Update on my baby brother...he has Glioblastoma Type 4, a very aggressive cancer of the brain. He has gone through 30 rounds of radiation and done chemotherapy at the same time. He can no longer work due to seizures, not being able to drive and is very fatigued. A man he works with set up a GoFundMe for him, well for expenses for my brother and his wife, they take care of their grandson too. They have no insurance so this is going to be a hard journey for them. There is no known cure for Glioblastoma. It is the type of cancer that Senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy died from.
I pretty much started doing research and didn’t take care of my garden like I should have so not much canning this year. It didn’t do much of anything in the way of production anyway, I didn’t amend the soil with anything, no chicken poop compost or ground eggshells, no Epsom salt either. I just was busy doing my bathroom remodel and took a chance, it didn’t pay off. I got very little fruit this year too. I did can some peaches maybe 6 pints? Only one jar of pear butter too. The late freeze pretty much ruined crops for everyone around here. I must do better next year, I didn’t even spray dormant oil! Blueberries did pretty well and that is about it. I have been attempting to make bread again, it has turned out decent, but I don’t have it down pat yet. I have made hamburger buns and hoagie rolls so far. I have also been baking cakes from scratch too, and a pie here and there. My latest cake was for my surrogate grandsons birthday, lol...he wanted a cake with Spider-Man riding a T-Rex and being chased by puppies! I did get it accomplished, I made figures out of sugar cookies and cut them out with a scalpel...note to self...use shortbread dough next time! They expanded quite a bit.
Business at the computer shop has been really bad, my husband showed me the chart of yearly sales totals...it is awful when you hardly have enough money to pay the shops bills at the end of the month...and time and time again, you cannot pay yourself. Not good for being in business for six years. If we want to stay here, something will have to change. We need a steady income of some sort, he has been applying for jobs elsewhere, but no one has called him for an interview or anything. I am going to have to see what may be out there for me. If we cannot find something around here, we will have to move back to the city. I need to get rid of the majority of my poultry, that should help somewhat...but, I know it won’t be enough. I have been looking at smaller houses with less land on line, my husband wants to move to Florida or Arizona. I guess we will see how everything shakes out...
Sunday, September 15, 2019
Sunday, June 2, 2019
Surprise!
Yep, I am finally writing! So much has gone on the past few months I pretty much put myself on lockdown to get some things done. The puppies are grown now, Shotzie is actually experiencing her first heat. She remains slightly larger than Gretchen but, they are crate trained and potty trained, they do well on walks through the woods too, and they will both sit for treats. They are little chow hounds and love scrambled eggs. I did get a good portion of my garden planted and am starting to see small tomatoes, green beans and peppers. It is not as much as I would like to have planted but, when you have as many chores as I do and you are doing a bathroom remodel virtually by yourself, I think I did pretty well. My husband has been mowing more this year, so that helps a lot.
There have been a lot of firsts for me, with the bathroom remodel. We, yes I am including my husband because he did do the ripping out part, some repairs to walls, and got the frame set for the cement shower base, and we got the new thicker cement board up, poured or smashed the concrete to create the base. He plumbed and wired too. We put up the vapor barrier and taped it together before the cement board went up. He put up a piece of insulation that was missing and redid part of the plumbing that had sprung a leak too. We did a lot together over the last year and a half. It is not perfect, but it is a lot better than a broken 6’x4’ broken whirlpool tub with deteriorating Masonite board surrounding it. I did all the tile work by myself, cut and placed new sheet rock, taped, mudded and textured the wall that needed it, painted, built the console for the sink base and put the sink and faucet on. My husband got the toilet with a flange in and finished up hooking up the drain and water on the faucet.
It feels good to be able to use that bathroom again! I did white subway tile on both ends of the shower all the way to the ceiling and a wood look tile in a herringbone pattern on the back wall, the bathroom floor is also the wood look herringbone tile. I still need to work on the threshold or talk my husband in to it...the carpet to tile transition should be fairly easy. I tiled out to the edge of the door frame, but still don’t have the barn door built, so no use rushing it. Anyway, the tile was a bit tough on me, laying tile was not too bad, I am not fond of grouting and cleaning up a wet saw. I still need to come up with storage solutions too. I just have a metal basket stand, a few plastic drawers and I think it is a silverware caddy for storage at the moment. The bathroom is not very big.
I have a lot of catching up to do now. But, things are starting to get ripe, like Dewberries and Blueberries, I will have green beans shortly too. I need to do spring cleaning and yard work. I haven’t finished outside tasks like drainage in the backyard or putting a roof on the run to my breeding pens either. I will have to wait on any major brush removal, although my husband has taken down a few dead trees. I really don’t want to get poison ivy again this year and much of the brush has it entwined through it.
Now on a more somber note. My baby brother was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor, he went in to have a biopsy and they did full on brain surgery instead of just the biopsy. He is not feeling well at all. They removed a section of his skull to get to the tumors and he has a metal plate in his head now. It has affected his vision, he gets dizzy and nauseous, and has areas on his face that he cannot feel anything where they cut nerves and muscle. He has a bunch of staples in a semicircle from the center of his forehead, down to in front of his right ear. It reminds me of Frankenstein...it looks like it hurts and he assures me it does...a lot! I am glad that he is still able to walk this earth with us though and hope that the pain gets better soon. We are waiting for his biopsy results, today is Day 12 after surgery...post-op? I live far away from him now, but have been texting him every few days and have spoken with him on the phone. I need to call and actually talk to him today. I dislike talking on the phone, but need to hear his voice. They believe he has cancer, but that it is a less aggressive form of cancer...we will know more fairly soon, I hope. I want my baby brother to be good for at least another fifty years! He told me they are planning on doing radiation on him after he gets his staples out. I wish he didn’t have to go through all of this. They took their sweet time setting up the biopsy in the first place. But, when you don’t have insurance I guess everything moves at a snails pace.
There have been a lot of firsts for me, with the bathroom remodel. We, yes I am including my husband because he did do the ripping out part, some repairs to walls, and got the frame set for the cement shower base, and we got the new thicker cement board up, poured or smashed the concrete to create the base. He plumbed and wired too. We put up the vapor barrier and taped it together before the cement board went up. He put up a piece of insulation that was missing and redid part of the plumbing that had sprung a leak too. We did a lot together over the last year and a half. It is not perfect, but it is a lot better than a broken 6’x4’ broken whirlpool tub with deteriorating Masonite board surrounding it. I did all the tile work by myself, cut and placed new sheet rock, taped, mudded and textured the wall that needed it, painted, built the console for the sink base and put the sink and faucet on. My husband got the toilet with a flange in and finished up hooking up the drain and water on the faucet.
It feels good to be able to use that bathroom again! I did white subway tile on both ends of the shower all the way to the ceiling and a wood look tile in a herringbone pattern on the back wall, the bathroom floor is also the wood look herringbone tile. I still need to work on the threshold or talk my husband in to it...the carpet to tile transition should be fairly easy. I tiled out to the edge of the door frame, but still don’t have the barn door built, so no use rushing it. Anyway, the tile was a bit tough on me, laying tile was not too bad, I am not fond of grouting and cleaning up a wet saw. I still need to come up with storage solutions too. I just have a metal basket stand, a few plastic drawers and I think it is a silverware caddy for storage at the moment. The bathroom is not very big.
I have a lot of catching up to do now. But, things are starting to get ripe, like Dewberries and Blueberries, I will have green beans shortly too. I need to do spring cleaning and yard work. I haven’t finished outside tasks like drainage in the backyard or putting a roof on the run to my breeding pens either. I will have to wait on any major brush removal, although my husband has taken down a few dead trees. I really don’t want to get poison ivy again this year and much of the brush has it entwined through it.
Now on a more somber note. My baby brother was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor, he went in to have a biopsy and they did full on brain surgery instead of just the biopsy. He is not feeling well at all. They removed a section of his skull to get to the tumors and he has a metal plate in his head now. It has affected his vision, he gets dizzy and nauseous, and has areas on his face that he cannot feel anything where they cut nerves and muscle. He has a bunch of staples in a semicircle from the center of his forehead, down to in front of his right ear. It reminds me of Frankenstein...it looks like it hurts and he assures me it does...a lot! I am glad that he is still able to walk this earth with us though and hope that the pain gets better soon. We are waiting for his biopsy results, today is Day 12 after surgery...post-op? I live far away from him now, but have been texting him every few days and have spoken with him on the phone. I need to call and actually talk to him today. I dislike talking on the phone, but need to hear his voice. They believe he has cancer, but that it is a less aggressive form of cancer...we will know more fairly soon, I hope. I want my baby brother to be good for at least another fifty years! He told me they are planning on doing radiation on him after he gets his staples out. I wish he didn’t have to go through all of this. They took their sweet time setting up the biopsy in the first place. But, when you don’t have insurance I guess everything moves at a snails pace.
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Whittling Down
I got a bit crazy with my poultry raising, I just have too many and at the ripe old age of 60 I am learning the hard way, I need to cut back...a lot. I would love to think that my body will last and be more like the age of a thirty something girl...but it isn’t. I got sick in December, it lasted for several weeks, I got better...then got sick again right after Christmas. The first time, I think was just a bad cold, but it lingered...probably because I spent so much time outside tending to my multitude of poultry. I didn’t feel too awful, but it just took forever to go away, well...being out in the cold, wind and rain is not exactly good for a cold...especially not for the length of time it takes me to feed, water, muck out coops and spread fresh straw or pine shavings. When I got sick the second time it was awful, if I sat still it was not too bad, but...you cannot do that when you have a farm. Feeling weak and dizzy, chilled to my core, coughing, aching...well you get the picture and it didn’t want to go away. Most of the time I can power through my chores. At least if I put the major stuff off, like mucking large coops...not this time. I actually asked my husband to help, or he volunteered and did it all. But, during that time I realized...I need to downsize majorly.
I have been advertising here and there, trying to reduce the male population first and get rid of the adults that I raised...because everyone wants to know they are getting a male and female on poultry like geese and turkeys. My feed bill has been awful for years and I don’t sell enough eggs, chicks or other poultry to pay for my flock, which was the goal to begin with. I have been donating eggs to the local food pantry, so they wouldn’t go to waste. I cannot keep being in the red every year. So I didn’t have to keep feeding them, last year I gave away 62 roosters and two or three male turkeys. I didn’t hatch as many last year, but yesterday, I gave away 20 adult roosters and a male turkey that decided to try and get me every time I fed the poultry in his area. He did a surprise attack on me when I wasn’t looking and hit me hard in the knee...it was time, before I stabbed him with a pitchfork or something. I still have several more males to get rid of too. I had a guy who said he wanted my male turkeys...but, he never showed up and stopped communication, so I am thinking maybe he just said that so maybe he could get rid of some or something...who knows? Yes, we could eat them...but, I don’t really have time to process them and my husband doesn’t really want to. The plucking would be the worst part. I may end up doing it anyway. I have five extra males...I could probably fill the freezer up with ground turkey meat since the weigh about 35 pounds each.
I have just barely gotten my garden plants started in pots, I still need to do more and till again. But it has been raining too much and Mother Nature has been a bit crazy lately. One day it is almost 80 and the next it drops down in the 20’s! My fruit trees have been trying to bloom since December, but a week ago a few were in full bloom when another freeze hit and it was in the 20’s at night for a few nights in a row....my daffodils croaked, but it appears that maybe all but one peach tree kept their blooms. I guess we will see if they actually produce any fruits. My Almond trees, apples, plums, peaches, pears and blueberries have blooms now...not all of them but the ones big enough to actually produce fruit are blooming pretty profusely now. I am going to have to start mowing already too.
The puppies are growing like weeds, my Labrador retriever Kensie is happy that they are willing to play with her, my Catahoula Bailee thinks she gets to rough and they had a fight, but the Catahoula that outweighs her got the short end of the stick...she got a pretty bad gash on her leg. My Lab likes to try and pull the other dogs legs out from under them and Bailee wasn’t having any of that...so instead of falling over, Bailee stood her ground...and Kensie’s long teeth did a number on her. When Bailee got hurt she gave Kensie a warning bark to leave her alone, but Kensie thought she was playing...next thing I know Bailee has Kensie down on the ground by the neck. Kensie ended up with a puncture wound under her eye. Did I really need five dogs? Not really, but life is better with animals...except when they wake up up at 3:30am...then it is debatable.
I have been advertising here and there, trying to reduce the male population first and get rid of the adults that I raised...because everyone wants to know they are getting a male and female on poultry like geese and turkeys. My feed bill has been awful for years and I don’t sell enough eggs, chicks or other poultry to pay for my flock, which was the goal to begin with. I have been donating eggs to the local food pantry, so they wouldn’t go to waste. I cannot keep being in the red every year. So I didn’t have to keep feeding them, last year I gave away 62 roosters and two or three male turkeys. I didn’t hatch as many last year, but yesterday, I gave away 20 adult roosters and a male turkey that decided to try and get me every time I fed the poultry in his area. He did a surprise attack on me when I wasn’t looking and hit me hard in the knee...it was time, before I stabbed him with a pitchfork or something. I still have several more males to get rid of too. I had a guy who said he wanted my male turkeys...but, he never showed up and stopped communication, so I am thinking maybe he just said that so maybe he could get rid of some or something...who knows? Yes, we could eat them...but, I don’t really have time to process them and my husband doesn’t really want to. The plucking would be the worst part. I may end up doing it anyway. I have five extra males...I could probably fill the freezer up with ground turkey meat since the weigh about 35 pounds each.
I have just barely gotten my garden plants started in pots, I still need to do more and till again. But it has been raining too much and Mother Nature has been a bit crazy lately. One day it is almost 80 and the next it drops down in the 20’s! My fruit trees have been trying to bloom since December, but a week ago a few were in full bloom when another freeze hit and it was in the 20’s at night for a few nights in a row....my daffodils croaked, but it appears that maybe all but one peach tree kept their blooms. I guess we will see if they actually produce any fruits. My Almond trees, apples, plums, peaches, pears and blueberries have blooms now...not all of them but the ones big enough to actually produce fruit are blooming pretty profusely now. I am going to have to start mowing already too.
The puppies are growing like weeds, my Labrador retriever Kensie is happy that they are willing to play with her, my Catahoula Bailee thinks she gets to rough and they had a fight, but the Catahoula that outweighs her got the short end of the stick...she got a pretty bad gash on her leg. My Lab likes to try and pull the other dogs legs out from under them and Bailee wasn’t having any of that...so instead of falling over, Bailee stood her ground...and Kensie’s long teeth did a number on her. When Bailee got hurt she gave Kensie a warning bark to leave her alone, but Kensie thought she was playing...next thing I know Bailee has Kensie down on the ground by the neck. Kensie ended up with a puncture wound under her eye. Did I really need five dogs? Not really, but life is better with animals...except when they wake up up at 3:30am...then it is debatable.
Saturday, February 2, 2019
Life With Puppies
I am glad I am an early riser, it has made it a bit easier having the puppies and trying to get them potty trained. They are smart and learn fairly quickly. The first two weeks were a bit tough on me, remembering to take them out every 30 minutes or so, there were a lot of accidents. They are doing well now, it is only an occasional accident when we are trying to get the door open now, and sometimes they go on the back porch first thing in the morning. They are practically inseparable, always playing together, sleeping together, eating together and even a lot of the time they will be side by side peeing together! Lol, they are bonded. When I have Gretchen in my lap and my husband will get Schotzie up in his...Gretchen will jump down and go jump in his lap to be with her.
My husband took them on their first walks with the big dogs and said they stayed up with them pretty well, he took them as far as the shooting range. A few days ago I was trying to get my tiller cleaned up and ready to use, it wouldn’t start and after multiple attempts I got frustrated and decided to take all the dogs for a walk to see for myself. I had only planned to walk them up to the shooting range, it is about a quarter of a mile up there...we ended up going to the back property line. All the dogs would be running and disappear from my sight, I could hear the big dogs crashing through the woods...then they would come running and get back on the trail ahead of me. I would call Gretchen and Schotzie and first one would come running...meet up with me and then run after the big dogs then the other, it was a repeated pattern. The big dogs leading the way and the little dogs hot on their trail, vearing off the trail after the big dogs and all of them would run back periodically to see what was taking me so long.
My dogs are protective of me, especially in the woods. If anything out of the ordinary happens, they will run to me and surround me, hair bristled up and growling at something I cannot see. They are all hunting breeds, and have excellent tracking ability. The puppies are too, I am not sure what they are...probably a mix, maybe Black Mouthed Cur and Plott Hound. They may not be huge dogs when fully grown, but they will be strong powerful dogs. At the moment they are a bit bigger than my Bengal cat and they don’t appear to be as heavy as they actually are. I am sure they have put on several pounds since we took them in. Plott Hounds were originally bred to hunt bear and hogs so with my Catahoula Cur being a hog dog, my Weimaraner and Lab more bird dogs, I think we have the spectrum covered for whatever may come into our woods. My Catahoula is a good tracker to begin with, when my neighbors lost their cow she was able to find her on our 20 acres of timber and heavy vines in very short order. She was a young dog that someone dropped off in the woods that we adopted, she had been hunting her food...I learned you don’t try and take her kills away early on. She is better now, but will still kill and gobble down a rabbit or squirrel pretty quickly. She drug a quarter of a rotting deer up to the house once, I am guessing someone shot it and it got away...it smelled awful and she was eating it fur and all, I didn’t want her to get sick and I walked up to her and told her no...tried to grab a leg to get it away from her. She didn’t bite me or anything, but she snarled and showed her teeth and gave me a warning bark. I left her alone with that nasty thing for awhile, when she finally decided to come in, she had to have a bath...and I made her stay outside awhile.
The puppies are learning to sit with treats, they know their names now too. Someone suggested putting a bell on the door for them to learn to ring it to go outside. They are still learning on that, but they will strike it on occasion when I take them out. I love having little puppies, they are such sweet loving animals. Puppy breath, puppy kisses, puppy hugs and sleeping puppies in your lap...soft puppy fur and those wiggles with excitement when they see you...I know they won’t stay small for long, so I will enjoy it while it lasts.
My husband took them on their first walks with the big dogs and said they stayed up with them pretty well, he took them as far as the shooting range. A few days ago I was trying to get my tiller cleaned up and ready to use, it wouldn’t start and after multiple attempts I got frustrated and decided to take all the dogs for a walk to see for myself. I had only planned to walk them up to the shooting range, it is about a quarter of a mile up there...we ended up going to the back property line. All the dogs would be running and disappear from my sight, I could hear the big dogs crashing through the woods...then they would come running and get back on the trail ahead of me. I would call Gretchen and Schotzie and first one would come running...meet up with me and then run after the big dogs then the other, it was a repeated pattern. The big dogs leading the way and the little dogs hot on their trail, vearing off the trail after the big dogs and all of them would run back periodically to see what was taking me so long.
My dogs are protective of me, especially in the woods. If anything out of the ordinary happens, they will run to me and surround me, hair bristled up and growling at something I cannot see. They are all hunting breeds, and have excellent tracking ability. The puppies are too, I am not sure what they are...probably a mix, maybe Black Mouthed Cur and Plott Hound. They may not be huge dogs when fully grown, but they will be strong powerful dogs. At the moment they are a bit bigger than my Bengal cat and they don’t appear to be as heavy as they actually are. I am sure they have put on several pounds since we took them in. Plott Hounds were originally bred to hunt bear and hogs so with my Catahoula Cur being a hog dog, my Weimaraner and Lab more bird dogs, I think we have the spectrum covered for whatever may come into our woods. My Catahoula is a good tracker to begin with, when my neighbors lost their cow she was able to find her on our 20 acres of timber and heavy vines in very short order. She was a young dog that someone dropped off in the woods that we adopted, she had been hunting her food...I learned you don’t try and take her kills away early on. She is better now, but will still kill and gobble down a rabbit or squirrel pretty quickly. She drug a quarter of a rotting deer up to the house once, I am guessing someone shot it and it got away...it smelled awful and she was eating it fur and all, I didn’t want her to get sick and I walked up to her and told her no...tried to grab a leg to get it away from her. She didn’t bite me or anything, but she snarled and showed her teeth and gave me a warning bark. I left her alone with that nasty thing for awhile, when she finally decided to come in, she had to have a bath...and I made her stay outside awhile.
The puppies are learning to sit with treats, they know their names now too. Someone suggested putting a bell on the door for them to learn to ring it to go outside. They are still learning on that, but they will strike it on occasion when I take them out. I love having little puppies, they are such sweet loving animals. Puppy breath, puppy kisses, puppy hugs and sleeping puppies in your lap...soft puppy fur and those wiggles with excitement when they see you...I know they won’t stay small for long, so I will enjoy it while it lasts.
Sunday, January 20, 2019
Then There were Five!
I have been sick forever it seems, some kind of nasty virus this last time and a cough that is still lingering. I am behind worse than usual because of it, my normal schedule is off. My husband had to help big time with the care of the animals, the first few days I felt like someone had hit me with a spiked baseball bat or something. My legs were cramping so bad it was difficult to walk, all my joints and muscles ached, my guts hurt, I started on Elderberry and Zicam, even took Oil of Oregano...and the traditional NyQuil Severe Cold and Flu medicine. If I kept my butt medicated and sitting still it was not to bad, but getting up to get a cup of hot tea or go to the bathroom made me break out in a sweat. I would wake up cold and clammy too...my hair wet, my PJs wet with sweat, my bed damp where my head and shoulders had been. I am almost well now, except for the coughing,still trying to take it somewhat easy, I don’t have all of my strength back, but I am getting there.
Anyway, my schedule has been off, my husband actually picked up feed and grocery shopped while I was feeling the worst. I tried to avoid people too. I went to the feed store last week on Saturday, I guess I was in the right place at the right time. I have gone to this feed store for a number of years now, I chat with the owners frequently...when I walked in to place my order someone was petting puppies, I thought maybe they belonged to the customer petting them. But the customer left without them. I pet the puppies while I waited in line, and I fell in love. I asked the owner about them...she said they were found on the highway and someone stopped to get them so they wouldn’t get hit by a car...she didn’t know what she was going to do with them over the weekend, she didn’t want to leave them in the feed store and she already had six dogs at her house. I told her my husband would kill me if I brought puppies home, but...I would call him and see what he thought.
Well...he left it up to me. When I went outside to call him, the puppies tried to follow me and cried at the door while I was outside making the call. It tugged at my heart, puppies were not something I planned on. I told the owner if she just wanted a home for them, I would take them home with me. She thanked me, and said hang on...she handed me puppy wormer and pills to help with fleas and ticks. They already had collars on. Both puppies are little girls and will fit in nicely with my three dogs. So, now I have five dogs! They helped take the dogs to my truck, the puppies did really well on the ride home. I had groceries in the truck and they didn’t bother them, they just laid on the seat next to me and were so good!
I had to unload groceries and put them away and the feed. I put the puppies in the back yard while I did that. I cleaned up a wire dog kennel to put them in while I let the other dogs out and so I could see how they would react to the puppies. They sniffed them, but showed no aggression, thank goodness! I let them outside and while the older dogs were out, I fed my poultry. I checked on the puppies and called the big dogs in and kenneled them again. I went and got my husband from work...and he got to meet them when we got back. I think he fell in love with them quickly too. We have to work on the whole potty training thing, they are definitely not potty trained, but they are learning. They whined a little the first night, but quieted down pretty quickly. Things are going pretty well so far, we have had them a week. We have named them and gotten some items for them. The big dogs are playing with them now and helping with behavior correction. My Lab has pretty much taken over the role of Momma. I went to the feed store and the owner said she was glad I took them, she wanted them to stay together.
They are little hound dogs, I started researching and I think maybe they are Plott Hounds. They are smart, doing pretty good with potty training as long as they are taken out often. They have also gone to the door a few times when the needed out. They are close, they are like twins and are in unison walking together, sleeping together, eating out of the same bowl, even wagging their tails to the same beat. This will take time, but even the cats are starting to come out and interact now too. I am not planning on changing my farm name, the 3 dogs has meaning beyond just the three original dogs. I will tell you I have missed having a puppy around, not so much the pooping and peeing in the house, but the energy they have and the unconditional love...puppy hugs and kisses are the best! I enjoy having puppies around, I have always loved dogs too. Time will tell how it goes, but the two girls have found a home.
Anyway, my schedule has been off, my husband actually picked up feed and grocery shopped while I was feeling the worst. I tried to avoid people too. I went to the feed store last week on Saturday, I guess I was in the right place at the right time. I have gone to this feed store for a number of years now, I chat with the owners frequently...when I walked in to place my order someone was petting puppies, I thought maybe they belonged to the customer petting them. But the customer left without them. I pet the puppies while I waited in line, and I fell in love. I asked the owner about them...she said they were found on the highway and someone stopped to get them so they wouldn’t get hit by a car...she didn’t know what she was going to do with them over the weekend, she didn’t want to leave them in the feed store and she already had six dogs at her house. I told her my husband would kill me if I brought puppies home, but...I would call him and see what he thought.
Well...he left it up to me. When I went outside to call him, the puppies tried to follow me and cried at the door while I was outside making the call. It tugged at my heart, puppies were not something I planned on. I told the owner if she just wanted a home for them, I would take them home with me. She thanked me, and said hang on...she handed me puppy wormer and pills to help with fleas and ticks. They already had collars on. Both puppies are little girls and will fit in nicely with my three dogs. So, now I have five dogs! They helped take the dogs to my truck, the puppies did really well on the ride home. I had groceries in the truck and they didn’t bother them, they just laid on the seat next to me and were so good!
I had to unload groceries and put them away and the feed. I put the puppies in the back yard while I did that. I cleaned up a wire dog kennel to put them in while I let the other dogs out and so I could see how they would react to the puppies. They sniffed them, but showed no aggression, thank goodness! I let them outside and while the older dogs were out, I fed my poultry. I checked on the puppies and called the big dogs in and kenneled them again. I went and got my husband from work...and he got to meet them when we got back. I think he fell in love with them quickly too. We have to work on the whole potty training thing, they are definitely not potty trained, but they are learning. They whined a little the first night, but quieted down pretty quickly. Things are going pretty well so far, we have had them a week. We have named them and gotten some items for them. The big dogs are playing with them now and helping with behavior correction. My Lab has pretty much taken over the role of Momma. I went to the feed store and the owner said she was glad I took them, she wanted them to stay together.
They are little hound dogs, I started researching and I think maybe they are Plott Hounds. They are smart, doing pretty good with potty training as long as they are taken out often. They have also gone to the door a few times when the needed out. They are close, they are like twins and are in unison walking together, sleeping together, eating out of the same bowl, even wagging their tails to the same beat. This will take time, but even the cats are starting to come out and interact now too. I am not planning on changing my farm name, the 3 dogs has meaning beyond just the three original dogs. I will tell you I have missed having a puppy around, not so much the pooping and peeing in the house, but the energy they have and the unconditional love...puppy hugs and kisses are the best! I enjoy having puppies around, I have always loved dogs too. Time will tell how it goes, but the two girls have found a home.
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