Friday, October 10, 2008
This one's a long one, but it's great!! Enjoy!
 So much happened this month and we’re only part way through so I’m going to just write a little ("or so" on some) about each topic that I can remember so that I don’t get behind! Sorry, at this time there will be NO PICTURES  . Our 2 cameras are on the fritz and a third is literally lost in the mail! Oy vey! You’ll just have to wait, I did my best to get photo documentation, I'm still waiting on some, I'll have to add them later. Sorry in advance. Below is an index of the stories you will see in this post:
1. Rosh Hashana/Yom Teruah & the 1st Great Goat Escape    2. Baby Bunny update  3. Baby Ducks hatch date 4. A Stinky Cactus Visitor 5. New Goats Part 1 & 2 6. Kissy the Clownfish 7. The Mocking Bird & the Cardinal   8. New Goat/Duck housing improvements 1. Rosh Hashanah/Yom Teruah and the First Great Goat Escape Oh, this was so funny. Let’s see if I can “nutshell” it! Not sure if I can...well the story goes like this… Intro
First a little background: For those of you have read some about me you would already know that we have a lot of dogs, 1 Pomeranian and 4 Aussies. 3 of the 4 Aussies are in various stages of TRAINING for herding. Obviously much of it is instinctual, but for those of you who are not familiar with the aspects of herding training, it is basically fine tuning the natural instinct to work in your favor so the dogs can help you do “chores” around the home with livestock, etc. Some take it to greater heights (which I actually plan to do eventually) and go to herding dog trials. So with that said, let me introduce my herding dogs (in order of acquisition and training levels). I’m also going to give each dog a rating as to their level of herding, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little experience and 5 Moderate experience, so then 10 being Expert Level.  Herding Dog #1: Ocean (a.k.a Lady in Blue and/or Play Police), Level 6 to a possible 7, she has had a fair amount of training and handling, but with sheep mostly. Goats and ducks are a little different and require a different kind of working skills. She is doing well with the ducks and the other day as you will read in the story of the “New Goats Part 2” she helped me out of quite a pickle, just as herding dogs should do.
 Herding Dog #2: Ty (a.k.a. “Ze’ev Gadol” or Big Wolf for those of you who do not know too much Hebrew, also a.k.a. Mudbug as in crawfish, he’s red btw), Level 5 in instinct ONLY, he hasn’t quite learned to work for me and he doesn’t like when I holler too much, which I really don’t do, but he seems to think I do. If I am not looking or around he will “get down to business” and try to collect any stray animals he finds. He has what it takes, his father is a herding champion and his mother is aspiring to do the same. It’s a matter of getting him to learn to work for me. He still has some growing up to do.
 (He's much bigger now, than in this picture, it's just the only one I have available at this time.)
Herding Dog #3: Ronen (a.ka. Spaghetti, it’s he long legs and big puppy paws that earned him this name from me, also. Actually he has several names, although at the moment I can not remember them all. I do also call him Little Wolf, or Ze’ev KTZAT because he is Ty’s [and Ocean’s] son). Ronen is a Level 5 also primarily in instinct ONLY although he is way too overzealous whether I am present or not and repeatedly will harass the barnyard animals. He has a LOT of growing up to do. Ok, with the intro over I will now say that our property is not completely fenced as of yet, and it might not ever be on our watch as we may not be staying at this residence due to some more issues. So we’ve been having issues with a couple of stray dogs AND my neighbor’s 2 “curious” dogs have been over too many times to count now that we are AWARE of, in other words, they come by a lot more than they should. They sneak around because I have made it quite clear that we don’t want them here on our property. So they stay away when we are outside. Well my hubby has been largely opposed to getting and LGDs because of the extra cost of feed and so I have made our canine crew all around guardians, which they are great guard dogs anyhow. So we split them into a day and night shift. My older female Aussie (the non herding one) and our male Pomeranian get the night shift. At night we put the goats and ducks into a smaller pen and close them up and then put the Pom and Aussie team in the “barn yard” for the night to guard. It’s worked out great so far. They bark and warn us and have helped us figure out the times our neighbor’s dogs come over in the wee hours of the morning! Oy vey! Lately it’s been 4 AM!! Then in the day time after a morning romp I tie the other 3 Aussies in strategic points in the yard. They have a good line of site and warn us if they see anyone or anything come up or near the property. It’s been working out well. Ok so… here is the story about : Rosh Hashanah/Yom Teruah
and the First Great Goat Escape This particular day, Ty had gotten in trouble and was inside in his kennel. Ocean was tied nearest the goat pen so she could watch both the front and back of the barnyard area. Ronen is tied, when you walk out the door, he is on the right in a cluster of trees, and Ocean again is on the left in a cluster of trees nearest the goat pen and the vehicles. One of our vehicles had a minor mechanical issue that my dh hadn’t had the time to sort out due to a rigorous work schedule and on the impending eve of Yom Teruah our Messianic fellowship was having a timely gathering. Arrangements had been made for someone to come by our home and pick me up and later in the evening my dh was going to come and pick me up after he was released from work. He’s had 3 going on 4 weeks of rigorous work. Please pray that he will be released from that soon so he can be freed to think of the season we are in leading into Yom Kippur! Thank you for that. So… some hitches had come up with the pick up arrangement and at the last minute I had to re-arrange the situation. Now instead of our Rebbetzen picking me up, it was going to be our Rabbi/Teacher coming to pick me up. Oy vey, he is very punctual and likes to stay on schedule. This is great, but I have quite an extensive program to “shut down” in order to go to bed at night, let alone getting ready to actually go somewhere. I had to “button up the farm” AND manage to get myself and my dd ready to go to this wonderful service. I began work immediately. First we fed the baby bunnies (normally we feed them last, but not today) the smaller baby bunny Spot didn’t look good… we’ll be keeping a close watch on that little one. Then we bathed, then fed the dogs, cats, fish, turn off the fish light. After that we would switch the day shift dogs for the night shift dogs, bringing the day shift into crates inside, but that would be at the very last. So we are feverishly running about, good thing I had already made the dishes we would be taking with us earlier in the day. As I am running about I glance at the time and am trying in my mind to gauge how long it would be until the Teacher would arrive. I realized, oh my, I am behind schedule. Since we fed the bunnies earlier and then bathed, we were about 45 minutes off our normal schedule for feeding the goats. Well then I heard this sound… Du-duh-du-dum… what was that?? I think there is no way the Teacher can be here already!! I peek out the peep hole in the door and see … nothing! I only see the usual: my car, the driveway, some trees, etc. I shrug it off and continue at my feverish pace, getting ready so I can get out and feed the ducks and goats, then do the changing of the guard. Again… I hear Du-duh-du-dum!! I could be reminiscent of someone closing a car door and maybe even walking up the steps, although the dogs were not barking… well there was a bark, but it was not a guard bark. It was Ocean kind of barking a complaining (?) kind of bark. This time I think, well, maybe the Teacher was here, but in his car parked just out of site of the peep hole in the door. So I decide, I’ll open the door so I can more clearly view the driveway in its entirety. I do so and I see nothing in the driveway, but in my peripheral off to the left, near the goat pens, right near where Ocean is stationed I see a goat bottom!!! Immediately I investigate further with my eyes! I see Ocean at the end of her tie-out looking at me, whining a little. I can see almost what she is thinking, “um, Mom, what am I supposed to do?” I look off behind her and in the cluster of trees she is tied to there is a dogloo and I hear the noise again, this time much clearer du-duh-du-dum !! I see the 2 little bucklings trying their best to jump on top of this dogloo. They have 2 in their enclosure they can run to for cover and stand and play king of the hill on, etc. Although the 2 they have are newer models and are much easier to jump atop. While this one they must dream always about how they can breach the top of this mighty mountain of a dogloo. It is an older model and has a steeper dome and is a slightly different shape than the ones they are used to in their pen. So there they were, within TOTAL reach of Ocean. Those that know Ocean, know she is quite formidable. She is the guardiest, scariest, of all our dogs dog. She is one you don’t want to meet in a “dark alley” she is our dog Alpha, although I am healthily respected as Master, if I’m not around they all immediately look to Ocean and she takes her job VERY seriously. So here she was with these naughty little goats trouncing all over her dogloo and she didn’t even touch them. She just was barking at me (remember the barks I heard… complaining or tattle-telling apparently) to let me know I needed to do something about my little naughty boys! What a GOOD GIRL! Sometimes she does make me remember why we decided to keep her so many years ago. She was a scared little rescue off the street, just a young girl. Right around 1 year old. She’s now about 6 years and it has been a bumpy ride. Perhaps I’ll write another blog about her. I believe Abba sent her to us, for many reasons… to teach us many lessons. Well I escorted the little boy goat duo back to their pen and this time I LATCHED the gate. It was closed, but we normally clip it to ensure they can’t flip it open like they did! So I finished my routine, the Teacher came and did have to still wait about 10 minutes and we went to the service. It was wonderful, plus I had a funny story to tell! 2. Baby Bunny update (Will add pic soon... sorry) Sadly, we did finally end up losing both little bunnies. The next evening after the meeting of Yom Teruah the little bunny Spot lost the fight. I believe he may have aspirated some milk in his lungs and he contracted pneumonia. After showing signs of distress with breathing etc, he did eat well at the AM feeding, but we discovered him dead at the time of the PM feeding. He was in the little bunny nest I had constructed for them. I took him out and buried him. I had injured my right arm earlier in the week so I was very thankful that I had dug this hole previously for a different purpose but didn’t end up using it. So I was able to gently excavate it and bury little Spot there. Poor little guy. A couple of days later, on erev Shabbat (Friday evening) we lost little Thumper. He was not sick, but I did notice he was very hungry. We were feeding them raw Jersey milk which is higher in fat than other kids of raw milk. I would skim the cream and feed them that. Well we were out of cream and I was having to mostly feed him the “hind milk” as a result. It was not enough fat for him. The sad thing was that dh had just picked up our fresh milk order and I had poured him a fresh bottle of rich cream, and we went in and found him laying there, not alive . Of course dd was devastated. She did not cry though. I reminded her that from the onset we knew this would probably be the case. Abba made the perfect baby bunny food and it is momma bunny milk. Try as we may, we can not replace Abba’s perfect order for things. We tried our best and we should be thankful to Abba for allowing us to have the little guys, even for just a short time. They brought such joy to our lives and we did enjoy every little precious second we had with them. Thank you Abba for sharing your joys … and your sorrows with us. Even Abba is sad when some of his creation dies. 3. Baby Ducks hatch date Well day 28 for Baby Duck hatch date came and went, we are now on day 30, watching and waiting for the little guys to make their appearance. I remember feeling this way when I was pregnant with dd. I couldn’t wait to see her, I waited and waited and oh how I lacked patience (I paid dearly for that! Another story, another time…). I’m trying to be patient!! I see the signs are eminent, I think it just makes me feel a little sad because I know that some may not make it. There are 8 eggs… I will definitely post when something happens. Hopefully ONE of our cameras will be in and available so I can photo document. UPDATE: The next day after I wrote this, we decided it was time to throw these eggs out and start over. I had some hiccups in the beginning with the start of my hatching operation. Being that this was my first clutch I was hatching in an incubator I figured I’d wing it (no pun intended) anyway. To my dismay I really was lacking some essential equipment. I will collect those things and will try once again in the Spring. Although, with that said, I may order some Fawn & White Runners instead. We shall see. 4. A Stinky Cactus Visitor Yesterday, October 7, 2008, in our morning routine I was trying Ty’s new guarding station in a different location. Trying to keep everyone happy is oh so difficult. I wish we did not have to tie anyone. I don’t have a choice though. The dogs are on high alert and very protective of us and our home. Well, we have an oval driveway, the patch of land in the center of the oval I refer to as “the island.” I tied Ty (we have so much fun with his name, it certainly makes us laugh often) to a raised stump in the center of the island. He wasn’t real happy about that, but he was “dealing with it” as I finished up the outside routine: feeding, watering, washing, etc. The wind picked up a bit and was whirling about, I looked over and noticed Ty actively air-scenting in MY direction!! I was standing towards the front of the property in a clearing, and I was somewhat close to a clump of trees and shrubs that we’ve been working on clearing. We’ve temporarily halted clearing that area because it does shield our home from “prying” eyes from the street. I have/had plans to but up some hedges and I’d really like to do that before we clear those shrubs. We’ll leave a tree or two, but mostly we plan to replace them because we have more Mesquite than you can shake a stick at (no pun intended). So I decide to let Ty go and see what he does. We’d had trouble with a Roadrunner in the past… maybe he/she was back?? I release Ty and tell him “get ‘em” and he RUNS over to the patch and begins trying to hone the where abouts of this aromatic delight he scented. It was in this BIG cactus bush in our front yard. Then I spy what he spies! He’s trying to push through the cactus but he’s getting poked in the chest and keeps retrying his entry point. I grab him because I can see the little critter he’s found has a very fluffy black and white tail!!!!!!!! It’s a SKUNK!! In the daytime!!! Uh oh!! I’ve heard more than one person say, “if you ever see a skunk out in the daytime… KILL IT because it more than likely has rabies.” GREAT!! Why ME Abba! I analyze the situation: ok the skunk is not trying to attack us necessarily. He/she is squirting skunk spray, not full on spraying and trying to turn around to spray us, but is unable to effectively do so because he/she is also getting poked by the cactus each time he/she tries to turn around. Thank you Abba! She is stomping her front paws at us to tell us she’s a crazy skunk and we’d best not mess with her. As I examined her it seems to me that she might be a juvenile skunk, she looks quite small from what we can see. I remove Ty from the situation, no need to encourage Ms. Skunk to “find” a way to turn about face and give us all a good spray. I take Ty and … tied him back to his station. The other dogs at this point are livid as they desperately want to come see what Ty found. They are almost saying, “no fair, we wanna see too!” I go in and make a call to dh, he says, “I think it is safe to leave the skunk be, but please take a picture of it so I can see too.” Well I don’t have a camera! So my though is… “call the neighbor and have him come take a pic so I can share with all.” Our neighbor is more than willing to come take a pic and see our quarry. So, I put all the dogs away and he comes over, we go back over and the skunk is STILL there in the cactus. Only now he is starting to fall asleep, I mean, she is nocturnal, maybe it’s been a long night for her. I don’t know. He “tries” to take a picture, his camera was not working properly so he said he isn’t sure if it took or not. We decide maybe it might be best to call Animal Control, just in case. I took him on a little tour to see the goats and ducks and we were discussing the issues we’d been having with the dogs. Both his and our dogs have been conducting raids on each other, much like rival football teams stealing mascots etc. Well instead of mascots, they’ve been stealing bones and toys from each other. Real cute! So we are about to go our separate ways and I notice on the horizon a little black and white, very fluffy tail making it’s way to my neighbors front yard (he has a LARGE patch of woods in his front yard). We both breathe a sigh of relief and decide to let the situation go. My neighbor told me there are a lot of skunks living there in that patch. As a result he has a few owls that have also taken up residence on his property. He says they are the best predators for skunks as they are not affected by skunk spray like other predators might be. We leave it at that go our own ways and I return the day shift guard dogs back to their posts (aside from Ty, he stayed in for the day). If I get the pic, I will post it, for now I do not have one to post. 5. New Goats So just after the skunk episode, dd and I returned in the house and cooked breakfast. At breakfast I prayed for our usual wisdom, discernment, and help to plan a wonderful day. So after breakfast I was cleaning up the kitchen and in my mind planning the day. Then I was thinking how it might be a good idea to get some does for now, even if not Nigerian Dwarfs, just so we can start our herd and have some goats to sell for meat, etc. Well as I was concluding my kitchen tidying my dd walks up and tells me the same thing I was just contemplating in my mind!! A little astonished at what had just happened I called dh at work and just told him what happened. He concurred with the plan to get 2 does from this lady down the street. I had been purchasing chicken eggs for her, but since we got the Indian Runners our need for chicken eggs has dwindled as we’ve had plenty from our ducks. As far as I know ducks ARE kosher. I have had many ask me about this. Our friends went to Israel this past Passover and were served Duck as a kosher meal on Passover. I researched this and yes, they do raise Muskovy duck in particular for this purpose. Anyhow, I do not plan to eat any of our little flock of ducks, only their eggs. Which to me are much closer to chicken eggs than the normal, extra oily of mainstream (no pun intended) ducks. Anyhow… I phoned up my neighbor. Last I had been to her house, she had this precious little baby white and tan doe born to a ½ Boer/ ½ African Pygmy that was close to weaning age. She also had another Momma African Pygmy Doe with 3 triplets, I thought they were all black. The father to all is a typical Black African Pygmy with some again, typical markings. So upon talking to the neighbor, it turned out she still had ALL the babies and they were ALL does. We discussed it and made a business deal via telephone and my dd and I went to pick up the little girls. The lady I had spoken to, the owner of the goats, was at work so I had to meet her husband. He was waiting for us and knew kind of what we wanted to do. He knew for sure that we were going to take the little white & tan female, but he didn’t know we were also going to take one of the triplets. The husband is slightly handicapped, it looks like he may have had some kind of accident and has lots of scarring and clearly some missing musculature on one of his arms. Poor guy, he still manages well, I suppose he is on disability of some sort. So I asked him if he wanted me to help catch them, he nicely said, “no I can handle it, I have a special way I like to get them.” He goes and gets a bucket of food, brings it in the pen and pours it on the ground. Of course, being goats, they all greedily run up and start gobbling up the food, but they also see him hovering there with a rope of some sort (a dog leash, looped like a noose), this makes them wary and nervous. He then SWOOPS in and tries for the little white & tan goat. She runs, and this carries on for about a good 8-10 minutes. Finally he catches her and is ready to wrap up so I remind him that I would like also take the second little goat, one of the triplets. I insisted because I wanted to bring the 2 girls together so they would not feel as intimidated in their new surroundings. So I tell him again, that I’d be more than willing to help him catch the next one, since I could see he was already wrapping up. Again he said, I’ll get her, it’ll just be a minute. So I stand back again and watch, for a few minutes. I was sort of coaching from outside the fence. It was clear to me that the goats were on to him. They knew which goat he was trying to capture… a little chocolate and white one with a big white splash. That little goat stayed well away from everyone else to avoid capture. I told him he should pretend he was after a different goat so she wouldn’t be so wary. This worked, well kinda… she relaxed just enough to … almost capture her. Well, he asked me if I wanted to come later and he would capture her. I assured him I was not in a hurry and that I was more than willing to assist him in capturing her. So then he said, well sure come on in then. So he put a BIG branch of hackberry in a small pen and his plan was to corral her in there and capture her. This actually worked. We caught all 3 triplets, they went in the pen, but then found a set of stairs that connected to a fence and bounded up and out of the small pen! Oy vey!! So the man then moved the stairs and we tried again. Being that they were his goats, I had to kind of relent in my experience with working with sheep and goats as he felt he had the ONLY way to do the job in his own mind. So I picked up a 4 foot stick as an “arm extension” and we worked together (kind of) and began pushing the ENTIRE goat herd into the small pen. He felt we were moving to fast as they were understandably feeling the pressure, well one broke off because in my opinion we were going TOO SLOW at that pivotal point where we should have pushed them hard to get in the pen. They took that week point and once the one bolted from the group, then they others all did the same. This time I picked up a second 4 foot stick for my other hand as a second arm extension. Again we pushed and this time I called the shots, but made it as though I was walking him through it. I told him to “keep pushing through” so that they would not split up. We pushed hard, now, this is not a physical push, it is a “pressure point” push. SUCCESS!! We got the whole herd in the small pen and once in, they were so happy to be there silly goats!! There was hackberry in there and they again greedily grabbed at the scratchy green leaves. I closed the gate and the man was able to fairly easily noose the little goat. YAY!! At last, this gives you a literal meaning to “getting a run for your money!” HA!! We paid the man, jumped in the vehicle and headed home! Five miles journey back down the road to our home I was planning the unloading of our new little herd members. We already had picked out names for them. The white and tan goat would be “Annabelle” or “Bella” for short, and the little chocolate and white goat would be “Mocha Latte” or “Mocha” for short. So I back up the vehicle nearest the gate we are going to put the goats in. I have my dd stand gate guard, which at the time I felt was clever, but later I realized I had made a SECOND terrible mistake!!! The little goats were very unwilling to cooperate with us. First I reached in the little crate and forcibly removed Bella. I awkwardly carried her to the gate and slipped her in successfully when suddenly I realized … I heard a sickening noise, only sickening because I knew what it was… it was Mocha… ESCAPING in a NON-FENCED AREA!!! This was my FIRST terrible mistake, I did not secure Mocha in the crate, she was timidly, shying in the back of the crate and I didn’t think of the very real possibility that she might jump out and run away! Most of our property IS NOT fenced and she was now bounding towards the back of our property!!! OH NO!!! I scrambled into action. Ocean, my most advanced herding student was on hand as she was on guard duty there closest to the vehicle. I knew I could not let her go because she might catch the goat and bring it back to me alright, but it would probably not be the prettiest picture, know what I mean? So instead I kept her on her tie-out line and we hastily made our way to the back of the property. Mocha was bleating and I could see her standing at the end of the clearing not really knowing which way to go next. The good thing was she heard the familiar sound of her half sister bleating back in the goat pen where Mocha was SUPPOSED to be! So Mocha sees Ocean and I coming down the path near her and in her opinion we have any viable options of escape cut off as she didn’t feel comfortable running into thick woodsy areas. She made her move and quickly bounded around and just past us into a narrow clearing in the woodsy area. An area we were already familiar with, we pursued her, there was a log there she went under the log and Ocean ran under the log, so she then bounded back towards me and back through the narrow passage and thankfully Ocean bounded over the log and tangled herself on the log! My fingers were happy because I already had the beginnings of yet another rope burn. With the goat bounding back towards the goat pen I knew I could take a couple of seconds and recollect myself and Ocean and the highly necessary lead. Ocean was now jumping and rearing, she wanted nothing more than to catch the goat. The problem with one runaway goat and a herding dog, is that the dog now sees that one escapee as complete PREY, it is like a wolf singling out an individual from a herd, it is only for ONE reason. It is HIGHLY important to keep control of your dog in a situation such as this as it can go quickly awry. So if you can imagine, I calmly hurried to the clearing up by the goat pens and saw Mocha there touching noses with her half-sister Bella through the fence. I told dd to get Bella in the smaller pen, and then quietly open the gate to the pen. I didn’t matter if the boys got out, it’s not a problem to catch them as they know us and are fairly easy to catch, in fact they are harder to “shake” since they are trying to eat our clothes and check our persons for treats, etc. So after a bit more carousing, utilizing Ocean to pick up my slack, for instance if I went to one side of a tree and the goat double back around the tree, Ocean instinctively would rush around and head her off on the other side of the tree. We made a good team although to most it probably looked like the Comedy of Errors!! FINALLY, we successfully got her in the pen latched the gate, then opened the small pen to reunite her with her half-sister! YAY! Talk about an awesome recovery effort there, Praise Yah! The only injuries were 2 smallish thorns in my big toe (as I was running about in flip-flops… no time to change shoes you know) and the start of a rope burn on my left middle finger. Phew! Also, I think next time I’ll think through the situation a little bit better! LOL!! 6. Kissy the Clownfish DH has been working much too much lately. We sure miss him and also you can see that things are getting left undone since our normal routine has been thrown off. Our salt water fish tank has gone past it’s usual cleaning schedule as dh usually takes charge of that. Well I’d noticed that Kissy, our little Clownfish was swimming, seemingly trying to gulp air at the surface of the tank. Recently we had added some cleaner snails to try to reestablish a cleaning crew in the tank. We had some crabs that loved escargot and the thought of fresh escargot delighted them a little too much! For the longest time we only had crabs, and even at one point the crabs were killing each other and even Kissy the Clownfish took a few out that had ventured too close to her little den. She was quite formidable the little lady! In fact we named her Kissy affectionately, but her “kisses” were not affectionate. She had bitten dh on many occasion, and me being wise to her, I used a wand to fend her off if I had to stick my hand in to aid a wayward snail or crab. Well anyhow, I thought that the tank needed some cleaning so I called dh who was in a meeting at work and had him give me instructions on how to do a partial water change. It really wasn’t all that difficult and I completed the job. I set everything back in order and let the tank settle a bit before feeding the fishy crew. I fed the fish and settled down to type up the beginning of this blog. Well from where I sit I can see the fish tank quite well and I see Kissy swimming vertically (you know fish normally swim horizontally!) which is very abnormal!! Uh oh!! I knew that Kissy was not doing well. I had checked the salinity and had done all according to dh’s instructions. I examined her more closely and saw that she had scaly parts coming off her back and she was again seemingly gasping for air much like a gold fish near the surface of the water. This is not a normal behavior for a clown fish, especially not Kissy. Well there wasn’t much I could do for her. I do believe she was nearly 4 years old or so, I think she was pretty old as clownfish go. The other fish all seem fit and healthy. We have a Golden Damsel named “Blondie,” an Azure Damsel named “Bluey, a 6-line Wrasse named “Seis” (that’s 6 in Spanish), ONE hermit crab (that had to spend a night in solitary confinement when we introduced the snails as he was trying to eat them). Also now we have 2 GIANT Mexican Turbo Cleaner Snails, and 3 Astrea snails. We didn’t name this lot, in the past we did name them but we just haven’t this time around, at least not yet. Well, Kissy disappeared, and we searched and searched for her. We thought maybe she tucked under a rock and was stuck somewhere there. Their rocks have little caves and especially Bluey uses his rocks like Castles complete with watch towers, etc. It’s very cute!! When dh arrived home LATE in the evening, he searched for her and found her lodged in our artificial coral. She was dead and quite difficult to get out. Poor girl … well at least we know she had a happy life while she was here with us. I’m not certain that we will get another Clown Fish. Although I would love too, I really believe we need a bigger tank before we branch off on that endeavor. Our tank is “just right” now, we had one too many fish but we bought the 6-line wrasse so we wouldn’t have to get any more crabs. The 6-line wrasse’s job is to catch undesirable critters that take up residence in our live rock. That is what crabs do also, except they end up trying to catch EVERYTHING, fish, snails, we USED to have some Sponges and some Featherdusters, but the crabs though they were delicious too. We once had an arrow crab that tried catching our fish. We caught him in the act one morning it was sooo funny, but eye opening too. Oh I can’t let you go without telling you this story! It is so unbelievable it’s funny! Arrow crabs are supposed to be great Bristle Worm catchers. Bristle Worms are dreadful predators with voracious appetites for your prize little tropical fishies. They don’t much care, they just eat and eat! They are poisonous and look much to me like underwater centipedes. They only come out at night and there are various ways to catch them, but being that we loved the way the little Arrow crabs looked I couldn’t resist adding one of these guys to our mini reef. He was so fun to watch. They have funny little frowny faces and are quite comical. They look quite frail actually, but do not be fooled! They are quite formidable and are to be reckoned with! They are awesome predators and very territorial. Well he seemed pretty quiet in the day time. We would watch him walking around with his funny legs, picking at this and eating that. At feed time it was so funny to watch him. He would snatch up as much shrimp as he could and stuff it in his mouth and it looked like had a shrimp moustache! So funny! Well one particular morning, we got up quite earlier than normal. It was 6 AM and still dark outside. We were all leaving the house and had to feed the fish early this morning since I had some errands to run and would not be back until later in the afternoon. I turned the light on for the fishtank and planned to leave it on to let them wake up for a few minutes before feeding or else they would probably not be as likely to eat. Well I was getting ready to rush off to finish getting ready when I noticed a peculiar sight! It was our Arrow Crab standing with his arms up, claws up, and a fish flake stuck to his rostrom on the top of his head (reference picture). Kissy, Bluey, and Blondie were looking at this site and I suppose considering eating the flake, which would have been to their doom for sure!! The light scared the Arrow crab and he ran (yes he actually ran in the water) across the bottom of the tank back to his home! Then he removed the flake and groomed himself! How hilarious! I’m so glad we caught him in time before he snacked on any of our fish! I added a new thing to my list for that day. A stop by the pet store!! I exchanged him for a much smaller Arrow Crab that we named “Squanto,” because he was kind of short and squatty. 7. The Mocking Bird & the Cardinal For those of you that remember our Fiasco with the Roadrunner, we have a couple of new critters that have joined the war against window reflections! The other morning when I was bidding my dh fairwell to work I saw a mocking bird sitting on my vehicle. He flew to the tree and began singing loudly. I got my things together, got dressed in my usual morning routine to go out and change the night shift guard dogs out for the day shift, let the ducks and goats out, feed them, collect duck eggs and then play with the dogs for a bit until dd wakes up. Well I got dressed, grabbed the shed key, opened the door and again a mocking bird and this time a cardinal too… both standing on the car looking at their reflections. The cardinal flew away, but the mocking bird attacked his reflection once more before retreating to the top of the nearest Hackberry tree to keep an eye on his stalwart opponent! Oy vey! What a pain! The road runner was one thing, they don’t really fly. Dealing with the likes of these 2 flying birds was going to take some thought! The other day, a cardinal had done an Arial attack on my Pomeranian Chase. They were nothing to shake sticks at! I’ll have to get back to you on this one. UPDATE: This Friday morning I woke up with a wonderful plan! I took 4 of my “work T-shirts” and some packing tape. I wrapped the mirrors with the tape, sticky side UP so that the birds would not like the sticky feeling. It wasn’t enough to hurt or make them actually stick to it. Just to provide an uncomfortable surface for them. Then I took the T-shirts and rolled them into each of the 4 windows, PLUS, I added to the Mocking birds “favorite” window, a plastic bag that will catch the wind and make scary shapes and noises. So far so good! We’ve had no more unwelcome visitors to the vehicles today!! 8. New Goat/Duck housing improvements We celebrate the Feast days by the Lunar Calendar and so we begin Yom Kippur proceedings tonight. I needed to say this so I can explain why I was out yesterday doing some laborious work! I bought a new feeder trough for the goats. It was much more economical than purchasing 2 new bowls, and this feeder will feed 6 goats at one time! So a much better deal. Only I needed to find a place to mount it. I wish I had a camera so I could post a picture. Well long story short (since pictures are really needed to explain this one), I made a nice little improvement to the goat/duck enclosure. They already have like a little 2 story clubhouse inside a sheltered lean-to, and I just added an extension to their 2nd story, an additional shelf so I could mount the feed trough, and I had to remove a board to mount the trough so I had the wonderful idea to give them a window! It turned out so great and the goats LOVE it. I also was able to rearrange the pen so the goats have some extra room now that there are 4 in there instead of 2 and we no longer have to “crawl inside” the duck enclosure to collect eggs which is a HUGE plus for us. We actually need to have a new arrangement for the ducks, but what we did yesterday will do for now. YAY! Now we have happy people and animals. Although the little Billy boys, Jed and Java are being not-so-nice little boys to Bella and Mocha, we are having to keep an eye on them. Jed and Java are in a time-out pen right now. Everyone is only 3 months old and Jed and Java are both thinking they are much older if you can understand what I mean. They are pestering the girls and chasing them around and being mean and nasty to them (at least that’s what it looks like to us), the girls don’t seem very impressed with their antics. I’ll take any suggestions that you have, even if its… let them be. I just need to know its ok to let them act that way. They are too young to breed, and it’s not a problem to separate them, although I figured it might be nice to let them all hang out together. Ok, well that's all for now... hope you enjoyed this one... until next time! May you be inscribed in the Book of LIFE  ... Shalom Shalom and Shabbat Shalom!! Sorry in advance for any typos, I will correct any later. Gotta finish getting ready for Shabbat!  The Aussie page dividers are from the site listed below. As per their usage agreement I am disclosing from where I borrowed them. :)  |
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Mid-September 2008
|
Well we've had an eventful September so far. All the animals are doing great, our puppy Ronen is getting BIG and so are our little goats. They are still little (Nigerian Dwarf Goats) but they are much bigger than before. They'll still grow some. Their birthdays are July 4th so they are only a few months old at this point. Also dd decided to change our little red goat's name from Flame to... Jedidiah. Incidentally I learned that Jedidiyah means: Beloved of Yahveh . Very sweet. dd's newest most favorite movie is Night at the Museum and she particularily like the little diarama men, Jedidiah and Octavius. That is why she renamed the red goat, I didn't want to change Java's name so I am keeping it the same, I like calling him Jumping Java. Now the hunt is on for a suitable blue-eyed male goat that I plan to name Octavius. So far we've had dead leads, nothing yet. We'll definitately post about it when we find our little guy. We are also looking for some does. So far we are waiting for this family to have some babies and we may purchase a few. Otherwise I am still looking elsewhere since we got our boys from them I wanted to venture out and find other lines to introduce. Also we were wanting to breed for both color (eyes and otherewise) and milk production. I like to get the full package in all my endeavors, although it doesn't always work out that way... I still try. So last week we had a young man from our fellowship come over and help us clear some more of our property. We are still working on getting it fenced and building shelters so we'll be set for when winter hits us. In South-Central Texas winter is usually late, but we can get a few surprise fronts until it "really arrives." We just want to be prepared for that especially since... oh yes... we are hatching baby Indian Runner Duck eggs. I have 8 in the incubator at the moment, I think one is not viable though. It's much lighter than the others. The others are getting much much denser. We'll see what happens. We have a very imbalanced flock. From what I can tell from our 8 adult ducks, we have 5 drakes and 3 hens. We are hoping to get some more hens out of this hatching but from what I hear the flocks will not integrate. I'm not really certain how things will play out, so we'll have to wait and see. Although I've read that some say they do just fine! If they do, I am thinking about getting some Fawn and White Indian Runners in the Spring. So... as I began to say up above, a young man from our fellowship came over to help us clear some of our property, while we were outside sorting out some issues with him I noticed my oldest female dogs showing TOO much attention to a small row of bushes surrounded by tall grass that we were prepping to be mowed. Being that she was the recent victim of a snake bite I kept telling her to stay out of the bushes, but every time I turned around, there she was... in the bushes AGAIN! Well about the 5th time I told her, I heard squeaking so I promptly investigated. There lying at the base of the bushes were 3 little baby bunnies! Oh great!!! Everybody knows baby bunnies don't do well with bottle rearing!! One of the baby bunnies was dead, I couldn't really tell why, there was not any obvious reasons. The other 2 bunnies looked as though they had been bitten and they were bleeding and had fire ants biting them!! I was thinking I could put them back in the nest but the nest had a few fire ants in there too! I knew if I left them between the dogs and the ants they would meet their fate! So I figured well if they have a 50/50 chance of survival out here, I suppose I can also give them a 50/50 chance if I take them inside and try to rear them myself. So I did! Of course when you need something you can not find it! I was looking for my baby animal items, my heating pad, a soft blanket for them to snuggle in, something to put them in that would keep them safe from dogs and now inside there is also a kitty with a HIGH prey drive. I had to find a safe, quiet place to put them and find my container with bottles, syringes and nipples to feed the little guys. One thing I knew I had for certain was milk! We get raw Jersey milk from a certified dairy and it is perfect! We used it to raise baby fawns and I knew now that I would use it for these little bunnies. Turns out it is even more perfect than I thought (well next to actual momma bunny milk) Jersey milk is high in fat which is just what baby bunnies need. Turns out they only eat 2 times a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. The momma bunny's milk is very high in fat and it is enough to keep the baby bunnies feeling satisfied for that length of time. In fact, one of the mistakes that most people make when raising baby bunnies is they feed them TOO MUCH!! This is the easiest set of babies as of yet. I'm used to the every 2-4 hour feeds etc, but these guys so far have been great! The only thing that still worries me is that baby bunnies are VERY sensitive, I'm surprised that with the injuries they sustained the day I rescued them that they are still alive. I once had a bunny I bought from a feed store, it got out of it's pen and my cousin's dogs really terrified it. It was not bitten or anything, but it died later that day from SHOCK! That was so shocking to me, so I know how sensitive these little guys can be, but so far they're doing ok. Which makes me very happy. We plan to release them far from here when and if they reach weaning age. We'll see what happens. You just never know with these little guys. We'll keep you posted... :) |
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
August 2008
|
Wow, looks like we're going to make a habit of this one blog entry a month. Sorry, just too busy to keep up with a regular basis thing :). So, we had an interesting and exciting month. We started school earlier this month. We didn't have any boarders this month. It was bittersweet as we got our prize female Aussie spayed early in the month. She just got her stitches out today as a matter of fact. She was by far, my best "spay patient." She was no fuss aside from the first day actually. That was a bit dramatic... Ocean's Spay
Basically when Ocean came home, she was still coming around from her anesthetic. She was tired and very lethargic. We left her laying quietly on the floor in our Master Bathroom. She was on a cushy blanket, passed out and peaceful. We decided to take the rest of the unruly bunch of dogs out on a walk. They were excited because of the strange smells coming from Ocean whom they were not allowed to go near. So we got our things together as usual and headed out on a walk. It was a good long 45 minute or so walk. We went our usual route down to the end of our street and down the side trails that are full of wild pigs and a herd or horses, plus some large Long Horn steers.Ocean LOVES going on these walks. Lots of smelly smells and running to do, all the dogs enjoy our evening country walks. Well, we headed out, without Ocean. When we returned we were astonished to find that Ocean in her drunken asthetically caused stuper had tried desperately to get up and come with us only to collapse on the tile floor in our bathroom. Poor baby! There was blood everywhere! Thank God Jason was there with us. He catapulted into action and became like a emergency room surgeon and had Alayna and hopping around the house to clean up and sort out Ocean's predicament. She had lost a bit of blood. She was not feeling good at all! We got her resituated and we moved her to the kennel as we had planned. We had not put her in there yet because we were waiting for her to come around. She was so passed out, we would have hurt her trying to stick her inside the crate. It's easier if she walks in herself. Although being in her crate, she wouldn't have stammered around and fell. That was the end of that, after that it was smooth sailing. No problems. She kept her suture area clean, and she did manage to snip off one stitch, but she did well. All my other dogs I've had through here have been difficult and they all have ended up having to where Elizabethan Collars at some point, but not Ocean. I was really happy with her performance and outcome. YAY!Snake Bite
 Our New Baby Goats
I checked my email night before last and a lady on one of my Gardening Chat groups was trying to find "Pet Homes" for a pair of twin buckling Dwarf Nigerian Goats. We have been working on getting some sheep and goats and so then these two presented their availability we acted. We were the first callers, as they were going for 'free' (nothing in life is completely free) so we knew we had to. Anyhow, we ended up bringing the little guys home yesterday. They are very cute! Alayna had a name picked out for the little brown/red goat, his name is now "Flame" and his little, more timid brother, is "Java Chip" or "Java" for short... I figured before long we might be calling him "Jumping Java" :) . He may look black in the pictures, but he actually a deep chocolatey brown. The goats' owner, Erin, runs a small family goat dairy and they also have chickens and 3 alpacas that they harvest wool from once a year annually. With the wool, they dye it and use it for knitting, etc. They were such interesting people, into gardening and organic husbandry as much as possible for all... vegetables/fruit and animals. Anyway, they are a really neat family and I do believe we'll be back out to glean some really cool info from them. I've always been wary of Goats milk as I've had some very bad encounters with the "stuff" previously, but Erin offered me some of theirs. It was funny because she poured it in a large mug for me to try. I was concerned, and thought to myself... '...oh man, now I'm going to have to pretend I like it.' Not so, it was really delicious, I was really impressed. It was just about as good as the raw Jersey milk we purchase currently. We may end up with a few nanny milk goats instead of that one miniature Jersey... we'll see. We have 2 weeks to decide at this point. Now the dogs... it's funny because every time our dogs have encountered livestock (aside from the pup) it has been on someone elses property and for the sole purpose of ...herding. They are now beside themselves with excitement to imagine that they now have their very own source of pleasure in one of their own pens of all places. We are having to take some time to remind them there is a particular time these activities are permittable. Everyone else seems to be "getting" it, but Ronen is convinced they are strange smelling dogs and he wants to investigate further. I'm waiting for him to calm down about their presence before we attempt that introduction. Anyhow without further adieu... here are the pictures of our new... kids ... ha! ~ Flame ~
![[Curry's+buck+1.JPG]](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_fU_WYPgwC0c/SLHdvJ8hCXI/AAAAAAAAAhU/q6CFWfYzdIc/s1600/Curry%27s%2Bbuck%2B1.JPG) Java Chip ~ Java ~
![[Curry's+buck+2.JPG]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_fU_WYPgwC0c/SLHdvGEn-6I/AAAAAAAAAhc/6zvUw5ESHig/s1600/Curry%27s%2Bbuck%2B2.JPG) A friend emailed me and was warning me of the dangers I'd have to look out for as a new goat shepherdess, and contemplating something baaad (in a goat baah) happening to the little guys I had my dd go look and she came back a little panicky and asked if she could go out and get a closer look because she could not see them. I was a little worried too, and I went to look out the window and sure enough... I couldn't see them either!!! Yikes!! We threw our boots on and headed out. As soon as we came out the little brave buckling, Flame was standing in front of the fiber board my dh had placed as a baracade in a particular spot in the pen, it was designed to close the entry above a large wire dog crate, but inadvertently also blocked the entrance to the crate. A little puzzled, because we didn't see where Flame came from, we went into the pen and just as we entered we saw little Java squeeze out from behind the Fiberboard. They had squeezed into the dog pen and were resting in there. How sweet. So I took the fiberboard and one of the trellis' we had setting there tucked next to the wall of the lean-to that is now the goat shelter and set them up by the workbench. I took the x-pen that had been around our now ~gone~ ash pile and closed in their area so they can't access the crate anymore. I just feel paranoid that something could jump the crate, but I don't know what else we can do. I picked up some coastal today and they LOVED it!! I think it's because they were used to it (I had misunderstood the owner and purchased a small bag of Alfalfa which they liked too, just not as much) as soon as I got it, I put one flake, but they are so little Flame climbed up on top of it to eat it. Java just walked up to our little hay manger and as timid as he is, he went ahead and just ate it with all 4 hooves on the bench. They are such little cuties. I hope they'll be alright. |
Monday, July 28, 2008
July 2008
Posted in Fun
|
The Fishy Story...
Wow, July is almost out and I just now realized I did not do even 1 entry for almost the entire month of July... except now... at least there will be ONE! This one! So I was wondering, what ever shall I blog about on this ONE entry for July. I've almost missed out on an entire month. Well a couple of things... actually. This month has been quite a busy one, with the month of June gently smoothing over into July with a couple of dog boarders that were in and out towards the end of June and the beginning of July. That was a lot of work, plus my DH had to go on a business trip... over 5 states in 5 days! What an adventure and in true Kelley fashion, what an adventure it was (for both of us... even me here on the homefront). Well after the last of the boarders was out we worked feverishly preparing for the start of our new homeschool year. There was the Hebrew wall chart to finish, curriculum planning, organizing and cleaning, additionally there were a couple of birthday parties, and the Monday Bible Study meetings in between ... and that's just the weekdays! Of course we WELCOME Shabbat and REST readily! YAY! Well so that was that, and so then I was thinking wow I really wish I could think of more things we could have done in July, so as I was searching for my password to this site LOL in my paperwork... I found some wonderful pictures of our fun fun trip to the Texas coast we took... last July (2007). It was such an adventure. We went with a mission to go ... fishin' , something that within our household of 1 male (DH) and 2 females (myself and my DD) we don't do very often. Well my DH decided things were going to change! So the night before our trip we made a trip to the HUGE Outdoor Sporting Goods Store to purchase some fishing poles and tack which none of us had to this point. We got 2 nice adult fishing poles and 1 child's fishing pole (so it was Barbie... or Spider Man of course the DD went for the PINK... Barbie fishing pole). The next morning we awoke EARLY, an amazing fete in itself it seems for the Kelley family, especially if it isn't mandatory...! Well we headed out on our journey. We had a 2 1/2 hour road trip ahead of us before we reached our destination in Corpus Christi.   ... and then we arrived at the fishing area. The jetties at Port Aransas, YAY. We were just going to see what we could catch. We went to the fish shop and bought some frozen shrimp for bait, then we made our way over to the jetties. DH was arranged the fishing poles. He set up DD's first and we (all of us) took it for a test run! SEA TURTLES!! They were eating the bait, they were waiting right off the jetties and ripping the shrimp from the pole, plus possibly some other unseen critters below the waters surface pulling and tugging and leaving us with nothing but a bare hook! OY VEY! We tried, over and over, with the same results. So DH decides well I'm going to hook up the bigger fishing poles because they have bigger hooks, so better to hold the bait, right? Of course right. So meanwhile DD and Me are having a sweet little photoshoot while DH tangles with the contankerous fishing wire. As typical homeschoolers DD and I comb the reef scouring for any educational value or tidbits provided on the rough inards and surroundings of the jetties. We find seaweed intermingled in the rocks with crabs of all sizes, big and small. Little fish, little... water spiders? All sorts of cool critters, plus we watch the turtles head bobbing in and out of the waves and a little further out we see dolphins backs occassionally cresting the waves in the distance. Sail boats are drifting by and we are occassionally having to move around to allow passers-by access to the rest of the jetties as they are difficult to navigate in some places. We also found a baby conch, so cute. He kept popping his little legs out of the shell, but then would quickly pull them back in and close his 'door' once he 'saw' he was on an open and foreign substrate (my shoe), so funny to watch!
   Hope you enjoyed that story... until next month  ... Shalom! |
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Our Country Life: The Roadrunner
Posted in Fun
|
This month, June, marks our 4th month since we've made the move from the big city life to a modest one in the country. We've had many adventures, since our arrival and this is the latest. We live in a manufactured home, we got an amazing deal out here and we are really enjoying our stay although there is so much left to be done! We have very few outer structures at the moment, and the money we've lost during the move has prevented us from moving further on any established plans we have made which in a nutshell include:
A couple of weeks ago the family was getting into our new, gas-saving, Jeep Patriot as we were on our way to our Messianic Fellowship to celebrate the feast of Shavuot. It was Sunday and our fellowship goes by the moon phases and the barley harvest as we celebrate the Feasts of the Lord. As we climbed into the vehicle my hubby realized there had been some 'incident' that had occurred on the hood of our Jeep. My hubby and I got back out of the vehicle to investigate the 'crime scene' further. It appeared that there was some sort of creature/animal that had managed to find it's way to to the hood of the vehicle and ran back and forth apparently trying to climb the windshield to try to reach the roof? We tried to figure it out and then I saw a portion of a footprint. It was just one long toe, to me it looked reminiscent of an opossum. So with that conclusion, we hopped back in the vehicle and headed to fellowship.  I did forget to mention: We park our vehicles, for the time-being, right in front of the house. They are readily viewable from the front of our house, should we take the time to look. Well a few days later, I was sitting on the couch in the living room checking my email with my laptop. Out of the corner of my eye I saw some movement in the area of my truck. We've had a canine visitor here before and naturally that was my first reaction. I would not allow it to stay as we have 5 dogs of our own and could not take another, it would simply receive an escort off our unfenced property. Well as I examined more closely I could see that this visitor was not canine at all! It was our resident Roadrunner, and he/she was intent on getting the Roadrunner that apparently was in the truck (his/her reflection in the truck window) out of his/her territory. Although quite comical, and yes my daughter and I did laugh, I needed to get the roadrunner off the truck as his little nails are very scratchy and he was succeeding in scratching the hood of the truck as he ran back and forth to attack his reflection in the truck windshield.  So far, the only thing that is working, since we don't have a place to park and protect our vehicles is to walk out there, or send my 'animal friendly' dog out on a 'speak' command to frighten the little guy back to his wood patch in the front of our property. It is pretty funny stuff, half the time my dog, Astra, doesn't realize what she is barking at, she just runs out doing it because I told her too. I'll accept any advice of things we can do, besides covering the truck with a vehicle cover, because that will also scratch... does anyone have anything to contribute?? |
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Five Things...
|
Five things in my freezer:
Five things in my closet:
Five things in my vehicle:
Five things in my purse:
Five things in my wallet:
|
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Shabbat Shalom... Peaceful Sabbath :)
|
We had a very welcome, powerful rain storm last night. The dogs were scared so I had to go around reassuring everyone. My family slept right through, it lightning, thundered, and poured with some pea size hail. This morning I was up early with the puppy and was pleased to find everything is washed clean and beautiful this wonderful Shabbat morning. It's going to be an awesome day again! Shabbat Shalom! |