We had thunderstorms just before dawn, about an inch and a quarter of rain. When I looked out the kitchen window the white ‘Casa Blanca’ lilies were stained yellow from their pollen washing down on them. I love these big tall lilies with their huge fragrant flowers. I have several types, pinks and reds but the ‘Casa Blanca’s’ are my favorite, although I do love the lily ‘Silk Road’.
When I got to the barn this morning I had to chase down the 3 heritage turkeys, my new banty rooster and one of the hens. They had flown over the sides of their indoor space in the barn again, even though Steve went in there yesterday and added chicken wire up to the rafters. They squeezed through the space between rafters. For some reason the hen was the hardest to corral today, these Issa Brown hens are usually real tame.
I bought a little black and white Banty rooster at the stockyard Monday because I missed hearing a rooster in the morning. It doesn’t sound like a farm without a rooster crowing. I looked at some huge fluffy Blue Brahma roosters but settled on a small one so he isn’t too hard on the hens. With all the hens to chose from and him being much smaller they shouldn’t develop bare backs where the rooster jumps them.
The hertitage turkeys seem to be all hens too. I was hoping to keep a pair around to lay and hatch their own eggs. They are very pretty, two are Bourbon Reds and one is a small breasted Bronze. Maybe I can find a tom at the stockyard before fall. The white turkey, also a hen is about big enough to butcher. We will take her down to our friend in the next town for that adventure. I am trying to decide whether or not to have her smoked. Smoked turkey is delightful.
The mallard ducks have all disappeared now. I came upon one in the sheep pasture last week and it flew off. That was the last I saw of them. Poor white duck is still alone.
Our tomatoes are beginning to ripen. We had sweet corn from a stand outside the stockyards Monday and it was delicious. But my own corn is tasseling and it won’t be long now before we get some of it. We have just the 15 by 5 bed of it this year but the box is full of stalks so we will get a few good meals of it.
Living the dream
Visiting grandmas farm.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
I hate cities
I called my parents this week to learn that someone had been killed one door down, right next to my son’s house. A passerby saw the guy lying in the doorway about 11 am in a pool of blood and called police. According to the police he had been there a couple hours. No one had noticed. This is in the city I grew up in, a neighborhood where it used to be safe and now isn’t very safe. I doubt I could ever get my parents to move, and my son lives right next door, in my grandfather’s old house. They didn’t know the dead guy- he and another guy had just recently moved in, but they said there seemed to be a lot of drinking and loud fights. It is amazing to me that he could lay there for two hours in broad daylight only about 30 feet from the road, which is busy, and no one notice.
In the city everyone adverts their eyes and tries not to see things. And when some of them do see things they pretend they don’t so they don’t have to get involved. Had that happened on my less than busy country road, that close to the road where it could be seen plainly, I doubt he would have been there 2 hours before someone stopped to help. Not just call 911- actually help or try to.
There are at least two houses on Mom’s street where drugs are sold and everyone knows it. My son had a Tom Tom Navigator thing stolen out of his locked work van while it was parked right up against my Mom and Dads house- they share the driveway. He says it was probably someone who needed money for drugs, like that excuses it. He's learned not to take it personal he said. Someone stole his tackle box out of his personal van and left the contents strewn all over the street. A neighbor walking the dog found it and thought it might be his stuff so he got that back. Someone even jumped over the back fence and stole a bag of pop bottles while they were in the process of cleaning up after a fourth of July party. Now that’s pathetic.
I have fond memories of that street. It was once the edge of town, where my grandfathers raised chickens and rabbits and there were acres of empty land to play on. Now I hate going there. It’s about a half mile from where they built one of those mega malls and traffic is terrible. The roads are rougher than our dirt road, full of pot holes, and that’s not an exaggeration. They don’t plow their side street in the winter any more- our road gets plowed in a few days.
Despite the fact that my son got a ticket for parking on his own lawn overnight, there is junk everywhere. The houses are old and small and except for a few old timers like my parents still hanging in there, they are mostly cheap rental units now. My parents and my son keep a neat yard with gardens and a couple of the older neighbors also, but the rest of the street looks like a ghetto. It’s a poor neighborhood now, in a poor city, [ poor financially and poorly run, that is the hub of a very rich county
I think when my parents are gone my son will also move. I don’t know what his rent arrangements are exactly but I know that the houses will probably need to be sold. If they aren’t gone before them, I am sure the other older neighbors will move out soon after my parents are gone. Then I won’t need to visit the street and see the ruin. With any luck I won’t need to even visit the city again.
I hate the smell of it as we drive into it. I hate the noise and congestion. My grandparents would never have lived in these conditions. My dad says he will live in the house he built until he dies. He will keep grandpas house too, I’m sure. My mother did sell her moms house, which was on the other side of Mom and Dads and the people who bought it turned it into an ugly two story with a bare yard and two mean dogs. It doesn’t resemble the pretty small home my grandmother had with its elaborate gardens.
One of my sisters still lives in the city too. Her neighborhood is just as bad. The rest of us had sense enough to get out. I hope and pray I never have to move back into one of these ugly cities.
In the city everyone adverts their eyes and tries not to see things. And when some of them do see things they pretend they don’t so they don’t have to get involved. Had that happened on my less than busy country road, that close to the road where it could be seen plainly, I doubt he would have been there 2 hours before someone stopped to help. Not just call 911- actually help or try to.
There are at least two houses on Mom’s street where drugs are sold and everyone knows it. My son had a Tom Tom Navigator thing stolen out of his locked work van while it was parked right up against my Mom and Dads house- they share the driveway. He says it was probably someone who needed money for drugs, like that excuses it. He's learned not to take it personal he said. Someone stole his tackle box out of his personal van and left the contents strewn all over the street. A neighbor walking the dog found it and thought it might be his stuff so he got that back. Someone even jumped over the back fence and stole a bag of pop bottles while they were in the process of cleaning up after a fourth of July party. Now that’s pathetic.
I have fond memories of that street. It was once the edge of town, where my grandfathers raised chickens and rabbits and there were acres of empty land to play on. Now I hate going there. It’s about a half mile from where they built one of those mega malls and traffic is terrible. The roads are rougher than our dirt road, full of pot holes, and that’s not an exaggeration. They don’t plow their side street in the winter any more- our road gets plowed in a few days.
Despite the fact that my son got a ticket for parking on his own lawn overnight, there is junk everywhere. The houses are old and small and except for a few old timers like my parents still hanging in there, they are mostly cheap rental units now. My parents and my son keep a neat yard with gardens and a couple of the older neighbors also, but the rest of the street looks like a ghetto. It’s a poor neighborhood now, in a poor city, [ poor financially and poorly run, that is the hub of a very rich county
I think when my parents are gone my son will also move. I don’t know what his rent arrangements are exactly but I know that the houses will probably need to be sold. If they aren’t gone before them, I am sure the other older neighbors will move out soon after my parents are gone. Then I won’t need to visit the street and see the ruin. With any luck I won’t need to even visit the city again.
I hate the smell of it as we drive into it. I hate the noise and congestion. My grandparents would never have lived in these conditions. My dad says he will live in the house he built until he dies. He will keep grandpas house too, I’m sure. My mother did sell her moms house, which was on the other side of Mom and Dads and the people who bought it turned it into an ugly two story with a bare yard and two mean dogs. It doesn’t resemble the pretty small home my grandmother had with its elaborate gardens.
One of my sisters still lives in the city too. Her neighborhood is just as bad. The rest of us had sense enough to get out. I hope and pray I never have to move back into one of these ugly cities.
Monday, July 21, 2008
It's hot, dogs and turkeys
I don’t know why it is but hot and humid days just make me want to hole up some where until they are over. I can take a little heat if its not too humid but the combination really gets to me. And it has been miserable here the last 5 or 6 days. The plants love it though. The lilies are gorgeous right now.
I had to get up early today so I could run the little Jack Russell pup Tina to the vet. Late Friday night she and the rest of the dogs were playing wildly after it cooled off a bit and she started yelping and hid. I thought she got bit and checked her over but couldn’t find anything. She screamed every time one of her legs was touched. I didn’t see much swelling and couldn’t feel a break so I let it go, assuming she would feel better the next morning. But she laid around all Saturday and Sunday with the one hind leg in a funny position and crying whenever someone touched it.
So I got up early to get her to the vet, our country vet waits in his office for appointments or walk-ins for a short while after 8:30 am then he goes off to farm calls, does surgery or goes home. We caught him and he thought an x-ray was in order. In order to keep her still during the x-ray, he knocked her out. I held her while she dozed off and he ran out to let a plumber into a rental house he owned.
When he came back we did the first x-ray. His machine is really old. While waiting for the x-ray to develop, I decided to cuddle her to make her more comfortable than laying on a cold table. Bad move, she peed all over me, still out cold. The x-ray was too dark and we had to do another one. And wait, me with a wet shirt now. I saw a flea on her and killed it. Our dogs do not have fleas, she must have picked it up off the table. I hope I got the only one. Lucky for Tina the x-ray showed no break or dislocation. So a hundred dollars later I learn she has a bad bruise and now maybe fleas.
Not only did I spend $100. on a dog today I got bit on my left arm by one of my lovely dogs this morning trying to break up a fight. These girls are cranky in the hot weather too. The fight started right beside me in bed, over who would be between me and Steve, the coveted position.
And I had to shoo turkeys home again this morning too. Last week I opened up the pen for the little mallard ducks I raised and told them to go find the pond. They had all their feathers and they sure make a mess of a pen. By evening two had disappeared, although I can’t see them on the pond. Our old white duck came up to eat where the last mallard was, and I thought it would follow him but it just hung around the back door of the barn where its pen is. It started coming in the barn through the hole for the cats and then it found the pen where I had moved the heritage turkeys. They had spent their first few weeks together in the brooder.
Duck encouraged turkeys to fly up over their pen walls and the first day I came out they were all just inside the barn door. I recaptured the turkeys, I thought maybe something had just spooked them. Second night duck led them out through the cat door. I had to chase them around outside that morning. I closed a connecting door between two parts of the barn so they couldn’t get out the back or the duck in by them. Duck circled around outside until he came to the pen where the bigger turkeys and the hens were. Turkeys somehow knew he was there. This am the two lighter colored turkeys were sitting on the 52 inch high rail of their pen and the one who looks like a wild turkey had flown over the inside divider between the hens and other turkeys, went through their door to the outside pen and was sitting next to his friend the duck. I shooed the other two back into their pen.
I don’t want the duck in the hen pen because it’s a wild mallard and should be free and because I don’t want the mess he will make with the water. I can’t catch him now or I would take it down to the pond, which is only about 50 feet away but down an incline and hidden to a duck anyway, by tall grass. The dark turkey will probably be all right with the hens and big turkey. Unless he flies out of there to be with the duck. So much fun down on the farm.
I had to get up early today so I could run the little Jack Russell pup Tina to the vet. Late Friday night she and the rest of the dogs were playing wildly after it cooled off a bit and she started yelping and hid. I thought she got bit and checked her over but couldn’t find anything. She screamed every time one of her legs was touched. I didn’t see much swelling and couldn’t feel a break so I let it go, assuming she would feel better the next morning. But she laid around all Saturday and Sunday with the one hind leg in a funny position and crying whenever someone touched it.
So I got up early to get her to the vet, our country vet waits in his office for appointments or walk-ins for a short while after 8:30 am then he goes off to farm calls, does surgery or goes home. We caught him and he thought an x-ray was in order. In order to keep her still during the x-ray, he knocked her out. I held her while she dozed off and he ran out to let a plumber into a rental house he owned.
When he came back we did the first x-ray. His machine is really old. While waiting for the x-ray to develop, I decided to cuddle her to make her more comfortable than laying on a cold table. Bad move, she peed all over me, still out cold. The x-ray was too dark and we had to do another one. And wait, me with a wet shirt now. I saw a flea on her and killed it. Our dogs do not have fleas, she must have picked it up off the table. I hope I got the only one. Lucky for Tina the x-ray showed no break or dislocation. So a hundred dollars later I learn she has a bad bruise and now maybe fleas.
Not only did I spend $100. on a dog today I got bit on my left arm by one of my lovely dogs this morning trying to break up a fight. These girls are cranky in the hot weather too. The fight started right beside me in bed, over who would be between me and Steve, the coveted position.
And I had to shoo turkeys home again this morning too. Last week I opened up the pen for the little mallard ducks I raised and told them to go find the pond. They had all their feathers and they sure make a mess of a pen. By evening two had disappeared, although I can’t see them on the pond. Our old white duck came up to eat where the last mallard was, and I thought it would follow him but it just hung around the back door of the barn where its pen is. It started coming in the barn through the hole for the cats and then it found the pen where I had moved the heritage turkeys. They had spent their first few weeks together in the brooder.
Duck encouraged turkeys to fly up over their pen walls and the first day I came out they were all just inside the barn door. I recaptured the turkeys, I thought maybe something had just spooked them. Second night duck led them out through the cat door. I had to chase them around outside that morning. I closed a connecting door between two parts of the barn so they couldn’t get out the back or the duck in by them. Duck circled around outside until he came to the pen where the bigger turkeys and the hens were. Turkeys somehow knew he was there. This am the two lighter colored turkeys were sitting on the 52 inch high rail of their pen and the one who looks like a wild turkey had flown over the inside divider between the hens and other turkeys, went through their door to the outside pen and was sitting next to his friend the duck. I shooed the other two back into their pen.
I don’t want the duck in the hen pen because it’s a wild mallard and should be free and because I don’t want the mess he will make with the water. I can’t catch him now or I would take it down to the pond, which is only about 50 feet away but down an incline and hidden to a duck anyway, by tall grass. The dark turkey will probably be all right with the hens and big turkey. Unless he flies out of there to be with the duck. So much fun down on the farm.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Hawks and Hay
It’s been beautiful the last few days. So glad I live in the country. If I was still back in the city I would be watching people wash their cars instead of watching horses graze. And listening to boom boxes, crying kids and sirens instead of birds singing. This Fourth of July we have new neighbors and there was no noisy illegal fireworks going off. We stayed home to leisurely mornings and work when we wanted.
We woke this morning to the smell of fresh cut hay drifting in the windows. The farmers all around us aren’t resting, they are using this spell of warm sunny weather to get second cutting in. It has been hard to find a few dry days in a row to get hay done. The alfalfa field just SE of us was in full bloom. I got some pretty pictures made of it. Hay prices may be high again this fall. I hear it’s still over $4.00 a bale at auction.
The wheat fields up the road are turning golden. A sign of summer maturing, it’s pretty but I want summer to go a little slower, at least now while the weather is comfortable. My tune may change in August when it’s hot and muggy.
We have a large hawk that has a fledgling in our woods. I think it’s a Red Shouldered Hawk. I surprised Mom by the pond and she flew off with something large. Later when I was walking by the backside of the pond I found a large rabbit with its guts torn out. I sat quietly behind the barn with my binoculars locating the screaming Mom in one tree and screeching baby in another. He or she is as big as mom. She sits somewhere, often where I can’t see her and does that hawk scream and baby just keeps up that screeching begging. I think she is trying to get it to hunt. I have seen them swoop around together. Usually however if mom spots me she shuts up and hides. Baby just keeps screeching. The noise goes on almost all day and while it’s fascinating to watch, the noise can get annoying. It moves from tree to tree sometimes it’s fairly close and sometimes farther out.
I have been watching other bird babies at the feeder. The Orioles have several young ones coming with them to eat jelly. Baby Red Winged Blackbirds are trying to learn how to perch on the suet feeder. Baby doves are on the ground and will almost let you step on them. How they don’t get eaten by cats is a miracle. There is a whole flock of baby pheasants that I see on the road, but they don’t come by the feeder.
The flowers are great right now too, both in the garden and in the field. Now that there are no sheep in the pasture it’s covered with daisies and wild sweet peas and other wild flowers. I have beautiful lilies and roses in bloom. I hope summer continues to be kind.
We woke this morning to the smell of fresh cut hay drifting in the windows. The farmers all around us aren’t resting, they are using this spell of warm sunny weather to get second cutting in. It has been hard to find a few dry days in a row to get hay done. The alfalfa field just SE of us was in full bloom. I got some pretty pictures made of it. Hay prices may be high again this fall. I hear it’s still over $4.00 a bale at auction.
The wheat fields up the road are turning golden. A sign of summer maturing, it’s pretty but I want summer to go a little slower, at least now while the weather is comfortable. My tune may change in August when it’s hot and muggy.
We have a large hawk that has a fledgling in our woods. I think it’s a Red Shouldered Hawk. I surprised Mom by the pond and she flew off with something large. Later when I was walking by the backside of the pond I found a large rabbit with its guts torn out. I sat quietly behind the barn with my binoculars locating the screaming Mom in one tree and screeching baby in another. He or she is as big as mom. She sits somewhere, often where I can’t see her and does that hawk scream and baby just keeps up that screeching begging. I think she is trying to get it to hunt. I have seen them swoop around together. Usually however if mom spots me she shuts up and hides. Baby just keeps screeching. The noise goes on almost all day and while it’s fascinating to watch, the noise can get annoying. It moves from tree to tree sometimes it’s fairly close and sometimes farther out.
I have been watching other bird babies at the feeder. The Orioles have several young ones coming with them to eat jelly. Baby Red Winged Blackbirds are trying to learn how to perch on the suet feeder. Baby doves are on the ground and will almost let you step on them. How they don’t get eaten by cats is a miracle. There is a whole flock of baby pheasants that I see on the road, but they don’t come by the feeder.
The flowers are great right now too, both in the garden and in the field. Now that there are no sheep in the pasture it’s covered with daisies and wild sweet peas and other wild flowers. I have beautiful lilies and roses in bloom. I hope summer continues to be kind.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
dog games
It was raining all morning just lightly, good for the plants. We got up and were so glad that our son came up and re-roofed the porch yesterday. It was a toss up for us because both days were supposed to be rainy. He and a friend decided to come up Saturday and do the best they could. Although the skies looked threatening for a long time the rain held off until long after they left in the evening. New roof and it got tested right away.
Our weather has fallen into a kind of tropical pattern with thunderstorms almost every afternoon or evening and hot humid weather earlier in the day. Today we had the cool rainy weather early and now it’s sunny and steamy. We have been blessed that none of the storms here have been bad; the bad ones go above and below us. And there has been some wild weather this year in my corner of Michigan. Huge hailstones, wind, tornadoes, torrential rains and lots of lightning have hit close by.
My tomatoes have quarter sized fruit and my corn just may be knee high by the fourth of July. We have been eating leaf lettuce, although that’s better when there are tomatoes to go with it. It’s been hard keeping up with the weeds but everything is looking nice in the gardens. My landscape roses are blooming and some daylilies. Evening primroses and dayflowers are nice right now.
I just came in from fence fixing again. We have 15 dogs on this farm, yes that’s right 15, and 14 of them generally stay within their boundaries, either their kennels or the large fenced yard. We have 8 foot fence around the yard with a board at the bottom and boards on the inside to discourage diggers. In the back of the yard, where the fence shares a boundary with the east pasture and there is a view of the back of the barn we erected a secondary fence 10 foot from the first fence also 8 feet high.
Despite this Ginger, our small red Jack Russell – Yorkie mix manages to escape pretty much at her pleasure. This wouldn’t be quite as bad except when she escapes she likes to kill small things, like kittens right now. Two days ago she jumped to the top of a rail 4 foot off the ground, walked down it to a spot where the top half of the fence wasn’t tightly hooked to the bottom fence and squeezed through. Then yesterday before the guys arrived for the roof she managed to get through both fences in the back by climbing one and digging under the second after squeezing between some privacy type fencing that’s there and the newer wire fence.
I, of course don’t see her do this, I go out and look for signs. She never tries to escape when she knows anyone will see her. The other dogs usually tell on her by barking wildly if they see her getting out. For a while her son Buddy was following her, but he is too heavy to climb well and most of her recent escapes have involved climbing. When ever we hear a certain kind of frantic barking we run to check on Ginger.
Our house dogs have a doggie door that they come and go from into the fenced yard. Ginger has always been a house dog but we are at our wits end. Next weekend weather permitting, we are going to rebuild the whole east boundary fence. It just seems like we are spending a lot of time on one little dog’s mischief. She is the dickens to catch once she gets out. She won’t come to you until she is tired. Her sole aim is to get to the kittens or ducklings or chickens or what ever she can grab. Her eyes light up and she seems to be having loads of fun, but it isn’t fun for us or whatever she is chasing.
In the old days a dog like this would have been destroyed. But she is so cute and loving to family and so smart I could never do that. I am afraid to find a new home for her because I would worry that she would get out and be lost. She is also great at darting through doors between your legs.
I have had the bad experience twice of finding homes for older dogs and having them run off soon after they got to the new home. In both cases I spent days trying to catch the lost dog with a lot of sleepless nights and anxiety. One of the dogs, a female named Peanut was gone for over a week in cold weather and when we found her was semi-conscious and near death. I nursed her back to health and she is still at our home, although her health has never been great after that experience.
The other was a six month old male, who took off on the elderly couple I placed him with by slipping a collar. He was hanging around their farm but wouldn’t let them near him. He had seemed happy with them when he left. I couldn’t coax him back either, although I saw him several times on their farm and spent hours sitting on the wet ground trying to convince him to come to me. Dogs get funny when they are scared and lost and sometimes even avoid those they know.
We ended up catching him by setting a live trap baited with hotdog. Once back inside the couple’s home he was again his loving, happy self. They decided they still wanted to keep him. They brought him back once to visit, and 3 years later he is a spoiled and well loved pet and now has the freedom of the farm.
Back to Ginger, if you are reading this and thinking she should be obedience trained- well she is. Inside or in the yard she will do anything I tell her. She completely ignores every bit of training when she gets loose. I know she gets bored. But she has a large area to run in and several dogs to wrestle with and lots to watch around her. They get to run in the pond area every so often, which is an even larger fenced area with tall grass, and water to splash in. Most of the dogs love that, Ginger just goes around looking for a way out.
It may be the attention thing, none of these dogs ever thinks they get enough attention. But mostly I think she is smart and has the hunting terrier instinct in her so strong she can’t help herself. It’s like working a puzzle to get out and then there’s that addicting thrill of the chase. The worse thing is that she is learning that when the other dogs “tell” on her the fun is cut short. So she is sneaking away when the rest are quietly lying at our feet and even the kennel dogs aren’t watching, for more fun before someone realizes she’s gone.
So we are playing this game of chess. I move then she moves. When I am through here in the office I will let her out of the room she is shut in and see how long it takes before she is loose. Sometimes days go by before she figures something out. Then we start all over.
Our weather has fallen into a kind of tropical pattern with thunderstorms almost every afternoon or evening and hot humid weather earlier in the day. Today we had the cool rainy weather early and now it’s sunny and steamy. We have been blessed that none of the storms here have been bad; the bad ones go above and below us. And there has been some wild weather this year in my corner of Michigan. Huge hailstones, wind, tornadoes, torrential rains and lots of lightning have hit close by.
My tomatoes have quarter sized fruit and my corn just may be knee high by the fourth of July. We have been eating leaf lettuce, although that’s better when there are tomatoes to go with it. It’s been hard keeping up with the weeds but everything is looking nice in the gardens. My landscape roses are blooming and some daylilies. Evening primroses and dayflowers are nice right now.
I just came in from fence fixing again. We have 15 dogs on this farm, yes that’s right 15, and 14 of them generally stay within their boundaries, either their kennels or the large fenced yard. We have 8 foot fence around the yard with a board at the bottom and boards on the inside to discourage diggers. In the back of the yard, where the fence shares a boundary with the east pasture and there is a view of the back of the barn we erected a secondary fence 10 foot from the first fence also 8 feet high.
Despite this Ginger, our small red Jack Russell – Yorkie mix manages to escape pretty much at her pleasure. This wouldn’t be quite as bad except when she escapes she likes to kill small things, like kittens right now. Two days ago she jumped to the top of a rail 4 foot off the ground, walked down it to a spot where the top half of the fence wasn’t tightly hooked to the bottom fence and squeezed through. Then yesterday before the guys arrived for the roof she managed to get through both fences in the back by climbing one and digging under the second after squeezing between some privacy type fencing that’s there and the newer wire fence.
I, of course don’t see her do this, I go out and look for signs. She never tries to escape when she knows anyone will see her. The other dogs usually tell on her by barking wildly if they see her getting out. For a while her son Buddy was following her, but he is too heavy to climb well and most of her recent escapes have involved climbing. When ever we hear a certain kind of frantic barking we run to check on Ginger.
Our house dogs have a doggie door that they come and go from into the fenced yard. Ginger has always been a house dog but we are at our wits end. Next weekend weather permitting, we are going to rebuild the whole east boundary fence. It just seems like we are spending a lot of time on one little dog’s mischief. She is the dickens to catch once she gets out. She won’t come to you until she is tired. Her sole aim is to get to the kittens or ducklings or chickens or what ever she can grab. Her eyes light up and she seems to be having loads of fun, but it isn’t fun for us or whatever she is chasing.
In the old days a dog like this would have been destroyed. But she is so cute and loving to family and so smart I could never do that. I am afraid to find a new home for her because I would worry that she would get out and be lost. She is also great at darting through doors between your legs.
I have had the bad experience twice of finding homes for older dogs and having them run off soon after they got to the new home. In both cases I spent days trying to catch the lost dog with a lot of sleepless nights and anxiety. One of the dogs, a female named Peanut was gone for over a week in cold weather and when we found her was semi-conscious and near death. I nursed her back to health and she is still at our home, although her health has never been great after that experience.
The other was a six month old male, who took off on the elderly couple I placed him with by slipping a collar. He was hanging around their farm but wouldn’t let them near him. He had seemed happy with them when he left. I couldn’t coax him back either, although I saw him several times on their farm and spent hours sitting on the wet ground trying to convince him to come to me. Dogs get funny when they are scared and lost and sometimes even avoid those they know.
We ended up catching him by setting a live trap baited with hotdog. Once back inside the couple’s home he was again his loving, happy self. They decided they still wanted to keep him. They brought him back once to visit, and 3 years later he is a spoiled and well loved pet and now has the freedom of the farm.
Back to Ginger, if you are reading this and thinking she should be obedience trained- well she is. Inside or in the yard she will do anything I tell her. She completely ignores every bit of training when she gets loose. I know she gets bored. But she has a large area to run in and several dogs to wrestle with and lots to watch around her. They get to run in the pond area every so often, which is an even larger fenced area with tall grass, and water to splash in. Most of the dogs love that, Ginger just goes around looking for a way out.
It may be the attention thing, none of these dogs ever thinks they get enough attention. But mostly I think she is smart and has the hunting terrier instinct in her so strong she can’t help herself. It’s like working a puzzle to get out and then there’s that addicting thrill of the chase. The worse thing is that she is learning that when the other dogs “tell” on her the fun is cut short. So she is sneaking away when the rest are quietly lying at our feet and even the kennel dogs aren’t watching, for more fun before someone realizes she’s gone.
So we are playing this game of chess. I move then she moves. When I am through here in the office I will let her out of the room she is shut in and see how long it takes before she is loose. Sometimes days go by before she figures something out. Then we start all over.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
bits and pieces
I just came back from a run to the little store in the little country town we live next to for the Sunday paper from a big city a hundred miles away. Once in a while I like to get caught up on world news. One of the little houses in town had two old motorcycles with side cars and two life size models of soldiers, fully dressed in uniforms one sitting on the bike the other standing. There were helmets and other gear on the bikes. A street sign said “Paris 60 miles”. This must have cost a few bucks. It’s Fathers Day not Memorial day so it seems a bit odd, but maybe his father died in WWII.
I guess people must think its odd that I have two half tires hanging from posts by the driveway, painted iris blue and filled with pink and white impatiens. Geez – redneck all the way.
I walked around the pond this morning looking for a snake. I have seen this really unusual snake – about 3 foot long but slender, dark brown on top and golden yellow underneath. I had seen a smaller one just like it early in the spring by my flower bed under the oak- which is also where the big one was. I tried to look it up and the only Michigan snake that came near it was the Copperbelly water snake, which is endangered and not known to be in this part of Michigan.
I talked to a friend at the Nature center and she directed me to a herpetologist at MSU. He though it unlikely but couldn’t tell me what kind of snake it could be either. He wants me to take a picture of it- and catch it to do so if I can. Of course I haven’t seen it since. Steve saw it or one like it down by the pond though. If it’s the Copperbelly they like to eat frogs, which we have plenty of. I am not afraid of snakes and would catch it if I could. I got a good look at this one because it just froze and let me look at it. I wish I had thought to catch it then. I know garter snakes and rat snakes fairly well and most common snakes and this was none of them.
While walking around the pond I found another mystery, a big white egg floating in the water. It was the size of a chicken egg, but we don’t have any layers right now and the nearest other chickens are a half mile away and penned up. The egg had a hole in it like it hatched or was opened to be eaten. I haven’t seen any ducks on the pond except for our poor solitary white male, who lost his male friend two weeks ago. I guess it could be a wild duck or turkey egg that a coon carried there, although I have seen no signs of coon either.
Some of the wild cat’s kittens are missing, but they could have just moved them farther from the barn. Coons and fox will eat eggs and baby kittens. We have kittens everywhere so a few missing are not a problem. I counted 20 last week, different sizes and colors. I found one dead by the back barn door but it didn’t look like anything got it.
All the cocker pups are sold but we got the little Jack Russell pup we sold back. Bessie the cocker mix is due any hour now but that will be the last litter we will have for a good while.
The sweet corn is up and the tomatoes are growing like crazy. The hot wet weather is great for plants and weeds. I just got finished weeding the big flower bed out and now I need to get back to the rest. I am going to mulch the veggies as soon as I can. The tomatoes I had in the house are lanky but they are flowering. I’m trying to find the best way to support them, some are still in pots.
We got part of the new fence up around the pond yesterday before it got too hot. Soon the dogs will be able to have a good run out there again, unless too may baby kittens are out there. More storms are predicted this afternoon, possibly severe. This has been an active weather week although we have been lucky not to get much damage or lose power.
I guess people must think its odd that I have two half tires hanging from posts by the driveway, painted iris blue and filled with pink and white impatiens. Geez – redneck all the way.
I walked around the pond this morning looking for a snake. I have seen this really unusual snake – about 3 foot long but slender, dark brown on top and golden yellow underneath. I had seen a smaller one just like it early in the spring by my flower bed under the oak- which is also where the big one was. I tried to look it up and the only Michigan snake that came near it was the Copperbelly water snake, which is endangered and not known to be in this part of Michigan.
I talked to a friend at the Nature center and she directed me to a herpetologist at MSU. He though it unlikely but couldn’t tell me what kind of snake it could be either. He wants me to take a picture of it- and catch it to do so if I can. Of course I haven’t seen it since. Steve saw it or one like it down by the pond though. If it’s the Copperbelly they like to eat frogs, which we have plenty of. I am not afraid of snakes and would catch it if I could. I got a good look at this one because it just froze and let me look at it. I wish I had thought to catch it then. I know garter snakes and rat snakes fairly well and most common snakes and this was none of them.
While walking around the pond I found another mystery, a big white egg floating in the water. It was the size of a chicken egg, but we don’t have any layers right now and the nearest other chickens are a half mile away and penned up. The egg had a hole in it like it hatched or was opened to be eaten. I haven’t seen any ducks on the pond except for our poor solitary white male, who lost his male friend two weeks ago. I guess it could be a wild duck or turkey egg that a coon carried there, although I have seen no signs of coon either.
Some of the wild cat’s kittens are missing, but they could have just moved them farther from the barn. Coons and fox will eat eggs and baby kittens. We have kittens everywhere so a few missing are not a problem. I counted 20 last week, different sizes and colors. I found one dead by the back barn door but it didn’t look like anything got it.
All the cocker pups are sold but we got the little Jack Russell pup we sold back. Bessie the cocker mix is due any hour now but that will be the last litter we will have for a good while.
The sweet corn is up and the tomatoes are growing like crazy. The hot wet weather is great for plants and weeds. I just got finished weeding the big flower bed out and now I need to get back to the rest. I am going to mulch the veggies as soon as I can. The tomatoes I had in the house are lanky but they are flowering. I’m trying to find the best way to support them, some are still in pots.
We got part of the new fence up around the pond yesterday before it got too hot. Soon the dogs will be able to have a good run out there again, unless too may baby kittens are out there. More storms are predicted this afternoon, possibly severe. This has been an active weather week although we have been lucky not to get much damage or lose power.
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