The other new addition to the farm....

I completely forgot to tell you guys about the rock dove I rescued!  I rescued her several months ago now, I just hadn't gotten pictures yet so I never posted.  This beautiful girl was outside the place where I worked during a storm.  She even came inside.  They chased her back out and she almost got ran over by a car.  She was too weak from hunger to fly, so I was terrified she would get eaten by something or run over.  So I called my husband and he came and got her.  He was able to walk right up to her and put her in a box.  She has a leg band on, but we haven't had any luck figuring out where she came from, so we're keeping her, unless someone turns up claiming her.

She's a sweet girl, always so curious, but shy.  She likes to perch in the window of her pen and watch us.  She flies to whichever window we're closest to.  I haven't handled her at all since that first day.  She's not terrified of humans, but she is shy.

I've always loved rock doves (pigeons of any sort really), especially their coo.  It's so peaceful and sweet.  I love listening to them.  We are going to find a couple more pigeons because I don't want her to be alone.  I would rather give her to someone else than have her be alone.  Since we have a nice pen for her there's no reason not to get some more though.  There's plenty of room and I've always wanted some.  :)

Now more kitten pictures because they are too cute not to share!  They are blurry because they were moving too much and I need practice taking pictures with phones hehe.

 I he/she not the cutest kitten you've ever seen??

 A slightly better shot of mamma's gorgeous green eyes.

 I just don't even know what to say... so cute!!!!!

Check out this adorable video.  I swear you will melt at the cuteness overload.


Also I've been calling the dove Dovey.... I need name ideas because if I'm not careful that's going to stick......

I have cats coming out of my ears!!

 First let me introduce my TWO cats (in case there are new readers).  The only two cats I own.  First is Gray Kitty...

Old pictures.

She was born in 2001 and that is also when hubby acquired her.  I first met her in 2006 when I met my hubby.  She was our only cat for many, many years.  Then we decided to get another cat since she's getting older and not keeping the mouse population down like she used to, so we got OrangeJello (or MichaelOrangeJello as I like to call him haha).

Old pictures.

We finally had him neutered a few weeks ago.  Just in time too because he was constantly getting in fights with other cats and was even attacking Gray Kitty.  I was not happy.

Not even a week after we neutered him I walked out to the pasture to open the hay ring so the horses could finish off the hay and we could put out a new bale..... and found a stray mamma cat and her five kittens in the horses' leftover hay!!!!!  She'd just given birth within days because they still had dried umbilical cords attached.

My first thought was that OrangeJello must be a daddy and we didn't get him neutered in time lol.  It's possible, but who knows really.  The mom ran off and I had to move the babies because I couldn't not put out hay for the horses.  I was terrified that by moving them she wouldn't come back to them or she'd hide them.  Luckily she seemed to like her huge pet taxi full of hay and kept them there for a couple of weeks.  I fed her every day, but she was super skittish and hissed, then ran away when I got too close.  I tried to only go over there when she was away so that I wouldn't spook her.

On Thursday I walked out to the pasture before work to feed her and spotted her trotting away with a kitten in her mouth.  I was heartbroken because I thought I wouldn't be able to find them.  I followed her and found where she was keeping them.  As soon as she put the kitten down I ran her off and gathered up her kittens.  I put them back in the pet taxi and closed the door.  Hubby set up the live animal trap and put food in it... then we went to work... and I stressed. all. day. long...  I was so scared she wouldn't come back and I would have to bottle feed them, or that they would go too long without food while I was at work.

Hubby went home for lunch (only a few hours later) and luckily she was in the live trap!!!!  He put her in the pet taxi (she strolled nonchalant into it) and closed her in.  Then when I got home from work we moved the pet taxi to our screened in porch.  I am so much less stressed about them now that they are contained.

To my huge surprised when I opened the pen to give her some food she rolled over on her back (on top of her kittens) and purred!!!  She wasn't feral at all.  She let me pet her and she rubbed against hubby and crawled into his lap.  She's a total sweetheart.  :D  She only hissed at us the first day and now she's just so loving.  Here are some pictures from today.

She has the most incredible green eyes!
She's tiny too!!!  So small for a grown cat!

 This one is my favorite!  He/she has very wide classic tabby stripes 

on the body and is the only one with an orange face.

  SO CUTE!!!!!

They are all so different.  You can't see my favorite very well in this pictures because he/she is under the gray striped kitten on the left haha.

I moved them to the smaller cage with blankets instead of the closed in taxi with hay.  They seem to like it.  Their eyes are open and they are walking around pretty well.  They didn't eat any of their soaked food because they had full bellies of milk, but they will start eating soon.  I'm guessing they are about four weeks old going by their development and when I found them.

I hope you're proud of yourself Pops!

So now I have a whole passel of cats!  We've already found a home for one kitten once he/she is weaned.  I'm keeping my favorite one with the orange face.  We are going to spay the mom and turn her loose because she most likely belongs to one of the neighbors.  If she decides to stick around that is fine with me.  I've already started calling her Emerald (Emi) because of her eyes.  The other kittens we will either find homes for or we will spay/neuter them and let them hang out with our crew.  :D  Welcome to the family kittens!!

2016 Reading Challenge - Book Scrabble - April

Well I definitely made up for last month!  I read eight books for April.  :D  These may not be in order because I can't remember what order I read them in lol.  This puts my total for the year so far at 21.  I think that puts me well ahead of last year if I keep it up at this rate.  It will be interesting to see how many I read this year since I'm not following a list this time.

Okay, first up we have...

Amazon Link

Two Down, Bun to Go is the third book in the Oxford Tearoom Mystery series by H.Y. Hanna.  I LOVE this series!  If you like mysteries definitely check these out because I've loved every single one of them.  They get better and better.  I can't wait until the next one comes out in a couple of months.  She gets them published really quick too.  This book is one point in Scrabble.

Amazon Link

My mom told me about Louisiana Longshot by Jana Deleon because it is a mystery (we both love mysteries) with a lot of humor in it.  I wasn't disappointed.  This was really funny.  I love the characters!!  They are so fun and interesting.  Everyone had a lot of depth of character.  I can't wait to read the next book in the series.  I just have to remember to go get the rest from mom.  This book is one point.

Amazon Link

When mom told me she had read a Q book and how well she was doing I freaked out because I'd been reading low point books.  She is totally going to beat me again this year, but it isn't really a competition or anything so it doesn't matter.  I just use it as motivation to read lots lol.  So I dug around in the free Kindle books to find a Q book and I found Quietus by David Sellars.  I unfortunately cannot recommend this book.  I did not enjoy it.  It was disturbing and I didn't like the ending at all.  At least it was a Q so I get ten points for my effort.

Amazon Link

I looked for another high point book and decided to read The Jungle Book because I actually had never read it before, even though I had the book when I was a kid and enjoyed the movie (and looking forward to seeing the new one).  Is it sad that I had no clue The Jungle Book was actually several short stories??  I had no idea!!  I did enjoy the stories, although the writing style was bizarre and I'm not really a fan of short stories.  This is an eight point book.

Amazon Link

I have actually been reading this book for months.  I started reading it a couple of months ago at work.  This wasn't a kindle book, I was reading the actual paperback.  I kept it at work and was only reading it on breaks so that's why it took so long because at my old job I only got one break and a thirty minute lunch and was only working a few days a week (they were not giving me the hours they said they would which is one reason I moved on to another job).  I finally finished it shortly after starting my new job because of my two breaks and hour lunch.  If I'm not mistaken this was my first Dean Koontz book and I really liked it!!  I was skeptical because I thought his books were really gory and disturbing, but it wasn't.  It was definitely a thriller and had a touch of fantasy in it.  I'm not exactly sure how well it flowed, because I read it in such small time blocks over such a long period of time.  It might have been more intense and a quicker read if I'd been reading it every night like I normally do.  Regardless, I really liked it and enjoyed how it ended.  I am reading another Dean Koontz book at work right now so we will see if it was a fluke or if I am a fan of his.  ;)  This book is one point.

Amazon Links Book 1 2 and 3

I found the first book in this series The Queen's Blade for free on Kindle and downloaded it because it was a Q book (all about those ten point books hehe).  After reading the first one I LOVED it so much I actually purchased the rest of the books in the series!  I'm on the fourth one (about 60% through it) and still loving them.  It's a typical fantasy book like I grew up reading that I've always loved so much, but it's different from anything I've ever read (the main character is an assassin).  I LOVE the book and all the characters and even the world and culture.  It is a well written, well planned, well built series.  This series is self published and you can't tell it!!  I've grown cautious about self published books because I've read so many awful ones, but this doesn't have any typos or anything (kind of like the H.Y. Hanna books, you can't tell hers are self published).  This series definitely breaks the stereotype of self published books (it's not in first person, present tense, heck yeah!!!!).  I can't recommend this book enough.  Love it!  If you grew up reading Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey like I did I bet you'll love this series too.  It doesn't have dragons or even magic really (but they do bond with animals), but it's still on par with those that I loved so much growing up.  The Queen's Blade is ten points and the other two were one point.  ETA: The first book is free and ends on a cliffhanger... you won't be able to resist buying the rest, so be forewarned!

That's all for April.  So I made a total of 33 points.  Not bad!

For anyone not familiar with the Scrabble scoring system here is it.

(1 point)-A, E, I, O, U, L, N, S, T, R
(2 points)-D, G
(3 points)-B, C, M, P
(4 points)-F, H, V, W, Y
(5 points)-K
(8 points)- J, X
(10 points)-Q, Z

My 2016 Reading Challenge is basically reading whatever books I want and keeping score using the Scrabble scoring system to see how many points I have at the end of the year.  :)

So here is my tally so far.  January - 5 points, February - 14 points, March - 1 point and April - 33 points.  That's a total of 53 points and 21 books for the year so far.  Here is my list so far.

A - Awakening You by Jessica Sorensen
B - The Bell House by Lori Titus
C - Chasing The Wind by Hannah Hooton
D
E
F
G
H
I - Ishtar's Blade by Lisa Blackwood/Inspiring You by Jessica Sorensen/Invisible Assassin by TC Southwell
J - The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
K - Keeping The Peace by Hannah Hooton
L - Louisiana Longshot by Jana Deleon
M
N
O
P
Q - Quietus by David Sellars/The Queen's Blade by TC Southwell
R - Raveling You by Jessica Sorensen/Relentless by Dean Koontz
S - A Scone To Die For by H.Y. Hanna/Spellbound by Kodilynn Calhoun/The story of Awkward by R.K. Ryals/Sacrifice by TC Southwell
T - Tea with Milk and Murder by H.Y. Hanna/Two Down, Bun To Go by HY Hanna
U - Unraveling You by Jessica Sorensen
V
W
X
Y
Z