A Puppy, Twins, and 10 Months Old

A Puppy
My DH and I have been talking and decided that JB was ready to get a puppy so we surprised him a week and a half ago with a little 8 week old black lab.

Little Gunner is a sweetheart and Callie and him get along great.  Since the pup isn't potty-trained at the moment he is only allow on the tile floor.  JB is responsible for all the messes that Gunner makes and I have to say he has been doing a good job, cleaning up that is!

Twins
We've been suspicious for awhile and on Friday it was confirmed.  Patches our goat gave birth to twin boys!  It was so amazing to watch her give birth and what is even more amazing was we were all home to watch!  You would laugh to know I watched several "live" goat birth videos just so I knew what to expect.  Yes, I know that sounds weird but if my DH was at work when this all happened and something was right I needed to have some clue.

The little guys are so cute but sadly the all white one didn't make it.  He was weaker then the other one and didn't want to nurse so on Saturday my DH and JB were milking Patches and feeding the little one.  When my DH went out Sunday morning to check on the little guy he had died.  It's was sad but at least we have the other one.

10 months
Yes, my baby is 10 months.  She now has 3 teeth (plus a 4th pushing through) on the top and 2 on the bottom.  A week ago Friday she started to crawl, thanks to my dear brother-in-law who tempted her and feed her a bite of his cinnamon roll. (We all predicted he would be the first to feed her sugar.)  She now is all over the place and is starting to pull herself up on things.  I found her the other morning standing in her crib just chatting away to herself.  On the same day she crawled she also said her first word.  No it wasn't mommy or daddy (though she says it but doesn't quite directed it to us) it was "ed-eddy."  Yes, it the name of my in-laws little dog!  She saw him and said "Ed. Ed-dee."  It won't be long before she's talking up a storm!  We sure are having a lot of fun with her!

Check Out Our Chicks

Two weeks ago we got 3 Barred Rock chicks. My DH use to have a one legged Barred Rock hen named Charlie. He use to carry it around all the time. It was his special hen so we decided to get a few Barred Rocks for sentimental reasons. Meet Charlie, Joe, and Henny. (Some of the hens have ended up with boy names! I figure there just nicknames for Charlotte and Josephine! :)


Callie has found them absolutely fascinating. She will stand there looking through the hole staring at them or with her head over the top of the box. She doesn't seem to want to hurt them but can't stand to let any peeping go unattended.

On Friday we got 6 more chicks. This time they are Black Sex Links. The Barred Rock seem to get along just fine. See they're all sleeping. Isn't it amazing how much the Barred Rocks have grown in just two weeks!

A Little Treasure

Recently I went with my sister-in-love to an antique/junk store and I came across this fun little treasure.




I have always grown up with a Bundt pan but after getting married I didn't have one for my new kitchen. This little pan was a steal at $3.50. Upon getting the pan I had to make something in it so knowing that my hubby likes German Chocolate cake I gave it a go.



I'll admit that I used a box cake mix but I did make the frosting from scratch. The frosting was a little runnier then it should have been but it still drizzled nicely on the cake! I was so proud of my little cake!




One would think that the story ends there and it should have as I photographed my completed cake and set it on the table.


But...what I don't have a picture of is my dear dog Callie with paws on the table licking the frosting off the side of the cake. Apparently Callie likes the frosting just as much as my DH. Fortunately she didn't get that far and I was able to cut 1/4 of the cake off and we still ate the rest. Callie has only done that one other time and that was when we first got her. All I can say is the smell of frosting was to much of a temptation for her!


Oh, and my DH really liked the cake even with 1/4 of it missing and the frosting being more of a drizzle than it should have been! :)

Callie

I guess it has been awhile since I last said anything about our Callie dog. Well, she is officially ours. We signed all the papers and had her spayed about 3 weeks ago. We are discovering more and more what a sweet dog she is! She has a wonderful personality. She likes to be with people and play with other dogs. She seems to enjoy following little kids around (part of that herding instinct). She is great on walks, never wandering to far and seems to look forward to wrestling with my husband every evening when he gets home. Overall I would say Callie is a very warm dog. Both of us are so glad that we got her and that she has turned out to be such a great dog.

I will say that the week after we got back from our trip was a rough one with her! She peeped on the floor almost every night, run back down to my in-laws house 3 times, and came into the carpeted area of the house (where she isn't allowed) and chewed on several newspapers. By the end of the week my DH and I were a little fed up with her behavior. (On the cute side with all of this she found the basket in the living room with all the stuff animals and took each of them and set them on her bed. She's an interesting one.)

This week she has been much better. My DH and I have been working really hard on praising and giving her a treat when she potties outside. We started working on that this past Saturday and I'm happy to report that she hasn't had an accident yet. (Of course now that I haven't said that she'll probably pee on the floor tonight.) Another thing that has helped is if my DH or I wake up in the middle of the night we'll let her out. I really hope this continues to work because she is a much more enjoyable dog to be around when she does her business outside.

As for wandering down the in-laws to visit their dogs...I've been trying to go down there every few days so that Callie can play with them but then there is a time to leave. We are trying to teach her that its okay to go with when we take her but she isn't to go on her own. So far it seems to be working but I don't think she has quite mastered that one yet!

Yesterday I had a lot of fun with her while I was raking leaves. She is so funny to watch. She'll go to the back deck and then all of a sudden come running as fast as she can to the front yard where I'm raking leaves and jump over the pile and then quickly turns around want to be play. I couldn't help but laugh. She looked so cute and was so playful!

I know I'm really bias but she sure is an adorably cute dog!!!

Cally

We have finally decided on the name Cally for our new dog. Cally is a shorten version for a local Indians tribe. Both my DH and I think the name fits her better than Sioux. It has been amazing to see how much better she is doing since we picked her up from the pound on Saturday. She now walks up and down the deck by herself. (That is something that we have had to teach her to do.) Since Saturday she has had three accidents on the tile floor but yesterday and today she did both of her businesses outside. Believe me this lady is very happy about that!!! The biggest change is she is going on walks with me off leash up in a field by our house. She will either walk right next to me or go out a little distance and then stop and wait for me to catch up to her. Yesterday a very loud motorcyclist drove by and she freaked out and took off running. She disappeared out of sight and I wasn't sure how far she had run. I called her and whistled for her and a few seconds later her head comes around the corner and she looks at me a little sheepishly. I called her again and she came running up to me!!! She has made huge improvements from when she was in the kennel!!

It has been funny to watch because Cally really hasn't been taught that much. We are had to or are having to try and teach her how to go up and down steps, eat in a bowl, walk on a leash, check to see if the glass door is open before walking through it, how to come when she is called, that its okay to bark when someone comes into the yard etc. Poor thing really does have much of a clue in some of the small things.

We did have one scare on Monday when Cally met Monk and Jasper. Jasper has been sticking his nose over the fence trying to meet Cally. I've been trying to keep an eye on that because my DH did say Jasper really doesn't like dogs. Well Monday afternoon Cally was in the corral with my DH and I as we were moving chicken into a larger coop. Cally had no fear of Monk and Jasper. They were sniffing her and she was sniffing them. The problem came when she brushed up against Monk's back leg and he kicked out. That scared Cally who accidentally ran into Jasper's back legs and he kicked. Cally caught that one and she took off running. Well, Jasper then took off after her. I started yelling for Cally and Jasper while running after them. (Let me tell you the two of them can run fast!) They took off into the other corral where Cally finally turned and barked at Jasper but by that time Jasper "ran" her over and she sat on her back legs yelping. By this time my DH, who had been in the chicken coop when the incident happened, came running and scared off Jasper and picked up our poor Cally. (Apparently if Cally had run to us or not run at all Jasper won't have gone after her but when she took off running he thinks it as a game.) We were both so scared that she was hurt real bad. My DH looked her over and on her back hind leg she has several hoof size pieces of fur missing. The whole incident literally scared the pee out of her but fortunately nothing was broken. She was just shaking like a leaf as DH carried her out of the corral. We were able to get her to walk on it and except for being scared she seems fine. We are so glad that, that is all that happened!!! And of course my DH and I thought this whole thing might sent her back into her shyness but it surprisingly didn't!!! We almost wonder if it bonded us even more because she sees us as someone that will protect her!!! Cally now growls and barks at Monk and Jasper whenever they come close to the fence she is at. I think she now has a fear and strong dislike for them!

She really is a sweet dog and we're glad that we brought her home!!!