Man, Labor Day in a small town sucks. Since I work on a farm, there are no "holidays" so I forgot about Labor Day since I worked today. When I went into GP to do stuff, everything was closed. Also, I think it is a silly holiday, and don't celebrate it anyways. (I think this of almost all American holidays.)

So, instead of doing things like getting groceries and buying a new poop scooper (I broke my old one), I took Conker and Katana on another short hike.

Conker shows Katana how a Man Dog takes a piss. Katana stands with all four feet on the ground while peeing, and sometimes it hits his front feet. I really really hope he grows out of that and starts hiking his leg soon...

Katana had a very brief off-leash hike since he decided to play "Catch me if you can!" and I don't do that shit. So I took off running in the other direction and got his attention and grabbed him when he got close enough and leashed him for the rest of the hike.

Conker retained his off-leash privileges, as he has for a long long time. He is only leashed when other people, dogs, or horses are on the trails, out of politeness.

I used this as an opportunity to teach Katana some leash manners. he was very unruly on-leash, but quickly grasped the concept of heeling that he was a pro in about five minutes!

Today's hike was very short since I wasn't having the greatest day due to everything being closed and my Jeep deciding to act really strange in the trailhead parking lot. And on the way home. I don't know what it's issue is, and I really hope it's easily fixable without me having to spend a lot of money on it.

Money spent in August

Sheesh it's September already.

August 2013

• Food: $15.50
• Vet/Medical: $31
• Toys: ChuckIt! Tug: $5
• Gear: $4

Total: $55.50


Food
I bought a bag of chicken Q's for $7.50 and some turkey misc for $0.70 - $1 a pound.

Vet/Medical
I needed a refill on Sasha's Proin ($31).

Toys
I bought a ChuckIt! Ultra Tug toy for $5 on sale.

Gear
I bought a 20 foot chain on clearance for $4 for Juneau so she doesn't escape until I get that fence fixed.

A Lazy Day

As usual on the weekend, not much is going on. I would take some of the dogs hiking but I feel that I have driven around enough this week and will do it next week. Or tomorrow.
I did manage to (mostly) level the trailer today, so at least I got something done. Now I need to fix the fence where Juneau keeps getting out so I can stop chaining her up when I go to work.

Katana a.k.a. Dirty White Pup chilling in his pen.

Derp Dog sleeping under the high side of the RV.

This is one of Conker's Sleeping Scrapes. He has several little dishes that he's scraped out of the ground that he sleeps in. This one is located directly beside the tailer's left wheels.

The Cutest Dog Ever.

First hike!

I went into GP today to get a few things I forgot to get yesterday and took Conker and Katana along with. I decided to hop on over to Cathedral Hills and do a short hike with the boys while I was there.

(Sorry no pictures. I left my phone at home.)

Katana did really well off-leash on the trails. He seems to be worried about losing me, and will frequently stop and wait until I am back in sight, or come look for me if I don't show up right away. Meanwhile, Conker was cruising along without a worry in the world about my location. Katana would dash up to Conker and chill with him for a bit then stop and wait for me to catch up.

My favorite part of the hike was when Conker spotted a turkey and glanced at me with a look of excitement on his face.
"Go git 'em!" I yelled, and off he tore after the large bird. The turkey made some bizzarre bubbling sounds as it hurried up the slope away from the rapidly approaching Shiba, who chased it for a good 20 seconds on foot before it took flight and refuge in a tree. Usually this is where Conker would break off his pursuit, but much to my surprise (and glee!) he stopped beneath the the and bayed at the turkey! This has always been his weak spot, baying once his quarry is treed, so I yelled lots of praise and congratulations to him on his fine performance.
Katana watched while Conker hunted the turkey, but joined him on a squirrel chase off in the brush. They both lost the squirrel though, so I did not get to see if Conker (or Katana) would bay up the squirrel or not.

Anywho, we did a short 1.5 mile hike or so. It wore Katana out good, and he slept the entire way home with his face smushed in one corner of his crate. I am looking forwards to many more hikes with this pup!


Katana responded well to recall on the trail, but totally ignored me once we neared the parking lot. I like to leash my dogs before we get to the lot, but Katana just cruised ahead and into the lot without me. Where he proceeded to frighten somebody's small dog until I could come to her rescue and fetch my unruly pup.

Wet Weather

The day started early this morning with the pattering of rain on the trailer's roof. It was something like 2AM, and the rain continued until about 11AM. Since the Boss Lady's back is still bothering her I milked the goats this morning, so I was up by 6:30AM.
The rain wasn't too bad, but I wanted to do things outside and it put a hold on my plans until it slowed down a bit.

The puppy pen! Katana was quite interested in what I was doing as I set up the pen and followed me around, getting in the way most of the time. He doesn't know it yet but this is where he will be staying while I am at work. I will spruce it up with some chews, toys, and a crate for him to go into if he wants before work tomorrow.

In the meantime, everybody has been pretty chill today.

He likes to lay right beside me when I am on my laptop.

Conker doesn't care for that cuddling nonsense. However, that doesn't mean he isn't attached to me. He gives me the biggest greeting when I come home, and while it's not obvious, he does like to be near me. If I move five feet away, he will move closer to where I am. Just not all mushed up against me.

I almost ran over a possum.

10:20 last night, I was driving along my winding country road when I spotted this thing wobbling around in the center of my lane. It was a possum, and it appeared to be oblivious to my approaching Jeep. I flashed by before it could react, I don't think it even noticed. Don't worry, I did not flatten it.

Anywho, the Jeep has been giving me some problems lately.
First, the rear window exploded, which I have mentioned before.
The next problem was the oil filter. The brand new oil filter. I changed the oil the other day and was sure to do everything correctly. But the oil filter decided not to cooperate, and when I started down the driveway the oil filter blew up! I wasn't aware until I was about 100 feet down the road and smelt burning oil and looked at my oil gauge. It's not supposed to read 0 pressure, so I pulled over real quick and examined the underside of the jeep which was dripping the last bits of oil left in the engine.
Thankfully I noticed it right away instead of halfway to GP or I might have a permanently broken Jeep on my hands.
So, I had my boss drive me to the auto parts store (there are perks to having an amazing couple as your bosses, and living right behind them) and picked up a new filter and some more oil. When I got back and took the broken filter off I saw that not only had the seam come undone, but the gasket snapped too! Talk about bad quality control. (For those of you who are interested, it was a FRAM Extra Guard PH16 filter.)
The new filter works just fine, and the Jeep seems to be running good now.

I saw this on the highway yesterday. I was really hoping it would crash so I could grab some Ninkasi.

In other news...

Remember when I mentioned some exciting news coming up? Well, it's here!
Yesterday I got up at 2AM and began the 6 hour drive to Seattle. Seeing as there was road construction, car crashes, and heavy traffic, my 6 hour drive turned into a 7 hour drive. No worries, I got to Sea-Tac (the airport) just fine and on time. Only to get confused as to where I was supposed to be going. So I asked a few employees, who all gave me different answers, and got myself totally confused and lost many times over until I found the right location. Which, if I had just been given correct directions from the start, was incredibly easy to find.

Anywho, I found the cargo pickup place and talked to one of the people inside. I was told to have a seat while they prepared some paperwork for me to take over to customs. This took an hour. When I got the paperwork I had to drive to another building (which I was given correct directions for, so I found it easily) so I could chaty with the customs agent.
This guy was definitely an odd one. He apparently did not understand a direct answer, and confused me yet again with his strange manner of speaking. He started to get all trivial with me and questioned the purpose of my package, and was contemplating labeling it as "commercial" which would have cost me an extra fee that I was not supposed to be getting. After looking over my paperwork for a while, he stamped it with his seal of approval and told me "Your story matches up with the paperwork so you are good to go."
Whatever that means... Strange guy.

So back to the cargo pickup building I go, with my stack of paperwork and official seals, to retrieve my package. After another 10 minutes I go into a warehouse and through a cadge door that you have to ring a bell to get through (that some guy showed me since I obviously did not notice it) and handed my papers to yet another person. He looked them over then directed me to a crate sitting a few yards away on the ground. We chatted for a brief moment about the crate's contents, then I picked up my package and carried it to my Jeep.

Pup!

I headed back down south towards Portland. As usual, the heavy traffic, road construction, and car crashed foiled my attempt at making a speedy getaway from Seattle and lengthened my drive by another hour.

I eventually made it to Portland where I met up with Lobo the Buhund's owner at a spiffy off-leash dog walking/hiking area. It was pretty awesome, and I did not take any pictures. I was too busy talking and trying to get the pup to stop harassing Lobo.
Lobo is a super awesome dog, I totally want a Buhund now.

After the meetup we got back on the interstate and into more heavy traffic, road construction, and car crashes. Seriously, I have never seen that many wrecks in rapid sucsession on that stretch of I-5 before. It was really obnoxious.

We stopped at many rest stops once we were out of the chaos to stretch out legs, get a drink, and have a snack.

We got back to RR around 10:30 last night.

Anywho, say hello to Katana, a 5 month old Hokkaido Ken from Japan.

He is very "mine", everything is his and anything another dog has he wants. He is incredibly similar to Conker at that age, so at least I know how to combat his problem. He seems to be worried that the other dogs will take his things, even if he is not currently playing with them.
There has been minimal snark between him and the Shibas, and only one firm correction from Juneau when he tried to take her toy. He got the message right away.

He is quite affectionate, loves to be pet and cuddle. He is interested in new people and accepts their scratches, and wants to meet new dogs as long as they are not huge. He does seem to have a bias towards Spitz types though, he appears to do a bit better with them than other dog types.

Katana has quite a set of lungs in him, and is quick to let you know that he WANTS OUT OF THIS CRATE RIGHT NOW! But will chill out soon when it is time to sleep. Funnily enough, he puts himself to bed in the outside crate whenever he wants to take a nap, but don't you dare close that door lest you open the hellgates!

When Katchi matures I am going to do a few health checks on him. If he's in good shape, he will be used as a stud for the HANA Project run by the Hokkaido Association of North America.


Anybody who wants to import a dog from Japan, I highly recommend you talk with Shigeru Kato (his official website is Japan Dog Export.) He took care of all the stuff for me overseas, and is a pretty cool guy. He is very knowledgeable with the Nihon Ken and can help you find the right dog or pup to import.



Anyways, since there is no longer just one Nihon Ken, and since the Girls are mine now, I have decided to rename the blog. It is now called Rogue Valley Wild, since I live in the Rogue Valley and the Rogue River is often called the Wild and Scenic Rogue. And also since I live right on the edge of human development and wilderness. And I basically live in a campground.
A dorky name but that's how I do things.

The Bitch's Leaf

You may or may not know about it, but I frequently have a run-in with a small plant called Toxicodendron diversilobum, a.k.a. poison oak, one of Mother Nature's (The Bitch) wonderful creations.

Unfortunately for me, there is plenty of this awful leaf in and around my yard. I seem to have touched it on more than one occasion. Lets see some pictures of what the Bitch's Leaf can do.

Farm arm.

I figured since I am so intimate with Toxicodendron diversilobum that I should do a little writeup about it. Because I do things like that.

Western poison oak is found along the Pacific coast states and some a bit farther east. It's a very prolific plant and hard to eradicate since the leaves are just the ends. The plant is a long vineish thing and can actually be several feet long and have many separate appendages. It does not have leaves in the colder months but is still able to give you a rash if you touch it. It blends in well with dead sticks and other forest duff, so it is very difficult to spot unless you've got a really good eye.

The rash is caused by a vile substance called urushiol. It is the same stuff that poison ivy and sumac has. Rougly 15-30% of people experience no reaction to these evil plants, but may become sensitive to it if they are exposed a lot.

(Fun fact: I get the same sort of nastyass rash from squash plants. I am no longer allowed to harvest squash unless I am wearing pants, long sleeves, and gloves.)

Poison oak does not have one set appearance. That means it can sometimes be difficult to recognize. Most sites say that it has three oak-shaped leaves, is shiny (due to the oily urushiol), has green leaves with a reddish tint, and is found low to the ground. I have seen that this is not always the case, after walking face-first into some hanging off a pine tree.

Here are some examples of the various Bitch's Leaf plants I have found in my yard.

Green with strong red highlights, not shiny.

Typical poison oak. Green with reddish hue, shiny.

Mixed red and green. Not shiny.

Green with no red, separate red, not shiny.

Red and purple, not shiny.

Green, purple, and red. Shiny and not shiny.

See the variance? They all have the same basic shape, but they are all different in some manner or another. Some are more oaky, some are rounder. Some have three leaves, some have two, some have one, some have a whole ton, and some have absolutely none. 

Poison oak comes in even more variants than this, it is a very challenging plant to be able to continuously identity. I've seen many kinds from totally round leaves to yellow leaves, and there are more variants still.

Here's one more picture to make you itch.

I'm still here!

Just really busy. There is still some stuff I need to do at the house before it's officially sold, I have a TON of sorting, organizing, and other things of that nature to do around my spot, it's hot, and I work full-time.
The blog is still on the backburner, but it pops into my head every day and I try to remember to post something, but it just doesn't happen.

I've got some exciting things coming up soon though, and once everything is taken care of at the house and my spot is finished, I'll be able to blog a bit more freely since I will finally have some time.

Until then, here's some pictures.

Dinner for the dogs a few days ago. Chicken, beef, various organs, ground veggies, eggs, etc.

My new still-ghetto gate. The hardware store did not have wood length in the size I wanted, so I had to make do with shorter pieces.

The Emperor demands food.

Oh, don't know if I mentioned it here, but I exploded the rear window on my Jeep. I can't leave anything in it and go anywhere now, but the increased airflow is really nice.
 I don't really want to get it fixed...

Neglect

That's what I've been doing to this blog. However, I have a good reason for it.

I just moved to a plot of acreage right behind the farm I work on that borders an expanse of BLM land! It looks like a redneck lives in my spot right now, but I am still in the process of getting my crap out of the house and over here to my new domain.

I put up 200 feet of fence for the dogs. While it's not the largest yard around, it's plenty big enough for them while I'm at work. I leave the gate open when I am around and just keep an eye on them as they wander around the area surrounding my RV.
Juneau has escaped a couple times (once to go roll in shit... she slept outside that night) but it seems to be sturdy now. I think it's kinda funny that Juneau is the escape artist instead of the Shiba, where that could be considered a breed trait since it happens so often with them.

I plan on staying here for a while, and my landlady has talked about me helping her plant some fruit trees next year (so she's planning on it too!) and I'm going to slowly clear out some nasty brush and expand the fenceline as my finances and time allow to give the dogs some more roaming room while I am at work.

Money spent in July

So, I didn't really keep very good track of my dog expenses this month. I've had a lot going on, ranging from work to moving, so I had a lot of other stuff to deal with.

Anywho, this is my best estimate of the costs this July.


July 2013

• Food: $50
• Treats/Chews: $5
• Toys: $10
• Gear: $25

Total: $90

Food
I bought some chicken and various meaty things like liver, some more salmon scrap, and beef heart.

Treats/Chews
I got a couple dehydrated chicken feet for the dogs a few times.

Toys
I found a rubber KONG frisbee and some other ball thing in a discount bin and snagged them for $10.

Gear
Everybody got new tags with updated information (phone number and e-mail address). And I got another dog bowl.