sheepdog

The underground green house is another one of those "dreams" though we do have pretty much all the "fixings" A backhoe to dig it out, and eventually we will have a wood heated underground water piping to heat one of the kennel buildings, so it would not be a stretch to run lines to heat a greenhouse too. My better 1/2 is a whiz at fixing/building etc so there's no problem there. It's just getting the time to do it. We have so stinking many projects started/needing to be started, that it's just pretty hopeless. Before I took over the kennel I was very much into self sufficient living and was quite near the point that I no longer needed a "town" job to support the farm. The dogs changed that, they are extremely time consuming, so many other projects went by the wayside. I find myself now gradually going back the other way. With all the food scares and insane government rules and regulations, I think it foolish not to have a back up plan. So maybe I am paranoid, but the TV show Jerico doesn't seem much like sci fi to me. I can see where it could easily enough be a reality show. So can the vet tranq the cat without getting ahold of it? It would have to be a tiny cage to keep a cat from twisting away from a needle injection. The ear notching, that's a good idea though. Poor kitty, double neuter, that's rough. Bet you don't get it back in a trap though! The TNR is a great program. At least it gives some control to the feral cat problem. A big FC population is tough on wildlife, birds, rabbits, and all suffer when cats multiply like rats, and the feral cats do, because they get a little extra help from well meaning people who help feed them. Flat land is a big plus for gardening, but not completely needed. I forgot where it was, but was watching a tv show just the other day that was showing vineyards on a hill so steep I doubt if my clumsy butt could even walk up and down it! I'm serious, it looked almost completely verticule!

Well......I didn't think it was that silly. After all, I discovered that some city people thought that cows spent their whole lives hooked up to milking machines. Now THAT is silly!

"As usual, the law abiding citizen will be targeted" Always the way it goes. The majority pays for the stupidity of the minority. Now I have another question for you. When you trap a feral cat, how on earth do you get it out of the trap, to the vet, etc without getting eaten alive? I didn't think you could sweet talk a wild cat. Too bad your probably far away, I am once again catless. I haven't seen our old momma cat for ages, she used to come buy every time I ran out and deliver me another litter. Most of the people with give aways just have little kittens, which wouldn't stand a chance around here. Ya know, you should keep those pants in a plastic bag, and rent them out to people. They would be handy to wear when you had to go someplacy you didn't want to be!

They are "homing" pigeons. They will fly back to where ever they live. So what you have to do is get the pigeon from who ever you are going to send a message to first. The pigeon must live at the home where you want to send the message. Then you just attache the message and turn it loose.

Yes, I think the moon does effect us. Some studies have been done, and in insane aslyums they have shown that residents are more vocal and act up more during the full moon. I believe there are more traffic accidents, and other mayhem that also occurs.

I remember reading somewhere that when a survey was taken on prison inmates, the biggest crime deterient for B&E on their list was a barking dog. We definatly have that one covered here! We are also fortunate that we both work here on the place, so it is a very rare occasion that no one would be home. Any burgler casing the place would also have a difficult time in judging by the cars in the driveway if anyone was home, we have several different rigs we drive and they are moved about frequently. Odd working hours, like right now I'm up at 2am typing this, also help keep burglers at bay. The same thing could be accomplished in anyones home, with the use of on/off timer lights. Another trick I've heard of is the fellow who lived in a very rough neighborhood. He was broken into several times. He purchased a large aquarium and put a big snake in it, and set it up right in his front room window. Burgleries stoped. Motion dector lights are an inexpensive trick too. And remember those old hoses they used to have at gas stations that rang a bell when you ran over them? (for you young'uns, this is when we still had full service gas stations and you didn't have to get out and pump your own, they'd even check your oil and wash your windshield) They have simular products now that can alert you to someone pulling in your driveway. Lots of good and inexpensive things you can do to protect yourself.

Interesting......Very Interesting! Now I've got another project to consider! LOL, just want I needed! If I live to be 103, I probably won't finish all the one's I'm considering now. I do love the internet though, it makes reasearching things like hydroponics a whole lot easier to do. That sounds like a great thing to dig into this comming winter when my yearning for a real tomato kicks in hard. Thanks for the incentive!

Oh, I understand all too well. My friend calls California the Peoples Republic of California, but I just call it the land of Fruits and Nuts. We pass through there just briefly every year and I always hold my breath till we get out, because I'm sure I'm breaking some law that I am totally unaware of. When you control the food supply, you control the people. Look at the way people are screaming about the oil companys these days. Wait until giant coperate farms are in control of what we eat and then listen to the screaming. And as you say, all we hear from the media is Paris Hilton this, OJ that, like who really cares? Funny we were just discusing skunks and of all things, last night about the time I decided it was time to hit the sack, I got a whiff of that old familiar smell, I realized our house dog, a miniture schnauzer that thinks she rules the world, was out sitting on the front porch yapping her head off, and I thought, OH NO, she's been had. Luckily she must of just spooked him. She was ok, and the oder soon drifted off, but had me going for a minute. I never see skunks around the house for some reason, maybe too many dogs, I know they are thick in this neck of the woods, I see a lot of them as road kill.

Fastest Side Dish in the west, and Yummy too! Boil 2 cups water, add 2 C. Instant Rice, in about a minute, or just before rice is done, stir in 1 can Campbells Nacho Fiesta Cheese soup. If you want, add some Jalapeno's or minced chili's. Now how's that for easy!

What kind of bird is it?Several years ago we had a pair of road runners here. Pretty rare in this area, so I thought it was pretty neat to have them. I was always careful to move slowly whenever I have to walk past one, and eventually they decided I was ok, and they didn't run from me. Then, I discovered their favorite food was mice! Ok, now that's my kind of bird! I started setting mouse traps, and when I would see the roadrunner, I would take any trapped mice out and toss them to him. Didn't take him long to figure out what I was doing. Believe it or not, it wasn't long before he was so tame he would come and take a mouse right out of my fingers! Ya think I should change my nickname to Wiley Coyote????

Hummmm.....that's interesting. I didn't know they had hydroponic set ups for inside homes. That would be cool! We have wanted a greenhouse for years, just never have the time or money to set one up. We have a great south facing hill that an earth sheltered greenhouse would be perfect on. How are the hyrdo tomatoes on taste? I absolutly refuse to eat tomatoes in the winter, they taste greatly simular to cardboard and are not in the least appealing to me. But vine ripened, home grown, oh my, heaven on earth! I noticed tonight that our one and only tomato plant in the frount yard has 2 tomatoes just starting to get a bit of orange tint, thank goodness 2 will come ripe about the same time so I don't have to arm wrestle the old man for the first one!I did try to remove the cap on a couple of the pepper plants, but they were stuck tight and I just broke the tops off and killed 'em anyway. Pretty bummed out over that one. Oh well, maybe next year. At least my driveway flower bed is looking good. Although I may of planted it too thick. First time I have ever seen flowers so thick they choke out the weeds! It is mostly Zinna's and cosmo's. Hey, what's a good organic spray for the mold (I think it's mold) that turns zinna leaves black? I haven't had it too bad in previous years, usually doesn't effect them until real late season, but this year they are so thick I may have some problems and would like to head them off if possible.LOL, you caught the immigration thing too I see. Isn't that just nuts!? And even funnier one (well, really not funny if it passes) is the new proposed mandatory spay/neuter law for ALL pets over age 4 months now proposed in California! Good Grief, they can't even control illegal aliens, how are they going to police pets?????It is funny to talk to people from different area's even in this country. I always assumed that buzzards and fireflys were everywhere. The pigs feet thing though....being from the country and seeing where pigs feet spend their lives makes me think there are much better things out there to eat, even Moutain oysters aren't wallowed in the muck 24/7 I agree, I have never been able to think of one single reason to have ticks on this earth. Flys are up there close to as useless, mosquito's do at least furnish baby fishes some food, but ticks? They are completely without any reason for existance. Yes, please do be careful around skunks. If you see one acting strangly, stay away! I've been told that when a skunk is acting friendly or unafraid, it is most likely rabid.

I am at best, a mediocre cook. My better half is the cook in this family. We were going to a club meeting pot luck dinner one night and he had made some fantastic coconut creme pies, complete with homemade merangue (I don't spell much better than I cook) on top. The merangue just needed to be browned up a bit. He asked me to watch them for 5 minutes. JUST 5 minutes while he took a shower and got ready to go. Yup, you guessed it, I let it burn. I have still not lived that one down. Then there was the time I wanted to shake a little garlic into a pot of something I was fixing and the lid came off and the whole container (3-4 oz) went in the pot. Boy was that every yummy!

I like smilies! They can be quite helpful in many instances. When you converse with someone with text only, and the person cannot hear the "tone" of your voice, it happens often that statements can be taken the wrong way. Think of a simple statement like, "What are you talking about?" Said in a hateful tone, one would understand that the person saying it is implying that you are an idiot and haven't a clue what you are talking about. Or said in a questioning tone, you can assume that someone may of just not understood something or missed a bit of converstation. Quite a bit of difference there.

I am definatly a King fan! No doubt about it! I have read most of his books, and watched all the movies. Needful Things is probably one of my favorites, and the Stand. And of all the famous celebrities in the world, if I could pick one to meet in person, it would have to be King. Ya just gotta wonder what he is really like, with a mind like that, that can write such weird, twisted stories.

Wonder what park it was? This is some really beautiful country, I wouldn't want to live any where else. I'm pretty well suited to these hills, ticks don't even like me. If one is so foolish to bite me, it dies. How's that for cool! But oh lordy, if I went to a shelter and asked for cats, for a barn, they would no doubt tar and feather me! Most shelter will only adopt out cats to inside only homes. And sorry, no skunks here either thank you, they are major carriers of rabies. This state would be rabies free by now if it wasn't for the wild population of skunks. Funny thing about the pet overpopulation thing, now that you mention it. Did you know that they are dragging in thousands of dogs from other contries to the US now to supply the shelter populations? Seems they are having some shortages. They even spent over $300,000 to fly in a plane load from the war zone. Gads, do you realize how many low cost/free spay neuters that could of paid for? (if memory serves me correctly, I believe they "rescued" about 300 dogs/cats for their $300,000) Talk about having more money than brains!

Hilly were you are too eh? No shortage of those here in the Ozark Mounains! Years ago my X and I decided to build a log barn, we picked the flatest spot on the property and for a 15 x 20 ft. barn on the 15 ft. side, we had 2 1/2 feet of drop! And here you can't even excavate, you'd just did up more rocks! I hear what you say about back yard breeders, but then again, there are a lot of "show" breeders that are no better. When they breed strictly for beauty and the ability to win ribbons, and forget health, temperment and the few dozen other equally important aspects of breeding nobody wins. And as I am now completely "catless" if anybody has any ideas for rodent control, I'm all ears! We have tried everything, I set traps every day, we put out poison, even got those electronic gizmo's that are supposed to run them off. The ^($*)@*)&_&^%#( stinking mice are about to drive me crazy. I won't even let the hired help annoy and snakes they see crawling about. Nothing is even making a dent in them.

Well, I do have a few tricks for early crops! One is of course, the clear plastic crop row covers. Or, if your cheap like me, you can save those 2 liter plastic soda bottles, or milk cartons. (any clear or light plastic jugs) Cut off the pour out end, and then just thumb tack them to short scrap pieces of 2X4, or anything else you have handy to weight them down and put them over your plants at night, or in case of frost warnings. Another trick is to hill up a row of dirt, then cover it with black plastic. This helps it to drain, so it isn't so wet the seeds rot, and the black plastic soaks up the heat and warms the soil so the seeds will go ahead and germinate. This trick works real well with green beans. Rotts are one of the few breeds I have never owned. Nothing against them in particular, there are some really nice Rotts out there, but there are also a lot of mediocre ones. It is a breed that is being bred too far from it's original working purpose (butchers dog) and in so doing, temperment issues and other problems are not helping the breed at all. Oh, if you want to check out that seed place, the web address is http://www.rareseeds.com/

Neat! Sounds like a real family business. Are you involved with it also? Have they had the shop very long?I would sure hate to have to groom cats though. Well, I just wouldn't, I'm allergic to them. They make my eyes swell shut if I touch them. On a sad note, I found our last barn cat dead tonight. It was one of the few cats I really did like, he was a pretty bright orange, long haired cat. He just didn't know he was a cat, he lived in the barn with the goats and Komondor's.

It's spring, and I have my mind on grooming again. A girl that used to work for me went to a regular grooming school and then came here to the kennel to set up shop. Prior to that, the only dog grooming tips I'd ever gotten where from the local sheep shearer! (you can imagine how helpful that was, lol) I picked up a lot of neat tricks from her experiences in school, but there are so many other things I would like to learn. Most of what I have learned I've just had to figure out for myself. I am getting better with practice on things like Poodle top knots, and some hand scisoring. And I can do a pretty decent Schnauzer cut. Things I would like to learn are hand stripping, and more about different types of coat conditioners to use on the different types of hair coats. I'm curious to find a good conditioner for wire haired breeds, something to make them nice and shiny, but not soft. I found a human product I like called Sur Groom, it does a nice job and smells great but it is tricky to apply and not make the dog greasy looking. Wonder how a product like Sho Sheen (a horse product) would work on dogs? I used to use it on colts I was getting ready to sell for my former land lord, it sure made them pretty! It would just be great to chat with someone about grooming stuff.

Yes, I actually did mist them too. Did everything else right too. One question, how far do you keep your grow lights away from the plants? Mine was about 8 inches, I'm thinking maybe too far? I also may of not regulated the lights just perfect, forgot to turn them off a few nights.That Heritage seed co is really nice, they do have a web site, but the place is not very far from where I live, so we went over there when they were having one of their garden shows. It was a lot of fun, they had old time costumes on, and were playing live folk music, a real party! Lots of vendors with plants, garden ideas, demonstrations, and all kinds of neat stuff. Oh, and yes, you guessed it, I am a big Old English Sheepdog fan, can't ya tell?

Ah Spring................I love it, but it is SO hectic when you are down on the farm. The goats start to kid, the planting and landscaping need done, all the dogs need haircuts, then there's all the fix up stuff you couldn't do in the cold wet winter, like painting dog houses, and all that fun stuff. There are just never enough hours in the day when spring time finally hits. Every year we swear we are going to do a big garden, this year we even got it tilled, but every year we find we hardly have enough time to keep up with the 4 little raised beds we have built in front of the house. Such is life!

Great post, maybe you can shed some light on the problem I had this year. I had a fair germination rate, but the plants failed to thrive. The seed was fresh, most purchased from Heritage Seed Co. We are trying to collect varieties that we can save our own seed from and that is what this company specializes in. I did pretty much everything you listed, though I did use regular potting soil. I had them under a grow light and everything. I planted one entire package of Big Jim pepper plants (I think that was the variety) and virtually every seed sprouted, however, none of them were able to break out of the seed cap. They got about an inch tall and the little seed just stuck to them until they died. It's been a very dissapointing growing season so far. But my driveway flower bed is doing great! Flowers are actually growing like weeds! I'm new here, so I am going to try to post a picture of what the bed looked like last year, hope this works......Well, looks like maybe I'm not smart enough to get it to post.Sorry about the double post, I'm still trying to figure out how everything works here. Notice from serverph: merged.

A Dachshund or a Wire Haired Fox Terrier!(ok, so I'm a dog person! )

Next time your new puppy pee's in the floor, do the following.....Roll up a good thick roll of newspaper, and then................Beat yourself over the head with it and say, "I should of been watching my puppy closer. I should of been watching my puppy closer." Do some searching on the net for articules about crate training. There is no better way to train a dog. It's fast and effective. And please don't have the mistaken impression that it is cruel to confine your dog. First off, dogs spend the majority of their time sleeping anyway, and that is especially true with young pups. Properly used, the crate becomes a comfortable and enjoyable place for your pet.

I think if you took a poll of human prisoners, very very few would opt to be put down rather than being caged in a tiny cage. Where there is life there is always hope. What if living in a tiny cage would mean that in a week or even a month some kind soul would come and adopt you and give you a wonderful, loving home? Would it not then be worthwhile staying alive?