Three hours of Ice What a Nightmare

Hey, here's a good idea. Let's start out a day early. I mean the weather here in Ohio is total shit, so let's get this show on the road and head south.

Hmmm, I don't know the roads here are still really bad. Maybe if we don't leave too early it will work.

Really we want to get going. Let's leave, say, six a.m.

No I don't want to leave that early.

Fine pout pout.

Seven a.m. ........... Are you awake? Get up it's late. I thought we were leaving early.

I never said we were leaving early. Get out of my room. I'm not ten years old any more.

Nine a.m. car is packed. Everyone last potty breaks.

Did anyone forget anything?

Did you unplug the TV?

Nine-twenty a.m. in car sliding down road.

Nine-thirty back at garage, forgot to put out garbage.

Ten-thirty sitting in traffic 10 miles from house.

We should hit the Ohio River in one hour and ten minutes on an OK traffic day. Today it took us 3 hours and 40 minutes. A fun 3 hours on what I can only describe as a nightmare of living life on the edge and not the fun edge like a roller coaster where you know you're going to be alive at the end of the ride. This was a white knuckle, please I don't want to shit my pants and die here on I-75 with all these other idiots who didn't know any better than to stay home where it is safe and warm. Oh my god look at that semi off in the gully jack knifed and crumpled. I really don't want to die here in Ohio on I-75.

I did find moments to look at how pretty the trees were all covered with ice and snow.

Then in Kentucky the roads got better and for the first 3 hours it looked like something right out of Dr. Zhivago. The trees were so covered they were bending. Sort of magical destruction. I wish I could have taken a picture.

So, night one in a hotel in Tennessee. The magical ice is gone but it is still cold. I find myself looking for animals. I would throw myself on anything furry right now.

I need to touch fur!

This time of the year for the last 5 years I go to Ohio and drive my parents to Florida. They stay down south for 2 months where it is warm and then at the end of March I fly back and do it all in reverse.

I love spending time with my parents but I miss all the fur babies back home.

I miss Kirby and Hoover the most. But I miss all the barnyard antics too. How many eggs were there? Is Cleo dealing with the snow? Are the goats behaving? Is there any rooster fighting going on?

Has Beaker said anything funny? Is Kirby tearing the house apart? Has Hoover caught any elves?

I managed to get to Ohio before the big storm. I must say this is the prettiest Ohio has ever looked. But I wish I could see how much snow we got in New York.

The car ride down to Florida is always a bit challenging. I don't think we kids were as demanding on long car rides. We are all very happy to get to our destination. And I will say that the mood in the car starts to improve as the temperature starts to warm up outside.

This year I have a new ally. My Garmin GPS who's name is Nigel. I love Nigel and he will be such a help finding hotels and restaurants.

What's wrong Cranky Butt?

Today Beaker called out "What's wrong Cranky Butt?" She just cracks me up. I have long since stopped editing my speech around the house out of fear that Beaker will repeat it. I talk to all the animals out loud every day and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if they started talking back. Usually when Beaker spouts out something new I have to stop and try to figure out when I said it (since Beaker only mimics me for some odd reason). But I knew right away that I have been calling Kirby "Cranky Butt" since the grass has been covered with snow and she has been stuck in the house.

Ha! I got rid of the line!

So I totally revamped the look of the blog. That line was making me crazy. (Much like a little pig is making me crazy!)

I'm still playing. Gotta figure out how to make the clouds fill the header.

Thankfully there's a lot of winter left.

Why is there a line down the middle of my blog?

I don't know when it happened but all of a sudden there is a line down the middle of my blog. I tinkered with the layout and it was all good. If anyone knows how to fix it let me know 'cause it is driving me crazy.

Br-r-r-r-r-r it is freaking cold

I love winter and snow so for me to say it is cold you know it must be VERY cold. Hoover seems to be able to handle it although he isn't spending as much time outside as usual. He does get out and let off some steam, so to speak.

Kirby is another story. She is going stir crazy. She is cranky and bored. She has torn up her bedding and torn a piece off of probably the only nice piece of furniture we have. Treats seem to be the only thing that calm her down but I don't want to let her get fat just to keep her happy. In a perfect "Kirby world" there would be an indoor grassy area where she could graze and root around to her little heart's content. But for now I'm just trying to stay one step ahead of her.

Six month summary

So life got a bit crazy and the first thing to be put aside was the blog. How does one put six months into a single post? I'm guessing not very well but here goes.




Hoover is doing very well. You would never guess that there was ever anything wrong with him. The month of June was a nightmare simply because the vet's orders were to keep Hoover as quiet and still as possible. The electrodes on his heart needed time for scar tissue to form. This was the key for the pacemaker to be successful. The problem was Hoover felt great. He was back to normal as far as he was concerned and normal meant running and jumping, exactly the things he wasn't supposed to be doing. Keeping him quiet for four weeks was one of the hardest things ever. After his check-up when the doctor said he could stop being quiet and go back to being Hoover he ran like a wild animal. I think he thought we were just punishing him for four weeks and once he was set free he wasn't going to stop running. Amazingly he didn't run away. He is very hard to get to come in the house now. I think he is afraid we're going to lock him up again.




I hatched batch after batch of chickens and guinea hens. I suppose I went a bit to far. My biggest problem is that I have too many roosters. The first batch of roosters I actually have in the freezer right now. It was quite a shock to me to learn I had it in me to do that. In all honesty I didn't do the actual killing but I did the plucking and disemboweling. Friends of mine just down the road had raised a fair number of chickens for themselves and to sell. When you hear all the things about how our food is raised and what they feed to meat animals it really makes sense to raise your own if you can. So I brought my roosters to their house and in return for processing my boys I helped them process theirs. They had a great quality scalder and plucker which really made things quick. I was prepared to back out if I couldn't handle it but it was very humane and very clean. I have a feeling it was much cleaner than at a major processing plant. I know it was more humane. I do not know if I have it in me to do the actual killing. I have 13 roosters right now who are a little small but getting to be very problematic (the hens have strong feelings about this).

The garden was great. A record crop of blueberries that were so delicious. The very first plums from one of the trees we planted. I can't currently remember the name of the plums, but they were small and, like the blueberries, delicious. I have great hopes for them this year. There were more peaches than ever and each tree ripened at a different time (so rare when these things go as planned). They're the kind of peaches you have to eat outside or leaning over a sink because they're so juicy.

The apples trees were loaded. We made more cider then ever and like every year I thought it was the best ever. I really miss the apples. They're not the best keepers so when they're done it is sad and waiting for the next year is hard. But with the cider frozen that can be enjoyed and is just as good as when it was fresh pressed.




Kirby had large chunks of pasture to roam. It seems that no matter how much room we gave her she had to dig it up. I guess that is what pigs were born to do. She is a very well behaved little pig. Each morning I would put on her harness and leash and walk her out to her area. Some veggies or grains were used to keep her moving. Given her choice Kirby would take all day to get to the pasture eating every dandelion along the way and digging up the world (and the nice parts of the lawn). During a long rainy period when she didn't want to go out she refused to potty. She held her urine for over 48 hours and developed a bladder infection. It was very bad and the vet had to come and give her a shot and then we did a round of oral anti-biotics. From this I learned how to make a piggy potty. Kirby will do anything for food so no matter how hard it rained after that I would stand out in the rain with her favorite thing and after she emptied the tank she would get the food. It was shocking sometimes how much she had in the old tank. I'm guessing close to a half gallon. She can really kill some grass.

Strange Roommates

Because the chickens pick on Babyface I moved her into Cleo's stall. The emu and the turkey seem to get along fine.

After one of the hens hatched some chicks the others began to pick on her and the chicks so I moved them in with Cleo and Babyface. They're an odd little group but they all get along, or at least they all tolerate each other.

Hoover gets a pacemaker

Talk about crazy. On Thursday Hoover seemed to be having seizures. I first witnessed it about 3:00 in the afternoon he seemed to lose control of his legs and fell to his side on the ground within seconds he was trying to get up then standing and staggering the bolting off like something startled him. Now keep in mind that Hoover is not quite a year and a half old, very active, prone to weirdness, adorable, and sweeter than sugar. So I call the vet I love who wasn't in and then thinking this could be serious I called my backup vet and got him in for the last appointment of the day.

The vet drew some blood to run some tests, took a chest x-ray, and did an ekg (which had to be sent via phone to a cardiologist who couldn't get to it that day). While listening to his heart the vet said "something is not right". Apparently Hoover heart was beating way too slow. Like 42 beats per minute. Normal is 70-120. While this seemed odd the vet said she needed to get blood work back and get the results from the ekg.

So I take Hoover home and he seems OK but a little tired. He goes about his business and while we watch him more closely than usual we aren't really worried.

Friday morning the vet calls to say Hoover needs a pacemaker. WHAT!? I'm thinking do they even do that for dogs? Now Hoover is acting really out sorts, breathing funny and just lying around. I'm trying to stay calm and be logical. My first thought is if this were a human member of the family I'd be getting a second opinion. So I call the vet I love and tell her I'm freaking out and she gives me the number of a canine cardiologist. I call. He's on vacation until June 9th. Well that's no good. They give me the number of a cardiologist in NJ. I call and he's out of the office for the day. I call my friend back and she gives me another number. I make contact and they tell me that they wouldn't recommend a pacemaker with out other tests but if he does need a pacemaker they don't to that procedure and they refer me to the two places I've already called. I tell them no dice at those places and they say bring him in, let's get things rolling and see if we're really looking at a pacemaker case.

I:
Print out map

Get Hoover together

Get Hoover in the car (with Hubby help)

Drive like a semi-controlled maniac to a vet hospital an hour away

We get there and they take Hoover immediately. I am now weeping semi-uncontrollably. They are so nice (Katonah Bedford Hills Veterinary Center I highly, highly recommend them). When I tell them Hoover is terrified of large dogs they take him to a private room for his tests and them to a private carpeted room (very amazing if you know what a sick dog can do on carpet) so he is in a quiet place where nothing will scare him. His heart is now beating 24 times a minute and things are getting critical.

They start making phone calls to find a cardiologist who can see Hoover NOW. They find one in the city (NYC) tell them I'm coming. They print me off a map with directions and warn me that I should stay call so Hoover stays calm because he could go into heart failure. Driving into Manhattan while staying calm, I might be able to do that if it is the Upper West Side of Manhattan on a slow day with no pressure. So, of course the Animal Medical Center is on the Upper EAST Side and I'm feeling MUCH pressure. Have I mentioned that I have been weeping uncontrollably on and off since about ten in the morning and my contact lenses are getting fuzzy.

So we get in the car and I start off directions in hand chanting to myself that I am calm and everything is going to be fine. But inside I'm freaking out and on the verge of total panic and on top of that my heart is breaking. How can this dog that is still just a puppy and was running around like a wild thing be on the verge of death?

Just a little over an hour later and amazingly still outwardly under control I arrive at the Animal Medical Center. Now I must tackle the problem of parking and I'm prepared to abandon my car in an illegal spot to get Hoover quickly inside. I'm thrilled to find that they have parking with a valet! I literally jump out of my car, give the keys to a man walking toward me, grab Hoover out of the back seat (calmly) and run into the building. I get to the registration desk and tell them I have Hoover and they should be expecting him. One girl turns back and calls out "Does anyone know about a Hoover coming into emergency?" From the back I hear "Oh, Yeah. That's the dog that could drop dead at any minute." I burst into tears.

Two interns come out and take Hoover and I'm given forms to fill out. I call my sister who lives in the city to tell her where I am and what's going on hoping she could come before I have a complete melt down. By this time my contact lenses were so cloudy I didn't know how I'd get home and I'm thinking of course I'm going to be taking Hoover home because this is all too crazy to be true.

After what seems like forever I'm taken to a room where the doctor is going to talk to me but really it is so I'm not freaking out everyone in the waiting room with my non stop sobbing. My sister arrives! Thank you! She is the voice of reason and logical thinking in stressful situations. The intern comes in and starts to explain that Hoover does indeed need a pacemaker and that he needs it quickly. Getting the pacemaker will give him a chance to have a normal long life. Then the cardiologist comes in (Dr. Bond, Betsy Bond) and she says that in 30 years of practicing she has only once seen a dog Hoover's age with this condition. Basically there is a block preventing the signal from one part of his heart to the other part that tells the heart to beat. (That's my scientific understanding of the situation.) The pacemaker will tell his heart when and how many times to beat bypassing the block. I didn't know it but while she is talking to us the rest of her team is starting to prep Hoover because once I say yes (and of course I'm gonna say yes!) they are starting the operation. The other thing is that this is going to cost a LOT of money but there is a angel who loves Hoover who is going to take care of that.

We ask to see Hoover before they start and the wheel him in on a table. He already has shaved spots on his paws and his eyes are weird like he's not really there and for some reason his head is pointy. I again burst into tears as if my only working function is the ability to leak water from my eyes. I pet him and kiss him on the nose and they wheel him off.

No point in hanging around they say. Go home and we will call you when it is finished to tell you the results. Through all of this I never think Hoover will die. It isn't a possibility in my mind. So we go to see if my car can stay there (where miraculously they did actually have valet parking and I hadn't given my keys to a random person walking toward me.) But my car cannot stay there and I can't see well enough to walk through New York City let alone attempt to drive so my sister drives us to her apartment on the other side of the city.

We are thinking of where to park and my sister says let's just see if there is a place by the apartment. Well, the parking fairies are smiling on us because there is a place right n front of her building where the doorman can help but keep an eye on it. And since we have to ask him to fit it into the spot he will have to remember who's car it is.

Later I get the call from the Vet that everything went great and Hoover can probably go home the next day. And I burst into tears. I then go to bed and sleep like the dead.

Hooked on hatching

I have become obsessed with hatching eggs. I recently bought the new incubator pictured above. I'm very excited about this incubator. It has a much larger viewing window and has been preset to hold the temperature at 99.5 degrees. My first thought was that I would stop using the old incubator but then I decided to hatch guinea hens and chickens so I use the old one for the guinea eggs.




Here is the new incubator loaded with Maran eggs that I ordered through the mail from a breeder in Texas. The eggs are gently rotated back and forth like the mother hen would do while she sits on them. With my old incubator I rolled the eggs at least 3 times a day by hand.

I want to raise chickens that lay very dark brown eggs and from everything I've read it seems like Marans are a good breed.

There are also some Araucana eggs in their from my own hens. I still want to have some blue and green eggs too.



It takes chicken eggs 21 days to hatch. Guinea eggs hatch in 28 days. I check on the eggs several times everyday. Even after hatching 6 different batches of eggs I still get a thrill out of seeing the first signs of a chick starting to break out of the egg. I love being able to see the moment when the chick finally breaks the egg open. They lay there wet and exhausted, looking nothing like the adorable fluffy chicks you think of. Chicken chicks seem to take much longer to break out of their eggs. Guinea chicks burst out of their eggs not too long after you see the first "pip" in the shell. I have had chickens the took more than 24 hours to break out of their eggs.

Blogging frustrations

I'm still trying to figure out how everything works here on Blogger. I've learned how to tinker with the html so that I could make things the size I wanted, like pictures and having the blog fill the whole page.

One thing I can't seem to fix is if I start a thought one day and finish it up a day, or a week, or a month later it posts as if I did it all on the day I started and it is put back in the order. That can really get me crazy. For instance the post about hatching eggs in the incubator was started on the day one of incubation. But I finished writing it the day before they hatched. (I plan on posting all about the hatch soonish but I need to upload the pictures first.)

I have some great (in my opinion) movies of cute things but for the life of me I can't seem to get them to play on my blog. I have spent many hours trying different ways to get them on but nothing has worked so far. I haven't given up. I hope to have some entertaining things up soon.

If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions on how to fix things let me know. I'd love to get comments on what you think of the blog even if you don't know how to fix my problems.

Puppies!

There is a veterinarian that lives just down the road from us. Actually she and her husband are both vets. In case you haven't noticed I like animals. Veterinarians facinate me. For most of my childhood I wanted to be a vet and I don't know when or why I veered from that but I didn't veer too far really.

Anyway about the puppies. Once I happened to pop in at the vet's when she was doing a neuter on a dog and I said I'd love to watch. After she instructed me what to do if I started to pass out she proceeded and I was facinated. So when she called me to say she had an unexpected Cesarian section coming in and no assistant available and would I want to help out I jumped at the chance.

I hopped in the car and I was there in minutes, so excited I was almost bouncing off the walls. I got there before the pregnant Boxer patient. So again with the instruction of what to do if I felt faint (She must have had a bad experience with someone). The patient arrived and the woman who brought her was a very experienced breeder who had been through a few Cesarians.

Lucy, the Boxer, didn't even look pregnant. She was sedated and put on the table, hooked up to anesethia and the operation began. There was surprisingly little blood. As the puppies were pulled from the uterus, I was shocked at how big they were. They came out in a sac that was much stronger than it looked. The sac was slippery, slimey and hard to break open. I found I was being to careful and the pups were not as delicate as I wanted to treat them. I'm a quick learner and it was a situation where instructions were being shouted (kindly) in rapid succession. There was nothing I wanted more than to get these puppies off to a good start so I did what I was told as best and quickly as I could. At the end there were five incredibly large pups and one small runt. Five girls and one boy all breathing (very important) and nursing.

It was such an amazing thing to witness. I was on a high for the rest of the day. The vet said it was fun to see someone who was so excited about the experience. I guess after performing so many you get jaded. My hope is I preformed well enough that if she ever finds herself in a jam again she'll call me up.

Sorry no pictures of this one. I was so excited that I flew out the door without even thinking of it. Anyway I was all covered in amniotic fluid and my hands were icky. The images are forever in my mind.

Dove's nest

The other day I noticed a tiny egg in the herb bed. My first thought was to look around and see if there was a nest nearby that the egg had fallen out of. Well, considering the herb bed is right in front of the sun room window there really wasn't a lot of places for a bird to make a nest other than the roof and the gutter. So no nest in sight and I'm thinking would a bird have made a nest right on the ground, right by the house, right by the driveway? No. But, yes it turns out that a dove did think this was a good place to lay some eggs. Now there are two eggs there and I see her sitting on them whenever I walk or drive by.


Momma dove is very alert. Even when I thought I was being sneaky and peaking through the sun room window to take pictures of her, she was totally on to me and never took her eyes off me. I did manage to get these pictures.

So I'm hoping she can manage to survive, hatch, and raise these babies. I would love to watch the whole process play out. But I know she has Hoover, four cats and the elements to battle. I'll keep you posted.

Big Changes for Kirby

Kirby loves being outside. Up to now her "outside" area has been a somewhat small fenced in area off of the back porch. This has allowed us to constantly keep an eye on her and cater to her every whim, like constantly throwing some bird seed into her rooting box. But pigs root and so our back yard is all torn up and when it rains it is a muddy mess. The rooting is fine and what she needs to do to be a happy pig. We knew this going in and were prepared for this.

She's a big girl now. So big that when I went to put her harness on I discovered that my baby has out grown her size medium harness. This is not quite as sad as when she grew out of her small harness which she did in a matter of a few months. Anyway I squished her into the harness and walked her out of to a new area we had fenced off for her in the pasture. It a great area for her but it is away from the house a bit so we can't just look out and see her. It is probably harder for me than for her. She is in a larger area and having a ball. We will be able to move the fence around give her new areas to root around.

I very much want to get her closer to the barnyard critters. Because the goats can be rough with head-butting she won't be in the same area with them but we will get her just on the other side of their fence. It will be so interesting to see what they all think of each other.

Tiny blue egg

From left to right: turkey egg, brown chicken egg, blue chicken egg, banty chicken egg, tiny blue egg.

I love finding surprises in the nesting boxes. Recently I found a tiny blue egg. We have some bantam hens so small eggs aren't anything new. But this was a teeny tiny blue egg. One of the Araucanas must have had an off day.

Incubating eggs

It is time to add some new chickens to our flock. I have started researching different kinds of chickens and decided that I wanted to add chickens that lay very dark brown and blue and green eggs. There are actually groups dedicated to chickens that lay colorful eggs.

I started searching for varieties of Maren chickens first. These are chickens that lay dark brown eggs. Some people call them chocolate eggers. I intended to buy day old chicks but couldn't find the chicks I wanted so I bought eggs to hatch myself.

We had an incubator with an automatic egg turner from a few years ago when we hatched our own eggs, but that was just to see if we had any "working" roosters. Now I'm trying to actually accomplish something.
Here's the incubator set up. I had to run it for a week to make sure it would keep the right temperature and that the egg turner was working.

So then the eggs arrived and i loaded them into the incubator and all seemed to be going well.

Here's a view through the window.

Now it would just have been too easy to load the eggs in and have everything run smoothly. On day 3 I noticed the turner wasn't working. So I unloaded it and started turning the eggs by hand. No biggie. Then the temperature started getting wacky. One day it spiked up 4 degrees higher than it should have been. I can only hope it didn't fry the little buggers.

We'll soon find out. Today is day 20 and they should hatch tomorrow.

Beaker surprises me

Beaker is a very smart bird. Sometimes, when she uses the right words at the right time, I think she is the smartest bird in the world. She was having a very good day, smart wise. We had a visitor in the house who asked if we knew who Barney Fife was. I said, "Sure, he was on the Andy Griffith Show." Right after I said that Beaker started whistling the theme song from the show. Now I taught her that song but I don't ever remember saying to her that it was "The Andy Griffith" song. It was just too funny. Then after I got back from the barn, it was getting pretty dark, and Beaker called out from her room, "How 'bout some light?" Every day she makes me laugh but some days harder then others.

Gremlins in the greenhouse

It is Spring and I have started vegetable seeds in the greenhouse. In previous year I have had trouble with mice and chipmunks digging up bigger seeds like, pumpkins and squash. Sometimes they eat the seed and sometimes they move them. I think they move them with the thought that they're storing them for later. Then I find I've got pumpkins and squash plants coming up in the pots with the fig trees and the lettuce beds. Sometimes I move the seedlings and they do alright. Other times they can't take the shock of being uprooted.

This year I strongly suspect the peacocks have found out they can get into the greenhouse through the side vent. I do not have solid evidence but I was both Apollo and Artemis running around the greenhouse all agitated and there was nothing bothering them (like Hoover). The destruction was not the typical small critter havoc. The lettuce (a peacock favorite) was all torn up and nice pothos plant I had nursed back to vigorous life was basically destroyed.

I need to touch fur

I've started something of a tradition where every winter I drive my parents from Ohio to Florida at the end of January then drive them back at the beginning of April. My parents are great people and really much more fun than a lot of people I know. The driving is the only really hard part of the trip unless my father, who is on blood thinners, manages to cut himself. So far I think he has managed to cut himself every time I've seen him for the last several years. Also he has a bit of a short temper but he's had that my whole life.

The truly worst part of the trip is being away from the zoo. I find my self craving fur covered creatures like an alcoholic craves their next drink. I find myself approaching strangers asking in a pleading voice if I can pet their dog. I only do this to people who are actually walking dogs.

I get some strange looks as I basically mug the animals petting them all over letting them lick me and rubbing my face into their fur. Hey, petting a stinky dog is better then petting no dog at all. I will ask the people any questions I can think of to prolong my fix. Eventually even the nicest people will get tired of standing there and pry their pet from my arms. Worse is when the dog tires of my attentions and tries to get away from me.

Animals are like oxygen to me. I need contact with them to survive. OK maybe not to survive but I do need contact with them to be happy.

Gathering Eggs

I don't know what it is about gathering the eggs everyday, but I love it. Every evening I look forward to going to the barn. I love spending time with all the animals but it is the gathering of the eggs that I get a kick out of. We don't eat that many eggs (actually we give away far more than we eat) but I almost obsess about how many eggs we get.

When the chicks first came I couldn't wait to get that first egg. Hens start laying eggs when they are 5-6 months old. There is a lot of care that goes into raising a chick to egg laying age. When I found that first egg I was so excited. It might sound crazy but I still have that first egg. (It is in a very safe place) Everyday after finding that first egg was like an adventure. Would there be any eggs? How many? I was always hoping to get just one more egg than the day before until the day came where every hen had laid an egg. So we were getting 4-6 eggs a day in the beginning.

Every year we add to the flock and we add breeds of chickens that we don't have always picking ones that are interesting and lay anything but white eggs. Right from the beginning we had the Araucanas that lay very pretty eggs in shades from green to blue, for which they are best known, to pinks and peach colors. Last year we got our first Marans, Cuckoo Marans, which lay very dark brown eggs.

Now I'm hooked on getting even darker egg layers. I couldn't find any of the kind I wanted as day old chicks so I'm doing something new for me. I've ordered eggs for hatching in an incubator. I've incubated eggs before and I've let a broody hen hatch eggs for me and both times I ended up with twice as many roosters as hens. Not at all what I want. But it will be interesting to see what I end up with.

Right now we are averaging 10 eggs a day. The most we ever had was 17 in one day. That was in the summer when the days are longer. In the winter when there are less daylight hours the egg number go way down. In some of the commercial hatcheries the hens are subjected to 24 hours of light to get the most eggs out of them. I like knowing that my eggs come from chickens living in a natural environment free to roam around and eat bugs and grass.

Kirby and the Yummy Ball

In nature a pig would have to root around covering a good bit of area to dig up food. We wanted Kirby to work for her meals so I found a ball that was meant for dogs. It is called a tricky treat ball. It has compartments inside so when you fill it with food it has to be rolled around to get the food out.

Every morning and every evening I tell Kirby "go to your room", and she runs into her pen. I have found that trying to fill her ball while she is out is too much of a challenge and toes tend to be bruised. So I fill up the ball and drop it into her pen where she pushes it around until it is empty. She knows when it is empty and the only time that she pushes an empty ball around is when she is trying to get us to give her food.

On rainy or super cold days when Kirby can't spend time outside I will put low calorie treats (Kirby's favorite are Gerber fruit puffs) and raisins and she pushes it around the house. This is a great way to get pent up energy out and bring on a nap.

Hoover just doesn't get the whole "fetch" thing

Hoover has a lot of energy. I thought that playing fetch would be a great way to both spend time with him and help him burn off some energy.

My sister has a dog, Gryff, who has played fetch from puppy hood. Gryff is a little obsessed with balls and playing fetch. He will chase a ball and bring it back to you and let you throw it until he is exhausted. He will rest for a bit and then start right up again.

I didn't know if Hoover would "get" the concept of fetch right away. He's seen Gryff play fetch so I didn't think it would take much for him pick up the game. Hoover loves toys so I bought him a ball and he liked it. I gave it to him and then called him and took it from him and threw it. He ran off after it and I called him back and took it from him and threw it again. He looked at me like I was crazy. He walked to get the ball, looking back at me the whole way. He got the ball and I told him to come. He did, but there was no way he was giving me the ball again. He ran off and hid the ball.

He basically doesn't trust me with his toys now. I brought home a new stuffed toy (stuffed toys are his favorites) he took it from me and ran up the stairs with it then came back down without it. He gave me a look that said "Hey, crazy human, no more throwing my toys." I think I may have really offended him.

I have tried to play fetch with him a few more times but after the first throw he won't bring any toy back to me. So in his own way he does "get" the fetch thing but he doesn't "believe" in fetch.

Animals as Antidepressants

I know that homes for the elderly and even children's wards in hospitals will bring in animals to brighten patients days. In an airport I recently met a woman who had a small dog that was traveling with her as a companion animal for a medical condition. This dog, by a doctors prescription, was to ride with the woman on her lap as a calming device. I think this is brilliant.

I know when I'm stressed, if I can pet or even just watch some of the animals I start to relax. There are times when I'm petting Hoover or Kirby that I can reach a meditative kind of state. It would be interesting to see what contact like that can do for blood pressure.

Can you imagine if instead of prescribing drugs doctors tell people to go get a pet? Bad day at work? Go home and rub your cats ears for 15 minutes. Have a fight with your mom? Half an hour of puppy snuggling should take care of that.

No chemicals, no dependency, no adverse side effects. Instead of being bombarded by commercials for Zoloft, and Prozac there will be reminders from The Humane Society and the ASPCA that having a pet is good for your over all health and well being.

I'm not saying that all medical conditions can be cured by having animals but wouldn't it be nice if a lot of them could?

Morning conversations with Poppy

In the morning we get both the birds out for breakfast. They each have their own stand and every morning (unless there is some good reason not to) Popppy and Beaker get on their stands for a yummy breakfast of special things that they never get in their cages. Their favorite thing is hard boiled egg yolk. They have no interest in the egg white, just the yolk. Another favorite is sugar snap peas. They don't eat the pods, just the peas, but not the outer shell of the individual pea. They are somewhat picky eaters. They love grapes, but not the skins. The skins they throw on the floor where Kirby takes care of them.

Beaker almost never speaks when she is outside of her cage. Poppy is a little chatterbox. Poppy basic vocabulary consists of: Poppy, Beaker, bird and kiss. She makes kissing noises and tons of chirps and sounds, like the microwave and telephone. She likes to make the first half of the wolf whistle and then I make the second half. That is probably her favorite thing and she will do it over and over until I stop. She likes me to repeat what she says and if I don't she will get louder until I do.

Poppy will say "kiss, kiss" and I make kissing noises then I say "kiss, kiss" and she makes kissing noises. She makes what I call R2D2 sounds and I try to imitate them. She has one of my ringtones down so perfect it makes me reach for my phone.

So sad to see the snow melt

I know that most people don't like winter. Winter is my favorite season. I love the snow and the cold. Winter is not the best time for the animals. For the goats snow means no fresh grass to eat. For the chickens, guineas, ducks and turkeys there are no bugs and worms to eat.

We adjust the food quantities to make up for what they can't find on their own in the winter and we have heated water bowls so they always have water to drink. The stalls need cleaned out more often because they spend more time inside in the winter.

Even if the animals are more work in the winter I don't mind it a bit. They get their winter coats which make them look so fluffy. With Spring approaching I know the animals are anticipating longer, warmer days but I want Winter to stick around longer.




Cat prints in the
snow

Emu prints in the snow