more than minor problems with a common summer curse:  mosquitoes.   Yes, they would be more plentiful during the monsoon; heat and water are breeding conditions for mosquitoes.  Typically, Ron was more attractive to them than I was and I was happy to have him as a diversion.

Until last year.

And this week.

We don't know what changed.  Last year there was such a sudden increase it was written up in the local Arizona Daily Sun.  According to their article, the monsoon does brings out floodwater mosquitoes, most commonly Ochlerotatus trivittatus. This one is a vector for heartworm in dogs.

Ochlerotatus trivittatus.  Source:  bug guide.net

   
   Also common is Psorophora columbiae, which is very annoying but not disease-carrying.

Psorophora columbiae.  Source:  bug guide.net

Last year, we had a normal monsoon. But this year is a record-setter for lack of monsoon activity.  Also odd to us is that there was only the occasional skeeter until about five days ago, when Ron reported being mobbed when he came back from the morning dog walk.  It's been hellish ever since.  Morning, noon and night, we're vulnerable.  No more lunches in the gazebo.  Ron works in the yard protected by long sleeves and Deet.  The neighbors bought a head net, though they haven't yet set up their screen tent on their deck like last year.  We've been wearing long sleeves and Deet on the dog walks.  It's a little disconcerting to hear them whining around the places Deet might have missed-especially the ears!

Apparently all mosquitoes need some water to hatch, but some need a lot less.  Our yard has moisture generally because it's green.  There are ponds, but the water is circulated for the waterfall and there are hungry goldfish in the bottom-most pond.  Ron monitors for any standing water reservoirs.  Sure, the neighbors could have standing water.  The puzzler is there are mosquitoes throughout the forest, unrelated to any larger bodies of water, and with the above-mentioned lack of monsoon.  And why are we getting hit so hard here at home when Sue and I hiked a few miles away on Friday with nary a bite or whine.?


What to do??? 

First and foremost, because of this experience and at the recommendation of our vet, we're now treating our dogs for heartworm. 

Next, given that we're following the typical advice, maybe it's time to call out the Big Guns.  Last year we talked about a solution used with good result by brother Scott and other relatives in NE, where mosquitoes have been an on-going issue since time immemorial.  He doesn't fool around with long sleeves or Deet.  He uses a mosquito-gitter like this:

Source:  lowes.com

It effective for about an acre, so could work for us and the neighbors.  They're kind of expensive to buy, and kind of expensive to run, needing electricity, propane, and bait.  But I've sat in a NE back yard in the summer with nary a whine or a bite.  Last year we talked about getting one this year, but didn't because we weren't having a problem until now.  This year we'll be considering harder for next year.  The neighbors said they'd share the cost.   That's about what we can do.

Besides whine ourselves.

10 Fun Facts About Mosquitoes

1.  Worldwide, mosquitoes kill ~700,000 people per year.  Humans kill ~400,000 people per year.

      Sharks kill ~6 people per year (Arizona Daily Sun 8/16/2019).       

2.   Mosquitoes are primarily attracted to our CO2 exhalations (Time 9/10/2014).

3.   There's evidence that people with Type 0 blood attract more mosquitoes  (Time 9/10/2014).

4.   There's also evidence that beer drinkers attract more mosquitoes. (Smithsonian 7/27/2011)

5.    Only females mosquitoes bite (www.megacatch.com).

6.    Male mosquitoes find females by the whining sound of their wings (www.megacatch.com).

7.    Mosquitoes are found everywhere in the world except Antarctica (www.havahart.com).

8.    A full moon can increase mosquito activity by 500% (www.off.com).

9.    A group of mosquitoes is called a swarm (www.mosquitohunters.com).

10.  We missed the 39th Annual Great Texas Mosquito Festival in Clute, TX.  It was July 25-27

        (www.mosquitofestival.com). 

If we walk in the woods, we must feed mosquitoes.

                                                                                                                      Ralph Waldo Emerson

Is It August Where You Are?

Hot days (I know, I know! It's all relative!)  After a slow start, the monsoon is active.  This is what the hail version looks like.

 
 
That umbrella looking thing on the left?  Well, it is an umbrella.  It's our latest attempt to protect the goldfish in the pond.  It's a small pond, and both heavy rain and hail are problematic (read: fatal).  Heavy rain dilutes the oxygen too much.  Hail makes it too cold too fast.  Years of unsuccessful attempts to devise a way to protect the fish are behind us.  The umbrella idea was in a delightful magazine subscription called Garden Gate, gifted to us by brother Mark.  A reader suggested it for keeping the sun off her pond to prevent algae growth.  I pointed it out to Ron as a possibility for the rain and hail issue.  This could be the solution!  

After blazing through April, May, June and July with lots of travel and related activities, it's August and I'm enjoying Flagstaff and at-home activities.  A list of goals/intentions is more likely to be achieved, so here's a sample of what I've devised for August.

Cooking School:  As mentioned previously, I wanted to try a couple of ways to work with the appearance of my bread.  One was to increase the proofing time.  I've been letting it proof longer, and it has had an effect.  It's an inexact science though, and affected by temperature, humidity, the wetness or dryness of the dough, and so forth.  I've been proofing by the clock.  The most accurate way is to develop a feel for proper proofing by poking a finger in the dough and watching how quickly the dough bounces back.  There's too fast, too slow and just right.  I'll start experimenting with that.

The second was to slash the loaves with a sharp knife (no, not THE Sharp Knife!) and provide places for the loaves to split.   I tried that with a very pleasing result.

After proofing

After baking.  Nice, eh?

I'll keep working with those techniques, plus start exploring the new topic: Toppings.  Though the nutritional value of toppings has been mentioned in my reading, I can't imagine it's anything but  negligible.  My interest is strictly in the appearance value.

There are two parts to this experiment.  First is choosing the topping.  One or several of the following are suggested:  black or white sesame seeds; rolled or steel cut oats;  flax, chia, pumpkin, sunflower or amaranth seed; wheat bran; millet.  There's both crunch and appearance.  The lighter colored toppings won't show as much, but can still add crunch.  The darker toppings will show up better.  I'm thinking a mix will do the trick.  

The second part is getting the topping to stick and not just fall off.  I've read about two ways to address that.  First is to spread the topping on a towel and roll the top of the loaf onto the topping.  Hmmm.  The second way is to apply an egg wash, then sprinkle on the toppings. I'll be trying the egg wash.   There's baking coming  up this week;  I'll be all over these on-going experiments!

Jasmine's Agility Training:  I've signed up for another session of four classes starting Tuesday.  Then I'm done for the season, and maybe with classes at all.  What I'm really ready for is to practice what we've learned. I plan to do that by developing or finding some mini-courses with three or four pieces of equipment that are easy to set up and address the skills that we (especially I) need to practice.  There's an art to setting up courses and there's lots of help on the internet.   This example has a lot of equipment, but shows what a course layout looks like.

Source:  en.wikipediea.org

Running:  I've been fussing about my running for a some time.  Specifically, why I can't run very far and why even that is so dang hard!   It occurred to me during what I've been calling a run last week (I often find runs facilitate insights) that in fact, I haven't actually been doing very much running.  For a long time.  Since October 5, 2014, to be exact.  That's the day I severely injured my IT band training for the Honolulu Marathon. Not only was I unable to participate in the Marathon, but that injury was ground zero for a wave of injuries lasting until earlier this year.  What tricked me was that I was always able to walk throughout the injuries, and much of the time could combine running and walking.   And that's what I've been doing for the past ~five years.  What I do have is a really good run/walk base.  What I don't have anymore is a RUNNING base.  And isn't it fun to re-start something you used to be good at?  Well, that's where I am, and that's what I'll do.  There are plenty of running schedules available on-line, and I chose the Hal Higdon Novice 5K Training Schedule. 5K, or ~3 miles, is the base distance I ran for the bulk of my running years, and what I want for future running.  It's an 8 week schedule, and begins with a distance of 1.5 miles, which I can actually RUN.  I started last week, and am already pleased with the way it's going.   I'm also pretty sure these new shoes are vital to my success.

And that got me to thinking about a really old idea that never came to fruition.  About 15 years ago, local runners organized the Flagstaff Summer Running Series.  It's a collection of seven races, with kids runs, 5Ks, 10Ks, and sometimes half-marathons.  It's grown enormously in popularity over the years, and has added an elite division to accommodate professional runners from Flagstaff and abroad.  I heard about it early on and was very drawn to the idea.  A Series is like A List!  However, the early race times, the weekend days, and locations that required some or somewhat more driving, were completely out of sync with my 2:30-10:30 pm/rotating days off work schedule.  More than once I mentioned to friend and fellow runner Kim that I'd like to set up my own running series so I could run on days at times that were convenient to me.  As these things go, I never actually got around to it.  After retirement, I did sign up for and complete most of one of the Summer Running Series, documented on this blog at the time.  What came out of that was the ego-bruising confirmation of what I'd experienced in the few races I've ever done:  I'm slow.  Yeah, I know it's about the finish, the accomplishment, most people are in bed sleeping when I'm out running...blah, blah, blah. I don't want my running to make me feel bad, even though I know it shouldn't!   My massage therapist said it perfectly once when I was talking to her about it.  I think I've said it here before, but it bears repeating:  Why pay money to come in last when I can run by myself and ALWAYS come in first?   Yep, I'm still there.

So, I'm announcing the FIRST ANNUAL ONE-WOMAN FALL 5K RUNNING SERIES!  It will start when I've completed the training schedule in 8 weeks, and will be a nice way to celebrate being back to RUNNING.  I haven't decided a number of runs in the Series; most likely I'll just designate one weekly run as a Series run for awhile.  I'm thinking to do them as trail runs on the Kelly OHV Trail. Sue and I have hiked a lot of it and it's consistently SPECTACULAR!  It will be so for running as well.

100% Days:  Okay, this is on the nutty side.  I've talked here about certain activities and disciplines I'm working on incorporating into my daily life with more or less success.  Especially challenging to achieve are regular yoga, meditation, getting up and to bed at regular times, and certain nutritional choices.  To address this in a different way, I recently devised a list of 10 things I'd like to be doing regularly/daily, including the above.  I chose 10 so I could easily give them each 10% value.  The goal: complete all ten of them in a day for a 100% day.  I'm well aware of what a rabbit hole this is, so I've made some rules.  1. Not every day is designated a 100% day.  I've been experimenting; a few in a row is ENOUGH!  2. I designate 100% Days when I have a very good chance of achieving  the 100%.  Not days when I've got appointments in town, or hiking days when I know I'll be tired.  3.  Though the point is to achieve 100%, I'm not whipping myself for being a LOSER if I have a miss.  4.  Last minute substitutions are permissible; e.g., tonight Ron said "Let's go do X after dinner".  I can decide which activity that counts for.   This is new, so I've not made any decisions about what % might be "good enough".  If I'm trying to motivate myself to actually follow through, there might not be a "good enough."  "Good enough" means not doing some of them, and that's what I was already doing.  Note to self:  BE CAREFUL!