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

[Wisher1000]

I don't want it cancelled, I want my book! I'm hoping after the Christmas madness it will get sorted out and shipped.

 

[ronott1]

I don't want it cancelled, I want my book! I'm hoping after the Christmas madness it will get sorted out and shipped.

I hope so too!

 

[bamadude]

Amazon is a jungle

 

[Lacy Blues]

Ok, I don't think I'm going to be able to catch up on this thread. If I ever try to go back and read it all, just a note to myself to start on page 27 and stop at page 42. 15 pages behind on this thread is a tremendous amount of reading. Hope I didn't miss anything hugely important!

 

[drumstick diva]

Tara love your holiday decorations especially those on the flag pole. I notice Fixins didn't get any garland ? An oversight or won't she permit it?

 

[bamadude]

Why did u name it fixins?

 

[drumstick diva]

Fixins is not an "IT"

show some respect for the great lady.

 

[lularat]

Tara, you make food look sooo good! Fixins appears to be watching her back in those pictures....probably making sure you don't sneak up and wrap her in garland.

 

[CanuckBock]

I don't want it cancelled, I want my book! I'm hoping after the Christmas madness it will get sorted out and shipped.

I have used Amazon maybe once and found their service quick and efficient. I too hope you get the book...it is a wealth of knowledge on lots of interesting breeds...besides the Campines!

Ok, I don't think I'm going to be able to catch up on this thread. If I ever try to go back and read it all, just a note to myself to start on page 27 and stop at page 42. 15 pages behind on this thread is a tremendous amount of reading. Hope I didn't miss anything hugely important!

Uh yeh...

Thanksgiving had just finished, harvested some more garden produce, Rick changed the starter cord in the rototiller, did some more work on the Parking Building and put red metal up, tidy up for immanent snows to come and stay...Rick working on some more truck items, covered quite a bit on genetics (e-series being our soup base; chicken, fish, pork, beef, lamb...), some gender items, trihybrids, that Punnett Squares are your friend in genetics...Pearl the Black Swan gave us six eggs, young birds getting along nicely...occasional loser lap trips to cities, food--lots of food, visits with family, tossing dawg toys, clicks of critters being well uh, critters...and that is all off page 27...trips to get provisions for the year; from bedding to whole grains and bagged rations...more harvesting, more getting ready for winter...more clearing out pens, barn skidding, changing water buckets to heated ones, tucky tucky stuff...general living here in Pear-A-Dice I guess... discussed getting three pencils in the Parti feathers (woot!), Boo dilution, photos of bored and nodding off chooks, more about trucks and the ducks (FTD), clucks and gobbles, have a health issue (nothing major just there) that has still not been resolved (surgery, ex-rays, ultrasound, blood tests, blah blah blah to be told all is NORMAL? and yet I don't feel normal...fur moi that is! Have another appointment day before Christmas to find out "what now?")...and on and on...jest having FUN I guess...

Tara love your holiday decorations especially those on the flag pole. I notice Fixins didn't get any garland ? An oversight or won't she permit it?

Ah my Dear...Fixins will get a garland jest like Foamers will...on Christmas Day when the kid comes by and we feast upon turkey and dig into our stockings I do up and bust open the silly Kinder surprises (nfi)...eat good food, enjoy good company, and laugh at the dogs, strewing bits of nasty coloured plastic tinsely crud all over the place.

Fixins, she permits the garland donning jest fine. She even wears a goofy I am loved grin from ear to ear...the dogs know that when out comes the shiny chokers, there is sure to be turkalurk gravy in the din din bowls that night! LOL

Got photos over the years of the dogs in glittery garlands but can't remember where I stashed them. Dog photos to me are sorta like the grandparent kid photos...not everyone is enchanted with seeing the first burp, the first fart, the first roll over, the first yada yada. Grounds to run screaming ACK into the distance...

So DD, you'll have to wait till it IS Christmas fur real and I can click some pics of Fixins and Foamers with their silly Christmas get ups all furred on.

Why did u name it fixins?

Cowboy Poetry recital​

Western Red Neck themed...

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Rick picks the handles and they stick well.

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Rick does though, not always get to use his first choice...he wanted to call Stoggar Skillet...I could just not find it in me to be hollering, "Come Skillet, COME!"

June 2009 - Five Australian Cattle Dogs​

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MAKINS - "Please pass me my makins..." What a cowpoke uses to make up his cigarettes; a pouch with rolling papers and tobacco, lighter too.

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Being a blue/black/&tan ACDog...she also looks like a cigarette...fur is grey ash, bits of black where it burns, red tongue for lit tip, tan coloured tobacco...yeh, cigarette coloured fur sure!


STOGGAR - Rick had a boss man back in the ancient day when jobs had to get done and people did not always have high regard for HOW it was done or how SAFE it was completed...just that it got done! Use of things like dynamite, equipment NOT designed for certain purposes, and long long tedious hours...remember, it was back in the day!

For whatever reason...the boss use to yell at the men and use the word "stoggar" alot besides much embellishments of foul language. "Go stoggar this and that away!" He used it as a noun too...calling the men "Stoggars." So when we rescued Stogs, Rick knew we could never ask her to be serious about anything much...she would have had a nervous break down if we pressured her...so she got labelled "Stoggar" which is a term used for a rather nice but useless hired hand.

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As a rescue from the kill shelter having whelped a litter of nine pups, she had a very rough start but turned out she did nicely here. She still had issues but she did thrive here and have a good time as we did with having her here.

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HYBLADE - What a lazy grader person is accused of ... rolling along the road, blade high, doing nothing much at all...heh heh heh...

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Intimidating as all heck...but HyBlade was a real boob. He would try to get away with murder and all I had to do was call him on it...and he'd behave, sorta! Always ready to act the bad boy if given an inch! My avatar at this moment is of my two boys during Christmas...I'll be changing it so, here it is.

MY boys!​

Rick named our red speckled boy HyBlade...he even named his truck AFTER his boy dog.

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The only male dog to be hen pecked by all the girl dogs.

July 2000 - even Makins used his softy butt as a pillow... ​

HyBlade would bull doze all the girls, dog bodies flying when it was play time... Yeh, he mighta got the ball by blasting past all the girls but on the return back...man oh man did he PAY.

2002 Feb - Four dogs standing ON the yoke which is now upright at the front gates ​

All four girl dogs hanging off his face--making him scream like a school girl and drop the ball, for which Fixins would pick up and return with the most smug of looks on her face..."Showed HIM!" There were times where I had to tell all the girls DOWN and throw the ball...so HyBlade could return it to me...poor boy...poor poor picked on boy!

I use to talk to him about how unfair the girls were to him and he'd chime in for all he was worth in his booming barks and howls..."Bow wow WOW...they are SO mean to me!" If you look in the photo above, Fixins is just about to give him a "what for"...just because she's the baby and he's the boy! He's kinda already leaning into her...expecting that if he is this close to her...someone's gotta get a biting...

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FIXINS - FOOD!!! Food glorious food. What does the word Fixins mean...it is what you find any good cow poke a makin' to put in your gullet. Fixins...fixing up some grits and bits for the guts.

Lippy Princess Warrior, rotten to the core...she was the baby and still is and doncha forget it!​

I don't need to say too much about Fixins...she's pretty well spoken about here on this thread...always something about Fixins going about.

STYRA FOAM - She is another rescue dog. When we got her outta jail (she was a bone rack...hip bones poking thru...she was like a caged beasty...I find the ACDs do wretched in the shelters...pacing, jumping, too much energy to be confined and in with the horror of all that entails...they can shut down and go deep, but end up with major baggage from that for a whole lifetime), she would run, run and run and run and run....we had the land and the triple perimeter fences to let her do just that...safely and contained under our watchful eye.

Is that marking a heart or Mickey Mouse ears...??? Does it matter to Foam Dome???​

For the first few months, she could not run with the other four dogs...she thought the game was BITE the other dogs and well, yeh...Cattle Dogs don't take kindly to getting bit. All fair to be the one biting but not the receiver! So we had Foamy run outside the main ram pasture when it was dog time to play. She ran so much she foamed at the mouth...great big gobs of white foam. Rick took one look at her the first time she ran and called her "Styra" as in Styrafoam....she was so giddy and playful, foolish and excessively happy to be here...the name suits her to a T.

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Another rescue...SPCA manager was retiring and I got the call..."can you swing by and see this gal...we have had her for way longer than we should and I am retiring...can yah come by?" Yeh, yeh...sure...like sure...and so there has not been a serious moment in Styra Foam's life...ever since...forever and ever...happily EVER after, eh?

Styra plays with all the dogs...
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Even anti-social Fixins and her play....under supervision mind you. Every so often Foamy forgets herself (too much fun?) and makes a cheap shot to try and bite Fixins. That will go over like a lead balloon destined to the emerg office for dogs...can we say major VET BILL to stitch both girls back up. So play time, but only EVER supervised.

Foam has long ago gotten over her must bite other dogs when toy tossing goes on...sorta...and dog time is now dog time with her included running with the pack...a pack of two dogs now. Two from the original five.

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Makes me fell kinda old...but then again, time flies when you are having fun...right?

Fixins is not an "IT"

show some respect for the great lady.

No worries DD...

Tara, you make food look sooo good! Fixins appears to be watching her back in those pictures....probably making sure you don't sneak up and wrap her in garland.

Winter = comfort food...yes, wonderful need for more calories...hee hee...

She's actually quite pleasant about the "dress up the dogs" thing. No where as good as her mother was...Makins did the "Cow Jumps Over the Moon" skit for the kids (Fixins would EAT kids!)...but she don't complain too much.

GARLAND on the neckers = Turkey Gravy in the dinner bowls! ​

I took my sewing skills and went to the dogs...totally into fabricating costumes for the dogs!​

The kid (my boy is over 30...so some kid!) just sighs a GREAT big sigh of relief that about the time he was at that age where Mom dressing him up was jest not kewl any more...he was SO happy for the dogs to draw the focus AWAY from him. He loves them dogs EVER so much for saving him from a fate worse than death...

"Go to the dogs...yes Mom...dogs adore the costumes...now away you go...yes! Yes the pink pom poms for teats on the udder are smashing...jest like the rat brand on the hip...yes, Mom...very cute...yes..."

Ralph Sockman & Leo Muir:
I am very glad I had a son...I am NO girly girl and not sure the world needs more women like me... Rick was helpful with when I needed to let go of the boy...a boy has to become a man and yet, the best men I know of have somewhat of a woman's gentleness which is a sign to me of great strength. Tough as nails but with a soft interior for those they love and kindness to the ones that need to be helped out. That is a man and there is a time to let a boy go and become the man he needs to be.

Besides, I had the dogs to fall back on...fall on and torture...heh heh heh! Jest like my bus kids...they got the Christmas T-shirt...the light em up antlered Fudd Hat...the string of mini lights on my neckalace...and the Christmas gifties to the younger ones. Yeh...got me them BUS KIDS to torment with my bus decorated and such. Dee dee dee...dancing dog, dancing cow, two dancing ducks...yeh...twelve days of Christmas to count down to holidays... count down the days to Christmas...oh the fun stuff...


So got a very nice Christmas card from the bus kids...


Purdy nifty, eh?

A nice way to breeze into holidays...while I am off enjoying the season, I will feel warm and fuzzy thoughts for the whole duration of the time off. How nice a gift is that then??

So some wise words of wisdom and duly note who is saying it! Nice lines but even nicer from whom it is quoted.

Helen Keller:


Gotta fly, got a ton of fun things to go get back too...and no Scott...have not forgotten the pheasant item...work in progress AND I do have some fun gender photos (purses and wallets away!) to post that I have taken...but all in good time. Time is flying for what fun one is having...whee hee hee...fun stuff...

Doggone & Chicken UP!

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

 

[bamadude]

Ha ha haaa