Jest Another Day in Pear-A-Dice - Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm in Alberta

[Wisher1000]

Hey, I didn't say MINE were correct! I was just reporting.

 

[hennible]

Mine were right on the money

 

[hennible]

And mistymountain is obviously "glove"

 

[CanuckBock]

Elegant
Prey
Peaceful
Cures (part of Insecure)

Hmmmmmm....

Hey, I didn't say MINE were correct! I was just reporting.

Now, now Wisher.....yours made me smile the very mostest!

Wishing and PRAYing...PRAYing and wishing...​

Now, now taint dat one and the same even if was spelt wrong--sounds the same to moi!

Tara

 

[Northie]

The bad thing about snow, cold, cold temps. and high wind chills is, by the time I get suited up; snow pants, thick socks, high boots, parka, mittens with heat insert,  face mask etc. THEN I need to use the bathroom.  The other bad thing   after starting to shovel,  the nose runs,  if you take off your mitten to blow your nose - your hand might fall off.  I know you can get goggles with wipers but, what about noses???  Somebody invent something.  Maybe you'll become rich.

... Have you ever seen the gloves with a patch of fur on the back of the hand in addition to a cuff around the wrist... One of my friends parents showed us what that was for when I was a kid... they never had a runny nose in the cold... I would also NEVER have touched those gloves! Eeeeeeeew!!!

 

[Northie]

Patient happy elegant and genuine... I'll take that.

 

[drumstick diva]

That was fun, sent it on to family wonder what they'll pick

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

Hmm, I am starting to wonder about these side margin ads? One for product testers (not likely!) for beauty products (again, not likely!) but the one for funeral home and cremation...yeh, what is it trying to tell me?

Bet nobody believed me when I said I played the spoons...Dory Dan from Newfoundland...yeh, I do, tis true!

January 14, 2015 ​

Play the spoons and the radio, stereo, etc...dat's about as musical as I get...my sis is an opera singer and can play the piano by ear...yeh, I never got the musical gene in the family! My sister cartoons and I do lots of artsy fartsy things...so we do share that gene in the family.


Glad everyone enjoyed the silly hidden word puzzle. Something fun to do as an inside winterish activity, eh...

So besides some of us topping up our wood supplies over winter...

Not much left of this birch pile - you can see that Rick is already piling up snow in its absence! ​

What does everyone here figure is a winter hobby or activity they like doing (besides making and eating up good foods to keep warm!)...I can show you a few I have had over the years...

Tanned hides...

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This an Elk hide...

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I completely tanned it but let it dry because I did not have time (or energies) to soften it. Merely have to moisten it back up and away I could go! For now I have just folded it away and keep it dry.

I liked tanning so much I had my faller father bring me over a fleshing beam...makes me grin...when I was not grodying it up...my boy was using it as a slide on his tree house. No worries, I did the laundry...

so watz a little fleshing fats to help one take a slide faster?

Other preserving...sheepskins.

January 2015

Circling the wagons!​

Laughed at Fixins, told her to lay down and course being a dog, she had to circle the wagons to make sure it was good enough to lay on...give it a few sniffs...yeh, this is sheep...I can cushy cush on this...nice mat to lay on even on the snows! Princess Warrior approves!

January 2015

Romanov/Dorset crosses, not my Jacobs - those mats would be bicoloured...these are just white sheepskins.​

Before we had sheeps of our own...I bought two lambs from a local producer (had a good friend I had never met in person coming over from Australia to deliver some Stumpy Tailed Cattle pups--I wanted to spoil her...so far away from home & her fav foods...so I saved her up two big legs of lamb roasts...she cooked them up...far far better than I had ever had...num!) and told the abattoir I wanted the hides to make sheep mats for the dogs.

Funny story too...So I go to the butchers to get the boxes of lamb...with the dogs in tow and stop at the local city to buy up some new dog beds fer the dog dogs....then head off for home...me, the dogs sitting on beds atop the frozen lamb boxes...the two kips flapping in the wind strapped to the roof of my vehicle. I musta been some sight to behold, eh!

So here is the scenario...inside my vehicle I have three dogs, two boxes of lamb (cut, wrapped, labeled, & frozen), I always have a livestock stick and dog harnesses, livestock halters and leads (forever seems I come upon escaped livestock ON the road, so I come prepared to move the beasties OFF roads...bad owners I say!) IN my vehicle. Now recall that I had stopped and pick up the two frozen sheep hides because the butcher did not kill the lambs, the abattoir had (different place), and was heading for home and the thought crosses my mind...a blip that makes me grin from wicked ear to wicked ear.

What if I crashed...I mean not crash & burn but I just crash...crash so bad I can't explain what just happened...

And people show up to examine the wreckage...to figure out what transpired...

Here are three herding dogs and one person with all the paraphernalia to move a flock of sheep strewed about (halters, leads, stock stick...dog collars and whatnots)...AND two boxes of frozen lamb and the two raw hides which were strapped to the top of my vehicle...so like did a vehicle drive up upon a flock of sheep, hit two sheep hard enough to blow them outta their skins (on the roof, eh)...the meat just processed itself, cut, wrapped, labelled, and boxed itself away. Were the three dogs inside the vehicle with three dog beds or lounging on the side of the road on three dog beds, or never mind the dog beds and the three dogs were herding the flock (maybe just the dogs alone herding...one person on scene only)...why aren't more people involved here...am I the driver (someone had to be driving or did the driver run off) or was the one person found there the shepherd, herding the sheep before two got kilt and processed up...who's fault is this mess and what exactly happened...

So this kept me busily amused all the way home--but I am often easily amused, eh!

So back to my winter activities. The one winter before we entered the two Jacob ram's in the local Bighorn parade, I braided up the ram's harnesses and other complimentary items that winter.

Jan 2015
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Ordered the cord (great prices from fishing net suppliers!), many of the brass buckles and snaps I found at a western store that was closing (nice discounts...can get pricey and I think Tandy Leather (nfi) wanted like $7 or $8 a buckle...no matter). The one brass bell I had forever and the other one, a sheep one, I ordered up from the Woolgrower's Co-op (nfi). I did order up some special adornments like the Lone Star decoration from Tandy I think it was...been a while...I think I did this project winter of 2004...forget, time flies when you are having FUN times!

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Leather Ram halters and leads - great technique for making dog leashes too



Bells with straps for the Rams' necks - bell on the left is the antique one



One harness for one of the rams...
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I laughed at Fixins because I had her pose but not before she smelled the air...

Is that sheeps?? I smell sheeps! I don't see NO sheeps but indeed...there are SHEEP smells!

During the winter I also take alot of photos of my birds...in summer holy moly it is hard enough to find the time to stop and smell the roses, let alone pose up the birds and whatnots. So I grab a bunch of birds and plop them on the rail outside and click away...

January 14, 2015
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I have more time in the winter to look over photos and find funnies in them. Like this one and the one below...

"THE SKY IS FALLING!!!" ​

"What? The sky is falling?? Really???" (lookit the idiot look on the face of the roo??)​

I take photos and I think about the expression of feather colours, try & decipher what makes the birds the colour patterns they are...

January 12, 2015
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These two above are bantam Wyandotte males...the one on the left is one dose of cuckoo/barred (B/b"+") and the lighter one on the right is double dose (B/B), single dose of recessive white (C"+"/c - see the white in the wing primary on his left opened wing there?), and he is blue too (Bl/bl"+"). I look at the off colours in the plumage and try to decide is the male on the right just autosomal red, is it sunlight bleaching or miscolours from eating corn or greens (not likely, the male on the left eats the same diet, stays in the same conditions), or is he impure Silver/gold? It don't matter on these two boys...no known variety of any recognized one I know of...just fun colour messes of rainbows to learn and study colour genetics by. Fun things.

I record young stocks getting older and examine certain items I have captured and things still not there in the strains that I do want...things I want to work toward eliminating in a line...just thoughtful observable things. Oogling the bird birds.

January 14, 2015

Booted White Feathered Bantams and helper Dog Fixins

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Dark skinned White feathers on left (breeder birds for putting one dose of recessive white in the MDF variety), light skinned White feathered on the left (SOP compliant ones for this variety).

January 14, 2015

Booted MDF Feathered Bantams and helper Dog Fixins
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Three (trio, girl/girl/boy) dark skinned on left, middle one is my half dark foot with light toes/half light footed male (him below), three (trio, boy/girl/girl) light skinned on right.

January 14, 2015

Half half boy...​

January 14, 2015

I think the Booteds are gonna drop a bomb on the dog's head..."Ready, Set...BOMBS AWAY!"
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The Booteds heard she loses it over roasted chickens...they have their reasons for being concerned..."Watch that Fixins...she ever finds out WE are what taste SO good...we are in deep deep troubles!"

I have other hobbies too, but things like wood carving and stain glass...I do some of that outside, so not so conducive to winter season.

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First piece I ever did...it is large...over two feet wide!​

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Cream etched the eyes on the wolf...the area between the eagle's wings below...nice combination of two hobbies. ​

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I designed all the stain glass pieces except the first one. Victorian pattern and I did that one because glass usually busts at the v sections. So it was a challenge to see if I could master the cutting of the glass for that. Rick made a wooden light for over the kitchen sink to display this piece...looked real nice in our first home.

So what you guys do in the middle of winter to keep yerselves amused and outta trouble?

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

Edit...can't type today--I can spell real words in the English language I tink...so waz a SOCK stick??? Yeh...knitting is next...

 

[scottcaddy]

This winter I stand in awe of your handywork!!

other times I just fix stuff that I set aside for the slow times, and plan for warm times.
Scott

 

[Lacy Blues]

I've been doing some quilting. I'm involved in a swap group that keeps me hopping most of the time.

Also, rearranging pens and figuring out who are the breeders to keep and what does each one need in order to be a better bird?