The Witching Season at Our Little House

One of my favorite hol­i­days to dec­o­rate for has always been Halloween.

It goes back to my child­hood, as I knew then that Christmas and my birth­day were just a cou­ple short months away.

We always had such cool dec­o­ra­tions, too. Little wax fig­ures and pump­kins. They cost .10 cents then at the Dime Store, but are worth a for­tune to col­lec­tors now.

Since we’ve moved from the city, we don’t have trick or treaters and we don’t have any lit­tle kids, but I still enjoy get­ting out my Halloween décor.

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Living Large tip of the Week: Recycle a Pet

Animals have been a cen­tral theme this week at Living Large, so I thought I would con­tinue that on with the Tip of the Week: Recycle a Pet.

Over 5 mil­lion healthy dogs and cats are killed in shel­ters each year in the United States. Millions more strug­gle to sur­vive on their own on the streets and in the countryside.

If you put all of the ani­mals killed in shel­ters each year together, it is more than the human pop­u­la­tion of Los Angeles and they would equal the pop­u­la­tions of Chicago and Houston combined.

That’s a lot of animals.

We tax­pay­ers also foot the $2 bil­lion bill to cap­ture, house and ulti­mately kill these animals.

Homeless, feral cats also have a pro­found effect on the envi­ron­ment and eco-system, greatly reduc­ing the num­ber of birds in some areas. I couldn’t find any sta­tis­tics with regards to how much of an envi­ron­men­tal foot­print shel­ters leave on our planet, but it must be astounding.

So, why is it nec­es­sary to con­tinue to breed pets or buy “new” pets from breed­ers or pet stores? It isn’t. It’s American con­sumerism, the need to have the “best,” the “pret­ti­est,” the “fastest” the “biggest,” the “small­est…” what­ever descrip­tor. It is because we see ani­mals as an exten­sion of our lifestyles, instead of liv­ing beings with feel­ings and emotion.

Some may also feel that shel­ter or res­cue pets are “bro­ken,” or have behav­ioral issues that can­not be fixed.

That is sim­ply not true. We’ve had a total of 7 res­cue cats and 9 res­cue dogs (includ­ing a fos­ter) in our mar­ried lives, none of which required any­more train­ing and social­iz­ing than I would have put into a “new” puppy. Of these, 3 of them were pure­breds, which also proves you can find pure­breds, if you so choose, in res­cues and shelters.

There’s a say­ing in ani­mal res­cue: “Shelter ani­mals are not bro­ken, they’ve sim­ply expe­ri­ence more life,” and we’ve found that to be true. Our res­cues have all also been the most loyal of pets. Emma, our German Shepherd/Rottweiler mix even saved me once from a charg­ing horse.

Dale brought home a new stray last week. He's a younger Beagle mix. He is very needy and clingy, he needs lots of atten­tion and love. He also doesn't seem to have been house trained. But I know when he set­tles in and he knows we won't leave him or dump him, he'll be a great dog.

We're call­ing him Dexter, because he has "killer" eyes that will melt your heart.

If you can­not adopt a home­less pet, there are other ways you can help the effort:

  • First and fore­most, please make sure to spay and neuter those pets in your care. Two unal­tered cats and all their descen­dants can the­o­ret­i­cally num­ber 420,000 in just seven years. Two unal­tered dogs and all their descen­dants can the­o­ret­i­cally num­ber 67,000 in just six years.
  • Volunteer your time and any unneeded pet toys, beds, blan­kets, tow­els, linens and other items your shel­ter may need. Food and of course, mon­e­tary dona­tions, are always wel­come too. Many shel­ter and res­cues have spon­sor­ship pro­grams, which are great gifts for the peo­ple in your life that have every­thing and need nothing.

Here at Our Little House, we believe the 3 R’s of Repurpose, Reuse and Recycle is not just lim­ited to “things;” but also to the beings that we, as a species, have domes­ti­cated, mak­ing all of us respon­si­ble for their humane care and the imprint we leave on the envi­ron­ment in doing so.

We would love to hear all about your recy­cled pets and how they found you.

On the Road Again at Our Little House

I’ve known for some­time that I would most likely one day be known as the “Crazy Dog Lady” here on the mountain.

Last week, I think Dale thought that day had come to pass.

I wrote in July about our 910 year old Doxie, Molly, being diag­nosed with a severe enlarged heart.

Unfortunately, Molly can­not take walks with us any longer and this was inhibit­ing my abil­ity to take Dakota, the Dachshund/Beagle mix on walks. The larger dogs can go out by them­selves to roam, but Dakota is too small and now too old and I fear some big bad wild ani­mal will get her if she’s not on a leash.

This left us with only these choices, none of which were good:

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Altering Recipes at Our Little House



A Sunday after­noon in the city would most likely find us at our favorite Mexican restau­rant in the city, but a Sunday after­noon at Our Little House is much more fun.

Dale gets the Sunday sup­per cook­ing duties in the sum­mer, which typ­i­cally means grilled fare, or if it is cool enough, Dutch Oven Cooking.

Although Sunday wasn’t a cool day, we com­bined grilling pork chops with a cou­ple of recipes he has wanted to try Dutch Oven style.

The first is a dish we’ve tried before, Dutch Oven Potatoes in a 12” Dutch Oven, which comes from the book, “Camp Dutch Oven Cooking.”

The recipe calls for 11 ½ pounds of bacon and Dale put about 6 slices in it. He loaded it up with onions though, think­ing that would com­pen­sate for the reduced bacon.

I was in charge of mix­ing the “Charley Bread,” a recipe my hubby wanted to try because it con­tains creamed corn, a favorite of his. I inten­tion­ally left out the 2 tbs. Of sugar and 1 tsp. of salt. Sugar is not good for us here and salt isn’t either, and since most things have too much salt, we didn’t think these omis­sions would matter.

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