Photo of the Day

A favorite photo of our Miss O

Taken while at Carova, NC June 2007

Gabby

GABBY









In June, Olivia says she desperately NEEDS a dog companion while away at school and her Great Dane Bella was way over the weight limit at her apartment. She goes to the shelter and isn't captivated by any and decides to wait on fate. Sure enough, as it aways does, fate had the perfect pet for her. Olivia and I were at the vets with one of our other furry friends and we just mentioned that we were looking for a small dog. They had just received four puppies from the pound that the pound couldn't put down and no one at the vet's had mustered up the necessary gumption to do it either. They brought all four of the pups in and Olivia picked Gabby mostly because I said she seemed the calmest. (Huh! Boy, was I fooled!)






These first two were taken within just a couple of days of acquiring her while we were at the beach (Carova) in June of 2007. Her personality was evident!!





















And this was Gabby at Christmas 07. She is a MESS!!!! She's of unknown for sure lineage but she looks like a mix of some sort of Welsh Corgi, Jack Russell and Rat Terrier. Her ears are huge! And stick straight up. Not in this pic though. Gotta get one of that.
















This was also at Christmas 07. Gabby must have been taken from her mom's teat too young! She sucks on a thump or finger to fall asleep. She's sucking O's finger here. Weird, I know. But it is sweet! It'll calm her right down too. Gabby's very hyper, lots of energy and gets very excited when anyone new comes in.

Also at Christmas. Mama with three babies loving on her.






I keep telling Olivia that she can leave Gabby with us anytime. She always says NO, mama, you can't have my dog! I'd take her in a minute! She's my granddog.

Bryson

BRYSON




After losing Bella in July, 2007, in an attempt to fill the vast void she left in our lives, we contacted the Mid-Atlantic Great Dane Rescue League and after a rather arduous application process and were finally approved, we brought Bryson home for a trial run. We became extremely attached to him--especially Olivia and me.





















He's a beautiful harlequin, very large, he weighed in at 140.





























Intimidating, huh?













Typical evening at the Shumates! That's Bryson, Zoe and Gabby relaxing with Mama.









Much to our disappointment, we were unable to keep Bryson. Did he EVER have issues with strangers! And he was so very, very large that I was actually afraid of him. Grant was too. When someone came knocking on the door, he just went nuts! Ferociously barking and growling and I could not contain him to my satisfaction. We had him over a month and that was certainly long enough to get very attached to him. After Jug was home for Christmas he helped me to see we just couldn't keep him. We couldn't have such a large animal that would could not completely trust. We miss you Bryson!






We actually tried another Great Dane after Bryson that also didn't work out. He was fine with strangers--he just had a problem with the other pets. After he attacked Zoe and the fight required after-afters stitches for poor, very traumatized Zoe, we returned him also.






Then Jug said what I needed to hear: Kim, you have two good dogs, Rosie and Zoe. You're looking for a GREAT dog. A Bella, a Max. When he put it to me like that, I knew I needed to stop trying to replace dogs that can't be replaced. I also realized we were/are financially responsible for six animals (our three and O's three) and that's just enough!

Zoe, Rosie, Bob, Atticus and Callie

Zoe and Rosie

Rosie's (on the right) been with us 11 years this month. She was a stray of unknown breed that my friend Ellen Royal and I found as a very tiny puppy walking one day when we still lived at the lake. She's good and loyal companion. Zoe, acquired from a breeder, started out being Grant's dog but she's very attached to me. We call Zoe Idiot Dog most of the time. She is very strange--all there is to it! Very neurotic. Sneaky, got to watch her ALL the time or she's in the trash or having an accident. She's looking at me sheepishly in this photo. I took it this morning and she knew she was "in the dog house" because the little sh-t peed on the carpet this morning and I had put her out and hadn't yet let her back into my good graces!!

Olivia's Atticus

Jug calls him Henry. She named him after To Kill a Mockingbird's Atticus--she loves that book. A very good cat. He's who exposed Jug and me to feline friends. We'd never been cat people until Atticus. We're now a member of the People Who Love Cats Club!!

Our Bob

My friend Lisa Factor calls me up one day about two years ago and says--now, Kim, you know you can say no to me, right? Yep, I can. Well, you're not looking for a cat pet, are you? And sure enough, I was! After Jug and I saw how wonderful a cat can be --having Atticus here when O was home from school, I was actually looking for a good cat. Olivia and I had been to the shelter in Asheville twice and I had left empty handed because I was waiting for the perfect one! Lisa and her family had just acquired a new puppy, a Maltese, I think, and as a puppy, she was extremely tiny--like a good sized mouse and their cat, my Bob, their Shadow, thought she was prey! Lisa said she couldn't relax for fear Bob would eat their new baby!! I said, yeah, bring him over. Best cat that EVER was! He is absolutely perfect! He's indoor/outdoor which I love because he rarely uses the litter box. He's very affectionate, climbing up onto mine or Jug's lap daily to snooze. He's vocal too. Talks to us all the time. A truly great cat!! And no, Lisa, you can't have him back!!

Isn't Bob just regal?

This is Callie. Another of Olivia's cats. She was also a pound kitty. She's a Siamese mix. Olivia acquired her because she thought Atticus needed a companion. Callie had been completely de-clawed which I think is the most cruel thing you can do to a cat! She's completely defenseless and can never go outside. Recently, Olivia's friend, Aly has taken Callie on. We are just about pet poor and Olivia had begun to feel a bit crowded in her one-bedroom since she got Gabby. How it continues to work out for Callie and Aly!!

Max

MAX

Another pet that touched our lives leaving a lasting impression. Max was a stray that just showed up at the back door one day while we lived in Finley Park. Grant and he bonded right away. It was about 1999 or 2000? If I'm remember correctly Grant was still sneaking into bed with us occasionally and he was 8 or 9. That stopped entirely when Max came along and Grant had a sleeping buddy! Max was of unknown breed but looked Pit Bull with some boxer maybe. I, like most folks, was very cautious and intimidated by Pit Bulls. But Max was so very, very smart, loving, and his personality was evident! We loved him so very much.

Max had issues with strangers. Typical of the breed, he was protective to the extreme. So unfortunate. He was such a good dog otherwise. But he bit a neighbor, not badly, but certainly bad enough. She was scared of him and ran from him--worse thing you can do, and he got her on her foot. I was devastated. I KNEW we could not keep a dog that I couldn't trust. In desperation, I searched and found a trainer up in West Jefferson to take him for an extended training session. She was sure she could "fix" him. She called me after three days. She related that she'd not even started training him yet, just had him out in the yard walking with him, getting to know him and unprovoked, without warning, he bit her on the hand. I was completely devastated now. KNEW what had to be done and it was by far THE hardest thing I have ever done. I cry absolutely every time I think about it. Don't think about it much. We put him down. We'll never forget him. Grant still searches for a "Max" replacement.

Can't get this second paragraph to accept any other formatting!!! Scheech!!

Bella, A Tribute

Bella February 2002-July 28, 2007

It's a testament to the human psyche how very attached we become to our canine and feline family members. And attached we were to Miss Bella. This is going to be harder than I thought to do--write about Bella. It still hurts so very much. But here goes.

We got Bella as a 12 week old puppy for Olivia in May of 2002. Grant got Zoe, our weimaranier just before or just after we got Bella--can't remember exactly how that went now. Bella, like Max, was an exceptional pet. Just lots of character and personality. She slept with Olivia every night of her life that Olivia was home. They adored each other. When we moved out here to Moravian Falls in 2005, Bella and the other pets blossomed and thrived with all the freedom and space they had to adventure in! We have an invisible fence and they are all indoor/outdoor animals, coming and going as they please and always sleeping inside.

On July 28th, 2007, we spent the day in West Virginia at a Higgins family reunion. We arrived home, Grant, Olivia, Jim and I (Jug was out of town) to find poor Bella. We don't yet know what happened. The not knowing haunts me still. She was lying (laying??) in the pasture on the outside of the invisible fence line and essentially unmarked. Closer examination revealed two very small cuts. We took her to the vets that evening and they did a superficial autospy. Radiographs revealed massive head trauma so the vet speculated that she must have been hit with great force on the head. Car hit her? Don't know.

We loved her greatly. We miss her still.

This first picture is bad, I know, but I kinda liked how it blurred. That's Aaron Pruitt, Olivia's ex-boyfriend. We still love Aaron too!







Bella loving on Ryker. Ryker is Ginny Edmiston's son. His last name isn't Edminston and I can't recall what it is!






















A beautiful specimen of fawn Great Dane.







She was a "presence" in the house. So relaxing, so calm and very loving. She was a force to be reckoned with too! Very protective and territorial. She really did not trust most strange men and we had to watch her closely to prevent her biting. I always felt safe when Jug was away with Bella in the house!

Butterfly/Dragonfly Frames

Click on the image to see it larger.

This is a photo of the project I made for my friend Sandy Hayes' daughter Casey. Sandy held a celebration recently in honor or Casey's 21st birthday and I made this for her. It's a canvas type frame or mat--the kind that you slide your photo or whatever into the opening. I stained cardstock using Adironack Color Wash (it's a fabulous dye for paper, fabric--whatever and am just teaching myself how to use it!) using greens and browns. The dye is so intense that it's easy to over do it. I stamped and embossed the words and sayings after dyeing the paper. I cut the cardstock to fit the mat and glued it using soft gel medium. The black background is cardstock sprayed with spray paint from Lowes called "Hammered"--which resulted in a great mottled effect on the paper. The butterfly and dragon are stamps and I stamped/embossed the same image over and over--about 12 times using Powder Keg embossing powders--using several different blends of powder. As the embossed image starts to "build up"--it's just so beautiful how the colors start to blend. I cut the image out using exacto knife and attached to another piece of cardstock. And attached that to a "pile" of cardstock cut the same size to give "depth" to the image. Just adds something. Cut the four holes in the corners using this fabulous hole puncher I paid $40 for and have never regretted this purchase!! I can even cut holes in my clay pieces with it! Then put the brads on the images in the four corners. Glued to the black card stock. Put a couple of coats of soft gel medium--think I mixed matte and gloss. And it was done!!

Michelle liked what I did for Casey, so thought I try something a little different to sell at the store. Same technique as above but I had a "happy accident"!! I had a dozen or so pieces of cardstock spread out on my work table and was spraying water to dilute some dye when some of the spray splattered on some of the already dyed cardstock and I thought, uh-oh! About a minute later, I saw how very lovely the effect that water had! The dye ran and blended and created beautiful streaks and new colors!!!! It was fabulous! Doesn't matter whether the paper is dry or not, it'll blend and streak. I was spraying water on all the paper I'd already colored and loving the results. So these three examples are the result of this happy accident!

Olivia and I were talking about one of the things a "creator" needs to have: bravery, no fear about making mistakes!! Just go for it! If it turns out to be a mess, no matter, you learned something, but if it turns out to be beautiful--YAY!! I'm finding being fearless to greatly inhance what I can produce!

Made a set of three--don't know if they'll sell as a set, so Michelle said she'd price them individually.

Just another example of what I made for Casey. Olivia has taught me to make at least two of anything I produce so I won't be reluctant to give away or sell the original! It's so hard, as a beginner, to part with my work!! They're like my babies!! And I'm afraid I'll forget how I did it!