Living Large In Our Little House

Congratulations to Bonnie, who won the copy of “The Last Place You’d Look.” Congratulations to Bonnie and thanks to every­one who entered and thanks to Carole Moore for pro­vid­ing the copy of the book for the con­test! ___________________________________________________________________________________

Molly and Dale

In search­ing for mate­r­ial for a pet col­umn I pen every other week, I found this story about a Maltese named Jake who lived with his own­ers in a sub­ur­ban Washington state home.

They returned from work one night to find his decap­i­tated body under their deck. Jake had access to the out­doors through a doggy door, a con­ve­nience many work­ing pet par­ents have for their four legged fam­ily members.

Jake’s fam­ily home backed up to woods, accord­ing to news arti­cles and although Jake’s own­ers first thought it was a human who had entered their yard and killed their dog, vet­eri­nar­i­ans who exam­ined Jake’s body said it was coyotes.

Although I know coy­otes will kill small pets, I had no idea that dur­ing mat­ing sea­son, they will kill ani­mals they feel are rivals, tak­ing the heads of their prey and bury­ing them elsewhere.

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Our rural road

A creepy thing hap­pened on my way home from The Belle Writer’s Studio the other night.

Sunlight was wan­ing, giv­ing into dark­ness when I heard Sade, our pit­tie, scratch on the office door. I got up to let her in, only to see her walk­ing up the dri­ve­way toward a vehi­cle parked by our gate.

Although it wasn’t com­pletely dark, I turned on the porch light, think­ing it may be a neigh­bor com­ing to col­lect Buddy, our once fos­ter dog, who has been stay­ing with us while his dad trav­eled for the holidays.

After a few sec­onds when the car nei­ther advanced nor left the dri­ve­way, I stepped off of the porch and began walk­ing up the hill.

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First, I have a request of Our Living Large com­mu­nity. I’ve been blog­ging now for over two years and have enjoyed every minute of it and I hope you have enjoyed Living Large enough to ask for a cou­ple of min­utes to help me out.

I’ve been told these Bloggie Awards are impor­tant to lit­er­ary agents and pub­lish­ers and since I am writ­ing a mem­oir out about Living Large, I am beg­ging for your nominations.

Before January 15, please to the 2012 Bloggie Awards web­site at http://​2012​.bloggi​.es/ and nom­i­nate Living Large in our Little House in the cat­e­gories of “Best Topical Weblog” and “Best Kept Secret Weblog.” In the space ask­ing for Nominee, please put Living Large in our Little House and the url is http://​www​.liv​inglargeinourlit​tle​house​.com

You will have to pro­vide at least three nom­i­na­tions — so you can nom­i­nate other favorite blogs — and also pro­vide your email address so the sys­tem can ver­ify you’re a per­son and not a bal­lot stuff­ing bot.

I will be for­ever grate­ful if Living Large makes it as a final­ist in either category.

Now some­thing for you.

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(Congratulations to Annette, who won "The Organized Kitchen" book! Thanks for every­one who entered!)

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It began as a roast.

Well, it began as an idea to make a roast in the crock­pot for  New Year’s Day. I removed a large chunk of meat from the freezer and began  thaw­ing it on the counter.

It wasn’t until it was well into thaw­ing that I looked  inside. This was free-range, grass fed organic ground round, not the roast I  thought I had grabbed.

Two pounds of ground round meant for a meat­loaf. I scram­bled  to find a packet of the Lipton dry onion soup mix I had always used to make my meatloaf.

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