Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Too much time on my hands....

I just happened to have my camera (again) when I opened the door to the stairs and found this scene unfolding. Spidey trying to go up, Cooper weighing whether it was worth tackling the cat when I was in view. He went for it...full body cat tackle, lots of hissing and Spider escaped unharmed.

Yup..too much time on my hands...

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Birthday Hike

Here we all are, setting out for the birthday hike on Sara and Mike's farm. I took this photo of all the dogs and some of the siblings.

It was a very cold day on Sunday. Highlight (or lowlight) of the walk was the running of the sheep. They all came running over the hill with all the dogs behind them. Sara had to fish one out of the creek and right another that was having a mild heart attack at all the excitement. But, no one died, no humans were gored in the running.

Happy b-day to all the Anderson siblinks!

Monday, November 3, 2008

Solving problems

It's been kind of slow lately, what with getting sacked from work I actually have time to do things. Still, just when I thought it was starting out another slow week, things happened.

Recently I fired up the wood furnace but managed to smoke up the entire house. I called the expert on wood furnace heating (Dad) and he said "did you check to see if you have bird nests in your chimney?" Duhhhh...

I opened up the flue today, prepared for a very messy job only to have 3' of connected bird nest come out in one string, complete with a dead bird and a wee skeleton of a baby bird at the top. I think my early season fire cooked all of them. Anyway, check out the nest.
I was aiming to line up the nest to get a good shot with the bird but Cooper had already gotten a whiff of bird and was lurking nearby. I no sooner got the main part of the next propped up when he shot in, grabbed the bird and ran off, throwing the bird in the air as he ran.

If that wasn't exciting enough, I decided to check on the chickens. A new chicken is arriving tomorrow ("Kiev") and I needed to put the dog crate in the coop so she'd be protected her first few days. I walked in the coop and all three birds were on their perches, which is unusual for during the day. I decided to check for eggs and you'll never guess what I found.

I've been suspicious that something has been in or around the coop lately so I've been tightening down the doors. Still, I didn't expect to see this when I looked in the nesting box.
FYI...that's not a chicken in the roosting box. I tried to get the lil guy out but wasn't sure how to do it. I'm fresh out of falcon gloves so I gave the dogs a try. Gabby sniffed him out right away but it was Cooper who got after the possum. Even with all the barking and me trying to poke it into a bucket we couldn't get him to get out of the box.


I did the next best thing...came inside and blogged about it. I'm taking ideas...how do I get this guy out of there w/o getting bit??

At least I know why there have been no eggs for a week and a lot of chicken feathers in the coop!
Gotta go..the horses haven't adjusted to the time change and are hollering for dinner.
b

Evil Coopy

Tippy got brave and came downstairs and even bolder, snuggled into the dog's bed. Of course you-know-who joined her. This photo was taken in the break between a lot of spitting and yarping. Not 10 seconds later Coop dragged the dog bed until Tippy rolled off and ran hissing.

Ahhh, peace and quiet at the farm.

Happy Election is almost over day....
b