Super Troopers Bake Sale

Today was our second bake sale and it was another good day. The serious rain even held off until we were packing up.

Since I didn't make anything gluten-free this time naturally several people asked. :)

Nim supervised from the car:

Cute little white guy with a very loving human:

Sweet Dixie the Cattledog:

Lucy is a recent "Pit" rescue. She is actually a Pit-Pointer cross which makes for a nice body structure and beautiful markings. She loves her kids. This family actually came two weeks ago the day before they were going to pick her up. The mom is in recovery from uterine cancer and has 3 young kids. She has one of those smiles you can't stop staring at.

This little Yorkie is an Ace Hardware regular:

He has an entire arsenal of tricks to work the employees.

Including "Playing Dead."

This is beautiful Husky despite being full of  the puppy-ness had a really nice personality. I don't know the breed really well, but most of the Huskies I have been around are fairly skittish so it was nice to see an easy-going one. He wanted to surf the table. :)

As I write this the fireworks are going like crazy. The reservation in town got a permit last year to sell fireworks so the large booming ones have greatly increased out here. The missing dog posters started multiplying about 2 days ago. Always a hard time for the pups and frankly this human isn't a huge fan herself. :)

I hope everyone had a great Saturday.

Country Village Outing

Today I took an outing up to Country Village. The last time I was at this location was years ago for the quilt shop and I never really investigated further.

I also knew it was a farmer's market up on Fridays so I was hoping for some good deals. Unfortunately this farmer's market isn't much better than the one in North Bend. I actually miss when they weren't so formalized - there was more variety and better prices at the smaller ones.

Nim got a lot of good training work. A group of us are talking about doing a show circuit next year in Montana which would be basically a week of Rally Obedience opportunities. He is doing well, but we have a lot of work to do.

This location was extremely heavy on kids which makes for a very unpredictable environment. This was also day of tiny dogs on flexi-leashes. Needless to say, he attracted a lot of attention.

I loved this bench although I doubt Nim cared. His mind was on the ducks who are used to coming up to people for feeding I think.

He might have been intimidated by the roosters, it was hard to tell.

I love this one high stepping it.

I didn't go into any of the shops, it was too muggy to leave Nim in the car.

But I did do a lot of window shopping.

This train is constantly zipping around the shopping village. It puts people right about at face level with Nim so he got lots of people talking to him as they would go by.

Eventually the Gentle Leader came off (poor nose, I can't wait to be entirely off that thing) and we did some great work. We stayed out of the main farmers market and just worked everything else.

He finally completely "broke" when two boys (old enough to know better) chased a large rooster out in front of him. I don't think he knew whether to chase it or run away, and the rooster wasn't doing much better considering he had a large dog in front of him and two obnoxious boys behind him.


After that it was time to go home with Nim melodramatically collapsed in the back. :)

Quick baking run down! I got excited to try three new recipes for the bake sale (in addition to a ton of dog treats and some baby loaves).

"Joy Of Vegan Baking" Chocolate Chip Mint Cookie:

These were wonderful! I wish I had tried them sooner. I even think they would be a better chocolate chip cookie (definitely healthier than my current veganizing of the tollhouse recipe) if I was in the mood to leave out the mint.

Vegan Chewy Chocolate Raspberry Cookie:

This is another really good find. I happen to like chocolate crinkles and these are way better. Absolutely will be making them again. I didn't use almond extract, I just doubled the vanilla.

The Ultimate Vegan Oatmeal Raisin:

This is my new favorite oatmeal cookie and I have really been hunting for one. I got nervous because the batter almost broke my processor (it almost turns into play dough) but they are absolutely outstanding. 

I am really excited about all three recipes. They are vegan and a little more fancy but without being too weird for the general public. I also think all three will ship well and I have another round of BakingGALS coming.

Have a great weekend!

Almost July

Good morning! Bring on July, June has been a long month.

Below is a LOT more dog treats for another Relay for Life Bake Sale this Saturday. I think dog treats are a good niche for me for that sale and we are stationed outside Ace Hardware which for this small town also serves as a main pet store.

 

Yes, this would be the bake sale that I thought was last weekend. I have some human baking too, but went heavy on the dog treats.

The teenage elk and deer are out like crazy. And completely disagreeable to photograph.

Thankfully they are not eating my finally growing grass, however the plump bunny population has exploded. I now find them laying all over the yard with their little legs outstretched. At least some grass is surviving.

Other blog happenings:

STUFT Mama is hosting a Mizuno running shoe giveaway. She is also looking for a running sponsor! :) 

This made me look up exactly what is involved in getting a sponsor (I never thought about it much past pros). I then dreamed about a hiking-baking-dog training-quilting sponsor.

Mizuno does make trail runners which is about as runner as I get (except for total long-standing attraction to ultramarathons). I would say I am not the target for the Mizuno Mezamashii Project however I do eat through trail runners (Vasque is current preference) so it is worth a shot.

Delights and Delectables has submitted a video to get on the Kelly Ripa show. 

If she makes it to the 100 selected she will needs lots of votes. :) I don't get TV so I don't actually watch the show but ended up watching a clip this morning because I was trying to find a trailer on "Magic Mike" (a friend was talking about this movie). It was a funny clip because it was a former NFL player Mike Strahan trying to do the stripping and the dancing. Wait? Mike Strahan is the co-host? You watch the clip and figure it out. I probably shouldn't attempt to talk about a TV show I don't watch.

My other Kelly Ripa story involves my Grammy who used to tape all the morning shows and then rapidly condense them in to a fast-forwarding frenzy to the parts she wanted (usually involving entertainment). I was with her, trying to wake up, and realized she was fast forwarding through these beautiful 1920's inspired dresses (at the time I think this was Regis and Kelly together) and I tried to make her stop so I could see the dresses and I messed up the system. :)

Look at that, I have talked about marathons and Kelly Ripa in one post. People who know me well know this is about as shocking as the post in which I talked about Women's Basketball.

Great causes:

Camp Eyabsut is running extensive fund-raising to save this burn camp. I once experienced serious burning to my hand, fingers and wrist. It was an unreal experience. I seriously don't know how people cope with larger body area being burned.

Over the Edge benefit for Special Olympics. A friend of mine is participating in honor of his late wife Annette. She was a really sweet and kind woman who lost her battle with brain cancer this year.

Have a great weekend and think sunny thoughts for me.

Mid-Week

We are still drowning in "summer" rain although today has started out with some sun.

The water, and subsequently the ducks, took over a huge amount of the parking lot.

Nim about had a meltdown when I parked and all the ducks came up to the car. Clearly they are well fed by humans. I had to carry Nim a bit from the car before I set him down because we were swarmed by ducks.

This art piece was in the Fall City library. It is a local artist that does a lot with felting work.

It was interesting to look at the felted flowers and have a better sense of what goes into it. My presence there studying the artwork actually chased out some local teens. Whatever their discussion was, it wasn't for adult ears. Imagine their mortification when they saw me again walking Nim on the school grounds. :)

Hopefully everyone is having a great week.

Quilt Goes To The Park

Tova shirt still hasn't seen much progress, but this quilt is finished. At least it gets the hot pink thread off the machine so I can work on other projects.

The binding was a bit of a "risk" for me in terms of color but I like how it turned out.

Ever since I saw this one site in which the quilter took her project to an abandoned farm to photograph I have been wanting to take my quilts out to new areas.

This turned out to be harder than I imagined. First off, this is one of my "smaller" quilts and I had no easy way to carry it.

It turns out managing a quilt, a camera, and Nim isn't easy.

He spent some quality time in the mud and then wanted to jump all over me (and the quilt) in happiness. 

Notice the sky is a mix of sun and storm. Nim was distracted by a cute and curious little dog who repeatedly circled us on the path.

I should have got a photo of the darn tiny dog.

These were my favorite stumps:

I don't know about everyone else, but I am happy for the start of a fresh week. Have a great day.

Meadowbrook

When the rain surprisingly let up I knew exactly where I wanted to go. Meadowbrook Farm has been a bit of a community project for both North Bend and Snoqualmie and while I have watched the changes I haven't really explored the area.

It was an area I had driven by while charging up the truck. I definitely needed somewhere new to go today. Also, from what I could see of the trails they were relatively flat and the area seemed pretty empty.

Mt. Si is in the background of the Interpretive Center:

Unfortunately they still have some trail work so when we got to this bridge and I saw the muddy mess on the other side we got out on the road until we could get back on a decent path.

This section was paved:

It is right next to a golf course which Nim found distracting. Although not as distracting as the ridiculous amount of low flying birds that flew in tight circles around us.

By the time I turned back the herd was moving through.

They spotted us although we were considerably far away. I have a ton of respect for elk and didn't go to close into their space. I can spend hours watching them.

Nim also spotted them and dropped to my side.

Heading back for the car we saw this big bull again. He also saw us and it was a little unsettling when he started running towards the trail I was on.

He is crossing in front of the Interpretive Center:

That gravel is the path I am standing on with Nim:

He crossed the path (very aware of us) and slowed once he was on the pavement:

This must be his favorite crossing spot. Then he went over a low fence and into more swamp area.