Tug of War...

Finally!!! Video upload sucess! I caught the cutest videos of Bella and the yorkies playing tug of war with a poor stuffed toy!

The first video is just of Autumn and Bella...notice how Bella just drops it and then Autumn teases her with the stuffed toy as if to say "try and take it from me"....

This one is priceless! It is of Bella, Cole, Cruiser and Autumn..the 3 of them combined figure they can pull Bella...not a chance!

You can see in watching Bella how gentle she is, this so far is her most endearing quality at least to me. She is playful with the yorkies but not overbearing or too rough.

He has a Name!

Introducing "TimberYork's Golden Fury"
He was nameless the last time I posted about him. I do get around to these things but good inspiration takes time and alot of thought!!!..LOL

Fury has warmed up to all of us in a big way! He is actually quite the precocious little fella! He has quite the attitude for such a wee guy!

He loves to run and kick up his heels! Very difficult to get a good kickin up your heels shot but this was the best I could do!

With those long legs he moves like lightening!

So far he is a nice correct looking boy! Not sure if we need another stallion around here and me pulling the classic blond move, did not file a stallion report back in the winter for his sire and dam. So its gonna cost me a bunch of money plus DNA testing to have him duel registered...so I don't know what I'm gonna do with him. He can easily be single registered but for me my boys should be duel....

Plus he is very very leggy and may outgrow any chance of being duel registered at all. So...what to do????

Happy Birthday

I couldn't let the day go by without remembering this day as my mom's birthday. Maybe its silly, I don't know but I like to pay tribute to her and if I can't wish her a Happy Birthday in person, I can at least post about it in memory.
She would have been 78 this year. Perhaps it is the spring or the month of Mothers Day and her birthday but she has been on my mind alot the past few weeks. She loved spring, the hope of renewal and new life. This week especially I have caught myself thinking about her more so when I've been out gardening cause I could bet that if she was here and was able, she'd be out there puttering with me too.
Missing someone so special just never seems to go away, even if we do it in silence and no one else knows we are, we still miss them.

This is SOOO Brittany

You will remember my post about the ongoing transformation in our basement with the newly RED rec room.
So to continue on, for the past 3 weeks or so I have been painting what is or will be Brittany's new room. Her current room is very very small so we thought it only fair that she should be able to have more space as she has really outgrown the room she is in.
This is the room before....

I put Britt to work priming the walls and getting it ready to go.....

This... is what she chose....

ORANGE and PINK

It is very bright and vibrant and if anyone knows my youngest child, these colours match her personality to a "T"...

The orange however gave me so much grief, if you can believe 2 gallons of paint and 6...yes count 'em' 6 coats later...I said enough is enough...it will do!

It actually looks pretty good! It is sassy and never dull, again much like my girl and she is pleased as ever with it!

We made the stencils out of acetate from our local business supply store and cut out various size circles using my bowls!

I only have the 1 wall completed as of yet...hopefully by the end of the weekend, her room will be put together and the rest of her furniture moved in.

We had found a double bed set at an auction and ordered new bedding to match the room and voila...its a perfect fit!

From start to finish I think the room has made a dramatic change! It totally suits Brittany I think it is a space that she can grow with and still be suitable for a few years to come!

Gardening..

Gardening has definitely been on the go this week. Wheras we were still getting frost warnings a week ago, there is no veggies planted yet but it has been my project this week to sort out my strawberry plants that have trailered and really multiplied over the winter!
So basically my 2 rows of strawberries that I had last year became 5 rows this year! I was stiff and sore at the end of the day but what really was a lifesaver is this new toy Dave bought for the tractor..it is a rototiller that hooks up to the tractor. It makes light work of tilling that is for sure.
I am hoping we have a good crop of berries, and looking forward to just stepping outside my door and grabbing that fresh fruit!!!

Also this week I made it my mission to get at my shade gardens...these never get the attention they deserve and it really shows! I wanted to do something to make them stand out and in addition cut down on the weeding...my solution..mulch!!!

I chose a red cedar mulch to hopefully do both those things! I dug out all the rocks that bordered the garden as they were sinking into the ground and really not noticable anymore and applied a good thickness of the mulch. Hopefully it will keep the garden weeding down and also keep moisture in the ground as well!

Most of my perennials in these gardens are just getting going as they are the last to get uncovered with snow in the spring.

Too, wanted to get some colour on my deck. These baskets were on sale at CT and with Casi's discount I couldn't go wrong!

Now to keep the dogs from gardening too...they would love to help...just not my kind of help! I have to admit they are pretty good considering they are all terriers..they don't dig a lot, but start a hole...then I have problems...they are inclined to finish it!

Bella

Wanted to introduce yet another new addition to our family. I have been so missing the big farm dog to lop around with us while we are outside working around. Also having a big dog is great socialization for my little guys to learn to like and play with bigger dgos. We did some research for breeds and Dave actually found this breed and quite liked it.

It is the Bernese Mountain Dog.

Everything we have read about this breed has said their temperments are A1. Temperment was of upmost importance to us. With the little yorkies and the livestock we needed a very laid back dog. These dogs have been deemed "Gentle Giants". Yes they are big...

So we found Bella....she will probably grow to upwards of 100 lbs....

She has been a wonderful addition to our canine family and yes she is very very laid back. Her best friend in the house is Tye but she can't keep up to him and nor doesn't she even want to try! Just too much effort for her!

Casi has started obedience classes with her this past week. The last thing we need is an unmannerly 100 lb dog! Training is coming...very slowly...but it will get there! She hangs around us outside and doesn't take off...just observes the world going by at her speed!

Puppies @ 2 weeks!

Wow...the time has already flown and on Tuesday the puppies were 2 weeks old! They are doing wonderfully and gaining like lightening! Sadie is a terrific mom and the proof is in the puppies! Sadier herself has been on antibiotics for a bout of metritis. I noticed a different colour of discharge and took her into the vets and sure enough her white blood count was extremely high. Sadie however was alert and eating and drinking and the vet couldn't believe how bright she was for her count being that high!! She has another week on the antibiotics which havn't affected the puppies and hopefully everyone will be good to go!
Here are the babies...starting in order of their birth....(I havn't nicknamed yet...just really havn't had a chance to look up some good ones so I just gave them a colour to distinguish them from each other)

White Boy 13 oz @ 2 weeks

Tan Boy 13.75 oz @ 2 weeks
Green Boy 13.25 oz @ 2 weeks

Blue Boy 14 oz @ 2 weeks

Girl 11 oz @ 2 weeks

I am open to name suggestions....anyone???

I was thinking of naming them with names starting with the same letter as their colour...so bring me some of your brain storms!

Wow...its crazy again!

All of a sudden with the onset of the warm weather it seems that life is just so busy again!
Today is a gorgeous sunny day but I find myself wanting to just "sit" and blog for a bit....
I have had several projects on the go, trying to finish them all up at once and of course there are not enough hours in the day to do them all!
I will get to blogging about them all eventually but thought I would give you a tidbit of what I've been up to....

My Mothers Day...

I just love homemade gifts! I loved the ones when the kids were small and they would come home from school with handprints, or painted stones or even creative artwork! I have kept many many treasures that the kids have made over the years.

This year for Mother Day I got another hand made gift! They had been working on something in the upstairs of the barn for a couple of weeks now, when they had a chance here or there. I was not allowed to peek but I could here the air nailer and the planer going now and then. Well Sunday afternoon, they presented me with this! A totally gorgeous arbour!

I have wanted an arbour for many many years! However never had the extra money for one or there was always something else to buy..you know how it is. I was totally blown away!

They had bought the hanging baskets and the chimes but made the arbour from nothing but a plan in Casi's head!

I LOVE it!!!!!

We went for dinner at the Mandarin, which was a zoo considering it was Mothers Day but we enjoyed the buffet and I loved that everyone was together, it doesn't happen too often anymore with everyone working different hours or having school or other commitments. Thank you to my guys for making me feel blessed on Mothers Day! I love you and you guys are the greatest!

A Tribute to Mom...

Ok....I will warn you, this post will be lengthy but I feel its important to me and those who are close to me, if you are you will understand why.

Last year at mothers day I remember finding a very poignant poem relating to mothers and blogging that poem in a very generic fashion. It was a very good poem and hit all the right nails on the head but this year I wanted to do something different and totally personal as a tribute to my mom.

If you don't know my mom passed away in 2003 after battling lung cancer for 4 years. In the 6 months or so preceeding her death, her bed was her place of refuge, where she was most comfortable and where she spent most of her time. It was her wish to remain at home and we as her family moved heaven and earth to have that happen for her.

I wanted this post about Mothers Day,my tribute to her to reflect her as a person, a person I admired most in this world. I wanted to post about my most favourite memory of her before her passing.

You have to understand that in her last months, our relationship deepened to a level I can't even describe, it was just her and I on many afternoons talking and sharing and bonding closer than we had even been.

I asked her one day if she was proud of me, proud of who I had become and proud of my mothering skills etc. You see I was one of those typical brats as a teenager and didn't marry their ideal choice for me or follow the lifestyle that they did. So it was important to me ask her thoughts or if I had made her proud anyway.

She looked at me, her eyes welled up with tears and said "oh, pup (this was her nickname for me, I think its a dutch word but I don't know how to spell it)..you have made me so proud". I knew with the sincerity in her blue eyes that she truly loved me and was proud of the person I had become, even if it wasn't her choice for me.

In the years following that conversation I have thought back to that day so many times, and so many times that has given me the strength to do what I think is right what or what I think she would have done. Now that my own kids have entered that twilight zone of teenagerhood, I wish so much that I could have her here for guidance or advice.

She had an amazing gift of patience and ultimate peace. Whenever we hear the word cancer, it instills fear and that whole 4 years I lived with that fear and I'm sure she did too but she had a way to calm my fears even when it was happening to her. When it became clear that it was not going to be healed, she was so brave and peaceful with what was happening to her. She didn't complain and she accepted what was God's plan for her without question. To me, watching someone go through that and still keep their faith unfaltering is amazing.

I know my world shattered when she died and it has never been the same since. I believe that somewhere she knows how truly special she was me and I hope that anyone who reads this has the opportunity to hug their mom's tomorrow and tell them how special they are to them.

I believe I am who I am because of her love and her confidence in me.

Tryin' to Garden...

So in between emergency vet visits, puppy whelping, birthdays, work and the farm I have been trying to get at my flower beds! How quickly the weeds take hold and take over! I wanted to get crackin at them this week while I was off and on puppy watch.

Also my retaining wall that I had built almost 5 years from stones that I collected in the fields were constantly falling as the ground has most definitely shifted in that time.

So I started the task of taking all the rocks out and re-walling them. It is like a puzzle and although it is not difficult it is time consuming but it is gratifying to me and I was very pleased with the end result! I added a bit of black earth to the flower beds to replenish the settled earth and I think it looks pretty darn good!

I still have to go around the other side of the front deck but hey its a start!

Lots of birthdays!

May is birthday month around here!
James' turned 17 on May 2, ya can't believe that he is already 17!!! Hard to believe next year he will be 18 and going off to begin his life as an adult!! Wow...it is true what they say about the years clicking by faster the older you get....
I had several things in mind for him as a gift for his birthday. He needs parts for his new vehicle, his cell phone is on the fritz but I wanted to get him something different than that.
I ended up going with a 4 month gym membership at our local gym.


His buddies have often gone there and I figured what a great opportunity to be able to go with them and get in shape! I thought within 4 months he would know if he even liked it and hopefully would continue on.
So far he has gone every evening and I think it is great! I will blog about his progress as it happens!!! Happy Birthday James!!!

Dave's birthday is today. As he is back on nights and sleeps the better part of the morning I thought it would great to serve him breakfast in bed! So I popped a cake in the oven and proceeded to make him breakfast and coffee in bed! I sang Happy Birthday as he was waking up! How cheesy huh!
The girls and I had been at a loss for what to get him as he is so hard to buy for! Seriously...everything he says he wants is just WAY out of our price range!
So after a lot of thought we came up with some blueberry and gooseberry plants. Going along with this whole fruit theme that he started with planting the orchard a few weeks ago, we thought these berry plants would be a cool addition!

I'm sure they will be planted along side of our vast patch of raspberry and strawberry plants. I would be so cool once everything starts growing, just to be able to walk outside and grab a variety of fresh fruit! I think he liked it...you know men...never can be sure! Hope both my guys had a great birthday! Happy Birthday Dave!

New babies!

As I mentioned before that I was expecting babies this week. The big day arrived on Tuesday, 2 days before Sadie's actual due date.

She slept with me that night and didn't appear to be too uncomfortable but already at 8 am she had small pushes. I laid with her and watched the intensity and the frequency of her pushes and guessed it was early and she had alot of work to do before getting that first baby out!

I quickly ran out and let the sheep and horse and foal out as I figured I would be preoccupied for the remainder of the day.

The first baby came just before 11 am, a boy weighing 4.5 oz, he was breech but not too hard for her to deliver. She started pushing again quite soon after baby #1 arrived. They seemed like good pushes too but after an hour, still nothing and I was starting to worry that the next puppy might be big or she might be tiring already.

However, me being the over worry wart, didn't need to worry as baby #2 came at 12:30pm, another boy weighing 4.25 oz. Baby #3 came quite soon after at 12:40pm, yet another boy weighing 4.25 oz too! More pushing and at 1:30pm boy #4 was born at 4 oz. Then Sadie rested and I assumed she was done.

Yep, you counted right...there are 5 babies here! I gave Sadie a shot of oxytocin about an hour after the last puppy was born figuring she was finished and just wanting to clear any gunk and I had lost a placenta as well, so that helps to expel that. However she started pushing again and shortly at 3 pm she delivered baby #5 a girl this time weighing 3 oz! WOW 5 babies is a huge litter for a yorkie!!!

However even though its a huge litter, all puppies were born with a fight in them and all nursed basically right away. By that evening all the puppies had maintained or even gained a 1/4 oz already which is awsome!

They are a very content litter and I have hardly heard them at all at night and Sadie is a fantastic mom. She is very calm with them and obviously has tonnes of milk. At 2 days old the puppies have all gained at least an ounce. They are thriving! You can see already the difference in size at 2 days, how they have filled out and have fat fat little bellies!!!

I will continue to blog their progress. So far so good!!! Sadie did an amazing job, I am so proud of her!!!

Sienna...we love you

My weekend started off so great with the arrival of my new foal on Friday and then my new toy (the lawnmower) Saturday morning. I had 2 more shifts to work before the birth of my spring litter and I was focused on getting through those shifts so I could concentrate on the pending birth.
My weekend took a quick turn down south with a frantic call from Casi Saturday evening and I knew there was something terribly wrong. She was so upset I couldn't make out what she was saying exactly but I could make out that there was something wrong with one of the dogs. It was Sienna, who in all essense is her dog and has been since she was a puppy. They had found her barely conscious and lying on the deck. Dave was giving her mouth to mouth and she was barely breathing. I told them to call the emergency vet and I rushed home from work. She started to come around in the van and I tribute the fact that she is even still alive to Dave who's quick actions by doing mouth to mouth resusitation probably saved her life.
At the vets, they did xrays, bloodwork and heartworm tests. They started an IV as her body temp was really low and her heart rate was also low and she was going into shock.

He let her come home on IV with the pump in tow and I had a short night of sleep checking on her. By morning she seemed a little more alert. We took her back into the vet to remove the IV. His best guess as to what happened after reviewing all the tests was that she went into anaphalactic shock from something. We have no idea of what, if it was a wasp or bee sting or what?
He sent me home with 4 syringes the equivalent of an epi pen for people in case this ever happens again.
She is improving but is not the same girl she was a week ago. I am suspicious that she suffered oxygen deprivation in the minutes before Brittany found her on the deck.
Her coordination is off and you can see in her eyes that her focus is not quite right either. At any rate I can still see glimpses of her that we know and love. She is eating and drinking well. We will just keep our fingers crossed that these problems resolve themselves and her body heals.

These pictures of Sienna were taken just a couple of months ago, and as you can see she is a very proud lady. We are patient enough and love her enough to give her whatever time she needs to recouperate from this incident and PRAY that it does not happen again.

Sienna we love you and want you back, whole and proud....

A big thank you to Dave who saved this girl's life, who being the big tough guy was probably just as stressed as I was that night.

More new additions...

This post is sadly outdated but I wanted to announce the arrival of 2 new mares to our herd.
They arrived on April 4th from a local lady who was experiencing health problems and had way too many horses.
I had been looking to add 1 more mare to my herd but these guys were a great deal so I bought 2!!!
We looked when we didn't have a lot of time and I remember saying to Dave " I will know if I like something within 15 minutes!" Sure enough, with 10 minutes I had spotted these 2 girls and instantly liked them!



The first is Whispur a beautiful 34" buckskin...anyone recall me loving buckskins...yes I do! She is older and will pasture with Diesel this summer in the hopes of a buckskin foal for 2010. I think she is just amazing!

The second is Tori another beautiful 35" tri colour black pinto! I also love pinto's! She immediately caught my eye with her unique colouring of white/black and brown. She will pasture with Tanner this summer with the hopes of a pinto foal in 2010!

Exciting stuff for sure! I can't wait to see what happens next year!

My new toy!!

If anyone remembers last summer my post about my poor lawnmower. It was in a sad state and with all the rain we had last summer and our 3 or so acres to cut, it felt like I was constantly cutting grass!
So this spring began a search for another lawnmower and what to get and which would be more practical for our usage.
We ended up deciding on this Cub Cadet zero turn beauty! 50" cut and wow does she fly!

It was dropped off Saturday morning and of course I had to try it out! I had all our grass cut in an hour! Unbelievable! It took me at least 3.5 hrs with the other mower....
I was almost disapointed when I was all finished and didn't have any more grass to cut...
This should last us a long, long LONG time! From everything I've read this baby should serve our grass cutting needs for several years and hopefully this will be all we'll ever need.

TimberYork's???

Our first foal for 2009 has arrived! I suspected Liley was close and was scanning the fields on a regular basis. Friday however happened to be one of those busy days and I didn't get out to have a look. I left for work and just thought I caught a glimpse of something out in the field with Liley...
I wasn't sure so I called Dave to check when he returned home. Sure enough I called home on my break and yes there was a baby!
This is what we got....a beautiful, refined palomino pinto colt!!

This boy's legs go on forever and they look like stilts on him! He was 22" at the withers.

We are yet undecided about a name...looking for any suggestions for a pedigree and call name for him.

Here is what we have so far....

Without A Trace aka Trace

Spring Breeze aka Breeze

Gold Strike aka Striker

Thats about all I can pick from my brain...sire is Bond Mr Inquisitive and dam is Cherokee Rose Tiger Liley...so if you can incorporate something with that I would love to know! Any suggestions would be gladly appreciated!