Showing posts with label dog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dog. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Our dog, Jake, Australian Shepherd

Our wonderful dog, Jake – Australian Shepherd breed – which means NOT that he is a shepherd breed, nor from Australia. These dogs likely got their names because bred in America, they were most often used by Basque shepherds to do sheep herding.

thumbnail Jake

Thus the Australian part of the name and the shepherd part of the name. They are working dogs, guarding dogs, and are bred to be working dogs, herding dogs. While our guy doesn’t get to do near the amount of taskings and jobs he would like to do, we can attest that he is a spirited, working, herding dog. He is likely to herd cars if there are no children or critters around for him to herd.

I like this video, owner of an Australian Shepherd:

And we know this would be Jake if he ever had a chance to be around a real herd of anything.

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Thursday, July 10, 2008

Our dog, Jake, ACL surgery



Our dog, Jake, after surgery on his ACL (anterior cruciate ligament). Didn't realize it was going to be such an invasive procedure. He healed, never fully, and has a permannt limp, and we are grateful the veternarian who performed the surgery did as well as he did. Prior to the surgery, Jake couldn't seem to walk at all. It took about a year of recovery, and now Jake bounces in excitement when we ask him if he wants to go for a walk. He walks and will walk forever, but he does suffer some the next day.

What a great dog, we love our Jake. He is Australian Shepherd with some collie mix.
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Thursday, June 21, 2007

Harry Lauder Walking Stick Tree (bush) or Contorted Hazelnut - Corylus avellana L. 'Contorta'



2005 - Our Harry Lauder Walking Stick tree - mature specimen - 15-20 yrs old

Harry Lauder Walking Stick

CONTORTED HAZELNUT
Corylus avellana L. 'Contorta'


This unusual European hazelnut was found around 1850 growing in a hedgerow in England. It has been propagated by cuttings and grafting ever since. The plant has become commonly known as "Harry Lauder's Walking Stick" or "Contorted Hazelnut."

The stems and leaves naturally twist and turn as they grow. The plant would normally grow as a sprawling bush, but if it is grafted onto a 4 ft. tall upright stock (Corylus colurna L. is a good non-suckering rootstock) it forms a very ornamental specimen tree.

Walking Stick : This shrub reaches a height of 8'-10', with a similar spread. The flowers of Harry Lauder's walking stick are yellowish-brown "catkins," as on pussy willows. The blooms appear in early to middle spring. However, this shrub is not grown primarily for its blooms but for its unusual branching pattern, which is indicated by its other common names: corkscrew filbert and contorted hazelnut. For as you can see from the picture, its branches contort themselves in every which way, resembing corkscrews.

Sun and Soil Requirements for Harry Lauder's Walking Stick : Grow Harry Lauder's walking stick in well-drained soil, in full sun to part shade.

Care of Harry Lauder's Walking Stick: Being a grafted shrub, Harry Lauder's walking stick does require some special care. The rootstock is Corylus colurna. As often happens with grafted plants, there is a tendency for suckers to shoot up from the rootstock. You must prune off these suckers so that the plant does not revert to the characteristics of its rootstock.

How Harry Lauder's Walking Stick Got Its Name: According to Adele Kleine of "Flower and Garden Magazine," the shrub's "appealing common name derives from the old Scottish comedian Harry Lauder who performed using a crooked branch as a cane."

Uses for Harry Lauder's Walking Stick in Landscape Design: Harry Lauder's walking stick is a specimen plant. The corkscrew shape of its branches lends much-needed visual interest to the winter landscape.

More on Harry Lauder's Walking Stick: Harry Lauder's walking stick is a case in which one may rightly claim that a deciduous shrub truly comes into its own only after its leaves have fallen. Not that the shrub isn't attractive when fully leafed out. But the eye is especially drawn to this curious specimen in winter, when many other deciduous trees and shrubs are little better than sad reminders of a defunct fall and summer.





our dog, Jake (an Australian shepherd - collie mix),
lays under our Harry Lauder Walking Stick tree - 2005


What is Harry Lauder's walking stick?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

March 11, 2005

At one time, shrubs and trees were planted to separate fields or fields from roads. These hedgerows divided land in a gracious, idyllic way. They were a mix of useful plants neighbors could share—willows for basketry, berries and nuts. A modicum of maintenance kept the hedgerow, a hedgerow. Wildflowers grew there; birds and small animals had refuge in the midst of cultivated lands. The hedgerow stayed the same and yet it changed with the seasons and the passing of the years.

Sometime in the early 1860s, a curious shrub was noticed growing in a hedgerow in Gloucestershire. It was hazel like the hazels (Corylus avellana Linnaeus) that people had cultivated for hundreds of years. But it was different, its branches twisted and corkscrewed and wept. Not many years after the discovery of the contorted hazel, a boy was born at the north


His father died when Harry Lauder was twelve. He helped his mother support his seven siblings by working in a flax mill while he went to school. Later he worked in a coal mine and it must have been difficult to see the stars when one is in 'the pit'. But he clung to his dream—someday he would be a music hall entertainer.

Harry mixed comedy with music and made laughable, yet touchingly lovable characters for his songs—the stodgy Dame, the red-nosed slovenly Calligan, the kilted tight-fisted Roderick McSwankay.

By 1912, Harry was at the top. He was elected to the Rotary Club of Glasgow and his fame spread beyond England. In 1913, he entertained in America; in 1914, he was in Australia. While in Melbourne, the British Empire entered World War I. Harry's son, John left his father's tour and went to war.

Harry, too old to be a soldier, mobilized to do what he could do best, entertain. And entertain he did. Realizing that those soldiers and sailors maimed by the war would be left in poverty, Harry raised huge sums of money for their pensions. Then Harry did something crazy and the war office fought him on the very idea of it all. He took entertainment to the trenches and battlefields of France.

Harry and Ann never saw their son John alive again. In 1919, Harry was knighted for his charitable works. When World War II broke out, he launched himself into another round of entertaining the troops and raising funds. Harry Lauder died in 1950. Few alive today have even heard his name, but entertainers have kept alive the tradition he started—laughter and songs for soldiers and sailors far from home.

It was Harry's wild character, Roderick McSwankay that made the hazel famous. The decked-out Scotsman leaned on an equally crazy hazelwood cane. The shrub became known as Harry Lauder's walking stick.




our Harry Lauder Walking Stick Tree
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Tuesday, February 1, 2005

Rising to the morning routine, simple pleasures

It is one of those crisp winter days this morning. We wake up, immediately turn on our respective computers, catch up on what's new or better said, more of the same, and as the sun comes up, we are drawn like a magnet to beginning the day. Husband goes about the business of morning preparations to go to work. I, on the other hand, mentally lay out the plans for my day. I send him off in our usual morning routine. What that looks like is stepping out on the porch into the bracing chill, calling for our dog Jake, to make sure he is around and not off chasing an adventure somewhere in the neighborhood, and locating our cat, Lance.

Jake, as usual, comes trotting out of where-ever he chose to sleep for the night, sometimes on the porch, sometimes outside. Lance is either inside, curled up someplace or outside and ready to come in. I give Jake his morning "treat" and he waits patiently, wagging his tail. He knows the routine...Daddy will go get in the truck and Mommy will give the dog a bone.

Our little entourage then waves Daddy off as he heads down the street and I take in the morning sights. I take a look at the sunrise to see what kind of day we will have, look over to the bay water to see what color it is this morning and how the water is moving or not moving. I look to the neighbors' houses to see who is up and about, who has left for the day. I check to make sure the cat has food in his dish and then am reminded to remember whether I fed the two beta fish last night. I often forget to remember to feed those two, as it's hard to have a relationship with a couple of fish swimming in vases. The two beta fish and the cat are inheritances, acquired when my daughter's family was finally able to move to Germany.

So quietly my own day begins. Which is exactly the way I like it to be, for the most part. I used to be part of that morning preparations to get ready for work and remember well that "morning rush" which I rarely enjoyed. The hair, the grooming, the make-up, choosing the clothes, putting on what I called the "uniform" constricting the flow to focus on the taskings as set forth by employer/employment. Rushing to the car, checking the time, flying down the road so we wouldn't be "late" and then arriving, stepping into the office, and that whole aura of 9 + hours and this place owns me.

This quiet and leisurely way to start the day is a contrast which I still relish and savor. As the sun finishes it's rise, I now know the tone of the weather for the day. I decide if I will open the blinds and curtains or let it remain awakening time a bit longer. Today it is sunshine, and light streams in, so the blinds and curtains are opened. We get a fair amount of rainy days here and sometimes I like to open the blinds where I sit at the computer to watch the rain fall and listen to it hitting the metal roof.

Lance isn't sure what he wants to do, and Jake has a strange gift to attend to outside. I closed up the porch last night, meaning to keep him in only long enough to eat his food, since he likes to share it with all the neighborhood dogs, and forgot to open the porch door last night before going to sleep. Jake then was rather locked in then last night, not his usual routine. So I know he could not have brought that hooved deer leg into the yard, yet there it is this morning. Where did it come from? Which dog brought it and now, of course, Jake is seriously interested.

Meantime the birds are busy on the metal roof making a racket and doing whatever they do on the roof. I take Lance outside to do his bird-monitoring thing and he is busy now prowling on the deck railing trying to keep up with the movement of the birds. And I thought I'd just blog about how our mornings begin. I'm so weary of blogging my other blogs and the war and the politics which have highjacked my daily life simple wonders in my own consuming focus to try to influence getting our troops home, thus hopefully ending some of the carnage and destruction that go on daily in Iraq. See how those thoughts creep in even as I write to the simple pleasures of my morning wake-up routine.Well time to start the day..............
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Saturday, January 1, 2005

New Year 2005, we quietly again rang it in

Happy New Year, 2005! Well, guess we are getting older, we fought to stay awake till midnight this year. Quiet at home, watched the annual showing of series The History of Sex, and another channel was showing Law and Order episodes back to back. We are dorks when it comes to New Year's celebrations, have been for good many years now.

I did have a nice hot chocolate spiked with Peppermint Schnapps, yummy and warm tummy. Our young family neighbors did fireworks and poor Jake, he just can't take it! Broke the door down trying to get inside, scurrying around trying to get his big dog body under the bed or computer station. I let him go into my closet, which has space for him and is his haven in the fireworks storm.

Lance, on the other hand...hmmmm, BAD CAT. Seems he does like his home here with us but hasn't let go of his bad cat problem, with not using litter box. Surprise, surprise, we found the evidence and spent some time scouring and cleaning and now Lance will be banished to the outside for awhile, till he learns where he is supposed to take care of business.

So reversal last night, Jake inside and Lance outside. Too funny. I have 2 traumatized pets, wouldn't you just know. Both need "special" attention for their fears. Jake, mostly okay, till the fireworks or gunshots go off and he is immediately cowering and terrified. Lance, traumatized by loss of his owners and home for years and so has developed behavior problems.

We watched, again, on tv, the firework display at the Seattle Space Needle. Just gets bigger and better every year. This year, with that many explosives all around the Needle, I wondered if it was gonna blow up! Guess they know what they are doing, and the Needle still stands. The same Needle I saw iwhen I was a child in the 1964 World's Fair that was meant to be temporary and has become the permanent landmark of Seattle. Awesome!
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