My family has a tradition of cutting down our own Christmas tree. For the last several years we have gone out the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We had more snow than we have had for several years so the going was a bit tough. Casey totally loved it but it was too deep for Langley to handle for very long. He played with my nephews and their cousins and had a grand time. After cutting down our trees we have a “tail-gate” party with hot baked potatoes with all the fixings including chili, hot chocolate, hot cider and lots of other treats. The pups got a bit cold so they snuggled in the car while we snacked. I forgot to take my camera with me up the mountain so the photos are very slim, but we all had a grand time kicking off the Christmas season.
Monthly Archives: November 2010
Thanksgiving
We gathered at my sister’s today for Thanksgiving dinner. It felt like we were packing up the kitchen sink as we were getting ready to live. With two dogs to take along and one of them very young we needed a bunch of stuff for them plus the food we were bringing for the feast. Casey and Langley enjoyed themselves and were both very good puppies. They spent the time while we were eating in their crates but got to play tug and hang out after the meal was over. Langley was pretty funny when he tried to walk on the wood floor in the kitchen. He did the slip and slide, especially when he got to the end of the leash and tried to keep going. His little feet just went round and round. It was like watching a cartoon character running in place.
Little Langley
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| Langley & Casey sharing a nylabone ring |
We are puppy sitting a cute little puppy for the Thanksgiving holiday. Langley (black lab male) arrived this afternoon. He was originally going to come tomorrow but his raiser wanted to get out of town before the storm hit so she dropped him off this afternoon. I think he is about 13 weeks old. He came on the last puppy truck a couple of weeks ago. He is really a good boy. He is doing great on his house breaking but has some trouble with barking. Sometimes he has the cutest way of grumble barking when he doesn’t like how things are going. I’m sure that he will grow out of this. He was sick with diarrhea last week so he is still on antibiotics. I put the pills in his food but he proceeded to eat around them. I had to resort to shoving them down his throat which he didn’t like at all.
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| Casey & Langley sharing the dog bed |
Casey and Langley are so cute together. It brings back so many memories of when Casey was this age and Banta was the mentor dog. Casey learned well from Banta and she is doing so good with him. Though she has been a bit of a momma’s girl. She is usually quite independent but she has been following me around.
Carl Bloch and Front Runner
It was a busy day today. Kasha and I meet two of my good friends from our days of living in Provo and went to the Carl Bloch exhibit at the BYU Museum of Art. Kasha enjoyed flirting with the other people at the exhibit. I would be looking at a painting and suddenly realize that she had caught someones eye. She is such a cute puppy and her Golden Retriever side sure loves to meet everyone she sees. The exhibit has several huge alter pieces on loan to BYU from the churches in Denmark where they have hung for more than 100 years. They are amazing to see in person. He has such an amazing way of capturing the inner depth and feeling of people. The exhibit is free and well worth the time to see it. Follow the link below for more information.
Tonight for puppy class we went on Front Runner to Roy and back. I was so excited to get there and see my Casey girl. I missed her. Kasha is a cute little energizer bunny but she isn’t Casey. We saw her as we arrived at the trained and swapped puppies back. I had to give her some extra loves, I was so happy to see her. We had puppies from the Utah County club and the High School group as well as our regular puppies. (The two newest puppies from our club, Phoenix and Langley didn’t come). All the puppies seemed to do really well and they all settled down and had a nice snooze. On the way back Casey curled up way under the seat and really went to sleep. It was my first ride on Front Runner too. The train is very nice and some of the seats have a table between them so Bill was able to get some work done on his lap top while we traveled. It is good to have Casey home.
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| Photo by Bruce |
I found out tonight at puppy class that Clifford has been career changed because of cataracts. Oh such sad news! He will be coming back to his raisers home over the weekend. It makes me a bit paranoid about cataracts because the Porter who was raised in our club was career changed for the same reason this past summer.
Kasha in Primary
Kasha got to go to Primary with us today. We were substituting in the three-year old class today and I thought that Kasha might have a bit of a challenge with all the little kid energy. But we woke up to about 9″ of snow this morning and she had a grand time on the walk home from choir practice and helping us shovel the driveway and side walk. I think she was on the tired side by the time we got to church and she actually fell asleep in a class with five little three-year-old boys. I think as she matures she is going to be a great puppy. I meant to get some photos of her in the snow to share with her raiser but somehow it just never got done.
Casey/Kasha Puppy Swap
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| Kasha at the Library |
Casey is past due for a puppy swap so we made arrangements to trade her with Kasha for the weekend. Kasha is 3/4 lab and 1/4 golden retriever. She is about 4 and 1/2 months old and a very cute little puppy with a dark golden or reddish coat. She mostly looks like a lab but if you know goldens you can see it in her face and in her personality. Kasha is much higher energy puppy than Casey so that will take a bit of getting use to. Between the high energy and the six weeks younger in age it is quite an adjustment from our calm Casey to bouncy Kasha. It helps me to appreciate what a good girl our Casey is growing up to be.
Package from Apex
We got an huge box of citrus from Florida today. Sue had sent an email saying that something was on its way from Apex. I was amazed when it showed up. The box is full of tangerines, oranges and grapefruit. Boy are we going to enjoy eating these. They all taste really good. The tangerines are so much bigger than we get in the stores here and the grapefruit are amazingly sweet. Thank you Apex! (and Sue).
Casey started on the Tylan Powder today. She wasn’t sure she liked how it tasted but she did eat her food anyway. She is on 1/4 teaspoon twice a day for at least a couple of weeks. I’m looking forward to no more middle of the night poop runs!
Downtown Library
We met in the downtown Salt Lake Library for puppy class tonight. Our club has two new cute little lab boys. Phoenix is a chubby little yellow lab, who is very mellow. Langley is a little black lab boy who as you can see from the photo is very relaxed, Casey has been struggling with another bout of diarrhea for the last couple of days and working on the go to bed command was too much for her system. She pooped in the room were we were meeting and then again on the stone floor as he was taking her outside to relieve. Lindsey said it is time to put her on Tylan Powder to prevent further bouts of diarrhea so we will be heading to the vet later this week.
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| Langley |
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| Phoenix |
Kongs and Wish Bones
Today was a pretty normal Saturday. We are still getting use to only having one puppy in training around. We miss Banta and her huge spirit that can fill up a house with her energy. Casey is adjusting well to being the only dog in the house. She is ready to be on her own. Banta did a great job of mentoring her. We went to the library today and to SuperCuts for much needed haircuts. I decided that it was time to make things much shorter. I’m tired of having hair get in my face. Casey did very well. Later in the day I decided to stick two of her Kongs on the end of her nylabone wish bone. She had fun chewing on the end that didn’t have a Kong on it.
Christmas Tree Permit
My family has the tradition of cutting down our own Christmas tree each year. The hardest part of doing this is getting up early, early in the morning on the first Friday or Saturday in November to get a tree permit. The forest service sells 1,000 permit each day and they go on sale at 8:00 a.m. but you have to get to Soldier Hollow early if you want to be sure you are going to get a permit. I don’t know how early people get there but we usually get there around 7:00 a.m. and we are far from the first. They hand out arm bands so then we can wait in the car for a while and stay warm. At 8:00 a.m. the line starts to move slowly then finally our turn comes and we pay $10 for our precious permit. Casey had fun in line socializing with a little toddler.
telling family tales 