Gypsy on a Sit/Stay in front of the prickly pear cactus where I got the fruit for this year's Prickly Pear Wine. Good Dog Gypsy!



Gypsy sitting by the front door...waiting for her morning walk.


Word of the Day

Mintigrate - To destroy in an odd way. To obliterate.

We're Home! Actually, HTP and I got home from Vegas last night but what with unpacking and all, I decided to wait until today to blog.

I'm going to make some Pyracantha Wine...but not today. I reviewed my wine cabinet and it became apparent that I was missing some key ingredients. Ergo? I ordered some supplies this morning via the Internet. I'll start making the wine as soon as the supplies get here. Next week? The following week. Hey Sis! Guess what? I ordered some of those neat black grommet thingies that you need when you need for the fermentation buckets. This means that I can drill 1/2" holes into the lids of the water jugs (Water 'n Ice jugs)and fit them with the grommets so they can be used as fermentation jugs. I'll need to go out and buy another water jug at the Water 'n Ice store for my Pyracantha Wine. Me Mum picked 9 quarts of pyracantha berries. I'm going to need one of the BIG water jugs. As it is, I'm going to have to split the wine into three primary vessels before I can rack into the secondary vessel. We're going to end up with a lot of pyrachantha wine. I'm going to need to buy 9 cups of golden raisins, 18 lemons, and 9 large oranges. It's a good thing that I live in Arizona. Citrus isn't all that expensive here. If I'm going to make limoncello, I'll have to buy even more lemons. As soon as I get my wine-making supplies in the mail, I'll have to go out and check the citrus groves. The citrus isn't ripe yet so there's no big hurry. I've got the pyracantha berries in the freezer.

Gypsy and I took our morning training walk this morning. This time I remembered the camera. I must say that it's not exactly fun juggling a camera on our morning walks. Next time I'll have to wear a sweater with pockets. We met Daisy again this morning. Daisy DOES NOT LIKE Gypsy....to put it mildly. I've never seen anything quite like it. Daisy is sneaky about her mean. She wags her tail and turns around snarling and snapping. Gypsy didn't seem to notice. Neither Daisy's owner nor I can quite understand Daisy's antipathy but I think it's something that we'll have to work on. I can't walk around the neighborhood avoiding Daisy and Daisy's owners every morning. Gypsy and I also encountered a couple of snarling long-haired dachshunds that were taking their owner for a walk. We didn't stop to chat since it would have been two against one and it looked like the dachshunds' owner was having enough trouble controlling her snarling duo without adding a third dog to the mix. One of the other neighbors told me that one of those dachshunds took a nip out of her dog so.... Not all dogs are as friendly as Gypsy.

Murphyism of the Day

Handy Office Excuse - Number Four

I'm waiting for an OK.

Noteworthy Quote of the Day

The solution is to gradually become free of societal rewards and learn how to substitute for them rewards that are under one's own powers. This is not to say that we should abandon every goal endorsed by society; rather, it means that, in addition to or instead of the goals others use to bribe us with, we develop a set of our own.

- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi