Closing This Chapter

In 2008, we met Ellie and Jim Meachum at a RV park in Tucson, AZ.  At a potluck dinner Ellie talked about writing a “blog.”  As a long time journal keeper I was intrigued and Ellie was a huge help in the process of creating TinTeePeeLogCabin. 

It’s time to close this chapter.  As many of our long time readers know we now have a home in Montana and one in Arizona.  RVing has taken a back seat to our other activities and we are OK with that decision.  I’ve struggled to find a blogging subject each day and have resorted to writing less often—but still, it’s a struggle.

We’ve sold the North Ranch home and are leaving northwest Arizona heading to a quieter, slower pace of life in southeast Arizona.  We will be busy as the property we purchased is a fixer-upper in the greatest sense of the words!

Join us as we take this new journey with a new blog--Restoration Cowboy Style.  In a few days I will close comments to this blog and eventually will make it private. 

Back At North Ranch

Our friends Jane and Rich arrived yesterday—they are staying on the lot Michael and I used before we bought the house.  Their Wyoming winter has been awful this year and they are seeking some warmth and sunshine.  They arrived during a downpour—according to Jim Meachum’s rain gauge, North Ranch received 2.5 inches of rain over the weekend!!  Jane is wonder woman—Rich is ill and no longer drives—Jane drove all the way from Wyoming pulling their travel trailer—yep, wonder woman!

Vulture Peak yesterday.

The desert is so green this year!

Jane and I made a trip to Wickenburg—grocery store, hardware store—regular ole errands.  It’s so good to spend time with her again—we’ve been friends for 25 years—Jane was one of the nurses who I supervised at Powell Hospital in Powell, WY, pre-Michael.  She likes to tell people, “she may have been my best friend but when you were called to Janna’s office and she shut the door, it didn’t matter if you were friends—you knew you were in trouble.” 

Life is good!

Verizon, ATV Lifts and Sulphur Springs Valley

On one side of the Sulphur Springs Valley we see the snow covered Chiricahua Mountains and on the west side of the valley we see the Dragoon Mountains.  The elevation is about 4800 feet making nights and mornings very chilly but the days warm up nicely.  This valley is wide and open—farming, ranching, wineries and people wanting to get away from the crowds make up this community.  Oh, and don’t forget the tumbling tumbleweeds!  We are here for a bit before heading back to North Ranch.

Sunset over the Dragoons last night.

We spent the night at the Escapees Saguaro Co-Op Park in Benson Tuesday night and saw this rig in action.  You will notice the truck squatting as the ATV is lifted onto the bed—the truck was only a half ton pickup and did not have air bags although the owner did say air bags were next on the list.

And now for Verizon—just one big GRRRRR!  All cellphones companies are awful about dangling that carrot and forgetting to tell you the rest of the story.  From all the talk on blogs and forums even the folks who work for Verizon couldn’t keep the story straight!  Robert Jae and Nina—you were correct—tethering has more meaning than just using your phone as a hotspot thus our Jetpack is subject to Verizon’s fine print.  Technomadia Cherie states: “ Once you use 10GB of data your LTE speed will drop to 3G levels for the remainder of the month.  Chris and Cherie are the go to experts for internet anything and I have more faith in their info than in anything a Verizon employee might deliver.  With that said, I live chatted with a Verizon representative yesterday morning and here’s his statement:

“The 10GB is not a limit. This means once you reach 10GB the plan could have its data prioritized but that’s only if at that time you are in an area where the tower you are using has an overload of traffic.”

So, who knows?????  We have the Jetpack and the iPhone so we can use 10GBs of data on each of these devices—but unlimited—not happening with Verizon I don’t think!  We will stick with the unlimited plan as it’s less expensive than the plan we currently have with 24GBs.  If necessary we will activate our old iPhone SIM card to gain more data.  The whole scenerio leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth thank you very much Verizon!

Sunrise over the Chiricahua Mountains this morning.

More On Verizon

“Hope you Realize that that unlimited data is on device data and only includes 10gig of high speed hot spot (tethered)data”  comment by Robert Jae

Are we the only people on the planet who don’t tether??  We have a Verizon Jetpack which serves as our router/modem and one cellphone—an iPhone 6.  The cowboy refuses to carry a cellphone.  The only time I use the iPhone as a hotspot is if we are in the truck and I want to see something such as a map on a larger screen.  We don’t pay for cellular data on the iPad so I just use the iPhone as a hotspot and connect to the phone with the iPad.  So, are we the only people on the planet who don’t tether?? 

We were paying for 24GBs of data with Verizon—our bill ran about $155/month.  Even if Verizon does slow down our speed after 22GB we will still come out better financially—with the jetpack and one phone our new bill with unlimited data is going to be about $108/month. 

There are lots of articles about Verizon’s new plan out there—not all are accurate I’ve found.  One author claimed you couldn’t have an unlimited plan with Verizon without signing up for AutoPay—not true at least in our case.

We are currently out and about again in the motorhome—life is good!

Rain, A Party and Verizon

It rained most of Saturday night—a gentle, soak in the ground kind of rain.  Sunday was cloudy/cool and it rained again in the evening accompanied by thunder and lightening.  The desert is getting good moisture this season.

The clouds make for beautiful sunsets and sometimes the colorful skies are in the east:

We gathered with our friends at Larry and Geri’s Sunday night for a delightful party.  The food was fantastic as usual.  The conversation and laughter with friends was priceless. 

Westward looking.

The iPhone we purchased in 2014 is a 5c with only 8GB of storage of which Apple took over three GBs for its endless updates.  I was continually getting messages, “unable to take photo, storage is full.”  Or “storage is full, go to settings to manage your storage.”  I deleted photos and apps but still didn’t have enough storage—by the time I “managed my storage” the photo opportunity was usually gone.  So, I started cruising eBay using good advice from Nina and located a “new, other” iPhone 6 in my price range.  The phone was either a floor model or a model someone returned without the box.  It’s in pristine condition and has a whopping 128GBs of storage!  It had been used on the Verizon network but came without a SIM card so it could be used on most networks.  I’m loving it—ordered a UAG case and screen protectors from Amazon. 

I mentioned to Geri that a trip to Surprise and the Verizon store to purchase a SIM card was in my near future.  Geri reminded me there was a Verizon store in Wickenburg—what an awesome store with amazing customer service reps!!  I’ve never been treated so royally in a Verizon store and I didn’t even buy the phone in their store!! 

And speaking of Verizon—did all you RVers out there see the news—we received an advance email last night telling us Verizon was FINALLY offering unlimited data again.  And it’s actually affordable—we compared it to the local provider here and our DSL providing telephone company in Montana.  Verizon’s website makes the following statement: “After 22GBs/line/month, we may prioritize your data behind other Verizon customers during network congestion.” We are signed up to go onboard with unlimited the first of March. 

Life is good!

Lemons, Lemons And More Lemons

Our lemon tree is loaded this year and the cowboy decided today was the day to make lemon juice.  I freeze it in 1/2 cup portions for lemon pies and in ice cube trays for other uses.  We enjoyed lemon meringue pies all last summer from this same lemon tree.

Friday evening we joined the ATV gang for dinner at the Yarnell Diner—we love going there, the waitress has been there as long as we’ve been going and she takes all the teasing with good grace. 

It was cloudy last night—we caught a quick glimpse of the moon before the cloud cover rolled in but no eclipse viewing and no comet viewing, either.  It’s rarely cloudy in Arizona—but last night it sure was—dang it!

Last grapefruit from our tree—we didn’t get very many but the ones we did pick sure tasted great!

Not much else going on—walking the pooch, regular chores—that’s about it.

Caught this sunset while out walking Emmi one evening this week.

Winter Storms and Great-Great Granddad

I can vaguely remember my two great grandmothers.  Our little great granddaughter Lora is only two so whether she remembers her great-great grandfather Nat remains to be seen—let’s hope so!  The USAF is sending Lora and her parents to Germany very soon

Grandpa Nat is going to teach Lora how to pitch horseshoes???

Our family and friends in Montana are experiencing horrific weather—roads are treacherous or closed, the weight of snow is collapsing buildings—it’s awful!  And while our area of Montana didn’t see these huge snowfalls they have been inundated with more snow than has fallen in a long time during winter!

All these locations are in NW Montana.

We’ve been busy around here—more on that later but we took time out today to visit with Elmer and Henrietta who drove up from Casa Grande to spend a couple days at Larry and Geri’s. 

Check out Jim and Sandie’s blog—they recently went to San Luis, Sonora, Mexico outside Yuma for dental work.  They are very pleased with the work done by Dr. Bernal and very happy to avoid being accosted by all the vendors and street people in Algodones. 

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day here in Arizona—perfect weather!

Movie and Super Bowl

The movie Hidden Figures was spectacular—lots of times seeing a movie after reading the book I’m unhappy with the liberties taken by the screen play author but Hidden Figures stuck close to the book story.  In the sixties, the United States and Russia were racing to see who could send a man into space first.  Russia won the race making the US even more determined to fully enter the space race. 

Before John Glenn was launched into space a group of female mathematicians used pens, paper and adding machines to caculate the numbers needed to safely send men into space and bring them back to earth.  Many of these “human computers” were highly intelligent African American women.  These women left their families behind, moving to Hampton, Virginia to work at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory.

It was the 1960’s with segregated bathrooms, eating establishments and even libraries.  These women worked hard at their jobs made all the more harder by these segregation rules.  Geri accompanied us and we all enjoyed the movie immensely!

Sunday our ATV friends gathered here to watch the Super Bowl—not sure any of us except Geri had a favorite—and her favorite won.  I personally was cheering for the team who had never won the Super Bowl—but it was not to be!  The grilled burgers and sides were delicious—another great day in the desert.

Desert sunrise

The Trail Hasn’t Changed

In April, 2015 our ATV gang headed out to find the Bradshaw grave—it’s a tough, rugged trail and in the blog I wrote about that first ride to the grave site I said it was the toughest trail I had ridden so far.  At that time I was riding my own 4-wheeler.  Thursday the gang took that ride again—the trail hasn’t gotten any smoother but at least this time I was a passenger!  Stunning country and we took the back way home riding trails none of us had seen before.  Here’s the info about the Bradshaw grave site.

“In 1862 the brothers William and Isaac Bradshaw along with William Warringer, sought and received a 20 year exclusive contract from Arizona’s first territorial legislature for a ferry service across the Colorado River between Providence Point, California and Olive City in Arizona. William Bradshaw’s brother Isaac, ran the ferry most of the time, while William went to the Weaver Mining District in Arizona and spent his time prospecting and exploring. William died in 1864, later that year the Silver Mountains were renamed the Bradshaw Mountains.

In 1867 Isaac Bradshaw got gold fever so he sold his interest in the ferry in Providence Point, left his wife and children and traveled to Arizona. He first tried his hand at prospecting, but did not meet with success. He then sought opportunities in the Copper Basin District located in the Sierra Prieta Mountains in Yavapai County. There he became a partner in a copper mining operation. Still having the lust for gold, he sold his interest in the Copper Basin property and went to the southern Bradshaw’s where he found his nirvana. His mine was not especially profitable, but it produced enough to keep him in beans and bacon. He died Christmas Day, 1886, at his claim on Whipsaw Gulch near Castle Creek where he is buried.”   wickenburg-az.com

A spring was sending water across the road and the morning was cold enough for ice to form on the trail.  It’s been a wonderful, wet year in the desert—creeks actually have water and the desert is so incredibly green.

A saguaro forest.The gravesite.

This canyon was beautiful—water in the creek and huge boulders.

And last but not least, on the way home we spotted this strange looking crested saguaro--

Washington Mike treated us all to pizza in the evening—another great day in the desert!  Tonight we are doing something strange and unusual for us—we are going to the movies to see Hidden Figures—I’ve read the book and it was great!

This And That

One of our readers, Jody Rhode, left the following comment:

Son was UPS Driver for years..UPS delivers thousands of packages all over the world everyday. One little mistake on the wording on the label and whoops your package goes to the wrong place. I think it is amazing that you finally got it at all. Just saying...

In this day and age of internet shopping and instant gratification it’s amazing most packages reach their destination on time.  Amazon Prime with its promised two day delivery has stressed the capabilities of shipping companies.  Then add in Wal Mart who ships for free if you purchase $35 or more—Wal Mart disbanded its membership program and is refunding money to those all ready enrolled.  The company also reduced the free shipping limit from $50 to $35.  And then there is Zappos—one of my favorite shoe stores—they ship next day delivery and also have free shipping for returns.  Yep, it’s amazing anything reaches its destination on time!

A walk in the morning desert—“come on Mom, enough with the photo taking!”

A very noisy cactus wren.

During the last month or so Michael has been painting the trim on our house—the house is a non-descript beige/yellow and the new trim paint really helps the appearance.

I know you guys don’t want to read another haircut story so let’s just say this young woman who cut my hair the last two times needs to find a new profession.

Guess who blew in today—Sarge—on his motorcycle which he stores in Nevada flying down from Montana on occasion to enjoy some warmth and sunshine.  He treated us to lunch at Nichols West—my green chile burge was delicious!

And, here’s a sneak peak at the little quilt which has given me more gray hairs--

The pattern is called It’s A Dogs Life—the quilt is finally going together as it should—only one more border. 

Oranges—sour little buggers!

The lemon tree is loaded with fruit again.

Back Home

After our little road trip we are back home just dealing with the mundane daily chores—you know the ones—laundry, dog bathing, etc.  We enjoyed happy hour with the gang this afternoon—Tom and Sandy, Joe and Kathy, Mike minus Cathy—at Larry and Geri’s house/garage. 

Back in Montana the cute little cowgirl is riding her horse.  Lora along with her mom and dad will be heading to Germany soon—it’s sure gonna be quiet around that house when they go!

Here’s an Amazon story for you.  I ordered from Amazon a new cover for my iPad—it was to be delivered via our two day shipping Prime membership.  The cover didn’t arrive on the designated day and when I would “track” the package I received this message both from Amazon and UPS: we are unable to estimate a delivery day at this time.”  HUH???  So, a week after the package should have been delivered and I was still getting the above message I emailed Amazon.  Explaining the situation I said, “I don’t want you to refund my money, I just want you to explain why I pay $100 per year for Prime that doesn’t work.” 

Almost immediately I received an email—apologies, a refund for the cost of the item ($10) and a $10 gift card.  The person assured me they had contacted the shipping company (UPS) and told them to deliver my item the next day which would have been Wednesday—the iPad cover didn’t come until the next Monday!  I don’t know what UPS was doing with the package—taking it for a ride around the country??

I think an ATV ride is on the agenda for tomorrow—it’s warming up again—thank goodness!

An Adventure

The cowboy, Emmi and I are off on an adventure—we are actually staying in a hotel and after the night we had—we realize why we drive that big pink motorhome all over the United States!  Our room was so blessed hot last night I could have sworn they were trying to roast us and we even had the heat off!  At some time during the night Michael tried to open a window with no success—his handy wife figured out how to open it this morning.

We are out looking at properties and our realtor received a lesson in what not to do with your car fob—don’t leave the fob in the car with the windows rolled up if a certain little black dog has been left in the car!!!  Oops!!  Thanks goodness the realtor who had the listing showed up—he was kind enough to drive Michael and Pam back to our truck.  The two of them went to Pam’s house to retrieve another fob.  And at least it was a really cold day and Emmi wasn’t locked in the car in 90 degree heat!!

It’s a nice hotel and I used Marriott points to pay for our room—free is good—I should receive something for sitting in those aluminum tubes breathing germs!  It’s a suite hotel so we have a little kitchenette.  I had to laugh when I showered this morning—the shower head is so high up on the wall the jolly green giant or my brother Ross could stand under it! 

We will be in this area for another day or two then head back to North Ranch.  

Ladies Day Out

Early this morning Geri, Sandy, Kathy and I left North Ranch heading for the outlet mall at Anthem just north of Phoenix.  It was a great day of talking, shopping and lunch!  I hit the mother lode—I found jeans which actually fit—amazing!!!  I was so excited I think the sales person thought I had lost my mind—I could just see her thinking, “who gets that excited over jeans???”  Well—someone who intensely dislikes today’s low rise jeans—I want jeans which reach my waist or almost to my waist and they are hard to find!  The selection of jeans in stores gives me an instant headache—super skinny/not so skinny/straight/low rise/super low rise(not going there)/boot cut—and the list goes on and on. 

I found a helpful sales person who pointed me in the right direction and I purchased three pair of Levi 314 jeans—almost to my waist, fitted in the thighs and straight legs—not skinny!  I was almost giddy to find jeans which fit—the cowboy approved when I modeled the jeans for him!

And in the Columbia store I found the cowboy a vest he actually liked—very much—he hasn’t removed it since I came home!

Another rainy/cool day yesterday and very cool/partly sunny today.  Michael did a little carpenter work Monday, installing the floor trim in the kitchen/dining area.  After taking apart the little art quilt on Sunday I managed to get the main blocks and sashing re-done—much, much better! 

Mr. Brooks

Lora with Aunt Katie and Parker the horse.

Snow On The Arizona Mountains

We received over an inch and a half of rain—the mountains around us received the white stuff!

Saturday evening we had another wonderful gathering of friends—Sandy and Tom, Joe and Kathy, Geri and Larry plus Washington Mike who came down to Arizona for a quick visit.  I cooked a brisket in the oven for most of the day making the house smell divine.  The gang made sure there was not a shortage of food, providing the rest of the fixings. 

Today was another one of those chilly, deary January days and I spent the day fighting that irregular quilt.  Finally gave up and took out every seam—late this afternoon I seemed to be making progress.  The cowboy has been watching football—an unusual event—he’s not a sports fan and I’m glad!  He’s also been painting—trying a new technique--

My dear sister Ann celebrates her birthday on January 22—happy, happy birthday Ann!

CPR Class

Up the Boulder at the former Boulder River Ranch which was owned by our dear friends Jeane and Steve.  Jeane and Steve used to have some wild New Years Eve ice skating parties on that pond—and you can see the Boulder River to the left of the pond.   Photo by Dale Oberly.

On Wednesday Geri, Tom, Sandy and I joined lots of other North Ranchers for a CPR class taught by the Congress Volunteer Fire Department.  It was a different kind of CPR class than the ones I took in my former life—modified to fit our circumstances. 

Thursday Larry and Geri kept the Emmi girl while we made a Costco run—we also enjoyed a great lunch at the Haymaker restaurant in Peoria.  If you can believe it—the desert is getting soggy and our high temperature today was 46 degrees!  It started raining yesterday and has really rained hard most of the afternoon.   I went into Wickenburg this afternoon to check out the new yoga studio opening on Monday—nice young woman who owns the studio—sure wish her success! 

Our grapefruit are ripe and delicious this year.

The North Ranch resident owls are prone to perch on the TV antennas—folks complain their signal changes when the owls take off sending the antenna in another direction.

Took this photo with the camera I purchased from Mike McFall.

It Couldn’t Have Happened In A Better Place

North Ranch is about to experience some “winter” weather this week—maybe even a sprinkling of snow!  The ATV gang decided we might better take a ride before it got really cold!  Tuesday even though it was “cold” at 45 degrees we all bundled up in our heavy clothes and took off on the ATVs.  First stop was in Congress at the clinic for me to receive a TB skin test—for my little nursing job.

Geri is our fearless leader usually and we spent the morning crawling up hills and over rocks in a forest of saguaros.  We stopped on top of a steep hill to enjoy lunch with a view—we could see the town of Agilla. 

After lunch we came down off the mountains and started out across a more flat area—and thank goodness!  We went around a corner and it felt as if we had run over a very big rock—except there were no big rocks—Michael looked back about the same time I realized we were tilting and said a few choice words.

Our wheel and tire fell off!!  The tire was on the ground behind the CanAm!  The rig was not driveable—we were at least close to Highway 71 which leads to Congress.  Our friend Mike had just arrived the night before from Washington minus Cathy who stayed behind—the cowboy and Mike made a quick run back to North Ranch retrieving the jeep and trailer.  The rest of the gang waited with me.  We were just dang lucky to be in a spot where we could get the jeep to the CanAm!!

My Mike had the spare parts and repaired the outside rear axle bearing today—the yellow rig is ready to go again!

Today I took a class—more on that experience in the next blog!

Senior Pass

Aging isn’t fun—just ask 94 year old Nat—but there are some perks.  The Safeway store in Wickenburg offers seniors 10% off the first Wednesday of each month—the jury is still out for me regarding the worth of this perk—trying to get through the aisles of the stores with the entire Wickenburg senior population is patience trying to say the least. 

Many restaurants offer discounts for those 55 and older.  But the best perk of all is the National Park Service Senior Pass.  After you have turned 62 you can visit a government office—the cowboy got his Senior Pass at our local USFS office—and pay your $10.  Yep, $10 for LIFE—the pass gives you free entrance to all national parks, monuments and other government operated sites.  The pass also discounts camping in national parks and sites.

It was a great deal—the Senior Pass is still available but sometime in 2017 the cost will go up—$80!  The pass at $80 is for life and is still a good deal if you visit lots of national parks/monuments but dang it—I was looking forward to getting my $10 Senior Pass.  My 62nd birthday isn’t until September—maybe the price won’t go up before then???  The article I read said the National Park Service hoped to have the conversion done by the end of 2017!

Another new hairdresser today—my fourth here in the area.  Michael spent his day painting—as in the artistic type painting and I worked on a quilt.  With the last seam joining all the quilt blocks together I discovered a serious discrepancy—as in over an inch off between the two sets of blocks—UGH!  This art quilt has very irregular sized blocks—well that last one is really irregular!! Not sure what I am going to do!

Good To Be Home

Airline travel used to be fun—in 1997 when I went to work for Kimberly-Clark, travel was fun.  I quickly built up airline miles and hotel points, usually sat in first class and was greeted by name at the Delta counter—“good morning Ms. Clark, here are your boarding passes.”  Then, as we all know, September 11 happened and air travel was no longer fun. 

In this day and age airline travel is really no fun—the seats and aisles are so small it’s easy to become extremely claustrophobic!  In the good ole days on any flight three hours or longer, food was served and in first class that food was good!  Today you have to pay for icky food!

So—it’s very good to be home.  The cowboy and Emmi were quite happy to see me!  We went into Wickenburg for dinner last night then called it a night—two hour time changes kick my butt and I was exhausted!

Today was “woe is Emmi” day—bath and a really good haircut.  Michael spent the day puttering in the garage and that’s the extent of our Saturday!  Another new recipe in the crockpot—honey lime chicken—will let you know how it turns out!

Sunrise one morning last week before I left for North Carolina.

Charlotte, North Carolina

About two and a half years ago I went back to work as a nurse consultant for an up and coming company, the TIDI Corporation.  The job was touted as a consultant/independent contractor position—work when I wanted kind of job and the pay was very good.  It all sounded great—it’s exactly what I did for the much bigger corporate giant Kimberly-Clark for twelve years—except TIDI didn’t offer the nurse consultants many assignments.  My last assignment was in March, 2016, almost a year ago.

Fast forward to TIDI acquiring some niche market healthcare companies and there is more potential work.  I am in Charlotte, NC attending a strategy meeting with these young, baby faced gung ho folks who make me feel ancient yet energized!  It’s been a long, long time since I sat in a meeting for an entire day but I survived!  Tonight we were rewarded with an excellent dinner at a downtown Charlotte restaurant—300 East—sweet potato ravoli, potato cakes, onion/horseradish sauce on hanger steak—not your average cowboy fare for sure but oh, so good! 

And I experienced Uber for the first time—trip to the restaurant was frightening—I had to tell the guy to “STOP”—emergency vehicles were coming through the stop light and he was just going to go.  Once the emergency vehicles were through, he then proceeded to run the red light and we were almost hit.  He stopped ON the train tracks and our boss in the back seat said, “we need to MOVE, there is a train coming!!!”  The trip back to the hotel was much less exciting—thank goodness!!

One more day here then I fly home Friday morning to the cowboy and Emmi. 

Do You Feed Your Dogs

The cowboy was reading something on the internet this morning—something political and said, “you should post that on your blog.”  I said, “nope, my blog is not political!”  When I told him what the topic of tonight’s blog would be he laughed and said, “and you said your blog was not political!”

Of course you feed your dogs—your furkids, your babies.  But how people feed differs greatly!  Some veterinarians will tell you dogs should be fed on a schedule and others will tell you, “just put the food out, they will eat when hungry.”  And all dog owners have an opinion—there is no right or wrong way as long as your dog maintains a healthy weight as far as I’m concerned—this is just how I do it.

Jazzy girl. 

In my adult life I’ve had five dogs—an obnoxious, mean little dachshund, two 70 pound each Airedales, one male, one female and litter mates, another little schnauzer and then Emmi.  I have always free fed—put the prescribed daily amount of a high quality dog food in their bowls in the morning—and walked off and left them. 

None of my dogs including the dachshund were ever overweight, the two Airedales had separate bowls and they worked out who ate when.  All the dogs including Emmi might eat some in the morning, leave the rest and go back at some point in the day to finish their food.  Emmi is the funniest dog we’ve ever had—she eats when she feels like it which is usually when Michael and I decide to go to bed.  Emmi rarely eats everything in her bowl and she has always weighed the same—a perfect 11 pounds.

Emmi doesn’t wake us in the morning wanting fed—she sleeps late, we usually have to wake her up about 8:30—9:00 to go for a walk.  She doesn’t beg for food unless she hears the word “cheese” as that’s what I wrap her three times a week medication in.  We give her no people food other than the cheese.  My Airedales and the other schnauzer were given people food and it made horrible beggars of them.  After Jazz, our schnauzer died I swore the next pooch would only get dog food. 

So—that’s how I do it—and I’m sure our dog owning friends have an opinion!  In our North Ranch circle of friends, our feeding method is in the minority it seems—most feed on a schedule.

Emmi at seven weeks.

Five month old Emmi—she had the wildest fur!

Jasmine and BoJangles beating up on Emmi in the Bouse desert—they weren’t really beating up on her—just playing.

Jazz started destroying this basket as a puppy and Emmi finished it off!

OK—that was fun—for me—looking back through old photos of our pooches!  All the photos of the dachshund and Airedales are pre-digital and back at home in Montana—I need to get some of those scanned into the computer.