Graceland and tornadoes

If you are an active puppy rescue, you should not also advertise yourself as someone fun and available for hanging out.  I was very silly lately and invited an old friend from Boca Raton Florida, who is currently teaching in the Caymans, to come to lovely Chattanooga Tn. and spend her only Easter Break with me, Mrs. Fun Fun.  I promised dancing, canoeing, caving, hiking, walking, eating and drinking.  There are several problems here. For one, This week I had 40 Dogs again. Mommies with puppies, random dogs and a few to pick up.  I live my life one day and one moment at a time, but I can usually schedule fun into the mix, or so I thought.  So this poor woman, with whom I have had so much fun:  first U2 and Smash Mouth concert, First trip to South Beach, First trip to ladies night in Fort Lauderdale, First Rum Cake, First EVER and only time to see VIOLENT FEMMES and get my dress signed by Gold Finger, while simultaneously being told my friend and I looked like hookers, thank you very much.  First time in Paris, First time in London (for Live8 no less) and on and on, so come to Chattanooga Tn, it will be the best time ever, ooooooh, except that we also have to take care of some dogs.

So we attempted a few things, and got some good shopping done at local charities, and ate and drank our fare share of things, but there was always the rush home to feed and walk dogs, feed and pet mommies and puppies and, of course, the inevitable, clean up all the pee and poop.  I swear this poor woman waded through sooooooooooooooo much pee and poop that she propably could have had DNA testing on her shoes to prove that she was indeed a dog.  But each time we went into the mommy rooms she melted with ooooh, look at how cute this puppy is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So it was with an embarassment and trepidation that I mentioned to her the trip to Nashville.  The local puppy rescue was lucky enough to connect with the huge New York rescue that will take up to 20 dogs from our rescue every month.  I was trying to work this into an adventure, a vacation, a trip of a life time, so she suggested that we tour some studios in Nashville, but I couldn't quite figure out what to look for on the internet, but I did find GRACELAND which IS in Tennessee, so must be driveable from Nashville.  Well, it is. But first you have to drive with 18 dogs TO Nashville. Oh, but 4 were rejected because they had heartworm, so now we need a babysitter in Memphis, which is actually far away, BUT we found one at the humane society that it turns out we were going to anyway to pick up 6 rescue puppies.
Oh, did I mention that the storm of the century was on its way?
Well, it was. So we parked the dogs in the cat trailer on the property of the West Memphis Humane Society and went to Real Memphis to drink on Beale Street.  We had a free hotel night at the Comfort Inn in Downtown Memphis. 
More to follow, off to watch Dr. Who.

Max has a home!

Max is a goofy hound mix.  From what we have seen come through Petco he is a mix of blue tick and black and tan. The people who came in with his much older twin brother swear they are amazingly wonderful dogs.  I have to take their word for it.  Max came to me two months ago after his foster mom was sure we had Parvo in our homes and she couldn't risk contaminating her cats and dogs with it. We did not have parvo at that time, but did manage to get it later.  He was a GOOFY puppy with mismanaged paws and silly head throws.  He got along well with all the other dogs, and wasn't too silly to be able to stay here with us. 
He is a smart dog! so smart that when Saturdays rolled around he knew that it was adoption day and he prefered to run away quickly and smartly from the car that would take him away from his comfy cozy home.  This went on week after week and Max grew older and taller. 
I took my vacation to Florida and he went back to his old foster mom who was assured nothing could happen to her puppy dog.  A week passed and when I called to check in on the foster puppies, he was back with one of the crazy dog ladies.  When I got back from Boca, he came back home with me.  He was older and more assured by this time, and his testicles had dropped, making him about 6 months old.  I was able to take him to Petco two weekends in a row where he sat tethered to a trash can right at the entrance, garnering many pets and looks of adoration, but no adoptive parents.
A young man, recently returned from Military duty and currently working in the nuclear field like my husband and all the other young men in my family. He called one of the crazy dog ladies who called me and we talked. He was going to be in Chattanooga for one day only. He was interested in Max and wanted to be able to meet him that coming Friday.  The week passed and I hadn't heard from him.  Finally today I called him in the middle of one of the worst Spring storms in recent memory. Yes, he was on his way but...... Luckily the signal cut as he was coming through some mountains.  He called back when he said he was and agreed to meet me at Petsmart around 7:15.

I believe it was love at first sight for both of them. 

Max behaved unbelievably well. I can't tell you how thrilled I was with his demeanor and behaviour! He was the perfect dog.  Many people at Petsmart stopped to admire him and pet him.  After living with 20 to 40 dogs at a time he was used to the chaos of many dogs and people around him.  I am going to get him fixed this week and treat whatever skin problem he was developing. His new dad will be able to pick him up in  about 8 days when he is done with his present job. They will have a new home with a fenced in back yard and many trips to the local dog parks.  Yea!

Another good day in doggie land.

Pasta with Wilted Greens

Here's another entry for the Food Stamps Challenge Adapted from The $7 A Meal Cookbook by Linda Larsen
Total cost about $2

Pasta and Wilted Spinach
6 slices Turkey Bacon ($.69 per pound 22 slices per pound = $.18
1/2 onion (used free wild onions from the yard)
1 pound spaghetti or any pasta (BOGO $1.39 plus $1.00 off coupon so $.20 per pound)
3 eggs beaten ( $.12 each so $.36)
1/4 C heavy cream (1.79 per cup) so $.45
1/2 C Parmesan (divided) This is about $.50 when using the Costco purchase
1/2 tsp Garlic salt
1/8 tsp pepper
2 Tbs sugar
2 Tbs white vinegar
1 Tbs apple cider Vinegar
4 Cups chopped baby greens from the garden (free.  I got bored in January and during a warm day I took 2 year old seed packages that I bought for $.75 at the Ace Hardware at the end of the growing season when we first got here and then stored in the freezer, and strew them in the ground wherever there was a bare space.  I used these for plants last year but still had some left over.  Greens growing EVERYWHERE is the result.
Bring a pot of water to boil for the pasta. And cook according to directions while doing all the other stuff
chop and cook the bacon--if using the turkey bacon you will have to add some oil
add the onion to the almost cooked bacon and cook til almost soft.
I Added all the vinegars, sugar, and seasonings to the cooked onions and bacon and brought to a boil.  I added the chopped baby greens and stirred around a bit to cook and wilt, then shut off the heat, but left the mixture on the burner to further cook down the greens which take a little longer to cook than spinach.

Beat the eggs, cream and 1/4 C parmesan cheese in a small bowl
When the pasta is done, strain  and place in the bowl you are going to use to serve it in and it toss with this stuff for 2 minutes.
Add the greens to this and stir. top with the rest of the parmesan cheese, or put that on the table for people to add what they like.
The verdict was yummy and this made enough for 6 - 8 servings.

3 week old puppies and their mommy

OOOH!!!!! I love new puppies, they are so sweet.  I love the noise they make as they suckle from their mommy!  I have this batch in a clean room that has never had puppies, so there is no parvo, so that is good, they will be safe.  There are 8 of them. The mommy was dropped off at a local shelter while she was pregnant and she gave birth just one day later there at the shelter! They were so cute that they weren't put down immediately, but instead cared for by the staff at the shelter.  The puppies were in the cat room in a sweet little blue swimming pool swathed in many many blankets.  The staff at the shelter are so wonderful! They don't want to have to kill the puppies and they find rescues whenever they can.  My house is risky because we recently had parvo, and I haven't secured all the rooms just yet.

Here is a sweet photo of the mommy and puppies.

Well, the mommy doesn't look as cute as she really is in this photo. Also, they are living in a room that incorporates the "observation" rooms that used to exist here at the school when it was the "Center for Exceptional Children"  These rooms locked from the outside, were lined with shag carpet and padding, had observation windows and overhead lighting to observe the ill behaved children that couldn't behave in a regular classroom.

gotta run

Puppy adoption day at Petco

Every Saturday and Sunday I  load up the dogs that I have and take them the 25 miles to civilization (The Mall) where they sit in cages (EXpens- short for exercise pens) for about 5 hours looking as cute as can be with the hope of adoption.  The puppies I have at this moment are all about 6 months old and are, therefore, by common standards, unadoptable.  People want cute cuddly puppies that lope about and pee all over the floor, and who can blame them?

A few months ago I had 42 puppies in various locations throughout the school.

These were in front of a small space heater in what used to be the girls shower room.

Anyway, eventually, the dogs contracted a horrible stomach virus that mimicked Parvo, and then eventually 6 came down with Parvo and 3 died.  When this hit I had to get rid of as many dogs that had not yet been affected as possible.  I was left with 12. 3 died.  My rescue foster home was put into quarantine and no dogs could leave.  We did manage to have some enter by closing off the old lawn mower shed that we were using as a goat pen.

So the dogs that remained got bigger and bigger. Some, by some miracle, got adopted as soon as I came off of quarantine, but 7 remain and they are all 6 months old or so.

I went on vacation, came home cleaned up the gym with bleach and am working on resealing the cement, but I just found out last night that I must first scrape off the asphalt cement that was holding the tiles down.  Now that they have soaked in bleach water for so many days for so many hours the cement is soft enough to scrape off. So I only have to do that 6,000 times to get the adhesive off of each square that did hold a tile.  soooooooooooooooooooooooo
in the meantime I can only foster dogs that are over 4 months old.

Today I took my foster puppies to Petco, but none of them got adopted, and I was able to bring home 3 more.  Two came directly from the Walker County Humane Society. They are terrier mixes. One came from another foster who is getting ready to sell her house.

In addition to these puppies last night I was able to bring home a mom and 8   2 week old puppies.  They are in one of the rooms we had prepared for rental that was never used. So that is a safe room, and the puppies are protected from Parvo because they draw their immunity from the mother's milk.

Total Dog Count: 18 foster 4 domestic 1 day care= 23 dogs

The weather is warm and beautiful with no rain forecasted for 3 days.  The dogs are enjoying the fresh air and sunshine and the freedom of the 5 acres they roam during the day.  At night they sleep in the living room and pee in the hallway when they can't figure out how to get out of the OPEN door.  Mop water and bleach before anyone else wakes up.

Next Sunday I drive north of Nashville to deliver 15 dogs to a large rescue from the New York area, but I just found out that none of mine will be able to go because they all weigh more than 20 pounds.  I guess they will be at my home for quite a while.  A positive note is that a guy called from South Carolina about Max, the goofy hound puppy and he will meet me in Chattanooga on Friday to see if they are a good fit for eachother.  Let's hope that works out.
You can see max at http://apawandaprayer.com/

Slow cooker cassoulet

There are many things we do here at the school to off set the cost of feeding and housing the puppies. The one that I am sharing here is using a Slow Cooker and making meals that cost less than $7 for 4 people.  I am going to enter the Food Stamps Challenge this year under A Paw and A Prayer, so I have to get practicing. The challenge is to feed a family of 4 for $4per person per day, (which is the California Food Stamps allotment), for a week.

This morning we had French Toast with powdered sugar and syrup, Bacon, Coffee and Orange Juice for
$.75 per person.  I buy the bread at the bakery outlet for $.79 a loaf (white bread) and the rest I buy at Costco.

I am a Crock Pot Freak and have spent the last year using mine to death.  It started because of how unbearable hot our inexpensive HHgregg oven makes the kitchen.  I never wanted to cook ever again during the entire summer, until my CROCK POT EPIPHANY. Which was this: If I prep for 10 minutes in the morning when the inside temperature is below 80 degrees, I can let my non-heat creating Crock Pot (that I have had for 8 years) cook all day and still have supper ready for my husband and kids around 5:30pm when the AC is cranking and it is a pleasant 75 degrees inside. YEA!
The Cassoulet is a French dish that I am trying out using my discounted meat from Food Lion. This is not a special deal for me as a rescue. They donate all their old food to a local church that feeds hundreds of people a week. Instead this is meat that I pick up whenever I am going by the Food Lion here in town.  Two days before the sell by date the meat manager knocks the price down by 50% but the day before the sell buy date this goes up to a 67% discount, so I never buy meat unless it costs 1/3 the original price.

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 TBS butter
• 1 large onion, finely chopped    (I used wild onions from the garden--white part only)
• 2 carrots (from the garden) sliced
• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, chopped ($2.83 for 3 #)
• 1/4 pound cooked smoked turkey sausage, diced ($.83/#)
• 4 slices turkey bacon ($.63/13.5 oz)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced or garlic salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 6 oz marinara (prego on sale/freeze the rest)
• 1/2 pound  great northern beans, rinsed and drained cooked according to directions $.79/lb Walmart)
• Add water as needed, starting with 1/2 cup to your desired thickness
• season to taste at the end of cooking with salt and more pepper if desired
• 3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley from garden
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs (from stale bread)
• 1 Tbs Butter
• 2 Tbs parmesan cheese

Preparation:

Heat olive oil and in large skillet over medium heat. Add onion  and carrots; cook and stir until onion is tender, about 3-4 minutes. Stir in chicken, sausage, bacon, and garlic. Cook 5 to 8 minutes, or until chicken and sausage are browned. Stir in Marinara; transfer to slow cooker. Stir great northern beans into the chicken mixture; Add water as desired. Cover and cook on LOW 8 hours if you have an old Crock Pot or 4-5 hours if using a new one.

An hour before serving time combine bread crumbs, melted butter and parmesan cheese. Sprinkle on to and continue to cook. Before serving, sprinkle parsley over cassoulet. Can be served with fresh bread or baguette.
Serves 6 for about $5 total.

Getting started

Last year at this time my family and I walked confidently into the Walker County Animal Shelter to volunteer as Foster parents. Within 45 minutes we were sent home with two adorable puppies we promptly named Kevin and ChiChi.  My husband, who really likes clean spaces free of dog urine and dog poop, was going to be our biggest challenge in the new hobby.  The puppies were assigned a room here at the school, given bedding, a radio to listen to NPR, water and food bowls and lots and lots of newspaper.  My plan was to take the puppies out in the morning to poop and get fresh air, then feed them, then take them out again to relieve themselves, then to put them back in their own room until the afternoon when it would be time to feed and walk them again.  This lasted approximately 12 hours. By nightfall the next day Ty and Nikki had split up the dogs claiming one as their own. Nikki got ChiChi and Ty got Kevin.  Both dogs got a soft warm bed and a human to sleep with.

Within a couple of days Chuck started coming home from work a little earlier and wanted to see the puppies as soon as he got home. With the dogs being part of our family life, they were, obviously, in the family room and kitchen with us. This meant that there were soon small (almost imperceptible) puddles of pee on the floor that I tried to clean up as soon as noticed, but definitely by 4:45 pm before Chuck got home from work, usually accomplished at least in the first few months of this endeavor. Eventually Chuck left the light on in the hallway to avoid puddles, set up a mop bucket system for instant urine clean up and helped me invest in paper towel stock!

We are older now and sleep is super important to us. Our backs hurt most of the time and since Chuck has to work standing up sometimes, it is important that we have a good bed that will keep us supported and cozy.  After moving here to the school Chuck ordered a Temperpedic Adjust A Bed that costs thousands of dollars.  He hardly lets our kids sit on the bed with us, let alone our aging, blind and deaf Italian Greyhound.  This bed is an altar to the sleep gods.  So it was that I was floored when one night I went into bed after Chuck had already fallen asleep. I woke him up with my movement and he rolled over and mumbled the funniest thing ever in our 25 years together: "Go bring the puppies in here so they can play on the bed, they are so cute." Luckily for me, I knew he was asleep and didn't bring the puppies, but for months afterwards I laughed with him about the cute puppies.

At night the kids, unused to the sounds a puppy makes to be let out to pee and poop, let the dogs kinda wander around the room, decorating it in yellow and brown. Which I cleaned up since it was my idea. ChiChi wanted to be let out to do her business and got into the practice of pouncing on Nikki's face and chewing her hair to wake her up.  Nikki loves and needs her sleep, so she would cover her head resolutely and ignore the dog who had no other choice.  ChiChi was clever enough to actually poop and pee in the bathroom near the toilet.

By the fourth day Kevin was adopted by a lovely young girl, and ChiChi was firmly the property of Nikki. Not to worry, the Animal Shelter had a continuous supply of puppies that are abandoned or dropped off.  So we got another batch of puppies, this time there were 5 and they slept together in the puppy room on a thick comforter. Did you know that puppies will pee on their bedding if it is any bigger than the actual space they require for sleeping? It's true, and surprising if you just don't know about this. 

Our stray pitbull that we adopted and had neutered became a loving uncle to the subsequent batches of puppies.  Every morning and afternoon we would take them on a 30 minute walk around the property over to the soccer fields, down to the creek and back to the house.

Most of the time after a 30 minute romp I still had 5 puppies when I got back to the house

But this one time when I got back to the house I found only 4 puppies! I freaked out a bit, stuffed the four I had in their puppy room and took the pit bull with me to find the stray puppy.  I had only had them for a few days and they still didn't come to me when I called.  I asked my pit bull who definitely understands human speak to find the puppy.  We walked and walked but couldn't find it. It was getting dark so I got my son to go back down to the field while I fed the other dogs. 

Within 15 minutes two of them came back. My son covered in scratches and leaves, the puppy scruffy around the mouth, and the dog uncle missing.  It seems that when the two of them went back to the field the pit bull sniffed out a yummy delicious smell instead of the puppy and he bounded into the Sleeping Beautyesque thicket like Prince Charming! When the pit bull found the yummy thing it was a quick turn to get it from the stray puppy who had been gnawing on it all this time. The puppy protested loudly, ran and got caught in a vine, and howled piteously.  My son, not knowing what was going on, heard the soulfull cry and ran into the thicket, got stopped by overgrowth, ran around to find a clearing, got scratched in the face and arms, ducked under vines, got his shirt ripped and finally came to the puppy whom he released and brought home in his arms.  On the way back out of the brambles he passed the pit who was happily munching on a partially decomposed fox body.