Johnny & June

We are foster parents again.  This time we are temporarily housing two eight week old hound puppies.  The semi-local no kill shelter was contacted by a kill shelter in a neighboring county about taking in 34 puppies who were on death row, and sent out a plea for foster homes.

The no kill shelter was able to take all 34 puppies, but only if they could find foster homes for two weeks for all of them.  They were out of room themselves, and don’t typically keep puppies that haven’t been through all of their vaccines in the shelter. 

This is our first time fostering puppies.  We typically prefer older dogs or cats, but looking at the puppies’ sweet little faces and knowing that stepping up was literally the difference between whether they would live or die made us take the leap into fostering puppies.  We reasoned that it’s only a two week commitment.  Two weeks of something new and different for us really isn’t much compared to saving their lives. 

All 34 puppies arrived at the no kill shelter at 3:00 on Tuesday afternoon, and were all parceled out to their various foster homes by 7:30 that evening.  Some brave souls took groups of four puppies. 

Johnny and June weren’t named at the shelter.  They were the last two hound puppies in a carrier, so were sent with me for convenience sake as we hadn’t spoken up for specific puppies, just agreed to take two.  The foster coordinator told me we could name them.  It’s about a 45 minute drive home from the shelter, and the only time they stopped crying in the car was when country music was playing, especially anything old school.  At that point I had to name them Johnny and June! 

Johnny and June have to remain separated from Emma, and cannot go outside at all due to their age, coming from the first shelter, and vaccine status.  We have the puppy crate in the added on room because that’s the best place to keep anyone separated from the other fur kids.  It has changed up our routine a little bit, but so far it hasn’t been terrible.  It is more work having them around, but it seems to be worth it. 

Caring for them seems to mostly consist of constantly changing out the newspaper and cleaning their crate.  It also appears that they’re going to need near daily baths.  They are very loud when they want attention, but they play with each other and they sleep a lot.  They’re beginning to discover toys, which is fun to watch, and they seem to be developing their own little personalities.  June is feistier and wants to play and chew on things.  Johnny is cuddlier and wants to be held and petted. 

I’ve been told that they will likely end up on the northern transport program since hounds are usually adopted very quickly that way.  It’s just nice to be a very small part of that, and to know that soon they’re going to have their forever home(s).  

Another Rainy Day

We are getting drenched here in our little piece of the world.  It has been raining off and on (more on than off) since Thursday night, and really picked up yesterday.  Rain is definitely not one of my favorite things.  I prefer sunny skies with puffy white clouds. However, I am working on keeping a more positive outlook, so I’ve tried to come up with some things that I do like about rainy days.  I managed to think of five, so here they are:

1.  I don’t have to water the garden.  Mother Nature is taking care of that for me today, so no need to drag out the hose and watering can.  That’s one thing off of my to do list for today.  I’m also told that lettuce likes the cooler, rainy weather.  I’m hoping that my pots of lettuce will begin to thrive since we’ve had so much rain. 

2.  My husband enjoys overcast days, and really likes the rain, so he has been very happy with the weather

lately. 

3.  The cats are always incredibly snuggly when it’s rainy.  There’s nothing quite like cuddling up with a purring cat (or four) on a rainy night.

4.  Soup!  Rainy days are perfect for homemade soup.  Tonight it’s chicken noodle soup from the slow cooker. 

5.  Emma looks really cute walking around in her Thundershirt, and it seems to make a huge difference for her to wear it. 

So what about you?  Do you like or dislike the rain?  Are there things you like about rainy days?

Last Week’s CSA Box

Our CSA pick-ups began last week.  I love it so far!  Last week’s box was filled with various lettuces and greens, including tat soi, mustard greens, and several others.  We also had a nice bunch of green onions. 

Salads featured heavily on our menu last week!  We’ve found that chopping all of the greens into small pieces makes for a wonderful salad with great flavor and texture.  I love adding the mustard greens to salad for a peppery flavor.  I also sautéed some of the greens in olive oil for a delicious side dish.  I didn’t measure anything, but here’s the basic recipe: 

About five or six cups of washed, shredded greens (mustard, Swiss chard, tat soi, etc)

Olive Oil (enough to barely cover the bottom of the pan)

2 – 3 chopped green onions

Fresh garlic, pressed or chopped (3 – 6 cloves; I used 6 because we love garlic)

Salt & Pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a large pan over medium heat.  Add garlic, stir for about a minute, then add everything else and sauté for about 10 minutes. 

Enjoy!

The half share seems very generous so far.  It’s advertised as being enough for two to three people per week, but seems to be a little more than that.  We ate a lot of salad, had the greens, and gave some away to my parents (they had enough for my mom to give one of her co-workers a salad) and Nick’s grandparents.  Nick took the last of it to work last night to share with his co-workers. 

I’m hoping it will last, but we noticed that we ate a lot more vegetables last week.  There’s just something about having a whole box of organic vegetables that is making us very conscientious of using them up.  We planned meals around vegetables, which is a somewhat new experience for us.  We were also mindful of giving away what we couldn’t use, so as not to waste anything.  That was one of our concerns when we signed up for the CSA, but I’m happy to say that everything from our first box was consumed and enjoyed.