I had planned to take the pups out to romp in the woods this afternoon and take a few pictures of them. But it’s snowing and cold right now, so I settled for snapping a few shots of them in the house. I have to tell you, that was not easy. Getting on the floor around here results in being bombarded in puppies. I did manage to get a few shots of them when they didn’t have their faces right in the camera.
Everything is a chew toy to them – especially to Dolly.
Diesel likes to chew on Dolly best of all.
And I included this last picture so you can see Diesel’s eyes – they are really pretty, and depending on the lighting they can be blue, green, or hazel. Mostly their just adorable though and this picture doesn’t do them justice.
Last night the pups slept all night long. Unfortunately, we didn’t sleep much at all because we woke up every hour on the hour thinking “They’re going to want to go out any moment now.” When we got up at 5:30AM we had to wake them up to go outside and potty. They are really doing great with the potty training. And I’m keeping my fingers crossed that sleeping through the night wasn’t just a fluke.
Just a quick update on Duke’s frostbitten comb – the smaller back points have fallen off and that portion looks extremely healthy right now. He still has three larger points that are black, and they look to me as if they will fall off very shortly. But don’t feel bad for Duke. He has a heaping pile of self confidence and isn’t even slightly fazed that his comb is messed up, or that he has black backhoe grease all down his neck, or that his tail feathers look funky. Duke is nothing, if not self confident.
You may remember that I’ve mentioned I thought six of my hens were in molt. Well, I talked to my cousin Julie (who has had chickens forever) and then emailed her some pictures of them, and she informed me that my hens are not molting. They have “rooster tracks”. In other words, my roosters are pulling/ripping their feathers out during mating. It really breaks my heart. My little Phoenix hens are bald as apples right now. They all look just awful. After talking with Julie and reading her email, it doesn’t sound like there’s much I can do about. I can trim the roosters’ spurs so they are not so rough on the girls’ backs, and I probably will, but it won’t help with the bald heads. If chickens are in your future and you plan to get roosters, you may be interested in learning with me. I’ll let y’all know how it goes.
It’s snowing like crazy right now. The chickens are in their coop, the puppies are sleeping like babies, the cats are still pouting, the woodstove is pumping out heat like crazy, and Bernie and I are happy to be living here on our homestead.
Bee Free,
Penny
