Dog wrangling

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Dogs have been part of our household landscape for as long as I can remember, from my faithful childhood hound (Gypsy) to our current puppy many years later. At various times we’ve shared our home with a range of Heinz-57s (mixed-breed dogs), a Border Collie (briefly), a Welsh Springer Spaniel, Labradors, German Shepherds – and now have a young Doberman. I’ve spent years dog wrangling: from feeding, grooming, exercising and training to planning holidays around their needs. None of these things has been particularly arduous – indeed most of it’s actually fun, but it’s an ongoing commitment. In a blogpost last year I introduced you to Miss Molly, the most recent addition to the family. Seven months on, she continues to take great delight in showing me in various an assorted ways (every day) that a Doberman poses a few challenges I’ve not encountered with our other dogs.

Until MissM joined the family, I firmly believed that dogs should sleep in their own beds, ideally in the laundry or kitchen. I still believe that… but it turns out that my bed is super comfortable and my pillows especially so. Indeed, if my head happens to be on my pillow… well… heads are apparently pretty comfortable too. It turns out that Dobermans are very people focused. What this means is they don’t much like being on their own. In fact the closer they are to you, the happier they seem to be. If you stand still for more than a few seconds you end up with a large lump of dog leaning against the back of your legs. You move, she moves – and leans. I’ve discovered that the all-time favourite Doberman zone appears to be a lap – pretty much any lap, really. MissM fitted in mine quite comfortably when she was 12 weeks old and she got the idea that this was a thing.

weekthing2

A lap dog right from the beginning

At 10 months she’s quite a lot bigger and ends up draping herself across me when I sit at my computer, which definitely doesn’t work for me – although she seems perfectly happy with the arrangement if that’s all that’s available. This up-close-and-personal attribute of Dobes has been both my biggest challenge (not what I’m used to in a dog) and surprisingly enjoyable and companionable.

MissM’s big chest, sleek head, strong legs and narrow waist (not to mention rather pointy claws) make her a very elegant looking dog. This is misleading, as she’s actually all paws, legs, claws and very wet tongue – and is keen to share all of them. Doberman pups are happy, friendly, waggy-tailed and will do anything for food – and for attention. They are jumping dogs – both on and up. Ours jumps to my (not insignificant) shoulder height with all four feet off the ground when she’s excited. She’s very excitable…

Dobes are also stubborn, wilful, tend to be mouthy (and by this I mean both barky and chewy) and need firm, consistent behaviour modification. This means grabbing the pup gently but firmly by the shoulders or collar when they transgress and telling them NO in a deep, firm voice. Every time they transgress. They learn fast, but will push your limits until they’ve figured out that they won’t win that particular little battle. Reinforcing the NO with eye contact helps, but it takes consistent (and exhausting) repetition on some fronts.

In MissM’s case, we have two particular challenges. One is her tendency to jump up on us (and visitors) and the other that she grabs our hands in her mouth. In a small pup this may seem cute(ish), but in a big dog it’s no fun at all and needs to be nipped in the bud – or as soon as plausible. Despite all suggestions from friends and family on this front, Dobermans really don’t respond well to physical punishment, such as a rolled up newspaper swat to the bottom, and are particularly mood sensitive to their owners.

Boxes make good chew toys – and you can nap in them too!

So, to solve the jumping issue, we’re getting her to SIT before being greeted or patted by anyone. In a matter of days we saw an improvement – although training some visitors is almost as challenging as training MissM! With regards to the ‘mouthing’, we’re trying object replacement. When she grabs at hands, first comes the NO, then offering a replacement – an appropriate chewable item – and placing it in her mouth if necessary. When she chews on the toy instead of the hand, she gets praised immediately. If she tries chewing hands again – then it’s rinse-and-repeat: more of the NO – more of the replace with a toy, etc. Repetition and consistency really are the keys to success, along with patience. Bucket loads of patience…

What I don’t get is how this breed got such a scary reputation. They’re definitely super protective – and a stiff-legged, deep-chested baying bark resounds around the neighbourhood every (every!) time anyone walks past the house. Actually, car doors shutting, the chickens scrabbling in the hutch and a wide range of other sounds also initiate a Hound of the Baskervilles response. Loud? Definitely. Scary? Well, I’ve an idea that popular culture has a lot to do with these perceptions.

Having said that, I’d say that taking your Doberman (or any puppy, really) to training should be mandatory. If nothing else, it trains the owner/handler in how to manage themselves, which makes it easier for the dog to be compliant. Eventually.

Snuggles

Garden Bounty

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Cumquat trees are native to south Asia and the Asia-Pacific region, where the plant apparently symbolises good luck and prosperity. Our tree is surrounded by camellia trees in full bloom and bordered by rosemary bushes that have become a little overgrown – a very pleasing corner feature of our rather ragamuffin garden.

A year ago we spent an intense weekend pruning and moving plants so that our garden wall could be repaired. I know it was a year ago, because our cumquat tree was at least as burdened with fruit then as it is now. We’d recruited a few people to help with the garden rampage – and a couple of these industrious ‘garden gnomes’ were kind enough to collect all the fruit for me before pruning the tree back. I duly turned the harvest into bottles of rather delicious cumquat chutney at a later date and rewards were issued.

Since then, the tree has bushed out and fruited even more prolifically than ever. Unfortunately the garden-gnome-recruitment-scheme hasn’t worked quite as well this year, but I have a couple of likely characters coming to stay  for the weekend soon… I’m fairly sure I’ll be able to bribe them with baked goods to deal with the cumquat harvest then.

cumquats at #10

cumquats at #10

This does beg the question of just what I’ll do with hundreds of tiny, bright orange, pip-infested obloid fruits this year. In the past I’ve candied, spiced and brandied them, made jams, marmalades, chutneys and cakes, used them when baking fish and as accompaniments to roast meats. However, the darn tree appears to be getting more and more prolific as the years go by and many of the cumquat recipes I’ve found use only a handful of the fruit.

These muffins, for example, whilst undoubtedly very yummy only use up ten cumquats in total. Ten. In the grand scheme of things, I’d need to make about 20 batches of muffins to use anywhere near the number of cumquats I have on hand – and I really don’t think my waistline would appreciate that very much! Nevertheless, having found the recipe, I’ll give them a try this evening. I’ll also try this delicious-sounding cake over the weekend. It uses 750g of cumquats – and since one cumquat weighs approximately 19g, that makes about 40, which sounds more promising. I’ll reassess the cumquat situation after that

grapfruit harvest @#10

grapfruit harvest @#10

Meantime, we harvested 170 grapefruit today and there are more on the tree. This is our third harvest this season and we’re just about grapefruited out. So, if anyone would like some, please give me a shout and we can arrange for a pick-up or delivery 🙂

Food for thought

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On Sunday we headed off to Gidgegannup to enjoy the annual Small Farm Field Day. It was a day of talks and demonstrations on sustainability, an opportunity to try some local produce and to see our friends Tim and Bronwyn in action presenting a Punch & Judy show. With various kinds of goats and poultry, lots of beautiful alpacas, a camel train, llamas, working dogs, ponies in abundance and a petting zoo, it was definitely my critter-fix for the month. I was quite captivated by a baby pig that snuffled around in a very friendly sort of way and considered – however briefly – the merits of getting a tiny little piglet of my own…

Despite that brief lapse, however, the real win in the animal department was the Dexter cattle. They’re a delightfully small and placid breed (averaging about a metre the shoulder), making them a viable option for a small property. If I was in the market for a cow, I think a black Dexter would be at the top of my list. It’d be rather nice to have a reliable known source of fresh milk and a Dexter kept as a ‘house cow’ apparently produces about 5 litres of milk a day, which is a plausibly manageable amount if you like milk and are into making your own yoghurt, cheeses and so forth. The milking might be an issue, but I imagine it’s a skill that can be learned much like any other… or done auto-magically by a cunning milking machine… or, in my case, by simply waiting for daughter-dearest to get one and then enjoying it all from a comfortable distance!

We also chatted to burly men about machinery, ate tasty food, drank bad coffee and went to a number of talks. The first of these was by Eric McCrum, well known naturalist and wildlife expert. He appears regularly on ABC radio, where he generally expounds on some or other wildlife related topic and then answers flora/fauna questions from the public. His segments tend to be both entertaining and informative, and this one was no exception. We heard all about enjoying flora and fauna on small landholder properties, although Eric did tend to get side-tracked onto one of his favourite rants – feral animals and their impact on native fauna.  It was the first time in ages that I’ve attended a talk where the presenter has chosen to be low-tech and the bizzzt-click of the slide projector slotting slides into place added to the general enjoyment of the session.

Another very interesting talk  was one on slow food by Vincenzo Velletri, who  augmented his presentation with tastings of a wide range of delicious preserved foods he’d prepared. The pickled aubergine was particularly good, but then so was the strawberry jam (sweetened with quince instead of sugar), the bacalhau (dried and salted cod fish), tomato relish, olives and pickled zucchini (recipes provided). So much yum in one tasting session!

Vincezo’s very passionate about good, clean and fair food – the slow food mantra – but also about minimising food waste. It was eye opening to be confronted with statistics on just how much food is wasted worldwide and how little is done to address the problem. France has just introduced new legislation to try to combat some of the food waste there, but nothing comparable appears to be on the horizon here in Australia at present. Instead, we were told, about 25% of farmers’ crops are going straight to landfill, either because of oversupply or  because the product isn’t ‘beautiful’ enough for the consumers, supermarkets & restaurants bin ridiculous quantities perfectly useable foodstuff and individual homes throw out about 20% of the food they purchase.

Like me, you’re probably thinking ‘surely that can’t be right, can it?’ It seems implausible that families would waste that much food. To answer that, simply look around your home and think about your personal food use and that of your family and friends. Do you (they) regularly bin food instead of using it? If so, why is that? Is it perhaps that we’ve grown up in a time of relative plenty? Or because so many of us are jumping on the celebrity chef bandwagon and purchasing recipe-specific ingredients, of which only part gets used and the rest gets wasted? Whatever the reason, in a world where increasing numbers of people are going hungry and the price of food continues to climb, this simply can’t be considered a sustainable practise.

My take-home message from the Small Farm Field Day is that we should all try to take up the challenge to actively minimise food wastage. We can start to do this in our own homes by checking the pantry and fridge before doing the grocery shopping and then buying just what we need. Next might be trying to use leftovers instead of binning them. If you’re not sure how, you could always think of them as a starting point to creating Tapas. Yup – tapas, the tasty little morsels we pay top dollar for at trendy restaurants. Try making one night a week ‘tapas night’ and re-purpose your leftovers as small plates of random tasty tidbits. If that doesn’t work for you, try cooking smaller quantities, invest in a compost bin and/or think about getting a couple of chickens to feed your scraps to. Bottom line is that  you’ll save money and will feel good about reducing waste cutting down on pollution.

Mosaic Madness Workshop

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It’s been a while since I ran any sort of workshop – but I’ve elbowed myself some creative space, both mentally and physically and it’s all systems go. With the cooler weather here at last, it’s a good time to get stuck into some mosaic. In addition to this, my outdoor (undercover) area no longer has three kittens living in it, so there’s abundant space in which to have some messy fun.

The plan is to run this workshop as a tester to see how it goes. If it’s a success, I’ll do more of them and get Perth mosaiced to the max 🙂

In this workshop the group (aka my willing guinea pigs) will make mosaic trivets, rather like one of these.

trivetsYou’ll learn about the basic tool set, select or draw a design and transfer that onto a backing board. Then we’ll all spend some time getting used to the tools and practise cutting and laying mosaic pieces. After a tasty morning tea you’ll all get stuck in and each a create trivet to take home with you. We’ll break for lunch and probably end the afternoon with a glass of something to celebrate our mosaic adventures.

Because the grouting has to happen at least 24 hours after the mosaic pieces are glued down, this step can either happen in your own time or you can pop back to do it on another day. I’ll also give you some tips on how to finish off the piece with some sealer and felt backing.

Details:
Date: Sunday 7 June, 10am – 4pm
Venue: The ex-kitten outdoor area, my place
Cost: $0 for my test-run guinea pigs 🙂
Bring: your lunch, apron or work shirt, an ice-cream container and an Artline 200 marking pen (if you have one).
Provided: morning tea, backing boards, some simple designs, tiles, glue, grout, tile nippers, safety glasses.
If you have spare ceramic tiles you’d really like to use, bring them along. Likewise, if you own or can borrow a set of tile nippers, bring those too.

To book: contact me directly – spaces are limited, so get in quickly.

My inner critic

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einesteinTo my mind, the word creativity carries with it connotations of originality, imagination and success. For those of us who don’t consider ourselves to have ‘an artistic bone in our body’, this feels self-limiting. Our inner critic tells us that we aren’t artistic, thus we can’t possibly be innovative or inventive, thus creativity is outside of our operational zone. This rather circular argument ignores the fact that creativity isn’t actually about being artistic. It’s about making something out of nothing, about having an idea and following it through, about implementing an existing idea in a new way. It’s about being prepared to try things out, about accepting that ‘trying’ is the first step to ‘doing’ – not the last.

Last weekend I took part in an all-day drawing workshop designed for absolute beginners, for those who – like me – believe they simply can’t draw. Over the years I’ve been to a number of writing/other workshops and, in most of them, the instructor has suggested that I silence my inner critic (MIC) and just get on with it.  Anticipating this, I asked MIC to be an observer for the day rather than a participant. She must have agreed, because I had the best day and learned far more than I expected to. I even tried sketching in charcoal, which turns out to be a very satisfying medium to work in/with. I felt very creative, very capable.

Later on I reviewed my sketches at home. Away from the supportive vibe of the workshop, I could see many more flaws in my attempts than I had in class. Clearly MIC was back in play and she was making up for lost time. Before all my confidence fled, I decided it was time for us to get to know each other a little better.  My goal was to try to establish how and why my perceptions of my creative abilities had been set and, in so doing, to figure out how MIC  could help rather than hinder me.

I started by listing the sorts of ideas that, broadly speaking, might be limiting my creativity and empowering MIC.  The first thing that leapt to mind was the pervasive belief  that creativity is inherently self indulgent. MIC does have a tendency to murmur to me that I should be doing ‘something useful’ instead of ‘messing about with mosaics’ (or whatever).  Then there’s the notion that creative pastimes require time, money and an appropriately creative environment. Considering that creativity is so broad ranging, this is clearly a furphy – but I’ve nevertheless bought into each of these ideas over the years as well. Another roadblock for many people at various times is the rather childlike need for external approval to validate the endeavour (whatever it is) – and I’m no different. However, the most ubiquitous underlying limiter I came up with is self-doubt. This is like a vitamin B12 shot for MIC – it feeds her and allows her to grow and expand her influence over what I do.

The source of self-doubt is complex, built up in layers over many years and even more experiences. This often makes it quite difficult to single out an originating point or, indeed, to know whether such an assumed point is accurate or imagined. MIC and I worked together on trying to figure this out. We eventually narrowed it down to (surprise!) my childhood, to my memories of drawings done by my mother and brothers. I remember these as things of beauty, an unreachable benchmark. I tried to draw like them and fell short, so I concluded that I couldn’t draw.

This outlook very probably shaped the way I’ve tended to approach creative activities ever since. Over time my belief that I can’t draw turned into a view that I probably can’t do other ‘arty’ things – or, at least, not do them very well. MIC and I agree that this is not an outlook that serves any useful purpose. It’s based on the half-remembered impressions of an eleven year old – a child who didn’t consider that it takes work to do something well, that her mother and siblings probably spent hours and hours sketching.

I haven’t tamed MIC (she is a rather unruly minx), but we’ll work together to formulate a better working model. We’ll try for one that promotes creativity rather than hampering it, perhaps by turning ‘Critic’ into ‘Critique’.