Shades of autumn

Fashion notes:
What the well-dressed dog will be wearing this winter ...

Autumn appears to have started already: there is a definite nip in the air first thing and the other morning there was even a touch of frost and we crunched our way across crispy white rimed grass on the lawn. Archie and Angel didn't linger long over having their early morning wee that day, but hastily got on with doing the necessary and then hurried indoors. Soon it will be time for their nightime pjs, and they will demand warm jackets to wear before venturing outdoors. If you too have a fine coated dog, bear in mind that they do feel the chill and will appreciate an extra layer when outside. Not just thin coated dogs either, but often older dogs and youngsters too will be more susceptible to cold conditions, so you might like to think about wrapping them up too when temperatures drop.

In the meantime there is a lot to enjoy in the garden and on the allotment: the blueberry crop may be nearly finished but the leaves are now beginning to turn the most fantastic shades of red. Soon it will be the turn of the Stagshorn in the garden, which always produces a fabulous display of orange and red feathery foliage - at the moment the deep red fruits look wonderful.

Got your copy? Click here for link

Worth waiting for

Although you can achieve instant results with bedding plants and ready-made planted up pots and hanging baskets - and even large specimens of shrubs and trees - the most satisfying results which give the most pleasure are more often the ones that you have worked for yourself. (And usually much cheaper too.) A bit of patience in the garden always helps as it can take a bit of time for the results to appear, of course.
Once established, some of those pleasures worth waiting for become seasonal ones, and worth every moment - as in this pic of my friend Julie's apple tree. She planted the climbing rose many years ago and it has thrived and grown and from the initial few flowers on a spindly stem when it was first installed, every year now converts the tree into this glorious mass of blossom.

Also worth waiting for have been the pears on my allotment. One tree has done well every year, but although the other one has grown splendidly, has produced only a handful of fruits each year - and last year the four pears that had appeared disappeared overnight as they approached ripeness. But this year it has been covered with fruit; there have been plenty of windfalls that I've poached with ginger and which taste wonderful. There are even enough that some time over the weekend I shall be experimenting with pear and lemon jam ...
Less patient are the wippitty ones. Left to their own devices, Archie and Angel will harvest every single alpine strawberry, even if it isn't yet ripe. They will also yaffle every blackberry they come across out on walks - but although a little fruit is fine, be careful your dog doesn't overdo things as overindulgence can lead to an upset tum. Some fruits can also be potentially dangerous - greedy dogs that eat plum stones as well as the plum itself, for example, can end up causing blockages in the gut if the stones don't pass through.
Another hazard at this time of year is, of course, that of sugar-hungry wasps attracted to windfalls along with your dog. Just in case your dog does get stung, keep a supply of homeopathic Apis mel on hand plus dog-suitable antihistamines from the vet, and an icepack ready in the fridge. And if he gets stung in the mouth or throat and swelling begins to make breathing difficult for him, treat it as an emergency and get him to the vet as quickly as possible.

Feeling jammy

Cooling down with a
frozen yogurt-filled Kong!

It is raining today - a relief after so much hot and dry weather. Although Archie and Angel love to sunbathe, even they have found it a bit excessive at times recently! Indoors I try to create a nice cool haven for all of us, with a fan, drawn curtains and a cooling mat bought last year from Mekuti ... but no need of all that today as it is also noticeably cooler. Dare I say it - it feels like there is a real autumnal nip in the air! 

Angel daringly rests a toe on the cooling pad ...

Add a soft fleece for the right degree of luxury, and it's perfect!

Strawberry thief at work!
Why wait for handouts when there are alpine
strawberries in the garden for the taking?

The dry spell has also meant that the grass has not grown as quickly as usual, and it has been nice to be able to take a bit of a break from the chore of mowing, particularly as there have been other seasonal tasks to crack on with - mainly trying to keep up with harvesting produce from the allotment. It has been lovely to have fresh fruit to add to my breakfast cereal each morning - I've worked my way through raspberries, strawberries and am now onto blueberries. Naturally the dogs hang around in the kitchen awaiting their share of fruit handouts! Later in the year there will be the delights of home made jam to spread on hot toast: it really is a taste of summer at a time when sunshine is scarce and warm days but a memory, and of course makes a wonderful gift for friends come Christmas time. I have also tried making a cordial this year, and it is not only very simple to do, but delicious, making a wonderful non-alcoholic drink when mixed with sparkling water, but great poured over ice cream, or added to white wine, champagne or Cava to make a kir. If you are thinking of making your own, the secret is to make a separate syrup, and to add it to the cooked unsweetened fruit juice when it has cooled, otherwise you run the risk of it setting and turning into jelly instead. It also freezes well, and if you have the foresight to freeze it as ice cubes, is perfect to toss into white wine you forgot to cool ...   

Frozen fruit being made into jam last winter ...

Recently though, it has been far too hot to even think about slaving away over a hot stove making jam, so all the fruit has been put in the freezer to await cooler days to convert into preserves. Oh dear. I suppose that means days like today ...  

And the results ...

Not to mention the courgette soup with cheese melted in ...

Thinking about it ...

Although there are many websites with lists of plants which are dog-friendly and those which are toxic, the best I have found at the moment is the one on the ASPCA website. Mainly because it actually has photographs of a lot of the plants, which is helpful in identification.

The trouble is that it is far from perfect - as are some of the other non-illustrated lists - because there is confusion over many of the names and some are wrongly identified. So I was thinking about creating a website myself, with photographs and hopefully, slightly more reliable identifications. What do you think? Would you find it a helpful resource?

If I go ahead and do it, it will be during the winter when I am less busy with the garden and allotment!

In the meantime, here's a quick and easy way to provide a bit of fun and entertainment for your dog out in the garden (or indoors if it's rainy!) while you are busy weeding, hoeing or simply relaxing.  Simply place a treat inside the cardboard centre of a toilet roll, fold it up tightly and give to your dog!

Lazy gardening

Californian poppies

The weather has been so hot recently that it hasn't really been conducive to doing anything much in the garden other than seeking a bit of shade in which to loll around in ...

Pot marigolds amongst the
alpine strawberries
round the olive tree

But it's nice to have an excuse to take it easy and let things slip a bit. There'll be plenty of time when things cool down again to catch up. And I'm all for a bit of lazy gardening. I allow the edges of the lawn to grow long by the fence rather than trimming them after mowing - it provides a bit of long grass for the dogs to munch on and a bit of shelter for the frogs. And I don't get too ruthless with some of the weeding either as I love the way many of my plants self-seed and spread. As a result of this I'm enjoying a lovely show of nasturtiums at the end of the garden (as is Angel, who enjoys nibbling at the odd leaf or two) and Californian poppies round the base of the washing line (improves it's looks no end) and next to the bird baths. There are also pot marigolds, and earlier in the year there were lovely drifts of blue forget-me-knots. And a couple of Evening Primroses have sprung up through cracks in the patio next to the wooden bench seat. The scent on a warm summer's evening as I sit out there with the dogs enjoying the sunset is sublime.

Click HERE for link

More cool stuff

It's been madly hot this last week. I put my portable car thermometer out in the patio to see just how hot it was getting: it shot up to 94 F and then started going into meltdown. I promptly brought both it and Archie and Angel back indoors again. They love to sunbathe, but aren't always sensible about it.

Lisa loved splashing in her paddling pool

Loves sun, hates water ...

When they first came to live here, I got out the old clam shell plastic paddling pool, thinking that they might like to paddle and play a few games in it as my previous dogs had. No, not a bit of it - they were absolutely appalled at the thought of dipping so much as a toe in it. Angel very reluctantly sploshed in to retrieve a few food treats floating in there, taking them elsewhere to eat. Archie, after a lot of deliberation and realising that his neck was not going to stretch far enough to be able to get hold of 
his tennis ball floating in it, gingerly put first one, then two front paws in, retrieved the ball and took it off indoors in disgust.
No matter how much I tried to interest them in it, they just didn't want to know, and eventually I gave up. The clam shell has, however, gone on to be useful in other ways - it has been converted into a shallow wildlife pond up on the allotment, and a gang of frogs now call it home. You don't have to be so drastic of course if your dog doesn't take to the idea of paddling either - a clam shell also makes a brilliant digging pit for your dog (fill with clean top soil, then bury a few 'treasures' for added excitement) and because it is portable, can be moved around the garden to wherever you want it. And it can also be multi-function: when it isn't being a paddling pool in warm weather, fill the empty shell with balls instead and hide treats or favourite toys in there instead.
If you have a dog that is a water lover, a paddling pool is a great way of having a bit of cooling-down fun on a warm day. If it is the rigid clam shell type, place a rubber bath mat in the bottom to give a bit of grip to paws. If you haven't yet bought a pool, it's worth looking into the canvas type which are a little bigger. They are self-supporting so do not need blowing up. Plastic children's pools may not last very long as claws can easily burst them.

If you are planning to install a water feature in your garden, install a dog friendly one for preference: bubble fountains can look good, and can also be fun for dogs to play with. If you are going for a more traditional pond, build it with shallow sides so that wildlife (as well as your dog) can easily escape from it and always keep an eye on your dog while out in the garden. Youngsters and elderly dogs can get into trouble in even the shallowest of water. With permanent garden ponds, keep an eye out also for blue green algae which can be a problem with standing water in hot water and can be fatal to your dog if he ingests it.   





Finally, this caught my eye the other morning: a slug munching on a snail for breakfast. Ick. I suppose that at least it is keeping down a garden pest and not eating my garden plants ...

Click HERE for link

Cool stuff to do in the garden

Lots of us had spectacular lightning storms last night: there has even been a

bit of much-needed rain - it's just started again as I type this. I shall be glad to be able to skip a lot of the watering today - although the hanging baskets and pots will still need to be checked as foliage, blooms and a close proximity to walls can all mean that they don't get as much to drink when it rains as you might think they would.

The hot weather is not yet at an end however, according to the weather forecasters - there's still more to come.

With warm weather, apart from watering, it's time to think of cool things to do in the garden ...

one of Archie and Angel's favourite pastimes is to take a Kong out there.

Pack the tiny hole at the bottom with a dab of cream cheese or peanut butter,

pour a bit of low or non-fat fruit yogurt in through the big hole

(it helps if you first stand it upright in an old small yogurt carton so it doesn't

all slosh out) and pop it in the freezer until it's solid. I sometimes also add small pieces of fruit and bits of

biscuit to the yogurt to make it a bit more exciting.

Run it briefly under a running tap before giving it to your dog so

there is no danger of tongues getting stuck to it ... and the garden really is the best place

to enjoy this treat, as it can be a bit messy. 

But it gives a lot of fun, and lasts much longer than a Cornetto does for me! 

  

Angel likes to pin hers down with a paw and then gets stuck into it.

Archie likes to take his somewhere private ...

... and then gets up to all sorts of manouevres trying to find the best way of
getting the very last bit out of the end ! 

How does your dog eat his?