Dackel Princess

Surf Drive

I grew up in Falmouth, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. My house was literally a five minute walk to the beach. Surf Drive Beach. And from the time I was born, Surf Drive Beach was the place I wanted to be. And it still is.

Mom was really great about bring us to the beach. In the mornings during the summer, Mom would make sandwiches, pack a basket with drinks, chips and cookies, and away we would go to the beach. From the time we could walk, we had swimming lessons. Mom would sit on her beach chair, reading the latest novel, and we would spend the day swimming.

Surf Drive Beach in 1966

Now don’t get me wrong. Not every day in the summer on Cape Cod is beautiful, sunny and hot. In fact there were many foggy days, where our lips turned blue while we swam in the somewhat cool ocean. But it didn’t matter, because Surf Drive Beach was my free space. The place I could most feel alive and wild and wonderful.

Even now, fifty-nine years down the road, Surf Drive Beach still warms my heart and soul. I can walk out onto the jetties and my soul re-energizes! The sound of the ocean soothes my soul.

Me enjoying Surf Drive Beach in September 2017

I think I will always feel this way. Surf Drive Beach will always be home, no matter where I live or how old I get.

This & That

Our weather warmed up just enough today, so that we had some major melting. This is a very good thing, as the dackels have been having a rough time walking around on the ice. In fact, both Greta and Anneliese slipped around so much, that their hind ends are bothering them.

Greta handles it somewhat better. I guess because she has been dealing with arthritis longer. But Anneliese took a bad slip yesterday and began to act as if she was close to death. She lay absolutely still in her bed, and then was up all night last night.

Today she was shivering like crazy, so I put on her little sweater and she settled right down. She has remained quiet, but tonight she ate a normal dinner and is starting to act like herself. Yes, ice is the enemy of all little dackel dogs!

Lili has been helping Jack with the breaking up of ice. But the last two days when Jack has gone into the basement for something, Lili has followed him and gotten stuck in the basement. Thankfully, we now know that we must look down there when we lose Lili!

I actually got out today to go to the store. We needed a few things and so I went to the grocery store to get them. It was so nice!

And news came today that Mandy and Matt are taking the kids to Disney in April! How wonderful for them. I know that Savannah is going to go crazy and I think that Quinn will also enjoy it, although at 2 years old, he may not remember much of it. That’s okay, it just means that another trip will be planned in the future.

Chicken Soup For The Soul

I was trying to decide what to cook for our dinner. It was cold and icy and I felt like something warm and savory. Since I’d cooked a rotisserie chicken the other day, I decided that the leftover chicken might make a great chicken soup.

So, I chopped up onions, celery, peppers, mushrooms, carrots and garlic. I tossed the onions, celery, peppers and garlic in about 3 tbs of flour and then added them to my cast iron Dutch Oven, which had 3 tbs of melted butter and a little olive oil in it. I sauteed them until the vegetables were tender, then I added the carrots, some chicken broth, and some salt, pepper, thyme, sage, and rosemary. Oh yes and some Bay Leaves. Have you heard all the good things that Bay Leaves can do? Apparently they have many medicinal applications. I hope this will help with the cold.

I put in about 2-3 cups of the rotisserie chicken and let that simmer along with the soup for another hour or so. The dogs were going crazy as they knew exactly what I’d put in the pot!

The scent of chicken soup cooking all afternoon was wonderful. I cooked up some egg noodles to toss in at the very end and it tasted just great when we finally sat down for our dinner. I’d made some fresh rolls and those were a nice accompaniment.

Dinner was a quick clean up and now both Jack and I are feeling relaxed and sleepy. After a perfect dinner of soup and bread, I ask, does it get any better than this?

Another Step In My Education!

Just a little Yahoo for me. After trying to figure out how to add back in the two items that the last WordPress Platform took out of my composition page, today I sat down and found the update on WordPress and downloaded it and then activated it!

Now I’m not sure how many of you use the Justify and Underline, but I sure do, and it was adding a lot of time to my compositions, when I had to put in the codes by hand!

I cannot tell you how proud I am of myself. One giant step for me, in my ability to learn another something new in how to keep my blog up to date!

The Friday Five

This week the Friday Five will center on my feelings about keeping Dackel Princess alive. I’ve been keeping her going since 2005! It all started out during the Blog craze, where everyone was blogging. I was feeling frustrated having no where to share my thoughts about Shubi’s illness and my cousin Janet, and our friend Megan, suggested I start a blog. I tossed out several titles, and Megan like The Dackel Princess. And in May of 2005, Dackel Princess was born. So, here is The Friday Five for January 26th, 2018!

Originally I wrote about Shubi. My very first dackel.

My darling Shubi!

She had gotten sick in 2003 and I had no outlet for my feelings, as I watched her getting sicker and sicker with a disease called GME. (Granulomatous Meningoencephalitis (GME) is an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system.) Shubi fought the disease valiantly, with monthly capsules of Chemotherapy, and high doses of Prednisone. Eventually I could see what the medications were doing to Shubi and I stopped them, and 2 years after her diagnosis, Shubi went to Rainbow Bridge.

2. When I learned Shubi was so ill and would not survive, I wrote to a friend in Germany telling her about it. She arranged for me to get a dackel from German Champions. After a phone call, where Jack used his best German, we arranged to go over in May of 2004 to get baby Greta.

Baby Greta!

3. After Shubi’s death, we brought Greta to a German dog show where she got her rating. She was rated as Excellent! Then I found a German boy dog, who happened to live quite close to us here in New Hampshire and Greta became a mother December 10th, 2006 to five beautiful babies.

Anneliese & Arnie when they were babies!

That was when Dackel Princess became a puppy blog. I wrote about the puppies and how they grew and of course Arnie and Anneliese stayed with me, and I wrote all about them. Anneliese’s puppies, and life amongst the hounds!

4. But eventually I stopped breeding and then the grandchildren came and I began to write about them, my home, my love of cooking, traveling and photography. Now I realize, that I may not be a dachshund, but because of my love for dackels, I am The Dackel Princess!

5. I’m not sure how much longer I will continue to write. I suppose as long as I have something to say. I love sharing my life, my thoughts, my recipes, with all of you. And I sure hope that you enjoy reading it.

The Ice Age

Right now, The Lakes Region of New Hampshire is under about 3 inches of hard, thick, ice. It’s the kind of ice that prevents one from driving easily up ones driveway, or even from walking across the patio. Why even the poor dogs are having trouble. Lili went running out this morning and went to turn to go around the corner and her body kept going straight.

Greta went out, and the poor old girl kept slipping and falling. I just know that tonight she will be one very sore old lady.

Arnie and Anneliese seem to do a little better, as I have allowed their nails to grow out a bit just for this reason. Still they do not like this at all.

I watched the morning news with full attention, trying to ascertain when we might have a melt off. Unfortunately it does not look like any time soon.

Yesterday, it was amazingly beautiful, as the ice fell and turned our trees into ice castles. Today, well, not so much.

Still I like to remain positive, so what can I say about the “Ice Age” of the New Hampshire winter? Well should my freezer break down, I have plenty of room on my screened in porch to place my ice cream!

The Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. January 24th is National Compliment Day. Is it easy or not so easy for you to accept a compliment? Share a recent compliment you’ve given or received.

Not easy at all, although I am trying to learn how to graciously accept a compliment. Jack complimented my Prime Rib. See how impersonal that is? Those compliments I can take. Personal ones are more difficult.

2. Ten little things you are loving right now.

Grandchildren (always).
dachshunds
Lili
Jack
The Incredible Dr. Pol
The Pioneer Woman
Tissues with lotion
Chamomile Tea with honey
Long-underwear
my pillow

3. Would people describe you as a positive person? Do you see yourself that way? I read here a list/description of eight things positive people do differently-

Positive people find something to look forward to every day, they celebrate the small stuff, they’re kind, they stay busy, accept responsibility for their actions, forgive themselves, know when to move on, and resist comparisons

Which action on the list would you say you do regularly? Which action could you add to your life to give you a more positive outlook? If you’re a positive person, what’s something you do regularly that’s not on the list?

I have been trying very hard to become a positive person. Not easy for someone who is a half empty glass kinda gal. For the last year, I try to find at least one thing in each day that is wonderful! Even if it is Kleenex with lotion tissues!

4. Homemade chicken soup, beef stew, or a bowl of chili…what’s your pleasure on a cold winter’s day?

Chicken Soup. In fact, I think I should make some today!

5. The best part of my day is….

The first cup of coffee each morning, my first cup of tea in the afternoon and a delicious piece of fruit. Today it was a Maridol Papaya with a squeeze of lime!

6. Insert your own random thought here.

The last few weeks our weather has been, um, challenging. Very cold temperatures with snow, then we had a warm up with ice and now heavy rain. I’m not sure why this winter is getting me down so much, but it really is. Perhaps it is my lingering cold. I will be so happy when January and February are finished and we get into March and April, where the temperatures tend to moderate.

The Cold

What can I say about the start to my week? Not too much except that at 2 PM I lay down and took a nap. I felt tired and chilled and worried that the cold from hell was returning. I’m still feeling lousy tonight, and since there is nothing on TV I want to watch, I think I might just turn in early tonight.

The weird thing about this cold is, you just start to feel better, and WHAM, it comes back and hits you again. Jack has mentioned that he has felt the same way.

I have been taking multiple vitamins and Vitamin C and eating a lot of vegetables and drinking juices. But it doesn’t seem to matter what I do, the cold hangs on.

I truly am ready to feel better. I wish I could go outside and lie in the warm sunshine and feel the heat bake this cold out of me. Maybe if I dream about it, that will be enough. Because we all know that in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire right now the temperatures are still freezing.

Oh, to be able to jump on a plane and go to Florida or even down to my favorite Caribbean Island, Barbados! I just know all I need to do is escape the cold.

Weekend Wrap

The weekend seemed to rush by us, and I’m happy to report than we are both very nearly over our colds. Both of us had projects to do, and we actually got them done.

Our weather was good, and our temperatures actually warm. I simply cannot complain about that!

I cooked and did laundry, and Jack worked cleaning the ice from our driveway, and then on Sunday afternoon, we both watched the Patriots football game, and quite happily, they won!

I think my biggest grievance was watching the Patriots game and watching a Jacksonville Jaguar player hit a New England Patriots Player, injuring him. After a helmet-to-helmet collision with Jaguars safety Barry Church, deliberately injuring tight end Rob Gronkowski, “Gronk” had to exit the game. I saw it happen, and I leapt out of my chair screaming. Especially as I watched a a concussed Gronkowski stagger to his feet. I knew immediately that “Gronk” was done for the game.

The Patriots were not playing particularly well up until then, but it seemed the injury of their teammate spurred them on, and they came back to win!

But here I sit, Sunday night, and the weekend is just about over. I am finding that 2018 is flying by.

A Day In The Life

I woke on Saturday morning with a hankering for savory beef stew with fresh yeast rolls. I knew it would take all day, simmering slowly in my cast iron dutch oven, to make the stew, I set about cutting vegetables and getting them pre-cooked. Then I placed it all in my dutch oven, and put it in a 275 degree (Fahrenheit) oven to cook for 4 hours.

Meanwhile, I took the yeast rolls from the freezer and set them in my heavy cast iron frying pan, to thaw and rise. It took me about an hour to do all of this, but when I stood back and surveyed the food that would be dinner, I felt a certain amount of satisfaction.

Then I was onto my next chore. A few days ago I washed our bathroom curtains. After 20 years of washings and wearings, they simply fell apart. Holy Moly! I quickly found an almost identical replacement set and sent away for those. They arrived yesterday, and the first thing I noticed when I took them out of the package was that the lower panels were too long.

I admit, part of me wanted to ignore that and just put them up as it, but when I gave that a try, it looked stupid. So, I made a plan. I measured, I ironed seams and then got out my sewing machine and finished it up. When I hung the new curtains in the bathroom, I was so proud with the way they looked.

Meanwhile, dinner is nearly ready now. My yeast rolls, fell, but I have made a nice garden salad to have with the stew. One things for sure, we will be getting our share of vitamins with dinner.