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My Article in New Homesteading Magazine

/ On Writing / By / 2 Comments

Flagship issue of New Homesteading MagazineIt’s no secret that I’ve been working toward producing most of my family’s food for the past several years. And while I don’t even come close to qualifying as a real homesteader, I do seem to represent a rapidly growing segment of the gardening population: people who have become extremely conscientious about where and how they get their food. Think locavore on organic fertilizer. You know, those of us who’ve rediscovered the wisdom of the “Victory Garden” of yore and … Read More

The Case of the Dog Food Mouse, the City Mouse, and the Country Mouse

/ Cait and Me, Funnies, Life, My Dogs and Me / By / 1 Comment

So goes a recent phone conversation between Cait at home after school, and Andrew and me at work. Cait calls. Andrew picks up the phone.

Cait: Dad, there’s a mouse in the dog food drawer. How do I get it out?

Andrew: Yell at it.

Cait: Yell at it?

Andrew: Yeah, that’ll scare it out.

Cait: Is Mom there?

Andrew (handing me the phone): Cait wants to talk to you .

Me: Hey honey, what’s up?

Cait: Mom,there’s a mouse

… Read More

Tell Me Something Profound

/ Cait and Me, Life / By / 9 Comments

Cait was on her fourth hour of homework when she looked over at me wearily and said, Tell me something profound, Mom. She shoved her geometry book aside in protest, propped herself up on her elbows and said, “All these math problems I’m doing are so meaningless. Who cares?

Slogging through my own pile of homework, her question jolted me upright. But I quickly regrouped, I knew exactly what she was asking:

  • Tell me something that matters.
  • Then tell me
… Read More

10 Ways to Marry a Dog Lover

/ Dogs in General / By / 3 Comments

So you’re thinking you might want to throw in with a dog lover? Let me share a few helpful DO’s and DON’T’s to help smooth the way.

  1. Do marry thinking that your dog lover (DL) will want to share with you all the myriad ways in which DL’s dog is the most amazing, the most astounding, the most intelligent, the most funny, the most lovable thing since fill-in-the-blank.
  2. Don’t marry thinking that eventually you’ll be able to change DL’s behavior
… Read More

Living With a Dog Who Speaks English

/ Funnies, My Dogs and Me / By / 10 Comments

Kiera, my Australian Shepherd, has a vocabulary of a hundred or so individual words and a couple dozen expressions — last time I counted. On the one hand it makes life much easier for me. For instance, I can just tell her to go get Cait for dinner, instead of yelling upstairs. Or I can ask her to help me find my other shoe that Graidy, my Border Collie mix, has hidden somewhere. The “helpful” list goes on and on. … Read More

Part 2: What You Can Do to Avoid Getting Bitten By a Dog — Learn How to Read a Dog’s Body Language

/ Dogs in General, The Mail Bag / By / 12 Comments

Continuing with Andrew’s question for The Mail Bag: In my last post, I talked about some of the different factors that could trigger a dog to bite when on its own property. It boiled down to roughly three categories: a dog protecting its turf (including people, objects, and food); a dog undersocialized and/or uncertain or afraid of novelty (whether processed through smell, sight, or hearing); a dog in pain.

More than 4.5 million people get bitten every year, in … Read More

Part 1: What You Can Do to Avoid Getting Bitten By a Dog –10 Common Mistakes People Make Greeting Dogs

/ Dogs in General, The Mail Bag / By / 21 Comments

From the mailbag: Andrew writes: “In just the last couple of months I’ve had two scary run-ins with dogs and wish I knew what the reason was. The first incident happened when I was visiting a client for the first time and the dog came out and bit me hard on the leg. This was chalked up to the family’s new baby as it must have been protecting the family. But then today – visiting another new client and an … Read More

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