Looking for a good home

Aren't these guys just the cutest?!! Its time for Shocker and Annie to find a new home that can spend more time with them that they deserve! They are the sweetest horses that just need time spent on them. At this point I'm willing to let them go on a "Best Offer". Please inquire.

Odds n' ends

I have always hated the noise that Guinea hens make. Last fall I broke down at the swap and purchased two from Rayna and her mom. I figured they'd be good to keep around to eat the bugs and ticks and stuff that try to get a free ride on the animals or me. I'm sure i could have 200 and still have ticks but they look cool. :) They have started to nest and have been an awful racket....so the other day I let them out of the barn. They had a gorgeous week in the 50's. I haven't found them yet today...in the snow....then again I just came in to take a break after a morning of snow...more of that in the next post.
Shocker is very indignant that he is seperated from his momma. I left him with his mom for eight months...mostly for companionship but he was starting to get rowdy so I had to seperate him. Here he is in his box stall........he's such a silly boy...he loves playing with his oats pan and kicks it and carries it around the pen. He is still several inches shorter than his mom...and they both are fuzzy as can be. Don't worry I do check the halter everyday....if he doesn't have it on he knows he can try and play keep away......He's looking for a good home, as is his pregnant mommy.
Well Michelle, I had to take a photo of my garden......yesterday......before all the snow......to show you that I do indeed have one.....the snow bank was mostly gone...that is....until today.

Updates

I feel like I have been keeping a journal in my head.

1. Since the last day of the 'chicken massacre' I've had a lot of things on my plate. The morning after I had one chicken left I went out to tend to the ducks. Much to my surprise and delight I found my original hen wandering around the pen with the ducks, acting like nothing had happened. I brought her back into the barn to her very happy rooster. In the mean time I went ahead and purchased 2 roosters and three hens of the Fawn Silver Duckwing (dilute to the pair I have left). They are being shipped out Monday from South Carolina from a top notch breeder. His website is www.choicebantams.com. I encourage you to see them. Show Quality all the way. Even if I never show chickens (I can't do one more thing I swear!) I want something that is very representative of the breed. I'm also looking at larger breeds of chickens for next spring, but really wanted some more bantams as I enjoy the OEGB (Old English Game Bantams). I have put chicken wire in one of my large 14' x 12' pens. They are 4' high plywood, 4' chicken wire. I have made more roosts, cleaned the pen and have it ready and waiting for the new batch of chickens. I"ve learned my lesson. They'll be inside all winter and next spring if I get some chicks, I'll release them all so they forage around the farmyard like chickens are supposed to. Watch for photos!

2. Last weekend I was able to go to Albert Lea, MN for a Young Bird Pigeon Show co-sponsored by the three Minnesota All breed pigeon clubs. While there I brought four breeds. Three of the breeds I had BEST OF BREED. In the 4th breed, the English Trumpeter, I had 5th overall with my blue bar winner from this summers Squeaker show. A well earned, well respected placing for all my hard work with the color. In addition I had 5 other of the top 12 color class winners, receiving Best of Color with the Blue Class, Opal, AOC (Any of Color) Splash, Lavender Splash, Dun and Red Splash. I was surprised with a few of them, but happy nonetheless.

3. After the pigeon show I drove even further south into the forbidden land (Iowa) to Mason City for a dog show. I was SO PROUD of how Mac, my tri boy did. He stacked perfectly, effortlessly and for several minutes (which is pretty hard for an 11 month old to do mind you). He was 2nd in his class to a dog that had won the major the day before, and went Reserve the day I showed. Much to my surprise my little blue merle girl Zoe, was Reserve Winners Bitch on a 4 point major!!!! It was only her 2nd day out, and just a week over the 6month old mark! The judge was very forgiving of me trying to 'rush' her, but he told me I had a very nice girl. I couldn't be prouder!

4. After raining pretty much since Saturday noon and still raining now, I have been unable to work all week. Its frustrating when I have fall clean ups to do, shrubs to prune and cattle yards to clean. Now after what seems like a foot of rain (my rain gauge is cracked I found out!) the yards are a runny mess of mud and water, knee deep on the cows and higher on the calves. Their dry areas are only the loafing barn for the cows and under the lean of the hay shed where the calves can lay in loose hay the cows can't reach. And we'd been meaning to clean them out all summer when we had a dust bowl in there.

5. Even the sheep don't like the mud. I put a 4'x8' sheet of plywood in front of the door they jump into every night and every morning. It doesn't solve how muddy the rest of their winter paddock is, but I think it helps a little bit as they aren't splashing down into the muddy water. I'm even going to bring the horses in tomorrow to let their feet dry off...their loafing barn I found tonight is a standing pool of water thanks to the build up of hay around their barn from this dry summer's feeding.

6. I'm off tomorrow to meet up with Peeps in the cities. I'm officially a sheep addict now and you can blame Mary Ellen :) I really just wanted to see her again and chit chat but I told her it was silly to drive up to MN and not bring some sheep with!

7. I was invited by Gail Former to help assist/attend an A.I. day at Chris and Alan Greene's farm in Illinois. Its about 10 hours of a drive for me, but well worth it, considering I assisted in swine reproductive surgeries at NDSU when i was in college there. A very educational day I believe and I'll get to meet Maureen Koch there, as well as others. Gail told me she's going to ask Juliann to come there too. I hope she does...it'd be nice to see her again.

8. My black ram lamb is definetly scurred. Next to the other boys with their massive, thick, gracefully sweeping set horns, they look like toothpicks! His one scur will have to be trimmed as it is coming back towards his head too soon. On the good side his fleece is killer soft for a black. I wanted my black ram. I got him. I wanted soft. Got that too. But most everything I want to breed him to is related to him. Maybe I can sell him as a whether for a fiber animal. He's too nice to eat :) The other boy that is scurred or slow growing horns will be staying here. His micron was quite impressive (although not as impressive as the F1 Jericho boy, Jazz) and if i decide not to use him this year, he'll be used next fall. He's a gorgeous fawn color that looks to be turning even lighter now, with some nice crimp coming in at the base. Maybe Juliann wants me to bring him with on my trip to IL?

Well that's all the news and gossip up this way for the time being. I wanted to have only ONE post, but wanted to let you all know what was going on up this way!

Less animals to feed

Well the pot bellied pigs are gone. I kinda miss them but glad they have families with children to let them spoil them :)

The ducks mostly went to the ethnic families to eat, I'm happy I can help feed people with my animals!! I still have eight ducks to winter over. The Saxony trio and the five Swedes. They sure are neat to have around.

Now with the chickens depleted I'm thinking of getting a larger breed. I LOVE the batams but perhaps some wyandotts or brahmas or d'uccles. There is always next spring to get chicks and raise them....that way they can free range and I don't have to feed them this winter ;)

I still have my miniature mare and foal for sale. Shocker is turning into a stunny boy. I was hoping to have him go for training as a seeing eye companion. He wouldn't be the first, but my friend who trains them doesn't have the time currently to do so. Annie should be bred back for a May or June foal for 2008.

I also will have beef available to purchase, either as breeding stock or ready for the table. Inquire privately for more information on any of the above animals

Shocker

I went out to feed the horses and the llama tonight after I got the sheep and goats in. Carlyn (the father) came over to say hello. He really is like a big dog and loves to be scratched and pet. He was nearly on my lap as I pet him. Lo and behold here comes Mr. Inquisitive over to see what his daddy is so involved in. I nearly got him to sniff me today. When I had Shocker and his mom in a box stall he really seemed to be too frightened so this way he can come up to me when he is ready. Seems to be working. His mother is more standoffish so I didn't expect him to warm up so suddenly but he is. Next we'll try some apple treats!!

A 'Shocker' of a morning!

If any of you have been following me moaning and groaning with these miniature horses you'll be glad to know that lo and behold Annie was indeed pregnant! I hadn't been out yet this morning when my dad called my house and told me to look out the window into the pasture. There in the tall grass was a teeny head sticking out standing next to his mom! I literally tripped over my own feet running out to check.

Boy.

Ah nuts. Now I have to wait until next year and hope for a girl. I was hoping for a girl so she'd keep her momma company in a seperate paddock. Now I'll have to keep him seperate from his mom and him from his dad. His daddy wasn't too happy to see him this morning LOL.

In April I built a 12'x12' box stall for Annie. It was -10 here that day, i put rubber padding on the floor, bedded it knee deep with straw and got all her feed, minerals and water in the pen. Wala! Now I waited. And waited. And waited. She had wax on her teats and her belly dropped. Her mammary VEINS going to her udder were swollen and her vulva was starting to swell. All signs. I knew it. So I lost sleep for numerous days getting up at mindight, 3:30am and 5:30am to check. Nothing. Just standing there.

UGH!

After a week, a vet visit and a ferrier visit, I put her back in the larger pen for exercise. First week of May. Same story. Same scenerio. I was beginning to think that I had done this all before. It sure seemed familiar!

As of last week I declared a 'no foal' year and put her back with Carlyn in hopes he might get the mark this year. She didn't have any swelling in her mammary veins anymore, her belly didn't look as full and her vulva could have passed for a yearlings. So I put them, the ram, and the three registered pygmy bucks out into the pastures in the evening hours. The last few nights I left them out all night long, but they were able to come back into the barn if alarmed.

And then when I had given up and moved on. BAM! Here comes this guy. My dad thought it was a filly and named her Summer. My Grandpa said 'Surprise' and I said, yea he sure was a shocker to me. And there ya have it. His name!

Tentatively he will be called White Pine's Morning Shocker, but we'll call him Shocker. If he was anymore like his dad (sassy, stubborn, bratty) I'd have thought I was looking at his Daddy as a foal.

Will keep you posted on this little guy as he grows up. As most foals do, they shed their foal hair and get their mature hair in later in the year. We'll see what color he sheds into.

And this is what my llama Ty thought about the newborn! (the baby was to the left of the photo if you couldn't tell ha ha!)