National Dog Biscuit Day

Did you celebrate National Dog Biscuit Day on February 23? That was last Wednesday. This holiday wasn't on any calendar of mine, but I learned of it on Chan's blog. Apparently it's a very important holiday because even the Smithsonian recognizes it. My dog Lucy believes every day is Dog Biscuit Day. She gets a biscuit every time she asks to go outside to potty, does the deed, and comes back in the house. Why? I ask. She's been successfully doing this since she was about 10 weeks old! But she insists. So in my mind, I translated the holiday to be National Homemade Dog Biscuit Day. But who sets such a holiday in the middle of the week? This is very difficult to celebrate if you are a working woman. Let me ask a couple questions. Is this holiday always celebrated on February 23? Why can't it always be a Monday like Presidents' Day? And is it ok to celebrate on a weekend instead? I sure hope so because that's what we did.


Today I made Lucy some Best of Breed Dog Biscuits. I found the recipe a few weeks ago while looking on the King Arthur Flour site for something completely unrelated. However, this fit in well with the Westminster dog show that I recently watched bits and pieces of and this holiday.


Look at all those wholesome, human-quality ingredients. The green stuff is parsley (interestingly I had fresh but not dried in my house) and the rest is stuff to make peanut butter/oatmeal cookies. Lucy seemed to know I was baking for her.

Here are the biscuits ready to go into the oven.


What does Lucy think? Yum!




Hmm, looking at my last post, you'd think this has become a dog blog rather than a knitting blog. Nope. Just trying to distract you with dog photos. I'm knitting every day, though not monogamously, so at this moment there is nothing knitting to show you. That will come soon.

DOT -- Dogs on Vacation

I think it's great if you can take your dog on vacation with you. Or more precisely, if we can take our dog on vacation with us. We're active people and our vacations are usually active, rather than centered around a city. So it's good to have Lucy with us for walks and hikes.

We spent this past weekend in the beach town of Rockport, TX. We found some cute dog-friendly cottages to stay in so of course Lucy went with us.

One activity (but not dog-friendly) that we looked forward to was a whooping crane tour on this boat called Wharf Cat.

I think this is the real wharf cat!

Our tour did not disappoint. We had a great narrator who knew so much about the geography, history, industry, and of course birds of the area. We saw many dolphins on the way to the Aransas National Wildlife Preserve. Once there, we saw lots of whooping cranes. Here is a family of them. The baby still has some brown feathers but he's nearly as big as his parents.

Since blogger lets me put only 5 photos per post, a couple more bird photos will follow.


Our cottage had its own private dock. This is me and Lucy posing in the sunshine and wind. She really is a big girl, isn't she?

We had a great weekend!

Birds

Here are a couple more bird photos.
Roseate spoonbills are big pink birds. Very distinctive and very pink! I love them!

I have never seen so many pelicans as I saw last weekend. Here are a couple white ones.

I'm not quite a bird expert, but I know a whole lot more about them now.

Beret

I've been wanting to make a beret for a long time now. I finally did. I really liked this pattern called Springtime in Philadelphia and it was free! This is knit with fingering weight yarn on size 2 needles, then the ribbing on size 0. Talk about tiny needles! I know, sock knitters use them all the time, but they sure are little.


Here's the hat on my head. A cell phone self-portrait isn't the best photo, but it was the only option as I was on my way to work one day.



Here's a better view, blocking on a 10" dinner plate.
This is a great little beret.

It's a Mystery

Over on Ravelry I joined a group called Mystery 220. Each month there's a mystery project, presented one clue at a time, for a project that uses 220 yards of yarn or less. Here is the January project. And yes, I am way behind posting it.

This little beaded bag is called Exploring Waves. The beads are strung first then moved into position as called for during knitting.

It's a cute bag for evenings out, should I ever have any.
I really like the way the bottom came together.