How Is June Almost Over?

I didn’t mean to go nearly a month without writing a blog post, but that’s just how it goes sometimes. 

The rain finally stopped.  We’re still having thunderstorms a few afternoons a week, but nothing like what we had going on for the last half of May.  The flooding and landslides in the surrounding counties seem to have stopped, which is a relief for everyone.

Our garden is doing alright.  Because of the rain, we weren’t able to plant everything that we had planned on, and Duke dug up and trampled a few things.  But the tomatoes seem to be doing well.  They’re still small and green, but I think there are some fried green tomatoes in our future. 

We planted a blackberry bush against the fence last year.  We had the idea that having more bushes in front of the fence might make it harder for Duke to escape, and we both love blackberries, so a blackberry bush seemed ideal.  It didn’t really do anything last year.  In fact, we were pretty sure that it hadn’t made it.  Our leading theory was that Duke had trampled it to death.  Are you seeing a theme here?  Anyway, it started coming back this spring, and now has lots of green berries on it.  I’m not sure if they’re just dormant the first year, or what happened, really, but I’m very excited that we’ll have our own blackberries soon.

Caroline is officially a year old now.  Time flies, doesn’t it?  Per our vet’s instructions, we’re in the process of switching her from kitten food to cat food.  Caroline doesn’t seem to mind the change in food, and definitely hasn’t slowed down any.  She still acts like a kitten.  The big cats are still convinced that Caroline’s food is special, so still eat it at every opportunity, even though more and more of it is exactly the same food they’re eating.  There’s no convincing them of that, though.   They know it’s special. 

I think that’s about it for us.  So how has June been for you? 

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).  

Pumpkin Pie In June

Pumpkin pie is one of my favorite desserts.  It probably is my favorite dessert to have at home.  I don’t think it’s just for Thanksgiving; apparently most people disagree.

Yesterday was one of those days where you just really want comfort food.  I don’t eat chocolate, I don’t like it.  So that leaves me with a slightly different definition of comfort food.  Pumpkin pie is one of my go to comfort foods. 

I went to the grocery store after work for some other things and decided I would pick up a pumpkin pie from the frozen section rather than taking the time to make a home-made one.  There wasn’t a single pumpkin pie to be found in the frozen section!  Not one!  I couldn’t believe it.  I realized I wouldn’t find a pumpkin pie in the fresh bakery section.  I do understand that this isn’t the time of year when most people are thinking pumpkin pie.  But I thought surely I would find one in the frozen section.  That’s kind of the point to frozen foods isn’t it?  So you can have what you want, when you want it?

My husband was nice enough to stop at a different grocery store on his way from work, and ran into the same thing.  There was no pumpkin pie to be found anywhere.

Fortunately I tend to stock up on canned pumpkin around Thanksgiving when it’s on sale, so I was able to make a pumpkin pie last night.  I used my grandmother’s recipe and it was delicious.  A pumpkin pie in June did greatly improve my day.

Here’s the recipe, just in case you’d like your own pumpkin pie:

¾ cup sugar

½ tsp salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground ginger

¼ tsp ground cloves

2 eggs

1 can (15 oz) pumpkin

1 can (12 oz) Evaporated Milk

1 unbaked 9 inch deep dish pie shell

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves in a small bowl.  Beat eggs in a large bowl, stir in pumpkin, sugar/spice mixture.  Gradually stir in evaporated milk.  Sprinkle bottom of pie shell generously with cinnamon.  Pour mixture into pie shell; sprinkle generously with cinnamon.  Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until knife inserted in center comes out clean.