Beagles!

        Since I featured Dan the beagle and his new house yesterday, I thought I should include a post about the rest of the beagles. These are the girls (from left to right): Lucy, Daisy, and Molly. Lucy and Molly are siblings and Dan and Daisy are siblings as well. That is why they look so much alike. This small pack of beagles is Lath's rabbit hunting group. And boy to they love to run!
        This picture was taken about two weeks ago. Lath and I took the beagles rabbit hunting. Dan went too, but he is a little anti-social and does not like to lay next to the girls. This trip was only Molly and Lucy's second time to go. They are a year old. Dan and Daisy are about two years old and are experienced rabbit runners. Molly and Lucy seem to be catching on. The only problem is that young, inexperienced beagles tend to run anything and everything. That day they ran two rabbits, a deer, a fox squirrel, and an armadillo. The trick is to get them to want to run only rabbits. Daisy runs only rabbits. Dan will run a deer sometimes, but mostly rabbits. So, now the pups just have to learn what they are and are not supposed to run. I thought they did very well for their second run and a good time was had by all.

Dan the Beagle is a Happy Beagle!

        Wow! Got a lot done today! First thing this morning Lath woke up and said,

"Get up! We're going to build a new dog pen today." So, off we went! 

        First we had to move to old cotton pickers that were sitting next to the existing pen. I'm not sure why we have these since we do not grow cotton. Then we cut down a small tree and some limbs and sticks that were in the way. Then it was time to make the walls. We have a tremendous amount of junk on our farm. Lath went to the "stuff pile" and got several chain-link fence gates. We propped these up and tied them together with wire. This took longer than you would think. . . we finished this much by lunch time. Whew!

        After lunch we got inside the pen and built Dan the Beagle a dog house. We had to separate Dan from Daisy, Molly, and Lucy because one of the girls is in heat and we don't want her bred. So, to build the house we first took some scrap 4x4s and cut them the same height for the corners. Then we made the rest of the frame out of 2x4s. The house sits up about a foot off the ground. I don't know why, but we always build dog houses like this. We used a piece of ply-board for the floor and front, nailed some scrap vinyl siding up for the back and side walls, and finished it off with a tin roof. Yes. It was very redneck. And don't even ask me where we get all this scrap junk. I have no idea.

        Well, the sun was setting and we cleaned up the pen and set Dan in his new house. I think he is satisfied. We ended the day with some chicken strips, black-eyed peas, and corn bread. I also made a yummy home-made peach pie with some peaches that I had in the freezer from last summer. Delicious. Ah, the perfect ending to a long day.

My Neighbor Totoro

 

        This is an amigurumi Totoro that I made for my sister Megan. He is about 14 inches tall. He was made from Vanna's Choice Lion's Brand yarn, eyes and claws are felt, his nose was bought from Hobby Lobby and his wiskers are thread. He took forever though! I think this doll took about 8 or 10 hours to complete. Megan better love him and not let her kitty cat, Kiko, eat him!

Curly VS Buddy

 

        Lath and I have a donkey named Buddy. He doesn't like Curly. We got Buddy to keep the coyotes out of the pasture. Sometimes coyotes will kill calves and donkeys hate coyotes and will stomp them to death if they are in the pasture. I guess that Buddy thinks that Curly looks a bit too much like a coyote. One day he chased Curly all the way across the pasture. Curly was keeping the cows from getting out while the gate was open and Lath was bringing in hay to feet the cows. Buddy kept distracting him.

Introductions Continued. . .

 

        This is Curly the Australian Cattle Dog! I had to put his picture on a separate post because my slow dial-up connection wouldn't let me post more than one picture on the same post. Curly is my best buddy. . . next to Lath. I love Curly. He helps work the cattle, digs up mole that get in my yard, chases away armadillos that dig holes in the yard, eats table scraps, and gets on the couch when he thinks no one is watching. He born January 2008 and is two years old. Good Boy!

Introductions

        So... I thought I should make a few introductions. This is my husband Lath and me. We have been married since May 26th, 2006. We are small town cattle farmers in rural Mississippi. We like to farm, garden, hunt, fish, etc. . . This week I am transplanting my strawberries into one of my raised beds and plant my various types of pepper plants into little cups so that when it is warm enough they will be big enough to plant. Yay! I'm so excited!