Blessed Be, A Puppy For Me!

Look what I've been blessed with!  I would like to introduce my new puppy Gwen.  She is a lab mix and we got her last Monday when she was only 6 weeks old.  After sleeping for about 24 hours straight, she is proving that she really is a puppy.  Chewing on everything such as us, our shoes as we walk, the big dog, the window screens, etc.  It's really adorable carrying around a tennis ball.  Pretty much everything she does is just too cute for words.  I think that is how puppies (& children) get away with so much. 
I remember talking to my dad about that when we picked up Bo.  Now, Bo is a Catahulo and was very hard to train to be a good and gentle dog.  He got into so much stuff though one time, I had to lament to my folks.  That was when dad told me about the ratio that definitely exists between how cute something is and how much trouble it can get into before a death sentence is decried.  Like all small critters, this one is cute enough to make it to adulthood.  
You might be able to see the unopened roll of batting behind me.  It shows how much work I've gotten done this week now, doesn't it?  Actually, I did a get a quilt top done and now I can spend today cleaning and puppy-proofing the house.  Gwen showed up about 2 weeks earlier than I had planned on.  It is a good thing I kept all of Bo's old puppy collars and stuff.  I do need to get anything I don't want chewed up away from the floor area and up to safety.  I guess I'll be playing "queen of alternatives" for a few months.  My constantly flowing monologue for this role is "No, don't chew on -----, chew on this" while switching toys.
By the way, my husband told me that I have not had THIS smile on my face for years.  It is good to happy!

The Moose & the Maul

Our friends have become regular evening visitors here at Mountainjoy. These three moose have been traveling nibbling through our property each night now. The night these photos were taken, I was sitting by the fire trying to get warm. I looked up and out the window and there was the big moose. She was standing so still, for a moment my brain just accepted it as natural, "oh, there is the moose." Followed by "Oh my gosh, it's as big as the Scouts!!!" Okay, maybe not as wide, but the moose are taller.

As we watched and photographed them, my husband began to realize where our wood-splitting maul went. You see, his favorite maul went missing a few days earlier. He'd looked around in the newly fallen snow but did not find it on the ground. We watched as the moose licked everything he had recently touched. They licked the cars, nibbled on dead aspen leaves, and really spent a good deal of time by the wood splitting station licking our other maul. When we saw this. My husband claimed the moose had taken his maul as a chew toy. I didn't really believe at first, I figured he just left laying down. Truth be told though, the moose did take the maul. We figure it was the big mama one because she really liked the second maul. She didn't go very far with it at least. We found it down in the meadow and are happily chopping wood again. We are careful about putting them up at dusk now though when we expect our friends to visit.

It is wonderful to be seeing moose in person as they have been a part of my life for quite a while. I'll tell you now how they tie in with my quilting and cooking apsects of life. A few years ago, I traded a quilt with moose motifs on it for a cord of wood. We were pretty broke, but as usual, quilts kept us warm in more ways than one. My first introduction to moose was Chocolate Mousse of course. As a little girl, I learned a very simple way to make an unsophisticated chocolate mousse. You just mix up some chocolate pudding and whipped cream in even ratios, put in individual dishes, top with whipped cream, and eat. There are many much more sublime versions of mousse out there, but this is a great quick fix.