Wordless Wednesday IV

Back in the swing....

Well here we are, swinging into the middle of January all ready. Things are going pretty smooth here, my back has finally let up and returned to the "regular old ache" that it has had for the last few years. The boys are back in school, my oldest even got to be on the news! They asked him what he liked most about being at the new school, and his answer was great! He can sometimes get a little shy, but sailed through like a pro! :)

We have a lot of snow, more than the last 2 winters already. It doesn't seem to be showing any signs of stopping any day soon either. Today was even a snow day for the boys, with all the busses cancelled in the city. I love it, it just keeps piling up out there, making a monster of a snow hill for my boys. Hubby might bring home the big loader from work to make the pile even taller. The pick up with the flat plow only manages to get the snow hill up to about 7 feet high. A front end loader can get it up to about 13 feet I believe. Which would be great motivation for the boys to go out and play.

The bassets had just a small little trail in the kennel to walk on, obviously because of how much they love the deep snow. ;) So because we had to carry in wood the other day Hubby snow blowed a nice path from the shed to the house, the bassets (and Pebbles) were thrilled! It was like a whole new yard to them. Snow that was unsniffed for about 2 weeks is like gold to these guys. It doesn't take much to make them happy. Anyways, Hoover poked himself in the eye the other day, it was all red and his haw was swollen, I treated it with antibiotic drops for two days and it all healed nicely. It was rather funny how much he loved to come and wipe that eye goop on my pant legs though. Odie ended up with a mild ear infection on the weekend, poor lad. I have been treating him with drops as well, and it seems to be clearing up rather nicely. He didn't even mess with it at all today. This doesn't seem like a great way to begin the new year, with both of the bassets hurting them selves. I hope that this will be the end of the problems as it was the beginning.

The chickens are all well now. I lost 2 over the holidays to Mareks disease, Momma our beautiful black banty hen, and one of my silkies. That leaves me with just the 4 silkies now, and I have yet to know if any are roosters. I still have the 3 nasty black hens separate from the rest of the flock because of pecking. The polish are settling in rather nicely and 2 of the 3 roo's are crowing their heads off now. One of them is even doing his "job" as a rooster with a bunch of the hens, but still not all of them. I still have 2 very testy red hens in there that will occasionally pick and pull feathers out of my polish but Sylvester is slowly gaining control over his flock. When I see no more of him running from those 2 nasty hens I will put one of the black ones back in there and give her a week or so to settle down, then I will add the last 2 together. I just hope all of this occurs before spring! These guys all need to live together permanently so they have got to learn to get along. I have two hens with bumble foot, who knows how they got it, it was very new so I cleaned the coop and did foot surgery on the hens, Big Red sailed through it, when I changed her bandages today her foot looked great, I cleaned it up, put new bandages and brought her back out to the coop. The other red hen now named Mia, (after Mia Hamm who was born with a club foot but still managed to become a famous soccer star) didn't fare so well, when her bandages were removed today her foot pad had doubled in size and was red and hot. So I had to re-open the wound and dig out the root of the infection. It went well, it took about an hour, but when I was done the foot was soft, and clean and the hen was happy enough to eat a whole slice of bread. :D

So as you can see there is never a dull moment here at "The Hens Nest". We are all keeping busy and all have plenty to smile about. The female cat has returned to her Moms house, but Salt the male is still here for now. We are seriously thinking about keeping him because they offered but we are waiting to see what happens over the next week or so till we make up our minds. The frog is doing super, eating and growing, a pretty nice pet actually, he never wakes me up at night to pee, never barks, or pees on the floor. A ideal pet really! Well, happy Friday the 13th to everyone. I am not superstitious, to those of you who are I hope you had a great day anyways. See you on the flip side! Hugs and droolies for you all.....

Time, Time, Time.....

Sometimes time just has a way of catching up to us. You know what I mean, that day when you realize how fast time goes, and how every year that ticks by is faster than the year previous to it. That has been happening a lot lately here at the farm. From the time that seems to skip by years at a time to the only weeks at a time. My precious Pebbles turned 10 this past spring, when I look at her greying face I wonder just where the time went, and realize just why she has turned into such a great dog. Its because she is getting old, I know that she still has a good 5 years or more left in her, she has bad knees but her health is beyond superb and so is her spirit. My Baby turns 9 this Christmas, and the Hubby and I have been together for 12 years. Time really does fly when your having fun. The days are shortening, the bugs have slowed down and its nearly time for our annual corn roast, all signs that our great Northern Summer is coming to an end. The biggest sign however is that my boys return to school in 2 weeks, and we are left wondering where the heck summer went. I mean we got a lot accomplished and all, but still, come on we're not done yet.

As the holidays are drawing to a close we are realizing all the chores that aren't yet completed. So we have to diligently set our minds to completing a task or two each day. The garden doesn't get put on the schedule, it tells us when it needs to be done. Yesterday we picked 2, 5 gallon pails of peas and beans, so today I will be blanching the peas and tossing them into the freezer, and pickling the beans. I have 2 nearly dead 5 foot cedar trees that need to be planted, and a little bit of painting left to do. The back to school shopping is nearly complete, the last which might be finished up this coming weekend. We have plenty of firewood that still needs to be cut, then split and piled into the woodshed, eaves trough to be put onto the front of the house, and a HUGE pig that needs to be slaughtered before the winter winds settle down on us. Oh, lets not forget a chicken house reno somewhere in there as well. I am glad that all my meat chickens have already been put into the freezer.

But anyways, back to passing time. Its great too see my boys grow more independent and knowledgeable, no more tying shoes, or pouring milk, they even scramble their own eggs. They are learning things to pass on to their future children and even I hear them talk about something that happened "years" ago. This fall it will be 6 years since we lost my Mom to cancer, and my boys will soon have no memories of her at all, unless I keep her spirit alive in their hearts through stories and sharing my memories with them. Odie turns 7 this fall, which also explains his greying face, and less bouncy step. When I look at my husband I see a few grey hairs in his beard, greys that show he works hard and loves harder. I no longer see that 20 year old face when I look in the mirror, I see a Mom, a wife, a farmer, a hard worker, and a woman who loves to laugh and tell a good story. I see a woman who looks like her Mother and is a little afraid of that. We all must age though, I guess its just how we take it.

So as we enter into another fall, with my little boys entering another grade higher, and one less year at home hugging them goodnight, I am going to hug them a little tighter perhaps, and tell a few extra stories about my Mom, Granny, and even "Oscar" the first basset we owned. Maybe I can complain a little less and hug a little more, maybe we all should. Before we know it, and before we are ready or even aware of it, we are all going to be old, and wondering where these days went. My in-laws have a sign hanging in the cottage that states it perfectly "These are the good old days"........

Gonna be a bright, bright, sunshiny day....

Well it appears as though the nice weather has finally arrived, and we are all hoping that it might actually stay this time around. I was able to get my garden planted a couple of weekends ago thankfully. It is just beginning to pop out of the earth now. I still have plants left to go in, and more plants to buy to put in as well.
But anyways, my duckies have been out and about a lot recently, one neighbour has even nick named them the happy travelers. It seems as though they have picked the lawns around us bare of bugs and worms so they have now decided to venture down and across the road to the yards with the nicer, more bug ridden lawns. Well Sunday evening after a very long day of outside work moving the chicken coop. (Pictures coming soon I hope.) Those little brats took off once again across the road, this was about 9:30 in the evening too, so there I was all cozy and comfy on the sofa when I see them out the front window running fast to get away. I had to toss on some boots and head down the road and chase them home. I figured, well that's enough of that so I cornered and caught them and threw them into the dog kennel so they would be stuck safe till I could build them their own pen when I got home from work on Monday. They were not impressed with me at all about the whole situation, quacking up a storm and pacing the fence with a look of forlorn on their little faces. How can you see forlorn on a ducks face you ask? Well it is as obvious to me as a mother of any baby, you know your child.... Well actually that isn't true at all. They don't seem to have any facial expressions at all ever. I see a curious look, but that is more by the tip of their head and the beady little black eyes, they really can't smile or frown like a dog can. Basically, they just always look surprised!
But back to my story, well the ducks had to spend the night and next day in the dog kennel, I figured, well hey, there must be a lot of bugs in that yard, for one, the ducks have never been in there before, and for 2 every time I pick up a poop, there is always ants or little dung beetles underneath.... YUCK... I am not too sure what they did all day when I was gone to work and the dogs spent a lazy afternoon locked up in the house. But I do know that they got a rough and tumble hour of "play" in the middle of the night. Let me explain, Hoover went out for a pee around 11 pm, he did not even notice that the dicks were in his pen. He went out, down the stairs, peed on the grass, back up the stairs and into the house onto the futon. That is his regular routine, why change what works for you. Right? Well Odie has a very different routine, he does not go out at 11 with Hoover, he stays in snoozing on the couch in the living room, unless I feel motivated enough to go and drag him to the door. Most nights I do not feel that energetic. Instead Odie wakes me up sometime between 2 and 4 in the morning. His routine is as follows, cry at edge of bed till mom wakes up, (yay) go to door and cry till mom gets there to let me out. Then he ever so slowly goes outside, stopping on the deck to smell the night air, checking to see if its raining and he should make this a quick pit stop. If it isn't raining, he will saunter down the stairs and wander around the yard. He is usually at least 15 minutes. I go back to bed now, I was getting to cold in the early spring waiting up for him to do his duty, standing there at the door while he takes his time and my precious sleep eludes me, so that he can sniff. Darn hound. So when Odie asked at 4 I got up let him out and went back to bed. I forgot about the ducks......
I was woke up at 4:51 to barking. Oh crap I thought, I forgot Odie out, he must be getting chewed up by the bugs. But, Oh no, he was out there chasing and catching the ducks, he would run and jump on top of one, chew him up, (playfully like he does with Hoover) then dash the other way waiting for the duck to chase and attack him. Well the ducks of course would just run in the other direction, flapping to try to fly over the fence. With no luck of course. I was standing out there laughing at them all and the whole situation, Odie's tail was wagging so fast, and I have never seen him so happy before. So it took me a few minutes to catch him, with ducks flapping and flying over my head and quacking. He didn't put up a fight to come in, he likely just thought that he would play with them again when he got up at 7. Poor birds were so relieved when I came into the house, they first strutted around the yard like they beat him up and that was the reason that he left, then they cuddled up in the corner and went to sleep. Odie did the same thing in the house, fell asleep right away and didn't want to even get up at 7, till I reminded him of his ducky friends out in the yard. But that time he was tied. Hoover still thought nothing of them in the morning, smelled them all from top to bottom then came into the house. So everybody lived to see another day. I wonder though how long they would have live together before they would all be friends? So the ducks are once again fenced in next to the dogs and the 3 of them and Odie play together through the fence again like they always used to do. It really is a wonderful life, especially if you are lucky enough to have a "wee" farm!