August 2021 – Annie Becoming a Farmer’s Dog & August Photo Gallery

August 2021 – I have to start this post out with a disclaimer. Everything I am about to say about The Farmer’s dog food is legit – they literally don’t even have an affiliate program for me to make money from. However, for those many folks I know who follow us who have their own doggos, I just have to tell you about what’s been going on with Annie. After Lodi’s 2012 discharge Annie was assigned to him as his service dog from the Wounded Warrior program. So, to say that she means a lot to him, is an understatement!

Annie’s service dog days are long behind her and she’s definitely not the city dog she once was. Nowadays she’s our pampered farm pooch who occasionally goes after squirrels, eats horse poop and yells at us if she thinks we’re acting up.

As soon as they moved in I have been ON TOP of the little sausage’s health and happiness.

Though she hasn’t always made it easy lol she broke two teeth by chewing on god-knows-what when she first moved in and then (not her fault obviously) she also came down with Lymes disease.

Antibiotics, Nutra guard (for better tick prevention than Frontline) and dental surgery took care of all of that last year.

This year though Annie’s age was starting to catch up to her.

Her vet and I agreed it was probably Cushings, but we went ahead and did all of the blood work, xrays and an ultrasound to make sure nothing else was going on.

(There’s nothing else going on.)

There isn’t much that can be done about Cushings. Its an insanely underdiagnosed syndrome that most older dogs (and many cats and humans and even horses) end up with. Its expensive to diagnose and the treatment often is far worse than just living with Cushings.

They just start acting old one day.

A little rickety, a little shaky, a lot more tired and uncomfortable.

They get pot bellied and act hungry ALL the time.

(The reason I suspected it was Cushings was because my last dog was diagnosed with it and it wasn’t just him acting old – it hit him like a freight train and he didn’t last a year after the diagnosis…)

August 2021 I made the decision to try something different with her food because, frankly, we we were out of options. Anyone who has ever had pets knows the conversations you and your partner start having when their pet starts slowing down… its so sad… I was determined to try everything.

I saw an ad on Facebook for The Farmer’s Dog human grade dog food. The first box was 50% off and I could quit anytime – so I figured: what-the-hell.

It’s about three times the cost of feeding Annie dry dog food but still – THAT’S NOT BAD.

(It costs us about $240 a month – she’s about 70 pounds to give you an idea of how much it may cost if you consider trying it for your own dog.)

One thing happened immediately.

Annie was THRILLED.

We were feeding her Taste of the Wild dry dog food which is pretty high quality but Annie wasn’t even getting out of bed in the morning for breakfast and usually wouldn’t even bother to eat it until we got home from work.

NOT ANYMORE! Annie is now bounding out of bed and tap dancing around me for breakfast!

CLICK ON THE TOP HEADER OF THE PAGE TO GET YOUR FIRST BOX FREE AS A GIFT FROM ME FOR THE FARMER’S DOG FOOD

CLICK ON THE TOP HEADER OF THE PAGE TO GET YOUR FIRST BOX FREE AS A GIFT FROM ME FOR THE FARMER’S DOG FOOD

There are four options to choose from, turkey, chicken, pork and beef. After trying them all (you can only choose three) I skip the chicken because the packages are a little more “juicy” and I got tired of spilling them in the refrigerator.

But Annie loves all of them.

(Funny story Lodi mistook the name of the food because every package literally has “Annie’s food” labeled on it – he just assumed that was just a coincidence that I somehow found a dog food named after our dog. Actually they just portion out the food specifically for her and label it as such – kind of awesome actually.)

Initially I got on their “half and half” plan and mixed it half with her dry dog food until she finished it.

They give you exactly what your dog needs according to how much they weigh and how much they should weigh. With the dry dog food gone, in early August 2021, Annie is now entirely on the Farmer’s Dog. They send 24 packages frozen that lasts for 24 days.

SO easy, I just cut a package in half and give her half in the morning and half for supper.

The difference in our Annie is absolutely incredible!

It started with her attitude toward it – she loves this food. No more dreaded dog farts (thank goodness because she was one stinky girl) and her coat has improved as well.

But its in how she feels where it matters

Annie is acting like she’s three years younger.

She’s bouncing again. She’s coming up stairs to bed again. Where she used to just camp out on the living room floor now she’s back to ALL OVER THE HOUSE again.

Sometimes she’ll be up and down stairs all night patrolling her dog kennel for unwelcome critters – an amount of physical activity that would have been UNHEARD OF for her not even two months ago.

I commented to Lodi, “Oh good we got our annoying dog back!”

We had been keeping Annie’s dry dog food in the bench at the end of our dining table right beside where we keep her water and food bowl on a rug. It worked fine but, of course, won’t work anymore. All of Annie’s new food now needs to be kept frozen so, thank goodness we have some extra freezer space in the basement!

August 2021. This was one of my “you know you’re an adult when…” moments because the idea of that ENTIRE bench now being open to us for storage got me excited!

After cleaning it out I fully utilized it for all our winter boots and shoes and even had room for extra paper product storage that had been floating around the laundry room.

The first week of August 2021 we had company and, though we talked about working on the house a little bit, I can’t say I was at all motivated (or enthused) to do so.

Is it weird that I don’t like working when other people are around?

I think it has to do with my being so camera shy honestly…

I’m just really uncomfortable being watched attempting to do just about anything lol.

We got the garage up at the end of July and I am thrilled to say that in later August 2021 we buckled down and covered the stick frame with plywood, house wrap and moved on to the steel roof and siding!

WE ARE SO CLOSE TO A COMPLETLY FINISHED GARAGE ADDITION!

In late July we got about an inch of rain to justify mowing the lawn once but that was it. To say our yard and everything around us looked like it just died is not an exaggeration. In August 2021 so many of our trees started turning regardless of the 90 degree temps – like they decided to just pack it in and hope for a better year next year.

Our air quality was the worst in the nation for weeks due to Canada’s wildfires. I knew many people, including myself, who were hacking up a lung every morning. But this is still northern MN and it did finally cool down to more “normal” temps.

A couple of small things that have been on my list for awhile I finally completed this month too.

Our island really needed to have its wheels adjusted.

When they were inside the bottom frame and able to fully swivel they were just too close together making it kind of tippy. Lodi moved them to the outside of the inside frame but then they didn’t swivel at all so, if we weren’t careful in how we moved it, the wheels would scrape the floor.

So I put the wheels right smack on the bottom of the base – its not as pretty (because they are no longer hidden) but it took care of all of problems and came with the added benefit of making the island taller too.

I also added some wood glue and clamped the top together as, over the years, the butcher block had started to split a part and I added shelf brackets to give it more support too.

August 2021 – I purchased some new storage drawers for our refrigerator but had to modify the slide out shelf to get them to fit. Well I finally got that little modification done so we now have an even more organized refrigerator!

Of the cabinets in our laundry room that my Grandpa built one of them has never had any shelves so, after SIX years of living here I finally put some shelves in it LOL!

My Grandparents’ old screen door on the front of the house was about to make me go absolutely POSTAL

It’s been a problem for years actually.

In the summer time (and recently becoming ALL year) it would stick at the top and bottom making it totally annoying to open because you couldn’t just turn the handle and push, you had to also smack it at the top or get smacked by it in the face.

We had already ripped the old screen by running into it because the door stuck and have now also torn the new screen we put in last year…

You guys know how sentimental I am but I’m also practical and knew that it was only a matter of time that my frustration level would be the end of that screen door.

But I also knew I could possibly fix the problem – which I did!

I still have to replace the second wrecked screen at some point…

But I took it off its old hinges, cut half an inch off the hinge side and replaced the hinges with spring screen door hinges so it closes on its own. It needs to be repainted now etc but for the first time in many years it works PERFECTLY. It gently shuts on its own and does not stick in ANY way.

I told my mom about it and she just laughed, “You know that screen door has always been a pain in the butt!”

NOT ANY MORE!

Isn’t it crazy how, as adults, it really is always SOMETHING!?

I end up feeling like I need to take a day off from my day job so I can get all the little “somethings” done besides the normal every day house chores plus our blog / house projects complete too!

The garden has become an absolute jungle. Lodi has taken to calling it Jurassic Park.

He said one day, “We need a bigger garden.”

I replied, “No we need to plant less!!!!”

We’ve got squash coming out of our ears lol.

Like with every single year I learn something new about what we planted. I will definitely plant radishes again and then RE plant them as we had no problem eating all those lovely garden radishes this spring.

We planted WAY too many peas this year. We like them but just couldn’t keep up! And I absolutely have to thin out our seedlings a lot better next year.

Next year I’ll be planting a lot of lettuce and only about 1/4 of the squash and I find the yellow squash is a bigger favorite for us than the zucchini.

I may entirely give up on planting pepper seeds of any kind ever again. For the fourth garden in a row (all of the gardens I’ve had here) I still can’t get a single pepper to produce or (in most cases) even grow at all for us – it is SO weird!

What I thought was a couple of pepper plants finally coming up (I literally cheered) turned out to be green beans… We didn’t even plant green beans this year they planted themselves from last year!

With the radical weather our rhubarb never came up (or just plain died and how can that even happen!?) and our peonies barely bloomed before getting fried and blown away. Luckily for us though – there are always my Grandma’s tiger lilies to look forward to!

Lodi did something for me that’s been on my bucket list for a solid 20 years.

I’ve had the opportunity to see many bands live but never that ONE band that’s always been my number one. The one I always reach for. The one I can sing every word of every song of my favorite album.

Green Day

He took me to downtown Minneapolis where we stayed right there by Target Field where we, and about 30,000 other middle aged people, laced up our Converse All Stars and dug out our black nail polish to relive our teens and 20s one more time.

It was HEAVEN. To say that I sobbed and sang and cheered myself hoarse is a total understatement!

And Lodi surprised me by wearing his Grandma’s house DIY t-shirt!

August 2021 is really our end of summer month that, even when its at its hottest, just somehow FEELS like fall is coming.

Its in the air, its in the silver light and the long black shadows.

It can be 100 degrees in August but the breeze guarantees it will be 40 degrees cooler in just a couple of hours. Where I find July SO annoying because it forces me to start preparing for winter, August, for me instead, is more melancholy.

Last August I spent the last couple of weeks with my mom at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota – ending her many months of cancer treatment with an eleven hour surgery before bringing her home for good.

To say this August 2021 was a bit different is quite the understatement and thank the universe for that. My mom is cancer free and August last year was a month none of us ever want to experience again.

August remains my favorite month of the year though.

There is something lovely and undeniable about August that July just does not do for me.

The cooler breeze, the longer shadows start beckoning: Its time to rest. The summer party is coming toward closing time and there’s no denying that I’m tired. I’m ready for cooler days when our tourists go home and there isn’t an event or fair every. single. weekend. that we want to go to.

I’m ready for curling up on date nights with Lodi and finishing up our last few outdoor projects before the snow flies.

Where July is a blur of work, events, harvest, fairs, fun, guests, flowers, gardening, watering, canning, eating, bon fires, more work, projects, parties, visiting, swimming, even more work and regret because there is NEVER enough time to do it all…

September promises time