Photo Shoot and Baking Adventure

Good morning. I have wanted to add some new content to our web site that is still a surprise in the making. Recently I saw this great photo of a puppy in a flowery background that took my breath away. Of course I couldn’t just copy it with the laws being what they are, so I thought how difficult could it be to make my own. So yesterday, off I went to my favorite nursery with two of the pups in tow. I have a good relationship with the staff at Hinman’s in Canton and so I had lots of helpers. It was however the pups first adventure outside and so they were awestruck in the warmth of the greenhouse with all the new smells and colors. Now I have a better appreciation of how hard those photos with just the right poses and background are to achieve. I found out the shutter speed on my digital camera is way too slow. By the time the shutter snapped, the pups were already two adventures ahead of what I wanted to capture. Here are a few of my worst efforts, and one passable one. There were actually a few photos with no pups in them as they had both moved so fast. I just deleted those right away.
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The final photo will be a surprise addition to the website in the future once Celeste and Dana and Karen (my website gods) help me with their considerable expertise.

I recently ordered some cookie cutters off the web in the shape of a golden retriever and a dog bone. I am not much one for baking, but I thought this can’t be too hard. A nice reward for all the visitors this weekend who are scheduled to visit. So after Barb pointed out the location in our kitchen of every utensil and ingredient I would need, I went to work. First I filled the dough in the shapes and put them on the plate. Barb said the cookies would spread with the heat a little, but I thought no problem. This is easy. As you can see from the first photo, my cookies looked like Eddie Murphy in his fat suit character.

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So what’s a guy to do. I got out my power tools and cut the fat cookies into their shapes! This seemed to work ok except I only got about a dozen cookie bones and about five pounds of cuttings from the whole dough mix.

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Our visitors yesterday seemed to enjoy the “bones”. Unfortunately, at the end of the day we heard a crash in the kitchen while we were entertaining the pups downstairs. Solo had pulled the plate of cookies onto the floor and the big dogs made quick work of the remaining bones. So today our visitors will only have the cuttings to enjoy if Barb will even let me serve them!

So we will add this to our list of misadventures to remember along with the many others already on file. Still after the end of a long day yesterday, when the pups were all settled down for bed, and we were reminiscing about the day’s nice company, it was all good. Even though neither of us got any of our scheduled work accomplished, it didn’t seem to matter. Today another day almost the same is scheduled for more company. Good thing the pups will be here only two more weeks, so we can get back to the rituals in our lives again, … or maybe not.