One of the main reasons I picked out Sam was because I was looking for a dog who could run some long miles with me.  It gets lonely out there on the road and I’m always a bit wary running by myself early in the morning.

Now that Sam has learned some much better leash manners, I’ve started taking him out running with me.  The first run we did was about 3.5 miles with a big pond at the turn around point, so he could get some water, and he did pretty good.  After a couple more 3-4 milers, we went out on a 5 mile run with no water stops.  He still had tons of energy at the end of the run, so this last weekend, we tried out a 6 mile run with no water stops.  Somewhere around 4.5 miles I stopped at an intersection to push the crosswalk button, and part of Sam’s training has been that everytime I stop walking/running, he sits down at my side.  Well this particular time I stopped, he sat like he was suppose to, I stepped forward to push the cross button, and when I turned around to check on Sam, he was all sprawled out in the grass like he wasn’t going any further….guess he needed a break and probably some water.  So, I decided to was time for Sam to learn what his real job was.  His job is to be my water dog on our runs.  He is going to have to carry water for himself and for me and tonight he got to try out his new backpack.

He’s not too excited about it yet….

But I’m sure once he associates the pack with getting to go for a run, he’ll probably love it.  And I’m gonna love not have to loop around by my house or car to get water on my long runs.

The start of the hard work of storing up food for the winter has officially begun.  Well, we really started stocking the freezer for winter a couple of months ago.  When it comes to berries Royal is like a little squirrel, he’s constantly putting them in the freezer, and they always seem to be gone just when I’m looking for them to put on the kid’s plates.  We had big plans this year to go to a berry farm and pick a lot of our own berries, but with the driving time, the amount of hard it work it takes to pick the berries, and the young ages of our kiddos, we decided we’d put it off for another year and re-evaluate next May.  But corn is a whole ‘nother story!

Last year, we froze 6 dozen corn and we ran out way too early, so since you can get the corn 4 dozen in a box, we just decided to get 2 boxes this year.  We started out the morning, by going and picking up the corn right when the stand opened, because on the weekends they always seem to sell out really fast.  Then we headed North to Newton to go check out the peaches at Beck’s Farm and find out what kind of pears she’s going to get in this year.  We were hoping to can a couple batches of peaches in the next couple weekends before we left for our vacation to Washington, but it seems like the peaches just might not be ready yet, they are pretty hard still, and I just don’t have the time or room to buy a bunch of peaches and then have to lay them around the house waiting for them to ripen.  I’m pretty sure the kids would think they were new toys just for them, and I’d have peaches hidden everywhere!  So, if they don’t ripen in the next couple of weeks, hopefully they’ll wait for us to get back from Washington!

Anyway, back to the corn.  Like I mentioned, we got 8 dozen corn this year.  That would be 96 ears for all you out there who don’t like doing mental math.  :) That’s a lot of shucking!  So, I made up a new house rule.  When we got home I said to Royal, “Well, it turns out just like I don’t do dishes, I don’t shuck corn either”  Ha ha ha, I crack myself up!  So, Royal sat out in the garage for about 2 hours shucking every ear of corn.

He wasn’t alone though, he had Jayden (and Sam) out there with him keeping him entertained with a measuring tape.

But don’t worry, it’s not like I didn’t do anything.  I was in the house, cutting all the kernals off the cobs.

and then doing some more…

Royal and I got smart this year.  The last couple of times we’ve done this, we cooked the corn on the cob and then stuck them in an icebath to stop them from cooking, and then we’d cut the kernals off as fast as we could.  The cobs were usually still pretty hot because we’re both a bit impatient and we didn’t want to wait until they were completely cool, and so I always left the project with burned finger tips.  But after complaining to Royal’s mom about my sore fingers, she oh-so-wisely suggested that we cut the kernals off and then cook them.  Genius!!!  And it took so many fewer batches of water as well!  We’re getting smarter over here folks!

I just am always surprised that all the corn fits into so few bags.  96 ears of corn, and we have 20 bags of corn to stick in our freezer!

It took Jayden awhile before he could admit that he really liked Sam.   I think he felt guilty about liking Sam and Scooter at the same time.  Since he knew that dogs and cats don’t usually get along, he was going to side with Scooter and not like Sam until Sam knew he wasn’t suppose to chase Scooter.  Jayden kept telling me that I needed to take Sam back, that he couldn’t stay at our house anymore.  I finally told Jayden that if he didn’t like Sam that was fine, but Sam was mom’s dog and I was going to keep him and take care of him.  Well that fired Jayden right up.  How dare I claim something as my own!  Jayden said, ‘No Mom!  Sam is not yours.  He’s mine’  And ever since then, Jayden has been all over Sam whenever we are outside.

And while Jayden and I were in the backyard playing with Sam, Willow was hanging in the front yard mowing with Dad.  It’s nice someone is taking over Jayden’s role of following Royal around with the mower.  We wouldn’t want Royal to be lonely!
Check out Royal’s outfit - that is HOT!   :)

…our new dog!

He’s a 3 year old Weimaraner we found at the Kansas Humane Society.  He’s pretty laid back, which is nice that he doesn’t jump all over the kids, and I haven’t heard him bark once since we brought him home.  Jayden told me that he just squeaks, he doesn’t bark.  He also has always been a strictly outdoor dog, so that made Royal pretty happy.

Jayden, despite all his protesting about not liking dogs and never wanting a dog and he only liked cats and he never wanted me to get a dog, LOVES him.  He’s a little upset that Sam doesn’t like to play fetch with him, but maybe we can work on that.  Jayden is loving having something to boss around though, maybe he’ll give Willow a break for a few days.  :)

I think he’s going to be a great addition to our family!

We found our first red strawberry of the season tonight!

Then we played a little baseball.  Jayden wanted to be the pitcher.

Royal was the batter.  Look how fierce Royal is in this picture.  I’m guessing it’s because when I was the batter I smacked one way over the fence into the neighbor’s yard, and well, Royal doesn’t like to get shown up by a girl (or really anyone for that matter…).  :)

Scooter even joined us in the yard this evening.  She’s kind of like a dog and follows us down the street if we take a walk, but she’s always about a house behind us, like she’s guarding us, making sure nothing sneaks up behind us or anything.  She also managed to catch a HUGE bird tonight.  But she decided to play with her food before she ate it and gave the bird a chance to get away before I got a picture.

There was a also a little hide and go seek.  But in the backyard there are not very many places to hide.  Under the slide was Jayden’s choice.

Jayden tells me today, “Mom, Scooter is my VERY best friend”

Ahhh, Jayden and Scooter. Theirs has been a love-hate relationship from the beginning. Jayden would love on Scooter and she’d tolerate it. Then he’d love on her a little more and she’d swat at him. Then he’d squeeze her just a little too hard and she’d scratch and bite him. Through many time-outs and talks about how we treat animals, Jayden has SLOWLY started to be gentler to her.

Then, after telling Jayden how great he was treating Scooter and how much she loved him petting her so nicely, I walked away to make lunch. 2 minutes later I was breaking up a kid/cat fight because Jayden was trying to force-feed Scooter one of Willow’s little plastic stacking rings, telling her, ‘You have to eat this Scooter, it’s your breakfast!’. Baby steps……baby steps….

Jayden and I spotted this cute big bunny in our yard during lunch today.

At first, I felt sorry for it because I figured Scooter had gotten a hold of it and it was probably dead or maimed or something. And to tell you the truth, I was going to be mad at Scooter. Fine, go off and kill things, it saves me money having to buy you food all the time, but why oh why must you leave all the carnage around where I (by I, I really mean Royal) have to clean it up??? Why else would the bunny just be sitting in our yard, if it wasn’t dead or hurt. It wasn’t moving around at all. All the other bunnies we’ve had in our yard all hop around from place to place, and as soon as we go outside on the porch they scamper under the fence and back out to the field. But today, we managed to get outside on the porch to get a better look and the thing didn’t even blink an eye. I was getting prepared to have to explain to Jayden again that Scooter had killed something and the poor bunny was dead, but then I saw it’s ears go back, so I figured it was probably just hurt or something. So, I thought I’d try and scare it. I threw one of Jayden’s plastic baseballs that were up on the deck at it. It didn’t even budge. Oh great, I thought, it’s bleeding out into my grass. Awesome. So, because I was preparing to write a post about all the animals Scooter has been off slaughtering lately - she’s really come into her prime here! - me and the kids snuck down the stairs so I could try and get a better picture, maybe one with some guts or something in it to really keep you guys entertained, and the bunny still didn’t move. I was within probably 3 feet of the thing and it didn’t move. So, I raise my camera and the thing bolts, before I could even get a picture, darn it! And being that I was having to try and take a picture with just one hand, since I was carrying Willow, I couldn’t get catch the fast sucker as it bolted under our fence into our neighbor’s yard. Guess the bunny was fine.

We go back inside and finish our lunch and Jayden checks the window every few minutes to see if its come back, I think nothing of it. Then, I look out my bedroom window where I have a great view of my garden and I think, ‘hmmm, things don’t look as full or big from up here.’ Then I get mad. That bunny has been in here eating my vegetables before they’ve even hardly had a chance to grow! My sugar snap peas have been going to town and there were lots of them growing because gardening with Jayden means dumping all the seeds real close together. They were going to have to be thinned at some point. Not anymore. Now, they are a sad looking bunch. Most of them chewed down to the nubs. Bad bunny!

Leaves all chewed on with bite marks taken out of them.

Cucumber vines missing all their leaves.

Time to go to the nursery and find something to protect my plants from the bunnies. And time to put my hunter out in the yard. Go get ‘em Scooter! Just please leave the headless bodies somewhere else - the heads seem to be Scooter’s favorite because the trophies she leaves up on the deck for me to find never have heads on them. It’s pretty awesome.

When we got Scooter from the Wagners about a year and a half ago and brought her to our house in Olympia, we thought she was the dumbest cat, as far as defending herself or hunting goes. I mean, less than a month after we had her, we had to take her to the vet because she got attacked by probably a raccoon, and the vet told us that it looked like Scooter didn’t even try to run away from it, she had just turned her back on the raccoon and let it wack her. We watched Scooter numerous times eye a squirrel in the middle of the road, walk up to it, sniff it a little, and then lay down next to it. Royal had to climb up a tree to retrieve Scooter once because she got scared and bolted - at least she ran away from her attacker that time. So, we just decided Scooter did not have a very good killer instinct and pretty much couldn’t fend for herself outside. Kaylee used to tell me how Scooter would leave “treasures” for her on their doorstep, little animals that she’d killed and brought home. I just figured Kaylee had it mixed up and it was probably Sammy, their dog, that was leaving them presents. Well, it turns out Scooter has hit her hunting stride here in Wichita. A few nights ago, I swore I heard some animal outside and it sounded like it was screaming, but I couldn’t figure out what it was and I really didn’t think much about it. Then this weekend, while Royal and I were staining the fence, Royal looked under the deck and goes, ‘oh! it looks like Scooter killed a mouse or something’. I was like ‘gross, there’s no way i’m cleaning it up’. And then upon closer inspection, we figured out it wasn’t a mouse, it was the body of a small rabbit. Where was the head? We have no idea, I guess that is Scooter’s favorite part. So, Royal cleaned it up and threw it away. Then yesterday, while we were out staining the fence again, we found another dead rabbit under the deck. I was like, ’sad, those poor cute bunnies’. Royal of course had to clean it up, because I can hardly stand to have to get rid of spiders or anything like that, and really Royal’s around and I’m pretty sure it was in our wedding vows that he would take care of all that nastiness. So, last night, I thought I heard some more screaming from an animal, and I knew Scooter must of had another rabbit cornered. I tried to wake Royal up to make him go outside and distract Scooter so the rabbit could get away. Sadly, either Royal was sleeping too hard, or did a really good job ignoring my fingers poking him in the ribs, but he wouldn’t wake up. And today, I just had to call Royal a few minutes ago to tell him he needed to come home and take care of something. This time, instead of keeping it under the deck, where I could of left it for Royal to take care of when he got home, Scooter decided to bring up on the deck, where Jayden likes to hang out. Jayden was out on the deck and I was watching him through the window, when I see him backing up, eyeing something. Jayden doesn’t like big bugs or nasty things either. And he looks and me and says, ‘mom, what is that?’ So, I go to check it out. It is the leftover parts of whatever Scooter was snacking on in the middle of the night, there were rabbit ears, some nasty looking organ, what looked like part of a leg, and a bunch of fur. And Royal WOULDN’T come home to clean it up…what the heck???? Where are his priorities??? So, I had to do it and it was disgusting, but at least it’s cleaned up. Guess whose finding Scooter’s collar that has a bell on it? That’s right, that would be me. Scooter won’t be going outside without me providing some warning for the cute little bunnies. If Scooter can catch a bunny with a bell around her neck, well, I guess she probably deserves it.

Jayden is always trying to love on Scooter. He tries to kiss her, pet her, put her up on the bed so he can jump with her. He’s finally gave up on trying to carry her around, as he always ends up getting scratched and bit. Scooter doesn’t really love Jayden like Jayden loves her. Scooter really doesn’t like any of us that much. Today, Jayden wanted to share his favorite animal Horsey with her, or maybe he was showing Horsey just how much fun Scooter really is.

Looks like Horsey might be getting a little carried away…..eeek

I think Scooter is depressed. Yes, Scooter the cat. She just hasn’t been the same since we moved her here to Kansas. I don’t think she likes it. In fact, I think she might be suicidal. She hardly ever wants to come in the house, we try and coax her in and try to love on her a little, but she really doesn’t want to have it. And she can’t be outside (neighborhood rules), not that she wants to go outside anyway, the only place she wants to be is in the garage. So for now, since half our stuff is still in the garage and we can’t fit cars in, we let her be out there. But I check on her all the time because during the day the garage gets super super hot. And the crazy cat, I find her sleeping on blankets. She’s not even trying to cool off by laying on the cement floor. Suicidal I tell ya, I think she has a death wish. Today I forced her to come inside because Jayden wanted to play with his toys in the driveway and I couldn’t have her running down the road. She immediately ran and hid under my bed in our room and refuses to come out, after she did some major scratching damage on some of my furniture to let me know how unhappy she was that I made her come inside. Jayden is adjusting way better than the darn cat.