Our First Farm Dog

This is Barnard Edward Gallant (BEG). Also known as Begedy, Barns or Barney, for short. He is our 14 year old shi tzu/ bichon farm dog. I know what you’re thinking. “This is a farm dog?” I, too, have visions of a Great Pyrenees when the phrase “Farm Dog” is mentioned. I would love to have a Great Pyrenees! Alas, it’s not to be, not this year, anyway. What we have is an “indoor” farm dog.







He loves to follow me around the garden, sniffing and digging in the dirt and tracking it all in the house. He has learned to follow the basket around the garden and steal things out of it. He learned that from the new little shi tzu puppy we had for a short time. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? He loves all things from that basket: peas, corn, beans, anything. (I have to be careful not to leave it on the floor when I bring it in.) If it comes out of that basket, it’s got to be better than anything he’s ever eaten before!

Our very own Easter bunny! We have considered raising rabbits for food. This is a test...do we like rabbits? Hmmmmm, I think so.







Not a winter dog!

When he was a young dog, he was a force to be reckoned with. Well, I guess we all grow old and mellow with time. He did show some interest in the chickens when they first arrived, for about an hour. After that he acted like he had lived with them all of his life and couldn’t we please get something a little more interesting? We let the chickens out of their pen from time to time and watched him closely with them. He looks at them in the yard but then goes on his merry way. It would be way too much trouble to catch one of those and who wants one anyway?

He did have a close encounter with one of our lead, assertive hens for the first time last week. This is where the fierce farm protector instinct came in. She pecked him when he got too close, so he backed off. She was blocking the door to the front porch, so he stood and whined until one of us moved the hen out of his way.
So much for our “Livestock Guardian Dog”. Has anyone ever had a “Livestock Guardian Chicken”?

A Sunny Winter Walk

 

I took advantage of a day off at work and some beautiful winter sun to get a few things done around the home. The picture above is of our mailbox and the line of spruce trees that protect us from the road. They are beautiful trees and such a straight line, too. Hmmm, they must have used a string for that.

It’s this mailbox that was on the top of the “to-do” list today. It needed to be put back in place before the postman came. Hubby brought it in from the field on the way home from work yesterday. We are in a never ending battle with the snow plow over our space requirement for the mailbox. How much space does one little mailbox use? Can the driver of the county snow plow not see our black mailbox in all that white snow? Does he/she have some hidden agenda to rid the countryside of all mailboxes? Are these mailboxes a threat? In my frustration at constantly having to redo the mailbox I have considered a 1′ wide cement pillar sunk 3′ into the ground as my next mailbox post, but I can’t put anything permanent there that will damage the snow plow. ( It would be a difficult thing to do, damaging the snow plow, as the plow implement attached to the tractor is taller than I am.) Can we not work something out here? If the county snow plow drivers will leave my mailbox where it stands, I promise it will never jump up and bite them. That’s a fair trade-off, don’t you think?

When I first moved to the country I bemoaned the fact that my mailbox listed to one side, as it is attached to a post just barely being held in place by cement blocks. I was told that it is that way for a reason and there is no point in sinking the post into the ground. The snowplow will just take it out on its way by. I have seen some beautiful and creative mailboxes in the country. I wonder how they keep them in place. Do they bribe the snowplow drivers with coffee or hot chocolate as they drive by? That is something I have considered, as well, but I could never just stand there for hours in the hopes that the plow would come. The coffee would be cold by then and I would be frozen. Naw…not worth it.

I have seen one innovation that I would love to make. A mailbox attached to a long pole that stretches 12′ out to the road from a fence post. The pole is attached to the fence post with hinges so it is just pushed aside by the plow and springs back into place after it has gone by. Now that’s a brilliant idea! Look for updates on the mailbox problem in years to come. I don’t say “this year” because I have a long list of more immediate things to do before I can get that far down the to-do list, however, if I have to replace the mailbox too many more times this winter, it will move up on the “to-do” list.

I did a little snow shovelling. Even with a snowblower for the driveway we still need to clear the smaller areas.I had to shovel out the gate into the chicken pen so I could go in there and open their door. They need sunshine too. Being the spoiled gals that they are, I had to shovel some snow away from their door, as well. I also went inside and shooed them out with the shovel. I put lots of treats outside for them. It wasn’t long before they were out in the sunshine. It is not that cold today and they have been shut up indoors through most of the long, hard winter. Come out, come out, wherever you are!

We also need to shovel the snow from the wood pile. The ice from the shop roof has fallen on it and covered most of it. Can’t get that stuff with the snowblower, much as I’d like to give it a try. We still need that pile of wood for the wood stove. It’s not THAT warm today. 

 

This sits beside the wood pile. The winter farmer’s best friend!

 

 

 

 

Our secured and locked cellar door! I adore real fieldstone! The inside of the cellar is fieldstone too. There is another door into the cellar and basement from inside the house. I am planning on writing a piece called “Root Cellars, How to Make Them and How to Use Them” in the near future.

I continued on my sunny day walk. Look! footie-prints in the snow. It’s probably that squirrel that I see on the porch almost every day. Yep, they go across the yard, over the well casing and up the stairs to the deck-porch.

This is the squirrel that has discovered my stash of acorns for putting on grapevine wreaths.

 

Sure enough, he’s been in the acorns and eaten most of them. No wonder he likes my front porch so much! (I grew up in Tennessee. I have spent most of my adult life in Canada but I still say things like, "sure enough". Occasionally I might be caught saying, "y'all". It comes back when I'm tired or have been watching a very southern person on TV.) 

These are the pinecones I saved for the wreaths. We will probably use most of them for fire starters. I never did get those wreaths decorated. Here they are drying, waiting patiently for spring and what’s left my the acorns. 

 

These are the grapevine wreaths I made in the summer, drying on the porch. I have great plans for those next year!
 

 

The fierce protecting farm dog has decided that it is indeed a nice day and comes out with me. He decides not to brave the snow and ice today and just wanders around on the deck. After all, he is 14 years old. He may be mellow now but he was a force to be reckoned with in his younger days! All the neighborhood kids were afraid of him and he chased anything that moved. 

 

 

Also on our porch is winter greenery. See, you, too can have greenery in the winter. It’s called “plastic” and could be a new and innovative idea for farm decorating! Get yours while they are still available at every Walmart!

 

 

My new brugs are enjoying the winter sun too! These are brugmansias. They are beautiful tropical plants. I got cuttings from trading all over the world for them. They grow inside in the winter with the houseplants. (See my post "Growing Brugmansias".)

 

 

 

I see my winter sowing on the deck. There are many, many tiny seeds planted in these containers under the snow. When the warm spring sun warms them up and shines on them, they will sprout and be protected under the cover of the plastic tops – just like mini greenhouses. Winter sowing is a great way to start new seeds and to get my hands in the dirt in the middle of January when the ground outside is frozen. I love the smell of dirt. I have to smell dirt even if it is winter!

We do BBQ in the wintertime. When we lived in a subdivision, many years ago, our neighbors thought we were a little “off” for firing up the BBQ in -20 temps. I don’t know what the big deal is. I think we are privy to some information that they are not… it’s not cold in front of the BBQ.

Well, back to work. I have such a long to-do list for this winter. I don’t think I will ever get it all done. The next job is building a large bat house with my new radial arm saw. I love power tools!