While Truman sleeps

Yes, his name is Truman and he is, right at this very moment, blissfully napping in his box. So I thought I’d take advantage of what I laughingly refer to these days as “my free time” and pound out a blog post to say thanks for helping us name the dog. Also, I know if I leave my little office and try to do anything else like, say, hang some laundry out, or make lunch, Truman will awake and follow me. He’ll want to go out. He’ll want to play. He’ll want a bite of my sandwich. It’s quite true what they say about sleeping dogs, so it’s probably best if I stay right where I am for the moment.

Thank you for voting, and weighing in with your dog name choices. You have been enormously helpful. Friday night Tonia and I began calling our new puppy Truman. Now, after just a few days, he seems to know the word has something to do with him. Progress.

I had completely forgotten the huge time sink that is puppy raising. I’ve wished more than once this past week that puppy raising were a bit more like barn raising. By which I mean, a more collective effort. I did get a little time off this weekend, when Tonia was home, but during the week it’s just me and the dogs here. It’s a big job that requires Constant Vigilance, and leaves me wishing I could invite a few hundred Amish round for a weekend, hoping they’d leave behind a fully trained dog. Alas, a puppy is not like a barn.

The web design project I’ve been working on so hard for the past month is nearing completion, and I should be back to more regular blogging soon. I’ve been so busy spinning and knitting and dyeing and jam making this summer, as well as working on projects for paychecks, I haven’t had much time to stop and write about it all. I will though. Soon. In one of those rare quiet moments while Truman sleeps.

Oh, I almost forgot. The video about wooden cawl spoons that I stuck up there last week isn’t as random as it seems. Tonia has been carving wooden spoons for a while now. Though there is a Welsh tradition of intricately hand-carved loved spoons, Tonia’s been more interested in the every day object-ness of the hand carved spoon. She was talking about spoon carving in work one day, and discovered that a few of her workmates there had memories of eating cawl (a thick Welsh stew) off wooden spoons. So she took the video camera to work and filmed them talking about their memories of wooden spoons, and showing off a few hand carved wooden spoons that are still in service. It’s nice little film that actually got Boing Boinged, and it’s totally worth four and a half minutes of your time.