Last night I was visited by some friends (Carlye and Craig from Cross Check Catahoulas). They left a new little friend at my house, a littermate to their own little girl "J Cross' Ammunition".

 J Cross' Currahee--a.k.a. "Ranger".

 

 

 

I thank Tori Earls and Justin Starnes at J Cross Catahoulas for allowing Ranger to come join my family.

The PBS Program "Across Indiana" (produced by WFYI, Indianapolis) came out at the end of August to shoot some footage of the park where I work and live (well, the Park end of it. the other end, Brookville Lake, is 16,000 acres with 5,000 of that in water).

We spent 8 hours out on the lake (Whitewater Lake, 200 acres), on the horse trails, in the campgrounds, etc. gathering interviews and just cool looking footage of people enjoying themselves.

At one point while on the lake I was asked why I like to work here and I gave my canned response of "This is my office!" as the camera panned at the scenery (Whitewater is very calm, it's trolling motors only). A few minutes later Jay, the camera man, was still rolling and I was still miked while I pointed at some trees. "My house is over there. I'm really lucky that not only do I work here, but this is my back yard." Which, of course, is the sound bite they liked better than the canned response.

Included with this was the host's dog Darby (a 13 year old Lab/Husky mix), who is the mascot of this segment. She got to go on the boat, on a hayride, and walk around a bit as we visited with people.

The segment is somewhere in the 4-5 minute range and will air on WFYI (Indy channel #20) on October 27 at 7:30--the season premier. Other Indiana PBS stations will carry it either that week or the week after.

For folks outside of Indiana, or outside the reach of any Indiana PBS stations (yours truly--Dayton and Oxford, OH stations here), it's also going to be available online at :

Across Indiana

It's under the archives section at the bottom. Program #1901.

Beau didn't get to do a cameo. Oh well.

Sunday night SE Indiana/SW Ohio was rocked by the remnants of Hurricane Ike. I lost power from 2:15 Sunday until 10:30 last night (I celebrated Beau's 8th "Homecoming Day" in the dark with him on the 16th). I was all right since I have enough food on hand to survive a zombie uprising, plus I have good water sources close by to filter with my backpacking filter after I do run out of potable stored water. I also have my JetBoil and a French Press coffee maker. A friend of mine got me an early birthday present--a hand-crank coffee grinder (yeah, it's those little things that make the day brighter).

One of the projects I'm currently involved with--and why this site hasn't had much by way of updates this season--is hosting the Vietnam Memorial Moving Wall as it visits Whitewater Memorial State Park in September.

 This is a half-scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington D.C.

Whitewater Memorial State Park is located approximately 2 miles south of the town of Liberty, IN on State Road 101. It was established as a living memorial to those from the surrounding counties (Fayette, Franklin, Union, and Wayne) who served during WWII.

If things go as currently planned, I will be speaking briefly running the sound equipment during the ceremony on Saturday, September 6, 2008.

 

Not to look like a bandwagon jumper (have been into conservation for pretty much my entire life), but I thought I'd put together a list of links for "Green" products or services. I will add others as I find them.

• www.catalogchoice.org--this site allows you to opt out of various mailing lists.
• www.bookmooch.com--this one allows you to swap the books you don't want any more for books you do want.
• www.geartrade.com--trade your used backpacking equipment.
• Backpacker Magazine's Green Guide--guide to how to recycle old equipment, reduce your carbon footprint, and much more.
• Green Living Magazine--lots of great information and tips on, well, living green.
• Treehugger.com--More eco-tips.
  
• Makezine.com--make cool stuff from orinary household junk (especially good for people who have to entertain or teach school-aged small folks).
• LiveWell--ecologically friendly products.
• Freecycle.org--the Freecycle network--giving and getting things for free.
  
• Freegan.info--the great art of dumpster diving (aka Compacters/Compactors).
• Eco-friendly yarn--From Treehugger.com (I have to plug as many of my hobbies as possible).
  

 

 

Beau and I traveled to Kalamazoo, Michigan to partake in the festivities of the UKC Premier. This was our 8th appearance. We showed in the Top Ten Breed Finals, COBRA Breed Specialty, and all three days of the Premier.

In Saturday's show Beau earned the Grand Champion Award of Merit under judge Karen Johnson. There were three dogs in the class including Beau.

In Sunday's show Beau showed under judge Joe Allen. Beau won his class as he was the only Grand Champion entered. He went on for Best of Breed over ten Catahoulas. Later in the day, during a thunderstorm, Beau earned a Group 2 placement in the Herding Group. I can't remember for sure how many breeds were represented in the Group ring, but it was at least 15. He defeated approximately 200 dogs that day.

I got a book in the mail today, Dog Park Wisdom by Lisa Wogan. Lisa contacted me last year about putting my site in the book as a place to get info on hiking with dogs. It's plugged on pages 110-111 (via a plug for backpackgeartest.org), with a bio in the back for Beau and me, plus some of our online friends from the Traildog email list (member since 1999, mod since 2001).

It was really nice to look in the book today and have a mention of Lucy. The book went to press just before Lucy passed away.

The author has a site here: http://dogparkwisdom.wordpress.com/ with the May 10 entry linking to my site (the instructions for the poop baggie dispenser, specifically).

Today's xkcd comic has a very cool interactive GPS-Based game. Check it out and meet some cool outdoorsy/geeky folks!

 

Geo-hashing! 

My friend Christine sent me a link for 2 Dogs 2,000 miles. This is a hike by Luke and his two Great Pyrenees are taking from Austin, TX to Boston, MA to raise awareness for canine cancer research. Much of what we learn from animal cancer directly affects the treatment of human cancer. Finding a cure for our dogs helps with our own health and wellbeing. In addition, using new treatments on pets who already have cancer lowers the need for testing on labratory animals.

In June of 2007 Beau had a tumor removed from his torso and another from his neck. Luckily, neither was cancer, but it brought home the message of keeping an eye out for anything abnormal, on him and on me.

I usually carry a reusable bag when I go shopping, but many times the cashier forgets to put my purchases in the sack or, on occassion, I forget to bring the bag on my shopping trips. This leads me to collecting plastic shopping bags by the dozen-- I reuse them as trash bags and to pick up after Beau. I feel kind of weird buying a plastic bag holder (a bag to hold bags seems redundant), so I thought about a clean, handy storage container for them.

A few years ago I spotted someone at a dog show using an old vinegar bottle to hold scrunched up plastic bags. I didn't have a vinegar bottle, but I did have some empty 1-gallon (3.71 L) pet-stain-and-odor remover bottles. A milk jug would also work well, I think, but these are a little sturdier and don't have the sour milk smell to them after they've been sitting out for a while.*