I should come here more often to remember our critter antics... And we have NO shortage thereof!!

2012 started out rather dry... In a normal year, this paddock would be pretty muddy, but not this year. It was chilly though, and the girls gave us frequent shows of simply being spirited happy horses.

By the time the South Paddock got mucky, the North Paddock was full of lush oat grass.  We were able to move the girls for the few weeks their usual paddock needed to dry out some.

With Spring, comes birth and rebirth...  This is our banty-mama...She set quite a clutch of eggs, but we sure learned something about birthing places... There needs to be just a little human intervention for everything to work out well.  Of the 3 chicks we actually raised, we have but one left...the young rooster.  This is a tough place for chickens if they don't follow the rules.  Rule #1 - Pay attention to your rooster and do as he tells you.  Rule #2 - Go to bed at night in the warm, safe place provided.  If you stay out on your own, we can't help you much.

Another interesting thing you can do in the Spring, precisely on the Vernal Equinox date, is stand uncooked eggs on end.  These are standard "store bought" eggs... Hey, in the winter, even the best of us sometimes have to resort to purchasing eggs... *sigh*  I found they needed a towel to keep them steady, but they balanced there just fine!

Let us not forget naps in the sun...  After a bit of Spring rain, there's nothing like a sunny window for a nap...

Unless, it's a sunny paddock...Or a warm spot by a lamp...

Late Spring brought an unexpected guest... A bull from the neighboring pasture jumped the fence...and hung out with us a couple days.  We were able to find his rancher and get him safely home.  He left us the gift of MANY flies.  The horses draw plenty, but this big fella brought plenty more with him!

 Girls will be girls, and sometimes you just have to be the middle man...er, girl.  They've never hurt us while doing this...and they love to love us at the same time.  That's not to say I don't maintain an awareness of being the filling in a 1-ton sandwich!!  Silly girlies!

We would be ever so remiss if we neglected to mention the flowers... We did get to see a few before Shasta "tasted" them.  She didn't care for them.

This is  Tortie. She now has two half sisters who look very much like her, and are called Yin and Yang.  Their sister and brother are called Salt and Pepper.  Pepper is the only boy, and he's black.  Salt is Siamese.

Summer brings gardening...and more horsey help than I want to discuss this year.  Shasta dearly loves to invade the garden.  Somewhere, there's a picture of her helping us "weed" the garden... Oh, she's a minx!  Due to her curiosity, we ended up buying more of our veggies than we should have...but there's always next year!  We were able to get some really nice produce at our Farmers' Market.  I had run out of dill pickles...can't have that!! So we primarily canned pickles and tomatoes this year.

We were also able to score a 35 pound box of Roma tomatoes for a really great price!  It felt rather like the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, but we got 'em done!!

With the arrival of Autumn (which arrives while it's still decidedly warm here-especially this year!), we discovered we had "company" coming in for supper...

We've counted up to 7...  I know they're a nuisance, but they're so darn cute!  They aren't causing us any trouble, not really.  They'll clean out a kitty dish in no time, but they leave the chickens alone (as long as the chickens abide by said rules above).  Besides, they aren't the only wild "friend" we have coming in...  Oh, Lord help us, there's the cutest lil skunk that comes in... We think it's a female...not that we've really seen a lot of the "working" end of the skunk.... Jasmine, however, has.  At least twice she's taken a shot to the chest and shoulder.  The first time, she got into the house before I could stop her...and I locked her in the bathroom.  HUGE mistake.  Do not follow that example!!  The second time, she met "Flower" on the laundry porch and we bustled her out to the front yard with infinite haste!  Bruce has seen "Flower" on the laundry porch two different times, and I've found her out in the back.  She's apparently right friendly with the kitties...they don't mind her at all.  They were playing at Bruce's feet this morning.  He said it took great restraint to keep from reaching down to pet the "kitty" with all the others.  I think I'm glad he restrained himself!

Sadly, it was time to bid our big boy farewell and give him his wings.  Braveheart was born here some 15 years ago.  He was the timid pup of his litter.  We anticipated he'd come out of his shell as his litter-mates went to their new homes, but he never did.  It was years before he would let us touch him.  We never knew what made him different, but it was obvious, this was the only place he could ever live.  He caused us grief through the years because he wouldn't tolerate a cat in his space.  Eventually he grew out of that, just like he finally overcame his fear of us.  He never got "snuggly" with us, but he did get to the point where we could pat him occasionally or remove an errant tuft of blown coat.  When Qannik and Jasmine came along, he came out of his shell and would actually try to play with us some.  Farewell Big Boy... Who's a big dog??  I miss you.  "Dad" misses you.  Qannik misses you terribly, still.  Rest peacefully... We'll see you later...

We are in search of another dog.  Ideally, and LGD.  I am shy about Anatolians...I'm afraid Bruce isn't assertive enough.  Although, Qannik is so lonesome, I'd consider a lot of other options while we wait for the LGD.

Somewhat untimely, but our mama banty decided to set another clutch of eggs in the Fall.  Who told her she could do that?  Even more inconvenient was that she stayed with a whole clutch of eggs but only until hers hatched!  We're still waiting to find out if "Peep" is a pullet or baby roo...  It's sure growing fast though!  Mama is THE mama too!  She runs the roosters off, the cats off...I feel privileged that she tolerates me!

We can't let a year go by without a picture of Princess Jasmine!  Although, after the 2nd skunking, she wasn't treated too royally!!  Dawn dish-washing liquid mixed with baking soda (a little Dawn, a lot of baking soda) so that it's crumbly...rub into dogs fur and spray on hydrogen peroxide.  It's strong and it works.  I learned more than I ever wanted to about skunk spray this year.  Baking soda alone will neutralize it if there's a way to pour on enough.  My laundry porch has been twice "blessed" and we've knocked it down.  The carpet... Jasmine rolled on the carpet when she came in the first time...I didn't know she was coming in or that she'd been skunked...I suspected though!  I opened a BIG box of baking soda and poured in on thick and rubbed it in.  It helped that the bathroom was overpowering for two weeks...but the carpet wasn't noticeable at all.  It was bad....

The first real rain of the season decided to wait until right at the first of  December, and did we ever get rain.  We must be in an "El Nino" year where we get warm tropical storms rather than Arctic blasts.  We had almost 10 inches of rain in 4 days.  The South Paddock is fetlock (ankle) deep in mud, so we moved the girls into the front yard.  Shasta, ever the helper, decided the roses needed pruning.

We once heard or read that if your roses still had leaves in December, it was time to get the leaves off the bush, one way or another.  Shasta did her best.

The storm blows out for a few days...

And a surviving rose blossom reaches for the sun.

That's pretty much a retrospective of 2012 here at Rancho Roseberry.  Everyone here wishes you a Merry Christmas or Happy other Holiday that you hold as special this time of year.  We may not have it all here, but we have it pretty good!

Chick, chick, chicks!!

We've had two bantam hens sitting on eggs.  A couple weeks back I discovered we had viable eggs QUITE by unhappy mistake.  I took the rest of the eggs back to the nest.  Another batch came in from another nest where I knew the other hen was setting.  They went back to the hen house too.  About a week ago, we realized we had two little yellow fuzzy balls running around with one of the tiny black hens...two rather large fuzzy balls...omgosh! She hatched the Buff Orpington eggs!!  The little gal above was still setting on her clutch.  A couple days ago, this is what I found when I went out to check...there are 4 tiny chicks in the photo, but there were a total of 6 little bantam babies (we have two roosters and they don't interfere with each others' hens) beneath her!

Yesterday, one of the white eggs hatched, and we now have a tiny yellow chick in with the colorful ones.  We're doing our level best to let Mothers and Mother Nature handle the situation, but we're prepared to intervene if we have problems. 

There is some mystery to this whole thing...  We had two little Buff chicks...then we only had one...that I could find.  The next day, there were 2 again...then there was one...  Now there are 2 again...one acting not as old nor as strong as the other chick.  Mama tends to leave the littler one behind some...so we "help" it get where it needs to be to stay safe...like in the hen house with Mama!  I didn't find any newly broken shells in the hen house, so I'm not sure where this new face came from!  I'm sure it's a Buff baby...and it looks much younger than the other chick...and I wish I'd marked eggs way back when I took them back to their nest!!  Note to self...next time...mark and date them!!

Spring, sloppy, wet, Spring...

The south paddock got too soppy, so we had to move the girls to the north paddock...chest deep in wheat and barley grasses... Yeah. They hated that. The north paddock isn't great for 2 horses, but...it was better than where they were at the time. A few weeks later, it's so sloggy wet up there, I'm sure they both have a bit of thrush setting in.

Shasta has been a problem...she is such a playful, inquisitive creature! She finds her way out of the paddocks if it's at all possible and she's bored. 3 escape episodes later...we got them out of there. They spent the majority of today being passive lawn maintenance...a little trimming, a little fertilizing... I wasn't comfortable leaving them there for the night though. Shasta didn't appreciate Jasmine running through, and struck out at her with a foreleg. I don't think it meant much other than Shasta wasn't comfortable with her surroundings yet, and there was boundless-energy Jasmine...bouncing right in front of her. Silly dog. She grabbed a healthy dose of respect in a hurry though!

A little grooming... A little attention... A little wormer... I can't say that went totally smoothly. I dipped both applicators in molasses, and Shasta took hers fairly well. No big fuss. Willow? Yeah. Right. The last time we did this, it was a bit of a battle, but we got it in her. This time, I thought the molasses would help...and it almost did. She felt that applicator in her mouth and threw her head right up! Okay, she also got as close to bringing her front feet off the ground as she could without doing so... So much for doing things the easy way. I ended up putting a rope on her and over her nose...and still it was a battle. Bruce stepped in to help, and she lifted us both up. Oi. Then...Bruce was tickling her lip and she acted like she had a twitch on her nose...in that wormer went, quick as lightning! Can you say TEAMWORK! *Ü*

The girls are back in the south paddock for tonight. If the weather holds, I'll move them back to the front yard when we get back from Chico. They knocked it down a lot, but they aren't anywhere near finished in there. It will also give their usual paddock a chance to keep catching up and growing.

One thing we both noticed today was the ease involved with catching, haltering and having the horses on lead. They both remember their manners and Willow is really getting much better about being pushy on lead. They both behave much better in Parelli halters than in standard woven halters. After we got them back in the south paddock, I played with them for awhile...rope on, rope off. Caught you....caught you not... I really want this flight thing to die down in Shasta. She's getting better but she's still so nervous about so many things. She had a cute way of telling me she was finished having her mane combed out...she ran off and tossed her head! Silly girls...gotta love them!