Saturday Musings...Already?

Trying to get out of town--this is when stupid seems to come out in people the worst--just as the roads start getting some accumulation.

What a good weekend to be 'snowed in' with my critter family. It's been a draining and sad week and I'm glad to remove myself to my little homestead and try not to think of the evil that lives in the world. (No, nothing has happened to me, but there has been a terrible family murder/suicide that has deeply affected the community where I work. As much as we try to 'understand' there is often just no way to comprehend something of this nature.)

The weather people had been predicting 'maybe heap big snows' for our area all week. They waffled back and forth on the inches accumulated and whether we would get ice or snow. They predicted this big storm system (the same one that slammed Oklahoma) to move in Thursday night. By the time we would wake up Friday we would probably have six to twelve inches. Thursday in amongst all the other things going on at work, I attempted to get everything done that needed to be done for Sunday, 'just in case' I couldn't make it in Friday.

Friday morning there were many angry and dismayed people-most of them little critters. No snow! No ice! That meant no 'snow day'. No long weekend. Sigh. My philosophy is--if it snows, let it be a nice gentle one where the roads stay clear OR one deep enough so I don't even have to 'try' and go to work. So off to work I went, just as the clouds opened and snow began to fall...hard.

By the time I got to work the roads were covered. I only work four hours on Friday, so I planned to stay til then. We also had another funeral that I wanted to attend. (We had three funerals in a row this week at work---one for the above mentioned tragedy) This funeral was a very joyous one for a 90+ year old flamboyant Christian lady who lived her life to the absolute fullest. Her favorite color was pink (with purple a close second) and I've never seen so many pink flowers at a funeral. Even the funeral director wore a pink tie. It was really one of the most uplifting homegoings I've been to. I needed the perspective.

Leaving plenty of room between me and 'them'.

However once out of work, it was back to the reality of winter. It had been snowing in earnest and I was ready to head home. First I wanted to pick up lunch (my Friday treat--veggie Stromboli this time!), then it was homeward bound.

Headed down 'The Hill' --once I get past this valley and it's giant hills on each side, it's usually home free.

Really the roads were decent, but people are so stupid sometimes. Just slow down! Yikes. You are going to spend more time digging yourself out of the ditch than if you just reduce to a reasonable speed. The further away from town I got, the snowier the roads were, but also the less traffic.

Weekly weather report...what happened to the mud?

Once home, I did some chores, and then let the dogs in for awhile. They were thrilled. The temperature had dropped considerably and it was getting quite cold. We had a quiet afternoon, then it was chore time. It had been snowing steadily all day. The sheep were quite chipper and seemed to be enjoying it, as they were either laying outside or playing or eating hay. Most had a couple inches of snow on their backs and snow all over their faces--you could tell a few had been having some fun.

Hauling a sack of feed to the chicken house...Yes, there is something wrong with this picture (besides the big dog wearing a sweat shirt...) Why aren't the DOGS pulling the sled??)

I carried in piles of wood and stoked the fire, as it was getting colder in the house too. This morning the sun came out, and I think we have about six inches of the white stuff. It's a light dry snow, so it's easy to move around.

I left the chickens up today, as they won't venture out into the white stuff anymore anyway. I've gotten two eggs from the old girls this week and when I fixed them for breakfast I was once again amazed at how much richer and tastier they are than store bought. Even in the dead of winter.

Boone supervising. This old sled is from my childhood. It's pretty old, could even be an antique, if you wanted to put it that way...I use it sometimes to haul feed around.

Yesterday when I got home, Boone was cold, Tibby was cold (outside kitty), and so I had to take 'action'. Boone got to come in the house for awhile but I knew he'd be cold in the night. I fashioned him a new vest to wear (his other one needs to be washed). A little trimming here and there on an old 'March of Dimes' sweatshirt and some duct tape and he was in business. He seems quite proud of his wardrobe. Tibby got her heated disc put in her bed, of which she was profoundly grateful!

Ashley--farm collie in progress. Here she is feet freezing up because I was mean and made her go with us to the garage. She hates rain, mud, snow.... but I have hope that she'll soon be more interested in 'missing out' than disliking the weather. She does manage to look beautiful though, no matter what she is doing! ha..

The kittens have finally wound down and it's now peaceful and quiet. I'm enjoying the day of just puttering around and doing as I please. Enjoying being 'snowed in'.

Hope you all have a great week.

It's In the Bag...

Winter is back with us. It won't take long now for the mud to freeze solid. There is some talk of a possible ice storm moving through the end of the week. I sure hope not.

The weekend has been wet and chilly, with the exception of a few hours Sunday when the sun actually came out!

I need to get a big bale of hay out to the girls, but that is on hold until the ground freezes a little more solidly. Don't want to get the tractor stuck!

There is an ongoing quest for dry firewood and kindling, due to the fact that most of my wood that was brought this year is green. Usually it's a mix of green and dry. However that usually doesn't even matter, as I have lots left of the dry wood from the previous year. Something happened this year though,--not as much dry wood left, most of that burnt before the new wood came, so that I'm in a bit of a pickle. Oh, the green stuff will burn, but you have to get a good hot base fire going first. Which means some dry kindling and wood are necessary. Of course the green also causes a quicker creosote build up on the pipes too.

Even though it was mucky and wet Sunday afternoon, I took the dogs out into the field in a quest for kindling. I managed to pick up quite a bit and even though it's wet, it should dry out quickly once under cover.

For Christmas my co-worker gave me a gift, 'wrapped' in this large cool bag. From what I understand this is from an Ikea store and you can buy these as shopping bags...or something. I don't think there are any of these stores around here, as she got it out of state, but from what I hear they are pretty interesting. Anyway, it's a great idea. The bag is essentially made of tarp materials with heavy duty straps stitched on. There is one set of long straps and one short so you can haul it in a hand grip or over the shoulder. So far I've hauled fire wood in it and now kindling. I expect I'll find a dozen uses for it in the Spring when yard work starts! It would probably work really well to haul a small load of hay too. I'm sure the possibilities are endless as it seems to be one tough little bag.

Of course my brain is spinning with ideas on how to modify and make one out of old tarps--perhaps to haul hay with. I saw a great idea at Desert Peach Farm on how to make a hay sling to carry several flakes of hay at a time to the sheep and keep it neatly contained. Between that idea and my Ikea bag and all these old pieces of tarps I have around...I could have a bag for everything!

The Thinker and The Thief.....

Saturday Musings

The Shetland girls awaiting their morning grain.
Front L-R is Tabitha & Blackberry, Second row is Rouen to the far left, then Luna, Rosemary & Persia, behind them is Lark and Willow with little Eve in the very back. This is my Shetland ewe flock minus three (Duckie was waiting outside the catch pen to make sure I wasn't up to something, Rosetta was at the hay feeder not paying attention, and I'm not sure where Chickie was, probably right up next to me.)

It's another grey gloomy day in the Ozarks. The temperature is about 46 but it feels colder because of the dampness. A good day to stay in and do inside projects. I keep hoping for a nice warmish sunny day on the weekend so that I can catch up with a few things outside. I would really like to sort through some bags of dorset/merino wool to find the nicest fleeces to have processed into roving and send the rest off for quilt batting. The damp misty weather isn't really conducive to doing that though!

Here's the big girls, chowing down in the main barn. L-R Hope---yes, she likes to eat her breakfast from the high ledge..., Nancy, Annalea and Gracie. Gracie is the mother of the other three and gets extra portions because of her age. There is a salt block between her side of the feeder and the others, and the other girls are trained to not invade Gracie's space.

Later today I will pack up my last three Shetland fleeces from 2008 /09 to send off to be processed into roving. It's been a great year for fleece and roving sales and my inventory is gone. I have two large batts of Merino/Dorset cross wool (great for felters!) but otherwise I'm sold out of roving. It's a great feeling.

Yesterday I had my taxes done, and the outcome was nice. I had my doubts with the tax change rates this year, but it worked out well. During the process of getting the paperwork ready to take in, I had to figure up all my income versus expenses. Combining fiber sales and sheep sales, for the first year ever I've actually made a profit from the little farm. A tiny profit, but none the less, a profit!

Looks like it's time to take the ring off the hay bale, so the girls can finish it up

I also got my hair cut yesterday. Probably not a big event for many of you, but...well, with one thing and the other I had managed to put off getting it done for at least a year. It was long, and becoming very annoying. I do trim my bangs myself, but my shearer, uh, hairdresser was as shocked as I at how long it'd been since I had come in for a cut. Five inches off, some layers and reshaping (to clean up all that bangs trimming) and it looks pretty nice and feels good. Lest you think I now have short hair, it's still about three inches below my shoulders.

The sheep love it when the ring goes off, they can land right in the middle of the hay and finish it up. That is Rouen and her daughter Duckie on the left (Rouen's fleece has felted badly from the rise), with Hope behind them and Gracie in the front. Little Rosetta on the right. That is bony old Blue way in the back. He is on special rations to try and get some weight on him.

Since the little trailer is not going to be a kitty condo after all, my thoughts are filled with how I want to re-do it. Plans are to convert it to a tiny wool storage area, and perhaps also a crafts room. Maybe a bedroom, since it's obvious I'm just in the way, according to the pet population. (just kidding...I think) I would also like to preserve the seating and table so that I can work on crafty things out there without having to put every thing away. The stove, refrig and at least one set of cabinets could be removed. I don't think I can get the stove out, so I will probably end up just boxing it in. I also plan to remove part of a built in bench seat around the table so that I can maybe put a nice comfy chair out there. The walls need to be painted or paneling replaced too. It will be so nice to reclaim my pantry area where I keep all the wool related things, but it will be awhile, I think.

Boone is pretty sure it's his new house. Not sure how he came by this idea, but every time I go in there, he is right behind me. Getting in and out for a big dogue is not an easy feat either, since there is only half a concrete block for a step. Once inside he pokes around and then goes over and climbs up on the bench seat at the end. He usually sits down and looks out the windows. You can see he is very proud of himself too. Funny boy.

Time to rise and shine chickens!

Inside the kitty population still continues to adjust. There was a casualty the other night, of an old tiny kerosene lantern I've had forever. Surprisingly it wasn't the kittens either, but Sage, who decided to jump way up on the curio cabinet and evidently miscalculated and brought down himself, an old electric fan and the little lantern. He used to jump up there all the time, but it's been awhile and I guess he was out of practice. I've put everything that I can behind glass or in a safe place, but there are just some things that I have no place to keep hidden away. In a year or so the kittens will settle down some, and I can go back to 'normal'. I'll probably get a new couch then as well. My old one is, well, old. Very old and the upholstery has begun to tear in a few areas, not helped any by rambunctious kittens. I had decided to start looking for new one anyway, but with the sudden addition of the kittens, I will wait until they are older and well trained to their scratching posts.

It's keeping me on my toes that is for sure, having four younguns in the house. I can't just turn my back and leave anything without them being right in the middle of it. I've got about five million cute pictures of them though, and lucky for my blog readers I only post about two percent of them. ha....

Have a great weekend!

Yep, it's still muddy.....

The pictures were from my morning round of chores....

Casting Bread....

Here is the bread products torn into bite sized pieces, being taste inspected by the kittens.

Recently the freezers were cleaned out again where I work. There was a huge amount of bread products that were destined for the dumpster. As usual I brought them home. This was good stuff too, I even ended up eating some of the bagels. There were bagels--cinnamon and raisin, honey wheat, blueberry,-- yeast rolls, hamburger and hot dog buns--lots of variety.

Bread! I think shes got bread!--the word quickly spreads

The mob gathers in the bread line

When I started becoming the recipient of all this bounty I would feed it out to the chickens. Nine elderly chickens can't or won't consume as much as I needed to feed them before it went bad. So I started to feed it to the sheep. In the process I have made the sheep into bread brats.

Gracie on the left (and her daughter Hope on the right) believe the pushier you are the more you get.

I only feed a small bucketful at a time so it's more of a treat than a food supplement. They are remarkably broad in their acceptance of the flavor varieties.

I used to hand it out piece by piece but the mob scene got a little scary--now I just toss it out on the ground like I would for the chickens. This ticks Gracie off, as she thinks she should be hand fed. However since she is one of the worst of the pushy offenders, she can't be hand fed, and myself stay in an upright position.

Are you sure that's all the bread? Tabitha asks sweetly.

It's a fun supplement for the sheep and they enjoy the treat. They get pretty obnoxious about hanging around the gate and baa-ing for more, but once the supply dries up they go back to normal. I will say this though--they can hear a plastic bag rustle a mile away. No matter where I am on the place if I have any kind of plastic bag they can hear it and will start running around and baa-ing. Silly sheep, but definitely not stupid--they know which side their bread is buttered on! ;-)

Butterfly...Revisited

Butterfly, shortly after having the kittens.....

Butterfly Now...

In all the hustle and bustle of getting the kittens all squared away and settled, you might be wondering whatever happened to Butterfly. Butterfly the start of all this uh, mess.

If you are a new reader, and don't know what the 'mess' is, here is the short version. Butterfly showed up at my Mom's, very skinny and very pregnant. I offered to bring her up here to see her through having her kittens and placing them in new homes, because I didn't think I'd get as attached to the kittens as my Mom would--plus it'd be allot of work she didn't need to take on. Well, we know how that worked out. Anyway, Butterfly was probably dumped and was not even a year old herself. She did manage to pop out six very healthy little kittens in a short time and the rest is history. The 'agreement' was that Mom would take Butterfly back and probably one or two of the kittens and have them live in the barn, if we couldn't find homes for them. Yeah right. Butterfly did go back home to Mom's and I did place two of the boys in a loving home together. The rest of the plan derailed and I now I have six house cats.

Butterfly--Before...

Butterfly Now

When the kittens were probably around 10 weeks old or so, Butterfly had had enough, thank you very much. At that time she went to Mom's barn where she spent two weeks in a cage 'drying up' in preparation for her spay. It was a pretty hard time for her, since she was so uncomfortable and it was yet another change in her life. Once she was spayed though, things started looking up.

She now spends the days sharing the big barn with Madison (used-to-be-my-cat)and being a 'barn cat'. This gripes Madison to no end, but hey, things like this keep us young, right (right Madison, you traitor?)? She does allot of hunting in the field between Mom and Dad's place and mine. At night she is penned up to try and keep her safe from varmints and from the road. She seems pretty content, and has not once ventured up here, even when her children still lived out in the garage during the day. I thought she might visit with them, but she seems to have washed her paws of the whole sordid affair.

Before

Now

She is spoiled rotten by my Mom and as you can see from the photos has 'blossomed' quite a bit!

While my Mom loves her dearly, if there were someone who would give her a safe permanent indoor home, we would be very happy about that. It would have to be a good special home, of course. She is a wonderfully sweet cat, and suspect she would be quite a character (judging from her kittens) once she got settled in. We think it's possible she lived indoors at one time.

Blossomed Butterfly

Anyway, thought you might enjoy seeing how Butterfly is doing and knowing the rest of the story of the kitten saga.

Uh, Butterfly? Have you heard the term 'roly-poly'??

Four Years Ago Last Week....

Boone Dog

...on the 14th to be exact, I was coming back from town, minding my own business, when Boone staggered into my life.

Anytime is a good time for hamburger and fries in Boone's book! In celebration of four years I bought them each a hamburger (they shared the fries!)

Four years--can you believe it? That puts Boone at most likely late middle age of his life--if I'm lucky. Wow...time flies.

For those of you new to the blog click here for Boone's story and the follow up to the beginning here.

Since Boone has been part of the family he has had three 'sisters' and lost two of them. Granted they were much hairier than him, but he was happy to have his own little pack. His greatest joys in life are 1) treats & 2) coming in the house. Close second are walks and just hanging out with me.

It's been a journey of learning with this big boy, but it's also been a journey of blessings.

Ashley enjoys the celebration hamburger and fries

Here's to many more, big Ba-Boone!

Meshachy James & the Shondellas?

Yeah, I know, pretty lame...but this picture cracks me up. That's Meshach and his back up singers (L-R) Trinity, Verity & Tempe.

Can you tell it's already been a long winter?

Things are looking up though, with the temperatures about 50 degrees or so warmer than they were last week at this time. And on the bright side we haven't had an ice storm here this year like we did three years ago Tuesday. One that knocked out the power for 13 days. I shouldn't like to re-visit that!

Meshach & Trinity

Gotta admit though the early winter blues seem to be tagging along with me right through mid winter. (It is mid-winter isn't it? Please tell me it is!)

Inside the kitty population continues to adjust to their new 'family unit'. So far things are going pretty smoothly. An occasional stressed look or swat from the big boys (and me..), but they are doing okay. Sage is probably the most ticked off, but he tends to get ticked off about allot of things anyway. Sometimes even if you just look at him he gets ticked off, and starts yowling and switching his tail. We all have our own demons I guess. He does occasionally forget and play with them, until he realizes what he is doing and huffs off. The kittens are pretty mellow about the big boys, although they have wild tussles of their own.

I hope to get some outside work done this weekend. That will be a pleasant change. Some of my big rounds of hay will be delivered too.

Like Rock Stars everywhere Meshach is extremely popular--here he cuddles with Tempe and Trinity.

Here's hoping you have a great weekend! Due to some computer troubles at home, I haven't been able to post as much. But I'm hoping that might be solved. (Could it be as simple as using a different keyboard? Could it??)

Sage & Meshach
(Can't you just hear Sage saying 'he was my friend first!' Sage whose version of cuddle is a body slam.....)

Walking In A Wicked Winterland.....

....isn't that the way the song goes?If not, it should. Ever since Christmas it's been beastly outside. We've not had huge amounts of snowfall, but about every other day an inch of two falls. It's not been the snow that brings out the worst in winter, but the frigid cold. Add the random snowfalls into the sub zero weather and it makes for a less than pleasant time. For two days it did this weird little snowing thing, but never accumulated. The snow looked like crumpled up cellophane when it landed. It got annoying.

I've left the water running in both the bathroom and kitchen sinks constantly. The wood stove has consumed much time, either building, poking or stoking the fire, taking out the massive amounts of ashes, or carrying in a constant supply of wood. The critter's water has been frozen solid and I finally gave up on trying to bust it out of the tubs, and just found more tubs to start over with. It does look a little weird--rows of buckets and tubs lined up along the fence.


At it's worst, I just had to think of the things that must be done and head outside with some sort of plan, before toes and fingers rapidly went numb from the cold. The sheep and chickens all got extra foods and water. The chickens were my biggest concern, with Blue the old ram next on the list. I bought some gold plated straw--5 bucks a bale!-- to put into his shelter and the chicken house. The most fragile hen opted to spend the night on the floor of the coop on one of the coldest nights, so I piled straw all around her and over her. She is still kicking.


The dogs have been cold and obstinate. They seem to think standing right in the way will make me get chores done faster and thus their time in the house will come sooner. All the explaining, and perhaps, yelling, in the world doesn't change their minds. They know what 'move' means, and Boone will grudgingly move one inch at a time in front of me as I'm trying to carry buckets of water or wood. It's not pretty. Move Boone! One inch. MOVE! One inch, as he gazes over his shoulder at me, tail tucked, abused face on. IF YOU DON'T MOVE I'M GOING TO MOVE YOU FOR YOU! One more inch. Not at my most witty to be sure.

The back gate wont' shut all the way, because of the ice that accumulated before the snow and frigid temps. I can still latch it just barely. The door to the house won't open all the way and won't shut by itself, which makes carrying wood in tricky, especially with the kittens. Meshach bangs on the door and meows the whole time I'm trying to get the wood in, and when I come in with a very heavy load of wood, he feels the need to very slowly trot along in front of me, and heads right for where I want to set the wood down . Does this sounds familiar? All I can say is once again I'm glad I don't have close neighbors.


Anyway the sheep seem to be handling it fine except a couple of the oldies, and the forecasters are promising that this frigid single digits and below zero temperatures are over for awhile. Next week we might even get up to 40! Wow...it will feel like a heat wave. Maybe some of this snow will melt off and the doors and gates will shut and I can turn the water off for awhile. It's been exhausting. I missed some work because of the weather but the roads were pretty decent most of the time. The snow was crunchy enough that it gave good traction.

It sounds like there were few areas that were spared this cold and snowy weather, so I'm sure there will be lots of sighs of relief this week.

Have a good one!

Baby It's Cold Outside!

Boone walks the runway in the latest fashion Dogue apparel.

And it isn't too warm inside either.. The high temps for today are suppose to be 20 but I think we are stalled out around 17. Nights will be in the single digits for the next week, with highs in the 20s most days. It's going to be a rough week. Today I'm trying to get the back room (where the wood stove is) up to 60 and it's starting to close in on it. I sure don't want to have any frozen pipes to deal with.

Ashley's making fun of me!

I've stuffed loose hay in the chicken house so the flock can have something warm to stand in. Some of them have ventured out but several opted to stay in their house today. I'm feeding them plenty of grain and lots of scraps, but I'm just not sure how this geriatric flock will make it in this extended cold spell.

My Dad brought his tractor up and we put out a new bale of hay for the ewes this morning. They are very happy to have a 'full plate' and it's satisfying to have that done. The sheep eat allot during cold weather like this. Everything went pretty smooth too with putting out the bale. The tractor started, gates weren't frozen to the ground and the bale loaded and unloaded smoothly from the bale buggy. The only glitch was clumsy frozen fingers trying to manipulate gates and latches, jacks and chains and hooks!

I also filled mineral feeders for the ewes and put a protein block in with the old ram, Blue and his son Lanny. Blue is looking a little rough around the edges so I'm hoping this will help him out.

Boone shaking out his new coat...

Lastly Boone is excited to show you the latest in Dogue de Bordeaux fashion apparel! Tired of seeing him shivering and looking pitiful (and I'm not sure how much of this is real or put on, because he wants to come in the house so bad--I have my suspicions), I pulled my zip up sleeveless jacket out and tried it on him.

Tempe and Trinity, snuggling by the fire

It actually fits pretty good, but needs the back sides taped or something so they don't hang down so much. I think Ashley was making fun of him, but at least he left it on. They did wear me down though and are in the house now. It's pretty crowded with wall to wall critter beds and dogs and cats, all hunkered around the stove.

"Please, please, please let us in"...sigh...okay!

Hope it's warm where you are, but it sounds like much of the country is going to be in the deep freeze this week. Have a good weekend!

Verity, Meshach and Tempe snuggled on the bed. What? Where's Meshach you say? See that lump in between the girls? That is Meshach!