Perhaps you are wondering as I am, where the time has gone~ It’s so hard to believe that Christmas will be here in a few weeks. It was just summer! Since we seem to be flying through the seasons, and I’ve been too busy to write until now,  I apologize for being a season behind in my Pascal stories. You may remember a story I posted in July titled, PASCAL; All Season Dog~ “all season dog” meaning, in Pascal’s case, no matter what season, he’ll find an excuse to NOT walk!  If you are wondering about the  photo above, I placed that large leaf on Pascal’s head one day while we were at the park to show him that leaves don’t bite; they’re really not scary things! Even more puzzled? Read on……..

I love fall. It’s my favorite season. I love the way the air is crisp and seasoned with the delicious scent of smoke-curls wafting from rooftop chimneys. I always look forward to our walks in the fall and I was eagerly looking forward to the many fall walks we were about to be taking.

If you were to ask Pascal, I’m sure he would tell you that our walks for the first part of fall were wonderful. The temperatures were perfect for brisk walking and there weren’t many days that were windy. We had great walks down to Heather Farms where we could watch the daily  changes in leaf color- or I could. I brought my camera and stopped in awe every few steps, to take a picture. Pascal thought that was great because it meant that he could stop and sniff around while I took pictures- one of his favorite outside occupations. He was as ecstatic with this freedom as I was with the potential to “preserve” every minute shade of the color spectrum. Our walks were mutually wonderful~ until about mid-way through fall-

One day 

we started walking down the sidewalk, and guess what happened? The leaves were  falling off their branches and were headed straight for US!! Yikes!!!  All of a sudden Pascal  darted  in front of me, straight out to my side.   I almost tripped over him. They were  coming to get us, those beautiful leaves!

Our walks became difficult. Pascal was convinced that we were under attack. There were a couple of really bad days. It got windy and the leaves became really aggressive-  and what was wrong with me, Pascal wondered as he sat down in the middle of the sidewalk with leaves shooting down all around him. Didn’t I see what was happening? How could I be so stupid as to consider walking at such a time. I called him towards me to make him continue walking, and gave a little tug on his leash. That only convinced him that I had become just plain lame and needed a more powerful message or we were both going to become victims of this ruthless assault from the sky- My second tug on the leash made him budge! He stood, turned around  so that his back was towards me and,  with all 18 lbs. of his little body tugged hard in the direction of the car. O.k~ I got it!

For the next two days I didn’t even try to go walking. The morning of the third day was sunny, warm, & perfectly calm. Great! A wonderful day for a walk. Surely the leaves must be off the trees now.  “Let’s go! I said, standing at the door with his leash in my hand. He came bounding to the door; unusual for Pascal- for a walk. He wiggled excitedly as I fastened his harness. All right, I thought. Two days without a walk. Now he really wants to go. I felt excited too. This was going to be a good one. I could feel it!

I just barely got him out of his car-seatbelt and he was off and running down the sidewalk, pulling me behind him.  This lasted just long enough to get us partway down the  block. Then he abruptly slowed to a walk. It was such a beautiful morning. The sky was sparkling blue and not a single leaf was falling.  They were lying in scattered  piles that covered the sidewalk. Like always when I bring my camera, I was looking  for the “perfect shot” and not paying much attention to Pascal.

As we continued down the sidewalk  I became aware of erratic little tugs from the other end of the leash. With the next tug I looked down at Pascal and saw one hind leg raised high in an attempt to hop over a leaf. I kept watching as we walked and when I saw what he was doing, I couldn’t keep from laughing. First it was one leg up high, &  then another. If he had been able to figure out how to do it, I’m certain he would have very quickly been airborn. As it was, he was doing what looked like a complicated jig down the length of the sidewalk, trying to avoid stepping on those evil leaves! Oh Fall, you most perfect of seasons, whatever has happened to you?

Looking out the window at the 5:00 darkness moving in to blanket bare tree limbs, I’m reminded that it’s Winter now! Somehow we made it through Fall! We actually survived our walks!  Now, I have a feeling, we are about to see how we fare with Winter. It snowed last night. It almost NEVER snows here-  We didn’t walk this morning. My decision. Too cold!  Hmmmm~

This is the second part to my last post on, ” Pascal, all season dog”-  the “all season” meaning, no matter what the season,  Pascal will have a reason not to walk. His most-used,  weather related excuse is the wind. The wind is a great one because he can count on it to be around no matter what the season. It’s definitely his most reliable source,  followed by  summer’s heat and winter’s cold . Fall and Spring are always good for wind,  and the few days that are left free from the elements are, believe it or not, actually good for walks! We have even had some very good walks on those days. But it’s the days, the ones that actually have “weather,”  where the problem occurs, and it’s of those days that I write.

Assume for this post that it is a typical windy day- ( I’m choosing windy, since those are our most prevalent encounters, but the things I’m about to describe here occur equally as much on any weather-related day.)  I also should state that “wind” for Pascal can be anything from high velocity, sway trees, , shake leaves off branches,  to the slightest puff of a breeze- anything that can be even remotely experienced as air moving-

So——I left off in my last post,  where we’ve gotten out of the car, Pascal has chosen a few “lucky” bushes to water, and now he’s ready to walk. He takes off,  quickly- eagerly, ahead of me. For a few fleeting seconds, following him, walking as fast as I can, I think, could it be that he doesn’t notice the wind~ or maybe,  finally he just  doesn’t care?~  No sooner have those thoughts crossed my  mind than I notice that, while still out in front of me, he has started hopping with one back leg raised every other step, so that it  looks like he is either skipping or has a seriously hurt leg. By now we have almost walked/hopped, to the end of the first block. As we approach the corner I notice he has slowed  down and is no longer pulling  in front of me, but instead, has fallen behind and is walking so close to the back of my leg, ( I think he’s walking in my footprints- ) that if I were to suddenly stop, he’d crash right into me. I realize then, he’s using  me as a wind-break;  actually pretty clever!  Apparently walking in my footprints doesn’t offer enough protection-

The tension on the leash has shifted from him pulling me, to me  pulling him. This is only good for four or five steps. I know what’s coming next, and it’s more than just reaching the end of the block.  A sudden sharp tug stops me mid step and I know it’s happened. I turn around and let my eyes roll down the leash  until they meet Pascal’s-  (He has seated himself firmly in the middle of the sidewalk and is staring up at me,)  “What is it, bud? Come on, let’s go!” I try to muster as much enthusiasm into my voice as possible. He looks at me  a few seconds, then looks away, but doesn’t budge. “Come on Pascal. We’re almost there! Let’s go see-” I plead,  giving  the leash a little tug. Nothing happens. He’s dropped anchor. I know once we’ve reached this point, I can tug on the leash and cajole him forever, he’s not going to budge. I’m left with only one alternative-

I bend down and scoop him into my arms saying, ” You need a little jump-start, do you? O.k, I’ll carry you, but just for a little bit-” I carry him half of the block until his 18lbs. feel more like 100 lbs. “That’s it, bud,” I say, setting his 4 feet firmly on the sidewalk. He immediately sits down-  “I can’t carry you any more. Time to walk. We’re almost there!” I say “heel,” give a little tug on the leash and start to walk forward- only to have the leash slacken when I reached its end.

I turn around and face him again. He’s still sitting there, but refuses to look at me. He knows I’m not pleased with him. As I talk he looks off in one direction, then turns his head to look in the other direction- anything but look at me. Finally I decide this is definitely not a day to be going for a walk- (not with Pascal, anyway.)  “O.k!” I say. “Fine. Let’s go home!”I turn around  and before I can say “heel,” Pascal is off, once again in the lead, pulling me! He holds his head high and moves quickly, prancing with polished Bedlington grace.

“Slow down!” I yell after him, as I chase his wagging tail–

straight into the wind–

the entire length of the block back to the car—–!

“Good walk, Pascal!” I say, trying to catch my breath. He looks up at me as I strap him into his seat belt for the ride home and in his eyes I see a peaceful sense of calm-  That had to be a sign of agreement!

What’s that, you might be wondering~

The answer goes something like this-

I have taken Pascal out for a walk , 5 out of the last 7 days. Out of those five outings, Pascal has  walked 1 1/2 times!   Huh?  It seems that no matter what the season, Pascal can always come up with a weather-related issue to not walk!

It has been our routine for the last 10 yrs.,  to take a walk every morning. When I pick up his leash and call him,  he never comes bounding to the front door like every other dog I’ve had. This is what Pascal does-  From the comfort of his position stretched out on the couch, lying with his chin on his paws, he watches me out of the tops of his eyes, (although looking at this photo, I can’t figure out how he ever sees anything at all-).  They follow me over to the corner of the room while I take his leash from it’s basket, then over to the front door where I stand, waiting. “Come on Pascal!”  I urge. He continues to stare at me, so I say a little sternly, (at least I think it is,)  “Now Pascal!” He decides I really mean it, so he lowers his front two legs to the floor and with his back legs still  up on the couch and his butt in the air, he gives me a huge  yawn, accompanied by a long, slow stretch, then  slowly places his hind legs on the floor. “Come on, Pascal- hurry-up!”  At this his tail starts wagging and,  not taking his eyes off me,  he slowly walks towards where I stand waiting with his leash in my hand,  careful not to increase his speed. I wait,~  he’s getting close-  Just as he gets almost to where I can grab him, he veers slightly to the side and attempts to walk right past me!  “Uh uh, buddy,” I say with my hands on his collar. It clicks!~  There—-leashed!!!  His tail continues wagging as we walk to the car. His pace has picked-up considerably. I notice that he actually seems excited to be going . I strap him into his seatbelt, start the car, and we’re off.

There are a few places that we usually go to walk, all of them requiring under ten-minutes to reach. I try to rotate so Pascal doesn’t become bored with any particular one. He watches out the window the whole way there, probably trying to determine our destination. As I pull to the curb to park the car, he begins an excited, loudly- shrill,  barking, which, should anyone be around,  causes heads to whip to our direction. He continues,  his barking mounting to a wonderful frenzy,  while being temporarily oblivious to my pose of quiet. Finally it’s like he suddenly realizes that  the rest of the world isn’t interested that we’ve arrived, and that I’m sitting there, waiting for him to stop barking. He stops instantly and fixes me with a nonchalant stare, as if to say,  “So what are you waiting for, I’m ready-”  In the silence, with his barks echoing in my head, I open my car door and prepare to get out.

He’s wound-up another bark, but keeps it sitting, bubbling in his throat making funny sounds as he looks out the window and pretends that,  of course he’s going to sit quietly and wait for me to come  take him out. But I know differently. The minute I start to climb out,  a little yelp slips out his mouth. I turn and fix him with an angry stare. He immediately looks away as if he hadn’t just made that yelp~ and would never even think of barking at such a time . I get out of the car and slam my door,  his resumed barking following  me through the closed windows. I’ve tried leaving him in the car until he stops barking, but he doesn’t stop, or if he does,  it’s only momentarily. As soon as I grasp the door handle, the barking resumes. I never have the time or the patience to stand there forever playing that game – As I reach to open the car door he stands, tail wagging, excitedly ready to leap out the minute the door is opened, so I have to tell him to sit and stay while I open his door,  unfasten his seat belt and lift him out. (He’s already had one broken leg so there’s no way I’m going to let him jump out of the car-)

In case I haven’t painted a clear enough picture, let me just say, without a doubt, Pascal is now clearly excited about going for this walk. Once out, he pulls me to a few bushes, “the Chosen ” and then he’s off, pulling ahead of me down the sidewalk. This is what happened yesterday. This is what happens almost every time we go for a walk, with only slight, weather-related variations, (i.e.does he need to wear a coat today, or, do we need to get an extra-early start before it gets too hot? etc……)

I’ve decided to save the actual “walk” for my next post.  I hadn’t expected when I started writing, that it would take so many words to relay Pascal’s behavior from the moment I enthusiastically say, “C’mon Pascal, let’s go for a walk,” to actually beginning “the walk itself.”

You may be wondering why  I’m including the following photos ~  I always enjoy seeing beautiful pictures, so in the hopes that you too, enjoy them, I like to include some at the end of my post as a way of saying, “Thank-You” for taking the time to read. I hope you enjoy these~

And if you really, Really, enjoy them, they are all obtainable for you to have, either on a set of notecards, or if there is one that you’d particularly like to have enlarged to hang on your wall,  convo me, and I’ll see if I can do that for you~

Life is full of surprises~ and of course,  being their nature, you never know when or where they are going to pop up!!  With my latest surprise I literally mean, “pop-up!”   Like this,  above-   the first, and most visible thing to see in my garden.

A few weeks ago I received a call from my mom saying  she had bought a large bag of Dahlia tubers, but hadn’t enough room in her garden to plant them all, would I like what she had left? (I have become known as the one to ask if someone has a plant to get rid of , because I can’t refuse them.) I have had a few dahlias in pots for several years and they do very well, so the thought of adding a few more , pleased me. Sure! I’d take them! Did I say a few more? That was my first surprise-

The bag of tubers I was given was about 95% full! I think my mom planted all of 2 tubers! Oh my gosh, I thought, when I looked into this very large, very full bag. Where am I going to plant all of these, and,worse yet, when am I going to find the time to plant them?

Somehow I managed to find a way to get  80% of them planted, (so far.) Most of them came up immediately, but many had already started sprouting in the bag; impatient, I guess. My first flower to open is the one  pictured. I watched the plant’s leaves grow from large to larger. The flower stems seemed to shoot up  4 ” per day!  I never saw small flower buds. I looked one day when I didn’t think the stalk could get much taller, and there was a fist-sized flower bud!

These were definitely not the same variety of dahlia that I have been growing. It was only a few days after I noticed the flower bud, that it began opening. It took a full week to be fully opened as you see it today, but I measured it a few days ago when the outer petals were fully opened and the flower looked huge already-  It measured 6 1/4″ in diameter. I’ve watched it opening the rest of the week, and almost can’t believe what I’ve seen.  These flowers are probably comparable in size to some large sunflowers. I measured the flower again today, now that it is fully opened. It’s 9 1/2″ in diameter!!  I wouldn’t call it beautiful, but it is definitely spectacular-  Most amazingly, today the second bud on this plant is almost to the 6 1/4″ diameter that the first one was a few days ago, and two more buds are at slightly lesser degrees of development, but within a few days, depending on how long this first flower remains,  there will be 4 gigantic monster flowers in my garden- and that’s just on this first plant! My second dahlia to bloom is pink with a light yellow center and is halfway opened right now and showing signs of being equally as huge as my first . And I’ve just spoken of the two dahlias that are the furthest along. There are many more, some in the process of emerging and some beginning their flower stalks.

It shouldn’t be long now before I will be typing from somewhere deep in a freakin-tall, monster-dahlia-forest!

I said in my previous post that I was going to talk about my second set of note cards, but I’m going to save that for next time. Before I go, I want to give you a sneak preview of the baby dress, (size 1,) that I’m working on and hope to have finished and listed,  soon~  (provided I have no more “free-plant” offers to distract me!)                               Coming Soon!

***One last note~ Please excuse the little “spill” into the margin at the beginning of my blog.  My blog was updated to the latest version and we encountered a problem that we hope to be able to correct soon!

Perhaps because he’s a terrier, or maybe it’s just because he’s Pascal, Pascal has always had a very strong mind of his own and a definite opinion about everything. When we walk he decides before we get to the curb, which direction he wants to go and when we get to the curb, he goes in that direction, no matter that I’ve begun in the opposite direction, or that I’ve said, “no Pascal, this way!”- or even that we happen to be right in the middle of a busy intersection! He goes as far as his leash will allow and then braces himself for a tug-of-war with me- So yesterday after starting  our short trip to check the creek, with Pascal braced against me every step of the way, I decided, o.k- I’ll let him have his way today and I’ll follow him.

Leaving the creek I think he was a little stunned to see that I was letting him lead the way. Every few steps I could see him looking back , checking to make sure I was following. With him leading, we took the same route we usually take, up one side of the street, down the other. It was kind of nice not to be in charge and not to be pulling in opposite directions. We started down one of the streets we have walked down so many times. There is a men’s clothing store, a small, interesting-looking brick alleyway and a fancy restaurant across the alley, and Tiffany’s jeweler’s on the corner. As we always do, we walked past the clothing store, across the alley way, and were almost beyond the restaurant when I decided that I had to know what was down that pretty little alleyway we always walked past. Fortunately we had been walking for a while already, so Pascal’s initial excitement at being out walking had waned and he didn’t seem to mind that I was changing our direction.

We started down the alley and I absolutely couldn’t believe my eyes! I had truly found a hidden treasure! And guess what? This time I had my camera with me! The walkway was entirely terra cotta bricks and they were laid out in beautiful circular patterns. Along the left side of the alleyway, adjoined to the restaurant, were several little cafe tables, each with an umbrella in the middle- (it was early morning so the restaurant wasn’t open yet-) On the right side of the alley, opposite the row of tables, the wall was also terra cotta brick, but flat against the wall, from floor to ceiling,  was a beautiful, sculpted metal waterfall! We stopped for a few minutes to look at the water slipping down the metal and then were lured further down the alley. After the initial waterfall there were huge pots filled with lush- green, blooming plants. The photo above is just one of them. Here is another~   Looking at the beautiful plants, I hadn’t realized that the alley had suddenly opened into a large outdoor room the center of which, was raised and totally surrounded by trees. There were more dining tables in this tree-enclosed,  raised-brick, section. The entire area, alley and “room” the alley turned into, were open-air.

The best and biggest, most beautiful surprise of all was at the very end of the alley/room. Across the entire end was a huge pond/pool-  formed from large, dark, rocks. One end of the pool had a large gurgling, gushing waterfall with several lily pads floating at it’s base. There was a mound of boulders piled in the middle of the pool, also surrounded by lily pads and as we approached a large turtle dove off one of the rocks into the water. The other end of the pool had a sculpture of a large metal frog lying on it’s back with water bubbles blowing out of it’s mouth! Best of all, and I was very excited to have my camera, but not so excited with the pictures I took, (we’ll just have to go back! SOON!)——- were too- many- to- count, huge, yellow, orange, and white, koi fish!!

I would never in a million years have dreamed such a treasure lay down this alley.

I guess you just never know what you might find, but if something tweaks your interest even a bit,  I’d say it’s definitely worth exploring~    Oh! And don’t forget to bring your camera!

Last week Pascal and I went for our walk downtown. I almost always bring my camera with me when we walk, but once in awhile the thought of not having to carry my camera, (which is tiny & actually quite easy to carry,) appeals to me and I leave the camera at home. This happened to be one of those “once in awhile times.”  My camera was home, safely hanging from a door knob, and my hands were free to swing as I walked. It felt great!

We were nearing the end of our walk as we approached the overpass where Walnut Creek, as always, was gurgling and rushing on it’s way through town. I noticed someone across the street waving to me and recognized him as Pascal’s friend, the window washer of the shops downtown. “Come over here!” he called, “You have to see this!!”  For the first time that morning, my hands didn’t feel so great to be freely swinging- I shoved them into my pockets and crossed the street to see what the window washer had found.

Not only had he found a treasure to see, he had found a treasure to photograph!! Yes, photograph!! This would have been the shot of a lifetime I thought, looking out at the creek and picturing my camera hanging  from the door knob at home!  Imagine the scene you see pictured above only instead of the goose and goslings swimming above the waterfall, as they are in this scene, they are walking down the steep bank on the left of the overpass, to the water, close to where I was standing. Swimming in the water directly below me on the right was a mother duck and six tiny ducklings. Then, to “crown” the picture, standing above in the center, at the edge of the fall, looking down over his brood that was quickly scrambling downhill to the water, was the gander, his silhouette magnificent against the blue-green backdrop of water stretched out behind him~

I vowed that I would return the next morning with my camera and get that picture, foolishly expecting to find everyone posed in their exact same spots-  The next morning when I returned, the only one there was the creek- minus all geese and ducks. I have returned four times with my camera. The shots pictured here and above are the closest I’ve come to getting THE picture——– and they’re not even close! Sigh~

Pascal has been alternating back and forth the past two weeks between being absolutely delighted to go out walking, and pouting, to be inside, lying around while I ‘ve been busy working on the dress I finished this past week-end.

He has so many funny quirks; many of them centering around food. Besides the fact that generally, Pascal could care less about food, he has a genetic liver disease called copper toxicosis. This is very serious because it means for dogs that have it, that their livers can’t process copper. If left untreated, the copper builds up in their systems until it becomes fatal. I was so lucky to have caught it in its early stages, and he is fine, but it means that besides having to take a lot of medications, his diet has to be very strict to make sure that he consumes as little copper as possible. To make matters worse, the most essential element in controlling this disease is zinc. Zinc comes in large tablets which I have to crush and mix into his food- but only after first giving him a pepcid a half hr. before – otherwise, the zinc upsets his stomach so much that the minute he swallows it, it all comes back up. Anyway, I mention this only because having to mix zinc into his dinner makes it even more important that he eat. I have to do my best to disguise the zinc-   and it’s been a real challenge. He does well with chicken, so every night he gets cooked chicken with crushed zinc, disguised with chicken gravy and shredded cheese, in a bowl along with his dog food. There are those nights, (few,) where he actually is hungry and will go right up to his dish and eat-  and then there are most nights where I just cross my fingers and hold my breath, hoping that after he runs through his “quirky routine, he will eat. It’s absolutely essential to his life that he have the zinc. We had another one of “those” nights last night, so I thought I’d give you a little glimpse of the quirky routine he puts us both through ~

Pascal and I eat with our backs to each other, his dish being about 6′ away from where I sit at the table. This gives me the advantage of being able to see his reflection in the window.  With Pascal watching, I set my plate on the table, go to his placemat on the floor and put his dish down, saying something like, “Ummm- looks good!”  I get a “ya right!” look in exchange and instead of going to his dish he comes and sits at my feet, staring at me.  I immediately show him the baked potato on my plate which is both my dinner and also my source of bribery. “Go eat your dinner and you can have some potato,” I tell him,  to which he feigns his best blank stare that I’m supposed to interpret as meaning he’s clueless as to what I’m saying. Only I know better! So I start eating my potato, but only after first scooping out a generous portion of the inside to save for after he eats his dinner. Still right next to me, he lies down and stares at his dish, as if carefully weighing the pros and cons of eating his dinner. After mentioning the bribe a few more times, I pretend to ignore him, while at the same time, sending mental telepathy saying, “Go eat, go eat!”  Finally after what seems like forever, but really isn’t more than 5 minutes,  he gets up and walks very slowly towards his dish- but then he stops about 2 feet away and stares at it again- like he’s expecting something to jump out at him. Still watching in the window to see what he’s going to do, I just hold my breath and think, Come on, keep going~  And he does! He actually goes right up to his dish, but he stops again and looks at it. Then I hear him take a bite, followed by a few more. I am so relieved. We’ve made it through another night, I think, and start reading my magazine to the pleasant sound of his slow eating in the background. But a few minutes later, he’s sitting by my side looking up at me as if to say, O.k- I ate! I’m ready for my potato! I look down at him and say, “You’re done? Already? That was awfully fast! He keeps staring at me like he’s very pleased with himself, but I’m on to him-” Let’s go check your dish,” I say. He follows me with his eyes as I walk over to his dish, knowing exactly what I was going to find. “You aren’t finished! All you ate was your chicken. You need to eat the dog food and the cottage cheese, too. You’d better go back and finish if you want your potato! I say, “Here. I’ll fix it for you,” and take a spoon and scrape it into two neat little mounds again. I bring the spoon into the kitchen and when I return he’s happily munching away at the rest of his dinner! I quickly walk past him so as not to disrupt his eating, and return to the table and my magazine.

After several minutes I hear the tag on his collar clinking and he comes running over to me. This time when I look down at him I know he’s finished- he’s wearing the last telltale blob of cottage cheese on top of his nose!  And he knows when he looks up at me and sees me smiling, that I know he’s eaten- we both know we’ve made it one more night. He gets his potato! But wow that was hard work!!

My very favorite thing to do when I’m not making my dresses is one that meets with much more approval from Pascal than when I sew, and that is gardening! I adore gardening and Pascal loves to be my “little helper” by keeping me company while I do the work! I few days ago I went around the side of the house, intending on pulling out the tall array of weeds that had moved in over the winter, and was greeted by these beautiful iris!! There is a huge clump of them over there and for most of the year I forget about them because they’re not in bloom, but when I saw them a few days ago, they were so breath-taking, I had to run back to the house to get my camera!——–Which brings me to one last thing, and that is, I enjoy taking photos so much, especially photos of flowers, and I also love writing. I’ve always dreamed about making cards, and I’ve been seriously thinking about combining my love of flowers, photography and writing, and creating some small, (4 or 5/pack,) gift packs of photographic blank notecards, with perhaps a sentence or two below the photo. So don’t be surprised if one day in the near future you see added to the handmade dresses in my etsy shop, and in my website, a new section of note cards for sale!

Part1

Because we live in California, the San Francisco bay area to be exact, Pascal, (my bedlington terrier,) and I, have the good fortune of being able to go for long walks almost every morning, unhindered by weather. We usually go either downtown to walk, Pascal loves all of the attention he gets from so many people, or we go to Heather Farms which has acres and acres of park land, is gorgeous any time of year, and from Pascal’s perspective, is olfactory heaven!

Which place we go, is usually determined by my mood on that particular morning. Notice I said “my”-  I constantly have to remind myself that there are two of us experiencing this walk~  sometimes from very different perspectives!

We hadn’t been to Heather Farms in several days and even though it was rather cold, (upper 50′s,) the sun was out and showed promise of creating a beautiful day. I put Pascal’s coat on him. A few days ago I thought perhaps he no longer needed to wear it this winter, but when I started the car I looked over at him,  and his whole body was quivering. It was so sad to see. I turned the car off and ran back into the house for his coat.

When we got to Heather Farms, I hardly knew which way to look first. It seemed like so many things were at their spring peak, in full bloom. The colors were absolutely vibrant, as you can see in the photo above. The meadow, filled with the yellow and green of mustard flowers contrasted beautifully with the little red-winged blackbird perched on a mustard flower stalk. What a picture that would make!

Holding Pascal’s leash and simultaneously trying to capture the beauty surrounding us with my camera, was proving to be a tough challenge. Everytime I was about to click a photo, Pascal would tug the leash and cause my hand to move. That annoyed me and I’d say, “No Pascal!” and tug him back-  only to have the same thing happen all over again. Finally, I gave up taking the picture and focused my attention on Pascal.

His nose was jumping from one clump of mustard flowers to another- No wonder the leash had been  tugging erratically!  Then I realized, his nose was excited to capture the spring experience encapsulating us, in the same way that my eyes were excited and “tugging” me to the viewfinder of my camera lens! So while the picture above reflects my experience of this part of our walk, (I managed to get one good one before he tugged- )  Pascal’s experience of the same part of our walk, would more accurately look like this in the photo on the right! ~  Part 2 will continue our walk-  from 2 perspectives~

From Pascal’s Perspective

when I checked my mail last night before going to bed and found that Haru-Dori Crafts had awarded me the Kreative Blog Award!! I’ve been so excited that walking with Pascal this morning, it was all that I could think about!

Apparently, this is how the award works:

List 7 things that you love and then pass the award on to 7 people…tagging them and letting them know they won! You can also copy the picture of the award and put it on your sidebar, letting the whole wide world know you are
KREATIV!   (I don’t have a scanner. I had to use my camera- If you’d like to scan a better copy of your award, you can find it here:http://haru-dori.blogspot.com/

Okay~  7 things I love (& not necessarily in this order,) ~ hmm~

1) Pascal, my bedlington terrier, best friend, & full- time companion

2) My family

3) Art (many kinds, both viewing & creating)

4) Reading (many favs.: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, books by Margaret Atwood, Doris

Lessing & Michael Ondjaatje, to name a few)

5) Music (especially classical and folk- love Ludovico Einaudi, Helen Jane Long, and Beethoven- to name a

few)

6) Walking/hiking with Pascal

7) Taking pictures with my camera- especially flower pictures

The seven blogs that I have chosen to give the award to are:

1.) The Curious Rabbit

2.) Adamson Studio

3.)Precious Quilts

4.)blackeyedsuzie

5.)Kala Pohl Studio

6.) Sascalia

7.)Hanami Gallery     These are all wonderful blogs! You should check them out!

Attitude-  That requires an explanation for which there are two probable causes.

The first, which you may already have noticed, is that today Pascal spent the first five hours of the day at the groomers. He looks great, doesn’t he?

He doesn’t think so. Pascal hates going to the groomers. Pascal hates even having his hair brushed. Ask him. If it were up to Pascal, he would prefer to continue only seeing the lower twenty-five per cent of his world-  He doesn’t mind that he walks into things because there is so much hair in his eyes he can’t see where he’s going. He doesn’t  mind his ear tassels dipping into his dinner every night because they’re too long to stay out of his dinner dish~

Today is a repeat. Every five weeks when we return from the groomers, he lies at my feet while I sew, looking like,-  like Snoopy lying on top of his dog house (only Pascal lacks the dog house!) This attitude really works! Every time I look at him I want to bend over backwards to restore myself to his good graces.

The second explanation for the attitude, and I think today both explanations apply, is that whenever I get deeply involved working on a dress,  he can’t stand that the dress receives more of my attention than he does. He will suddenly rouse himself from his lying-down- pouting pose, as if he’s just had the most wonderful sudden inspiration.  He sits facing me and stares until I acknowledge him. I can feel his little eyes on me as if they are burning holes where his stare sits.  Acknowledging him  I’ll say, “What? What do you want?”

Bingo!  those are the exact words he craves. As soon as I say them, he turns himself around 90` and sits as close as he can to my chair with his back facing me. That is my cue- “I have a great idea! Pet me! I need a back rub!” Of course, those are just the words I’ve been waiting to hear. My sewing gets relegated to my lap so that, my hands free, my attention now HIS, I can restore myself once again to the position of “favorite person!”

Once again I sat down to blog with the intention of telling you about the new size 2 dress that I’m working on. I was going to give you a preview. I’m not sure quite how it happened, but once again, Pascal stole the show- (“attitude” can have the most unpredictable effects!)

The belt on his raincoat buckles around his back with two metal rings the belt  weaves through. It always gives me trouble and usually at some point, comes undone . Today being the first day he’s worn his raincoat this year, I had forgotten all about the silly buckle.

When I heard the “clink” and looked down, the belt was totally undone and both  straps were dragging on the ground, leaving the collar to be the only place the coat was attached. As he walked the coat straps were getting in the way of his back leg and the coat was slipping on his back from side to side, which explains the bizarre hop!! He was trying to balance the coat and at the same time keep the straps from tangling around his leg!

I fastened the buckle and we started walking. Our next few steps  walked us right into an icy wind. Pascal immediately sat down. “Come on!” I said, tugging lightly on the leash, but I could tell that he was going nowhere- unless it was back to the car. Knowing from experience there was no way he was going to walk in the wind, I turned around and started back-  (He practically ran back to the car.)  That was today’s walk! That’s two days in a row that we’ve missed and I think rain is forecast for tomorrow, too! Our “spring” was very short-lived. At least we enjoyed it while it was here~ and I have a feeling it’s going to return soon!

Today the rain didn’t let up even enough for us to take a short walk. I was surprised to realize that Pascal wasn’t the only one disappointed at not being able to go for a walk . I would have thought I’d be delighted for a day to stay inside instead of having to go out in the cold so early in the morning. At first I didn’t mind too much. I thought,  great! I get a full, uninterrupted day to get a lot done. As the day progressed I really noticed the difference a morning walk makes. The exercise energizes me and clears my head so that my thoughts flow freely- I kept looking over at Pascal peacefully sleeping- and I understood it. That was all that I felt like doing, too- The difference being, I couldn’t lie down; I had work to do. All day it felt as if everything I did, I did in slow motion!

Last night I finished my latest dress but still had the socks to do this morning before I could take pictures and list it. Because my dresses don’t usually photograph well inside, I like to take the pictures outside~  but outside the rain was falling hard & fast. I thought, o.k. fine, I’ll get the listing ready to go except for the photos.

I was lucky and later on in the day was able to catch ten minutes without rain, allowing me to take a few pictures outside. They aren’t the best because I was rushing to take them before everything got rained on, but they’ll have to do for now~ So yesterday it took me all day just to list my dress! I had to list it in my etsy shop as well as my website so that involved re-sizing two sets of pictures, but still-  All day?

I think it didn’t just FEEL like I was working in slow motion, I WAS working in slow motion!

Yesterday was an incredible mix of weather. Pascal and I left the house early, hoping to snatch a quick walk before the sky, already thick and heavy with dark  clouds, burst. Just as we reached town, yep! The clouds burst and the rain came down in torrents. I looked over at Pascal and said, ” looks like we didn’t make it today, buddy~  We can’t walk in this!”  The look I got in response, was heartbreaking. Pascal is a master of “the look”-

“O.k.,” I said, “we’ll reverse the order. I’ll go to the grocery store now instead of after our walk, and maybe it won’t be raining by the time I’m finished shopping-” The rain was still falling heavily, so I didn’t have a lot of hope, but I could tell that Pascal did. Obviously he had no knowledge of Friday the 13th, (which it was.)

And maybe there’s something to be said for not acknowledging things like Friday the 13th. I thought, that figures! Because it’s the 13 it’s raining right now so we won’t be able to go for a walk. When I came out of the grocery store I was surprised to see that it had stopped raining! It wasn’t “sunshiny” and warm, but the rain had stopped; if long enough to squeeze a little walk in, that would be fine-

Pascal was thrilled and pranced as we walked our “rounds” of downtown blocks. At least two people that we passed commented on how happy he looked, “Look! He’s prancing!” they said. True,  Bedlingtons don’t walk, they prance, but when extra happy the prance gets exaggerated by at least, x5. Pascal’s prance was definitely a 5! The sky threatened,  the entire hour of our walk. Every time I looked up at the clouds, I couldn’t believe that we hadn’t gotten rained on- yet!

As we were about two blocks away from where I left the car, I saw something small and shiny lying on the brick sidewalk. As I approached, I could see that it was just a penny. Just a penny I thought, and was about to keep on walking since the rain had decided it couldn’t hold off any longer, and Pascal was tugging on the leash, his hair twisting into dreadlocks with every raindrop that hit . “No, wait a minute!” I said,  as I bent over and scooped up the penny     “Maybe this is a lucky penny-”   I quickly put it in my pocket and succumbed to Pascal’s tugs. Yes,  we were pretty wet by the time we made it to the car~                              but Ah! I had a lucky penny!!

My last post left off where I was waiting to see if I was going to stick to my second idea for the scene on the front of the dress I had just smocked. With the dress 3/4 of the way finished, I can say with certainty that yes, it was the second idea that stuck! I’m hopeful that the dress will be finished by tonight and I can list it~ and you’ll be able to see it tomorrow!!

The Look

I just returned from taking Pascal on our morning walk. After a brief spell,(four days,) of minor amounts of rain, Spring has returned and everything is resplendant with sunlight! We had perfect walking weather- in the 50′s. It felt cold to start off with, but with a quick pace we warmed up quickly and the air felt wonderful! It was a nice way to begin the day. Walking by pretty gardens and fields filled with rich-green long grasses,  felt as if I were walking through the scene that I’m embroidering on the dress pictured above.

I carry this scene home, my mind filled with thoughts about the scene growing right before my eyes, and I feel eager to get to work!

Before I go I thought I’d leave you with a few “spring-like” images to hold in your mind today, especially if you are one of those people who have been looking at snow for so long, that it’s almost hard to imagine that the time is close when you too, will be walking in the warmth of the sun,  through flower-filled garden scenes.

As I have mentioned before, I like to clear my mind when I walk and let the new ideas flood in. As this issue of the CPSIA law that I have spent so much time worrying about, was departing, and since we were “on the sunny side of the street,” I thought I’d leave the link to one last encouraging piece of information that I picked up in the etsy forums last night. It’s just a short paragraph, but it suddenly put things into perspective for me and I now know which direction I want to take- Take a look! It is very good information to have for those of you who, like me, are struggling with decisions!

I mentioned in an earlier post, that I now have an etsy shop as well as my website, where I sell my dresses. I have found, within the etsy site, some of the most wonderful shops of handmade items from all over the world. I plan to soon periodically feature some of these outstanding shops and their products. This will be happening shortly, so check-in and see. I think you’ll enjoy what you see!

Finally, I mentioned that I’m working on a new dress and I talked about it a bit in my post called, “1/20/09 -A Lamb Named Peace.” I mentioned that it is a size 3 and will have a lamb on it. “Peace” is happy to now be standing in her field of smocking, watching hillsides, grasses and flowers, blossom up around her. I’ve given her a little bird in a tree for company while she waits for me to complete her scene. I thought you might like a glimpse of “Peace” and to see what a work in progress looks like. Once I am finished, you will have an idea of how it looked in transformation. Have a great Sunday!

A Lamb Named Peace; New work in progress

Downtown is very nice at that hour. There’s not a lot of foot traffic and it’s relatively quiet, if you discount the sounds of passing cars- and for me that’s pretty easy to do once I start looking into shop windows. It’s never long before I’m lost in thought.

This morning,  still feeling “up” from yesterday’s historic inauguration, I felt energetic and was able to keep up with Pascal’s pace for a change. As I looked into store windows I could feel the beginnings of new dress ideas percolating in my mind. Forty-five minutes later we concluded our walk and happily, I had two new ideas for future dresses to jot into my notebook. I thought about them as I worked on my dress today and am really excited to try them. That mood carried me through the day and I even felt encouraged that the CPSIA problem would soon be resolved~  until tonight when I started reading the etsy forums.

Someone from the etsy staff posted a message about how it is more important than ever to write more letters to Congress urging them to postpone and reconsider this law and then he put in a link, which I will post as well, revealing some sickening news that popped the bubble of hope I have been living in. After reading this I felt very sad at the thought that I may never be permitted to try the new ideas that I had been so excited about all day, and sad that I started realizing that it could really come to pass that I will no longer be able to make the little girls hand-smocked dresses that I have been making for the past 32 years- very sad to realize that everything I’ve worked so hard to create and around which, my life has revolved, could very soon- Feb.10- all be taken away~

I am printing the link to the article for you to read, in the hope that maybe you too will support us and write your Congressmen; swamp them with pleas to reform this terrible law that they never should have approved in the first place. If you want to know what this law is really all about, I posted a link to an excellent article from Forbes magazine in my blog on Jan.17 titled “CPSIA Update”.

Swimming Against the Tide

I find it such a liberating feeling to no longer want to hide the fact of my nationality. I hadn’t realized how powerful the feeling of shame over my identity had become, until I woke this morning feeling strangely, wonderfully, different; light, like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Thankfully, it truly had!!!

Working on the picture part of my dress today,  my head fills with thoughts about the new era that began this morning. Yesterday I wrote about having to pull out all of the embroidery I had done on the scene of my new dress because I didn’t like it. Today was totally different-  I sat down to work and ideas seemed to pour from my fingertips.  Usually I consider it bad luck to divulge what I am putting on a dress before I’m finished with it, but today I feel like there will be no bad luck, so I’ll tell you~  I have almost finished embroidering a little lamb, which will be the main “character” of this dress. Because she was born today, this historic inaugural day, I’m going to name her Peace in honor of President Obama, our representative for world peace and freedom-

In honor of this special moment in history, I’d like to include a photo that to me, expresses the feelings of liberation and hope that President Obama brings to the world. Look deeply through the window of cattails, into the clouds reflected on the calm of the pond. Look at your reflection and~  what do you see?

I spent yesterday morning and early afternoon embroidering the picture on my new dress; decided that I didn’t like it and spent the rest of the afternoon tearing it out! Once I had it all taken out it was a nice relief  to put the dress out of my mind and go outside and work in the garden.

I thought about the dress again as I walked this morning and decided to go to my second idea, which I will begin as soon as I’ve posted this. I can reveal this much about it to you; (this is what I know for sure, so far-) It is a size 3, (regular, not long,) and it is yellow and white, very Spring!!

I thought it would be nice to spread some of our beautiful spring-like weather around to everyone who is snowbound and tired of winter right now- Cheer up! Look at this photo and know that spring is just around the corner~ Have a wonderful day!

I began the day by taking Pascal on a beautiful walk at the nearby park, Heather Farms. The little lake was filled with ducks and geese this morning and it seemed they were all talking at the same time. They seemed to be very excited about something.  We stayed and watched them for a few minutes and then continued our walk. One of the things I hoped to do on our walk was to clear my mind so that when I  returned home I would know exactly what I wanted to embroider on the new dress that I just finished smocking. Thankfully, I accomplished that-  and no, it’s not ducks! I returned home excited to get started.

Every dress will be $25.00 off of it’s regular price. The price of one-way shipping will continue to be free through the end of the month for customers living in the United States.  If you live outside of the U.S. I will be happy to subtract the cost of one-way  U.S. priority mail shipping from your total overseas shipping rate.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.

Welcome to Rabbit Whiskers! And welcome back, if you’ve been here before!  If you are a returning customer then perhaps you’ve noticed a few changes.  Using the website over the past year has been a good learning experience allowing me to see what things are working well,  and what things might be improved upon. With that in mind, my son Joshua,  ( creator of my website,)  and I, made a few changes that should be improvements for navigating through the site. We’ve also added a few new options that we felt would be beneficial to you.

Rabbit Whiskers now offers gift wrapping. For a fee of $5.00 per box, I will wrap in season-appropriate gift wrap, your dress(es) and include a ribbon and gift card with a message written by you. With the holiday season just around the corner,  wouldn’t it be great not to have to worry about wrapping your package and bringing it to the post office?

The site is now better organized so it will be easier to find exactly what you are looking for, quickly, and now it is possible to print a copy of the dress that you like and save it for future reference as a gift idea, or send pictures of your favorite dresses so friends and family can see which ones you like,  (or wish for)

Purchases totaling $300.00 or more will qualify for free shipping anywhere within the continental United States; a great feature to keep in mind when doing your holiday shopping!

Just as watching the trees change color in the fall is a change to enjoy, I hope the changes we’ve made at  Rabbit Whiskers will make your shopping a truly enjoyable experience!