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So still catching up on here...what's up in Pear-A-Dice...tons!
Got my Taj Mahal ornaments all out and lined up outside the Mandarin home.
In NO rush to take off winter covers...we got snow last year, May 6th...so me being good and waiting.
Fish pond is on the go for certain now...spending lots of sit down relax and contemplate what got done that day and what is to do the next, and the next and...
The water level in this contraption is now drained off...spring is here officially when it is dry.
Leaves on trees are busting out all over the place...
Yeh, just in time for a spring storm to weight them on over and bend them...with snow. The Rodeo parade, long weekend in May always has frozen water of some kind falling from the skies...snow or hail or combinations of such.
April 11, 2016
Took off some rotted fence rails down the front driveway. We have rails cut already sitting but some are too short...may be yet another project in the works...like so many are now.
I can just see the six new ewe lambs mouthing up all this new spring growth...nummy
Theft is on a huge increase. Always nice that the locals are stealing from each other...makes total sense that your community should suffer because you happened to live too large for your britches and high on the hog is what you think you deserve.
Mailbox station up the road has been moved back to our road. Not sure what that accomplishes past makes our mail an easier target. Come on over, one stop shopping, eh. Whatever...like who ever likes regression when we should be seeing progression.
We moved our mail service to the front of our driveway because about 15, 20 years ago, when the post office in the small town got its mail boxes busted into. We lost a gift card from my MIL that she sent for Christmas that year. Like gift cards suck...anyone that possesses that can cash it in--so virtually a gift card is CASH to the holder. Yeh...the perpetrators were caught, and I seem to recall that it was an insider's job. And there are huge laws and fines against mail theft that were started way back in the Pony Express days...Federal crime with lotsa time behind bars. Oh well, don't bring back the gift card and any sense of security does it!
So we moved our mail delivery to our place out here where we have like four persons picking up their mail. Now with the big box thar...and mail delivery so erratic...I guess we should thank our stars we basically get fliers and junk mail...nothing much of importance via the mail. Well OK, except my seed orders...which BTW, I am now officially on the plant. I will say that for marketing purposes, having a large mail deliver box outside your place will certainly limelight any posters I happen to want to put up to advertise our wares...which may become "fresh tomatoes in rainbow" colours if I am a quarter successful with the plantings coming up.
Hydrating peat as we speak. So begins the process for setting out in the first week of June (or in the cold frame sooner than later). Greenhouse to be tried and tested again this season...should be a BLAST!
Tomatoes and Tomatillos
Got me seeds out, got me tags on the way to being labels...got like twenty-seven types of tomatoes to experiment with this year... We done got from jet black, to zebra striped, to snowwhite, to orange and red blush, funky shapes from plum to ones that grow like a bunch of stuck together grapes (you eat them that way too...tear off a hunk a dunk!) ...to ones harvested as green ones that are long long time keepers (ordered a double order on those ones...expecting good things!) that redden up in like Easter sitting on a bowl on the kitchen counter (we shall see, eh!). Gonna try two plants of each and see how true claims are, what does well here and voila...greenhouse, lunchbox variety and hopefully keepers long into the snow covered winters with good sources of fruitful Vit C...as taste of joy and happiness from a season of wonderment...or that is the plan, of mice and WOman...
March 31 and April 10, 2016 - So like where's the snow & ice gone?
Little more dry time and it will be till time! Yee haw!
Bring on the Sugar Peas and the Dogs that sample them!
Loved my helper dogs and the gardening escapades...
One load of sifted (compost mix of bird & ruminant goo...straw, floor sand = ) delectable DIRT done delivered...bazillions more to go!
The dirt delivery...I am sure the dogs look at me playing in the dirt and don't question the why past...there she goes again...tromp tromp tromp--dirt troll extraordinaire!
Emmy, "You OK...we get concerned over your huffing and puffing...wandering at will and not seeming to have purpose!"
"Just checking on you between bite bite bite each other times."
I come outside the greenhouse to check on the girls to this...
Art of armpit nibbling...exposed!
Next check, see this...
"Is that Lacy under thar? Really Emmy...really?"
Neither one is no angel, or complete devil dog ...yeh...supervision indeed.
Wanted to revisit the first bluebird sighting...now I saw the coloured wings, grabbed my camera and much to my surprise...I had a spotter dog...BIRD DOG...
April 11, 2016, yup, that small "dot" on the wire, top left of photo is indeed a male bluebird...and on the bottom right...is that bird dog spyer...
That be the Lacy, perfect POINTER!
And she's no dummy...she's stealthy and sneaking up ...but then realizes, there's a fence in the way
But them Boobirds ain't no dummies either...this is where the birdy flocked off, eh!
So for the past bit of time, from after the dog show...Rick and I have both been noticing some different behaviours in the girls...they l00k cute and fine, but they have some behaviours that are off.
Ranged from the fact that Emmy was not as keener as she usually is to get the toy tossed first over Lacy.
The dynamic duo of doggers
Dogs look perky and fine, eating good, playing pretty well...nothing too out of the ordinary but the noises...they are a clue!
To the average observer...everything seems in place!
But I know these dogs like I know all my critters, something is off and yeh...
Kennel cough...yup. Last night I called a fellow exhibitor that attended the show too and they said when they were leaving on the Sunday, a lady came up and asked if that person had been washing their hands...kennel cough was making the rounds at the show (thank dog we never showed in November...that version of KC was going pneumonia on lots of exhibitors' dogs--nasty!) . And what a show to have this happen at, eh. Baby Puppy entry was each of the three days. Adults in good health are inconvenienced by the various strains of what is coined "kennel cough" but young pups and older or sick dogs...can have it go to pneumonia and complications. Drat, eh.
Now I am familiar with the Bordetella protocols as they progress over the years. Can't forfeit the whine that "I never knew" because I dang well DO! My first show with a dog, was with Makins, never showed her until she was an adult AND back then, Bordetella was vacced with nose drops and then go back six weeks later for a booster. Which we did (most never did the booster but we sure did!). Got told by the then vet of ours...yer good to go to the show. NOPE! Nada...sweet Makey Makes got kennel cough. Never had the severe form of it (many types, like the human cold) but she had kennel cough and it was off back to that vet and basically they wanted me to buy very expensive cans of rice (good for the tummy type canned dog food) and that was all we could do for her. Blah. I bought one can, figured out it was just rice and cooked for my dogs like I have always done. Makes recovered...kept her on lock down here for three weeks and basically, like the flu shot some of us humans are conned into getting every year...the kennel cough vaccine works on like five or so strains and if what is circulating is not that, your dogs get it. Now not a complete loss perhaps because in both cases from show kennel cough, my dogs have not had the horrifying raspy version and quite frankly, unless you knew these dogs and thought sneezing and snorting was OFF for them normally, you may not even notice anything was a miss. I sure do!
I also hear rumour that humans can get respiratory forms of the dog illness too (zoonosis) and with me having a cold like sickness correlating to the time the girls have appeared off, it does make me ponder if I don't have "kennel cough" too...bwa ha ha...well at least the dogs are not suffering alone, me the decider to show has it on the go too...that or just some illness from being around crowds of humans. Lovely on a stick.
So there be my dilemma...I have shown dogs, sheep, llamas, waterfowl...and in each and every situation, for the dogs, its kennel cough (and thankfully nothing worse but could be if I did not vaccinate for other nasties like parvo, etc.!), for the sheep (anything from Johnnes to OPP, ORF, hoof rot, keds, lice, etc...etc...--just nose to nose contact or even walking over ground recently covered by an ill beast), llamas are ruminants with the same illnesses as all cattle may get, and then the birds...poultry can bring home ILT on wing feathers (if we showed landfowl, we'd choose the US vaccine, the one that does not make carriers out of the ones vaccinated), chronic respiratory from breathing the same air... Mareck's Disease again, from the very air in the same facility you show in...yeh...
BING BANG BOOM....thar goes the fun, eh.
And we had such fun...but there in lies the responsibility...do I show the girls in November...do I risk them maybe getting this other version of kennel cough that made the rounds last NOVEMBER...the one that goes into pneumonia! Well do I??
So have done the full circle and back in 1997, vacced Makins and she got kennel cough at the show anyway...so I showed sheep, llamas, waterfowl and again, all risking illnesses and managed by the skin of my teeth to keep clean flocks, herds, and bevies. Dumb luck, someone looking down and entertaining my stupidity...likely! But so many warning signs are popping up their EVIL ruin yer fun times again. So thought, well the dogs, surely things have improved from 1997 to now...HA HA HA...ding ding ding...not!
I did the same walk about I did with Makins...you vac, you booster this time, no booster so I guess the process has improved on kennel cough preventions but same things. We have that saying, "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice and shame on me!" Totally appropriate! Told my vet we were showing in April and we did the vacs and protcols as per the handbook of preventions. Obviously not good enough.
So the ground has vividly come up and I've hit it hard in a most shameful fashion. How bad the ordeal, talk to me in three weeks when the kennel cough ordeal has run its course and I have hind sight (butt er what?) to look back and say, OK or wretched! I am hoping that the girls merely have a mild form and all that I will see is the snorting and sneezing, the water consumption up (duh...if you are snorting and sneezing, you'll be losing moisture at a faster rate than norm...duh!) and less than stellar Emmy stealing the toys from Lacy constantly.
So how many pounds of flesh will be paid for those ribbons, those CKC points, the ring wins...the not shown in twelve years and take Best in Breed was a stellar day and Lacy's and my son's win the next day as Best Opposite when the were on FIRE...how much cost for those notches on the herding staff?
The blame squarely rests on the choices I made...I know better and yet I can continue to hope for the best...that things improve but well, stay the same is more the honest truth and I have no excuse because I have experienced the down side to exposure...in many a beast and bird.
Do I hang up the lead and show collars, vow not to do this again because the dogs pay for my judgement skills missing the mark. Do I beat myself up for having had fun, for wanting to "run for the roses" with the rest of the big kids and their dogs. Show dogs....should the girls be as Rick would have them safely stay at home...I mean I had five ACDs before, put points on three of the purebreds and even with the two rescues, I drug Stoggar to the shows with the other ACDs because we put a Performance Event Number (PEN) on her as the first ACD in Alberta to have that so she could go to the shows as an Exhibition Dog as per the CKC rules--be there legal and all.
Four outta five ACDs and only Makins got kennel cough and on my first excursion off the starting blocks. Now outta the newest two, both have had one bout--no luck on that but bad. What if the next exposure is terrible, really nasty like at the November show kennel cough strain that made the rounds? Will I be kicking myself that I just HAD to go show them...run silly around the ring a ding and get CKC points towards their championships. Dunno, right now I am as sick negatively on showing as I have ever been but mainly because potentially for the next two weeks, I get to witness the lovely innocent pups endure my decision to show and the consequences that affect them first hand. My fault, no softening up that shame and blame.
Is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all...I bet that could be said about showing your precious creatures and the risks involved in exposing them by virtue of not them having a say in the choice made. Agghhhhhhhhhhhh....no heaven here on Earth...cold hard reality always has a way of setting in and bursting yer bubbles.
Guess I got till like October to decide...risk the girls again in November or not...what you guys figure? I already gave up on showing sheep (Canada's first Grand Champion Ewe, GC Ram, & the 1st placing Ram Lamb), llamas (did OK showing a white llama and we placed in halter classes with our own training and grooming), on poultry (North America's 1st Blue Fawn Call Hen to take Reserve in Breed before that variety was even recognized), and I never did show me goats (but coulda but kinda got overly scared off and quit the show scene all completely)...
So do I give it up on the showing of the dogs now too? Blah...off I go to dunk seeds in peat (ready or not...here we go)...at least maybe there I don't have too many tough decisions to mind my brain with...smokin' pouring outta me tete...my choice affects the girls...no doubt lying to myself on that...my choice to potentially harm the good lil' girl dogs.
I do BTW have Rick's full support in whatever "I" decide. He would never EVER show the girls and that in itself is a blessing unto him and his priorities towards the girls, but he does not own the dogs alone and he tolerates I make choices and he supports my mistakes....along with the successes...right now, support for letting the ball drop is where my mindset is at.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
So still catching up on here...what's up in Pear-A-Dice...tons!
Got my Taj Mahal ornaments all out and lined up outside the Mandarin home.
In NO rush to take off winter covers...we got snow last year, May 6th...so me being good and waiting.
Fish pond is on the go for certain now...spending lots of sit down relax and contemplate what got done that day and what is to do the next, and the next and...
The water level in this contraption is now drained off...spring is here officially when it is dry.
Leaves on trees are busting out all over the place...
Yeh, just in time for a spring storm to weight them on over and bend them...with snow. The Rodeo parade, long weekend in May always has frozen water of some kind falling from the skies...snow or hail or combinations of such.
April 11, 2016
Took off some rotted fence rails down the front driveway. We have rails cut already sitting but some are too short...may be yet another project in the works...like so many are now.
I can just see the six new ewe lambs mouthing up all this new spring growth...nummy
Theft is on a huge increase. Always nice that the locals are stealing from each other...makes total sense that your community should suffer because you happened to live too large for your britches and high on the hog is what you think you deserve.
Mailbox station up the road has been moved back to our road. Not sure what that accomplishes past makes our mail an easier target. Come on over, one stop shopping, eh. Whatever...like who ever likes regression when we should be seeing progression.
We moved our mail service to the front of our driveway because about 15, 20 years ago, when the post office in the small town got its mail boxes busted into. We lost a gift card from my MIL that she sent for Christmas that year. Like gift cards suck...anyone that possesses that can cash it in--so virtually a gift card is CASH to the holder. Yeh...the perpetrators were caught, and I seem to recall that it was an insider's job. And there are huge laws and fines against mail theft that were started way back in the Pony Express days...Federal crime with lotsa time behind bars. Oh well, don't bring back the gift card and any sense of security does it!
So we moved our mail delivery to our place out here where we have like four persons picking up their mail. Now with the big box thar...and mail delivery so erratic...I guess we should thank our stars we basically get fliers and junk mail...nothing much of importance via the mail. Well OK, except my seed orders...which BTW, I am now officially on the plant. I will say that for marketing purposes, having a large mail deliver box outside your place will certainly limelight any posters I happen to want to put up to advertise our wares...which may become "fresh tomatoes in rainbow" colours if I am a quarter successful with the plantings coming up.
Hydrating peat as we speak. So begins the process for setting out in the first week of June (or in the cold frame sooner than later). Greenhouse to be tried and tested again this season...should be a BLAST!
Tomatoes and Tomatillos
Got me seeds out, got me tags on the way to being labels...got like twenty-seven types of tomatoes to experiment with this year... We done got from jet black, to zebra striped, to snowwhite, to orange and red blush, funky shapes from plum to ones that grow like a bunch of stuck together grapes (you eat them that way too...tear off a hunk a dunk!) ...to ones harvested as green ones that are long long time keepers (ordered a double order on those ones...expecting good things!) that redden up in like Easter sitting on a bowl on the kitchen counter (we shall see, eh!). Gonna try two plants of each and see how true claims are, what does well here and voila...greenhouse, lunchbox variety and hopefully keepers long into the snow covered winters with good sources of fruitful Vit C...as taste of joy and happiness from a season of wonderment...or that is the plan, of mice and WOman...
March 31 and April 10, 2016 - So like where's the snow & ice gone?
Little more dry time and it will be till time! Yee haw!
Bring on the Sugar Peas and the Dogs that sample them!
Loved my helper dogs and the gardening escapades...
One load of sifted (compost mix of bird & ruminant goo...straw, floor sand = ) delectable DIRT done delivered...bazillions more to go!
The dirt delivery...I am sure the dogs look at me playing in the dirt and don't question the why past...there she goes again...tromp tromp tromp--dirt troll extraordinaire!
Emmy, "You OK...we get concerned over your huffing and puffing...wandering at will and not seeming to have purpose!"
"Just checking on you between bite bite bite each other times."
I come outside the greenhouse to check on the girls to this...
Art of armpit nibbling...exposed!
Next check, see this...
"Is that Lacy under thar? Really Emmy...really?"
Neither one is no angel, or complete devil dog ...yeh...supervision indeed.
Wanted to revisit the first bluebird sighting...now I saw the coloured wings, grabbed my camera and much to my surprise...I had a spotter dog...BIRD DOG...
April 11, 2016, yup, that small "dot" on the wire, top left of photo is indeed a male bluebird...and on the bottom right...is that bird dog spyer...
That be the Lacy, perfect POINTER!
And she's no dummy...she's stealthy and sneaking up ...but then realizes, there's a fence in the way
But them Boobirds ain't no dummies either...this is where the birdy flocked off, eh!
So for the past bit of time, from after the dog show...Rick and I have both been noticing some different behaviours in the girls...they l00k cute and fine, but they have some behaviours that are off.
Ranged from the fact that Emmy was not as keener as she usually is to get the toy tossed first over Lacy.
Then the noises started up...the snorting, the sneezing...I thought, "Hmm...spring type pollens (they ARE from another country originally, eh) perhaps from all the trees coming into bud, but not...drinking more water...but it's warmed up some...nope, not that...and any time there was excitement...the snorting and sneezing from both gals. Could not put my finger on it but yesterday...I have drawn my conclusion.
The dynamic duo of doggers
To the average observer...everything seems in place!
But I know these dogs like I know all my critters, something is off and yeh...
Kennel cough...yup. Last night I called a fellow exhibitor that attended the show too and they said when they were leaving on the Sunday, a lady came up and asked if that person had been washing their hands...kennel cough was making the rounds at the show (thank dog we never showed in November...that version of KC was going pneumonia on lots of exhibitors' dogs--nasty!) . And what a show to have this happen at, eh. Baby Puppy entry was each of the three days. Adults in good health are inconvenienced by the various strains of what is coined "kennel cough" but young pups and older or sick dogs...can have it go to pneumonia and complications. Drat, eh.
Now I am familiar with the Bordetella protocols as they progress over the years. Can't forfeit the whine that "I never knew" because I dang well DO! My first show with a dog, was with Makins, never showed her until she was an adult AND back then, Bordetella was vacced with nose drops and then go back six weeks later for a booster. Which we did (most never did the booster but we sure did!). Got told by the then vet of ours...yer good to go to the show. NOPE! Nada...sweet Makey Makes got kennel cough. Never had the severe form of it (many types, like the human cold) but she had kennel cough and it was off back to that vet and basically they wanted me to buy very expensive cans of rice (good for the tummy type canned dog food) and that was all we could do for her. Blah. I bought one can, figured out it was just rice and cooked for my dogs like I have always done. Makes recovered...kept her on lock down here for three weeks and basically, like the flu shot some of us humans are conned into getting every year...the kennel cough vaccine works on like five or so strains and if what is circulating is not that, your dogs get it. Now not a complete loss perhaps because in both cases from show kennel cough, my dogs have not had the horrifying raspy version and quite frankly, unless you knew these dogs and thought sneezing and snorting was OFF for them normally, you may not even notice anything was a miss. I sure do!
I also hear rumour that humans can get respiratory forms of the dog illness too (zoonosis) and with me having a cold like sickness correlating to the time the girls have appeared off, it does make me ponder if I don't have "kennel cough" too...bwa ha ha...well at least the dogs are not suffering alone, me the decider to show has it on the go too...that or just some illness from being around crowds of humans. Lovely on a stick.
And we had such fun...but there in lies the responsibility...do I show the girls in November...do I risk them maybe getting this other version of kennel cough that made the rounds last NOVEMBER...the one that goes into pneumonia! Well do I??
So have done the full circle and back in 1997, vacced Makins and she got kennel cough at the show anyway...so I showed sheep, llamas, waterfowl and again, all risking illnesses and managed by the skin of my teeth to keep clean flocks, herds, and bevies. Dumb luck, someone looking down and entertaining my stupidity...likely! But so many warning signs are popping up their EVIL ruin yer fun times again. So thought, well the dogs, surely things have improved from 1997 to now...HA HA HA...ding ding ding...not!
I did the same walk about I did with Makins...you vac, you booster this time, no booster so I guess the process has improved on kennel cough preventions but same things. We have that saying, "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice and shame on me!" Totally appropriate! Told my vet we were showing in April and we did the vacs and protcols as per the handbook of preventions. Obviously not good enough.
So the ground has vividly come up and I've hit it hard in a most shameful fashion. How bad the ordeal, talk to me in three weeks when the kennel cough ordeal has run its course and I have hind sight (butt er what?) to look back and say, OK or wretched! I am hoping that the girls merely have a mild form and all that I will see is the snorting and sneezing, the water consumption up (duh...if you are snorting and sneezing, you'll be losing moisture at a faster rate than norm...duh!) and less than stellar Emmy stealing the toys from Lacy constantly.
The blame squarely rests on the choices I made...I know better and yet I can continue to hope for the best...that things improve but well, stay the same is more the honest truth and I have no excuse because I have experienced the down side to exposure...in many a beast and bird.
Do I hang up the lead and show collars, vow not to do this again because the dogs pay for my judgement skills missing the mark. Do I beat myself up for having had fun, for wanting to "run for the roses" with the rest of the big kids and their dogs. Show dogs....should the girls be as Rick would have them safely stay at home...I mean I had five ACDs before, put points on three of the purebreds and even with the two rescues, I drug Stoggar to the shows with the other ACDs because we put a Performance Event Number (PEN) on her as the first ACD in Alberta to have that so she could go to the shows as an Exhibition Dog as per the CKC rules--be there legal and all.
Four outta five ACDs and only Makins got kennel cough and on my first excursion off the starting blocks. Now outta the newest two, both have had one bout--no luck on that but bad. What if the next exposure is terrible, really nasty like at the November show kennel cough strain that made the rounds? Will I be kicking myself that I just HAD to go show them...run silly around the ring a ding and get CKC points towards their championships. Dunno, right now I am as sick negatively on showing as I have ever been but mainly because potentially for the next two weeks, I get to witness the lovely innocent pups endure my decision to show and the consequences that affect them first hand. My fault, no softening up that shame and blame.
Is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all...I bet that could be said about showing your precious creatures and the risks involved in exposing them by virtue of not them having a say in the choice made. Agghhhhhhhhhhhh....no heaven here on Earth...cold hard reality always has a way of setting in and bursting yer bubbles.
Guess I got till like October to decide...risk the girls again in November or not...what you guys figure? I already gave up on showing sheep (Canada's first Grand Champion Ewe, GC Ram, & the 1st placing Ram Lamb), llamas (did OK showing a white llama and we placed in halter classes with our own training and grooming), on poultry (North America's 1st Blue Fawn Call Hen to take Reserve in Breed before that variety was even recognized), and I never did show me goats (but coulda but kinda got overly scared off and quit the show scene all completely)...
So do I give it up on the showing of the dogs now too? Blah...off I go to dunk seeds in peat (ready or not...here we go)...at least maybe there I don't have too many tough decisions to mind my brain with...smokin' pouring outta me tete...my choice affects the girls...no doubt lying to myself on that...my choice to potentially harm the good lil' girl dogs.
I do BTW have Rick's full support in whatever "I" decide. He would never EVER show the girls and that in itself is a blessing unto him and his priorities towards the girls, but he does not own the dogs alone and he tolerates I make choices and he supports my mistakes....along with the successes...right now, support for letting the ball drop is where my mindset is at.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
