Oh boy has it been a while. It’s been a month since the last post and a whole lot has happened since then. After we got all of our chickens processed and put up in the freezer, wee added two dogs to our menagerie. We found an ad for some 6 month old Australian Shepherd/Great Pyrenees cross puppies. It sounds like an unusual cross, but after taking a trip up to Calhoun to see them, we fell in love with them. We picked out two girls and named them Dolly and June. These are some beautiful dogs.
At first they were extremely shy and nervous about the new surroundings. They spent their first night in the house and the next day we moved them out to a pen that surrounds a shed. We took in a third pup in who some friends of ours had gotten because they didn’t think he was going to work out because he was SO scared of the chickens and turkeys. We named him Hank and we are kind of looking for a new home for him. The longer we keep him, the more we like him.
The other big change here is that we no longer have Ellie the Jersey.
I’ve been interested in Dexter cows for a long time, because of their small stature and foot print. They are very hearty and perform very well on grass only. All of the larger dairy breeds have for generations been bred to depend upon a grain diet to perform well. I met a gentleman in Alabama who raises Dexters, and when I mentioned that I had a Jersey, he asked me if I’d be interested in a trade. Well I jumped at the chance and took off for Estillfork, Alabama with Ellie in tow. We drove for about three hours, unloaded Ellie (who was instantly romanced by the lead bull) and then spent at least 90 minutes chasing a heifer around a muddy pasture. After the three hour drive home, our new heifer had no intentions of getting off the trailer. So I backed the trailer to the barn and left the doors open. When I went out the next morning, she was still on the trailer, the lure of a bucket of alfalfa pellets could entice her to get out. So my only choice was to climb in and chase her out. I was a little concerned that she wouldn’t respect my single strands of electric twine but she took one sniff of it and decided that she didn’t care to challenge it. Well here she is, Carla.
