pirate quality assurance

..hee hee, okay duk duk take your time getting the shipping box from the garage because this pirate's gotta arrrrrr! arrrrrr! arrrrrrr! arrrrrrr! arrr-

oh why, hello, mother.  yes, do not worry me and duk duk promise to pack and ship this special order puppy pirate hat out today. I was just testing it to make sure the puppy could still wear it even when he is full grown.  see? it may not be as big as our regular sized hat, but it is still equally adorable, dontchoo think, mom?  :) 

(psst - if you are interested in getting an adorable pirate hat for your tiny tennis ball sized noggin wolf, tiny chumley and  I made two extra and they can be found in the shop in the links below)
 https://www.etsy.com/listing/457904104/pirate-hat-for-tiny-heads-numero-uno
 https://www.etsy.com/listing/471395937/pirate-hat-for-tiny-heads-numero-tres

cheese that does not smell like cheese :)

When I was little, I remember some of the best souvenirs I would ever receive were the tiny wrapped bars of airline soaps my aunts give me from their flights to goodness knows where.  So tiny and magical, even normal sized bars of soap were always something I would squirrel away, much for some of the same reasons I now realize that poopie snakes are so precious to tiny chumley. From its lovely smell and often awesome packaging, from its variety of interesting shapes and colors and the chemical processes required to bring it to life, soap is a wonder to behold.

As I grew older, the practicalities of liquid soap overshadowed bar soap, but bar soap still holds a unique fascination for me that until recently I always thought would be something I would appreciate as the work of others. At least the hard core stuff, because I've done melt and pour but not the kind you make from scratch with danger lye and fats and all the smelly stuff that makes handmade soap so cool. And thanks to the light shed upon me by my very can-do makey friend Robin, and the continued (but getting better yay) limitations thrust upon my by my slowly but surely unfreezing shoulder, I have been suiting up and making cold process soap this summer.

I'm pretty excited that I am now at the point where I can play with the aspects of soap making - actually of any making - that interest me. When I can add smell and color, influence design, shape and feel, develop packaging, and think about how it might be something that would prove shop worthy.  This past weekend, tiny chumley and I completed test batch number 6, adding charcoal, and earl grey tea flecked inclusions,  and a dollop of silk melted in lye water and turned into the invisible luxury that is silk enriched soap.  Or at least I think so anyway, because I won't find out for another 6 or so weeks when the soap has cured and it is ready for use.  (Okay if you are really in the know, then as baxter would say, u know i know u know i know that i know u know i know i could use it sooner than that if i really wanted to. But I am not. Or at least I am going to try not to because the cure time is six weeks.)

My experiments in soap making aren't exactly a secret by any means, but for one little wolf, all the smells and delicious looking bottles of oils and the parts of the process where he has to be kept safely away have all built up a curiosity that can hardly be contained anymore, making his current jail time feel that much more restrictive, and raising his suspicions as to what exactly is going on up there. 

mom, I know it does not really smell like cheese from here but if u r making cheese that does not smell like cheese, I am compelled 2 remind u of the agreement made in the fair incarceration act of 2015 which states and I quote, "the little wolf food tax rates for 2016 shall include a 3 percent surcharge regardless of physical involvement in the creation and manufacture of said taxable and edible product. all taxes are due immediately and must be paid in full to said little wolf regardless of incarceration status.  form of compensation shall be determined by the following: a) if the product is completely edible with no anticipated digestive distress then the three percent surcharge shall reflect the amount of product by weight or volume as mutually agreed upon by both parties or by a ferocious falcon in the event that both parties cannot come to satisfactory closure on this matter. b) if the product contains edible ingredients but the final product deemed inedible by traditional and accepted dietary assessment methodologies, then the three percent surcharge shall be applied against the resulting average of six months worth of pre-incarceration meal sizes and payment made in kibble. c) if the product is completely made of -" wait, I would go on but I am pretty sure I smelled olive oil when u were making it, so really, whether it is b or c I think it is best to just pay up now, dontchoo think, mom? :)

 

 

smell hole

Summer heat and humidity isn't exactly welcome in our house this time of year, but when a bored and very much jailed little wolf needs the kind of sensory stimulation that only Mother Nature can provide, sometimes you just gotta find a way to a compromise.

oooooOOoOOoo an insulated smell hole! 

thanks mom! what a great use for all those air filled packing thingies we get in all our amazon packages. now, I was just wondering, well, u see how I have all this space on the ledge? well, dontchoo think a nice bowl of chunky chicken water would fit on it just perfectly? :) 

a mighty storm

tiny chumley's paw sticks out on occasion, something that would be kind of cute were it not for the fact that it is a probable indicator of nerve root pain and symptomatic of something likely far more serious.  

we've been able to manage his condition medically, but with recent and more frequent bouts being triggered by increasingly innocuous activity, we seem to be headed slowly but surely into the murky waters that many cervically disc challenged dachshunds have sailed in before. the most immediate next step, considering further diagnostics and plotting our course from there, all while a certain little wolf shows his displeasure with the prospect of seeing so many tushie men and women, and the return of the dreaded golden gates of jail.   

mom, like it is not even bad enough that school will be starting this month and I know we still have many things to be thankful for, but jail time too? If it helps me stay out, I promise I will try not to be as ferocious a wolf as I usually am and I will show u during my laser treatment today so u can see for yourself :)

happy unicorn appreciation day :)

.....o chocobot, we really love u, yes we doooo-OOOOoooOOooOOoooooOOOOOO!
















 



hee hee, okay no wait lil pink puppy not yet. first we have to say it and then we can all u know what...ready, and a one and a two and a three..

happy unicorn appreciation day, chocobot!! :)

 okay now let's dig in!! :)

 

poopiekinesis

well, duk duk, seeing as how we have nothing but time on our hands while we watch mom work, maybe if we stare at the snackie jar long enough, it will finally happen. :)  

pleeeeeease?

well, okay mom, i promise to be a good boy while u check my teeth for tartar but in exchange, maybe u can promise that after we finish I can have an entire dad sized bowl of delicious strawberries, tomatoes, and corn. 

pleeeeeeese? :) 

etsy fresh: hello my friend summer fun postcard ocho pack :)

dear diary,
sometimes the best of plans gets pooped on by factors outside your control. like me and duk duk's latest top secret, very ferocious rainbow Smelly project for our etsy shop?  totally rescheduled to the cooler shipping months of fall. because, well, i cannot tell you much about that on account of our product being top secret.  but, we are happy to tell you that in the meanwhile,  we restocked mom's shop with our  first Smelly project, the tiny reed diffuser ambient aroma experience set! so if u missed out or if u just realized u had more places to smell that u originally thought, or maybe if u realized a friend might like or need one too, or were maybe u were wondering what falcon burps and wolf paws smell like, now is the time to score it.

 oh! and, if your summer has been kind of going like ours and if it's not been one thing it's another and next thing u know here it is the middle of summer and u haven't even crossed off a third of your summer fun list yet?  well, maybe it is time to put away that list and just have some simple ez-pz fun.  like, well, u know, besides sniffing our tiny diffuser set, maybe u want to catch up with family and friends by sending them a cute hello. or, maybe u can ez-pz redecorate your personal space like we did for mom, with the super cool cards from the special new set we just added to our shop, the  hello my friend summer fun postcard ocho pack.  we call it ocho  because u get eight, and it includes seven of the gifty postcards we have sent out in the past with our orders, plus a super cool new one that me and duk duk made just for this set. i like to think of the ocho pack as a study in wolfiness, because this set of postcards pretty much shows me from when i was a little red wigglepup, all the way thru to the wolf that i am today. but whether or not u display them in chronological order or jumble them to meet some other design criteria, or whether or not u send them to friends or keep them, or maybe write some friends and keep some postcards? well whether or not u do any of that is entirely up to you. which is just how summer should be.

well diary, it has been fun catching up with you and i hope u will consider enjoying the new goods we put in mom's kalyxcraftopia etsy shop,  but i regretfully must bid u adieu so me and duk duk can call chocobot and convince him to come home before thor comes thru yesterday's rainbow portal  and gives us a hard time about the whole poopin a loki and thor me shebang.  it is not even really that we are concerned that his visit is justified or that he might use his hammer on us, so much as it is his breath stinks way more than u think it would cuz he's like, a zillion years old, and pretty much the only thing u can do to keep from passing out is hope that he doesn't realize the only reason u have a unicorn in the room is to hope that your unicorn will rainbow foofie just enough to neutralize said breath without him noticing else he might get provoked into a super long monologue about respect and power and blah blah blah and then you're like, okay, thor, please, keep going but we've been talking so long i really need to make a poopie snake so i will be right back. but when you're outside you're like, uh oh, dang, feels like i got a loki hangin. but u can't ask your dad to thor me with thor around, so u walk back in all dainty like hoping thor won't notice your dingly dangly or the o-d-o-r.   which u actially gte away with but just as thor's wrapping up,  your mom walks in and she's like, two sniffs in the air and says, hey, who pooped a loki?? and where's that incredibly foul breathy smell coming from? and then we all get thored by thor some more.


toodleydoo!
b :)

delicious monday

oooo, I smell chunky chicken water and  corn and garden fresh cherry tomatoes! I love the #deliciousmondays of summer, dontchoo, duk duk? 

sausage and plaid hot pocket

There are sounds in his household that every little wolf learns to recognize and act accordingly. A knock at the front door requires ferocious and incessant barking, tiny chumley knows, while the sound of the dryer opening merits a prompt and speedy appearance by the laundry room door, lest he miss out on becoming the roasty toasty sausagey center of a lavender and vanilla scented, hot laundry pile shaped bun.   And the sound of his lunchy lunch being made? Well that requires a wolf's full and focused attention, no matter what it his he might already be doing. :) 

hand me downs

hthaz hokay hmom, I hoo noth hare hwhat hullor mhy hoothrush ith htho longh ash ith hath hpoultree fhlavored hoothpathe hon hit. :) 

the not so secret life of pet wolves

well mom, if u cannot see the irony of leaving me at home all alone on a Sunday afternoon while u and dad go see the secret life of pets with the little misses and their mom and dad, then I think I am perfectly ok keeping my back turned and letting my tail and ears speak for all of me. 

something 2 b jelly about :)

hee hee well mom, I guess if u make us more corn on the cob, me and duk duk could make u one too. :) 

the hungry little wolf :)

'o our dear mother will never notice just one tiny tomato missing from today's bountiful harvest,' the mighty and ferocious wolf told his watchful falcon friend. and then he ate another... 

happy 4thie day

hee hee, okay okay.."four score and threeveteenzillion years ago, our founding fathers stepped foot on a new continent and pretty much decided after a while that it would be nice to have a holiday in the summer where u could grill stuff and stream movies and be thankful for air conditioning. they took this idea to their founding fathers thinking they might want to celebrate too, only our founding fathers forgot that their founding fathers neither possessed space travel or time travel capabilities so they had no idea what air conditioning or movie streaming was really about. or movies, really.  so, our founding fathers jumped back on their dragon and flew to the moon - well they called it the pendants back then - so they flew to the pendants and told the people and wolves and Falcons who were preparing for the party to go ahead and plan it without their grand founding fathers but to hurry up because any minute now a sand snake was going to surface and if they did not blast off soon it would really mess up their party plans. and as they blasted off one of the ferocious wolves declared, 'smell u later, poopinators!' and although technically he was not on the ground when he said it, because he was still in the pendant's air space, well, that is why we still know it as our declaration in the pendants. oh, and through the years really, not much has changed about how we celebrate in the pendants day except now when we party  on the 4th, we also play disco music." okay I think that should be good enough, dontchoo duk duk? now we can settle down for a nice nappie and some cheese  and - 

um, yes mom we finished our very throughly researched blog post for the Fourth of July. it has a picture we made and everything :)

twelve little duks :)

Twelve little duks on a hot summer day, popped out of the wolf's heat cave so they could play! :)

pb smelly jelly :)

o, I dunno, mom. because today is Wednesday? :) 

(ps thank u very much mister Jim for these peanut butter and smelly jelly snackies. they are #DELICIOUS) :) :)

runway ramp art

hee hee, over the river and up the ramp to - wait, what's that, mom?  why yes, i did notice the super cool painting u scored at the thrift store and even though all the art is stylistically different, i think it works really with the other artwork here on this wall   i like the colors, and the texture, and yes i agree hanging it upside down makes way more sense than hanging up right side up. and, well, i would really like to stay and talk about it more, but me and duk duk have to - well, okay, mom, but we have to make it snappy because the duk duks will be back from the creek any minute now with the u know whats and then we need to go over to little miss julia's to work on our next video project and then we have to set up for tonitey nite's super duk duk robot rave disco party extravaganza which as u know will require over fifty bags of gummy worms and eleventy gallons of energy punch which we really need to start making now so it will have time to ferment and get all fizzy and - what's that? oh yes, right, we really should get that picture taken.  u said a serious pose, right? okay, i think i can do this in one take. r u ready?...

let me just turn my head and...limburger cheeeeze!! 

 

hee hee, okay mom i love u smell u later bye bye!! :)

 

a flock of duk duks

hee hee, mom, with all of duk duk's cousins in town, I think we are going to need a bigger swimmy pool :)  

chunky chicken water mondays

Our house is still swirlier than normal thanks to some paint work Tiny chumley's Unkie D is helping us with, but such disturbances no matter how large or small will ever get in the way of a little wolf and his chunky chicken water Mondays :) 

hee hee mom, I have said it before and I will say it again, our ez pz recipe for chunky chicken water cannot be beat -  just add a boneless chicken breast to water and boil til done, keep the meat and water and have some fun! delicious plain or with added blueberries and carrots and strawberries and extra extra meat :)