Canine manicures and new floss colors

While our previous dog, Emma, didn't particularly like getting her toenails trimmed, she submitted to it, uh, ungracefully.

"NO! Don't trim my nails!"

The owner of these hairy feet and legs, however, is proving to be a problem.

Annie's nails - sharper than a kitten's claw!

Annie has yet to let us trim her very long and talon-like toenails.  Her toenails are wreaking havoc on my legs as it is summer and I'm always wearing shorts.  She is learning not to jump up on a standing human, but still has her moments where she jumps up and scratches my legs.  When she is happily sitting on my lap and spots a rabbit/deer/cow out a window, she launches herself off my lap and scratches my legs.  My thighs look like I fell into a bob-wahr fence.

DH was able to stealthily trim a few of her back paw nails during the first few days we had her home, but now she runs whenever she sees him with the clippers in his hand.  She does the same when I pick them up.

We've tried holding her firmly and speaking to her calmly while trying to trim the nails, but she reacts with fear, snarling and putting her teeth on us in warning (no, she doesn't bite us).  Either she was traumatized earlier in her life or she just REALLY doesn't like having her nails clipped.

I guess we could let the vet clip them (and have to pay for it), but we really don't want her to associate going to the vet as being unpleasant.  We could cart her off to Petsmart or Petco (and have to pay for it) to let the groomers tackle it, but that doesn't seem right to us either.

So for now, we're trying to daily hold/pet/stroke her feet while brandishing the nail clippers without actually trying to trim a nail to desensitize her.  We'll see how that goes.  Hopefully it will work with consistency and time as I may need a blood transfusion here pretty soon if we can't keep her from scratching me and drawing blood all the time.  Multitudinous Band-Aids aren't exactly a fashion statement.

I started stitching "Bluebonnet Blooms" by Redbird Designs.  You can see it here at 3 Stitches or Stitches From the Heart, both are local needlework shops here in Texas.  I have done online business with both and they are quick and reliable.

I read on the internet that DMC is releasing 16 new colors in October.  Here is a link to see them: DMC Blog.  I will be adding these colors to my collection as soon as they are available for purchase.  These will be the first new colors released since 2001. 

I have two complete sets of DMC, my working set and my back-up set.  As I live a half-hour from town and the nearest store with DMC, I keep the back-up set for when I run out of a color in the middle of a project, thereby saving myself from angst.  When I pull a skein from my back-up set, I make note of the color and pick another skein up the next time I am in town and near Hobby Lobby or Jo-Ann Fabrics.

I picked up 85% of my back-up floss several years ago when Wal-Mart sold off all their stock of DMC for 10 cents a skein.  They have since decided to restock DMC, but don't carry the whole line of colors.  Retailers - go figure.

LoneStar 

Monday muddlings

DH took the day off to finish gathering up scrap metal and hauling it to the scrap metal buyer in town.  He had quite a load.  He left a few minutes ago and I decided to write a blog post in his absence.  Hopefully, he'll come home with a decent amount of cash for his fun money budget.

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Loaded and ready to roll

I finished my Halloween ornament.  I found it on the Cross Me Not blog.  It's called "Pumpkin Time."  I stitched it on an ornament-sized piece of unknown linen I had in my stash with DMC.  I was drawn to the bright orange colors in this design.

Mister Scary Pumpkin Face

Annie is a total lap muffin.  If you sit down anywhere in the house - on the couch, in a chair, on the floor, anywhere - she gets in your lap and makes herself at home.  DH decided to read a bit after lunch yesterday and soon found himself with a lap of Annie.

Humans make the best nap laps.

LoneStar

No broom lending here

Here is my latest finish, "Be a Witch" by Angel Stitchin'.  I stitched it on 28 ct. lime hand-dyed linen by Zweigart with the indicated threads (DMC and WDW).
  

"Be a Witch"

And I have a complaint - don't you hate it when the designer doesn't tell you on the floss key that you will need TWO skeins of a particular color of floss?  Especially if the floss is hand-dyed and will typically have a dye lot number?!  Yeah.  If you stitch this design, you will need TWO skeins of WDW Mascara.

I made some changes to this pattern.  All the checkerboard and lines above and below the witch hat are stitched with orange and purple.  The purple would have been black if the designer had let me know that I would need TWO skeins of it.  

I think it looks fine, but how hard is it for the model stitcher to let the designer know that TWO skeins of a certain color are needed?  Maybe the model stitcher did let the designer know and she was too lazy? inattentive? rushed? brain-dead? to make note of it in the floss key.  Geesh.

I am now stitching on a small Halloween ornament I found on a blog.  Actually, I saw a picture of it stitched somewhere on a blog or message board and the stitcher included a link to the blog with the free design.  I'm close to finishing it and will include information on how to find it when I post a picture of my finish.

And thanks to everyone who has welcomed me back to blogging and posted kind comments.  I do appreciate them!

LoneStar

Noodle versus tank

When you have more than one pet throughout your lifetime, you can't help but notice the similarities and differences between them.  While our previous dog, Emma, and our present dog, Annie, are both Jack Russell terriers and possess the common traits of the breed, there are definitely some differences between them.

Emma was built like a fullback (yeah, a sports analogy) as she was compact and muscular.  She was fearless and bulled her way through life (and into snakes and skunks).  Annie is built like a dancer, slimmer and graceful.  She is taller than Emma was and has a narrower chest.  She is wary and cautious, but ready to meet a challenge.  And although Emma could jump up pretty high, Annie bounces up like a spring or Tigger; she can jump completely over the couch without touching it.

When you picked Emma up, you picked up a little tank.  When you pick Annie up, it's like picking up a wet noodle as she's kind of floppy and loosey goosey.  If you're not careful, she'll ooze right out of your arms.  And although she likes to sleep on her new bed, she oozes off of it, too.

When you snooze you ooze!

LoneStar

Junk = $$

I was going to post a picture of my WIP, but I'm so close to finishing it that I'll just wait until it's finished before I post.  I was hoping to finish it up this past weekend, but as I often had a lap filled with a happily sleeping Annie while in my stitching chair, I didn't stitch much.

DH spent a day this weekend loading up the truck with junk and then hauling it to a local scrap metal dealer.  It was one of those niggling things that he's been wanting to do since we moved here nearly five years ago.

Included with our house was a nice loafing shed with a small corral.  DH uses the shed to house our tractor and other lawn equipment.  Also included was a small ramshackle storage shed that leans precariously - we call it the Shrieking Shack - and a small tumble-down barn that is dank and half-rotted.  We plan to tear both of these eyesores down at some point as we really don't use them.  And we'd like to tear them down before they fall down.  ;-)

The Shrieking Shack

The Shrieking Shack and old barn

Both of these structures had piles of old metal in them and around them.  There were things like old pieces of drill pipe from the fence project, old rolls of fence wire, an old washtub, old rusty tools, etc.  DH had no use for these things and as the local scrap metal place pays for old metal, DH wanted to load it up and sell it.  He had 1560 pounds of metal and 45 pounds of copper wire (at nearly a dollar a pound) which netted him just over $175.00.  And he has another pile ready to take this coming weekend, although it probably won't fetch as much money as the metal isn't as heavy.  But it's a nice bit of "found" money for his fun money savings and will probably go for things that are hunting related.

Personally, I'd spend the money on stitching stash, but that's just me.

LoneStar  

The gate

Here is our new gate made with recycled components.  The only thing we had to pay for was the welder's time and DH had to buy a couple of nuts for the gate hinges.  I took the picture standing across the road from our driveway.  You can't really see it too well, but there is hog panel welded to the iron pipe frames on either side of the gate.

DH and I played with Annie a lot in the yard this morning, so she will probably spend the afternoon sleeping.  Hopefully I can get some stitching time in without her trying to sleep in my lap.  I'm nearing the end of my current WIP.  I guess I should get a picture of it tomorrow and post it.  

LoneStar

Another post-slump finish

I was digging through my fabric drawer yesterday and came upon another finish in my "stitched but not finish-finished" pile.  This is "Summer" by Redbird Designs.  It was a stitching retreat project WIP that I got in 2008, and as far as I know, the pattern was never published for sale.  I finished this after "that durn flag" but before the "August" Crabby square.  It was a very fun and enjoyable stitch.

"Summer" by Redbird Designs

It is stitched on light blue Jubilee with DMC and GAST.  The pattern came with WDW floss, but as that was before Weeks was colorfast and I wash everything after I stitch it, I chose not to use the included floss and substituted GAST.  Now that WDW is colorfast "based on industry standards," I've been using their floss and like it.

We're having a cold front today.  The high will only be 98 degrees instead of the 100+ temperatures we've had most of the week, so DH and I will be doing a little work on the property.

We recently had a gate installed at the entrance to our driveway.  You'll remember that we have a long dirt driveway - the length of a football field - and that we own the land that comprises our driveway.   Our driveway is not "public land."  If you look at a satellite photo of our land, it kind of looks like a trapezoidal lollipop (our acreage) on a crooked stick (our driveway).

Anyway, the locals know our driveway is a driveway.  Once every month or so, we get non-local looky-loos or lost people mistaking our driveway for an actual road and driving up it to our house.  There is a dirt road up the way from us that is an actual road, but as the local kids pull the sign off it a lot, it is usually not marked as such.

I'm a friendly person.  If I'm expecting you or I know you when you drive up to my house, I'll greet you happily.  However, as I live back in the woods off the main road, if I don't know you and I'm not expecting you and you drive up my driveway to my house, I'll come out on my porch with my shotgun cradled nonchalantly in my arms to inquire as to your purpose for being there.  That's just the way it is.

A while back, a gal drove up to the house, got out, and seeing me out on the porch with my shotgun, asked if this was [name of road up the way].  I wanted to say, "No, you brainless airhead, roads don't end at a person's house.  You've come up my driveway!"  But I didn't, I was polite and gave her explicit directions to the road in question.  She thanked me and got happily back into her Cadillac SUV.  

Anyway, DH and I wanted to keep the looky-loos and the lost off the driveway so we had a gate and short fence installed across it at the road.  We recycled and used bits and pieces of drill pipe and a gate we inherited when we bought the place.  We only had to pay the welder for his time and one length of pipe.  DH and I need to clear the pile of brush he cut to give the welder room to work off the side of the driveway.  I'll get a picture of our new gate and post it soon.

LoneStar