Meet Pepper

Pepper has joined the pack!  She is about 10 months old, and a mix of blue heeler and border collie. Her coat has lovely grey/white/black speckles with large black patches. Here is a picture of her exploring the yard.

Pepper was living in town with a nice family, but wanted more room to run. We are able to provide space, so we brought her to the farm this week. Pepper took to the yard wonderfully and became friends with our dogs very easily.

Our other dogs Oz the doberman and Barney the chihuahua are getting to know to their new friend. We allow Barney to have his couch area fenced off so only he can get through. When he feels the need for a safe place, he can run into this room and hop up on the back of the couch. Oz is teaching Pepper that sitting on the spiral staircase is a great way to look out of the windows.

We are glad Pepper is part of the family now and look forward to teaching her the ins and outs of living in the country.

Summer Haircut

Barney the Chihuahua has a new look this summer. I decided to trim his hair all over to make him more comfortable during the warm months.

He did very well sitting still while I cut his hair with scissors. I think it probably felt like a massage, since I pulled groups of hair up with my fingers to cut. It has been very helpful having his leg hair short, as now he doesn't pick up so many little twigs and sticks in the yard.

He's a real cool dog now !! Get it ??

What's Happening in the Yard?

Besides lots of watering, here's a sample of some sights in my backyard.

First, much to Barney's annoyance, our Western Meadowlark friend walks boldly about catching miller moths.

He enjoys catching bugs and in the process always gives us a nice show. I think there is a nest or two nearby in the grasses. I love the strong yellow color of this bird. He really has an attitude!

Barney sits in front of the window and talks to the birds. Sometimes he slaps the window, letting the birds in the yard know he's watching. One time we were outside and the Meadowlark was visiting at the same time. Barney walked close to him and the bird hopped away. They kept doing it this for a few jumps until the bird flew away. I guess he wasn't too scared of a dog not much bigger than he is.

Our other bird adventures involve chickens. We got a few chicks earlier this spring, and now they are starting to lay eggs. The early eggs are quite small but soon will be larger. Here's a picture of the third egg we found.

Finally, here are some pictures of the flowers in the yard. The clay pot has one basil plant, still recovering from the recent hail, and some zinnea flowers just sprouting up. I love zinneas and collect their seeds each fall to replant the next year. And who could forget the wild Black-Eyed Susan flowers. We have them in abundance and let them grow where we can since even weed flowers are good for bees and other creatures.

Big Boy

Quick post to show how Barney has grown. He has lost most of the dark coloring and is developing the long coat. His teeth are hurting sometimes as the adult ones make their way in, but overall, he's a happy playful little guy. We are both eager for warmer days and lots of long walks together.

Barney the Chihuahua : Update

December is a blur as all the holiday activities blended with the potty training routines for our new puppy. The good news is we all survived, had some fun, and Barney has learned that if he barks and runs to the door, I'll smile and go outside with him. This evening after dinner we went out about 5 times - in a row. Who is trained now?

Here are some recent shots of the little guy. He turned 4 months old last week and his coat is changing texture and color, so I wanted to document how he looks today.

Sleeping Puppy

We have had Barney, the chihuahua, for two weeks now. He is really a good puppy ! We sleep through the night, which seems good with an 11 week old pup. Crate training, and getting the dobermans used to him is also going well. I have to go outside for potty breaks, in the cold, more than I'd prefer, but Barney is really catching on to the family routines nicely so I should not complain.

Here's Barney in one of his beds. I finally found something that fit him nicely, and he has taken to it perfectly.

As you can see, he likes fleece blankets and rubber chew toys. That yellow thing is supposed to be a stick. I put food down the middle and he just loves to dig it out. Here's one more puppy picture, taken by a friend.

awwww.. Cute Puppy !!

As promised, here is Barney's first little film. He is sitting next to me right now, all tuckered out from a big day. He discovered shoe laces, hard plastic crates, the world outside the patio area, and that big black dobermans like to play with him !

I discovered that it isn't so easy to hang laundry on the line with a little fur ball running around my feet. I guess we all need to do some adapting !

Enjoy the film !

Barney Eats

My blog will probably have a few pictures of Barney for awhile. Today he ate from his brand new thrift store ceramic food bowl. Yum !

Plus, he went to the vet for his very first visit. Barney was deemed perfectly healthy, then got his first round of puppy shots. He weighed in at 2.4 pounds ! The ride in the car went well. He's such a brave little guy. Now he is enjoying a wonderful nap as he sits in the chair next to me.

I also shot a few short movies of him that I hope to post soon. I'll bet Barney never expected to have so much media coverage !

A New Dog !

Quite suddenly I find my heart and arms full of a little bundle of puppiness. This is Barney !

He is a sweet little boy, just 8 weeks 3 days old. We will both be spending the next few weeks figuring out how to get along. It will be interesting, challenging, and all the fun I could ask for.

♪ Settling In for Winter ♪

The days are shorter, the temperature is colder, and the garden is done for the season. Carla and Oz, our doberman dogs, enjoy sitting in the sun, dreaming about chasing bunnies and warm summer days.

Oz is red, Carla is black. They are brother and sister. The little birds right outside the window fascinate them, but bunnies are really their favorite to scout and chase.

Snow settled on Colorado this week. It didn't mess around either. Our area got about 6", while neighboring towns got up to a foot. Our oak tree had already lost its leaves, but other local limbs fell on power lines, impacting electricity and internet connections for a day.

So it is time for pumpkin bread, soup from frozen vegetables, and hot drinks. The chickens are still trying to figure out the new temperatures. They don't seem to want to lay many eggs when it is cold. Hopefully they will get back to it again once they understand the situation.

For me, I think it is time to start knitting hats and crocheting decorative snowflakes. I'll add these items to my etsy shop in the coming weeks. I hope to see you there ! Stay warm everyone.

❤ Honey Day ❤

Last week we took the plunge and extracted honey from our bee hives. The bees have kept to themselves for the most part, since they came to the farm a few years ago. I grow flowers for them, and faithfully put out water for them every day. They chose this blue dog bowl as their favorite watering hole. So with much anticipation, we borrowed the necessary tools from our local bee association, and set out to see what the bees have been making in their hives.

The extraction site included buckets, a hot blade, an extraction tank with motor, towels, and a suit to visit the bees in. Here's the work area before we started.


My work included scraping the frames, spinning them in the extractor, and changing the bucket when it filled with honey. The frames have two sides of combs. Each side needed to be shaved with the hot blade to remove the wax cap over the honey filled cells. Once both sides were exposed, the frames went into the extraction tank.

The tank holds 4 frames. They rest in a big wire cage, so that when the extractor is turned on and spins, the honey drips down into the tank and comes out of the spigot.

We used a strainer to filter out any wax that make it through. The liquid gold was so beautiful as it poured out !! The last step was to put honey into smaller containers. Here's a picture of the final product.


The effort was really worth it. The honey tastes fantastic. I'll use it in my granola recipe and we will enjoy it in all kinds of other foods and recipes. Thanks honey bees !

♪ Large Moth ♪

This time of year I'm usually watching for rattlesnakes, so it was a pleasant surprise to see this large moth instead. It was trying to stay in the shade during the hot part of the day, finding a nice spot under our deck to rest.

The moth probably measured between 4 to 5 inches long. It was a large one ! I saw it from inside at first, and for a second thought it was a bat hanging on the screen.

By morning it was long gone. I enjoyed seeing something unusual and interesting.

♪ The Chicks are Growing ♪

Our six chickens are growing up so fast ! I would call them teenagers now. They are busy exploring their world, discovering bugs and miller moths. With all that food, they are building strength to lay eggs later this year.

This group is particularly friendly. When I am out in the garden they come up to the fence and talk to me. They cluck peacefully and really seem to enjoy my company. I certainly appreciate taking a break from my weeding chores to visit with them !

We have been lucky over the years that our chickens have not been attacked by coyotes or foxes. The only time we had a problem was with a raccoon, which was odd since we had never seen a raccoon before that incident, or after. Coyotes are much more visible to us as they trot by the barn.

Let's all hope these chickens live a long and productive life !

♪ Antelope Antics ♪

Two antelope bucks have been passing by our house this week. They slowly walk around, stopping to rub their antlers on rabbit brush bushes and fence posts to mark their territory. We have been enjoying their visits, and I was able to take a few pictures this morning.


They were never close enough to get them in the same picture, but my old Sony Mavica got a few good pictures anyway. Enjoy !

♪ The Birds Are Back ♪

Here's wishing you a happy, sunny springtime ! In our yard one special meadowlark has decided to adopt us. Here are a few pictures of her foraging on our property:

♪ The Chicks are Here ♪

A sure sign of Spring is the appearance of cute baby animals. Our farm is no exception!

These chicks are a variety called Barred Rock. They will be grey striped chickens when they get older, including having strikingly pretty red combs. We had one chicken like this years ago, and I remember her fondly. I'm excited we now have 6 chickens of the same type. She was a good egg layer, although sometimes she picked a spot under a wood pile to put her treasure. Maybe it was because the other chickens picked on her, who knows.

These chicks came to us very young, only 2 days old. They need to have a heat lamp over their pen so that they stay warm enough as they grow. We try to talk to them and pick them up daily, so they get used to our voices and our hands coming near. That makes gathering eggs later much more pleasant for everyone involved.

By the Fall we should start getting eggs from these chicks. If all goes well, happy chickens usually lay one egg per day. I can't wait ! It is difficult to have to buy eggs once you experience gathering them yourself.

✈ Enjoy While You Can ✈

As the warm days start to slip away, I've been trying to appreciate my flowers everyday. There aren't many left, but luckily the gaillardias are still blooming. Today I got a treat when a lovely monarch butterfly came by to help me enjoy the blooms:


The honeybees were also busy on the flowers:


I'm not ready for snow !!

༻ Snake Relocated ༺

At our farm we separate local prairie snakes into two categories: friendly and not-friendly. Bull snakes are the type we like to see. They are fairly docile, eat mice, and some say keep the other type, rattle snakes, away. Here is a bull snake looking for mice around the house:

This week, sadly, I inadvertently relocated one of the farm's bull snakes into town.

Since my car is parked outside, I do get rabbits and mice in the engine occasionally. Well, a bull snake must have been looking around in there for a meal when I decided to go to town. I made a few stops, running errands and leaving the car in different spots, as my day progressed. Here is a picture that shows the stripped tail, a sure sign that this snake is not a rattler:

Around mid-day I was enjoying lunch, with the car windows open, at a local grocery store's parking lot. An attendant walked near me to get grocery carts. Suddenly, he started pointing to my car tire and said, "Look, there is a garter snake!"

I looked out my side window and saw the familiar grey and black stripes of a snake. It looked pretty big ! I hopped out and came around to take a look. Sure enough, it was a bull snake ! I could only imagine that he had dropped out from under my car.

A few people gathered and someone got a tree branch to see if they could pick the snake up to relocate it to a nearby field. But the snake wasn't interested in that, so it slithered to the car parked behind me, and zip, fast as could be, it went up inside a Ford Mustang. The owner was one of the people standing around, so at least he knew what was happening !!

The snake didn't come out, and since the man with the Mustang started a conversation with another person, I went on my way. Hopefully he drove to a park and sat for awhile until the bull snake found a suitable new home.

✈ Swarm of Bees ✈

Sometimes events happen that just take priority. That's what happened here over the weekend.

What started out sounding like a low flying airplane actually turned out to be a moving swarm of honey bees. They were flying around our house looking for a place to live. This yellow weed flower became their temporary home yesterday afternoon.

After some research, my husband decided to make an attempt to keep the bees. We already have two hives, so what's a few thousand more? The picture doesn't show all the bees around the base of the plant, but let me assure you, there were lots down there !!

The bees (and the plant!) are now in a screen topped large cardboard box, in a barn for shade. A new wooden hive is being built, and soon the bees will be introduced to their new cozy home. I think we will have lots of honey this fall !!

✈ Bees Waking Up ✈

Today I decided it was warm enough to venture into the garden to see what tasks I could get done. I had plenty of dried marigold plants to pull up, and saw long rows of moist soil to turn. While puttering around, I noticed that I was not alone. Our bees are active again, having lived through their first winter in our two backyard hives. It was a joint exploration of the garden for all of us.

Once I did some garden clean up and inspection, I wondered over to see what was happening at the bee hives. One hive has always been more active than the other, and this year it looks like the same pattern will hold true. As always, the bees were friendly, but they did seem like they were on a mission to gather some food while the sun was keeping us warm today. Here are a few pictures I took, showing the bees getting ready for a long and productive summer.