Stupid Camera and other things

I had such a time getting the photos off the camera, which it is why I did not get back to the blog when I said I would. Stupid camera lol. But I am back again with the photos I wanted to start posting. My parents came up Easter weekend and we had a really good time. Dad drove the tractor, Jimmy, Kathy and my nephew came up and we celebrated Easter with a Easter egg hunt and a Road Runner showed up on my deck!!! Living in the country can be such fun!!

This is the Road Runner that flew on to the railing of the deck, I had to take the picture through the glass door. He walked along the railing looking for lizards to eat. I do have a lot of lizards but they made themselves scarce when road runner showed up!

We had a tree that we needed to trim and so Dad and Ken trimmed the tree and Dad got to drive the tractor moving the branches to the burn pile.

The pictures above and below are Kathy, Jimmy and Tyler hunting Easter Eggs in my woods.

My garden is doing great! This is my crooked neck squash. We have already harvested a ton of squash already lol.

It is not a big garden, I have two flats of tomatoes , squash, cucumbers, onions, and sweet banana peppers.

We put in above the ground flats, which have worked out well, Ken will put in two more which will give us 6 above the ground vegetable gardens. Oh I also have some corn coming in. That is if the deer will leave it alone.

Long Break

As you can see I took a long break from my blog. I lost a dear friend to lung cancer in October and just became uninterested in blogging even though I had a lot of things to blog about. Now I am back, starting tomorrow I will be blogging about the things that went on in the past 4 months, I have great pictures to post and lots of stuff to catch up on. See you all tomorrow!!

Christmas and other things

Things have been very hetic since I last blogged. Thank goodness things are starting to get back to normal now that the holidays are over. We had Christmas at our place again this year. Mom and Dad came along with my brother and his family. It was a nice day and everyone had a good time. I posted some photos below:

My nephew Tyler with my mom and his mom. He was singing us songs.

My mom and Kathy, my brother's wife

my dad along with my husband and Kathy's mom

Ken opening up his gift from me

Kathy and Tyler and Kathy's mom behind Tyler

Ken finally fixed my floating shelves and we hung the drawing of him and Ikon I gave him.

This is what I gave Ken for Christmas. That is CH San Jo's Ikon he is carrying. Ikon is totally Ken's dog. :-)

This is a hoodie that Ann got me for Christmas. That is a hand painted picture of my Magic, BISS Am/Can/Intl Ch Magical Memories v Riata Edan. I just love it.

I know my blogs have been hit and miss this year but I promise to do much better starting tomorrow. It is almost midnight and so Happy New Year everyone!!

Trouble

Trouble went to his new home on Sunday, I was suppose to drive him to Austin in two weeks but they decided to come get him after the show on Sunday. It was very tough letting him go, I was not ready but Paul will be a great home for him. Below are photos of Trouble's new kennel that Paul and his son built for him. I still co own Trouble so I will always know what is going on in his new life.

Here is Trouble in his new Kennel at his new home. He is only in the kennel when Paul is at work and then he is in the house.

This photo is of the kennel when it was finished before Trouble arrived.

They Call Me Mr. Trouble v Riata

Finally I am able to upload photos again. That is why there is such a gap with my last blog and this one, could not get photos up to the site.

The pictures below are of my Trouble and his new family. Trouble was born March 17, 2008. His dam was my Moka, Witch Witch Witch v Riata and his sire is CH Been There Done That of Edan PT. My friend Paul who lives in Austin started talking about getting a German Shepherd from me a few months ago. I thought he would be getting a puppy from the litter I will be breeding in December but instead he is taking my Trouble. This is going to be a great home for the dog, Paul does a lot of hiking on trails and wants Trouble to be able to go with him on some of those adventures. Paul's son claims that Trouble will be his dog, not his father's. :-) They came for a day visit to see Trouble in person and to play with him. Trouble loves anyone who will throw the tennis ball for him! I have had some people ask me how could I give up a dog that I bred and raised for 2 years, the best answer I can give is, I want what is best for this boy. They will give him the one on one attention that he so deserves. Trouble has to share me with 9 other German Shepherds and I know he does not care but I do. It will tough going for Paul and Trouble to begin with, but with unconditional love from Paul, Trouble will return it 100 fold. I am happy to say that Paul has allowed me to be a co owner on the dog. I will be taking Trouble to Austin in December to start his new life and when I will leave Austin I'll be leaving a piece of my heart behind.

This is Paul's son, Paul playing with Trouble. He does so love those tennis balls!

This is the picture I sent them, showing what Trouble looked like. He is a handsome dog just needs to fill out and finish growing up. Paul is going to take Trouble to obedience classes. He wants to put an obedience title on the dog, which I think is great. It will help with the bonding process.

This is Paul on one of his adventures. Not an adventure Trouble would be going on. :-)

Another photo of Paul. I love this one, that is a chickadee sitting on his fingers

The Wild Life

I realized that I had some photos of the wild life that live in and move through our property. My husband has been telling me that we had a turtle that lives in our woods. He had seen it twice when it came out to eat some mushrooms that were growing after a rain. Last Sunday when I was on my way back from visiting my friend Peggy, he called me and said the turtle had been up close to the house eating. He caught the turtle and put it in a pool we had out front for the dogs to play in it. Of course he did empty it first. The photos below show our friend the turtle.

I do not know what kind of turtle this is, but he was glad when I released him. I gave him some lettuce which he ate before heading back into the woods.

This photo I had taken right after I started my summer vacation in June. This is a baby hawk that flopped into the top of one of our pine trees. He was learning how to fly and was not a happy camper. He screamed for his parents who were circling over head trying to get him to come to them. He must have sat there for 20 minutes before he tried to fly again. He landed on the roof of a house down the road from us and hopped around calling for his parents. We see him now and then and he did learn how to fly very well.

Here is one of my does. It is hard to get good photos of them. Even though they will let us sit on the deck and watch them eat the corn we put out for them, a sudden move as in to take a picture sometimes spooks them. I really wanted to get some photos of the babies this year, but so far, no luck on that.

We feed the deer a mixture of deer chow and corn. We also have a mineral block that they lick on.

They will even eat the sunflower seeds that we put out on the ground for the squirrels. And they like to eat the grasses that grow up from the bird seed that falls on the ground from the bird feeders.

Here are my Monarch caterpillars eating the butterfly weed I had planted for the butterflies. I love the color of these guys. We must have had over 25 caterpillars eating the butterfly weed before they cocooned themselves.

I really enjoy the woodpeckers that show up to eat the sunflower seeds.

Here is one on the ground picking up some sunflower seeds that fell from the bird feeder

After getting a seed she flew up to this broken branch.

And finally I caught a humming bird eating at my humming bird feeder.

It is so much fun watching all the animals. I need to get a good camera with a telephoto lens, I just might then be able to catch photos of the baby deer!

The Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend was one of the best weekends Ken and I have had at the house. The weather was beautiful and it was cool. Ken work in our woods clearing out some more of the underbrush we wanted to do away with, although most of it will stay so the deer have a place to hide. Clearing out some of the underbrush is a heathly thing for the woods. While walking with Ikon and Seuss at the back end of our woods, I found these berries. They are very pretty even though I do not know what kind they are. I am sure the birds, squirrels and deer will enjoy them!

Below is the path in our woods that the deer travel, this is looking towards the back of our property, way down there.

In this picture you are looking down the path in the opposite direction. To the right over a fence is a small creek and more woods. Sometimes when there is very heavy rain the water will turn this path into a small creek, but it drains right off. It is very peaceful and the deer just love it. I even found out we have a turtle living in our woods, not a snapping turtle but a turtle. I hope to get a picture of it one day.

On Monday, Ken and I went out to Hempstead where our herding club gets together. We had some herding tests and so Trouble and Angelus came out with us to see if they would like to herd sheep. Below is Trouble and yes he will start his herding lessons at the end of the month. If all goes well he should be ready to show at our spring herding trial in March 2011.

Another picture of Trouble and Joy, who is not only an AKC Herding Judge but the President of our club.

Below are some of the folks who came to have their dogs tested. Sitting is our friend John, his shepherd and his step sister. We got John to join the herding club. :-)

The picture below shows Socks being pushed away from the table where we were setting up food for the lunch.

Nothing could keep Socks away from the table!! Thank goodness the food was not on the table yet.

I call this picture, "If I stare at the ball long enough...." LOL This is Lite who belongs to Joy, she is an awesome herder and ball freak!

Below is my Angelus who said he did not want to herd. Joy and I are still going to work with him, sometimes it takes a few times before the instinct kicks in.

This is John's dog, he is just a year old and has great instinct. He will start herding lessons with Trouble.

Yes even Standard Schnauzer can do herding. They were bred as farm dogs so the AKC has allowed them to compete for herding titles even though they are not in the Herding Class.

This is a new addition in the AKC, the Finnish Lapphund. The dog was bred in Lapland and was used to herd reindeer. They are great sheep herders. This pup is only 8 months. You can find more info on the Finnish Lapphund at the AKC website.

She was really enjoying herself.

Joy talking to the newcomers about herding and lessons. I think we got 4 new club members today!

And finally here is Ken fixing a panel we use in herding trials. We have a trial coming up Halloween weeken.