Animal Update

Our animals have continued to fare well.  Lucky continues to get lots of attention and loves to be around people.  He is especially welcome on the kids' beds by the kids.  They love it when he climbs up to snuggle with them.

Lucky thinks he is part guard dog.  Whenever someone knocks on the door or rings the doorbell, he runs over to the front door, barking the whole time.  He has also learned that if he climbs a few steps on the stairs, then he can look out the window to see who is at the front door.

This is the view greeting you from the outside.  Does this look like a ferocious guard dog to you?

In the guest bed room on the second floor, he also does the same thing to get a better look of our street.

And sometimes he just lays down to take a nap while he's up there.  Why not?

He likes to go into the backyard to sniff around and also to do his business.  Sometimes we get tired of him always asking to go in and out and so Elvin installed a little doggie door into the screen door.  He was not very fond of it at all in the beginning.  We would have to lure him to use it by putting a line of bacon bits or steak on the ground.  It took him about two months to get used to it.

Karina is the person in the family that spends the most time formally training him.  She keeps treats in the pouch at her waist and now he knows that when she puts on her treat belt, it's training time!

He can consistently sit, lay down, shake (where he offers his paw to shake your hand), stay, and dance (where he jumps up.)  

We try to take him out for a walk every day or else he can get rambunctious cooped up in the house.

We do think that he's part mountain goat because he likes to climb things and be on a high point.  Here he is standing on the box that is usually used by the rabbits as a little cave.

And why not take a nap while on it?

We turned the box over so it wouldn't collapse with his weight as it's pretty worn out.  And it turned into a little bed for him!

He is still quite interested in the rabbits and wishes he could grab one.

The rabbits get fed apple leaves from our apple trees, which they love.

They also get grape leaves from our grape vines.

Or rabbit pellets, which to them is like candy.

Our chickens are doing well...the two of them we have left.  (We lost one during the summer, to a raccoon we think.  We just found the carcass, without a head, and Elvin buried her in the backyard.)

They get leftover noodles when we can't finish them and they get old, and they love them.  Maybe they think they're worms? 

It's fall now and rainy.  Elvin build a roof to partially cover the run and they stay under that.

He also build a little door that leads from the run into the garden beds area.  During the summer, while the veggies are growing, we keep the chickens out of the garden.  But now that it's cold and the garden is dormant, we let the chickens in there to help with the fall clean up.  

They like pecking at the leftover lettuce plants and hopefully are finding all the bugs and slugs too!

And Eliana's aquarium has new residents!

For a while, it just had plants and snails.  But Eliana has always been interested in shrimp and found a seller on Craiglist who was selling them locally.

They are tiny little guys, and a vivid blue color.  They hang out mostly on the bottom and feed off of whatever they can find there.

Eliana reports that at least one shrimp appears to be pregnant...so hopefully we will see baby shrimp soon!

And that's how the animals in the Yuen household are doing!

Glamping in northern WA

Towards the end of summer, Eliana had an opportunity to go horseback riding at a ranch in the northeastern part of Washington.  Emily's sister has taken her daughter there for a couple of years for a week and invited Eliana to go along this year.

So Eliana left home and met up with them in Seattle.  She spent a day or two in Seattle and took a glass blowing class at a local studio there.  In the class, you can make one or two items and it was just Eliana and her cousin.

Here she is rolling the glass back and forth so that it would keep it's shape.

This is the second item that she's working on.

Here the instructor is rolling the glass item and Eliana is adding on a strip of a different colored glass and rolling it on as decoration.

Here Eliana is putting the glass back into the hot oven to be able to mold it more.

Then it was time to drive to the ranch.  It was a loooooong drive north and east to get to the ranch.

Here is the super luxurious tent they slept in.  As you can see, they were not roughing it.  It had beds and furniture, and electricity.   Here is Eliana, and her cousin, Lena.  

Eliana went on two rides every day, each a few hours long!

This is the camp dog, who is a little Corgie-German Shepherd type that she played with.  It was obsessed with sticks and was happy playing fetch all day if you wanted.  Even though it had little stubby legs, it ran along with the horses all day long.

They did a cattle drive and when stopping for lunch, tied the horses on the trees.

More riding.

The smoke from wildfires wasn't too bad but there definitely was some in the air.

They had a little lake that was a 2 minute drive away.  There was a swimming dock in the middle of the lake that you could paddle board to.

They made it to the platform.  Eliana said that no one swam in the lake because of the weeds.

The ranch had skeet shooting.  Here is Eliana shooting clay pigeons in the pasture next to the cabins.

Here is Eliana with her cousin.  They had a good time.

A few weeks later, Aunt Gretchen came down to Vancouver and brought the glass items that Eliana made.  They could not take it with them at the time because they were too hot to handle and had to cool down.  

Here is the vase with colored glass contouring the edge.

And Eliana also made a tumbler encircled with blue.  They are both very nice looking!

Eliana had lots of fun and hopes this becomes an annual event!