Our nut stash has been broken into!

Around our farm we have a lot of black walnut trees, most of them are down in our sheep pasture. Black walnuts are much sweeter than regular ones, and we have so much that my siblings and I crack one any time we want, but we are not the only ones who like them. I caught these two sneaking from our nut stash in the barn.

I'm baking cookies n the top pic.

Emma's first weeks

Emma's Here!

We brought Emma home on the thirteenth. Since then I've been busy, busy, busy cleaning puppy messes, training, ect. She's a lot more dominant then I expected, trying to command Aiden to play with her. The picture on the left is of Me and Emma, when we picked her up. We took Emma to several parks to socialize her with people and other dogs, but all the dogs we met weren't very nice, so were still working on it. But the main thing I'm trying to get done is house training. Aiden is very tolerant of Emma for all the jumping and playing, though we wish he'd show just a little more alpha. Emma is incredibly smart and learns very quickly, loves to play, go on adventures, and hates to be left alone.

November Kitties

Aren't They cute? I took these pictures by chance last month and never got around to post them. Jasmine, ( the long haired gray tabby) and Tia, ( the tortishell ) love posing for their pictures taken, but any good pics. of Stripey, ( the short haired tabbey,) are hard to get.

The king of the prarie

Ducky found a speckled king snake half frozen by an old dry spring, while hiking with mom. She brought it home and tried to house it in many different places but the only container this King was a very tall unused plastic garbage can ( he climbed out of every thing else) . King speckles,(as Ducky named him) tried to bite bite people when his head wasn't being held, so Ducky put up a sign: BEWARE OF SNAKE ( HE BITES). on his garbage can. Other than that, he was a nice pet for a few days.
Speckled king snakes aren't poisonous at all. Many people think they are because of their behavior, or the name King tagged on them. But really, their name comes from their diet: other snakes, both poisonous and harmless. This is the smallest one I've seen, though the Adults are not much bigger. I've never seen them hunt before, It must be a remarkable feat to hunt down a larger venomous snake.

Another little gray visitor

Last night while my parents were away, my siblings and I watched an old movie we have not seen for a while. During the movie Ducky had scraps of food she wanted to give the kitties, so she went out side . All the kitties were there except Stripy, a little rescued stray, who loves attention. So Ducky started looking around for him. There was a little gray thing sneaking away from the barn, and it looked like Stripey to Ducky, so she walked a little closer to it and called. A little white face looked at her, then continued towards the forest. surprised, Ducky ran in the house yelling; '' a skunk! a skunk!'' I jumped up
''Where?!''
'' by the barn, it's going away! I thought it was Stripey, but it's a skunk!''
''A skunk?'' I asked, grabbing a flash light. ''Show me!'' I said, preparing to do what was done with pests here. I had never killed a possum, skunk, or raccoon but since dad was gone, I had the thought that I would have to do it, and that wasn't a pretty thought. Ducky and I ran out to see. ''He's gone.'' Ducky exclaimed, when we reached the barn.
''Where's Aiden?'' I asked,
''Somewhere over there, I don't know;'' Ducky pointed the opposite direction .
''Aiden!'' I called. Aiden came from our eastern porch. He stopped and looked where Ducky and I where looking. ''Aiden,---.'' Suddenly, he bolted towards the fence line that separated the forest from our front yard. Aiden leaped along it just like a fox trying to catch a mouse, then snapped up a gray fuzz ball and shook hard. The gray thing dropped and tried to escape but Aiden grabbed it by the tail and puled him back. They fought for a few short seconds, then it was over. ''It's not a skunk it's a possum!'' Ducky explained with realization,
''Good boy Aiden, Good dog! '' We petted him all over and let him inside to watch the movie with us. I was very glad that I didn't have to kill the possum. But I also am very relieved that it wasn't a skunk, now that I think about it. Ducky must have mistaken the possum's white little face for a skunk tail. I wish I got pictures though.

My dog to be

After coming home from CA, I was wondering what to do with all the money I earned. Should I leave it in the bank and use it for some sort of future grand investment like college? Or this or that...a camera, a crompound bow and hunting licence, angora bunnies, art supplies, a dairy heifer or goat, a canoe, an older horse or a barely broke one, (though Dad said no absolutely, so that was out of the question), a little beagle dog(to hunt rabbits) a laptop for writing my novels,....well, I better stop right there.

Mom talked to me about spending my money on something that would be a seed to earn more money. So I brainstormed all the business type things I'd like doing, like pet portraits, milking and selling ice cream (my homemade Molly-Jersey icecream sold for 35 to 60$ a gallon at the YW auction last summer:)) And then one day Mom said Aiden was sad and that after his midnight wild creature run-in and injury, he's never been quite the same. And that he would need to be replaced someday, and how hard that would be. I said that it was about time to get a puppy as we planned to breed him in order to keep one around like him someday when he's gone, and I started looking around at the different farmcollie possibilites.
I told mom that if she could be mine, I would love to train and take care of a puppy. And unlike our farm-fresh kitties, dogs good around other animals are in demand here. I wouldn't have a problem finding homes for the other pups besides the one we would keep from her litter someday. So that's where my future investment comes in.
Our family loves the capabilities and the history of the English Shepherd, and the beauty of a not-too0-imbred, not too narrow skulled rough collie. Which is exactly what Aiden is. So we decided to try to continue this. We've always liked the looks and working habits of these dogs, http://www.cedarcreekenglishshepherds.com/ES.html and one day I found a live "we've got puppies" link from those beautiful and smart dogs( who also 'own' katadin sheep, like us) and I emailed.
Turns out the puppies are related to this farm, but also to the Cimmaron farm line in nearby Oklahoma, Aiden's Dad's (Cimmaron Buccaneer, or Buck) home. And the Butcher farm dogs that have been the top English Shepherds in the nation. And that the puppies actual family was one of the Butchers, who don't live too far from us, and they were real nice to talk with, back and forth.
So to try to make my still-long story short, she saved a puppy for me!!!!, "the most outgoing sable of the litter, sweet, most playful and slightly bossy".

She's named D.J right now, but I am looking at scottish names to match Aiden and her celtic ancestry... maybe Jamie, Emma, Kira, Guenevere or Gwen for short, and I can go get her anytime we get the logistics figured out. Here are some pics of her, and you can see her mom and dad above. You can see her tiny puppy pic as part of her litter here at http://www.cedarcreekenglishshepherds.com/bjcallie09.html
Below are some 7 week old pictures of her that the Butcher family sent me to see if I approved of her. In these pics she is in the house suspiciously sniffing wood floors for the first time, and being held by 'her girls' "who think she is one of thier favorites and have given her lots of love." She does have a naturally bobbed tail like her mom, (my mom wanted a long tail, cuase they make such alert or happy waving flags) and a little bit shorter hair than mom would like, but I am glad, for tick picking's sake, "the better to see you with, my dear"! Dad is sceptical, (maybe he's thinking of the furniture, toys and rug casualties) but he'll see how wonderful a family and work companion she is going to be....


I can hardly wait !!!! (((((Isn't she cute?))))

Hiking squad

It had been a very cold October., but super recently it had been warm, so I took the chance and took my sisters hiking out back. We saw a wild turkey,a fox, and smelled a dead cow at the edge of a stream we wadded in, (the cow was further down stream then we were). Aiden our dog came with us, helping Brina move a heard of cattle out of our way. Here are some photos of our voyage.