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Back to it

I’m writing this on Sunday evening, the last night of my 14 day holiday break.

It has been a wonderful, refreshing time away from the normal work schedule. I actually didn’t work except for answering some emails and a bit over 1/2 day on Friday due to a minor emergency … but that was good as I was somewhat forced to hop to and my head is “back in the game”. I haven’t taken this much time off – as in completely off – in many years.

Even though I get outside as much as possible normally, we got out even more the last 2 weeks. The weather was all over the place, but not much snow and as we had a melt down this past week, the drive is a sheet of ice, but the yard and woods are nearly bare – walking and playing has been good!

I had time to get to know my new bit of tech fun: a wearable … series 4 Apple Watch.

All sorts of info at a glance! After trying several watch faces, I settled on what they call Infograph. It has the most “complications” of any current face. Complications are the editable quick app items on the face. I have Sunrise/Sunset, Weather, Digital time, Activity, Date, Heart Rate, Timer and Battery as my selections … all of the apps I use most.

One I use a LOT is the timer.

I use this for cooking and baking instead of the oven timer. The oven timer goes off and chimes until I get to it. If I’m indisposed or outside or in a meeting … kind of obnoxious. The phone timer is easy to reset, add a minute or keep an eye on if I am outside. There are a number of presets as well as you can set a specific time. I often use the timer as a 10 minute warning before a meeting. That allows me to enjoy outside time or inside play and training or whatever without being concerned about watching the clock.

The Activity app. I spent some time over my break learning about not only the Activity app, but how it worked with the Health app and Fall detection. I find all of it amazing technology. There is an internal accelerometer and a gyroscope that are part of the technology for all of the “movement” functionality.

The Health App screen consolidates activity, ECG, Heart monitoring and Fall detection history … PLUS allows you to enter other things: for example blood pressure, oxygen and a whole screen full of pertinent items. And everything can be exported to a PDF to send to clinic and/or physician.

But, back to Activity. Apple calls it “Close the Rings”. You set goals for Moving (outer red), Exercise (middle green) and Standing (inner aqua). Additionally, the app details give calories burned (active and non-active), steps and several graphs showing the times of activity. But the visual of the rings is a quick and easy way to see how I’m doing through the day without getting involved in details. I had a fitness band device several years ago and besides being not that comfortable to wear, I found myself getting a bit too obsessed about the details. The “close the rings” visual works better for me. The watch itself – I hardly know I’m wearing it: light and comfortable. I have the 44m – the largest and no complaints about how it sits on my wrist.

When I had the previous wearable, I DID like that I could see messages and emails easily without digging out my phone: outside and especially in Winter when my phone was in an inside pocket and wearing gloves, etc. And in the dark outside! I was happy to have that functionality back with this watch. The convenience of seeing if a message, notification or email is something that requires immediate action is wonderful. And while I would not try to respond from the watch normally, there are some quick response items selectable from a menu: Yes, No, Sure, Thanks, Ok. As a consultant, it is one more tool that allows me flexibility in what hours I spend at my desk while still being “available”.

Some of the messages when out and about are notifications from Emmett’s “wearable” device! If you’ve followed the blog for years, you will know that I used a GPS device with Bear and now the latest version with Emmett.

It is called Whistle and in addition to GPS tracking, alerts for “away from home”, low battery … it has an Activity tracker :)!

So. Absolutely no excuse(s) for either Emmett or me not getting our exercise!! Whistle is getting close to adding some other things like temperature. That is important to me, especially when we get back to rving. It has always been a worry if I had to leave Bear and Auggie in the motorhome on a hot day. I leave the generator running and AC on but if there is a failure, the motorhome heats up fast … not as bad as a car, but worse than a house. The temperature functionality will be one more useful thing to give me peace of mind.

But, the GPS and the App and the Watch:

Above shot of the watch is the type of message I get when we are walking. Although you can shut off messaging for walks and outings, I do not. I want the device giving me info in the hopefully, unlikely event, that Emmett and I are separated.

If that did happen, I am able to activate tracking on my phone and see where Emmett is in relation to me:

Darn cool!! This part gets better and better and faster as time goes on – better devices, more high speed cell coverage – progress. I want training and our relationship to be the first defense, but this kind of backup is priceless to me.

Yoga via the internet!! I do have a Yoga DVD that I like. It has some 15-30 minute things like: Yoga break from the computer. But my favorite is via YouTube: Yoga with Adriene

Adriene has a calm and peaceful demeanor, and she always stresses awareness and intention vs perfection in position. Adriene’s dog Benji is always in the background. Starting January 1, a series of 30 days titled: Dedicate. I am doing the 30 days.

With Emmett… (sharing the mat!)

And Auggie!

When I started Day 1, Emmett was pretty sure that it was play time since I was on the floor. I stayed quiet, followed as I was able and he eventually settled … on the mat! So I worked around him.

He is getting the idea and settles faster every day. I am thrilled to have both him and Auggie near.

Sunday.

Back to work tomorrow. A Winter Weather advisory is in effect from 8:00 p.m. this evening (1 hour from now) until 5:00 p.m. tomorrow. Mostly for the morning commute which thankfully, I do not have to make.

But, the weather did inspire me to take a quick run for a few items.

Beautiful.

Back to it tomorrow!

Mid July: Auggie, Emmett, CSA Veg and Food, Scenery

This past week, Auggie turned 5 years old !!!

And Emmett turned 5 months old !!!

Emmett and Auggie do a bit better every day and playing not quite so rough. They both know I don’t like the rough stuff. When I walk over to have a few words, they immediately separate with that look of “What, we weren’t doing anything!!”. I stay out of it as long as possible. My primary concern is Emmett’s puppy brain going into overdrive and some accidental injury to Auggie.

Emmett is now 35 pounds and has his permanent teeth. I felt horrible a few days when I saw teeth emerging and his gums were swollen and bleeding – ouch. He didn’t whine, but every once in awhile I saw him kind of working his mouth. I believe they are all in now, thank goodness! And speaking of teeth … I have done “husbandry” training as well. Since I brought Emmett home, I regularly put my fingers along his gums and teeth, play with and clean ears, play with feet and generally put my hands over all of him. All of this to make sure that he is ok with being examined and for me to clean teeth, ears and trim nails … and take his temperature if necessary. He had nails trimmed at the breeders and I’ve been trimming them once a week, I’ve started cleaning his ears and now that he has his permanent teeth I’ll do a brush twice a week. (Auggie gets regular teeth, ear and nail upkeep also as I started when he was a kitten.)

Other training continues well. We are mostly working on all that he already knows – all useful stuff so just continuing to use it during daily life. All of the training has been part of play time all along and the current difference is I very randomly click treat and more often just praise. We mostly walk off leash, but I keep him on leash if we are out when Auggie is and then we practice loose leash walking. All very beginning stuff.

I’ve mentioned it before, but Will (trainer) has also reminded me that Emmett is very young and we are building bond, trust, behavior … over time. This is such a relief to me especially with leash walking and recall. Will told me to continue my turning and running with sing-song noises to distract Emmett from deer vs trying to teach a grown up come when Emmett is not ready and likely to ignore it. We build the recall over time as Emmett grows up.

Another good lesson for me came from Laurie Luck of Smart Dog University: Make your dog training more powerful . The gist is that using management as we train makes the training go faster and also contributes to less unwanted behavior that we later need to correct. An example is: put the shoes away! Teaching a puppy to leave shoes alone is not realistic. BUT, if he can’t get the shoes, he doesn’t learn to like the shoes and we don’t ultimately have to teach “leave shoes alone”. “Leave it” is another of the behaviors that takes some maturity. We are in the beginning stages of “Leave it” and so my management is to put things I want left alone out of Emmett’s reach. My other management is sometimes leashing Emmett in the house. I did this a lot for these past several weeks to allow he and Auggie to be together, but to be able to restrict Emmett from really rough stuff. It has worked much better than trying to step in or keeping them completely separate.

As always, I think I’m learning as much or more than Emmett! Although I still make mistakes and get annoyed with myself, overall, I am so happy with how we are all doing!

Weather wise, it got hot and dry and the local farmers are producing gorgeous vegetables!

The vibrant landscape is going to fade with upper 80 temps, some 90 and no rain … so I’ve been soaking in the color and clear air.

The weekly CSA box is getting better and better. Week 8 I added some extra cauliflower and broccoli…

About half, I roasted and of that 1/4 I ate as a side dish and 3/4 I pureed with tomatoes for a vegetable marinara … well, that’s what I call it. The roast vegetables add a bit of sweetness to the tomato sauce – I love the flavor as a base for soups as well as a pasta sauce.

The remainder of the broccoli and cauliflower, I riced and froze. I use the riced cauliflower in place of rice and the broccoli is great mixed with some grain and parmesan and stir fried.

This salad – an excellent combination that hit the flavor, crunch and fill me up buttons!

Yes. Behemoth 1 in place…

And as the note says, I used the sound dampening quilts instead of adding the bedroom unit. I did put the “boy’s room” unit in place. And since the above photo, I neatened up the look of the quilts by adding a tension rod so they hang behind the curtain.

An added benefit discovered on 4th of July … not only sound dampening, but the quilts made the bedroom much darker. This time of year it does not get dark until after 10 and is getting light again by 5 in the morning. The extra dark helps all of us settle and get to sleep at our normal, early hour.

Oh – Emmett slept through the fireworks. We had some practice with earlies, gun shots and thunder. Sometimes he would stop and look at me. I laughed and gave him a treat and praise and pretty soon he was not paying much attention to any of it. YEA!

Emmett likes to see what’s what … Auggie is unfazed and continues his lunch!

Oh, Emmett :) … fortunately, he does not mind a rinse off. He also likes to be toweled dry and it is giving us practice at feet: 1 at a time. He figured out the routine very quickly.

He also figured out that in front of the fan is a good place to be on a hot day!

This is my favorite scenery photo from the week. It was in my Instagram story and is saved in the highlights along with some other photos from Friday morning on my way to town to get my CSA box. As it gets hotter, I head to town at 6:00 a.m., pick up the box, grocery shop and head for home before it gets hot.

Week 9 CSA.

Auggie stays home and keeps an eye on things there.

Gorgeous sunrise, but the clouds meant that it did not cool Friday night :(

So, a relaxed morning at home vs a trip to the market for extras.

French toast made with my homemade cherry sourdough and topped with fresh sweet cherries made a good breakfast.

Emmett knows how to relax!

Mid July: 5 years for Auggie and 5 months for Emmett … Happy Days!

From Wayfarer’s State Park on a sunny Winter’s Day

Wayfarer’s State Park is located on the northeast shore of Flathead Lake, just south of Bigfork and Bigfork Bay. It is about 7 miles south of where I live.

On the capture above (Google Map Satellite), the entrance is from Hwy 35 just south of where Hwy 209 meets Hwy 35. A lower picnic area is the JH Horn Memorial Park. You can park there and walk a loop trail to the lake, up to an overlook and back through woods and meadow to JH Horn. There are also several short loop walks in the woods around the picnic areas at JH Horn.

Wayfarer’s has a campground with beautiful campsites from tent sites up to large motorhome sites and many have views of the lake. There are picnic areas along a rocky beach that looks to the bay and a boat launch at the lake end of the beach. South of the boat launch is a cliff area with benches to sit and enjoy the view or you can walk over the cliffs and find wildflowers growing in the cracks of the cliff rock plus more trails that join up to the campsites.

It is a beautiful park and although it can be very busy 4th of July through mid-August and summer weekends, other times I’ve been and feel like I’m the only person there. Karl and I went there often and outside of summer, I was able to allow him off leash on the trail and beach. It was a bit much for Bear and we went only a few times for walks, but we often drove in and down to the beach and back to see and smell (Bear)!

I went today for the first time in over a year. I wanted to see what the trails looked like for snowshoeing and it was such a gorgeous day, I also just wanted to walk along the lake a bit and enjoy the scenery, the sunshine, blue sky and fresh air.

The photos below are taken near the spot marked Wayfarers Campground. It is faint, but there is a line like the road lines extending into the lake. That is a large dock and I walked to the end to take the photos: the first 2 are looking the direction the arrow points – toward Bigfork Bay. The second 2 are looking south toward Polson, Montana.