what a tangled web he weaves

i think a new photo expose i may start will be entitled "places my dog gets himself caught." because of proton's incident with the cows last week, i have not been so willing to let him gallivant around the neighborhood. so, the poor guy gets tied up to the post or deck or whatever permanent fixture is nearest. i've hooked him to an incredibly long rope to give him the illusion of freedom, but what it does is get wrapped around trees, chairs, bushes, clotheslines, my feet, the lawnmower, anything. at first he would freak out when he got caught, but now he sort of resigns himself to the situation he's gotten himself into.... like today when things got really quiet and i went outside and he was sitting in the middle of a very large shrub. incredibly tangled. and then later in the day when he wriggled under the deck and somehow got tangled around a post. and then just stood there looking at me from the dark, dank, deck dirt. i finally lured him close to me so i could get the leash off, but he remained just slightly out of reach... until i grabbed his face hair and pulled him closer. didn't go very well, but i did get the leash off and it only took him another 5 minutes to get tangled on something else. still better than getting hooved.

the blueberries are almost here! i can almost feel the steam from my canning pot.

and the cookies were yummy

so i used the lemon thyme to make shortbread cookies and they were quite delicious. and i'm probably going to end up drizzling chocolate or strawberry sauce on them... here's the recipe if you are so inclined to try a batch yourself:

4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon thyme
Zest of two medium lemons
1 cup butter/margarine
1 cup Crisco vegetable oil
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, thyme, and lemon zest.

Beat the butter/veg. oil until light and fluffy. Sift in the powdered sugar and beat again. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and then beat in the vanilla extract.

Add in the flour mixture in two batches, stirring until a thick dough forms. Refrigerate the dough for half an hour (I did longer).

Roll the dough into little balls, place on parchment paper, and bake for ~12 minutes (until bottom is just browned). Yum!

thyme thyme thyme

it rains a lot here. a lot. which is good if you have a huge garden, which we do, and a baking problem, which i do. the garden has an abundance of lavender, raspberries, scallions, and a little something i found yesterday called lemon thyme. i gathered a bunch of it, dried it, and spent last night looking up all sorts of yummy things that i can do with it, and one of those would be yummy shortbread cookies made with it. i've got thyme and then i've got time. so much of both. so that's what i'm doing today: making freaking delicious baked cookies with herbs from my goddamn garden.... the results of which may just be posted later.

you called who on what?

today i had to go to walmart to buy hangers and clothes pins. yes, clothes pins for hanging clothes on a clothes line. i took professor proton with me because i didn't want him freaking out at the house. i park in the lot, exit the car, and head to the door, determined to make it in-and-out in under 10 minutes because a) walmart is terrible, and b) my dog will be screaming at me the entire time i am gone. on my way in to the pit of no health insurance for employees, i hear a lady say to another, "well you can't do that when you come out of rehab. you can't come back to the same place." well, well. maybe this isn't so much different than baltimore. and i saw a black person in the hardware store earlier. anyway... i get my hangers and clothes pins and head back out to my car. strangely, the dog is quiet. also strange.. there are two very unattractive and barely-toothed people waving their arms up in the air right next to my car. hmm..... as i approach, i see that they are trying to flag down some sort of automobile. my thought: "wow... isn't that nice. rutland has a retard bus that picks up retards when they go to walmart."

nope.

the retards were flagging down animal control. in the freaking 6 minutes and 32 seconds that i had been inside, these two idiots hear my shreaking dog (who shreaks when i take a shower and he can't see me and when i turn on the microwave and when i blow out a candle) and call animal control. i ask what they're doing and they say there's a dog in the car. i say yes, i know, it's my dog. they respond with "oh.. it's hot out today." um... no it's not and move away from my shit. the geriatric animal control guy they were flagging down gets out of his car and proceeds to tell me that he received a call of a dog in a car and i again say yes, that is my dog and he is in my car. he then says that that's a $375 fine. this is when i got a little baltimore on his ass. are you serious? i asked for what? for leaving my dog in my car? that makes no sense. he replies that "yes ma'am i'm dead serious", and i can't leave my dog in the car with the windows up. i then tell him they are not up, they are down so the dog could have air. he then decides to look and tells me they're not far down enough. you know what? you drove a fucking block to get here cus there's no other shit going on. go find your nosy retard buddies that called this in and arrest their brother/sister/parents for fucking in the first place.

move to vermont

yesterday proton and i made the official move to vermont. and what a move it was. the picture of the car shows you what we drove 8.5 hours in. proton was sitting on my lap the whole time and actually did a pretty fantastic job of keeping still, except for the last 30 minutes when he about lost his mind jumping around my lap and digging his little dog nails into my stomach. but we made it to the lovely house in rutland and proton got straight to meeting our new neighbors: the Bovines. now, i had heard a little bit about the
Bovines from Jonas, and i was quite excited to meet them myself
and see how proton reacted to them. i'll tell you how he reacted to them: with NO FEAR. i made the foolish mistake of not securing proton to anything because i felt terrible about having him cooped up in the car all day. HUGE mistake. proton initially did a great job of staying near the house, but soon thereafter he started being a bit too curious and i hollered for him to come back. he didn't respond. in fact, what he did was make a straight b-line for the cow pasture. there were 5-6 big mama cows in the field and 3 calves. turns out those cows had just had those calves.... making
them protective lethal killing machines. so proton jumps in the pasture and is bounding. not running... bounding. bounding like a cartoon bunny. just loving his freedom and his impending meeting with the Bovines. the cows initially didn't see him, but once they did, they locked their laser eyes on him and stopped chewing. stopped chewing and circled up. circled up and charged on that terrier. and he's running and thinking it's fun.... until those cows FOR REALS starting charging him. and mind you, the entire time proton is running towards these beasts i am screaming like a banshee. and yes, proton did look at me, right before he continued bounding. i thought he was going to be hooved. he finally ran back under the fence and towards me, and i'd like to say i saw fear in his eyes.... but i can't be sure if it was the look of fear or shear ecstasy. the cows continued to charge towards us, stopped at the fence, and stared at us. stared so hard. and that's how their relationship with proton stands. today = lots of staring contests across property lines.

today = i mowed the lawn. mowed the shit out of that lawn. so fantastic. and we went and visited the resevoir 10 minutes from our house (the bottom two pictures). how amazing is that?! it is officially my new swimming hole and i can't wait to go back.