Random Shots

A Blast from our Past... and makes my heart sing and hurt at the same time...

Abby, Gertie, with Hannah resting on them, in the living room at the old place. 

What wonderful little girls they were, along with our first pug, Addie Mae. 

How we miss them! 

Sedum gone by in the garden yesterday. 

Bittersweet in the fence line yesterday.  We never had any until last year... 

and it came back despite a summer of neglect. 

When I went to pick Keith up at dialysis yesterday, I took the back roads back to our house.  We followed two combines for five miles.  

Notice there is a ditch at either side of this road. 

The few cars that passed us waited in driveways for the combines to get by, as they took up almost the whole road. 

Guess who didn't pull over? 

Just a minute before I took this picture, a full grain truck (corn) had been in the opposite lane.  He didn't even slow down and there are no shoulders here. 

This is a mile from our house. 

Last night when Keith came home from work... he came upon a big grain truck on 

it's side in the ditch to the left, or south, of this picture.  There were two 

fire trucks and the fire department chief there responding to the wreck, and 

the road, we are sure, was eventually closed.  

Remember I took the picture of the grain truck in my rear view mirror last week? 

I can't tell you how many times they have whizzed by me in the last month.  

Tornado siren test. 

To this day, after almost three months... we have never heard Jester bark or howl. 

He does whimper, when excited. 

He whimpers every single time we go by this pasture daily. 

The horses and cows get him all excited. 

These are just about the last flowers to bloom after two hard frosts. 

They are fading now.  

In fact, the tiny little pink mum bush behind them was still blooming, too. 

There is still some color, just not as much as last week and the week before. 

Little Macey, about whom I wrote yesterday, must go back 

again next Tuesday to the medical center for yet more tests. 

Please keep her and her family in your prayers as they 

wait to find out what is going on with her. 

Pet Memorial Day

Today is Pet Memorial Day in Blogland... 

and in a way, it makes me sad to remember all those 

who have gone before Lilly and Jester. 

Mama's Little Doll... Hannah Jean 

Our beautiful girls, Abby Lynn on the left, and 

Gertie Lou on the right... how we miss them!

Addie Mae, our very first pug! 

(seen here with puppy Lilly) 

The inimitable Beau the Wonder Pony

Our golden Rambo and all his hens, and all those roosters and hens that came after them. 

All the geese we ever owned

The beautiful, faithful Ranger Boy 

Oscar, our first dog as a married couple... our first dog at Calamity Acres... 

killed by a truck in the road, and buried under Oscar's tree in the front yard. 

We can't forget these guys:

The Nickster

Jennie and Josie

Gwen or fondly,  Gwenly

And we can't forget these guys, either:

Though Tony and Yankee have crossed the bridge, Inca
is still alive and well at Oak Grove Animal Sanctuary

I haven't shown you any of the ducks or turkeys, but we loved them all. 

They still hold a place in our hearts and our memories... 

we were so lucky to know them! 

What a Difference in a Year

A year ago today, we lost this little girl: 

Hannah, seen here napping with her Daddy, had had an eye removed on January 2nd, and did not recover from the surgery.  She finally quit eating, and we made a decision to let her cross the bridge on the afternoon of the 24th.  I still miss her, and miss her presence on my right side when I sit on the couch in the evenings.  What a wonderful little girl she was, and always wanted to be by her Mama. 

We miss you, Hannah Jean, but know you wait for us. 

A month ago today, we lost this little one on the left: 

How we miss her sweet little face.  Gertie Lou waits for us, too. 

Abby has NOT slept in that bed even one time since we lost Gert. 

There was another bluebird Kaffee Klatsch going on on the deck this morning, in the very cold January day. 

If I can get a good picture tomorrow, what I thought was a female woodpecker is a northern Flicker (thanks again, Jill!) and it is coming daily.  I'll try to get a better picture of it. 

This guy was back in the pasture early this morning...while...

This guy came very early last night. 

Here was our dawn today, and you can see the Spehars are all ready up and at 'em in their woodshop, their light is on.  It goes on about 6 AM daily. 

There were three hens already laying when I got to the henspa.  I do it last, as they have a water heater, and I don't have to worry about getting them a warm drink first thing.  We still have the two Porcelain D'Uccles living on top of the nest box, and in the rafters, and we do put a waterer up for them during the day... draining it at night.  I know that if they were very thirsty, they would come down and drink, so I go there last.  We do not put water out in the yard of the henspa... I don't want to draw the little birds there, and there is a space where they can get under the covering.  I do sometimes throw some corn out there, for the girls to scratch.  

The big henhouse, and the little, both have their waterers drained when the birds go in.  We used to deal with frozen waterers in the morning, and now I just have to carry the warm water out and pour it in.  They are always glad to get some warm water in the morning.

We used to have heaters for the waterers in there, but our electric load is now very precarious, and we need to get the lines re-run because of the mice.  It's all I can do to run the warming light to the little henhouse. 

We also put warm water in the outdoor fortexes.  I looked over there while I was doing the henspa, and probably 300 starlings were already there.  They drained the fortexes, but they have to drink, too.  At least they aren't invading us like the last five years, I have not seen more than ten or so inside. 

I refilled the fortexes with warm water three times during the day. 

Here's our good Lil on sitting point at the fence... she was listening to a dog barking in the distance.  A minute later, I let her in the pasture for a run. 

This one was in the pasture, too... but being naughty.  See the pipe coming out of the tree?  There is an old cistern there.  Keith and I filled it with a lot of cement blocks, cat litter and other stuff, but it is still dangerous.  I am going to build a little fence around this corner as soon as it is warmer with some t-poles and fencing we have left, to keep Abs and Lil away from it.  I had already called her twice when she finally looked at me. 

She followed me out, and next thing I knew, was in the henhouse with me as I emptied the waterers.  

She can open the door with her paw and head, and I was emptying the waterers and almost fell over her.  She was giving the pug stink eye, and on Pug Point, to Buffy, the Polish hen, who was trying to sleep in that lower nest box.  We trimmed Buffy's beak yesterday, but I have a feeling that she is not seeing very well.  I'm going to pick her up and take a look tomorrow.  I almost had to pick Abby up and carry her out with me, she was so intent.  She didn't move for almost a minute. 

Thanks to all of you for your comments about the ponies last night.  We did get the fencing bid today, and it's very affordable.  We are going to schedule it for two weeks from now.  Thanks to Terry, at Moondance Ranch for some special advice about which she wrote me privately. 

I also talked to my friend, and all the ponies are at her home place, and in a big pen with automatic water and hay... so easily catchable, unlike the 80 acre pasture they spend summers in.  Whew. 

I'm also considering this one: 

Yes, that's Rosie, one of the two Hackney mares that was here for a week last summer.  She was such a beauty.  She has been broken to saddle and trained to drive. 

Sorry for the heavy load of pictures, I just realized there was more going on on this cold day than I thought! 

I Feel a Two Post Sunday Coming On

Okay, I have a couple of early morning rants so I must be feeling better.

One is the fact that now one has to type in not one but TWO nonsensical words on Blogger when one is trying to post a comment on some blogs.  The funny thing is, I am sure I have misspelled several of those words, and the comment is accepted anyway.  I mean, c'mon, Blogger!

Another comment problem.... even though I am signed in to our own blog, I will come across the odd blog where, when I try to comment,  it will tell me to sign in with Google Friend Connect, Yahoo, Facebook, etc..  Then, when I press "Google Friend Connect" absolutely nothing happens.  Does this happen to others?  I have found several very nice blogs lately that I wanted to encourage and tell them how much I enjoyed their posts... but could not. 

Totally off this subject... and sorry, if I'm offending anyone... but honestly... was Whitney Houston a national heroine?

As you might imagine, there have been a lot of Hall's Mentho-Lyptus cough drops consumed here this week.  I really would rather not have a cough drop that lectured me, despite the fact they are so soothing to the sore throat.  Their wrappers contain sayings such as "Keep your chin up", "Dust off and get up", and "You got it in you".  Maybe the fact that I was supine and suffering aggravated me the most.

And non-rant-wise, I'm going to try to get caught up on blog-reading today since I'm still not top shelf yet (nor is Keith).  We are also finalizing gardening plans, and hope to have Chris up next weekend to help get all the beds ready.  We are expecting some rain here this week, and some cooler temps.  If Keith is up to it later... and we are not sure he will be... he is going to try version two of the hoop-structure plan to see if it works.  More about that in a separate post.

We received a wonderful Hallmark card from our friends Theresa and Don after we lost little Hannah.  I wanted to type out the sentiment here (I hope Hallmark will not sue me) because it was so wonderful, and because I hope it will help friends like Vickie, who has so recently lost her own best dog friend...

"They will not go quietly,

the dogs who've shared our lives.

In subtle ways they let us know

their spirit still survives.

Old habits still can make us

think we hear them at the door

Or step back when we drop a

tasty morsel on the floor."

She didn't know north from south at this point, but oh, how I miss her warm little body at my feet as I type.

Looking Back

Waxing nostalgic tonight, and looking back over the time since I started blogging about our lives here at Calamity Acres.  We have had so many animal members of our family in the seven years we have been here, that it seems like we have lived here much longer.

Here is our dear old pony Beau, and his goose friend, Samantha.

Samantha had a mate, Timmy, who was killed by a coyote attack, and all we found of him was his back and wings against the far fenceline.  Samantha loved Beau, and ate and drank with him daily, following him around the pasture.  She would pick straw from his coat as he laid in the sun, and I caught her doing it with the camera one day.  Sadly, something attacked Sammy and she suffered for days while I kept treating her wounds with iodine and salve... but missed a wound under a wing, and that got her. She was a lovely goose.

The brave Mama Llama, who came here to guard against coyotes after Sammy and Timmy died, with her then-little cria, Tony.

What a wonderful old girl she was!  She taught Tony and Inca well, and that's why Aztec is growing up so well today.  Sadly, Mama Llama has since died... inexplicably, in her home pasture at my friend Joni's. As Joni said, when you buy an animal at auction, you often do not know how old they really are. 

Sweet little Addie Mae, our first little pug.

Our beautiful geese and ducks.

We are hopefully going to have waterfowl again later this year. 

My little doll, waiting for me as I cleaned house.

People have come and gone too, stepson Brandon finished high school here with us, and is now living and working back in Council Bluffs, Iowa.  Grandson Chris comes and goes, helping out, and Nathan comes frequently to visit us, including this weekend.  We are hoping that once I am retired, we can frequently have family over for cookouts.  It seems now that the weekends either fly by with errands, or we are so tired that we just don't put forth the effort to have company.  I think that will change with this coming summer.

It seems like just a short time since we moved here... I had had surgery on my knee and couldn't walk, and Keith, God bless him, moved us BY HIMSELF.   I don't to this day know how he did it!

He actually painted the whole interior of the house before he started moving us, and moved me in a pain-medicine daze after he got the furniture moved.  And yet, we have had so many adventures since we moved here... Keith has built so very much.... the place has gone from a plain house sitting on five acres to a house with a pasture, with a barn, with fencing, with a garden, an arbor, flowerbeds.... it's a different place than what we bought and moved into.  It's a family place, it's home.

In high school (lo, these many years ago) we had to read the Trilogy of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien.  A lot of the students complained about it, but I loved the books, and re-read them over and over.  In the trilogy, as many of you know... the elves leave Middle Earth by taking a boat into the west. 

Today, Hannah's boat crossed over.

Here she is in happier days... very, very rarely did she come out into the yard. Even when we adopted her, her eyesight had gone south.

This photo is remarkable... in it are four of our friends who have crossed the bridge and are waiting for us on the other side.... Hannah, Addie Mae, so sweet and loving... Nick, who traveled from Kansas City, Kansas to Texas to Illinois to Leavenworth to Tonganoxie with aplomb, and Beau, the pony of my heart, who decorated our yard for the last three years of his life.  Always one for a visit, it took only a gathering to get Beau up to hear the conversation.  I swear he would have joined in if he could.

And yes, your blogger is about 70 pounds heavier there.

Hannah and her daddy, same night.  She hated being held and restrained, even though the other dogs liked it.  She wanted only to sit or lay by you, where she could hear your voice or feel your hand on her back.  Only in these last few weeks did she want to be held.

She often would watch me quietly as I worked or baked in the kitchen.

Or snuggle next to you when it was nap time.

On January second, we removed her left eye, because it had developed glaucoma during the fall.  During the enucleation, the vet also did a tooth cleaning.  During that, four teeth fell out, they had been very bad.  We think she had suffered from toothache for a long time.  She did not bounce back well from the eye operation, and she and I had gone to see Dr. Tom four times since.  Last Monday, a week ago, I asked him for a fair assessment of her future, and he told me the best we could hope for was another six months to a year, if we could get her sinus infection healed.  But you see, in worrying about the head, I missed something else.

She had not eaten since Sunday morning, and had only drank a little milk now and then.  I noticed last night that she sat, instead of laying by me on the couch... sitting in a slump, head hanging for almost two hours.  Twice, when she tried to lay down, she sat back up abruptly, and I mentioned it to Keith.  We talked about having to do what we had put off and planned for Friday afternoon.  Again, she tried to lay down, and didn't yipe, but pulled back abruptly, though I could tell she was worn out and wanted to lay.  Finally, she slumped down and sighed. 

You can see what it is in this picture, taken earlier today, I had made a last-ditch effort to get her to eat a little cottage cheese, which she normally loved.

Her left front paw is badly swollen.  She had managed, somehow, we think maybe in her crate, to tear one claw partially out.  There was a very, very sore spot there, where matter had stuck together and infection had set in.  We aren't sure when it happened, but I know that Sunday night she could not put weight on it.  I never even saw it, and it has hurt me all afternoon.

This was her favorite place, then, at my feet, where she could smell me and see me and hear me a little, up very close.  I could reach down and pat her little head.  Not rambunctious like the two little girls, she was sedate and staid, and the perfect little dog. 

Daddy and Mommy will miss you, Hannah Jean, until we see you and Addie, and Oscar, Nicky, Gwen, Jenny, Beau and Lacey across our own bridge bye and bye.

One of These Things is Not Like the Other

Okay, this was yesterday in the big henyard.

Notice the ice that Keith and I had broken out of the fortexes.  This was the second watering of the day, and oh WHEN will I learn to take a picture from the correct angle so that my shadow doesn't show?   We have been pouring out the fortexes at night so we don't have to break thick ice in the mornings.

This was today:

Notice the absence of ice?  We went from 18 degrees yesterday to 57 degrees today!

Keith took Hannah out at midnight or so, and told me this morning that it was warmer then than it had been all day yesterday.  The starlings came early this morning while I was at church, and ate their fill... once I replenished the feeders, the birds had feed and water the rest of the day. 

Keith worked in the garden today for a while, getting rid of debris and doing some weed-eating.  We are going to start preparing the beds for spring, but we have not ordered any seeds... yes, the catalogs are tempting, but the fact is, we can get most of our seeds here and not pay any shipping. Burpee seeds are sold at Home Depot, and Grasspad carries many more.  It's fun to go through the catalogs, but not very practical for us. 

 Here are some of the older birds... the original flock was mostly black and white, sons and daughters of Fred, our bantam Japanese rooster.  You can see the old roosters One, Two and Three, and the little hens with them.  These birds are now five years old.  That's the dividing line between the two henyards, and Rocky and the bigger hens to the right.  Today was very gray, though the sun tried to peak through several times.  We are expecting some rain (possibly snow flurries!) tonight.

We could use the rain.

Here is Keith with Hannah this afternoon.  Hannah would never let anyone hold her like this before... she has always wanted to be near you, but not ON you.  We know she has changed profoundly since losing her sight, and now she is also eating only sporadically, as well.  We'll see Dr. Tom one more time this week, and then are going to have to decide what to do about this little girl.

Last week wore both of us out, we admit it.  It's hard work taking care of animals even when the weather is good, but extreme heat and extreme cold make it worse, and we aren't, amazingly, getting any younger.  I spent the day after church baking and dozing... I admit it.  I made an apple brown betty to my own recipe.... a layer of buttery croutons I made myself.... a layer of brown sugar with tabs of butter laid over it... a layer of Granny Smith apples, with another layer of oatmeal and brown suger and butter laid over... baked for an hour at 350.  YUMMMMM.  Tonight we are having simple hamburgers for dinner, I am out of oomph and Keith thankfully changed the llama trough for me, and we finished evening chores together.  Now for an evening of football and Downton Abby!

A Week's Worth of Whining

Good. Gravy. Gert.

I have spent a week, literally, thinking I was locked out of our blog, and lamenting it to everyone near and far.

Guess what?  All I had to do was log into BLOGGER, not my own blog link.  Duhhhhhh.

Last Sunday, I changed my blog to reflect some of the new dynamic views.  I actually like some of them very much, but when I tried to go back and post Sunday's post, I could not get back in.  I let the whole week go by (trying to use the link on our computer) and this afternoon, have sat down and thought about and went to www.blogger.com, and was able to log in as if nothing had ever happened. 

ARRGHHHHHHH!!!!

Sometimes the easiest way is the only way.

We have had a very hard week here.  Those of you up north will laugh when I complain about the cold, but it has been hard here this week.  Doing chores in low temps in the dark in the morning makes you wonder why you are keeping so many chickens.  Next winter, by hook or by crook, the little henhouse will be out of commission for the winter.  We cannot put a heated waterer base in there, and it is very, very hard on the birds.  We do have a red heat lamp going in there now, and the inside dwellers are rarely leaving the pool of warmth it provides.  The hardier Welsummers, Rocks, Silkies and the two Naughty Girls are going outside, though.  The waterers outside freeze again by 10 AM, if they have time before the starlings drink everything in them. Starling poop is everywhere, on everything, and the smell is disgusting.  We are going through layer pellets like gold chips.

16% layer pellets are now 10.10 for fifty pounds at our feed store, actually having gone down a bit.

50 pounds of Snickers Senior, which is a horse feed we are currently feeding the llamas because they dropped the sheep feed we were buying, is 12.20 per bag.  To give a comparison, at Tractor Supply (where I love to shop) Dumor, Purina and Nutrena are all 14.95 a bag for 50 lbs of layer pellets. Llama chow is actually 17.99 per bag.  Yes, it's all about economics. 

We were buying a simple back yard bird feed from TSC for 9.99 a bag for 35 pounds.  It has gone to 11.99.  To this mix I would add peanuts at 11.99 per ten pounds from our feed store, and some black oil I would get at Wal Mart, where it was cheapest. I make ten pounds of peanuts last for two weeks.

Now we have gone back to buying Backyard Blend from our feed store, Valley Feeds in Bonner Springs, Kansas, because even though it is 19.99 for 40 pounds, it has a good blend in it and really doesn't need anything added.  They actually have a premium backyard blend for quite a lot more, but it's beyond our reach at this point.  I am buying suet from either TSC for 99 cents to 1.39, or at Wal Mart (for about the same).

Our brome hay, because we are buying a small amount at a time, is costing us 6.00 a bale, and we notice that the feed store is NOT getting good hay now, and has warned us they will not have hay a couple of months from now  We tried to stock up and have about 14 bales now in the little haybarn.  This latest bale I opened this week does not smell as good as the previous, and I notice the llamas are not eating it with as much relish.

This morning it was 14 out when I went out to do chores, and 20 when I took eggs to the food kitchen. On the way back, after a ten minute stop at the little store in Tongie, it dropped to 19 and then to 18. BRRRRRR.  I can see through the window that some of the birds from the big henhouse are coming out into the pasture, since I have left their entrance open all week.  Lilly is out there, laying in wait if some bird comes too close to the perimeter fence. 

This doghouse is in Butch's old pen, and there is a reason that Three the old rooster is standing there.

This tiny little hen, from the same hatch as Teeny, is using it daily to lay her egg.  Yes, I have to crawl on hands and knees to get it.

Keith will kill me for this one, but here he is at noon after doing some errands, taking a nap with Gertie and Abby.  They love their daddy.  He drove many miles this week to meetings in Topeka, and then yesterday to meetings in downtown KCMO and other places.  Doing chores in the cold and stumbling around in the dark take it's toll on you. 

This little girl is at my feet:

Yes, Hannah is still with us.  She has just about recovered from the enucleation, but the jury is still out.  She is having a very hard time, and we think has now lost 99% of her hearing.  The vet, after checking her this week, said he thinks she could still tell light from dark before, and now sees only black.  She will cross the kitchen, come to a corner, and simply stand in the corner, waiting for someone to rescue her.  Twice this week she nearly fell off the bed, and finally, Wednesday morning, I woke to find her on the floor by the dresser.  I am now crating her during the day, and also, now, at night, so that she and I both get some sleep.  She is the dearest, sweetest little girl, but we are both thinking now that it is not fair to her for the way she is living.  We're trying to make a decision based on her needs, not ours.  We have noticed now she is "snugglier" where before she slept near us, but not against us.  Anchoring herself is probably helping her.

I have chicken breasts to fix for dinner tonight, so am going to stop now and go look at recipes.  I did see a good one this morning on the television for chicken salad, so am keeping that in the back of my mind.  Sometime this week, or perhaps next weekend, we are going to have brisket, which we do rarely.  Yummm!

Did anyone make the Cheeseburger Salad I wrote about last Saturday?  It is SO good!  I love the Pioneer Woman and I love her recipes.