My Belated Thanksgiving Post

 Hi, everyone!  I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving.  I've finally stopped feeling sorry for myself (about canceling my vacation with my family and surprise road trip due to stomach flu) so I figured I would write a post about what I'm thankful for.  About time huh?

 I'm thankful for my dad, my mom and my siblings.  I'm thankful for their patience and love.  I'm thankful for my husband.  For his love, loyalty and understanding.  I'm thankful for my extended family and for Facebook since that's one of the main ways we are able to keep in touch since we live so far apart.  I'm thankful for my husband's family for accepting me and always being welcoming when we visit.  I'm thankful for my best friend because she always knows how to cheer me up and how to have fun, even when we're broke.  :D  I'm thankful for all of my animals.  I don't know what I would do without Storm, Jackal, Chrome, Faran, Led Zeppelin, my cat and all of the birds.  They provide we with so much comfort and so many laughs!  I'm thankful that I have a house to live in and a job to provide me with the money to have a house and food.  I'm thankful for my car which gets me to work everyday.  I'm thankful for my camera so that I can go out and take pictures of my awesome critters.  :D  And there are many other things I'm thankful for, but those are the main ones.  I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

 Led Zeppelin and my mini white turkey hen.

My cat rolling in the dust and getting all dirty lol.  You might want to click to enlarge it hehe.

Storm's Eyes Update

Storm is doing great.  Apparently the reason the medicine wasn't working is because I didn't know I was supposed to do it twice a day.  Now that I'm doing it twice a day her eyes are doing sooooo much better.  :D  Yay!

Now if some things will calm down at work and I'll start feeling better (I think the stress is getting to me) maybe I'll be able to do something fun with the dogs that I can post on here lol.  Sorry it's been so quiet.  We aren't really doing a fall garden this year, so there isn't much farm related stuff going on.  I promise this blog will recover someday hehe.

Here are some pictures at least to make it up to you.  :)

 Check out the water drop in front of her!

 My stalker.  She follows me everywhere.  She's fascinated by my camera hehe.

Cute Zep Zep!

Oops!  I meant to schedule this to post tomorrow.  Sorry for the double post lol.

Midget White Turkeys

Did I ever show you guys my Midget White turkeys? After the bobcat killed my Sweetgrass turkeys my dad gave me some of his Midget Whites. The Midget White only gets to about half the size of a full grown turkey, around twenty five pounds or so. We've had a lot better luck with these guys because they will actually go in their house where they are safe from the bobcat. They are a lot friendlier than our other ones. We've enjoyed them a lot. Aren't they beautiful? Oh and they aren't even a year old yet so they are still growing some.

I'll have some more interesting photos soon. I forgot my camera today or I would have uploaded them for this post. Oh well, another day. :)

Busy, busy, busy!

The last of our turkeys. Our three Midget White turkeys.

Well, vacation ended on Wednesday. Work has been fine since I got back, but sheesh I forgot how incredibly boring it is there!!! Luckily it's been busy so it's not too bad and I did miss my customers. They are so awesome. :D

My allergies have been horrible!! I thought I was getting a cold, but this has been going on since around the twelfth so it's probably allergies. Normally I have three weeks of misery every spring and fall with them, but it's normally so much earlier than this. We've had a strangely warm fall/winter so far and I guess whatever I'm allergic to is blooming later. Oh well, it can't be too much longer before whatever it is dies. I will not miss the headaches or lack of sleep due to the inability to breathe lol.

I'm going to be very busy over the next few days so I don't know if I will have time to post. I'm going to try to work on getting video of the tricks Jackal learned this year, but don't be surprised if it's January before I get it posted. I also bought some small toys/treats for the critters so I should be able to get some cute pictures that I'll post when I can. I hope everyone has a great weekend, Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Be safe and have fun.

Baby Turkeys!

Our pretty blue turkey hen hatched out three cute poults! They are so cute!

Sunday Stills - The Birds and the Bees

This week's Sunday Stills challenge was to take pictures of birds and bees, but he did say to help out we could take pictures of other insects, not just bees. I only got one insect picture, but I have plenty of birds so that was easy. It also gives me a chance to show off how much my ducklings have grown. They are so pretty!

A dirt dauber trying to get into my window.

One of our baby turkeys. It looks like he's saying "cowabunga dude!" as he hand surfs. :D

He didn't like me taking pictures of his girls. :)

My pretty turkey hen is sitting on another clutch of eggs!

My ducklings . . .

This one is my favorite. It hope it's a hen.

A little blurry but I like it. The lacing on the breast feathers is so pretty.

Check out the white on the back of this one's head. Too cool!

I love my ducklings. :D

Fun News!

We did some real old fashioned trading today! We found a guy who wanted to buy our Cochin bantam pair (the buff frizzle hen and buff rooster), but he lived pretty far away. There was another guy who wanted to trade some Muscovy ducks for some young turkeys (when we hatch them out we will take them to him), who lived in the same area as the first guy, but was coming up our way for a poultry meet up, so he offered to deliver the Cochins to the first guy. The second guy was offering us three gorgeous Delaware hens (for our Delaware breeding program) for the same price we were selling the Cochins for, so we basically swapped (and he got his money from the first guy). He also gave us seven Coturnix Quail for free (he had over a hundred to sell that day). I've never had quail before and they are soooooo cute!!!! So my husband came home with four Muscovy ducks, seven Coturnix Quail and three Delaware chickens. :D I'll get pictures tomorrow since I don't have to work. They are so cute!

Note: All of the breeds of poultry are linked to Wikipedia articles if you're interested in reading more about them. :)

Advice on Jackal's tummy.

One of my turkey hens got out of her pen somehow and someone ran over her on the road. :( She was our friendliest hen and came to greet us every single morning. I can't believe she's dead! This is one of the reasons I really dislike living near a city by a busy road. I want to move back out into the middle of nowhere so that if an animal escapes it just wanders around the barnyard until you put it back up again. Sigh.

Sorry for ranting. I shouldn't write when I'm upset, but I did want to ask your advice on something. Jackal has been vomiting yellow bile off and on during the night for the last couple of weeks. He used to do this as a puppy and it's because he's going too long between meals. I'm feeding my dogs a raw diet and normally I just feed them once in the morning. So I'm thinking of splitting their breakfast into two meals and I also need to find a snack for late at night. So can anyone recommend a healthy, but fairly inexpensive snack for at night before bed? It can't be too calorie dense because he gains weight like there's no tomorrow (darn Beagle genes lol). It doesn't have to be raw, in fast I would prefer it's not just for ease of handling right before bed. I've tried canned pumpkin and it's a fight to get him to eat it. It doesn't like it at all. I would use a spoonful of peanut butter, but it gives him awful gas. I also tried cooking white rice, but it doesn't seem to be enough to help. Thank you for your suggestions.

Fun Day Off

I had a fun day off today. We went to our neighbor's house to discuss some things and to see their chickens and sheep. They kindly offered to give us their old brood boxes and nest boxes that they don't use anymore. :) They're so sweet. We're going to let them use some of our lease land for their sheep so that he can work on clearing out the rest of his property for them and probably to grow grass as well.

After that we went to visit some of our grand-chickens. We sold some of our Delaware chickens to a really nice guy this past spring and he invited us over to see how they are doing. His little girl is going to show them for 4H in the spring. They look so good.

This is their rooster. His barring is so nice!

We made plans to help him hatch out some of their eggs so his kids get to see how it's done. We will probably be doing some chicken swapping later lol. He's new to the chicken breeding and showing so we're helping him out as much as we can.

Then we went to one of my husband's coworker's house. She breeds chickens, turkeys and miniature horses. She bought two Midget White Turkeys that we really, really wanted (but couldn't afford) so we were excited to see them in person. They are absolutely gorgeous!

The tom. He's almost four years old.

The hen. She's so pretty and sweet. She was talking to us when we arrived. :)

Her little miniature horses are sooooooo cute!! Beware if you scroll any further. When you see these pictures you will want one!

This little guy was my favorite. An 8 month old leopard Appaloosa gelding.

I want! If I decid to start playing and win the lottery I'm going back to buy him lol!

He even had a half blue/half brown eye. Cute!

His little pasture mates.

Look how thick their winter coats are!

And how tiny their little muzzles are!

We had so much fun. :)

P.S. Also wanted to mention that I'll be posting in Chrome's Training Blog again at http://rdxhorses.blogspot.com

Sunday Stills

Sunday Stills this week is one of my favorites. Pets! :D Enjoy!

To see more Sunday Stills click here!

Sunday Stills - Potluck

For Sunday Stills this week we get to post whatever we want! Yay! I didn't have time to even pick up the camera this week so I was looking through my archives and found some pictures of Chrome that I've been meaning to post since October. I was trying to take pictures of his cute little muzzle to show his graying out progress and I'll just say that trying to photograph a friendly, curious, playful colt's nose is not easy! Here are the pictures with outtakes first. :)

And below is the best shot I got. :)

I can't believe how quickly he's going gray. I can't wait to see if he sheds out steel gray in the spring or if he'll start dappling, or if he'll still be dark for another year. It's so fun watching as his color changes. :)

ETA: I decided to add a couple of pictures I got today just in case archive pictures are allowed. :)