How to turn your dog bulimic in 11 easy steps!

Step 1. Make a large grocery run. Preferably after helping a friend make it to an appointment to get an MRI then going out for a burrito and beer.

Step 2. When you get home, unload your groceries from the car to the house. Put all of the bags on the kitchen counter except for 2 of them.

Step 3. Run upstairs to check your email. Make sure the dogs follow you up.

3a. Do not notice one of the dogs slip away downstairs unnoticed.

Step 4. Come downstairs to find said dog starting in on a one-pound carton of butter.
4a. Look around for the other pound of butter and find only the gnawed outer carton.

Step 5. Become incredulous that a 35-pound dog would have consumed a pound of delicious, delicious butter, waxed wrapping and all. Look around for the other 3 cubes he couldn't have possibly eaten.

Step 6. After realizing he had ingested a pound of butter (unsalted, luckily!), scold him as if it were entirely his fault, then send him to his crate.

Step 7. After a brief moment, snap back into reality. Recall the time 2 years ago when he ingested almost an entire box of Samoa Girl Scout cookies, and what the emergency vet said about saturated fat.

Step 8. Call your vet, panicked, and explain (sheepishly) how your 35-pound dog ate a pound, not a cube, of butter.

Step 9. Realize that your dog is not in grave danger when the first thing your vet playfully says to you is, "well, you know...you really should feed him regularly."

Step 10. Confirm with the vet your known method of inducing regurgitation: hydrogen peroxide mixed with peanut butter.

10a. Feel embarrassed when the vet says, "...well, I think he's had enough fat for today. Just take a turkey baster and force the hydrogen peroxide down his throat."

Step 11. After following the vet's instructions, spend the rest of the afternoon feeling the scorn of the sick dog because you're the one who made him sick.

It was a bad day for this dog mom.

Sunshine Came Softly

It must be spring here on the peninsula...

These are some of the prettiest tulips I've ever seen...

The scent of the narcissus are so intoxicating, I can't cut them and bring them in the house. They're too overwhelming!

I don't really like to eat chives, but I think the plant is so pretty.

I wish I could say this is the lone dandelion in our yard.

Oh, yes. And chickens. 6 cute little peepers who live in a galvanized watering trough in our spare bedroom, with nothing but a heat lamp, food, water, and attention from us twice a day. What a life.

Cal has been busy building a coop, because he's good like that. No real building plans, just an amalgamation of coop plans he's seen, combined with his intuition, intelligence, and focus. It's almost done, and once they get their big-girl feathers, in about another 4-6 weeks, they will get to live outside for good, eating grubs, ants, and vegetable scraps.

And most likely boss the dogs around.