Month: January 2019

Missing me? I hope not.

Rudy knew we were leaving. He always knows when we are going to be going in the car. He can tell. The suitcase comes out and I grab my pillow and a blanket I always travel with.

Even Ridley my Old English Sheepdog gets excited. He knows too. And he and Rudy usually get to go along – but not on this particular trip. This time they didn’t hear me utter “bye bye to beach house”. But still there was an expectation. An anticipation. The waiting for the leash. The sad look from Rudy ( or was that my projection ?) when he realized I was going and he wasn’t.

I know not to make a big deal about coming and goings with my dogs. But they know the packing and the taking things to the car. I did give them a pat and a treat when I left. I may have said “I’ll be back in five minutes.” I say that often if I run to the barn or mailbox or store. It’s said with no inflection. No sadness. I just say it as if Rudy or Ridley or any of the other dogs would understand. So The other day I may have said that and then I left. But Rudy was confused. He had anticipated wrong. He thought I was supposed to be getting him loaded in the car.

It’s amazing at what dogs pick up on. They know by your movements where you intend to walk. Well at least Rudy does. My sheepdog who isn’t very smart or maybe he’s just so stubborn it resembles dumb – even he sees cues and knows things sometimes before I know them.

Dogs are so in tune with their humans. We think they can tell time sometimes right? My dogs knew when my kids bus was coming. Not because it was 2:34. But because they likely heard the squeak of the brakes or the door opening at a stop down the road. I couldn’t hear it but they knew. Or maybe it was the light or maybe some cue I gave them through my feelings. Dogs are not humans they have senses we don’t. They are more of this world then we will ever be. We live in houses and so do they but they are so much more part of the real world – is nature. They aren’t distracted by all the things we think are important. To dogs the humans are important to them bc we help them survive. So they have to be in tune to us.

So in this situation of me leaving -the packing is the most telling to them. It seems obvious. They relate those actions to them going somewhere. If I grab my purse Rudy knows I’m going out. Ridley who acts deaf half the time can tell the difference between plates rattling in the sink and the opening of the treat jar in the kitchen. It’s certainly amazing. But I think it’s their instinct to be so in tune.

And for Rudy I’m his job. He rarely plays with our other dogs. He most always chooses to be with me – with the exception of the chance to scam some food off someone in the kitchen. Sometimes he bags me for that. But soon enough he comes to find me again. If a door separates us he lays by it and whines.

I didn’t leave feeling badly about him. I knew he would be ok with my sons and my mom who sneaks the dogs treats often. I left missing him though. We are together a lot but this trip – to Cleveland to see my daughter – wasn’t going to be good for a dog to attend.

Funny enough the drive was nice because we didn’t have any dogs to walk at the rest stop. But I will say I missed him when I was laying in bed. He’s always around and a few times I woke up looking for him quickly remembering he was at home.

Just before bed I had texted one of my sons at home and he called me – no FaceTimed- (I’ll never get used to it.) And he showed me Rudy and Ridley laying by the front door. He said they had been like that since I left. ( ok they did leave that post in order to eat so they aren’t that sad.) They weren’t suffering. They were eating.

I know sometimes when routines change dogs won’t eat -I have a couple dogs like that who occasionally get too stressed to eat when we are gone. Mostly it happens if we have a new caretaker. But after a couple days they are usually eating again.

Dogs don’t have a concept of time like we do so that always makes me feel better knowing they don’t see the passing of time the same as we do. So I knew he wasn’t pining. Just waiting.

I had a little fun the other night and tried to call him to me on FaceTime and he came to the phone. But was totally confused. He heard my voice and maybe saw something in that phone but i am not sure he saw me. I took a couple photos. He’s certainly sweet.

Anyway when I checked with my son the next morning he said Rudy did lay back by the door after our call but then came to bed with him – he slept in our bedroom. The rest of the pack was in there too so he was going in.

I suspect in another day or even less he may have stopped laying by the door. He would move on to whoever was there. He would be ok.

When I got home we had some excitement from all the dogs so Rudy was lost in that fray. I gave him a pet quickly and then I think he was sent outside with the pack. So I began to get settled -I had been home maybe five minutes and back in came Rudy. He doesn’t jump all over me – though he would do that to a stranger. (Pet peeve of mine that we work on and on). He just stood in the room and I told him to come up on the bed for a hug. And it was then he began whining and rubbing his head into my chest. Then Kevin came in and he gave him his excited growl – a thing he does when he’s happy. He makes this growling noise but it’s not menacing it is like he is talking. It’s funny! He also murr’s a lot. It’s dog purring. Maybe some dog owners out there know what I’m describing. He has different inflections of this noise based on what he wants. Like me to share my food. It is an intake or exhale of air with like three pauses. Our lab Lemon does that too. It’s communication and I thinks it’s cool.

I think Rudy was whining because he was glad I was home. I’m a pack member and I was gone. I am also his person and I was back. Did he miss me? Maybe? I want to think he was ok though. But just happy to see me return back to the den.

I did miss a dog being around they are a comfort to me as I have anxiety and I find a dog helps me feel less anxious but I did well aside from some pain from the long drive but it didn’t last long so that was great and I had a nice time seeing my daughter and doing stuff.

But I still wonder what he thinks – what his perceptions are. But I’m glad he is back doing his job. He’s here right now in my office as I write this. He’s laying by the door – and as soon as I move a certain way he will jump up trying to anticipate my next move. “Is she leaving the office? Ok – Just tidying up. Oh then I can rest my head down again. Or maybe there is some paper I can eat. ”

I like to think they aren’t as complex as we try to make them. I like it that way. We must seem very complex to them. Or perhaps they read past all out flawed humanness and see our souls.

I will never really know what Rudy feels but I don’t think my being gone is horribly distressing -maybe confusing because he was anticipating he was going. But he ate and drank and was fine. And I’m glad. I know Rudy and I have some kind of special connection -and however that is manifested i am very lucky to have him.

Ahh – he just came over for some pets. I think I’ll go now and oblige him. All is as it should be in his world. His person is here.

Pinterest Recipe Review: chicken (pork) and broccoli stir fry

https://pin.it/kikwpu365nzqh3

Ok so I have this idea and clearly I haven’t thought it out clearly yet but this year I want to blog about different stuff. Just go outside what I normally write about. So I decided as part of that I was going to review Pinterest recipes. I’m surely not the only person who does this. But I just feel like trying it so I’m going to.

I need to be better about taking pictures of the food before we all dive into here at Glory View Farm. I have a Frittata recipe that I cooked but forgot to take pictures.

The fun thing is that I often make changes to recipes and sometime that’s a blunder. The frittata was one of those. Well people ate it but – maybe I’ll write about that one next! No pictures.

So maybe I’ll get better at this as I go along. But here goes.

I posted the recipe link above. I love Pinterest it has been my guide to many things in my life especially redesigning our home. Much of my inspiration comes for there.

So I pin and pin recipes. And I’ll warn you I am no chef. Not even a great cook I like to cook but don’t want to have to cook – does that even make sense?

So when I want to cook I plan out my meals and I use Pinterest a lot for ideas.

Case in point. I got a new stir fry pan for Christmas. Thank you Santa! And I wanted to try it out. So I picked out a chicken and broccoli stir fry from Pinterest. And I wrote the ingredients on a shopping list.

I want to also say that now the my boys are in college (home now on break) we shop more often but buy less stuff. So I try to plan 2-3 meals and shop for this while picking up other sundries like almond milk and bread as needed. It may be helping our bottom line grocery expenditure i am still in the process of figuring it out.

I mention this bc I was in a hurry to plan these meals that included the chicken broccoli stir fry and I had another chicken meal planned so last minute so I decided to make it pork instead of chicken because I don’t want an overload of chicken. I try to vary it’s up. I’ve Been eating less meat as well. I haven’t had the taste for it for some reason. So anyway I digress -we decided to change to pork so we picked up a pack of pork stew meat and that was that.

Stir fry is very easy. You cut up stuff and toss it in oil until it cooks up and you throw in some sauce. I love that something this simple yields such a good outcome.

We started by cooking the jasmati rice first as that takes longer to cook. Obviously you could serve this with many types of rice and I am also a big fan of rice noodles too.

My husband -Kevin- acts as my asst and cuts up the veggies and washes most of the dishes. Sometimes when I cook I create a huge mess. I use so many dishes. So I say yes to anyone who wants to help me clean up. Sadly bc Of arm nerve damage I really can’t always complete the full task of prepping, cooking and cleaning up. So it’s nice to have help.

In this recipe I learned to cook the veggies first in the oil. In the past I had done it backwards. I like this because the meat doesn’t have to be warmed back up the veggies do but that is faster.

So we began with some oil on medium high heat in my stir fry pan (it’s not an official wok so I won’t call it that! ) we tossed in the veggies. Oh I forgot to mention we added peppers to the broccoli just because we had some in the crisper. I think I should have done the broccoli first and then added the peppers halfway through the broccoli stir fry but I added them all together. Nothing got mushy but that was luck and me watching closely.

When the veggies were cooked we set the then aside in a bowl that I covered with a paper towel in hopes they wouldn’t get too cold. And then we added the meat into some more heated oil in the pan and throughly cooked it up. This is when you add the sauce. It asked to move the pork to the sides of the pan and put the sauce in the middle and let it thicken.

So about the sauce. I mixed that up in a bowl. The hoisin, soy, cornstarch and garlic-etc. We had twice as much meat and veggies so I did double the recipe- but in the end I feel I should have made more. I like my stir fry saucy. I added more hoisin onto my portion but it wasn’t as good as the sauce.

Going back to the pan and adding the sauce. Mine thickened fast. So I tossed the meat with it then added the veggies. Let it cook covered on low medium for a minute or two (until veggies coated and heated back up ) and it was ready to serve. Some rice and then the stir fry on top.

I really liked the outcome even with less sauce than I would have liked.

I did place soy sauce and hoisin and toasted sesame on the counter for people to add as the desired.

It was a hit with the family as well. The boys don’t tell me but if it’s almost gone I know.

I didn’t even take pictures of this until we had dug into it. But the recipe is attached here and there are plenty of photos in that.

I will get better at this or maybe I won’t! But I’ll try.

I give this recipe 👍👍👍👍 thumbs up. It could be a five if I had been better with the sauce. But it was a 👍👍👍👍👍 as far as the family food consumers were concerned.

Thanks for reading!

(Def my photos need to be better!)