Kittens

Our kitten babysitting job ends today. Do you think they are going to miss each other???

(Ours is the striped one)

What's kickin' chicken?

Our chickens sure are. We've gotten back to eggs galore!

So the onions are getting flowers, potatoes are coming up in the garden & the brussel sprouts look good. The tomatoes, peppers, & corn have been planted. Tomorrow I'll get the squash seeds in the ground too.

What else is going on tomorrow??? Pig cookin' time. We got one of our hogs cleaned & split. Half will go on the open fire in the morning to cook all day. The skins will be fried & made into chicharrones (pork rinds) and jars of lard to use for cooking. Makes me think back to one of the Little House on the Prairie books I remember reading with the kids.

We decided with all that's going on around here that it was time to get rid of 2 of the pigs. It was just getting too much to keep feeding them all right now. So we are left with just "Gloria" the big mama sweet hog. We hope to breed her later on in the year & then sell the piglets. She will go to another farm to "visit" a boar so that will give us time to get the pen taken down & rebuilt on a better spot in the back.

So that's the plan for our weekend so far.

Hope ya'll have a great night.

Our Carly

We went to look at some pigs for sale last summer & ended up not getting one. We did, however, leave with a cute little puppy in my daughter's arms. We saw both parents & they seemed nice. We thought oh neat, a cattle dog for the little farm. -Now as with anything, we should have done some research. You should NEVER bring home any animal without much research. I know & knew all of that, but that day we disreguarded everything we know & "Carly" became part of the homestead family.

She is an outside dog & gets along pretty well with the other dogs but she has grown to be the leader of the pack. She is very friendly but will definately bark & let us know when things are awry.

She has hearded pigs out of the chicken pen & well, tries to heard just about everything! Chickens, ducks, children...

We have had to put the ducks up as I don't think she really means to hurt them, but will put a big paw on their back & then then start squaking & flapping & then the rat terrier thinks that is the green light for him to get involved. (not good)

So the ducks now have their own pen with a little pool to swim & will hopefully be let out to the big pond when it is full.

Carly is unlike any other dog I've owned. She is highly intelligent & sweet but has also come with some definate draw backs. She is probably the most hard-headed, hyper dog we've owned as well. She chews up everything possible, including dog food bowls, wood, pool toys, the side of the storage building, and then some. She is finally after about a year getting to where she will finally stop jumping up on us.

Truth is I know we should have worked with her more & I'm doing it more now. I don't at all think it's too late, but it's a long process. After researching I find that these dogs need lots of attention & need a "job." I am hoping to get a couple goats in the near future so I have been researching this and I think this will be a good activity/ "job" for her to do some.

My main point to all of this is a cute cattle dog just seems to go along with the farm picture...And she will, but please do not get any animals without research, even if they are really, really cute!