Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real (vol. 3)

Pretty

This Past 4th of July, I was able to grill in my backyard for the first time.  While there was a bit of a mishap putting the grill together (see funny), things went really well, and overall, I would deem the experience a success....That in spite of the dog eating 3 of the finished hamburgers off of the kitchen counter.

I originally assumed that 2 lbs of hamburger would give leftovers for a few days. The dog had other plans.

The charcoal finally lit, after borrowing lighter fluid from our neighbors.  Now I know for next time.

The first half of the burgers. Ginger ate all but the smallest of these.  That is what I get for leaving them unattended.

Grilling isn't complete without a few grilled veggies.  I want to try other veggies this way (covered in salt and olive oil), but am unsure of which would taste good.

 Happy

We have a new foster-dog.  Our local animal shelter is seeing a huge boom in animals, so we have taken one in, hoping that our socialization of her will make her more adoptable.  Of course, we hit the jackpot, because she was already house-trained.  My father thinks that we will have a tough time giving her back once she is adopted.  He may be right.  My niece is already saying things like, "we should adopt her ourselves."  

My ginger (at the back of the picture) seems to like her, and my niece's dog, Daisy, loves to play with miss Athena.  

Funny

So, putting together a grill while sitting outside on a wooden deck has a few hazards involved...such as losing a screw through gaps in the boards.

You can't see it well in this picture, but the screw I dropped is between these two boards

 Thankfully, my niece was able to give me the idea of putting a magnet on something to try and fish out the screw.  Otherwise, my grill would have had to been put together with a missing screw.  I don't have any loose screws laying around. (OK, maybe some of the mental kind, but not the physical kind.).

Why yes, that IS a refrigerator magnet attached to a zip tie with packing tape--we use what we have. I was able to fish out the screw, and it only took me 2 or 3 tries!

 While the foster doggie is still being put in the crate at night, we are leaving her out for most of the rest of the time. Yesterday, I let her stay out with the other critters while I did errands.  I'm not sure I trust her to be out with the rest of the critters for a long period of time without supervision, but an hour or two seems to be ok.

This is what I saw through our front window as I was coming in from my errands. I know it looks like Athena is standing on Daisy's head, but she is actually standing on a cat perch we have near the window.  Neither cat has been using it since Athena got here, because Athena is just a little too curious about them.

 Of course, this is something that I never thought that I would see in my neighborhood, but these guys have been out and about pretty much every day since we moved in.

I live near the center of town, and yes, my neighbors have free-range chickens hanging about.  So far, I've seen 4 of them.  I've been told that they keep bugs way down. That makes it tempting to go out and buy some, but my digdogs would chase the poor things to death.

Real

One of the things we do each summer is keep a wading pool in the yard for the digdogs.  This is absolutely essential in warmer climates, since it helps them to keep themselves cool.  However, living in a desert is a little bit different than living in Central TX.  We've been having visitors to our pool, which never happened back in El Paso.

I suspect that the curiousity/hunting instinct of both Daisy and Athena have run off this particular neighbor--I haven't seen the frog since they tried to capture it together a few nights ago.

 With two dogs that like to chase other animals (Ginger doesn't chase anything but toys--I think she believes that chasing a living being is too much work, since they don't stay in one place like toys do), the cats have begun to look for hiding places, especially places that the dogs can't reach them.  Since we are still waiting for the darker paint to set, all of our cabinet doors are off in the bathroom. Mysti has decided that our towels are the perfect place to sleep because of it, although the top of the refrigerator is not out of question.

High, comfy, and hidden.  What more could a cat ask for???

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