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1. Peppers prefer deep, aged-compost-rich soil. If your soil is heavy with clay, grow peppers in a raised bed, adding loam and sand. 2. Growing peppers in your native soil: add at least 2 inches of aged compost across the planting bed and sprinkle with 5-10-10 organic fertilizer, then turn the soi...

Yesterday, we returned from our gluttonous trip to our local Carvel ice cream shop on a euphoric sugar high. Oh yeah...The Daily Kool family has officially kicked off our celebration of National Ice Cream Month! Needless to say, we were in a fabulous mood when we walked through our front door. Of course, so was our lovable dog, Pepper...we may have mentioned him a few hundred times or so in our previous blog posts. Well, Pepper (as usual) was beside himself with joy when we came home, wagging his tail a mile a minute to show how excited he was to see us. We're telling you, there's not much that beats the feeling of unconditional love from a furry friend. Wait a minute...did we say unconditional? Because when Pepper got closer to lick our faces (hey, he's a French poodle, after all), he literally took a giant sniff of our ice cream breath and reeled back from each of us in indignant shock. Okay, we realize we're attributing human characteristics to our dog (doesn't everybody?). But seriously, you should have seen the accusatory look on his face before he pointedly turned his doggie butt on us and walked away to pout on his bed. Yep, Pepper's big brown eyes can really bring on the guilt. No doubt about it, our dog wanted to be a part of July's National Ice Cream Month holiday.

Many of you may know about our beloved pooch Pepper from PoodlePicks. It may surprise you to know that he has been, by far, the most challenging dog we've ever had. At almost eight years old, he still suffers from separation anxiety. We've never had to baby-proof our house with the kids, but to this day, we do have to Pepper-proof. Before we leave the house, we have to go through the routine of closing every door, completely cleaning off the dining room table, locking the pantry and strategically putting up gates to block off the kitchen and the stairs. Heaven forbid we accidentally skip anything...we will undoubtedly come home with garbage all over the kitchen (he figured out how to open the can), empty bags of baking chocolates strewn across the floor (he breaks into the pantry and zooms right in on them), or even smelly feces on the stairs. Of course, he only does these things when we're not home...when we are, he's a perfect angel. So tell us...who's trained who here? This situation is completely our fault, of course. When Pepper was a puppy, we were told that we should purchase a dog crate for him. But where on earth would we put a large, ugly and obtrusive wire crate in our small home?

The Daily Kool's beloved pooch Pepper, has just turned 9 years old...wow, time is definitely flying by quickly. Though he still acts like a puppy much of the time, we have noticed that things are slowing down just a little bit for him. The vet has told us his hips are beginning to weaken, as is often common for a standard poodle of his age. Plus, we've seen the extra hesitation when he jumps in the car, on the couch, and especially on the bed...yep, it's definitely time to get Pepper a pet ramp.

Tom yum goong or tom yum kung is identical with Thailand. We could not think about Thailand without imagining a bowl of steaming hot and spicy tom yum goong. This soup as it's name hot and spicy, is characterized by sour, hot, spicy with a very generous aromatic herbs added such as galangal, lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, lime juice and of course hot chili pepper.

When we were kids, our older brother hated taking aspirin. Okay, perhaps we're really showing our age here, but these were the days before children's Tylenol liquid suspension and when Dimetapp cough syrup (we remember it as the yummy grape medicine) was by prescription only. Our poor mother could only get our brother to take a pill by crushing it in applesauce and spoon-feeding him. Considering the torture he put us through growing up, it was a great pleasure to have a reason to call big brother a "baby" at times...na nanny boo boo! Our poor pets don't have it as easy as our brother did when it comes to taking medication. Whenever our dog Pepper has to take a pill, we literally pry his mouth open, shove it to the back of his throat, clamp his jaw shut and rub until he swallows. Don't get us wrong, Pepper's pretty good about taking them (certainly better than our brother was), but why should we have to struggle at all? Isn't there a way to let him think his medication is more reward than punishment?

The Daily Kool family does a lot of driving. In fact, between work, school and enrichment activities for the kids, it often seems as if we practically live in our car. By the end of the week, our poor Saturn looks like a bomb has hit it...snacks, juice boxes, papers and toys are strewn all over the place. We've seen people recoil from the shock, shake their heads in wonder or, if they're parents, simply nod in commiseration at the mess of our car....yep, it can be pretty embarrassing! So, Fridays have now become the official "car cleaning" day in our household, and everyone has a job. No one ever complains...except whoever is responsible for window cleaning. The fingerprints and dog snot (Pepper loves taking rides in the car) are not such a big deal. The windshield, however, is another matter altogether. Our car has a pretty deep slope in the front, requiring us to drum up our best contortionist skills to clean it deep down. We admit it, our flexibility is quite pathetic...thus, so are our windshields.

School is just around the corner, and our lazy days of summer are coming to an end. Okay, who are we kidding? The Daily Kool family doesn't do lazy days. We have to admit though...our boys may have kept us on our toes this vacation, but it was pretty nice to have them all to ourselves for a change. In a couple of weeks, we are back to being overwhelmed with activities. School (one half-day, the other three towns over), homework, soccer, hip hop, basketball, karate, birthday parties (there are a ton) playdates...not to mention our own work, home and Pepper (our lovable pooch) responsibilities. Pretty exhausting, huh? As our boys get older, it's really becoming harder to keep track of it all...we need some serious organization!