Category Archives: My Life

Candy Window: update

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Bill with the Ferris wheel – so far

Another week closer to Christmas. Hopefully we made enough progress too. Bill finished the spokes of the other side of the Ferris wheel on Saturday and the basics of the A-frame to hold it up. He found a motor and gears at Granger this week too. The didn’t have the right size of pillow blocks though. The figures are painted and the additions of pelon are done though they still need painting. I also picked up some fondant and something new to try, gum paste for the faces etc. Five kids from the South Jordan Youth Council came on Saturday and made good progress on putting candy on the cars.

This week I’m working on the faces for the figures and we will see how far I get. In may only be early October but time is starting to feel really short. Sometimes I feel a bit of panic at how much needs to get done. Then I try to take a deep breath and focus on putting in some time everyday and see how much gets done.

Pupdate: Fable

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Fable at the Great Salt Lake Marina

Fable is doing fabulous. She is growing and learning and mostly doing great. She is a super sleeper and loves to play and has lots of energy. That is one of the challenges with her, lots of energy. She gets her jacket on Monday and then she will be official to get out and start socializing. That will help lots on using up her energy. Going new places wears puppies out not just physically but mentally too. She had her 12 week shots on Monday and is a healthy puppy of 20 lbs.

We have a GDB Halloween party coming up in a few weeks and I’ve tried to figure out what costume to do for that. I did some research today and I finally have an idea that I really like. It is kind of traditional to dress the pups up with something to do with their name. We haven’t done that much but I wanted to this year with a name like Fable. I thought about doing something with Aesop’s Fables but didn’t really like that too much. But then I found this image via Pinterest and got inspired.

unicorn mask on Ravelry.com

Someone in Japan made it and there are no instructions but I think I can figure it out. I’ll do it in black. Fable will be a black unicorn. She will be so cute. I can’t wait to get started on it. Don’t think I have any black yarn though so I’ll need to get some.

Candy Window: update

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I got all the figures shaped in the last week. Yeah! That is a big load off my shoulders. Bill got sick Friday night so no progress to report on the Ferris wheel structure. But the Youth Council made some progress on getting licorice on the cars. This week I hope to get the figures painted and their faces done. Fondant is the plan for the faces but I’m checking into gum paste that a cake decorating friend recommended.

(I forgot to take photos of the rest of the figures and can’t seem to find my camera at the moment. I’ll add photos soon.)

Pupdate: Emma

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Emma on the puppy truck

We got word yesterday that Emma has been dropped from consideration as a breeder. She will be spayed and when she has healed she will start training to be a guide dog. She was dropped for TVD (Tricuspid Valve Dysplasia). It is a congenital and heritable heart defect that is fairly common in labs. Her condition is referred to as equivocal which means that the EKG shows she is in the gray area of the condition. From my research they don’t really know how much valve leakage is “normal” in dogs. It seems Emma has some leakage but not enough to be a problem for her health. But since it is an inheritable condition they don’t want to use dogs with even the equivocal form of the disease. I wonder if this is the same reason Yakira was dropped. All we found out for here was that her EKG wasn’t perfect.

Now the waiting begins for Emma to show up on the weekly phase reports. My guess is that it will be at least two weeks but could be as long as 4 more weeks. It would have been fun to see little Emma pups but I didn’t really expect her to be selected for breeding. Just doesn’t seem to be our lot to raiser breeders. I’m super happy to be raising guide dogs.

p.s. Fable is making great progress and is a fun and sometimes challenging puppy but very sweet and cute.

p.s.s. Today marks 5 years since we put Apex on the truck back to GDB to start his training as a guide dog.

Candy Window Update: figures & Ferris wheel

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Bill with the spokes of the Ferris wheel

We made some good progress on the window last week. The cars for the Ferris wheel are ready for the candy. A couple of them have pull ‘n’ peel licorice on the back and bottom of the cars. I also got 6 of the 16 figures shaped and ready for paint. That feels really good. Bill also got the spokes of one side of the Ferris Wheel welded. That was super exciting to see happen. We put in a lot of hours on Saturday so it was good to see such progress. Our new puppy, Fable handled all the noise of cutting metal and welding like she’d be around it all her life. She is amazing.

Clara and the Nutcracker

woman and man

Santa and Mrs. Claus

Pupdate: 2 fables by Fable

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Fable - 13 September 2014

Fable – 13 September 2014

Fable is trying her hand at writing fables this week. Her biggest challenge is coming up with the moral to the story. If she didn’t have to come up with that there would be a lot more fables to tell. I’m wondering if she should just write her stories and see if someone else can help her with what the fable teaches?

The Ice Cube and the X-pen – by Fable

I was so hot and panting this afternoon after a fun romp in the big grassy place. My new mom put me in my x-pen and then gave me a special treat. A rectangular toy with almost no color and it was so cold! She called it an ice cube. I loved the way it shot across the wood floor every time I punched it with my paws. It is the best feeling watching it sail across the floor. I hit is so hard that it broke in two and then I had two toys. Double joy! But oh the anguish when both my ice cubes got stuck behind the back of the x-pen. I couldn’t help but cry out in my disappointment. Then joy of joy, mom crawled into my x-pen and saved my ice cubes. I had so much fun playing with them. Then I realized that my new toys kept getting smaller and small and first one disappeared and then the other. But it wasn’t as painful as when I could see them but not reach them. So all pups and dogs out there, enjoy your toys while you can. You never know when they might disappear, like my ice cubes did today.
The Stairs – by Fable
I learned to go up the stair within 24 hours of being in my new home. That was way easy. I watch my big sister Emma and used my natural jumping ability. It only took a few tries to master that direction. But down, that was getting me. I couldn’t even bring myself to go to the edge of the first step. I tried but something always stopped me about a foot back. No amount of self talk would get me to move. My mom would pick me up and carry me to the bottom step and set me down so I could practice. That wasn’t bad. Then we progressed to two steps up and that took lots of positive self talk to get my feet to move. I wished big sister Emma was here so I could watch the way she went down stairs. I didn’t pay close enough attention before she left for Doggy College.

This morning my papa decided to help me with the stairs. He put me on the top step (not the way mom did) and helped me put my front feet on the step below. My back feet naturally followed. He did it again and again until we got to the bottom of the stairs. After I took care of my business outside, we went back upstairs so I could eat. Then Papa went outside to water the grass. I wanted to go with him, so while he was gone, I took a deep breath and walked to the top of the stairs. Then I put my front paws down on the step below. It was kind of scary but I tried not to think about it too much. I’d just practiced this stair thing after all. I could do it. So I tried again and again and when Papa came back inside he was so surprised and pleased to see me waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs.

Next time you have to do something hard, remember what I learned on the stairs today. If you take a big obstacle one small step at a time you can do more than you think you can.

Emma: No word yet other than that she made it to San Rafael. At this point no news is good news. The initial evals for breeding takes about two weeks. Banta is our only dog who made it passed the first two weeks of breeder evals. Dune was the shortest with only two days.

Candy Window: update

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close up of the hardware on the Ferris wheel seats

This week we made good progress on the cars. Besides painting the cars, half of them have the hardware for attaching to the Ferris wheel welded in place. There is some touch up painting to do because I knocked one of the cars off the table and it cracked on the sides by the foot rest, so Bill reinforced all the cars there. Plus where the hardware attached needs some painting too.

partially done tree

We made some progress on the trees. The third tree is about half done. I need to get some more apple fruit slices to finish it and the fourth tree has some of the lights candy on it. The fifth tree is getting closer to being ready to glue together with most of the green gel material hole punched to let light through.

to scale figures

For me the part that feels the best to get done last week has to do with the figures. I decided on the scale of all the figures and sketched rough outlines to scale of paper. There are 16 figures, more than I’ve done and a different size than I’ve done before. The next step on the figures is to get Styrofoam rough cut to size for them. That is my big goal for this coming week.

Pupdate: Emma’s Recall

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Me and Emma

I’m off in post schedule this week. I blame it all on these puppies. I’ve decided I don’t much like the two-day overlap. I’m sure it will be good but it is emotionally much harder. The key is to remember that next time I  end up with 5 or 6 months with two dogs. I think two months would be perfect but with wanting a certain letter that makes it difficult to pull off. Maybe one of these times. Anyway, we put Emma on the puppy truck to San Rafael, California today. The way I was feeling this week I thought I might get really emotional when the time came to do it. But today, I came to terms with it and saw that some things would be easier in training Fable with just one dog in the house. We had a busy morning with other commitments but I got in a quick walk with Emma before we left to meet the truck. I think that helped too.

As expected Emma was super excited to be there and see the other dogs. There were a couple of dogs transferred from Colorado for the High School program and four dogs recalled for training, I think. By the luck of the draw Emma was the first one to go on the truck but she got the upper kennel right behind the driver’s seat. She will like that, because Emma will be able to see more of what is going on. Emma was more interested in the dog treats she got for being in the kennel than saying good-bye to us. She is off on her big adventure. I think they drive to Elko today and stop for the night. Then finish the trip to San Rafael tomorrow. They are probably picking up more recall dogs along I-80 as they go.

The house is quiet without her here. It is always that way when a puppy leaves. But she is close to my heart and I’m excited to see what path her life takes from here. We won’t hear anything until it is decided that she won’t be a breeder or that she has passed all the preliminary tests for breeding and they are awaiting final tests to decide. I’ll update here when we get some news on Emma.

Pupdate: number 9

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Fable

Introducing our ninth puppy in training for Guide Dogs for the Blind, Fable. She is confident and curious but not overly stubborn. She loves playing with Emma. Fable is currently sleeping with a fat tummy full of food. I know we got the best name in the litter and it looks like we scored a great personality too.

With a name like Fable I might need to come up with a series of stories about her life as she grows up. I’ll have to think on that and see if inspiration comes.

Candy Window: Ferris wheel cars

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Bill with an assemble seat for the Ferris wheel

We made some good progress on the window last week, especially on Saturday. I got the cars cut out with a band saw on Tuesday and picked up Styrofoam scraps for all the figures. On Wednesday only one girl showed up form the youth council, so we worked on the trees. I was hoping to do some more prep for the cars but ran into a snag. Four youth came on Saturday and they continued worked on the trees. We now have two trees done and two more assembled and one of those with some candy on it. Just one last tree to assemble.

Bill worked hard all day and got all six cars for the Ferris wheel assembled! He needed my help from time to time to hold a part in place while he drilled holes or inserted screws. Bill also figured out how to get the threads cut in some of the metal rods. The first set of thread cutters where too cheap and that was the problem. With a quality die, it was simple to cut the threads. It felt good to make such progress. So much ahead and more hurdles to jump.

Today I picked up some green paint for the cars and green pull ‘n’ peel licorice. I thought I’d need to order the licorice but it turns out that Walmart had the best price for it so I picked up a dozen packages. We may need more. I’ll know better after we get one car covered. Now that they cars are built I can start working on all the figures. There are a bunch of them and that isn’t something that I can ask the kids to do. They can help cover them with candy once they are shaped but I’ve got to do the shaping for two reasons. Because I have the experience and so that all of them have a consistent look and feel. For me that is the next big hurdle. For Bill it is cutting the metal for the big Ferris wheel and getting it all welded together.