Get a tiny tree and put it on a table. I can just see it: Christmas morning we each pull up a chair and gather ’round the tiny tree.
Newt, take your elbows off the table while you open that gift!

Put your tree in a playpen. Remember, even contained in a playpen, your tree could still injure itself. It might try to climb out, fall, and break its limbs. Never leave a young tree unattended.

Forget the tree and just make a tree shaped outline on the wall with ribbon or lights. Great idea. While you’re at it, go ahead and make present shaped outlines on the floor and food shaped outlines on the table. All the fun of the real thing with no mess or hassle!

Hang your tree upside down from the ceiling. Wha-? How is that even possible?

Okay, so the internets didn’t have a great solution, but it did get me thinking. What I needed was a fence of some sort. I imagined putting a fence around my tree; what kind would I use?
Chicken wire? Too rural.
Chain link? Too urban.
Privacy fence? Too expensive. Too tall . Too, uh, private.
Picket fence? Hmmm… cute, inexpensive, easy to work with – I like it.
I bought a roll of wired picket fence in the garden center at Lowes for under $20. Walt and I circled it around the tree and zip tied the end pickets together.
Here is the result:

I think it looks pretty good. Far better than a giant evergreen stalactite.
So far it seems to be working. Pepper has sniffed at it, but has not attempted any sort of breach. The tree, ornaments and presents are all safe.
I might have to get another roll of picket fence for my shoes.

We quilted late into the night. By the time the last needle was put away, the quilt was half finished.
It’s huge! And hand quilting takes a really long time!
Newt let me off the hook, but I’m still trying to get it done as fast as I can. Which, in all honesty, might take awhile.

The help I’m getting these days is not nearly as productive.

Confidential aside to my quilting bee friends: What would I do without you ladies? Thank you for being in my life. I appreciate you!

She barks, she pees, she chews on everything.

So, pretty much like we expected.
We’ve got a lot of work to do, but we’ll get there.

Eventually…

It’s a good thing she’s cute.

Notes: Recognize her bed? She stole it from Walt. He did not seem to mind.
Don’t yell at me. We do not keep a pinch collar on her all the time, only for training sessions. It looks big and mean, but it doesn’t hurt any more than a nip from her mama would. Probably less.
Bit of trivia: Pepper is named for Iron Man’s assistant: Pepper Pots. Newt has been into superhero movies for months.

We had a lovely eleven day together ending with a quiet family celebration. At one point during the day, I looked over and realized that my little girl really is on the verge of becoming a young woman.
I like what I see.
She is sensitive and kind, smart and funny, creative, passionate about learning and (for the most part) respectful. Over the last year or so our relationship has udergone some wonderful changes. We are still mom and daughter, but we have also become friends. I truly enjoy spending time with her and relate to her in a totally different way than when she was younger. I’m getting tiny glimpses of what having an adult daughter may be like. Again, I like what I see.
Not that I am in any hurry to get there…
I have put in a request that she postpone turning 12 for a couple of years. It was denied.
I’m filing my appeal right now.
In the meantime, I think I’m going to enjoy eleven – however long it lasts.

I made the appointment for the following afternoon.
On Friday, we gathered around her as a family for the last time.
And cried.
And prayed.
And loved.
Then a dear friend came and drove Shasta and me to the vet. I don’t know how I can ever truly thank her for that. She knew what I needed and didn’t let any thought of her own comfort or convenience keep her from acting.
It was over quickly. I held my little dog, looked into her eyes and said goodbye.
We buried her under our lilac tree, an area of our yard frequented by the squirrels she so loved to chase. Newt choked out a few words, Walt prayed and we all sang a couple of hymns (and the Armour Hotdog jingle, in case you were wondering). We laughed and we cried and we felt grateful that this sweet little lady had been a part of our family, a part of our lives.

Newt spent part of the weekend creating this memorial stone.

Shasta has only been ours for a little over three years, but we couldn’t love her more completely. When she first came to us she was already an adult, about eight years old. But she acted like a puppy. In short, she was a pain in the butt bundle of energy. If the door was open, she’d run away. Sometimes she’d even jump over our backyard fence (six feet high) to go off on her excursions. She chased squirrels. She dug moles out of the ground. When we went for walks, I could never keep up with the pace she wanted.
Two summers ago, she jumped that fence one last time. Six feet is a huge jump for a little dog and she injured her neck. She recovered, but became cautious and slow. And then arthritis crept in. Her eyes are beginning to dim. She prefers sleeping to any other activity. She can’t even make it around the block without needing to be carried. Sometimes Shasta goes for a little stroll across the living room. When she gets to the wall, she stops and seems to wonder what to do next. She’ll stand there staring at the wall until one of us goes over and moves her.
It has happened so quickly, but she is an old lady now.
A few weeks ago she developed a UTI. I took her to the vet where they prescribed an antibiotic, but warned that sometimes UTIs in older dogs result in incontinence.
Last week she started peeing all over the house. We took her back to the vet. After a round of tests, it appears as though she has another UTI. She is now on another round of antibiotics and seems to be doing better.
She has slowed down considerably, but seems happy. Even so, these incidents are a warning of what is to come. We have never had an older pet. I am having to face things I don’t want to. Someday, perhaps not too far off, I’ll have to ask myself, “Is it time to let her go?” How will I know?
I think we all are sensing the clock winding down.
Newt was brushing Shasta the other day and putting all the loose hairs in a ziplock bag. Sometimes she likes to start strange collections, so I tried to nip that one in the bud.
You are not keeping a bag of dog hair. That’s garbage.
She replied: Mama, I want it to remember Shasta by, someday when she is gone.
I gave the bag back to her, with a teary smile.
Yesterday Shasta surprised us by chasing a cat from our backyard. I haven’t seen her move like that in so long. It gave me hope. Hope that maybe we still have lots of time, maybe even years, but I just don’t know.

In the meantime, we’ll try make her as happy as she’s made us, and watch and pray to know when that’s no longer possible.

Farming
Newt is not the only one getting a farm education.

Though admittedly, most days I sit on a porch rocker and read a book. That’s farm work too, right? If it isn’t then what are the rockers there for?

Our Harry Potter Dinner
Thanks to some reader suggestions on my facebook page, I picked up The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook at the library:

This is a great recipe book.* Though it is intended for kids a themed cookbook, it is not along the lines of: open this cake mix, stir in a can of frosting, sprinkle with gummy worms and eat with your fingers. Look Mom, I made a recipe! Instead, most of the recipes were for real food, with real ingredients. (Even haggis, but don’t hold that against it.)
I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, but did not choose a singe recipe for our Harry Potter themed dinner. I’m funny that way. Instead, I went with a loose interpretation of Bangers and Mash (chicken-apple sausage and cheesy mashed potatoes) with English peas and chocolate lava “cauldron” cakes.

recipe and photo credit
I served them with unsweetened raw cream over the top. Four days later and I’m still thinking about those little cakes…

*Looks like amazon has a free special summertime edition of the Harry Potter Cookbook for kindle (it has 10 recipes from the full cookbook). Find it here.
Hint: If you don’t have kindle, you can download the software for reading on your pc. I just did. I think I’ll have to try making the Triple Power Icy Lemon Pops.

Speaking of Harry Potter
I can’t tell you how exciting it can be to get a photo of perfect strangers in your inbox.

See those adorable kids? And their awesome t-shirts? Their mom, Trista, saw my design and tutorial here last week and whipped out those shirts. I love the white on black.
My friend, Laura, also made a pair. She came over and worked some freezer paper magic while I was making our Potter dinner.

Laura came to my house to make her tees because I still had all the materials out from earlier in the day when I made one for Newt’s friend. Here are the three of us in line for the movie.

Newt’s friend brought Harry. Walt kept drawing dirty looks from other moviegoers by loudly referring to him as Henry.

On the way out, I carried him, and enjoyed “accidentally” freaking people out by making him sneak up behind them.
We really liked the movie, but still managed to find a lot ways that “it was not like the book” to complain about, so that was fun too.

Oh look, a piglet.

Never trust a ride called The Scream Machine
Remember how Newt felt about the 4th of July Ferris wheel? I was looking through old pictures today and think I may have discovered a pattern.

photo taken July 4th, 2008

And Finally, Sleepy Shasta

I have nothing to say about these except awwwhhhh…

Have anything randomly floating around that you’d like to share?

Disclosure: I did not receive anything from my "review" of the HP cook-
book.  I wish I had, but the library wasn't looking for reviewers.  I
don't think they ever are...  As always, all opinions are my own, but if
you would like to take responsibility for them, I'll not stand in your
way.  Oh yeah, and Amazon Affiliate Links are on. If you purchase anything
from these links, I receive a tiny commission, which is more than the
library will do for me.

Legal disclaimer: Today's potluck is not shorter than average.
Instead, the words "travel sized" could loosely be interpreted as
"travel themed".

Now with more buttons!

…but probably won’t get one because, hello! it’s May and I’m busy.

• In one week we had three big field trips, including a six-hour train trip to Seattle, a fish dissection class on the Oregon coast, and an evening in Portland for the opera: The Barber of Seville (Figaro-Figaro-Figaro!). Two of these events happened on the same day.

• I thought Shasta was dying.  She wasn’t eating and spent much of her time lying around the house.  Turns out she didn’t like her new brand of dog food.  I switched her and wha-la: she’s back to her old self, chasing squirrels along the fence line.
• Newt ran a local one-mile race for kids.  We are now training for a 5k – her idea.  She confided to me that she likes racing, but doesn’t really like running.  When I told her we didn’t have to do the race, she got all indignant and rolled her eyes at me like I was some kind of raving lunatic.

• Despite the running, I am getting fat-ish. Stop Dieting, Start Potlucking

If you feel you must have a full post on any of these subjects, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

Newt left this morning for a three day camp-out with her girl scout troop.  I had planned to accompany her, until she *ever so politely asked if I would please stay home.  Turns out she is ready for some adventure on her own.
Don’t tell her, but I was ready for some adventure on my own too. Apparently, adventure for me means Potluck.

Besides, who could eat s’mores after viewing this?

*I feel the need to explain that I was not being sarcastic there.  Newt really did ask respectfully and politely for me to please stay away from her camp-out.

Attention perverts: I’m afraid I do not have what you are looking for when you google:

• mom without her clothes
• brady bunch girls wearing pantyhose
• I could not watch my moms colleague pant

In all fairness, that last one might be from a pet lover and Mom’s colleague could be a thirsty dog.  If so, I apologize for calling you a pervert.

However, to those of you who googled:

• bad home perm
• getting a home perm
• permed mullet
• permutation frantically perms

Sadly, you’ve come to the right place.  But I was 12!  Can’t we all just get over it?  (By the way, not to get all grammar policey, but you should have put a hyphen in perm-mutation.)

It’s out of control.  Clean laundry in a pile on the floor (shoved off the bed last night).  A load in the washer, another in the dryer, yet somehow the baskets are still overflowing onto the floor.  We have three people in this family – how is this situation even possible?

I really should be doing my laundry.

May all your s’mores be murder-free.