My Sister's New Puppy

She's also my mom's. One of 8 poor little labradors owned by a sad excuse for a human being. I shan't go into more because it's a small town and you never know who reads these things, one of the reasons I don't use real names. Suffice to say, I paid his blood price and got what I think is the best of the bunch, at least as far as a temperament that would be great for my sister and mom. She's only 5 weeks old, but as I was in danger of losing her, my brother and I rescued her before something bad could happen.

She is settling in wonderfully though Rocket ignores her and Luna is afraid of her. If the puppy approaches her from behind Luna runs. Luna will now approach the puppy from the front but she would rather be elsewhere, at Uncle Butch's in fact, where she and Rocket both ran to before 8 am this morning.

How can any dog be afraid of this? The top photo was taken today, the one below, a week ago. I suppose Luna will get used to her, I hope so since she will be here till my sister and mom pick her up at Christmas time. It will be hard to give her up then but Luna and Rocket come first in my family.

I sure wouldn't mind adopting one of her siblings though.

Full Moon Rising?

No, it's a string ball!

Yes, you've heard of giant ones on display in far flung locations, there is probably one in the Guiness World record book but it's not important enough for me to check especially since I am not going for a record. I just have all these chicken feed bags and they're closed with a piece of string in a chain stitch. It occurred to me that I should use that string, seemed a shame to throw away. But what would I do with 2 foot pieces of string? Is it possible I have too much time on my hands?

So, here it is, my chicken feed bag string ball consisting of maybe 4 or 5 string pieces (already, I can't remember) about 0.75 inches in diameter. Maybe I'll update the blog in the future with its progress. Maybe not. I may find more interesting things to occupy myself.

My Sister's Shadow is Gone

My younger sister had to put her dog, Shadow, to sleep today. The vet figured it was probably a brain tumor that caused her to go downhill so quickly in a few short days. My sister, mom and brother were there with her at the end.

Shadow was raised by my sister and my mom from 2 days old when a Brittany Spaniel mother rejected her first litter of puppies. So Shadow never really knew she was a dog. She would sleep on the furniture, ask for people food and go everywhere with them. She'd even been out to visit me once for Christmas and they were planning to come this year.

Shadow loved a good belly rub and demanded it of anyone visiting. She'd walk right up to you and stand over your foot till you obliged.

When Shadow first met my puppy Rocket, she didn't know how to interact with another dog. Rocket would chase and Shadow would run away jumping on the sofa to escape from the furry brown ball of chaos. Once Rocket matured they got along fine and the 4 of us went on quite a few walks in the woods or around the neighborhood whenever I visited. But it seems only on one walk in the autumn of 2004 did I manage to snap a few good photos of Shadow (and Rocket) having fun.


Good bye old girl. We and the chipmunk on your back porch will miss you.

The Guinea Returned, Too!

This afternoon the missing guinea hen showed up running frantically alongside the run fence wanting to get in. Unfortunately the rooster, the only free ranging bird, (to keep him from attacking the smaller birds) attacked and drove her off. I then chased the rooster into the pen to keep that from happening again, but 4 younger chickens escaped and ran amok for the rest of the day. But the guinea returned a couple hours later and I waited till dark before catching her and one of the chickens with a net while they settled down on a fence post for the night. The other 3 chickens I had already herded into the pen. Now all the poultry are incarcerated and not getting out again for a few days.

On the other hand, the stupid muscovies are back on the pond for the night even though they were investigating the duck pen during the day. It only takes one time for that stupid mink to come back and kill one, but you can't tell that to a duck.

She's Alive!

My chicken survived 25f temperatures, alone in the woods last night. I looked all over before dark when she did not turn up to go into the coop and as best as I could with a flashlight after dark. Being as she's brown, the leaves are brown and she was probably hiding from me, it was a pretty futile gesture. One of my purple guineas, just transferred to the coop from the garage that day also ran off (she wasn't supposed to be outside, but slipped out when I wasn't looking). This morning when I saw the heavy frost on the ground and the thermometer reading only 25 this morning I steeled myself for the worst.

First I let the flock into the run in hopes the sounds of her friends would bring them running. Since I couldn't see them anywhere inside the fence I went to the other side, deeper into the swamp. Within 10 minutes I jumped her up. I never even saw the chicken till I was on top of her and off we went for a ten minute romp through the downed trees and over roots and stumps till I cornered her trying to squeeze back through the field fence. I grabbed her and stuffed her back into the coop. She seems fine. Hopefully, the guinea will appear soon.