Mon 1 May 2006
This past weekend was a blast. This was the weekend of my wife’s birthday. Friday evening, my cousin, her boyfriend and my uncle paid a visit from Michigan. We had a wonderful dinner at my parents place. We watched Monique open gifts, had cake and spent quality time catching up. Saturday afternoon while my wife was cashing in her gift from me, a full hour massage at her favorite spa, my cousins, uncle and I stopped by the gallery to view the 409 show at Assemble. Nice work. Really nice work. Sad to see 409 crumble, but such as life.
Saturday evening was a surprise birthday dinner at Sterle’s Slovenian House. We danced Polka, ate wiener schnitzel, and drank Lâsko beer. Dreamy Buddy was very surprised and touched that this was thrown together for her. The end of the evening was me with a cigar and some Slivovitz. Don’t ask. 
Sunday was supposed to be a relaxing day, but turned out to be another back breaker. For four weeks now, I have been moving rock, soil and plant life around in my yard. It started out as a great idea, but as with most DanMerk projects, I went over the top. Our original plans were to remove the water garden, deck, and fix the grade on the side of the house. Well it is week four and I have spent early Saturday morning hauling all the building material to the city dump by hand, and then Sunday moving more rock, more pavers, more footers that needed to be smashed out of the ground. I also cut down 4 trees that were growing into my roof. I never used a chain saw, but there was something cool about that tool. Thank goodness my neighbor was observant and noticed that I was working alone. I would have killed myself if he hadn’t shown up to assist. Thanks Ron! I think it will take another 2-3 weeks to complete the yard project. We scaled our ideas way back because of lack of skill and amount of help required to do it ourselves. At least the patio, but I think we still will build a pergola. All in all, the exercise and sun is good for me, but man am I sore on Mondays.
Why is the dog so hungry? Well his Dr and a good friend of ours suggested moving him to a raw food diet to help with some of his digestive issues. He gets the runs and sometimes is really constipated. So to switch to this natural diet, you need to fast your dog for a day. From what I have read, wild dogs will eat from a kill, then not eat for up to a week after so this is not a horrible thing we are doing. Tonight he gets a meal of pumpkin, and digestive enzymes. IF all goes well, then tomorrow morning he will begin eating raw chicken backs and necks. Yum.
June 2nd, 2006 at 3:16 pm
I found your site via Kent’s alumni page. I graduated from the design program in 1991 and have never heard a single word from anyone about anything! So, you shouldn’t feel bad. Your blog is the first place that I ever heard of events where alumni might be invited.
But - the real reason that I’m commenting - raw food for dogs. It’s awesome. I switched my dogs over a year ago and have had nothing but success. If there is one thing that I wish I would have known, though, it’s to not feed so much chicken. I’ve had better luck with beef and lamb. For example, beef shank steaks are relatively inexpensive - you can get one with a bone in for about $2 that is enough for a meal depending on your dog’s size. (my dogs each get about 8oz. of food per day) I freeze the steak, then feed it frozen. It gives them something fun to chew on for awhile.
I also feed raw mixes that I get from a lady down near Youngstown. I can give you the details if you’re interested.