Organic heirloom radishes. Don't they look wonderful? They taste as good as they look. Even Mike is eating them. The food from the farmer's market is making for some wonderful lunches. First there was a beet and orange salad, then arugula with the radishes, beets, cherry tomatoes, walnuts, and local goat cheese. Wow.
Tonight I made dog food (most of it was pre-cooked and I cooked grains, mixed it, calculated the phosphorus, balanced for calcium, packaged and froze it). Aside from the time the grains and brussels sprouts cooked, it took less than 30 minutes. I only made one batch - lasts about two days. However, I now have white rice and millet in the freezer for about 3 more batches.
Dinner was turkey burgers, made-from-scratch white beans with sage, white rice, millet, and dill green beans (from a can). It was simple food and quite good.
The new Le Creuset pots are fantastic for grain-cooking. Oh my. Not a single grain stuck to the pot, and they cleaned up beautifully. Cooking was even without any stirring over heat that was med-low. I wouldn't want to be slinging these things around to say, deglaze and reduce and then pour a sauce....but if you're going to cook grains, or stews, or braise - this is The Pan.
Our twice a week dog classes start this week. We are taking Advanced Rally and Competition Obedience. I hope our obedience class continues as there may not be enough students in it. Obedience is very hard, and it is waning in popularity - partly because it is very hard, but also for many other reasons. Rowdy and I do it because Rowdy loves it, and I love doing things with Rowdy. It also gives us a low-impact competitive sport to be involved in, and one that is more like a lifetime sport than Rally, which I am crazy about but unfortunately in AKC Rally, you sort of top out pretty easily. Other sanctioning organizations offer more options at the top tier of Rally competition, but around here it's mostly just AKC for Rally. AKC obedience is changing....we're hoping to be part of the change, but it is a tough sport, with a deeply-rooted system of status and schools, rigid boundaries, known for a chilly climate at ringside, often seen as a guarded and competitive group of exhibitors and tending to favor a small group of breeds. It is a sport of precision teamwork that has evolved over 50 or so years into a system of lore and elaborately nitpitcking scoring that rivals the US Tax Code for complexity. And the idea of demonstrating that precision with undeniable joy in the ring is still a little bit of a new idea over there. You see a lot of grim-looking folks with flat-looking dogs in the ring. People who don't place in this highly competitive venue feel like failures, coming is 5th is known as "first among losers" (placement ribbons are typically given for 1st thru 4th place), even if your score was still close to perfect. We are encouraged by our teachers and others like them who value joy in their relationship with their dogs, who insist on making sure that your furry partner maintains a happy feeling about the sport and competition, and who are very upbeat, progressive and sophisticated in their training methods. That's how I find myself with a dog who starts jumping up in my face when I pick up the clicker, and when I put my headband on (to make my face and subtle cues to him easily seen), he goes wild - this can only mean we're HEELING!!! HOORAY FOR HEELING!! Pull out a dumbbell and he's herding me toward the door.
Coming from agility, where the sport evolved only after the development of modern, motivational training techniques and the activity is so strongly inherently enjoyable for both dog and handler, obedience is well.....a different game indeed.
It's official! Rowdy and I are now registered with Therapy Dogs, Inc (www.therapydogs.com) as a therapy dog team. We received our certificate, Rowdy's tag and my card this week in the mail, along with the organization's magazine. How exciting!
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