Busy Busy!!

 Things have been busy on the homestead the past few weeks! Lots of cleanup... lots of fence building... lots of walking the goats daily because their fence isn't finished... 😂

One thing, besides the goat fence, that I really need to work on is my well. My current pitcher pump seems particularly inefficient, and it takes me around an hour to pump enough water for all the animals. I have a new type of pump that should be faster... I just need to figure out how to install it. If that one isn't significantly more efficient, I may have to investigate something battery or solar powered. 

Here are some pictures from the past few days.

This is an onion that sprouted in the house because I forgot about it. I put it in the ground a couple weeks ago and so far it's still alive. 😂

A wildflower. I've been trying to learn more of their names this year. I believe this is a Canada Mayflower.

A little butterfly... not sure what kind. It had periwinkle-blue wings as it flew.

Just pretty droplets on leaves.

These are my Dominique chicks. There are 21 of them! Lol, they've hit the ugly-cute stage. 😂😂😂 They follow their adoptive mothers in and out through the door into the run quite nicely and are well past the most stressful baby chick stage. 

This picture below might not look like much, but I find it very exciting. I have had a couple big bags of seed kicking around for a while. One was meant to be seed for a goat pasture. I just remembered that I had it recently, and it's just old enough that I figured I didn't have much to lose by spreading it around and seeing if some of it would still germinate. I tried to get it all out before we had a rainy, damp week, and looks like it's working - lots of tiny seedlings!! ❤️

Here's Hazel just being cute. I set her up on Thane's rock, and she struck a nice pose. She's been shedding up a storm lately... it'll be nice for her to have less fur when the full summer heat hits!

Wild strawberries I found today...they were very tasty. 🥰

A load of tools I got from a very nice lady for a bargain! I had snapped the handle on my rounded-tip shovel recently, and even though it can be fixed, it occurred to me it'd be good to have a couple duplicate tools around. The pry bar apparently is named Big Bertha. 😂

Another wildflower. I think this may be Northern Bedstraw.

Lol, while I was out picking up my hand tools, I swung by a local garden center because I know they carry chicken feed and I was low. But I made the mistake of wandering through the plants for a minute. And the further mistake of smelling the herby leaves of a bee balm. That did it. 😂 I managed to escape with only the bee balm and this Yarrow plant. Used one of my new shovels to plant them. Only trouble is now that I've worked on my perennial bed, I can see that it needs attention... and more plants. 😝

Lol, if you've ever heard the term "chicken math," you'll laugh at these next couple pictures. So I've got 2 Icelandic chicks that Buffy hatched. And 21 Dominique chicks that Speedy and Snow White adopted. But in the other half of the coop, one of my girls has been faithfully staying broody for WEEKS, even though I kept taking away the eggs everyone was laying in her nesting box. I thought about giving her eggs to hatch, but she had parked herself in the most popular box, and broodies don't like to change boxes. I knew chances of her hatching something successfully in a popular nesting box were very low - plus that would mean she'd be sitting another 21 days, which is pretty hard on the bird. So yesterday afternoon I stopped in at the local feed store to see what they had for chicks. I had thought to maybe grab just a couple....but they were on sale for 50 cents apiece...so I ended up with 10. 😂 They're an assortment of breeds, so it'll be really fun to see how they mature. I know I've got a few Buckeyes, a couple Cuckoo Marans, I think a couple Golden Laced Wyandottes. And then I think there was one more breed, but I can't remember what. 😂😂😂 Anyway, after a little finagling, they are bonded now, and Mama is SO proud and protective of her clutch of chicks. ❤️

I hope everyone had a great Monday... and if anyone needs started chickens this fall, you know who will have plenty to spare!! 😂😂😂

Just Goats!

I've had a lot of time off this spring during the slow season at work, which is awesome. One of the bigger projects I've been working on is getting my goat fencing up. I'm determined not to let this crew free range the neighborhood like the previous goats, even though my really nice neighbors apparently greatly enjoyed their visits. 😂

Because the fence isn't finished, though, I've been taking them on little field trips to have some supervised browsing time once a day. They stick pretty close to me, and if they start going in a direction I don't want them to, usually all I have to do is walk in the opposite direction, and they'll stampede after me. 

I thought you might enjoy seeing some pictures and hearing a little bit about their personalities. 

First is Lilah. One of my three Guernsey goat mixes, I think she is probably the "herd queen." Friendly and sweet, she is the most outgoing of the half sisters. In fact, I've been trying to teach her not to put her front hooves up on me when I'm in their pen. :P

Scratching an itch!

Next up is Marigold, Lilah's half sister. I like her feminine expression and rich orange color. She frequently starts a game of zoomies, which is hysterical to watch. I think she's probably somewhere in the middle of the herd hierarchy. She's less outgoing than Lilah, but still sweet.

Oakley is the third Guernsey mix. All three share the same father, but have different mothers. While the other two are registered as first generation British Guernsey crosses, Oakley can't be registered because she's the wrong color. I think she's pretty neat looking, though, and she may actually have the nicest structure of the three. She's a background goat, unobtrusive and quiet, probably very low on the totem pole. 

Starflower is a Nigerian Dwarf goat. They're a small breed known for having extremely rich, creamy milk. I had considered the breed a while back, but decided to go a different route because the market in this area seems to be extremely flooded with Nigerians. But then I tried the milk and just had to have one. 😂 Starflower may be small, but she doesn't let the bigger goats push her around...in fact, she bullies Marigold a little bit. I think they're "frenemies" - I've seen them playing together sometimes too.

The picture below shows the size difference pretty well. My other girls aren't even very large goats, either! 

Daisy is a Nubian. They're known for being loud and talkative, and Daisy is no exception. When she first came, she bleated until she literally lost her voice, poor girl. 😂 Other than being loud, she's another "background" goat with a mild, sweet personality. I think because she joined the herd most recently (last fall), she sometimes hangs out in the periphery of the group. There have been a few times when she almost got left behind, suddenly realized she was alone, and ran to catch up with everyone else. She is the most friendly toward strangers.

I didn't need another goat, but I got her because she was a steal of a deal, was only 10 minutes down the road, and because huge-eared, skinny-legged Nubian kids are just about the cutest thing you've ever seen. :P 

Here are a couple pictures of a little goat stampede. Yesterday's zoomies lasted several minutes, and were, of course, instigated by Marigold.

In theory, I'll be trying to get all 5 girls bred this fall for spring 2024 kids (gestation is 5 months). I'm not totally certain what will happen after that, as 5 goats is already more than I need. As of right now, they're essentially just pets, and hay is expensive. But they are helping to clear and fertilize my land, and I can probably sell their kids next spring. I don't plan on selling milk, as I don't have a good setup to keep it cold...it's possible that I'd get pigs next spring and use any extra milk to supplement their feed.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed "meeting" the girls! Happy Wednesday! :)

Chugging Along!

 Things are chugging along on the homestead!

The snow is melting quickly now, and I'm starting to think about all the spring projects I can work on as the white stuff disappears. 😝 The two top projects include putting up more fencing (which also involves lots of clearing) and just getting my property tidied up. I'm not very organized as I build, so there are little piles of scrap lumber and supplies here, there and everywhere. 

I'd also like to get siding up on the cottage and figure out what I'm doing about a porch.

On the dog front, Hazel not only has very bad hips, she also developed pyometra, a dangerous uterine infection, around 2 weeks ago. She's doing quite well on antibiotics, but will be spayed on the 12th as pyometra often comes back after the next heat cycle. I'm not sure yet if/when I'll be getting another breeding girl, and whether it'll be another Collie or if I want to go another direction.

I definitely tend to want to spend more time outdoors as the weather gets warmer, and we're in an awesome phase right now where the warm days and cold nights mean a crust forms on top of the snow. I can walk on it for a few hours in the morning before it gets too soft. Today I took advantage of that and brought the dogs on a walk, which I don't do nearly as often as I should.

Here they are ignoring me because THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS TO SNIFF!!!

Sniffing one of the aforementioned sniffable objects. Coyote scat, probably.

Purrcy followed us the whole way! I kept a close eye on him to make sure he was sticking close - don't know if he could've found his way home from the back of my property. 😂

He started panting toward the end, and flopped down to rest more than once.

I even carried him for a minute. 😂

Back to the road - home is in sight!!

One of my eventual goals is to clear little walking trails around the property. There are skid trails left over from when they logged, but most of them are uneven, full of debris and brush, and quite prone to puddles (one of which I fell into today and soaked my right pant leg up to the knee).

Lots to do!! I hope everyone is having a great spring so far. 😊

Change of Plans!!

 It's been a tough dog year so far. Between the loss of Breeze and some other stuff that has come up, my breeding program is officially on hold for an indefinite period of time. 

I still have Thane and Hazel... Hazel will probably get spayed at some point and both dogs will stay here as beloved pets. 

Maybe eventually I'll get a Breeze granddaughter and start over, but for now I'm taking the obstacles in my life as an indication that perhaps God wants me to focus on other things for a couple years.

I have plenty of projects - the Franken-barn needs a lot more work. The house needs siding, a porch, and lots of interior finish work. I have tons of clearing and fencing to do.  The dog fence needs to be re-done, and the driveway probably should probably be improved so it doesn't turn into a giant mud pit every spring.

I also need to make decisions on livestock - for instance, do I really need 5 dairy goats? I love them, but hay is expensive!! 😝 And is this the year I should add a couple pigs? And should I try selling some hatching eggs? 

I'll admit that I haven't necessarily gone through this with grace - I have grieved the loss of "the way I thought things were going to go" deeply. But I'm working on trusting that if this isn't God's plan, then He must have something better. ❤️

Hope everyone is having a good week!

Hey, Hay!!

 This past Friday, just before the cold snap really got intense, I bought 60 more bales of hay. I didn't have time to bring it down the hill into the Franken-barn before work, so my hay guy helped me stack it on pallets at the top of the driveway. 

Today I'm working on moving it. Once I took a few bales away so that there were varying levels in the stack, Purrcy and Clawdia determined that its primary purpose was clearly to be a kitty playground. 

Here are some pictures of them having fun. Happy Monday!

Puppy Updates

It's great to have all 12 puppies from the two litters in their new homes and doing well!  Here's the rundown on where everyone ended up.

Hazel's puppies:

Peanut is now Sunny and lives in South Carolina. If she matures well, she will have puppies of her own someday!

Murray lives in NH with his half sister Maisie from the 2021 litter. Technically his litter name was Black Walnut, but since he was reserved almost from birth, I never really called him anything other than Murray. 😝 

Chestnut just went home Sunday. She lives in Massachusetts and is now called Noreshi or Nory. She has already visited the beach! She's an absolute sweetheart and a very easy pup, and I enjoyed having her stay on longer.

Acorn lives a couple hours further up in Maine. She kept her name, but had "Holly" added to the name.

Cashew is now Shepherd, and lives on a farm in Missouri. He too will hopefully be a breeding prospect when he is mature.

Breeze's puppies:

Fritter is now Fritz and lives in Maine. Fun fact - his owner has a female dog who is Hazel's aunt! He is very loved, and his owner posts the cutest pictures of him. 🥰

Cider lives about an hour south of me in Maine. I haven't heard whether he has a new name, but I did hear that he is already very spoiled, sleeping in the owner's bed. 😂 He has big paws to fill - his owners have previously had Collies that lived to be 15 and 16 years old. ❤️

Betty is now Betsy and also lives in South Carolina with Sunny. She too will be a breeding prospect, and will learn to herd. I may buy a puppy back from her someday - she was my favorite, and looks a lot like Breeze. 

Streusel is now Myles, and lives with a family in southern NH. I greatly enjoy hearing about him - sounds like even at a very young age, he is showing discernment and plays more gently with the smallest child than with the older kids. He will stay intact and I may even breed Hazel to him when he is old enough.

Candy is now Willow and lives just a few minutes away from me in Maine. Sounds like she will help preside over a roadside flower stand this summer. ❤️

Crisp is now Freya and lives about an hour away in Maine. She is a little princess and is pretty sure she rules the roost. 😂 

Cobbler is now Abraham and lives a couple hours further up in Maine. He's still a pistol, but even though he was a bit of an impulse purchase, God sent exactly the right people for him and he's doing very well. 

It's always really neat to see how God provides such perfect homes for every puppy. These two litters bring the total number of Butterscotch Farm puppies up to 30, distributed among 28 different homes. That's mind blowing!! 

As of right now, my plan is to wait to breed again until spring 2024, as I have oodles of other projects that need to get done. 

I also want to thank everyone so much for reaching out and supporting me with the untimely loss of Breeze... you are all a blessing and an encouragement. I'm doing okay. I just try not to let my mind dwell on the subject for too long. But please know that your words of love and support mean SO much to me. ❤️ 

Because it's not a blog post without a couple pictures, here are a couple pictures of the puppies growing up:

Freya

Myles

Nory (with Hazel) before going home 

Heartbreak

 This one's tough to write, but I want to get it off my chest.

Breeze died yesterday.

I had planned for a while to place her in a retirement home at some point. A part of me really wanted to keep her, but there were the beginnings of signs that she and Hazel might be starting to debate who the queen bee was, so I decided that I'd send Breeze off to her well-deserved retirement now rather than wait and see whether things would escalate.

I'd had a lady from Ohio who had been very interested in her for a while. We coordinated schedules and met in western Massachusetts yesterday afternoon. 

A little while after the handoff, though, I got frantic calls and messages from the new owner... Breeze had slipped her collar at a rest area and was running loose.

This is not uncommon - from now on I will always send adult dogs with a slip lead just in case. And often loose dogs go into panic mode and just run. 

I turned around and started booking it in their direction, but I was already an hour and 20 minutes away. When I was 40 minutes out, I got the word - Breeze had been hit on the highway and was gone. 

So I turned around once more and started back east, dropping Nory/Chestnut off with her person along the way. God gave me the grace to keep it together and stay safe on the road. I got home about 11pm and then hugged my dogs and cried.

Today has been a sad day. I'm just taking it slow and going through a lot of tissues. A lot of my grief centers around the poor lady who wanted Breeze - I hate to think of the stress and fear she felt when Breeze escaped and the pain of learning that she didn't make it. I'm grieving the loss of potential, too - Breeze was not even 5 yet. I'm sad that her new person won't get to learn her funny quirks...or see how excited she got when you would pick up her leash...or hear her funny little howl. 

I'm working to trust God, and I know He'll heal the hurt in time. I'm grateful for the 3 years I had with Breeze. And I'm grateful that her legacy lives on in the 18 beautiful puppies she gave me (plus 7 she had before she came to me). 

But wow, this is hard! Many thanks to those who have heard this already and have been praying for me and for Breeze's new person. I really appreciate you all. ❤️

LH's Cool Summer Breeze

April 3, 2018 - January 29, 2023