Daisy, just waiting for more mischief.

What a month!

First we get a new puppy, who’s taken a fair amount of our time, then it was time to plant our garden. After that… time to sit and reflect on just how much more we’ve done this year than last.

Now it’s down to weeding, watering and defending against the unseen pest who insist on using our garden for their nightly banquets. From chislers (a cross between a prairie dog and a gopher) to some kind of ground-dwelling bug, to mice and rabbits… it’s a never ending battle.

Puppy progress… She’s nearly house-broken. I say nearly because we still must be very vigilant to keep her from making puddles in the house if we don’t get a door open fast enough. She’s doing exceptionally well at “sit” and “come”. We’ve yet to start on “stay” and “down”.

She’s still terrorizing the big dogs, although Sarah (my Finnish Spitz) has her number. One day last week, Sarah took Daisy the puppy to “serious school”. We could hear the yelps. Ever since then, Daisy shows repsect. Kiki, our German Shepherd wuss is still afraid of Daisy. She’ s progressing to a fierce growl when the puppy ventures too close. Of course, Daisy considers her “fair game” whenever possible.

What did we plant?

Front walkway before overhaul

Mom standing at the end of our new look walkway

After our raised beds were done, we tackled a huge project… re-do the two beds bordering the front walkway. It took a couple of weeks, but the result is beautiful. We dug out all the old lava rock, ripped up the plastic weed barrier, dug down 20 inches and sifted every bit of dirt back into the beds. After that, we planted boxwoods, hot poker plants, and geraniums. The boxes are lined on the back with railroad ties we removed from an old barn last fall. We added a short white fence for accent and called it good.

Freshly planted large garden

Well, in our 30 x 60 garden, we’ve got beans coming up, tomato plants, eggplant, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, carrots, radishes, assorted bell peppers, a couple kinds of cucumbers, some summer squash, melons, shallots, garlic, and decorative indian corn.

We also have a 32 x 12 corn patch.

Some of our raised beds in the front yard

Mom gave me the greenhouse so I’ve filled it with herbs. I’ve planted onion chives, Chinese garlic chives, thyme, oregano, sage, rosemary, dill, scallions, hot peppers, italian parsely, genovese basil, cilantro and summer savory.

So far, we’ve lost half the melons, cucumbers and squash to some kind of pest. They’ve also been munching in the sweet corn. Something has climbed into the herb boxes and eaten all the summer savory and part of my cilantro.

See the woodpile?

Mom's new planter

New addition to chicken coop

©2009 Shari's Gone Country!. All Rights Reserved.

Meet Daisy, Mom's 80th birthday present

Daisy makes it a six-pack again… that’s a six-pack of dogs. She’s Mom’s 80th birthday present, and is just the cutest, self-assured little ball of fur.

Meet Daisy! So far, she’s met each of pack, starting with Mindy, the big Black Lab. Next to get acquainted was Koda the Husky/Shepherd cross, who came charging out a door when no one was looking. After that, Coco the Lab/Redbone Hound cross came out to greet her.

That took over an hour. Then it was time to meet Sarah the Finnish Spitz and Kiki, the Shepherd/Border Collie cross.

Daisy is a Black Lab (daddy)/Aussie (mommy) cross that was a gift from the owner. Free is a very good price indeed.

Daisy meets the sheep

So far, she’s been out to meet the chickens, the sheep, and the horses. She wasn’t interested in meeting the cows who just came home, but did get a ride in our old Ford farm truck when Bev and Cindy delivered 6 bales of hay to Clyde and Amber. There, she also got to meet Bruno, the boxer.

Mom with Daisy

Now, after a romp in a very wet front yard (the sprinklers just went off), she’s sound asleep in Mom’s arms. No, she’s not sleeping there. Sarah gave her crate to Daisy and her “safe spot” will be in Mom’s bathroom.

We fully expect Mom will have to take her out in the middle of the night, and yeah… that’s not our job.

Please don’t wake us or the rest of the pack!

©2009 Shari's Gone Country!. All Rights Reserved.

Guess we were all on the same page today, when after dinner, we decided to go see about our cow. We hadn’t been over to Clyde and Amber’s since before the weekend. Where does the time go?

So, we piled into the Avalanche for a quick visit.

Clyde met us at the corral as he was just finishing his chores. Now, around here, corral is pronounced “crayall”, and chore is a verb as in “we’ll be over after we chore”.

He proudly announced that our cow is bred. Said he was going to load her and the calf up last Saturday, but when he went to bring the trailer around, she was suddenly “in season”. The bull wasted no time taking care of business.

The bull is a beautiful Beefmaster/Black Angus cross. He’s so laid back, even the granddaughter has been in the pen running the curry comb across his back.

It sounds like we’ll be getting her and the calf home later this week. In the meantime, we’ll load up six bales of hay to help pay a little for her keep and the breeding.

Guess we’ll also be trailering the sheep over to Flip’s this year where he has his big shearing trailer set up. It makes it much easier on everyone to have the sheep sheared under more professional conditions.

In surveying our hay inventory, it appears we’ll just make it to the second cutting. Here are pics of the hay we have left.

Sheep hay

©2009 Shari's Gone Country!. All Rights Reserved.

As promised here is a short photo blog of pictures from when Bev and Cindy first got here, compared with pictures I took today.

Front yard Sept 2005

Raised gardens with garlic, spinach, peas and lettuce.

Under the trees, rhubarb, strawberries and currents.

That gives you a quick idea of the changes we’ve made so far.

Also today, we put another new cover on the greenhouse. That makes three covers in three years. This one doesn’t look good. The fabric has several flaws which we’ve documented.

Tomorrow, Cindy and I will begin digging out the south side of the front walk, hoping to have that completed in two days.

©2009 Shari's Gone Country!. All Rights Reserved.

Today, we moved closer to our “summer living” with still more yard work and the setting up of our summer patios. Yes, that’s two patios.

I promise, tomorrow I’ll get pictures. Today we had a stiff breeze from nearly sunrise, so we concentrated entirely on the tasks before us.

We did more work on the major project, the rebuilding of the front walkway by adding railroad ties to the area between the yard and the future planting area for our entry hedge. We also added a nice top-dressing of compost.

Next week we’ll do the other side of the walk way. All the gravel is being added to the circular drive. That cuts the bill a bit for more gravel out there.

We also used the Mantis in “edger mode” to trim back the grass from all the concrete “dividers”. That’s a project that has been on our radar for over two years.

The glass tables and chairs emerged from the garage and were set up at our kitchen door patio, and also at our “lower patio”. That one is under the elm trees and overlooks the big garden, the chicken coop, the sheep, the cows, and the horses.

We think there was some kind of a shop that was torn down, as we’ve moved more than enough shingles, old wood, electrical wire, and even car parts from the area. This is all on a big concrete pad, approximately 30 x 15.

What’s really nice, is now we can walk around in the garage again, something Mom really appreciates.

Ok, tomorrow, I promise a gallery of what we looked like in Aug 2005 when Bev and Cindy first got here. Remember they bought this place “sight unseen”. Bev’s cousins had seen it and they’re first comments were, “If we were 20 years younger, you wouldn’t get to buy this. It would be ours.”

©2009 Shari's Gone Country!. All Rights Reserved.

Here’s a new twist for Shari’s Gone Country! It’s my new Facebook Fan Page.

You can get to it by clicking on this link.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Beryl-UT/Sharis-Gone-Country/179522430653

Don’t expect me to always give you that whole, long link… just become a fan.

I’ll be working on it quite a bit over the next week or two. I’ll be including things like a crop report, our market schedule, and other things.

Oh, and if you’d like to become a Facebook Friend, just let me know. I’d love to chat with you.

©2009 Shari's Gone Country!. All Rights Reserved.

Last evening was great fun for us. We got to watch “daddy owl” give flying lessons to two little ones. They’re about 5 weeks old now, and it’s time to go to school.

Baby Long-eared Owl

Over the next 3 to 4 weeks, they’ll hone their flying skills and learn to hunt. We’ve got plenty of small rodents around, so hunting will be more a function of learning to fly, dive, and kill the prey.

There’s at least one more baby still in the nest.

The first little guy we saw plopped down in the front yard. He did one of those really ugly “chin landings” and then lurched around the yard a bit. I would imagine the grass felt pretty funny on his feet. Pretty soon, he sought refuge on the back tire of our truck, before again trying out his wings.

He flew to our turnaround, and then to the top of the truck before really becoming brave and heading for the Chinese Elm trees. Daddy was never very far away.

At one point, Bev got a little close and he actually scolded her. She really felt bad as all she was doing was walking down our front walk. Guess she got in the way of his line of sight.

Cindy and I stayed outside until nearly dark, watching the little baby climb to the top of the tree. With Daddy’s encouragement, it even flew from tree to tree.

©2009 Shari's Gone Country!. All Rights Reserved.

Ever since 2005 when Bev, Cindy and Mom bought this place, they’ve wanted to do something with the “rock beds” lining the front walk.

Today, Cindy and I tackled the project in earnest.

Over the past four years, we’ve planted a couple of yuccas, a couple of “red hot pokers”, and a couple of bird feeders, along with some solar-powered night lights.

Today, Cindy and I began digging out the rocks, rotted plastic weed barrier, and dirt. First problem… the wind. It blew at least 20mph with gusts to 35 the whole time we were out there.

Next problem, not much work space…

We ended up handling each shovel full of dirt at least three times. Dig it out. Pile it on a tarp. Throw several shovel’s full of dirt back onto a big screener. Physically separate the dirt from the rocks and plastic. Then dump the rocks into the wheelbarrow.

It took us five hours to dig out about 8 feet, and there’s another 9 feet on this side, then the full 17 feet on the other side. In all, before we even consider planting, it’s about 4 days work (4 hours a day is about it for us).

I know I’m dog tired tonight… sure hope they wait for a day or so before tackling the next section.

I think our plans are to plant a boxwood hedge accented by the “red hot pokers”.

©2009 Shari's Gone Country!. All Rights Reserved.

Once in the house, Cindy, who was having a hard time catching her breath… gee I wonder why. She’d been thrown from a horse twice in the past 3 hours, and then had to walk the beast over a half a mile across the desert.

While she was showering, that is… getting the tumbleweed out of her hair and place on woman should ever have tumbleweed, we called Amber, who is an RN. Our main goal was to see if we should do anything special for Cindy.

Well… they were out chasing our cows, who seemed to have no respect for their barbed wire. How embarrassing!

We ate a quick dinner and headed over to check on our cows and see if we could lend a hand.

What a shock to not see our cows, and have their granddaughter tell Bev and me, “No, I don’t know where they went.” Mind you, she’s only 8.

Bev and I found the critters on the far side of their 20 acres and began walking them back across the soft plowed sandy dirt. We got as far as behind the greenhouse when Clyde came to join us. With 3 1/2 of us (the kid is the half), we managed to get them out of the garden area (nothing planted yet), through an open gate to the first hay stack.

Of course, they stopped to eat. I was shaking a grain can to no avail. Finally, we got them moving again, and were needing to turn them 90 degrees right into the barn, and corral. Well, Sweetie Pie saw the bull again and changed our plans.

Back around the garden and the pasture we went… that soft dirt was damned hard to negotiate! Ok, though the gate again, stop at the hay stack… shake the can… nope! This time she and and the calf ran right past us and turned right along the pasture where Clyde’s cows are staying.

This time, we were getting tired and thought maybe a lariat would help. If we could rope mama, baby would follow.

Well, by the time Clyde came back with the lariat, Sweetie Pie and Buttercup (the calf), had jumped the back fence and were on the back half of their 20 acres. Oh… and the bull had joined them, simply climbing a sand dune adjacent to a fence and walking over.

Was this going to be good or bad?

We sent the kid east to head them off at the sheep pasture. Clyde went to the back acreage and got them moving to an open gate. Bev was stationed at the gate separating the garden from the hay stack and I was at the point where they needed to turn into barn and corral.

Very quietly and carefully Clyde herded all three animals through the pastures. Luckily, they were hungry enough that they turned toward the hay stack again. This time I was ready with a flake of hay right where they had to turn.

Bev happened to see a 10′ aluminum ladder leaning against the stack and grabbed that when they passed her. Turning is sideways kept them from backing up.

Ever so slowly, we closed in on them as they were enjoying that flake of alfalfa. We had closed off all other escape routes, so they had no where to go but into the corral.

The bull led the way (thank goodness). Sweetie Pie and the calf followed. Gate closed! Cows now in an escape-proof corral.

Believe me, by the time we got home, I was too tired to shower. All three of us got more exercise than we had planned. Oh, make that four of us… Clyde worked even harder than we did.

Made for a very early night. It wasn’t even dark when all the lights and TV were off for the night. Even the dogs settled down, I think.

We’re all so sore today, we changed our Mother’s Day plans. Instead of going to Pioche, NV for dinner, we went to Cedar City and had Chinese food… an awesome choice! Follow that with a trip to Wal-Mart for plants, new cowboy hats, and general window shopping, we had a good day.

Oh, and we stopped over to check on our cows. They’re safe and sound in the corral with the bull, who is a year-old Beefmaster/Black Angus cross. It looked like he’s tagged both girls. I’m sure the calf is totally confused.

©2009 Shari's Gone Country!. All Rights Reserved.

Two horses, two sometimes cowboys, a cow and calf, and a pickup truck made this whole 1l2 mile process look like we were herding cats.

Our ranch horse, Neche, wasn’t really wanting to work today. This is the first time she’s been asked to actually work, as in help herd a couple of cows. She’s spooky and sometimes prefers to avoid us. We think she was a hard broke horse, that never got much love and attention.

Cindy and I spent a couple hours working her from the ground in the round pen this morning. That included a good brushing, and playing “follow the pellet bucket”, while we waited for our neighbor.

About 3 this afternoon, Clyde called and was on his way on his horse. The plan was to drive Sweetie Pie (mama cow) and Buttercup (the heifer calf) over to his place for breeding. He’s borrowed a young beefmaster bull, and his girls are all bred now.

The fun began when we realized their granddaughter had ridden her bike over. Our horses don’t know bikes. Cindy rode out to meet Clyde and when she came back, the cinch felt a little loose, so she dismounted and re-arranged things.

When she went to mount again, Neche spooked and well… Cindy didn’t hold on any better than Bev did last year. She went off on her butt right in the driveway. If we hadn’t been so busy, she might have been embarrassed.

Once she and Bev caught Neche, who had tangled her feet in the baling twine we were using to mark off our garden, she was able to mount with no problems.

My job was to drive the cows out of their corral and then Clyde and Cindy would point them north towards Clyde’s place and drive them over.

Ever heard of best laid plans?

Our cows had never, ever been outside their corral. They didn’t know gates were for going through. Clyde had to bring his horse in and move them out… Well that was fun, they immediately headed for the garden, then across the road and headed east rather than north.

Eventually, Sweetie Pie smelled the bull and began running towards Clyde’s place with her baby close behind. It looked like Clyde and Cindy were herding cats, for sure.

Bev, Chloe and I were in the truck with a bucket of oats, just in case.

We got the cows over to Clyde’s, but the thought of actually going down their driveway and through the gate was foreign to our cows. They preferred to go up and over a fence where sand had drifted… at least that was the way Sweetie Pie went. Buttercup eventually heard the oat bucket and followed me down the drive and through the gate.

Boy was the bull happy to see Sweetie Pie!

After helping Clyde repair several fences, we figured everything was ok, and headed home. I escorted Cindy down their driveway, opened the gate and sent her on her way riding Neche.

Bev and I headed for the truck, backed out from the front of their place, and all of a sudden… Bev said something’s wrong.

Cindy was walking down the road, sans horse.

She’d been thrown a second time and this time Neche had headed west. We’ll all be surprised if Cindy can get out of bed in the morning.

No time to lick any wounds, we had to catch a horse that didn’t want to be caught.

Once back to our place, we split up, with Bev and Cindy in the truck and me on foot. I could see Neche to the northwest about a mile away. It was gonna be a long walk!

The temperature was near 80, and there was little to no wind as I headed across the desert towards a vacant house and barn. Meanwhile, Bev and Cindy drove west and then north on the other side of where Neche had headed.

When Cindy was riding, she had knotted the reins together, and also had left the halter and lead rope on Neche. Good thing, as Neche had managed to get the reins half off her head and had slipped her front leg through, effectively hobbling herself.

Cindy caught up to her first and began walking her back towards me. I’d gotten within about 500 yards of them. Now for the long walk back.

God it was hot!

We got back to the barn and when we were removing saddle, saddle pad, and saddle blankets, we think we discovered why she tossed Cindy twice.

One of our other horses, probably Dusty, the Thoroughbred gelding, had bit or kicked Neche just at the top of her right rump area, where the saddle blankets sat. The area had healed up nicely, and she wasn’t unhappy the other night when Cindy rode her. Today was another story… it was rubbed raw, and appeared sore.

Oh, but that’s not all… I’ll continue the story tomorrow.

©2009 Shari's Gone Country!. All Rights Reserved.