Play ball with me!

As I've mentioned in the past, Trail is ball obsessed. Specifically his "Chuck" ball.  There are times that he is very demanding and refuses to be ignored when he thinks that ball needs to tossed. Sometimes "Chuck" appears on the kitchen table.  Not a place that a slobbery dog ball should be.

Of course, placing the ball on the table works. It gets tossed lightly across the kitchen or bounced for Trail to catch. No, that really isn't teaching him anything but it really doesn't matter too much.  He is somewhat considerate in the fact that he tends to place it on the edge of the table and patiently waits with just a slight whine or two.

With the upcoming holidays, we won't be posting too much. To all of you, from all of us... Merry Christmas!!

Wordless Wednesday

Tasty Tuesday

Have you ever had one of those times when you've been in the right place at the right time and said the right thing?

Last week I commented to the Produce Manager at the grocery store that the squash wasn't selling very fast. He agreed and said that he was reducing the price again. Initially it was selling for $1.49/pound then was 99 cents a pound. The new price was going to be 49 cents a pound.  I said that perhaps I would get some for the hens. The Produce Manager said that by Monday whatever was left would be a "free-for-all". I asked what exactly he meant by that and he said that I could have what was left over - for free!

So, a simple comment resulted in this -

We received two banana boxes of assorted squash!  This was very surprising because none of the grocery stores where we live are allowed to provide any scraps or cull produce to anyone. It all must be thrown in the garbage/compost. (Yes, it is a disgusting amount of waste) The reasoning is that someone could eat it and become sick and the stores don't want the liability. It doesn't matter how much I try and convince them that it is for the hens.

Now, to be honest with you we are all going to be eating this squash. There is nothing wrong with it, so we cooked some up and made treats.

Very simple treats, just some squash, a little flour, some oats and water to hold it all together.

Power Outage, Snow, Power Outage

Thursday morning here was dark. Unusually dark. Uh-oh, power outage. From early in the morning until after lunch we had no power due to a motor vehicle accident which severed a pole and brought down wires. Then, overnight Thursday into Friday morning there was a snow storm resulting in another power outage, this one lasting around 5 hours.

The snow was very heavy and wet which destroyed our hen's outdoor pen by collapsing all the wire fencing. 

It did make for some pretty scenery.  This was the view out our back door.

Callie and Trail both liked the snow, Bill, Hiker and Brook shivered as usual.

Today the sun is out and the temperatures are around 5C/41F so the snow is melting but we know that this was just a brief preview of what is to come.