My new baby

We added a new addition to our family this week. Five years ago, as most of you know, our beloved dog, Kate had to be put down for kidney failure and none of us could bear to replace her. But this week, there was a dog in the paper that caught my eye and when we went into the pound, I was impressed with her personality and her desire to obey, so I brought her home. I have to say "I" because there was quite a bit of resistance from everybody else in the house - Fluffy wouldn't come out of the attic for 2 days and everybody else was giving me the cold shoulder, to boot.

But this dog is sooooooooooo sweet and wants to be liked. She is really smart and loves to play ball and any other game you can think of. She was in the pound because her owner was a single woman and she said the dog just needed so much affection, it was wearing her out. I can see -that - it takes all four of us, full-time, playing with her and petting her, but she will calm down soon. The cat doesn't care for dog games, but he has come out of the attic and can occasionally be in the same room, until the dog starts sniffing him and then, we have to separate them.

Her name is Myah, but we keep calling her Kate, because she reminds us all of our Kate, so we may change her name. She is a year and a half - bigger than Kate in the legs and body. She is half black lab and supposed to be half-retriever. Her coat is black and brown with bits of yellow. We don't know if she is half golden retriever, chesapeake retriever, or german shepard. Justin used to train bird dogs for Ted Turner (tv mogul) and Brian used to train hunting dogs, so we are in good hands. The best thing about her that we never got from Kate, is that Myah will not run off when you have her off the chain. We really like that part - she is able to walk around with Brian or the kids and play in the yard, without having to be chained up all the time. She likes to ride in the front of the truck with Brian, too.

We'll try to post some pictures of her tomorrow.

An after post to the fish post alicia put up last week - Sandy asked if we had been smoking the Reds and the answer is no. Here's the schedule: we eat kings fresh and freeze just one or two - they have a really high fat content and don't stay well in the freezer for very long; we can the reds- they are a softer fish and have really pretty flesh, but aren't really dense enough to withstand the smoking process; we smoke the silvers - they have a pretty flesh, but are dense enough to not fall apart in the smoker. Silvers come in August and September.... so never fear, the smoker will be used this summer.

Check back in tomorrow or the next day, and we will have some pictures of my baby. Love, Charlotte