Nip it in the … what?!! July 16, 2009
Posted by ourfriendben in wit and wisdom, pets.Tags: blog humor, dog training, anguished English
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Silence Dogood here. Maybe it’s just me and our friend Ben, but when we see a grammatical or language blooper that qualifies for Richard Lederer’s designation of “anguished English,” it cheers us up no end. Some of the best ones stay with us for years.
I was reminded of this just now when I got an e-mail from DogAge on how to train your dog not to jump up on you (and others). The e-mail noted, correctly, that rather than encouraging this behavior, you should nip it in the bud.
If you’ve ever had a dandelion in your lawn, you know what this folk expression means. If you don’t cut off a dandelion flower before it goes to seed, you’ll soon have bazillion dandelions growing in your lawn. You need to nip that dandelion flower in the bud, i.e., to catch it early, before it really turns into a problem.
However, reading this DogAge tip reminded me of a classic misunderstanding of the expression, where someone wrote that you should combat a bad habit by “nipping it in the butt.” Though I’m not sure how nipping something in the butt would cause it to cease and desist from bad behavior—in fact, I’d think it would provoke the outraged party to even worse behavior—I’ll admit that I love the thought of this. And it just seems so appropriate in the case of dog misbehavior. “If you don’t start early to train your dog not to jump up, he’ll nip you in the butt!” You can bet on it.
‘Til next time,
Silence
Birds in the greenhouse. July 16, 2009
Posted by ourfriendben in critters, gardening, homesteading, pets, wit and wisdom.Tags: birds in greenhouse, finches in greenhouse, home greenhouses
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Our friend Delilah keeps finches in her greenhouse. The little birds add life and delight, do some pest patrolling, and are spoiled rotten, with nests, buffets of various foods and treats, and other amenities. (We’d expect no less of Delilah.)
In our friend Ben’s and Silence Dogood’s greenhouse here at Hawk’s Haven, our cottage home in the precise middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania, however, we have not managed to get around to installing finches. We have not even managed to get around to installing our much-anticipated anoles, despite having the most luxuriant terrarium known to man or beast. (Even our professional botanic garden/Martha Stewart alum friend, Sarah, could not stop oohing and aahing over it.)
So you can imagine our friend Ben’s (and our puppy Shiloh’s) astonishment last week when we went to turn on the greenhouse lights and discovered a finch in the greenhouse. This one was a house finch, as opposed to an exotic finch like Delilah’s, but still, there it was. After returning Shiloh to the house, our friend Ben opened the greenhouse door and managed to eventually coax the finch to fly out.
Then, yesterday, Shiloh and our friend Ben encountered not one but two finches in the greenhouse. They appeared to be holing up in the enormous lemon grass plant in our in-ground bed. Shiloh was extremely reluctant to depart in the face of this interesting development, but eventually our friend Ben managed to haul her back to the house (and a highly amused Silence) and stagger back out to shoo the finches out yet again.
I have no idea where they came from; as far as I can see, there aren’t any openings bigger than a ladybug could get through (and yes, maybe I should put a “Ladybugs Welcome!” sign out front). Now every morning as Shiloh and I make our rounds, I’m concerned that we’ll find three, then four, then five, and etc. finches in the greenhouse. Perhaps our friend Ben should just assume they want to be there and start setting out food and water. Whatever the case, I hope they’re snacking on a bug or two as long as they’re there.
The healing powers of pets. July 15, 2009
Posted by ourfriendben in pets, Uncategorized, wit and wisdom.Tags: healing powers of pets, pets, pets that heal
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Silence Dogood here. Anyone who’s ever suffered the loss of a beloved pet knows the power of a new pet to heal that aching loss. By focusing on the physical and emotional needs of the helpless new cat, dog, bird, or other pet in our home, we move beyond agony to a true, if different, love. But pets have the power to heal us in other ways as well.
I subscribe to RealAge, a website devoted to improving human health and prolonging human life through nutrition, exercise, and other natural means. And, being a cat and dog owner, I also subscribe to their sister websites DogAge and CatAge. Yesterday’s CatAge e-mail emphasized the benefits of pet ownership on human health, contentment, and well-being. (And please note, though the e-mail came from CatAge, the findings were equally valid for all pets, so dog, bird, and bunny owners, listen up!)
I expect we’ve all heard of the therapeutic benefits that dogs can give residents of nursing homes, and how they can brighten the lives of patients in hospitals, especially children’s hospitals. Reiki practitioners, who work with healing energy, have long observed how pets, and cats especially, seem natural “Reiki sponges” who soak up the beneficial energy and then pass it on to the people they love. But there’s more. Here are some of the CatAge findings:
* People with pets not only have a lower risk of developing cardiovasular disease, they have better and faster recovery rates if they do develop it than non-pet-owning peers.
* Breast cancer survivors with pets reported greater feelings of support and control during their recovery.
* Pets protect older people from loneliness and isolation, and significantly reduce dementia.
* People with pets not only suffer fewer minor ailments, but fewer doctor visits than their non-pet-owning peers. (Our friend Ben and I have certainly found this to be the case. Neither of us has been to a doctor in years.)
* Men with AIDS who owned pets suffered less depression than those without pets.
Wow! In case you needed an excuse to have and love a pet, beyond the joy pets bring us, here are some to consider. But I, of course, consider the love and joy our pets bring us and our families to be excuse enough. Sometimes, I even think it takes the love of a pet to make us truly human. It is when we see ourselves through their trusting, loving, patient eyes that we truly see ourselves, and know ourselves for the first time.
‘Til next time,
Silence
States of unrest. July 14, 2009
Posted by ourfriendben in wit and wisdom.Tags: closure of rest areas, history of rest areas, interstate highways, rest areas
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Silence Dogood here. I was both pleased and appalled to see an article on MSN.com this morning about rest areas. As some of you may recall, when on road trips, I have what you might call a special relationship with rest areas. I enjoy sipping something cool (or hot, depending on the weather) to remain hydrated during the hours on the road. As a result, our friend Ben—who, camel-like, can apparently go for days without either drinking anything or going to the bathroom—has become accustomed to automatically stopping at every single rest area we pass. In fact, if for some reason I don’t want to stop at a rest area, it becomes a source of endless grief for at least the rest of the day. (“Are you sure you don’t want to go back to that one, Silence? It’s only 200 miles away!” GRRRRRR.)
But I digress. The reason I was pleased to see the article was that it mentioned that someone has in fact written a master’s thesis on the architecture, decor, and regional nature of interstate rest areas. Publishers, are you reading this? With a trendy title, this thesis could become a cult classic like that other study on vehicle-killed animals, originally written to help wildlife biologists determine population densities through identification of the characteristic shape of the dead animal on the road. God alone knows how some inspired editor recognized the potential of an obscure and unappetizing study, but rechristened with the name Flattened Fauna, it became an enduring hit. Certainly the same could be true of a book on rest areas!
Once again returning to the point, the reason I was appalled was that the MSN feature, a blog entry by Emily Badger, was called “Rest Stops, R.I.P.” Say what?!!! I quote: “Across the country, rest areas… have been losing a long-fought battle to commercial alternatives, super-sized stops with eight blends of caffeine, free wifi, burgers, and gas. Traditional rest areas cost money to staff and maintain, and aside from the odd vending machine, don’t generate any direct revenue.” As a result, more states are trying to save money by shutting them down.
Ms. Badger also provides a brief history of rest areas, which originated in 1956 along with the interstate highway system. I’d always assumed they were designed by a benevolent state to give folks like me a chance to go to the bathroom at regular intervals, and had assumed the euphemistic name “rest area” was taken from the equally ludicrous “restroom.” (I’ve somehow never noticed anyone resting in one, have you?) But I was wrong. The government mandated the officially-named “safety rest areas” to give 1950s-era travellers, unused to long, unbroken stretches of highway, a chance to take rest breaks to avoid fatigue-induced collisions. The bathrooms were simply an added courtesy. Who’da thunk?!
Anyway, I, Silence Dogood, am appalled and outraged by this latest development, and am no longer speaking to OFB after numerous sarcastic remarks about the article and the whole situation. Let me say right now that there is no comparison between a rest area’s bathrooms and those of a gas station or fast-food chain. Rest area bathrooms are big, with numerous stalls, pretty much all of which are clean and working at all times, and plenty of sinks, mirrors, and other amenities.
The same can’t be said of the alternatives, which are typically one- or two-stall affairs, one or both of which may be broken or worse. After all, monitoring the plumbing isn’t high on the scale of jobs the hardworking and low-paid employees of these places have to contend with. If our rest areas are closed, diverting mercy alone knows how many more people into these places in order to go to the bathroom, I hate to think what state all those bathrooms will be in. Or what state those of us who are desperate to use them will be in. Not to mention that this entails getting off the highway each and every time, then finding your way to the bathroom and back on again.
Gack. Of all the causes I could imagine espousing, “Save the Rest Areas!” wouldn’t have been one of them. But in fact, I’m happy to crusade in their cause. I enthusiastically recommend the MSN post to your attention: It has some great photos of distinctive rest areas across the country, including a teepee-style picnic area in Oklahoma that’s just priceless. To find it, go to MSN.com and look for “Next rest stop: Never” on their changing feature panel at the top of the page.
To think, I was considering clearing out some of the wonderful brochures I’d collected at rest stops in states we love to visit, hoping that we’d manage to take in a few of the sights they described. Now I’m thinking I’d better hold onto them, in case it’s impossible to get more. And what about the free state maps every rest area offers? I’d always take a minute to make sure the one we had was the most current, and replace it with a newer version if it wasn’t. Sure beats paying for potentially outdated and less detailed maps at a service station.
Yikes!!! Surely rest areas aren’t really going the way of the Sinclair dinosaur and the Tiger in Your Tank. R.I.P., rest areas. I’ll miss you.
‘Til next time,
Silence
Frugal living tip #28. July 13, 2009
Posted by ourfriendben in Ben Franklin, wit and wisdom.Tags: budget vacations, frugal lifestyles, frugal living, frugal travel, virtual travel
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It’s Monday, and that means it’s time for another Frugal Living Tip from Poor Richard’s Almanac. Today, our friend Ben is going to give Silence Dogood a break, since she’s been shouldering almost all of these tips, to talk about travel. Frugal travel. Virtual travel.
Do you have a list of places you’d love to go, sort of a dream vacation list? Silence and our friend Ben certainly do. We would love to go to Scotland and Nova Scotia. We would love to return to Wales. We would love to go to Yorkshire. We would love to see Normandy and Provence, to tour the pyramids of the ancient Egyptians and the ancient Maya, to spend Christmas in Williamsburg, to tour Key West. We would love to cross the Atlantic on an ocean liner and end up in Europe taking in the cultural wonders. We would love to see Australia and New Zealand. Most recently, we’ve fallen in love with Morocco, and have moved it to the top of our travel list.
Unfortunately, given our financial realities, all these trips remain pipe dreams, at least for now. Even our beloved Log Cabin Motor Court in Asheville, NC is looking like a long shot (though we haven’t completely given up hope). We tell ourselves that our new puppy Shiloh is our vacation this year, and of course we think she’s more than worth it.
But being financially strapped doesn’t mean giving up our travel dreams. It just means giving up the travel itself. There are plenty of other cheap and free ways to enjoy exotic vacations without ever leaving the comfort of home. Here are some of our favorites:
* Head to the library. Reading about the countries or sites you want to visit is hugely rewarding. Our friend Ben especially loves books that aren’t specifically about travel per se, but which take you deeper into a country’s or region’s or city’s heart than you’d ever get from a travel guide: Julia Child’s My Life in France; Donald McCaig’s Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men for a view of Scotland (and similarly, James Herriot’s books for a view of Yorkshire); Peter Mayles’ books on Provence; Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, for a fabulous evocation of Batswana. But that doesn’t mean the travel guides aren’t useful as well. The Collected Traveller series is a great compendium of writers’ essays about their experience in a specific country or region; books like A Traveller’s Companion to Edinburgh, Walking and Eating in Tuscany and Umbria, and Moon Handbooks Four Corners can quickly transport you to the place of your dreams, be it Navajo country or the vineyards of Italy. Don’t forget the hidden treasures of older travel memoirs, though you may have to get your library to special-order them for you. From Sir Richard Francis Burton to Farley Mowat, from Sarah Orne Jewett to MFK Fisher, from Jack London to Gerald Durrell, it’s really worth it to find the writers who went where you want to go, no matter how long ago they went there. You’re bound to learn something. And, as Silence is always reminding you, your library is free.
* Rent a DVD. Even our tiny Kutztown library has travel videos and DVDs to check out for free, but the selection doesn’t always extend to the places we’d most like to see. This is where Netflix comes to the rescue. For a minimal monthly fee ($13 in our case for two at a time), we can rent all the DVDs we’d ever want to see. We love documentaries and travelogues, but films that are set in a country we want to visit, such as “Casablanca,” are fun, too. Just make sure they were really shot in the country they’re supposed to take place in!
* Dance to the music. CDs are another great way to enjoy the ambience of a country you want to visit, whether you’re enjoying Reggae and island music or listening to Jean Redpath and Dougie Maclean. Again, you can check them out at your librabry or buy them from a used music store.
* Eat to the beat, part one. Our beloved Mr. Hays, who took a cruise to the Greek Islands this spring at age 89, has been hosting weekly Greek dinners for his fellow travellers since his return. But you don’t have to actually go to enjoy the cuisine of a place you want to visit. Silence, for example, has Moroccan, Persian, Indian, Turkish, and Mediterranean cookbooks that allow her to turn our humble cottage into an exotic location anytime.
* Eat to the beat, part two. If you have a restaurant in your area that features the cuisine of a place you’d like to go, eating there is a great way of enjoying the food and ambience of the region for a fraction of the cost of an actual vacation. When Silence and I go to Nashville to visit our families, we often dine at a Turkish restaurant with such exquisite cuisine and ambience we never tire of it. It gives us our “Turkish fix” so we don’t feel devastated that we haven’t made it to Turkey (a country both our friend Ben’s father and Mr. Hays love) for another year.
* Add some decor. Adding an exotic touch can really help bring the travel destinations of your dreams to life. Silence has a book called Moroccan Style that she’s been looking through for inspiration. Morocco may seem rather far from our rural Pennsylvania cottage home, Hawk’s Haven, but last year, we found an antique Moroccan plate and vase at deep discount at an antiques shop, and this year, we hope to find a brass tray and stand and/or an elaborately carved Moroccan wooden end table and a brass Moroccan lantern at a flea market for minimal outlay. Studying the book, Silence thinks she can use her existing textile collection to add a certain Moroccan flair to our decor, though I’m sure she’d love a Berber rug and a few Moroccan cushions, if we happened to come upon them.
* Time-travel. Our friend Ben’s father, who like Mr. Hays is also a world traveller, enjoys collecting old Baedecker and Michelin guides from the late 1800s and early 1900s. This allows him to enjoy the heyday of world travel, before complications, disease, danger, and crowds made it uncomfortable and sometimes unpleasant (or worse). He still enjoys real-time trips, but the virtual ones are marvelous between-trip travels as well.
Ready to go now? Where are your must-see places? And do you have other ideas for travelling there from the comfort of home, without actually paying to go? Silence and I are eager to hear them!
The girls dine out. July 12, 2009
Posted by ourfriendben in chickens, homesteading, wit and wisdom.Tags: chickens, feeding chickens, hens, raising hens
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Silence Dogood here. Yesterday, my friend Huma and her wonderful 18-year-old twins, Rashu and Sasha, came down for a visit. We took our 5-month-old black German shepherd puppy, Shiloh, for a walk in the park, went to the Kutztown Farmers’ Market, and had lunch at a classic Kuztown restaurant, TC’s. TC’s has pine panelling, pine booths, and a general 1950s nostalgia feel. And it makes great sandwiches and fries.
I think it’s safe to say that growing 18-year-old boys have big appetites, and our lunch order reflected that: Two big buckets of fries and two orders of mozzarella sticks, in addition to burgers for the boys, quesadillas for Huma, and a Swiss cheese club for yours truly. The thing is, even Rashu and Sasha weren’t prepared for the massive amount of food TC’s serves up in a typical order. Never mind that they’re pushing 6’4″ and work out every day, they just couldn’t manage to finish that last mozzarella stick or bucket of fries.
No worries. Day-old fries might not be most people’s idea of a great time, but for the Hawk’s Haven chickens, they’re nirvana. Two big packages of fries, potato chips, the leftover mozzarella stick, and half my club sandwich (note to self: eyes bigger than stomach, please stop ordering this) came home with me for our girls’ delight. And I have a big bag of discard greens from our CSA and less-than-perfect tomatoes from our plants to add a healthy component to the feast.
Would I recommend feeding chickens French fries and chips on a daily basis? Hell no, no more than I’d recommend that anybody else eat them. But for a rare treat, I’d hate to deny any of us that pleasure. And I know the girls will enjoy their takeout experience. Chickens are omnivores, after all. They love what we love. I’m glad to be able to give them a treat today before it’s back to scratch grains, egglayer pellets, and greens tomorrow!
Plus, how nice not to waste uneaten food. And in exchange, Huma & co. went home with a dozen of our fabulous organic eggs, so everybody came out a winner.
‘Til next time,
Silence
The staff of life. July 12, 2009
Posted by ourfriendben in Ben Franklin, gardening, homesteading, wit and wisdom.Tags: charity, global suffering, hunger, starvation
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Our friend Ben would like once again to present a little sermon for a Sunday morning. I have been bemused over the seemingly endless media furor over the recent death of Michael Jackson. It almost seemed that the media, desperate for relief from the grim news from Iran, North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Middle East—and unsatisfied by Governor Mark Sanford’s astonishing discovery that immoral behavior was worthy of impeachment unless it happened to him—fastened, vampire-like, on Michael Jackson to try to give the public something they could relate to: a celebrity.
Our friend Ben wonders, of course, who could really relate to Michael Jackson, one of the most painful object lessons of the pitfalls of child stardom of modern times. (By contrast, look at the life and career of Shirley Temple Black, the original child star, who managed somehow to escape the limitations and tragedies that designation imposed on less-fortunate colleagues like Judy Garland.) But I digress.
Juxtaposed with the Jackson-tribute hoopla was an e-mail our friend Ben received yesterday morning from Knowledge News, discussing world hunger and noting that every single day, 25,000 children and adults will die of starvation. While bazillion fans rush to cash in on their vintage “Thriller” albums or buy a sequined glove or other piece of MJ memorabilia, the UN estimates that just $3 would be enough to buy a person vitamin A, zinc, iron, and iodine, which could keep them from suffering from horrific deficiency diseases like anemia and goiter, for a year. Yes, you read that right: a year. (And if, like me, you wonder why, if that’s the case, you’re spending so much on supplements, I don’t blame you.)
Perhaps those of us who are trying to grow our own food, who are not actually starving, could make an effort to keep these statistics in mind. Perhaps we could get in touch with a local food bank and donate some of our harvest to the less fortunate. Perhaps we could set aside $3 a week to contribute to an international relief organization.
Back in the day, when religion was the main support of the less fortunate, tithing—contributing 10% of your income to charity—was considered the norm. Some honorable people still tithe, either through their church or through secular charities, but many of us haven’t been brought up with the idea of setting anything aside, whether it’s for our own welfare or for others’. In tough economic times, when paying the bills each month may present a sleepless-nights challenge, tithing may be out of our reach. But we could at least make a start. Just skipping one movie, one meal out, one trinket could pay for lifesaving supplements for a whole family for a year. Or a family’s meal at the local homeless shelter.
It is in the toughest times that it’s most important to remember that we’re all in this together, that it’s only by helping one another that we’ll get through. Whether that means sharing extra eggs with your neighbors or selling them at a roadside stand and donating the profits; giving books, CDs, and DVDs your family’s had enough of to the local library or women’s shelter; volunteering to spend a morning a week at the soup kitchen or nursing home or children’s hospital; sending money to (reputable, please) organizations for human or environmental relief; or simply taking that extra loaf of zucchini bread to the old folks down the road, doing something to help others when times are tough helps the whole world. And, however small your contribution, that’s no small thing.
Bee balm and bergamot. July 11, 2009
Posted by ourfriendben in gardening, homesteading, wit and wisdom.Tags: bee balm, bergamot, mildew-resistant bee balm, monarda, Oswego tea, wild bergamot
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Here at Hawk’s Haven, the rural cottage our friend Ben and Silence Dogood share in the precise middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania, monarda is in full bloom. We have huge clumps of both red-flowered bee balm, Monarda didyma, and the slightly smaller-flowered red-violet wild bergamot, Monarda fistulosa. Both look fabulous, and are providing huge blasts of color in our far-back perennial borders at a time when daylilies, achilleas (yarrows), bellflowers (campanulas), hostas, and milkweeds are about the only other blooming plants in our gardens.
But the masses of brilliant color aren’t the only reasons we love our monardas. As its name suggests, bee balm is a bumblebee magnet. But it and its cousin bergamot also are irresistible to hummingbirds, hummingbird moths, and other nectar lovers. While our lush milkweed plantings are feeding monarch butterfly caterpillars, the monardas are drawing more immediately colorful visitors to our property, not to mention important pollinators at the moment our squash and cukes could use them most.
Both the leaves and flowers of bee balm and bergamot are fragrant—they’re in the mint family—and bee balm leaves were used by the Native Americans to make a fragrant citrusy, minty tea called Oswego tea. The Colonists enjoyed this herbal tea during the days of the Boston Tea Party, when patriots were boycotting black tea to protest British taxation. If you grow bee balm, you can try a cup yourself. Add 1 tablespoon of dried leaves or about 1/2 cup of fresh leaves to a cup of boiling water, steep 5 minutes, strain, sweeten to taste (Silence and I drink our herb teas unsweetened, since we think it brings out the flavors of the herbs), and drink. Add a lemon slice for a special citrus kick.
The dried flowers and leaves of both bee balm and wild bergamot will add color and fragrance to potpourris and sachets, and the dried flowers can look spectacular on dried-flower wreaths.
Like most mint family members, both bee balm and wild bergamot have been used in herbal remedies, both by Native Americans and the Shakers. Its active ingredient, thymol, makes it popular as a steam bath to clear the sinuses. The tea has also been used to treat everything from nausea and an upset stomach to insomnia, colds, and sore throats. We love the idea of growing your own herbal pharmacy!
You may wonder why we grow such showy plants at the back of our property rather than putting them front and center in our front-yard beds. The answer is simple: When not in bloom, the plants don’t look like much. We try to make sure the plants that grow nearest the house and road have a great habit—wonderful form and foliage as well as flowers—so they’re attractive even when they aren’t blooming. Monardas send up pretty boring stems in weedy-looking clumps when they aren’t in bloom. We like to keep them near our veggie beds, where we can admire the blooms from our deck without having the plants in our faces when they’re not blooming. But oh, what a show when they are in bloom! Fortunately, the vibrant flower colors make big clumps of monarda easy to appreciate from afar.
One last thing: We have no mildew problems with our monardas, but some folks apparently aren’t as fortunate. If you’ve had trouble growing mildew-free monardas in the past, or you know that mildew is an issue in your garden, try mildew-resistant cultivars like purple-flowered ‘Scorpio’ or red-flowered ‘Jacob Kline’ or ‘Gardenview Scarlet’.
Another strange search. July 10, 2009
Posted by ourfriendben in wit and wisdom.Tags: blog humor, strange blog searches
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Silence Dogood here (again). Hard on the heels of yesterday’s bizarre query, “Can you grow yogurt like a plant,” comes today’s classic: “marijuana butter ‘rice cooker’.” First of all, our friend Ben and I had to wonder why the “rice cooker” part was in quotes. Was someone trying to use their rice cooker to whip up a batch of marijuana butter, or did they want to know how to make marijuana-butter-saturated rice in a rice cooker?
Sheesh. While it’s true that I’ve added butter and spicing directly to my rice cooker before turning it on and cooking the rice, the spices I was using were whole cumin and black mustardseed or whole fenugreek. I can only say that if marijuana tastes as bad as it smells, using it to flavor something as bland as rice would be a very bad idea. No wonder people baked it into brownies instead!
I myself would be in favor of making cilantro butter and stirring it into hot rice. Or cooked carrots. Or brushing it on hot ears of corn on the cob… hmmm. Maybe it’s time to head off and pick some cilantro!
As for the strange searches, they’re certainly great for entertainment value. We never know what tomorrow will bring!
‘Til next time,
Silence
The naming of dogs. July 10, 2009
Posted by ourfriendben in pets, wit and wisdom.Tags: dog names, German shepherd names, Shiloh
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Silence Dogood here. T.S. Eliot may have cornered the market on the naming of cats, but from our point of view, we’ve all got a shot at great dog names. We named our black German Shepherd puppy Pioneer Hawk’s Haven Shiloh because we got her from Pioneer German Shepherds, our home is Hawk’s Haven, and I knew that Shiloh was going to be her name because… well, I just knew.
As it turned out, this proved to be, well, prophetic, since a number of her ancestors also have Shiloh in their names and heritage. But their names are so wonderful it puts us to shame in the naming category: Lucas Von Shiloh Special, for example. Or how about Lady from Hades, Job for Job Selah, Big-Big Bethsheba Selah, or Amor Jah (doubtless a reggae fan)?
Wow. If I’d only known. Maybe we’d have named our puppy Pioneer Hawk’s Haven Shiloh Von Shiloh Special. She’s certainly “special” to us!
What are your favorite dog names?
‘Til next time,
Silence
