It’s been a very active morning for me so far. In fact, it’s actually almost 1:30 pm now but I feel like it should be time for bed lol. I have spent the entire morning preparing peaches and baking and all that goes along with trying to make sure that 25 pounds of peaches from our new backyard do not have to be tossed out. One of the recipes I made are dog treats with peach in them. I figure since Ayla likes the peaches enough to steal them from the basket on the counter, I am willing to put some time and effort into some fresh doggie treats for her. I used this recipe for Oatmeal Peach Cookies and doubled the amount of peaches in there since we have plenty and it didn’t seem like 1/2 cup would give enough peach flavor. I did find that it was nearly impossible to roll this dough out because it was ridiculously sticky but after refrigerating it, I did have a much easier time. But instead of rolling it, I’ve just been spooning small bits of it onto the cookie sheet and flatting them out. They seem to be firming up just fine to me and from what she’s been allowed to try so far, Ayla seems to like them. But then again, she likes almost everything really. I have actually tried them myself and think that they would be rather tasty for humans as well if you added a bit more sugar.

We also found a new thing today that Ayla doesn’t like. I was using fresh lemon juice to preserve some of the peaches for freezing and had half a lemon on the counter. Ayla jumped up there to get it so I of course made her get down. But then I became curious wondering if she actually would eat it. So I cut her a smaller wedge off and gave it to her. She seemed to really want to eat it but would spit it out almost as soon as she picked it up. Then, when she couldn’t really stand to have it in her mouth anymore, she started pawing at it and almost playing with it. She lost interest in it soon after and I ended up tossing it out although she did come looking for it again. Perhaps I’ll let her try one again sometime and see if she reacts the same.

We got to meet Magic finally this morning. Ayla and I were coming back from our morning walk and I saw a big Newf walking down the sidewalk. When we got closer, he really didn’t seem that huge anymore although his head is probably 3 times the size of Ayla’s. His owner waited for us to catch up since we’ve never gotten the chance to introduce the dogs and she told me that she organizes Newf events for those with Newfies in the area and they are actually having a get-together this Sunday. They will take the dogs to the Hessenpark which is a place we have been talking about going to anyway because they have a ton of old “fachwerk” houses there and I think she also mentioned they will take the dogs swimming. She’s supposed to drop something in our mailbox later with the details so we’re looking forward to trying to fit that in this weekend. Who would want to pass up on opportunity to hang out with a bunch of Newfs, after all? πŸ˜‰