Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Proud mom bragging

My youngest son is starting his own business and I am very proud of how hard he has worked to do that. He is a WOSTEP certified watchmaker and has been working at Breitling for the past couple of years, but they started laying people off this summer. He returned to Texas and is starting his own watch and clock repair business. He will start by contracting with jewelry stores instead of dealing directly with the public. He is very driven and self-disciplined and I think he will be very successful. He doesn't have a web site up yet, but can be reached currently at info.keeperoftime at gmail.com.

Friday, August 7, 2009

How healthy is dog food?

Believe it or not, this is something I've been pondering a lot. I feel fairly certain that if I ate exactly the same thing twice a day, day in and day out, no matter how nutritionally complete it says it is--I probably wouldn't be very healthy.

So why is it different for dogs?

I've started giving mine little bits of fresh veggies, small amounts of plain yogurt with live cultures, a little shredded cheese, a little hard boiled egg--just a little something mixed with their dog food to wake up their taste buds. I must say, it has certainly perked up their appetites. Even my picky eater is eating now.

I've learned from experience that when my old dog eats some brands of dog food, he has seizures. He is now on Purina One and has not had a seizure since I switched him to that, and it has been many, many years now. He was seizing once or twice a month before then. Another dog had bouts of diarrhea until I put him on the same dog food. I'm not promoting a certain brand of dog food by any means--this just happens to be the one that seems to work best for my dogs after much trial and error and they eat it, unlike some of the pricier brands I got from my vet.

So I am wondering--how good is it really to keep your dog on one food day in and day out? Is there any real research to support that? (this is my doctoral training talking here)

Thursday, August 6, 2009

An update on hard water and dishes

I finally found a product that removes the hard water stains in the dishwasher. It is called Lemi Shine and I am here to tell you that it works!! I can finally use my dishwasher and not have to soak everything in vinegar when it comes out. The manufacturer does caution you about putting painted dishes and some other things, but for my every day Corelle dishes and glassware, it works just great.

Multi-purpose welded wire panels

One thing that I have missed here is the wire panels I used for just about everything back in Texas. Welded wire comes in many sizes and I've used it with T-posts to make trellises, dog kennels, temporary pens, covers over my kennel--very versatile stuff.

I built a small greenhouse for my tomatoes that became their support as they grew. I cut a piece of 4" by 4" welded wire panel slightly larger than my tomato bed (this requires bolt cutters). I drove metal T-posts in at the corners and on the sides. I laid the wire panel over the posts and lowered it to about one foot above my newly planted, small tomato plants. I draped 6 ml plastic over the whole thing until danger of frost had passed (I was living in south Texas at the time-zone 8). As the tomatoes started growing, they grew up through the welded wire, which supported them beautifully. As they got taller, I added a second layer of welded wire and secured it near the top of the T-posts. I had tomatoes all summer, up until they froze in December (this was also a lasagna garden).

When the hot Texas sun made an oven of my dog kennel, I secured a piece of welded wire across the top and planted gourds all around the outside. The gourds quickly covered the top of the kennel and I had the added bonus of harvesting dried gourds to use in craft projects. In the winter, the foliage died back and the sun could get through, but in summer it provided deep shade for my dogs, plus little critters lived in the leaves and provided many hours of wiener dog entertainment.

The metal panel is rigid enough that you can bend it and stand it upright to make a trellis. You need sufficient length to make it as high as you need it. I used a 20 foot length cut to about 3 feet wide (actually a left over from another project) to put a trellis over my back gate. I just secured it at each corner by wiring it to the gate post or putting in a T-post on the outside corner. Once covered with flowering vines, you couldn't really see the metal or the T-posts. We used a wider panel to build a trellis for climbing roses, then put a bench underneath it.

Because wiener dogs are diggers, we used strips of welded wire about 18" wide to put under the sides of the kennel, flat on the ground, all the way around. We covered it with mulch so the dogs could walk on it. It kept them from digging under the kennel fence and was flat and rigid enough that we could mow over it.

I have no doubt that when I build my garden preserve here, welded wire panels will play a key role. It is definitely on my top ten list of useful material for country living.

Gardening ideas

One of the things I have learned since our move to New Mexico is that I will have to learn a new way of gardening. I used to compost everything--but food in a compost pile attracts critters like bears and we don't want to invite bears to our yard. A friend of mine who lived in a town house started worm composting, which was a good way to dispose of kitchen scraps. You can also buy enclosed composters that aren't quite as messy as my favorite, out-under-a-tree compost bin. Here, the composter will have to be in the house, garage or basement to keep animals from getting into it, so I am still thinking about exactly how to do that given that our winter nights can get rather cold. Worms would probably die from the cold, but I do have an unfinished basement where I could stash an enclosed composter, if I can make it mouse proof.

Another problem is protecting plants from deer and elk. They will hop right up on your deck and eat things. We have a deck that goes completely around our house and being that we are on a hill, three sides are hard to reach. The deer would have to walk in from the back side of the house. I'm gambling they won't do that, but we'll see. The deck on the south side of the house could easily be blocked off with a gate, assuming deer won't jump over it because it is a rather restricted space requiring that they negotiate stairs.

I've grown tomatoes and peppers in a simple grow box made from a laundry basket lined with a heavy plastic trash bag with holes poked through all layers for drainage. That was for a class project my son had in school, but worked fairly well. However, I would recommend that you give more thought to what kind of plastic the basket is lined with--something I will definitely look into before I repeat that project. I came across this article on grow boxes, which has some good and fairly simple ideas. Eventually, I hope to build an enclosed garden space somewhere on our property, but that is a project for another day. For now, it will have to be the south deck.

Two other resources that might prove useful for small space gardening are Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza and All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. I used the lasagna method last year and had the best tomatoes by far that I have ever raised. Growing in small spaces with raised beds means completely rethinking how you space your plants. Traditional rows are not necessary. I recommend both these books for small space gardens. They give you a whole new way to think about gardening.


Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Crafting for our four-legged family members

This is a nice collection of goodies to make for pets, provided in the weekly roundup at Threadbanger. It has everything from flea spray to home made tags. One of my next projects is crocheted sweaters for all the wiener dogs because Ruidoso gets cold in the winter time. I have a hard time getting them to go outside on cool, summer mornings. They will have their first real snow experience this coming winter. Should be interesting!

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

This lady is an inspiration

I hope I have this much get up and go when I am 89, not to mention moxie. I've been driving the same Ford F150 since 1998 and Henry has about 140,000 miles on him, but that is nothing compared to Miss Rachel and her Chariot. I particularly like the way she chose lifetime guarantee parts and has had mufflers and batteries replaced at no charge. Smart lady!! You can view her video at GrowingBolder.com.