Big Dogs, Big Brambles

Lizzy (my Moms Boxer) was out playing in the pasture today with Rhett and Scarlett, while my Mom worked on the electric fence next door. I had to grab the camera. They tower over her! And they are still growing.

They are the sweetest dogs. They are like the draft horses of the dog world. Gentle Giants.

Vicky snuck into our pasture, when I was in the neighboring pasture with the goats. Rhett and Scarlett love her, but the feelings aren't mutual. Their size scares her to death. Look at the size of their paws compared to her.

I need to think of a caption for this picture.

My Mom put up more strands of electric wire in our neighbors pasture, so the goats can work on the enormous wild blackberry bush over there. So yesterday I brought the goats over one by one on a leash, and let them find out what electric wire is. That way they wouldn't run right through it before they got zapped. Then off they went to the bush. It's hard to get a picture that shows just how big the berry bush is.

See the goat eating off to the right. And those are tree's growing out of the top.

I think they will be eating on this ginormous bush for a looooooong time.

Kimberly 

Guinea Pigs, LGD's, and The Sun

Sir Locksley

 Ringlets

 He love to have his chin scratched. He was eating some orange, so his face is messy.

Even his whiskers grow in ringlets.

Flower

 Her hair had already been cut when I bought her. I think they said she is Silkie. Her hair is soooo soft, and has a very high sheen. Her colors make it very hard to get a good picture of her.

She has a black face, but white whiskers. So cute.

Rhett, and Scarlett

They sure love the irragation water. 

 It was so sunny it bleached Scarlett out in the picture.

Handsome boy.

Scarlett is a bit more silly. Their tails are giant, you just can't help but play with them.

The Sun

We had 1 day last month, that the sun had this very strange dark ring around it.

It was very hard to get good pictures of exactly what it looked like. The sky was very blue, like the above picture. The ring around the sun looked like a dark cloud. The edge of the dark ring was a rainbow.

Kimberly



Good Dogs

I'm doing a pictureless post this time, because Blogger has been giving me a hard time uploading pictures lately. My last post took me several hours to put together, all because it kept gettting stuck half way through loading pictures.

My Mom came inside yesterday with a giant smile on her face. She said she was out by the pasture, and all the goats were out in the very back eating the the shade of the eucalyptus trees. Then she spotted a coyote in the front of the pasture. She didn't know where Rhett and Scarlett were (most likely asleep under the trees), but they caught wind of the coyote. She said they took off after that coyote, chased it all the way to the back of the pasture till it leaped over the fence. Then they stood at the fence watching the coyote till it cleared several neighbors properties. Thats when she yelled to them "Good Dogs! Good Dogs!" They were quite proud of themselves. This is the first time they have been witnessed in action.

Sweet Pea still has a small udder. No calf, and she has not shown any signs of coming into heat. But at least she is healthy, and hasn't had any more episodes. She is on a rye hay diet, and is starting to loose weight. Thats a good thing.

Emmett never adjusted to being a lone guinea pig. After a month of not hearing a single squeak out of him, and him continuously barricading the door to his box with his food dish we decided it was time to find him a friend. Our local feed store gave my Mom the number for a lady they said is "Thee Guinea Pig Lady". As it turns out, it was the same mother and daughter that she bought Emmett from, AND the people I sold all my rabbit supplies to. What a small world. The daughter is in 4-H and raises, and shows many verieties of guinea pigs (AKA cavies). They were very nice, and showed us many different guinea pigs available that were young enough to be placed with Emmett. Many years back when I first started raising Satin Angora rabbits, I had wanted a Texel guinea pig. I just loved their long curly hair that grows in ringlets. But finding a local Texel cavy breeder is like finding a needle in a hay stack. Their aren't very many people raising guinea pigs period. They had one young Texel male available. He was very sweet, and a pretty orange with white dutch type markings. I bought him and named him Sir Locksley. I also bought a black with white markings female. I named her Flower after the skunk on Bambi. I think they said she is a Silky, I will have to check the pedigrees when they drop them by. She was the only long haired female they had available at the time. She is being housed in a seperate cage for 2 reasons. 1. She is to young to be bred. 2. The two males (boars) will fight over a female (sow) if housed in the same cage. Emmett personality did a 180 the moment I put Sir Locksley in his cage. He is squeaking, and chattering up a storm. I will have to post pictures in my next post.

Our weather has been rather crazy and unpradictable this year. Well I should say the last few year I guess. It seems it just can't make up its mind whether it wants to stay hot or cold. One week we are having a heat wave, and the next it is cold and raining. Last week it was cool and it rained a little, then it got humid and hot, and now we are having another heat wave! Its supposed to get up to 106 today. It's a good thing our air conditioner is working.  It's supposed to get even hotter, and Tuesday is supposed to be 111 degrees, Ugh. Rhett and Scarlett don't seem to mind the heat, its an excuse for them to hang out in the irragation water all day. They certainly love water. I have tried pushing Rhett into the water a couple times (just playing around of course), and he responds by trotting around behind me and trying to push me in! He doesn't succeed, but he does get my pants soaked. They sure are smart dogs.

Oh, I almost forgot. Several blogs have been saying that Google Friend Connect is going to disappear. I tried searching Google for this information, because I had not received any notice. I could find no information from Google that this is going to happen. I did find many blog posts from the past several years with rumors saying that this was going to happen numerous times. I am hoping that this is just that, Only a rumor. Because if so, I will loose all the blogs I am following. I am going to write down all the blogs I follow just in case. I have been working on creating a Website and Blog Links Page for my blog, so I can move over all the blogs I follow from the side of my blog page, and get things straightened up a bit. But that has been easier said than done. I thought I could just transfer the Blogs I Follow widget thingy onto the other page, but I was wrong, or I don't know what I am doing. So it will get done. Just slowly as I grab peoples Buttons and pin them on the page. It will pop up one of these days.

All for now.

Kimberly

Goodbye May

We have one bee hive on our property owned by a local beekeeper. The bees had outgrown their hive and decided to swarm. Luckily they only traveled about 30 ft. to our plum tree, where he was able to gather them back up.

What was left of his hive after the great divide.

We finally had a long enough break in the weather, that my Mom was able to get the large garden planted. These are all plants that we grew from heirloom seeds.

My Mom weeding the Provider beans.

We should have a large bounty of plums.

Gypsy tomato

Sweet Dumpling squash

Sucrine Du Berry squash popping out of the earth.

Winter Dickenson squash. The variety of squash that is grown for canned pumpkin.

The blood orange tree has grown quite the sucker. Just another thing to go on the to do list.

The Tufted Buff geese hatched out a new gosling. Here they are proudly hissing at me from the wood pen.

My foe (Star Jasmine). It grows on the fence in our front yard. Although its pretty, I am horribly allergic to it. I would really hate for something to happen to it. Resulting in an untimely death : )

Figs

Can you spot the finch. I have been trying for a year to get a picture of a Bush Tit. They are soooo tiny and fast. They flit around the yard picking bugs off of the plants and trees. You can always hear them as they tweet around the yard, but trying to get a picture is practically impossible.

The apricot tree that I posted pictures of blooming. It has very few fruit again.... We will most likely replace it.

Lula Bell. Yes I named the tractor. Isn't she cute.

The livestock guardian dogs have been growing like weeds.

 Scarlett

 Rhett

A couple weeks ago I found a suprise in a box on my bedroom floor. I guess my Mom just couldn't resist.

 I named him Emmet after the character on Keeping Up Appearances, because he is terrified of us. Poor little guy. I hope I can win him over with comfrey and parsley. He detests oranges.

Last week my Mom and I, checked out a new local thrift store. Thrifting is my most favorite type of shopping. hehe

We found several records. Yay!

There is something so wonderful about the smell of records, and lets not forget that crackle.

Kimberly