Rescue Me

One day I got a call from my daughter-in-law saying we need to go adopt a dog from the SPCA.  I had been reading about how they were overflowing with dogs from recent disasters in other areas and were in dire need of help but I already had two big dogs, Molly and Diesel, and had been dogsitting my daughter's dog for four months, so I did not think I could handle another one.  I also didn't think I could love another dog as much as I love Molly and Diesel ,but rationalized that since we have plenty of room and could help, we probably should. 

When we got to the SPCA, I fell in love all over again.

Hannah is all energy and 100% affection.  She adores Molly and Diesel and keeps us laughing all the time.  She has never met another animal she didn't like and will stand very still under the horses so that they can sniff her from one end to the other and will play tag with the donkeys.  They love her!  When we first got her, she'd run around playing for awhile, then jump into the horses water to cool off.

When I first saw Hannah at the shelter, she had a burn down her back.  Apparently whoever had her before had done it with lighter fluid.  It has something to do with dog fighting from what we're told, but her traumatic start in life has not altered her loving personality one bit.  She loves everyone.

I guess if I have any advice about adding another animal to your life, do it.  I didn't want another dog, didn't think I needed another one, but you know what?  She's been such a great addition to our family, we can't imagine not having her now.  There are so many dogs like Hannah at the shelters, just hoping for a family of their own.  If you can help by adopting one of them, you won't regret it, I promise.

Moving Day

I guess the ultimate project so far has been moving our house from the front of the property to the back of the hay field.  We lived in the cookhouse with two mastiffs for about a month while the house was prepared for the move.  The weather the day of the move was beautiful and it went very smoothly.  Check out the pictures of our moving day.

Across the hay field - away we go!

Once in place, new porch columns and bannisters were added to the front porch and a new porch was added to the back of the house.  Originally the house had an old screened back porch where the washer and dryer were.  I thought doing laundry outside was kind of crazy at first but I actually really enjoyed it so once the house was moved and the new back porch was added, we put the washer and dryer on the back porch again.  I love being outside folding clothes as they come out of the dryer. 

Is that Normal?

We have our two donkeys, Lilly and Sunny, in with our old horse, Daisy.  One day I looked out the window and it looked like Sunny had a long string hanging out of her mouth.  Turns out she was eating Daisy's tail.  We kept noticing Daisy's tail was getting shorter and choppier all the time.  Both Lilly and Sunny were doing it.  We couldn't believe Daisy was just letting them eat her tail!  I told Fred maybe they are planning on eating the whole horse, but just started at one end. 

I "googled" donkeys eating tails and apparently I'm not the first person with this problem.

Weird. 

About those Baby Chicks

Remember I told you about the baby chicks and how they were making me crazy?  Well, they are all gone.  No, I didn't get rid of them, they died.  Yep, every single one of them.  I tried it all - heat lamp, heating pad, inside the house, out on the porch, I just couldn't figure it out.  They didn't die all at one time, but one or two each day.  Apparently they all died from "pasty butt".  I don't think I need to go into detail about what that means.  The term "pasty butt" is pretty self-explanatory.  Anyway, after buying 14 baby chicks on Monday, we were down to 4 by Saturday when the kids came to see them.  One of them actually died while the kids were here!  Of course I told them he was sleeping.  I was actually relieved when I had to go out of town and they were all gone when I got back.  It was very frustrating and I vowed to only buy grown chickens from now on.  Just call me the "Chick Terminator".  Lesson learned, moving on.

You Probably Live in the Country . . .

I have made a list of things that probably apply to you if you live in the country.  I am not making any of these up, they actually all apply to me:

1.  Every vehicle in your yard has a trailer and a 4-wheeler attached.

2.  You buy deer corn for your husband at Ace Hardware in town.  Side note:  Don't put deer corn inside your vehicle.  It usually has weevils and they are tiny little bugs that get everywhere.  Ew - now I know.

3.  You buy your entire wardrobe at Ace Hardware while buying deer corn.  Carhartt shirts, Carhartt pants, Carhartt jacket.  Oh, and maybe a Carhartt hat for good measure.  Done.

4.  You have horse treats in the pockets of your jacket.

5.  You wear rubber boots out to get the newspaper or hang clothes because of the recent snake movements.

6.  You are well versed in what a "good snake" looks like and what a "bad snake" looks like. 

7.  You buy yogurt for your horse because she has stomach problems.

8.  You can't get anything done around the house because now it's shrimping season AND deer season.

More to come I'm sure . . .

Fig Preserves

Fred and I have a big fig tree and I was exciteded to make fig preserves this year for the first time so I asked my daughter-in-law, Sarah, to come over and make them with me.  

I washed and prepared 18 pint jars in anticipation of lots of preserves to share with everyone.   Sarah brought her niece, Caroline, over and we cooked our sugary concoction according to the recipe and waited anxiously to fill our jars.  Turns out, it only made 2 jars!  Needless to say, I'll be heading back up the fig tree to get a whole lot more figs to fill the remaining jars.  Last time I went to pick figs, I had on shorts and my rubber (Hunter) boots.  I knew I looked ridiculous but didn't know if I'd run into the local black snake or not, and didn't think anyone would care anyway how I looked.  I was just about finished picking figs when I decided to go up the ladder to the top just one more time to reach some really high ones.  As I was coming down, the ladder tipped over.  Luckily, I was holding on to two limbs so I was left dangling.  I was able to lower myself and leave with the little bit of dignity I had left.  Fortunately no one was around with a camera phone or I'd probably be on UTube or at least the Holly Hill paper.

Fred said next time he'll take the tractor over there and raise me up in the bucket.  Well, won't that be a sight?! 

By the way, the label says Kettle Figs because Sarah's niece said they smelled like kettle corn when we were cooking them, so she named them Kettle Figs!

Fred and the Couch

I looked out the window of the kitchen one day and spotted Fred on the tractor with a couch on the front.  He had gotten it from the cookhouse and was heading to the burn pile with it, but started clearing land on the way back and was out there like that for an hour, driving around with a couch on the tractor.

I stood in the window, smiling and shaking my head, wondering what would go through someone's mind if they saw him out there -

1.  Is he looking for a good place to have a "man cave"?

2.  Is he just keeping his couch with him in case he gets tired out there?

3.  Is he so focused on clearing land that he doesn't realize there's a couch attached?

4.  Does it even occur to men how they look sometimes?

Oh what fun men are!

 I love this guy!! 36 years together and he still makes me laugh.

Baby Chicks

A while back I saw an ad on Craigslist that read "Baby Chicks $.75 each, come and get as many as you want."  Since we were hosting a dinner that weekend with a large family and a bunch of kids, I thought it would be fun to have some cute little chicks for the kids to see up close and hold, so I went and bought 14 chicks.  They were so cute!

A few days later I was ready to scream!  You know how when a neighbor's car alarm goes off for hours, and just when you think you can't take it any more, it stops and you think, ah, finally, but then it starts right back up again?  Well, that's what those chicks were like, 24 hours a day!  They were making me crazy!

Damn that Craigslist!

How did I end up with donkeys?!

As you know, I was thinking about getting goats.  I read an entire book on How to Raise Goats and thought I was (sort of) ready to get goats.  But you know how I am and before long I was the confused but proud owner of two donkeys!  Okay, how did that happen you ask?  Well, my old horse, Daisy, needed to be taken out of the horse pasture because the other horses were pushing her off her food.  She was lonely in a pen by herself so we thought we'd get a donkey to keep her company.

When I saw a sign at a friend's farm that said Donkeys For Sale, I called and he told me he'd give me one for free!  He raises white donkeys and had a small brown one that I fell in love with so I picked her.  When we went back the next day with a trailer to get her, however, he told me she had bonded with another small donkey, a white male, and if I wanted both, I could take them.  The little white one was getting beat up by the larger male, so I couldn't just leave him there, could I?  So without real thought or common sense, I took them both.  Ray assured me they are great pets, wouldn't try to leave the pen and did I mention they live to be 30-35 years old, so you have a friend for life.

We got them home and put them in the pen, but they escaped twice!  By the end of the day, Sunny was being called "Houdini" and Lilly was "his accomplice".  We secured another line around the pen with the help of our neighbor and put more juice to the electric fence.

They did not escape any more that day, but Diesel "tested" the fence twice (once going in and then again going out) so we knew the electric fence worked and Diesel would not be bothering the donkeys again any time soon.

I had never been around donkeys in my life, but they are so much fun!!  They are very friendly and affectionate, love to be petted and are very playful.  They love Hannah, one of our dogs, and she loves them too. 

When I forget to plug the fence back in sometimes, Lilly will get out but she doesn't go anywhere.  We will get up in the morning and there she'll be, hanging around the chicken coop or the backyard and when you pick up a feed bucket, she's happy to follow you right back into the pen. 

When we first brought them home, Sunny had "dreadlocks" so I cut them off.   Oh and by the way, Sunny ended up being a girl, not a boy as Ray had thought. 

 Notice how banged up they look.  They are now fat and happy and spoiled rotten.

  Sunny and Lilly meeting Lady, my daughter-in-law's dog. 

Renningers January 2012

My friend, Sandra, did not get to go with me so I went by myself.  It got hot and I had to shed some layers mid-morning, but otherwise it was a beautiful day.  I am already planning on going next time with my daughter, Heather.  She and I always have a great time no matter where we go!

 I really wanted this horse head but at $250, I had to leave it there.

 This vendor was enjoying the day with her dog (on the table) in her booth.

 These dresses were beautiful though I couldn't think of one single place I could wear them!

 Check out these cowhide rugs, chairs and antler chandeliers. 

 The vendor that had these deer heads called them "the boys".

 Meet Winston Churchill.  His owner is a vendor at Renningers.  I had to get some puppy love from him.  She said he loves attention.

Fly Strips

So as you can imagine, four horses, two donkeys and ten chickens make a lot of poop which of course attracts flies, especially in the summer.  And since we had mulberries all over the ground during the summer where the hens come out and peck the ground and look for bugs and berries, yes, you guessed it - purple poop in the hen house.  I told Fred our eggs will soon be coming out purple.

Okay, I've wandered away from my point so back to the flies.  Fred decided to put fly strips in the horse stalls and was amazed at how many flies he got in the first ten seconds.  He insisted I come look.  Wow, that's exciting.  Anyway, he decided to put a fly strip in the chicken coop, which he did.  Two days later when I was opening the door to let the chickens out for the day, there was a fly strip stuck to a chicken.  I guess he put it up near where they roost.  I decided to let Fred take care of it since I was heading to the farmers market.  I called him and said you caught something on your fly strip - a chicken!  His plan was to open the door and as she ran out, snatch the strip off of her.  Like ripping off a band aid, right?  Unfortunately he missed and she ran into the woods with her fly strip.

The goods news was no flies would be bothering her for the day, but the bad news was I was afraid she'd get stuck to a tree or something in the woods with her sticky fly strip.  Fred called me at the market later to say it came off in the woods!  Disaster averted.

So, let's recap the day's important information:

1.  Chicken poop is stinky no matter what color it is;

2.  Mulberries are beautiful in the trees, but messy and stinky once they ferment on the ground (and of course we've learned how they stain everything), and the most important item of the day -

3.  Never put your fly strips too close to your chickens.

Hope everything is good in your hen house!

My First Garden

I love the idea of growing our own food so I was excited to have my first garden two summers ago.  This is the journal from my first garden.

My first garden is coming up and it's all very exciting.  I go out there every day to see what's happening.  Fortunately for me, Fred's dad came and helped me put my garden in.  We planted all kinds of vegetables.  Today Fred and I are putting a fence around it so the critters can't eat it before we do.

Here are some pictures of the garden.  Lots of tomatoes and watermelon are growing.  No signs of eggplant, corn or okra yet.  We learned that Fred's horse, Blaze, can reach over the fence and eat the corn stalks.  He ate almost a whole row before we realized it.

Luckily we have two more rows of sweet corn planted.

(Note:  He ended up eating both of the other two rows down to the ground.)

Is that a Raccoon?

This happened last summer before we moved our house to the back of the hayfield.  Thought you might enjoy hearing about it.

I just got back from outside.  It's 10:00 p.m. and Fred went out to turn the sprinkler off.  He spotted a raccoon near the chicken coop so he told me to go get his pellet rifle and pellets while he kept a flashlight shining on the raccoon.  I was in flip flops, walking in the dark with a little flashlight and a gun, not sure exactly which of the multitudes of guns in the house is actually a pellet rifle but thinking to myself, how is it that a girl afraid of the dark is actually out here walking around?  And how long will it be before our neighbors come out and start shooting at whoever is walking around the woods near their house?  And when will I actually stop referring to myself as a "girl"?

Of course I made too much noise and scared the raccoon off before I actually got to Fred, but being the good wife, I still stood out there in the dark shining the light in the trees for Fred to look for him.

So, how is it in your neck of the woods?

I want Goats

I came home from the market one day and said to Fred, "Honey, I want goats.  I will milk the goats and sell the milk to my friend that makes goat cheese."

This translated in Fred's mind to the following:

"Honey, I have lost my mind and I need to be commited."

Hunter Boots

I can not tell you how much I love my Hunter boots!  My daughter was living in Seattle where it rains occasionally and bought herself a pair of Hunter boots to walk her dog every day.  That Christmas she got me a pair too.  I didn't realize how much I would wear them!  I have them by the front door and slip them on every morning to go out and feed the horses, donkeys and chickens.  Before that, I was going out in tennis shoes and by the time I got back to the house, my shoes and socks were soaked from the morning dew.  Alot of times I wear them all day!  Love taking a walk in the woods with them on too because I know nothing can crawl on up my pants leg. 
If you're thinking of heading to the country, do yourself a favor and buy a pair.  You can thank me later . . .

Boy, I didn't think THIS one through!

I had been very excited about my trip to Seattle to visit my daughter, Heather, but I was a little worried about getting through the airport.  Here's why -

Fred and I had put tarps down under our mulberry tree to catch the falling mulberries and we went out the next day to pick them up.  Our hands were stained and I was thinking -

Will the security at the airport think I tried to rob a bank and had a die pack explode in my hands?  Will the other passengers in the plane be nervous when they see me come through?  Will Heather even acknowledge she knows me when she sees me in the airport?

Probably not good timing on my part!  HOPE to see you soon, Heather.

Renningers, here we come!

I love a good flea market, estate sale or antique market and Renningers down in Mt. Dora, Florida is all that and more.  They hold an Antique Extravaganza a couple of times a year and this weekend is one of those times.  I have been three times before and always find something unique for my house or guest houses.   I don't really NEED anything but love to go and look anyway.  Here are a few of the items I've picked up at Renningers in the past. 

I scored the porch chairs as soon as I got there two years ago.  They were white but needed painting anyway.  I bought them on the spot, then walked around the rest of the day and picked them up as we were leaving.  The buffet was my big score last year.  They wanted $250 for it and I thought that was a good deal, but by the end of the transaction, I walked away with it for $160!  The pig in the bottom picture is a big heavy piggy bank but at my house I prop the doors open on a breezy day with him! 

I'll share my new purchases when I get back on Saturday.  The only thing I know I'm looking for is a small chandelier for my daughter-in-law.   There is a lady that's always there that sells all sizes and you can even pick different crystals depending on what you like.  If you are looking for a good girls' weekend, this is it!  My friend, Sandra, will be going with me this year!

Pictures, pictures, pictures. . .