Courage & Brains

 When I bred my first litter of Scottish Collies, I was hoping to produce dogs that would be confident, intelligent and athletic. 

Henry did not disappoint...at 11.5 months of age, he is a 67-pound bundle of muscle, courage, brains, and determination... with a hearty dose of puppy goofiness.

What I didn't think about...was what would happen if the strong, smart, brave puppy discovered that he can get out of my fence. Pretty much this whole winter has been an on-again, off-again battle of the fences with Henry. 

To be fair, it is a rather inferior fence - it's 5 foot high welded wire, and I definitely should have put the posts closer together. Lesson learned - I will be totally redesigning the fencing as soon as the snow is gone. 

In the meantime, I've been getting pretty creative, lol. I covered his escape point from a couple weeks ago with 6 foot chain link panels that were given to me. In another spot, I have boards leaning against the fence. And then today I put together this monstrosity...

Hopefully this will work. 😬😬😬 

I'm definitely getting good use out of my stash of baling twine left over from buying hay for goats!!

And, lol, if there's anyone out there who enjoys working with a crazy-smart, high drive dog, I am open to selling Henry. I love him, but would be thrilled to see him with someone who can bring out his full potential. He needs to stay intact and available for my use as a stud for at least one litter, though (or breed him to your girl and send me a puppy back). 

Here's a picture of the goober (and Thane):

In other news...

Kat made it safely to TX, despite a near disaster on my end, where I mislaid a critical paper that the transport needed...had to dash an hour back home, and then drive 2.5 hours to southern NH to catch back up with the transport van. I managed to turn a 2 hour errand into an 8 hour expedition, lol. But God is good, and we made it!! Sounds like Kat is doing very well in her new home. ❤️ 

The next day, I took Bartholomew in for his neuter. He has recovered well, and seems completely back to himself. Interrupted him eating a chipmunk this morning, lol. No wonder he doesn't go through his kibbles very fast!!

Nothing much is happening on the homestead... I still need to do some finishing on the interior and exterior. I'm hoping to do lots of clearing and fencing this year, as well as redesigning my chicken coops in preparation for 25 new chicks coming the middle of May. There may be other poultry coming later in the summer too, so I have my work cut out for me!! :P 

I did decide on colors for the exterior... you guys will have to wait and see, but I'm excited about it!! 

Revolving Doors and "Lost" Ducks

 I'm starting to think I should be calling this homestead the Revolving Door Farm instead of Butterscotch Farm...

Kat is leaving me (likely tomorrow), and will be traveling via ground transport to her wonderful new family in Texas. 

I'm sad to see her go... she's a truly wonderful and special little dog, and I've quickly become quite attached to her. Unfortunately, Breeze doesn't feel the same way, lol. In fact, things have escalated to the point that I can't have the girls loose together at all any more...Kat has the stitches and the "cone of shame" to prove it.

I feel like I've packed more life lessons into the past year and a half of homesteading than I had in all the previous years. And one big lesson that is beginning to sink in is this: I need to stop trying to bring adult, female intact dogs into an established pack!! 😂😂😂 

That being said, I'm grateful for the time I got with Kat, but looking forward to seeing how she settles in with her new family. I'm hoping that perhaps I'll get a puppy from her in a year or two! 

Other homestead news...we have enough snow on the ground now that I haven't tried to get out to cut more trees... that's going to have to be a spring project. 

Dad and my brother got the last bit of insulation up in the cottage. Next I need to finish the drywall, decide what I'm doing for my ceiling, frame out the bathroom, add trim, and then paint. That should pretty much finish the interior - yay!! 

When warmer weather comes, Dad and I will finish the siding and possibly install a front porch and a back stoop.

Here's how the cottage looks now... the snow makes it look pretty. In reality, I have so much construction debris lying around that it's not even funny....yard cleanup is very high on the priority list for when the snow melts. 

And here's a fun little story for you... about 3 weeks ago, I had to move my ducks from their little pen next to the chicken coop (on the left in the above photo) because the snow was high enough that Henry could get over the fence into their pen. I brought the ducks to the old goat shed. 

A few days after that, I brought a bale of shavings into the duck pen and was spreading it around. The ducks are definitely a bit flighty, and still regard me with considerable suspicion even after all these months, and they found this behavior quite alarming. Both took flight. One ricocheted off the door frame and ended up back in the pen. But the other flew straight out of the open top half of the door (I was only using a pallet as a door at the time). 

I hastily finished spreading the shavings, and then went out to catch the second duck, expecting to find her floundering in the deep snow in front of the pen.

But she was nowhere to be seen. There was blank, fresh snow as far as the eye could see in the field in front of the pen.

I was stymied, to say the least. Under the deepening gloom of a winter dusk, I started plowing through the knee-deep snow, searching along the edge of the field, pausing frequently to listen for a quack or the rustling of branches along the trajectory I imagined she may have taken. It was a cold night, and I hated the thought that she might spend the night freezing in the snow, or be found by a fox or coyote. 

 I searched for a good ten minutes along the edge of the woods before a thought sprang into my mind. I went back into the fence.... and into the chicken and duck pen.... around the corner past the coop... I stooped down and looked into the old duck pen... and there she was. She had flown "home." ❤️

In a straight line, the two pens are probably only 2-300 feet apart. But she likely flew in a curving trajectory of several hundred feet... and this from a bird who typically only flapped her wings a bit for exercise! 

I was enthralled with this demonstration of the incredible homing instinct God has placed in certain animals!

I carried her back to the other pen, where she and her sister were happily reunited. And then I secured the top of the door so that wouldn't happen again!!!

Happy Tuesday!!!

Learning

 "One of these days I will learn to do things in a timely fashion instead of procrastinating and making life harder," she said to herself as she dug her firewood out of the snowbank to haul up to the covered firewood rack. 

"And also... I want a pony to pull the sled for me." 🐎🐎🐎

Happy Monday, everyone!!

H2O, Firewood, and Eggs

 So my well finally froze last week. Up until this point, it has generally worked to prime it with hot water on cold mornings... or occasionally attach one of my lanterns to it for a few minutes if the water wasn't quite enough to thaw the little bit of ice. 

But last week, I labored at the pump for 30 minutes, two days in a row, and could not get it going. I even tried piling hot coals around the base of the pipe. It must have a good, solid plug of ice somewhere in the line.

So, clearly, a better long-term solution is needed. I'm working on some ideas, and in the meantime, I'm back to hauling water from Dad and Mom's place, and occasionally melting snow on my woodstove. I even hiked back to the creek one of the first days. Like my technique for filling the jug? :P 

Here's the view on the way back to the cottage:

 

If you accurately guess the number of Collies in the above photo, I'll give you a free dog!! (Just kidding. :P )

We've been alternating back and forth between mild winter weather and some pretty chilly nights here in the Northeast... I do love waking up to a day when everything outside is sparkling with frost in the early morning sun.  This was Tuesday morning: 

I was actually just thinking this morning how grateful I am that God gave us a world to live in that is full of variety, beauty, and all kinds of intricate details. ❤️

Even the dogs had frosty whiskers that morning!!

The chickens might be starting to lay again...or at least, this year's pullets might be starting. I got this tiny egg yesterday. I still love finding fresh eggs in the coop! (And the dogs like the fresh eggs too. :P )

Today I decided to do something different... I've mostly been working in the house lately, trying to organize, declutter and decorate. I still have a long ways to go with that, but I also want to be making progress on outdoor projects. So today I fired up the chainsaw and did a couple hours of clearing. I took down a couple dozen saplings and small trees. Lol, in the picture you can't really tell what I accomplished, but I am beat!!! 😂 I think it was working in the snow that really did me in. There's maybe 6-8 inches on the ground, and it's like walking through loose sand on a beach.

I'm leaving a few trees up along the road, but eventually I want to have a few acres completely cleared for pasture, so I am more or less clear cutting this area. I can tell from today's work that this will be a lengthy project, as I have probably 2.5-3 acres to go, and cleared maybe a 10x30 foot strip today. 😂 But it's good, healthy physical labor, and I am looking forward to it.

Here's the little pile of future firewood I got out of today's work: 

And then the artistic view, which makes it look like I accomplished more... 😉

I'll have to have a nice big bonfire at some point to deal with all the small branches... unless anyone has creative ideas on things to do with them? 

Anyway, time to feed the dogs and head to bed!! I hope everyone is having a great week so far. ❤️

Happy Chickens

 It occurred to me that it's been a while since I've featured the chickens...they're doing well. I'm planning some major coop upgrades next spring, and I also plan on working with the dogs so that I can start free ranging the chickens at least some of the time. This chicken breed, the Icelandic, is known for being especially happy when allowed to range. In theory, free ranging them will also cut down some on feed bills.

So, here are a few of my birds! 

This one is a cockerel (young rooster) from this year:

And a pullet (young hen) from this year...one of only 2 girls from a large batch of chicks, lol,

Another cockerel. I love the dark "barring" on his chest!

The same pullet from above. She doesn't have a name yet.

This is the other girl from this year's batch of chicks....I call her Rusty. Lol, I'm more creative with dog names than chicken names. ;P 

One of the roosters from a small batch I got early this spring. This batch was also weighted heavily toward boys - 3 out of 4 ended up being roosters. At least they're handsome ones!

Another spring rooster. I call this one Mr. Speckles, lol. He might end up being a keeper - he's a pretty chill dude.

And the final early spring boy. I like the colors on this one a lot, but he's a bit more skittish than Mr. Speckles.

I'll have to get more pictures of the various hens next time. Off the top of my head, I think I have 10 or 11 at the moment. They molted a few weeks ago, and still haven't started laying again yet...but come spring, I should be getting several eggs a day! Maybe I can even get my girls to hatch some of their own eggs this year...they tried a few times last year, but were unsuccessful (though they accepted and happily raised day-old chicks twice). 

I hope everyone is having a nice weekend so far!! :) 

Illumination!

 I found something exciting at a thrift store today...an old oil lamp in functioning condition!

 

There isn't a ton of homestead news, except that Dad and I have the insulation about 98% done now... it's finally really making a huge difference! 

Other than that, I've been working at my retail job a lot, and when I'm at home, I've been trying to get organized and weed out stuff I don't need any more. Once that is done, I can paint my walls and figure out what I want to do for curtains.

Oh, and both Breeze and Kat went into heat! Kat's is pretty much over... she won't be bred for at least one more heat and maybe even two, since she is being treated for heartworm. But I am hoping to breed Breeze, so I am watching the boys' behavior with her carefully...they will let me know if/when she is ready to go meet her beau. I'm excited to hopefully have puppies again this spring! ❤️ 

In conclusion, here is Bartholomew in the basket he has claimed as his own. 

Happy Thursday!!!

Bit by Bit!!

I had a busy morning running errands (good news - my truck passed inspection!!) and then kind of a lazy afternoon. I did get a little straightening done, though, and this is the result: 

And yes, I am hanging pictures before I've even painted my wall. 😂 I'm still trying to decide what I want to do with the walls - I might try to make them look like antique plaster. 

Anyway, I hope everyone had a nice Monday!! :)