Cash and Paisley still run this place

No words needed.

The Dog was where?!?!

I've known that Cash was getting up on the table to eat scraps or pull things down to destroy.  But today I learned that he's also getting up on the table, without the use of any chairs, to look out the front windows.

Feel free to click below to watch the video.

An update, a year late

I know I haven't written in a very long time.  I've thought about it many times but things just changed so much since Faith passed away and my heart hasn't been in things.  I think that was clear in the decrease of my posts and the shortness of them.

We still have Cash and Paisley.  Cash is healed from his accident, although his back has never looked the same since then and the vets think he will have arthritis and possibly hip dysplasia later in life.

We still have guinea and chickens, although we have lost a couple in the last year.

The county has completely torn up the front of the property, moved the drainage ditch closer to our home where the trees used to be, and ripped up our driveway.  They haven't started laying the asphalt closer, but that's due to the weather.

We survived the snow storm, and that is probably the only interesting thing I have to share pictures of.

Don't let them fool you, they barely shoveled at all

I am thinking we will do the garden again this year and so we cut up the fallen tree and hauled it out of the garden area before the storm hit.  Hopefully I'll get motivated enough to finish weeding and getting the area ready once the weather gets a little warmer.

Dog updates

The 5-gallon bucket that we keep outside to refill chicken water bowls froze solid.  It wasn't just the top later, it was a complete block.  I brought the bucket inside thinking it would defrost, but apparently the kitchen isn't much warmer because after a few days, the only defrosting occurred from the dogs licking it.

So the oldest decided to hack away at the block to give the dogs some ice to eat.

They went crazy for chunks of ice and were running around the house playing with them.  It was hilarious.

Later, Paisley was curled up on the arm chair, nice and cozy, until Cash decided to come over...

Cash and Paisley - 8 months old

I'm so behind on updates because so much as been going on and so much has changed.... I'll let the pictures do the talking...

Really?!

Lesson learned

We went on a short weekend trip and decided that taking one of the dogs would make things easier for the pet sitter and would give us a chance to do some one-on-one attention and training for the other dog.  Because Cash is usually more mellow, we decided to take him with us.

Boy was I wrong.  Cash was not happy with the kennel he slept in over night and when we picked him back up the next morning, he just seemed completely lost and confused as to where Paisley was.  We took him to a dog run area and he just paced the fence line looking for her.

We heard from a friend that Paisley seemed much more quiet and a bit sad while we were away as well.  It looks like we won't be able to separate them again.

On the way home, I think Cash was being as patient as possible.

And once we were home, although Paisley was hyper as usual, it wasn't long before she came and climbed into my lap and fell asleep.  Maybe she was just glad to have us home.

Paisley and Cash

Whether it was a good idea or a bad one, we got two puppies.  We haven't told many people as I am still grieving the loss of Faith and I didn't want anyone to think we replaced her, as there will never be any way to replace her.

It has been two weeks now, and I figured it was time to make it public.

Cash is a fairly mellow little boy and will often sit calmly down next to me and just look at me.  I've snuck him on to the couch  (where they are not allowed) to cuddle with me twice and into my bed for a few hours while we slept one night.  He learned to come first and mastered "sit" within one day.  He's a cute boy and tends to be more passive.

Paisley is pretty active and full of energy.  She is constantly trying to jump at us, unfortunately with her mouth open and wanting to play.  She takes all of the toys or treats that Cash gets and instigates all of their wrestling matches.  She's worn herself out a few times and so she was the first to be snuck into my room to sleep for a few hours one night.  She learned her name first and learned to "sit" within 15 minutes.

They are siblings that were born on April 1st from a litter that were Shar Pei and Pitbull mixes.  It wasn't my intention to get a pit, but since these are mutts and definitely have some distinct Shar Pei looks to them, I agreed.

We are crate training them, which I've never done before.  They have to pee so often, it is crazy, but they have been really good about either going outside or having an accident on puppy pads that are set up on one corner of the living room.

So far they haven't been allowed out of the living room or on the furniture.  They sleep in separate crates, although they were next to each other until today.  We finally moved them so they are about 4 feet away from each other and through a doorway.  They can still see each other but the goal is to eventually have them in separate rooms.

They will be going on vacation with us to the beach because I was worried that a pet sitter wouldn't keep up with the potty training and we would lose ground.  They've done okay in the car for the two trips to the vet and I'm planning to take longer to get to the beach so that we can stop to let them out more often.

I'll save everyone from my sad and pathetic feelings that have come up about Faith since Cash and Paisley have come into our lives and I won't admit that I've caught myself looking up at her urn and asking what the heck was I thinking when they are whining to go outside at 1 in the morning.

**Yes, we did name one of the goats Cash when we had him for the first few months of his life, but we liked the name and used it again.

My Silly Girls

The weather has quickly turned and it's freezing outside.  I decided to snap some pictures of the animals and Kelly decided to make it easy for me.

Meanwhile, Carrie was pushing her head into my rear end.  She wasn't being aggressive, she just wanted to nuzzle up.

Faith has a Hematoma

Faith has a hematoma in her right ear.  This girl never expresses that she's in pain and a few nights ago when she got up into bed I grabbed her ears like I always do to pet her and she yelped.  I jumped up and switched on the light to check her out and saw that her right ear has this huge swollen bubble.  I did some googling and found out that it is a burst blood vessel in her ear and that's a sac of blood.

In the right ear you can see a line from the tip of her ear and then down the middle of it, above that is the entire bubble

I took her to the vet as they say that hematoma's in dogs are usually caused by excessive scratching or shaking due to ear infections, but they said her ears were perfect.  In fact they said she looked like she was in overall great health for a 10 year old dog.  They did say that at some point she must have torn her ACL in one of her rear legs and they confirmed that her joints are getting sore from arthritis, but they didn't see any major concerns.

The options for treatment are surgery, draining the sack several times until it stops re-filling with fluid, or waiting it out and eventually the body would absorb the blood and her ear would shrivel up like a cauliflower ear.  At this point, we decided to go with waiting it out.

It's too darn hot!

Virginia is going through a serious heat wave where the heat index is over 100 degrees outside.  I won't even pretend like I'm outside between 12 and 9PM for more than the 30 seconds it takes to walk from the house to the air conditioned car.  It's bad.

The birds are drinking water, but I need to have more water dishes around the property so they'll have it nearby when they wander.  I picked up two pink plastic pools for them to use.

I figure between the dog and the birds, the water will be gone.  If not, I may be laying down on my back in one and putting my feet in the other in an attempt to cool off.

A day in the kitchen

The forecast said hot and sunny today so I promised the kids we'd go to the water park.  Then I woke up this morning to feed the animals and clean the coop and it was raining.  The weather report said rain and scattered thunderstorms all day and the waterpark actually posted to say they were closed for the day.

The only option was to swap our plans for later this week and try the water park another day.

So it was time to make some dill pickles.

We had picked up pickle size cucumbers at the farmers market last week but hadn't had a chance to pickle and can them.

The dill liquid

 We haven't tried them yet, so I can only hope they taste as good as they look.

We bought peaches at the farmer's market yesterday and while peeling them was easy one I did the boiling water dip, getting them off the seed and slicing them wasn't.

We only ended up with two quart jars, although I have enough peaches to make 2-3 more quart jars.  I was getting tired.

And then I made some biscuits from a new recipe I found.  These are all for the freezer and can go straight in to the oven when we want to eat them.

I may or may not have eaten a raw biscuit....

I was as tired as Faith looked

Wouldn't she be more comfortable in another place?

I will never understand why she chooses to attempt to lay on pieces of furniture that are clearly not big enough for her... And underneath her is a binder, a huge pile of papers, a few DVDs, etc.  Clearly, she doesn't mind.

It's almost Spring

It was a beautiful day outside today so everyone deserved some time outside.

 Even the chicks experienced their first day outside of the house.

I even found some flowers blooming around the edges of the yard.

She's just a little lap dog

Faith missed us while we were gone.  She proved this by climbing up on to the chair with me once I got home.

She doesn't seem to understand that her 100 pounds does not fit into the 5 inches between me and the arm rest.

I'm not sure if she's hungry or just curious

I've been keeping Faith out of the kitchen so that she doesn't go crazy about the bird, but today she came in a few times and didn't even blink an eye at the strange "box" taking up half the kitchen floor.  And then I took off the sheet.