True Colors Thursday - Turquoise

We've done turquoise a couple of times already and it's more of a challenge to find different stuff around our house!
If you want to play, give our hostess, Blue, a shout!This beautiful necklace was made by Stanley's girl, Lisa and she gave it to our mom! We just love it! Can you see the Airedale charm?These two WoolieDales (one of them is a mini-Dale and looks like a Welshie) are playing with a ball that has turquoise on it!Abraham Lincoln was carved by a very gifted carver named Mack Marcarelli, who has since passed away. We feel fortunate to own a few of his pieces.
Abe is carved on part of an antique cheese press.We LOVE croutons! Please can we have one, mom?!Next week's color is primrose yellow!

So until next time................

Love ya lots,
Maggie and Mitch

Wheelie Wednesday - April Flowers

Hi everybody! It's me, Autumn!Mom and I went for an April woodsy walkie yesterday!

The Dutchman's Breeches are out.And so is the yellow trout lily. Don't you just love the spotted leaves?I'm standing at the edge of our pond in the nice soft moss. Should I go for a swim?I bet Dauby is hoping that I don't!The blood root is in bloom~
And so is the forsythia. And the weeping cherry tree is having a great year!April is such a beautiful month!

See you all next Wednesday.

Love, Autumn

Magnolia in Two Seasons & Wyatt

This is our Magnolia tree at the beginning of January~
And this is the same tree in April~
It's amazing how much warmer the grass makes you feel!

There are two Airedales that are new to blogging and they both LOVE gardening and digging and all thing associated with dirt and water! haha
When you have a minute, please stop by and say hi to Wyatt and Stanzie. Wyatt is one handsome boy and Stanzie is his sissy. So until next time....................

Love ya lots,
Maggie and Mitch

ASPCA Photo Contest

Mom has it marked on her calendar that today is ASPCA day and that we're supposed to wear orange. We headed over to the ASPCA website to check it out for ourselves!

We discovered that they are running a photo contest for the entire month of April!
So mom got out our bandanas and hunted for all of our orange toys and we're in!
Well, actually, I'm in. We submitted this photo of just me because mom likes it the best!
OOPS, sorry, Mitch!We found 3 Mr. Carrots way down in the bottom of our toy basket and we found an orange glow-ball and we have an orange Cuz! Mr. Carrot has been my very favorite toy for years and years and we can't buy him any more because we can't fine him so mom will be shoving Mr. Carrot deep into our toy basket again so he lasts for another 5 years hopefully!

I only work for treats, ya know!So head on over to the ASPCA website and fill out the form and upload your photo! It doesn't cost you anything but of course, you can donate if you'd like to!
Maybe one of us DWB doggies will be the winner!

So until next time.................

Love ya lots,
Maggie and Mitch

True Colors Thursday - Lavender

If you want to play true colors Thursday, give Blue a shout. It's a lot of fun!
Today's color is lavender!

Francesca's hydrangea bandana and flowers on her hat are lavender!The lilacs are lavender! Mom just loves this painting that Miss Barbara did of her and Maggie together. It's so very special to her.The center of the propeller is lavender! Mitch and I both run when mom pushes the button to make the fan work! We hate this thing!The Easter egg has lavender on it! This is one of Carol Usher's beautiful pieces! This is a page on mom's kitchen calendar!Next week's color is turquoise!

So until next time.................

Love ya lots,
Maggie and Mitch

Wheelie Wednesday - The Rosie Scarf

Hi everyone. It's me, Francesca!This is the latest project that mom has been working on. It's the How Does Your Garden Grow scarf. It definitely wouldn't keep you very warm in the winter but it is pretty!This is flower #3 in progress. You keep increasing stitches on every other row and after 9 rows you bind off and roll the yarn strip to make a rose.We need to add one more rose and then we'll zip this scarf up in a pillow case and toss it into the washing machine to felt it!

TR's bear cub is modeling the un-felted rosie scarf.And now for the felted scarf! TADA!Mom says that the scarf is too long for me so the lovely Miss Maggie volunteered to be the model!
It looks great on you, Maggie!

See you all next Wednesday!

Friends forever,
Francesca

Easter Monday Morning Walkies

It's so beautiful for walkies this time of year! The Aire is crisp and cool and all of the spring flowers are coming into bloom!Mitch found lots of pretty daffodils to sniff and pee on! MITCH!Mom and dad just love Mr. Festa's mailbox!Once we got back, I waited while mom got the watering can to water her sweet smelling pansies.It's time to head inside, mom! I need my cookie reward!April is such a wonderful month!

So until next time..................

Love ya lots,
Maggie and Mitch

Nonna's Easter Meat Pie

Mom and I made Nonna's recipe for Easter meat pie today. Some people call it pizza gain but we never did. We have been making it for years and we're always trying to make ours taste better than Nonna's ( Nonna was mom's Italian grandmother who has since passed) but this will NEVER happen! Nonna's always was and always will be the BEST!

I"m the official taste tester! Mitch is outside helping dad in the workshop and he's missing out!We start with the crust - the worst part! Mom hates making crusts because they never seem to cooperate!
We mixed together 2 cups of flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt and 1 teaspoon of sugar.
We mixed together 1/2 cup of oil and 1/4 cup of milk and poured it over the top of the flour, salt and sugar mixture and stirred it all together and formed a ball. Nonna suggests that you put down a sheet of waxed paper, put your crust ball on top of the waxed paper and then put another sheet of waxed paper over the top and then roll out the crust. This method makes rolling a crust almost bearable!Next is dicing all the meats as tiny as you want them to be:
We used 20 small ham slices, prosciutto and genoa salami. And then we diced up the basket cheese!

In a small bowl beat 7 eggs, 1 pound of ricotta, 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese and salt and pepper to taste.

Don't forget that I can have ricotta mom! It's on this kidney girl's diet, ya know!Now you pour the egg-ricotta mixture over the top of all of the diced meats and basket cheese and gently fold them in together. Pour this into your crust.
You're supposed to have a lattice crust to make the meat pie pretty but dumdum mom used it all on the bottom. OOPS!Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 1 1/2 hours until the top is golden brown. yummmmm
And look what Uncle Phil brought mom and dad~
Munson's Chocolates!
You'll be sharing some of those with us too, right mom?
What do you mean NO? Where is your Easter spirit?!
You all know that Scruffs is happening over at Eric Square Dog's bloggie, right? He and Miss Enid need your votes so please head over and cast your votes! It's lots of fun!

Happy Easter to all of our friends!

Love ya lots,
Maggie and Mitch

Glutinous Rice

You all know that I went to the vet a couple of weeks ago and we got the best report ever about my kidneys going from stage 3 to stage 1 but what we didn't share was the fact that I lost weight and I was barely 50 pounds. It's been quite a long time since I weighed as little as 50 pounds and mom freaked! Because she is handling my home made diet, she feels like she was starving me to death to make me lose 4 pounds in 3 months! The Hills k/d cookies have been handed out pretty freely and I really like this idea!

Increasing portion size is not the answer for this kidney girl. This would mean more phosphorus than my daily allowance allows and I have to still be very careful about this. So we asked Sunshade's mom what she would suggest and she came back to two great ideas. One was for me to eat 6 egg whites instead of 4. hummmmmmm and the other idea was to switch to glutinous rice, also called sweet rice or sticky rice. It has less phosphorous than all of the rices and you can eat twice as much of it plus it's higher in calories to put weight back on my skinny frame! We decided on the rice option and mom searched online and the glutinous rice was delivered on Monday!Mom has never cooked this before or eaten it before so she did a search on to cook it.
As it was cooling, we got a taste of it! Elaine was right - it sure was sticky, so sticky that we had trouble licking it off the spoon. We had to use toofie action to get all of the rice off!Elaine also told us that lots of dogs don't like the texture and they refuse to eat it so this was sort of an experiment to see if I would even like it!
I got a whole cup of the glutinous rice plus my 1/2 cup of chicken and my 1/2 cup of butternut squash and my 2 egg whites (I ate my one yolk of the day for breakie).
My many supplements are underneath my dollop of yogurt and my Liquid Health Level 5000.This is the diet that got me to where I am now! Sometimes it's ground beef and sometimes it's chicken and I've had lots of squash and a few days ago I had sweet potatoes for the first time! Those are very yummy!

And the answer that mom has been waiting for~
I loved the glutinous rice! I woofed it down with no problem at all and licked my bowl clean and looked for more!I know that no one wants to have kidney disease but this is the best diet ever! I can't wait for each and every meal!

Guess what?
The Easter Bunny came early to our house and guess what he left mom?
They sure do smell pretty!Thank you Easter Bunny! You sure made mom smile!

So until next time.....................

Love ya lots,
Maggie and Mitch

True Colors Thursday - Black and White Together

It's true colors Thursday once again! If you want to play along, just give Blue a shout!Today's colors are black and white together!

This cow on her rocking horse fits the bill! This was a Christmas card that gram and gramp sent out one year back in the early 1970's. It's a black and white drawing of the house that our mom lived in when she was in high school in Jennings, Louisiana. Our squeaky newspaper is black and white! This is one of dad's Indian motorcycle jackets. And another one with the Indian black and white logo. These are just jackets inside the house! Most of them are outside in dad's motorcycle shop area!Next week's color is lavender!

Happy April 1st!

So until next time..............

Love ya lots,
Maggie and Mitch