Tasty Tuesday: If You Can't Attack Eat It

Our war with the Zucchini plants has been well documented on our regular Tuesday Veggie Garden updates. Then Mom bought home a book from a library book sale, Doggy Desserts: Homemade Treats for Happy, Healthy Dogsthat helped us get even.

Dog Dad made Zucchini Lemon muffins for the parents and Zucchini Basil muffins for the dogs. Just a note about this book, the copy we have was published in 2005 so you have to check the ingredients to make sure the ingredients are pet friendly. There was a publisher's note that the book had certain ingredients that had since been determined not to be pet friendly like grapes and raisins. Mom insists on verifying before cooking regardless of what the book says. The recipe is copywrited so if you want to try it, you'll need to find the book. We can't share the recipe.



This just demonstrates the lesson if you can't attack it bake it. We had never considered this option. Frankly, they look rather scary crawling towards us on those vines. However baked in a muffin, they are had an interesting smell.



They smelled so good it was so hard to wait until Dog Dad said they were cool enough to eat.

We love Dog Dad's muffins and are thrilled he froze some for later. Mom has reserved some other Dog cookbooks at the library for us to try out since this was a success. We are looking forward to trying out some new creations. It might even be worth letting the zucchini grow in the yard as long as we keep a close eye on it. It sure does taste good.

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Friday Flowers: Echinacea

Mom found these purple bee attracters at a garden club sale and fell in love with them. So did the bees and are constantly dive bombing us. While the Mom loves these purple perennials we insisted she warn you they spread like weeds. At first, she dealt with this by spreading them out over the yard. Then she gave some away. Now she has to pull some out. They are beautiful, but they don't know when to stop growing.

Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad

We are very pleased to wish Mom and Dad a Happy 15th Wedding Anniversary. We aren't sure how they accomplished this without us, but on this day, 15 years ago, Mom and Dad got married and that led to them finding us. Yes, it always does come back to us doesn't it?

Wordless Wednesday: Katy Behind Bars

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Veggie Garden Adventures

We have warned all of you of the dangers of an aggressive veggie garden. The zucchini have been the most dangerous aggressors this year. We fought them back for a bit, until Dog Dad forbid us to attack them anymore. Now the green peppers are under assault. First the peppers and then the world, just remember you were warned. Sure, you say it can never happen. That is what the peppers thought, too. Sure, they thought, what's so bad about having zucchini next door. Now they are taking over the whole raised bed. They've already grabbed us a few times.

This giant is ready for the kitchen. Despite its hostile nature, Mom and Dad have been enjoying quite a few Zucchini dishes. They've even been able to share with neighbors.

Look at this brave pepper trying to grow despite the ongoing plant hostilities.

The tomatoes are still in their crates cages, but they are trying to break out.

Mom was pleased to see some are ripe and ready to eat.

Mom has a weeding planned as even the nasty Zucchini can get killed off when the weeds take over.

Monday Mischief

We warned the Mama it was not a good idea to travel without us. After all, we know how much trouble she and Dog Dad can get into without us. However, they were insistent they could handle a trip to New York for a wedding without us. We told Mom that leaving without preposting more than a few Friday Flower posts was a very bad idea. She was sure she'd get caught up when she got back.

Well they claim it was the best wedding they have been to in years. In fact, they still haven't stopped talking about how much fun they had. However, when they got home, they both were sick for days. That's what comes of not having your Shelties to care for you and scare those germs away.


Once behind, Mom has kept up with her volunteer work, but the Blogging has fallen off. Last week we finally protested she had to go visit our Blogging friends and get our Blog back up again. So, we started visiting people on Friday and finally got Mom to prepost again.

Don't tell them, but we had a great time while they were gone. Our favorite relative stayed with us and she is willing to give endless tummy rubs, walks, and is quite generous with the treats. While happy to have Mom and Dad home, we didn't want her to go home. She made some excuse about her Mom wanting her back, but we think her Mom could have let us borrow her for a bit longer. Mom and Dad said they have two weddings already scheduled for next summer. The downside is that our favorite relative is invited, too. Now the dreaded boarding word has been used. We are thinking someplace with private rooms and dining would be good.

Welcome to Monday Mischief – The pet blog hop that wraps up the weekend! This Blog Hop is brought to you by Alfie’s Blog, Snoopy’s Dog Blog, and My Brown Newfies.

Friday Flowers: Oriental Lilies

Mom is so pleased to see these blooming this year. The last few years they've been under nasty attack by beatles. She doesn't know if it was a change in the weather of just a beatle cycle, but for the first time in ages, the Oriental Lilies seem to be doing well.

I am not sure why Mom gets so excited when she sees one in bloom. Hoewver, if she wants to give me treats for posing by one, who am I to complain?

Friday Flowers: Mystery Yellow Flower

Mom has a tendency to pick flowers up at the local garden club sales. She knows she got these there, but doesn't know what they are called.

She loves the bright cheerful colors, but these flowers grow like weeds. We had to go out and help Dog Dad trim them back a little while ago. They can take the whole garden if you aren't careful.

We are Blogville

Mom and Dad traveled to a wedding this weekend and Mom mistakenly thought she didn't need to prepost before she left. Bad mistake we've been off all week and are only just starting to get caught up with all the adventures of our friends. So here goes our late entry.


We are participating in Stanley & Murphy's We are Blogville census. Our journey to Blogville, started at New England Sheltie Rescue in CT, where Mom and Dad founds us and brought us home to Massachusetts. Bailey arrived as a puppy and is now 11. Katy came here at 3 and recently turned 6. We got Mom started on our Blog in 2011. We have enjoyed meeting new people and participating in various activities in Blogville.

Friday Flowers

Mom believes these are Dahlias. She has planted a hodgepodge of perennials in her jungle garden. However, she does remember buying pink Dahlias and planting them. She can't figure out what else she would have bought that these might have grown from over the last many years.

These bloomed in June, which surprised Mom because they are usually blooming in late July or August. The weather seems to have some of our flowers off cycle. She's not complaining too much because she was getting fresh Asparagus from the garden in late June when it usually is gone at the beginning of the month.

Visiting Friends

Over the holiday weekend, we went to visit a friend in the neighborhood. She has a more wooded yard with great shade spots. She and Bailey ran around for a while, but I went and found a nice shady spot to observe everything.

We have funky trees that don't provide many sticks. However, our friend has great trees. Not only is it more shady, but I found a stick.

This was all part of Dog Dad's plot to take the advice Mom read from some of her fellow bloggers to tire us out before the fireworks went off. Bailey ran off some energy, but I was just too fascinated with this amazing shade.

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Hosted by Heart Like a Dog and 2 Brown Dawgs

Wordless Wednesday: Watching the World Cup

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Tales from the Veggie World

Welcome back to our garden update. You may notice that this week I'm staying further back from that plant Mom calls zucchini. She says plants don't eat meat, but let me tell you stuff goes into that garden that never sees the light until that plant dies. I'm taking no chances. Where the bright yellow flowers first appeared, we are now starting to see greenish round creatures. Mom calls them veggies, but I'm telling you these could be some kind of monster creatures growing out there.

Notice the difference here. This zucchini is grown in captivity. It knows it is caged and will not escape. The plant is smaller and not looking like its ready to attack. It too is producing those odd green things, but I know I can still take it out if I have too. Well actually, we aren't admitting to it, but there was some zucchini tipping that happened last week and Dog Dad wasn't too happy about it. We tried to convince him that the zucchini had just grown so top heavy it tipped over. Since nothing broke off and it resumed its monster expected growth, he seems to have let it go. However, the zucchini are under warning. If threatened we will strike. Like the monster zucchinis, these smaller cousins are producing green round things Dog Dad are convinced are edible veggies.

The tomatoes are behaving in their cages. We’ve had no threats from them. They are already have green tomatoes from the yellow buds Mom saw last week. The parents are looking forward to fresh tomatoes from the vine. The asparagus is starting to wind down, but Mom thinks there may be another meal left in the plants. They had fresh asparagus, spinach, and lettuce despite the bad weather over the holiday. Dog Dad picked it before the rains hit. We had a rabbit visit over the weekend, but we made quick work of chasing it out of the yard.

Monday Mischief

Hope all of you had a wonderful Independence Day. The only day that the weather was really bad over the long weekend was sadly the day itself, July 4th. The other days were beautiful. Mom missed her parade. They refused to postpone and Mom refused to get soaked in the rain. We won because we had Mom, Dad, and one of our favorite human cousins for the whole day to ourselves. Don't tell Mom, but we were performing a rain dance. However, we were duly punished when the rain came with thunder. We may have to rethink the whole rain dance as a means of preventing the parents from leaving home thing. Those thunder boomers are no fun.

Mom's birthday is this week and we are working hard trying to decide what we should do for her birthday. While Katy and I love bones, treats, and squeaky toys, Mom really isn't into that stuff.

Dog Dad suggested we let Mom sleep in. You see we have this habit of performing health checks on our humans. It is important that if they are in bed after expected times that we check to make sure they are alive and well. We regularly perform this morning duty at no additional charge for our pet parents. In fact we do it for guests, too. Katy found her human cousin asleep over the holiday and decided to do a health check and poked her awake. Once awake, Bailey decided she was available for distributing attention. Dog Dad couldn't possibly mean suspending doing this to Mom for a morning could he? After all, providing safety health checks is a valuable service. By poking humans in bed, we assure they are in fact alive and responding. Stopping this for a day hardly seems like a safe birthday present. However, Dog Dad insists this would be something Mom would truly love.

It can't have annoyed our human cousin too much because Dog Dad says she's coming back to stay with us when the parents have to travel to something called a wedding.

We have a more pressing problem. We really have to find a better gift for Mom.

Welcome to Monday Mischief – The pet blog hop that wraps up the weekend! This Blog Hop is brought to you by Alfie’s Blog, Snoopy’s Dog Blog, and My Brown Newfies.

Happy Independence Day

Mom is preposting this for us since the holiday is always a busy one. We hope all of you have a fun, safe, and happy day.

As we were writing this, the weather is not looking good for July 4th. Mom is still holding out hope because she loves her day at the parade, but Dog Dad is already making other plans. If the weather cooperates than Mom, Dog Dad, and one of our favorite relatives will be sitting not too far from this historical house in the shade to watch the parade. While we will miss them, we are not doing any rain dances as that will ruin the rest of the day for us, too.

In honor of Friday Flowers, Mom decided to share pictures of what her Mom always called 4th of July lilies, which are actually Day Lilies. The bright orange lilies appear all over the place right around the 4th here. Many people line their property with them and because they spread, it makes a beautiful edge for a few weeks.

Katy's Birthday Treats

It can take the Mama time to take pictures and get them all posted, but she promised she'd get my birthday stuff posted before the July 4th holiday.

It was a great birthday. Dog Dad stopped at the bakery for fresh birthday cookies. We love the yogurt covered dog cookies. Of course, they made us suffer until they finished singing.

As the best party game ever Dog Dad got both of us treat balls. We'd never tried anything that rolled and distributed treats before. I figured out the trick really quickly. I batted it with my paw and magically treats appeared as the ball rolled. Bailey took a bit longer as he was sure he could lick his way into the treats.

Dog Dad even found me a new colored toy in my favorite series. These are the only toys I don't let Bailey steal. For some reason he thinks every toy in this house is his. Well that's fine except for these. Oh, I catch him trying now and again, but even Mom says I should be allowed to have some toys that are mine.

After all look at this guy, not only can you chew and squeak, but you also get a built in pillow. This really is an ideal toy.

Dog Dad also found some new toys that make animal noises. This time he found birds, a cardinal and a blue jay. Mom says the sounds are quite "remarkable" and they seem to be endless very entertaining. We like bringing the birds into the house and you can frequently hear the birds chirping away.

The best thing of all was I got an extra long walk with Dog Dad and Bailey. While we were out, I got to meet up with some friends in the neighborhood. It truly was a wonderful birthday.

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