Cured, again

Over this past weekend I have been doing animal chores for my friend the Goat Lady. She has at this time, five lamas, four horses, two bucks, two pigs, 10 or so goats/sheep, 20 plus rabbits, a flock of mean nasty geese, and some guinea pigs. I know for a fact now, I will never ever have rabbits, geese, lamas and pigs (the pigs are pets) I can see that at some point in time I might have a pig to bring up and send off to freezer camp, but never ever will I have pigs as pets.

And that big bowl of eggs? That was three dozen eggs and one big goose egg. My hens are up to giving me about six to eight eggs a day. I gave the eggs away to some church people on Sunday.

Opening Day

Ahhhh, the first day of deer season (With guns) Nothing like walking up to the mail box and hearing lots of shots! Either the people in my neck of the woods are getting lots of deer or they are poor shots! I put the work out to all the people that I know that hunt that I really like heart!

I hope my friends are good shots. I could go for some yummy pan fried heart.

On a whole other note. I have two roosters. One is a bantam and one is normal size. The bantam was always picking on the big one, would chase him from the food and stuff. But the little guy was not "man" enough to do the job so I was planing on getting rid of him. Well, no longer do I need to plan that act. He's missing. When I did a head count last night I was short one chicken but was not sure who I was missing. This morning in the daylight I could see who was gone.

Lions, tigers and bears, oh my!

Well, I did not have a lion nor a tiger at my house today, but I did have a little black bear come by!
I was talking to my friend Kellie on the phone and I saw a funny black shape walking behind a row of pine trees. I told Kellie that I think that it's a bear and it then walked out from behind the trees and sure enough, it was a little blackie!

I was running around to find the camera and by the time I got it, and opened the door (That made a loud noise) the bear had turned and was gone. Probably went into the corn fields. I wonder how long hes (shes) being hanging around? Is it licking its chops thinking about my fat hens? The chicken grain? I wonder if it wants a annoying all black cat?

A little midweek confession.

I like the smell of skunk! Not a fresh killed one but one that is a day or two old. I know, that sounds bad, but I like that burnt rubber/musk scent. That past two days on my way to and from work I pass a skunk. I can't see the skunk but I can smell him. Now don't get me wrong, I do not want that smell in my house, but just catching a quick whiff while I drive by, it's not so bad. Rather nice.

Am I really weird or are there other skunk smell likers out there?

Guest?

When I came to work this morning my eye was immediately drawn upward. I know that there is not a dark spot in this corner and this morning there was. I could not tell right off what it was. I was thinking somehow some old pipe in the wall became exposed over the weekend (It could happen. The building is over 100 years old) Closer look, I realized it was a bat! This little guy got inside somehow and decided this was his sleeping spot for the day. When I left at 5pm he was still there.

I was asked a few times by patrons when was I going to get rid of the bat! I told them that bat removal was not in my job duties. I take care of the inside/library part, not the Village Hall. I had already advised the village office people at 9.30am that there was a bat in the building.

The goats are doing good. I am having a hard time getting a good picture of the babies. When they see me, they stop their play and come running to me and then they follow me around. I have lots of pictures of the tops of heads, feet, and sides.

My boyfriends back and you're gonna be in trouble

Yes, this is a bad picture of my boyfriend. But then he's not that great of a boyfriend. He wont commit, has very poor communication skills. He wont try new foods, just bugs and more bugs.

But then, I wont kiss him. So I guess we are even.

I was wondering if I was going to get frogs on my sliding door this year like I did last year. Well, the other night when I went to let Abby out for the last time, this guy was at eye level. At first I thought that it was a really large moth on the glass. Then my mind realized that it was a frog. You just don't expect a frog to be eye balling you.

Animal Auction.

Today my friend Kellie and I ( and her daughter ) went to the town of Thorp as they have a animal auction on the first Saturday of every month. I have never been to a auction myself much less an animal auction. There were a lot of people there. Maybe 200 or so? hard to say. There were also a lot of Amish and Mennonites there. I was impressed with how big and leggy the Amish horses are. They seemed to be all leg to me.

Over all I came away with a bad/sad feeling about the auction. I may have a romanticizes ideal about farm life and such. Maybe I do coddle my animals and see them more as pets them utility animals. I came away with the feeling that a lot of the animals are just trading one hard life for another hard life. I didn't take a few pictures as it seemed to me to be cruel. One goat was so skinny that you really could see each and every rib, the back bone was about 2 inched high as there was no meat on the goat. The hip and breast bones jutted out. I wanted to take that goat home and give it a happy, well fed life with getting lots of petting. But you can't take home every sad case that you see. I just wonder about people that let their animals get in such a condition. Maybe the goat was sick or had worms but then why not get it medication and fix the problem? Or out of compassion put it down if you can't take care of it?

That was not the only uncared for animal that we saw. I do know that when I need to find homes for my kids ( I can't keep all the babies!) I wont be taking them to an animal auction. I want a little more control on who gets them. This may seem harsh but I would rather bring my goats to market weight and eat them myself knowing that they had a pretty good life. Then have them go to an uncaring person. OK. Off my soap box! Here are some pictures that I did take.

P.S. As of today I have been blogging for one year! I have 362 posting in one year. I missed 3 days. 2 are when I was over in MN for my Grandmother's funeral and the other one was when my computer was broke for the week. Not bad. I started blogging as a way to keep in touch with friends and family back in Alaska and a few that live here in the lower 48. I have enjoyed blogging. I have met all kind of interesting,funny and kind people. I think that I will blog for another year.

This and that.

Woo Hoo! I found THE tea! I was at Wal-Mart getting my Thanksgiving stuff and low and behold, I found the tea! I grabbed 2 boxes of it and when I got home, I found out that I grabbed one plain old peppermint tea not 2 of the kind that I wanted. Kind of like when you grab a container of sour cream and when you get home you find out that you grabbed the fat free kind. Yuck! That's OK though, next time when I'm in town I will grab another box.

I think that deer season opened today? When I left the house I saw a bunch of cars and trucks parked at the farm up the street and there was about 15 men in blaze orange with rifles. I also saw a lot of truck and cars pulled off the road onto trails and I stopped counting when I hit 30 people in blaze orange! You can see them a mile away! In a truck coming towards you. A lot of the banks had their signs flashing "Safe Hunting" and then the clincher was a dead deer bungee down on the trunk of a car! Never saw that before! Up in Alaska you see camo, not blaze orange.

Also the bars had a lot and I mean a lot more trucks and cars parked at them, for a Saturday afternoon. Not unusual for a Saturday night! I do believe Wisconsin likes it's beer!

A little Haiku for you.

Hunter,bright orange.

Run away! Watch out Bambi!

Pan fried? Roast? Yummy!

Oh and tomorrow for the Church potluck? I'm going to bring Perroc. That's Alaska style Russian fish pie. We will see how well that goes over! I may have left overs! I can only hope!

Birds.

This morning while I was washing dishes a bunch of finch's (I think) came to my buffet that I had put out. I was real happy to see them! I put up this finch feeder in the summer and I had a lot of finch's came to it. And then they were gone. I asked around and other people still had finch's, just not me. I was sad! Then I was told that maybe my seed was bad? So I checked it out. Gross! We had a lot of rain in the fall and the seeds swelled up and were sour smelling. So I dumped the seed and washed the bag and hung it back up. No birds for about a month, that I saw.

Then this morning, about 12 of them showed up!

It was hard to count them as they would chase each other off the feeder.

What I don't do to get the shot for all you that read my blog! When I would open the back door all the birds would fly off. In about 15 minutes they would come back, open door, fly away. So we played the open/close door for about a hour. Then I decided to leave the door open. BURRRRRR it was really really cold this morning, about 20 above with a north wind blowing at about 20k. BURRRRRRR. But hey! You all are worth it! I was not quite dressed yet, my toes and right leg got very cold! ( That may be TMI )

My dog Abby was very confused, she did not want to go outside in the cold!

Turkeys, the kind with feathers!

Today, on the way to work, I had some turkeys cross the road. They are a fast moving bird!

So I didn't get a picture of them, but awhile back I snuck up on this flock of turkeys and got a picture. The didn't stay still for me very long. O.K. I didn't really sneak up on them as so much as pulled over and got off the road and got out of the truck and snapped the picture! Then they ran from me when my lovely dog barked at them.

Yesterday I talked about how I hit a deer the first week that I was here. Well, I almost hit a turkey that first week! They fly from the side of the road and it takes them a bit to gain some altitude. They are just perfect for hitting the windshield. So I have been told. I was also told that it's like hitting a bowling ball. I can miss out on that. Thank you very much! I swear that the first week I was here, I thought that the animal life here was out to get me!

Deer.

Are deer just stupid? When I first moved here to Wisconsin I hit a deer in the first week! I see tons of dead deer on the side of the road. Tonight, on the way home from work, a buck ran in front of me and I hit the breaks. I didn't really come too close to hitting him, just enough to make my heart go just a tad faster! What I don't understand about deer is this. Why would a deer that's near a forest, where there is protection, feel the need to run across the road, to a corn field that has been cut and there is no protection? Are their brains so small that they are unable to make the decision to turn back into the forest? Can they only go forward? These are the burning questions that I have! Also I see vehicles with a bright spot light shining into the forest. Are people allowed to "shine" for deer? Are they hunting at night? Or is this just a way to see the deer so that you can slow down and not hit them? I will have to ask the Chief of Police that question. A guy at the Church that I go to calls deer "Speed Beef" as he thinks that they don't have a game flavor,being they eat corn just like the cows do. But they sure are faster then cows! I have had deer meat here. I think that it has a very mild flavor. It does not taste like deer from Alaska. Nor does it taste like moose or caribou. It's lower 48 deer. No, it doesn't not taste like chicken!
Another thing I have heard about deer, when they run in front of you, DON'T USE THE BREAKS! I have yet to do that as putting on the breaks is what you tend to do when you might hit something! You're just to take your foot off the gas. I will try and remember that next time I have a deer run in front of me. Just my luck, I will get suicidal deer that will turn and run into my truck.

Cute Nose

Is this not the cutest cow nose that you ever did see? I found this picture while I was showing some of them to my sister. This was taken by my friend Kellie's kid. I was helping to "take care" of the chickens and Kellie's girl took some pictures for me. I do believe that she might be a budding photographer!

I still have my cold and I still might be cranky! Last night I was wondering if you can call the cops on a farmer! Can you? He was out in his fields till 10pm with his big ol tractor doing farmer things. Loud and with bright lights! He needed the bright lights as it was pitch black out! Of course this gets my dog wanting to go outside to check it all out, and then back in as it's cold, but then back out cause something is going on! Grrrr. I'm sure that having this cold made it worse. Today he was back out doing farmer things and all I can tell is that he is cutting his corn lower? I mean, he has already cut the corn and all he had left were stalks about a foot high and a bunch of leaves. Kellie says he might be getting ready to bail it for bedding? I wish he would hurry up! I wish my cold would go away! I can't drink anymore tea.

P.S. I would NEVER call the cops! That was just the snot thinking last night!

Wake up call

I used to get up early early to go to work, like get up at 3.50am so that I could be at work at 5.30a. It took me awhile to be able to sleep in, but I worked really hard at it and now I get up at 6.30am! WOW, So it made me kind of cranky when I was woken up the other day at about 5.30am ish and was not able to get back to sleep due to the racket the cranes make in the morning. I wish I could have told them that I know that they make good eating! Maybe that would have scared them off. And how I know that they taste good was that many years ago when I lived in Dillingham AK, I was invited to visit some friend in a village called Twins Hills. We went up a river and did some fishing and one of the guys saw a crane and shot it and brought it back to his Mom for her to cook up for dinner. The crane was plucked and gutted ( not very well!) and the Mom took a honking huge knife and did a big chop chop and from beak to feet it was allllll ( and I mean allllll ) added to the cook pot. Nothing like having a head floating in the pot and its eye, eye-balling ya! ( You looking at me? ) and then you would see a foot with some feathers still attached to it bobbing around! The Mom added some rice and onions to the pot and about an hour later, soup was on. And you know what? It was tasty! Just had say no thanks to the head and feet. I found out later that it was illegal to shoot the crane due to the season? the area? just plain not allowed to shoot cranes? Not sure. The friend was a native guy and he was not too worried about it.

noise's at night

Aa few nights ago while I was sound asleep, I was a jolted out of a sound sleep by a really eerie howl, it was the kind of howl that made me think of the movie " Werewolves of London! " when the 2 guys, late at night, are crossing the moors trying to get to shelter. It made my heart pound! I asked around and was told that it was coyotes on the scent of some kind of fuzzy little creature ( think, little bunny rabbit! ) and then this morning, while I was getting ready for work I looked out my front living room window and what did I see? but a coyote cruising down my yard. I know the pictures aren't the best but that's all I got of it. That night when the coyotes were howling , my killer attack doberman stayed sound asleep! didn't even budge, lift her head or cock an ear! What a sorry excuse for a doberman! In fact, one time up at my cabin that I used to own in Alaska, I had a bear come right up on the porch and get into the cooler and steal the eggs and bacon and stuff, I had 3 dogs with me that time ( It was a 3 dog night that night!) and not one of them barked or anything, well, one dog did make a very very small woof . The dogs didn't bark at the bear until I did the old "fake a knock" on the door trick! Stupid dogs!

Just horseing around.

I know something is up over at my neighbors place that's about 3 miles from me when all the trucks pulling horse trailers start coming down the road. On Saturday I drove down to their place to see what was going on. I don't know what you call it but they had a jumping/going a distance competition thing. It was taking about 15 minutes for each rider to finish? I wasn't really timing it, just watching it. Man, the horses were big! I mean big! I didn't get a good pic but this one horse was so large and the rider was a small slip of a girl, not more then 90lbs, I would think? she looked about 14 tops! The pic of all the truck and trailers doesn't really show how many people and horses were there. This place has a lot of acres and at the main barn there was probably about another 100 or so tents,campers and horse trailers, some where real big rigs. It kind of made me want to get a horse ( slap slap, that's me slapping myself upside the head! ) and then I wonder, what in the heck do they do with all the horse poop? You will have to forgive me on the action shots!

I posted the best ones that I had. I had a lot of shots missing the riders head or the horse's legs! The below pic of the gray dapple? I just liked the colors of it. I didn't ever see it jump and stuff like that.

Husband Material?

Nothing like going to the back door to let the dog in and you see this! Makes you stop for a second and just to make sure that, yep, that's a frog on your door at face height!.And then the little guy ( I think its the same one ) hopped over to the other door so we could see his other side, I have to admit, I like his green side better then that frog belly white side ( now I see where they get that expression!)
Kind of sad to think I might be running over him one day! I named him you see! His name is Prince Charming! all I have to do now is work ou the courage to give him a little smooch! Now I have that song in my mind! you know, the one that goes like this

froggy went a courting and he did ride uh huh
froggy went a courting and he did ride a sword and pistol by his side uh huh

Not Sure what to call this.

The other day as I was going to Scarborough fair,parsley,sage,rosemary and thyme...Wrong wrong! My mind tends to wander and songs pop in there when I don't mean that to happen,( I do believe that I drove my coworkers crazy with my songs as I couldn't say Aniak with out going "Aniak yak yak yak, you ought to know by now!)
but back to the original story I was telling. As I was going to Colfax to go to the parade and fair we, ( Abby is most often with me ) ran over a already ran over skunk, and it must have been the car that just past by as this was horriable! Abby was napping and that smell brought her head up fast and sharp, made my eyes water a bit and lasted for a few minutes, then 5 hours later when I was going home, the skunk and stink was still there, just not as strong. I have noticed down here that there is a lot more road kill then up in Alaska.

The following is a list of the most common road kill to the not so common.

1. Deer, I don't know how many dead deer I have seen and I might have been the cause of one death! The 1st week I was here, a suicidal deer ran into my truck and that was a big whomp when I hit him and then a few thump thumps when I ran over him/her. When we went back to find the deer it was gone, cops said that it probably ran off, but I think that somebody saw some fresh deer meat and tossed that deer in the back of the car or truck. I was wondering why dead deer are on the side of the road for so long, What I was told is that they have to be verified that they are dead, spray painted and then they can be picked up, so even if that deer is on its back, legs stiff in the air and bloated like you wont believe, it just might not be dead yet!

2. Raccoon's, when I see them, I have to admit that I think about taking the tails and doing what with then? I don't know, its just a passing thought, no worries!

3. Little rodents like squirrels and stuff

4. Birds, turkeys and pheasant, I think about getting tail feathers off the pheasants, but again, don't worry, have not done that......Yet, they are very pretty feathers!

5.I have seen one dead eagle, that was kind of sad.

So I see a lot of wild life, just I see a lot of it dead!

Killer Doberman par 2

Abby has made it her life style choice to go for gofers! Good Dog! I have no complaints in that choice of hers, other then the amount of mud that dog is bringing into the house! and to make matters worse, I have one of those cheep Wal Mart under 100 bucks vacuum cleaners that just pretends to suck up dirt, it only does good if you get down on your hand and knees with just the hose part and run that back and forth over the dirt, which by the way is what I did for about 1/2 hour today as I was waiting for the mud to dry from last night and this morning, as she dragged in some more! so I have dry mud mixed with fresh wet mud, I think that the real reason that its bugging me today (cause in truth I have in the past had some pretty gritty sheets from Abby and I could sleep with that) is that I stayed up till 1am watching the National Republican Convention ( Go Palin!) and Abby at the crack of dawn started barking her head off (in bed) and leaped from the bed ( shes 11 and 1/2 so more like dragged herself off the bed) and wanted to go out and I let her out and she started to dig in the front yard by the front door where a gofer had left a pile of dirt sometime during the night and she was digging and barking at it ( good thing I don't have close neighbors!) So long story short I had a 4 and 1/2 hour NAP last night! I need more beauty sleep then that! ( great! here comes mud dog wanting inside and I have a clean carpet! ) ! Now that carpet pic is just a small part of what I needed to clean, and her water dish, that's just yuckey! all I can say is that she is getting plenty of fiber in her diet

Killer Doberman

Abby has found the joy of digging up gofers! Yea! I get worried that I might have a gofer problem because when ever I mow, the next day I will get 2 or 3 dirt piles that the gofers have pushed up. And I have heard stories of them wrecking septic tanks, as in filling them up with dirt and them you have to dig them out and rebuild them! and the cost of that! yikes! Now this may be gross, but here goes, I was wondering why my dog gets ear fulls of dirt as yes, I put a finger in her ear now and then! (She likes it and don't we all do nice things for those that we love?!) So now I have solved that mystery! I was also wondering where she would go for a few hours at a time ( will come in less then 30 sec when I call her, so I knew it wasn't far) so I followed her and took some pic of her going to town on gofer village!
Abby, such a good girl! Good dog!

What a scene

On Saturday, when I was going to go to the tractor pull and didn't, I did a little drive around as I have been looking for cat tails (and now I'm done with that, got about 15 of them) and came across this peaceful scene, I watched them for about 30 minutes, the little guy was heckling the other ones. He was being a pest! He would run up to the others and butt them in the side, hop like he was bucking somebody off, so much, that one of the other horse's tried to bite him! but no contact was made, he settled down after that. I wonder how long that lasted for?! When I come across scenes like this I wonder, should I get a horse? Then common sense jumps right in and says NO WAY! or NOT YET! I still want to get goats and chickens and if that goes well, maybe, just maybe I would think about getting bigger animals. I need a brother in law to come down with a sister and help me put op a chicken coop and fence ( hint hint ) Huh, I wonder if my sisters in Alaska would want to buy in on a horse or two and then whenever they came to visit we could go riding?