wyrdamerican

Garden updates, 2022

2022-01-30T21:59:02Z

It’s time to start the garden, y’all! Now late January is of course too early for planting [though peas and potatoes are just around the corner], but garden bed prep is in high gear. I’m going old school a bit this year. Some of my most productive years have been straw bale gardens, and I find myself with a little extra scratch that I can devote to food production, so I went and bought bales and blood meal. Over the next two months or so, I’ll use the high nitrogen blood meal to kick start decomposition of the straw. By planting time [usually mid march in this part of the country] the bales will essentially be giant compost blocks. Neat! Most of my tomatoes, peppers, summer squash, and herbs will be grown in the bales.

Last year I experimented with growing potatoes in cardboard boxes. It worked a treat, so I’ll increase the number of boxes I dedicate to the project. Basically, I drop seed potatoes into a cardboard box with an inch or two of dirt. I then “hill” the growing plant by adding more dirt to the box as the greens grow up. The only issue is that the potatoes never get very big. However, we like roasted new potatoes in this house, so it’s not that big of a deal. Especially since this is the easiest way I know to grow a calorie dense, nutrient rich food like potatoes in the deep south. My soil is rocky clay, and root veggies don’t thrive here.

On a more serious note, one of my goals is to begin serious food production here on the homestead. Frankly, folks that I trust are saying that food shortages may be here sooner rather than later, and I want to be able to grow some damned calories here. I have a field that is trying to convert to woodland due to benign neglect. My more long term plan for the field is to turn it into a bit of a food forest/permaculture garden. Right now I’m clearing trees and burning brush piles in the field. The goal is to have at least a couple of rows, this year, of three sister plantings [corn, beans, and squash, all planted together in symbiosis] and an amaranth plot. I’m trying three different types of dent corn, each rumored to work well where I live, as well as some more southern-adapted field peas, just to see what will work out here. Hopefully, I’ll have some success and have a better game plan next year, assuming that the damned apocalypse doesn’t come before 2023.

I’ll post more pics of the evolving garden as the season continues.

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Dagny's last day

2022-01-05T16:53:35Z

I’m sitting and writing this post with my beloved Dagny at my feet. Here in a couple of hours, we’re going to the last vet visit she’ll ever have. I’m probably not going to talk much about my other two dogs, or the dogs that will inevitably enter my life from this point forward. Not because I don’t love my other doggos, I do, but because Dagny seems to illustrate, for me at least, the greatest doggone dog story ever.

I got Dagny to be a working dog. I was a trainer, but still pretty new to it in 2011. I needed a dog to go to work with me, help me with my classes, and my then current (now long since passed) Labrador was getting very long in the tooth. Being that I'm cheap and not terribly interested in “purebred” dogs (in and of itself a weird idea, if you ask me), I headed off to the local shelters. After quite a bit of searching, I met Dagny in one of the local kill shelters. She was six months old, and was born in the shelter to a black lab momma, but was clearly mixed breed. The shelter said lab/shepherd mix, but that was horseshit. I’m still not sure what the daddy was, but hell, who cares? She was and is the best shelter find ever. She was the last of the litter left, and the nice people there were desperate to get her a home. She really only had a few days left when I adopted her. To this day I can’t believe my luck in having her enter my life.

This goober of a pooch took to being my demonstration dog like a duck to the water. She lived for when I put on my uniform and we loaded up and headed to work. Five days a week for five years, we went to the job and no one could have ever asked for a more ideal partner. I’m not going to talk shop, but most dogs really aren’t going to be good at what I need. My current demo dog, Buddy, is alright, but damn, he’s no Dagny.

In the five years since, Dagny has enjoyed the life of a retired working dog. She still would go on hikes and walks with me, and help me out around my property, keeping me company while I work outside doing all the things needed on my homestead. She started getting a persistent cough awhile back, and it got bad enough we went to check it out. Two big old lumps were in her chest cavity, and the doc said she had weeks to months. That was in October, so the Doc was right. I’m happy she made it to the new year. I wish she would have made it longer.

When we got the news, my beautiful wife commented “Well, at least now i’ll get to be the person who loves you the most again.” I laughed at this graveyard humor, because it’s true. I have never before experienced the focused, unwavering, and total love that Dagny has given me. I mean no offense to my wife, parents, or anyone else, but I just don’t believe that any human is capable of the love that Dagny (or any dog, really) can give. I’ve learned quite a bit about dogs over the years; I’ve owned several, know many very well, and trained literally hundreds, if not thousands. Dogs love. Really, dogs feel much more than people do, and when a dog loves you, you are being loved in a way that humans just can’t achieve. A dog’s emotional life is much richer than a human’s. Some folks don’t agree with that, but that’s a hill I die on.

I guess the point of all this is that I do what I do because Dagny loves me so much. Things are a big old sorry mess right now, and I guess maybe they always were and may always will be. If love is the only way out, and hell, I don’t have any better idea about what to do, then I guess having dogs around is something we need. I love dogs, and I love helping dogs and people get along a little better, in my tiny way. I’ve had jobs that have more status, or pay better, or people think more of me for having, but fuck all that and fuck them. I guess i’ve found my calling, for sure, and we can all thank Dagny for helping my dumb ass figure that out.

Still wish I had more time with her.

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Boasts, 2022

2022-01-03T01:41:52Z

Following an ancient and hoary heathen tradition, going back at least 20 years, I will now make my New Years Boasts. Boasts are like resolutions, but ya know, more Germanic like.

First, I shall boast of my accomplishments in 2021. Through the events of the last couple of years I have returned to training dogs, and my business has soared. When I left the industry in 2015 out of boredom, I was the 800 pound gorilla of dog training in my community. Anyone else who trained had to explain to their potential client why they shouldn’t go to Doug. I never had to explain to a client why they should come to me. Frankly, last year was better than I could have ever expected.

Though this was a great year financially (a good heathen, like a good Protestant, never apologizes for economic success), the more personally rewarding aspect is helping dog owners and their canine companions. I love dogs, I want the best for them, and I get great spiritual meaning from helping people learn to communicate with and enjoy their furry family members. Not to get too esoteric, but the dog/human bond goes beyond anything science can explain. I advocate for canines, but I also feel that I advocate for Dog himself, if you catch my drift.

Now, I shall make my boasts for 2022.

May my gods, ancestors, and community hear my boasts, and recognize them. May they all hold me accountable for my actions, praise my accomplishments, and give me a great big old pile of shit-talk for failure.

I will hold to the wise council of Odin himself, with regard to delicious alcohol, and abstain from drunkenness in 2022. I will drink moderately, of course, because I’m not some Baptist fun-Nazi, but at no point will I drink beyond a couple of drinks. Three seems about right. Four at the most, no further.

I will continue to grow my clientele and business; helping the good dogs of my community live well with their beloved human families.

I will improve my health by eating more moderately, adding good food daily and decreasing all the delicious junk food and food from clown’s faces.

I will improve my health by exercising: using hammer, sword, and good rural trail to become stronger, leaner, and less of a fat, lazy American.

May all the gods, wights, and holy powers hear my boasts and aid their kin in attaining these goals. May my community hear my boasts and hold my lazy ass to the fire to make sure I accomplish them.

Damn, it feels good to be a heathen.

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Dastardly Dagny and the Scotch

2022-01-01T15:38:39Z

For my inaugral post, before I begin pissing everyone off, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Doug, and for now you just need to know that I train dogs for a living. My first demonstration dog, used for socialization work and to demo behaviors for people, is a Labrador/who knows what mix named Dagny. I'm gonna tell stories about Dagny because she has cancer, and isn't long for the world. I'm thrilled she made the new year, but I doubt she'll survive the week.

Since I’ve had Dagny for so long, and since she’s been such a major part of my life over the past decade, I have a ton of stories about her various quirks. One of my favorite things about her is that she was one of my best drinking buddies.

This is definitely a “do as I say, and not as I do” situation, of course. NEVER give dogs alcohol, ever. It’s right up there with chocolate as far as toxic substances to dogs go. However, from the very beginning, Dastardly Dagny loved beer. I would sit down with a can or bottle and she would be guaranteed to sit by me and give me Those Eyes. All dog lovers and dog parents know Those Eyes. The ones that are guaran-Gawd-damned-teed to get that extra cookie or a quick sneak of food from a kids plate. Ya know, Those Eyes. Anyway, Dagny would always give me Those Eyes when I had beer.

Now don’t freak out, I didn’t fill a bowl with beer or anything (I’m way too cheap to give up a whole can of beer for a bloody dog), but I would pour a bit into my hand, and damned it Dastardly Dagny wouldn’t lap it right up. Silly dog. But hey, an extreme introvert could do worse for a drinking buddy than Dagny.

Soooo . . . I told you that story to tell you this story: once I was wandering around one of Garland County’s finer liquor stores (noticing a pattern here?), and what do I see but a big sale on a bottle of 15 year old Scotch Whiskey. Understand, I’m not usually a fan of Scotch. One, the decent stuff is usually out of my price range, and frankly too much of it tastes like it was filtered through gym socks, and not in a good way. But this was a great brand, 15 years old, it was a hell of a sale, I had a little spare scratch, so home I went with the good stuff.

My next day off, Dagny and I are on the couch, and I have a glass of 15 year old Scotch in an Old Fashioned glass. I set the glass on the side table, get lost in a book, and next thing I know I hear the ‘tink’ of dog tags on glass. I look over and that Dastardly Dagny has her snoot down my glass of Scotch. Of course I shoo her away, but damned if I didn’t get a laugh out of it as well.

Is there a moral to the story? Not really. Just an anecdote about a damned good dog, who was a bit of a lush.

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