Stewart Creations

Mom and I called Aunt Elaine today and talked at least an hour between us. I sure love her! Funny thing, Mom thought it was Elaine’s birthday, but it’s in May, not April. We talked about dogs awhile, I told her how excited I was to be going on our maiden voyage in the 5th wheel for Sammie’s wedding, which, coincidentally, will be right around actual Elaine’s birthday. Of course we talked about dogs, and she told me of a place where there were kennels for sale in case we needed some for the trip. I told her we are probably only taking one or two dogs with us, if any, this time, so we’re covered, but it made me think, maybe we should start shopping for crates right now for the summer trip which will be for a month at a time… and with all the dogs.

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Today at the dog park I had a close call with Peanut. There were a lot of dogs there in addition to our five, Vinnie the Rottweiler, and Bart, another big pup, were playing and Peanut got in the middle, playing, too. Well, the first time he got stepped on he yipped and those two big pups set upon him like he was injured prey. I barely got him scooped up in time, and then the dogs’ owners had to keep them from jumping up to nip Peanut in my arms. What is it about dogs that make them do that ‘pack mentality’ thing? Well, they are animals, really, and we need to remember that. They aren’t natural wearing costumes or Women’s Hats, no matter how we dress them up. I haven’t decided if I will take him to the dog park again, he hates being left home, and it scares him to be left alone.

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Our stud dog, Hank, is not a stud any longer. He’s still the boss dog, but we had to get him neutered because he had a testicular cancer just starting (I guess) and the vet said if we get rid of his manly jewels, it will clear up that swollen prostate right away. Since he’s a dog, I am sure he is not worried about the side effects of libido max, and the way he still bosses the little dogs around, he doesn’t even know his jewels are gone, as far as we can tell. We’ll know if it worked if he goes a year without dripping blood out of his pee-pee. Wish him luck.

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The dogs finally got the screen open on the truck shell, now their noses are out in the air whenever they want. It cracks me up. The truck full of dogs sounds like a rolling bark factory, and now with dog noses out, too, it looks like a rolling bark factory.
It’s cool enough to walk the dogs in the desert today, I think we’ll take them out. It’s not cold enough to be thinking about swimming pool safety fence, but before long we will be wishing for a cool place to swim.

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Hank the Cow Dog gets to go to the vet tomorrow, he keeps dribbling blood. He got antibiotics last week but they didn’t do much good. We’re afraid that he got something seriously wrong. Tomorrow he gets x-rays and what-not all. No food after 8 and no water after midnight. Poor baby.
That means both he and my sweetie-pie will be gone all day, Hank has to be there by 8 tomorrow morning and it’s a 2.5 hour drive. Guess who’s getting up early?

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All of a sudden the holiday season seems extra long. Just a couple of days ago it was Christmas Eve and I went in to the studio as usual for at least an hour before I remembered that tomorrow was Xmas and it was a holiday. That’s probably why there wasn’t anybody else around, huh? I hadn’t realized it was that late in the season or something, I don’t know, I was confused there for a minute when it sank in that tomorrow was Christmas Day and I’d have a house full of people.
Today I am expecting my niece for a visit. She landed in Phx last night with a friend and they will drive here any time now, it seems like a lot of long minutes around here, waiting. She will probably be shopping for hiking backpacks and other gear in the big city, although I think Logan, UT has just about every store. Maybe they hit some bars, they’re young cops and Jo is a pretty frisky kid, and I think she has a friend in Phoenix, too, so…. What would you do if you were 35 and healthy and got away without the kids? I’m sure they found an adventure, she really likes the trails around Phoenix, maybe they just hiked somewhere.
My darling went to PHX today with the green truck and the trailer. He is going to finish up the house while I visit with Jo, isn’t that sweet? I was going with him to help and to drive the other truck back here, because tomorrow we get the 5th wheel over here in Ajo … who knows how now? .. we are up in the air about how to get all the cars here at once along with the 5th wheel. It reminds me of the fox, chicken, boat, riddle.

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Let’s see if the dog pictures got to where I sent them. Sometimes I lose pics in the trip from camera to desktop folder.

Yep, they made it. A lot of these are from walks in the desert at Ajo.

Ready really loves his walks, he probably needs it the most of all the dogs, as rowdy as he is.

You can’t help but get the occasional dog butt in the shots, and I apologize for that.
This inside shot is of the dogs playing around in the Phoenix living room. This is during one of Lur’s visits, they really enjoy each other.

Peanut is so photogenic! It’s hard to believe right now when it’s 104 outside, but we all need sweaters sometimes in the winter in the desert.

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We have only missed one or two days of walking the dogs early in the morning here in Ajo. Lucky dogs.
Today I did my homework and my sweetie finished painting the garage. He is testing a color combination that we will use on the Phoenix house. We got a brownish roof when they re-did the roof last month to match what the new colors are going to be. We had blue with grey roof. The new pale coffee color with barnyard red/brown trim looks real nice. So now he’s done with that, we are tying up loose ends to close the house and go to Phoenix. I needed some bleach to leave in the toilets while we are gone, so we had to go shopping.
Today at the dollar store, the POS Hardware was slow and looked like it might go down entirely. That happened once this summer and they had to close the store. Pretty important stuff these days.

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We took the dogs to the tank (that’s what it’s called when it catches and holds water, in Spanish it’s tinaja. This one is in the big arroyo out by the shooting range. There is so much Spanish around here in the names of things.

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Look at Ready and Hank in the back of the truck this morning. I’m so in love with my dogs!

We had another good walk this morning, but I have to admit that I’m longing for a morning of sleeping in. When winter comes, we can sleep all we want and still get our walk, but summer makes us get up and at ‘em.

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I got the cord to my camera so now there will be pix!

Annie is such a pretty cattle dog, it’s too bad she has that bad hip. We give her glucosamine and a pain pill twice a day, but still she limps a lot. Somehow she has blown out the knee on that side, too. It’s pretty expensive to diagnose her, but we do it. Not here in Ajo, but in Phoenix. She does not have medical coverage. Everything we own has coverage except the dogs. I really believe in insurance for the house and the medical. A friend of ours has dog health coverage, wish we’d done it when Annie was a baby, but we didn’t.

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Our baby, Lrr, is visiting for the weekend. Each time he comes he fits into the herd sooner than the last. Look at them play, only hours after he arrived.

It wasn’t but a few minutes after he got here that they were into their normal positions for BALL and were catching balls in their turns, peacefully.
He never eats much while he’s here, and when they aren’t playing he’s under my feet, so I know he misses his mama, but they do have so much fun together.
We took them for a nice walk this morning and didn’t see any snakes.

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Hank is so funny. He hates the pups and especially Peanut (I tell him he’s right to be jealous because I love that little poodle so much, which doesn’t help, I’m sure), so last night when Peanut was happily chomping on a bone, Hank got up next to him and just glowered down on him. Peanut was oblivious.
I found these bones at the dollar store. They usually are about five dollars at the feed and seed. Also, I have found coupons codes and printable discounts online a lot. Follow that link and see what I mean about good deals.

I pick up all the dog bones once in awhile and put them in the basket under the treadle sewing machine. It doesn’t take long before they have all the bones out of the basket. Hank was trying to get within glowering distance and actually crawled up into the basket. It was funny. Peanut heard the camera turn on and looked up, but he hadn’t noticed Hank until then. He’s real hard to intimidate because he thinks the world is his own private fun place and he believes everybody loves him, even Hank. So Hank wastes all that energy hating and Peanut is totally oblivious.

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Go Joyously into the spirit and the summer land of youth,
Glory once again in your strength. Run free amid the wildflowers.
Sniff the tantalizing smells among the wooded tangles of the forest.
Sleep in the warm sun beside murmuring brooks. And when you weary of the green hills and fields of Rainbow Bridge, follow the bright strand forged of love which connects us.
It leads to the garden of my soul where a warm welcome always awaits your coming.

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I just got paid for sitting Jake and Jake’s mom reserved time in October, too. Yahoo, I’m a pet sitter!
Next month I get Gabby for a few days in Phoenix, which is a paid gig, then we get Lur (BoydLur) for a few days in Phoenix, too. That’s a freebie on our ‘lifetime babysitting guarantee’, because he’s one of our pups. He likes it better in Phoenix in the summer months because he’s used to air conditioning and it gets too hot for him in Ajo with only the swamp cooler. Heck, it’s too hot for me, too. Last time we had him in Ajo he tried to climb into Mom’s refrigerator, it was so funny.

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Whenever I say picture of the kids, I am tempted to actually say pig-tures of the kids (as in what did the daddy javelina have in his wallet?)
but these are pig-tures of our kids.

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It’s nice that I stayed here this week, I’m getting a lot done. Of course I didn’t bring hardly and of my urban clothing, but the washer is here, so no biggie. The weather has been perfect for someone who is walking (me), I walked to school today and put in a few hours at the math lab, so I feel especially virtuous today. I walked to CVS (quarter of a mile) and got glucosamine. It really helped my joints, so we started giving it to Annie Oakley, and she seems to be moving just fine.
It’s really hard to pick the best price, there are so many differences in doses and price, and apparently the HCL isn’t the right one. Too much thinking!

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It was way too hot last week, My Dear poured a huge slab of cement, something like 12x24x6, in four big sections last week. In the heat. It’s probably a good thing he didn’t wait for cooler weather, because it’s raining nicely right now. Can’t pour concrete in the rain.
This beautiful and cool weather will green up the yard here in Phoenix and get my garden in Ajo going, too.
I can’t wait to get back and see. I had sprouted some of the seeds, the eggplant, cilantro, and chard, those might be up, and if the bugs don’t chew my basil it should be tall, too.
Love that rain.

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My Dear found another airstrip on google maps. It stood out because of the huge yellow X which, I guess, is the universal signal for airstrip closed. To the dogs, it’s a commercial playground, and for me, it’s sunshine, rocks and play with the dogs time. For the Mr., it’s history.
Pnut had a really bad seizure today on our walk, it was at least two separate incidents with maybe a minute between. Wish I could find a treatment that works, we tried over-the-counter doggie downers, and that didn’t help. He was really hot today, the sun was shining and the lizards were out. I even got a little color on my arms. Maybe he just overheats, I’ll put that frozen bandanna around his neck and try that.

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Every once in awhile I go through my camera and unload some, and keep some, and even delete a few pics. There’s only 400 or so on my camera right now, bare minimum, can’t get by with less.
These are my favorites, these pics get saved in a number of places, digitally and sometimes also print.



The ice on the dog pond was two inches thick, I kid you not. Ready didn’t like it much, but he posed for me like a good boy, he’s such a great dog.

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I have an inch of ice on the dog pond this morning. It’s so cold….I forgot to cover the fig last night, I hope it’s okay. We will check the citrus fruit this afternoon when the Mr. gets home from Ajo. We might be juicing and freezing the whole crop in the next couple of days.
It is too cold down there in Ajo right now without heat in the house. But who are we going to complain to? Our friends in Minnesota? Our friends in Colorado? We likely will get no sympathy from that quarter.
The good thing is, that with us both here in Phoenix this week we can shop medicine cabinets, we still have not found the right one for Ajo. The only thing is, I got used to the whole bed with only three dogs, hope I can adjust.

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However many days are left before gift day, we are not going out to shop today. Let the folks who work during the week have the roads, we’ll go out tomorrow. We both still have gifts to buy, I’s like to find some fashion jewelry for my friend Xtina, she likes pretty jewelry and can wear it. Me, I break out when I wear any metal, so most jewelry is out for me. I also have slippers on my list for more than one person, but Monday will be soon enough for the madness of shopping. We both have determined to wait another day, it won’t hurt us, even though we’re itching to spend.

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The first batch of really crunchy dog cookies is done!
It took days of drying in the sun after a brief bake in the oven.
Before dog owners worldwide start looking at a diet pill review magazine for their snack-happy dog (and these are proven to be very tasty), there are a couple of bugs I need to work out.
I need a cookie press that holds production amounts of ‘cookie’ dough, and I need a faster drying time.
My panel of judges have approved the recipe.
Here’s part of the test panel, relaxing on the couch.
They let us sit there, too, sometimes.

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Not this trip, but probably the next, we will take the new TV down. We won’t need plasma mounts because it’s not that fancy of a TV, but we’ll figure out something.
Our neighbor in Ajo does agility with her border collie and has invited me to do it with her this winter. I might just take Reddy Kilowatt since he’s been to school so much. Annie Oakley has that hip thing, and Hank has never had formal training, also, “old dogs, new tricks” may apply here, at his age, he’s pretty set in his ways.
If I don’t take Reddy to agility, that would leave Fea or Pnut, both too short to get over a jump. Pnut would look pretty cute trying, though.

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I am really enjoying my Development of a Small Business (mgt 253). The business I am developing for the class project is an online-only gourmet dog treat business.
It looks so feasible on paper I wonder why I haven’t done it sooner. I need to get the .com address yet, so I don’t know what the name will be.
I have been cruising the online pet supplies people to check out the competition. Found some good ones, but I think I can sell the dog biscuits at as low a price as any I found and still make a profit. I know they’ll be tastier and better for the intended audience, the canine gourmand.
I will use my own dogs on the label.

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