Larry Frog
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Posted onCounty Fair
Posted onI finally got around to bringing in some of the pictures from the fair:
Survey – Input Needed
Posted onWe need to get a friend for Pumpernickle. We found a farm in VA that has Icelandics for sale. They are also having a special for September because they need to get rid of some sheep soon. In addition to the special, they’ll take another 10% off the top if we buy three sheep. This is a good deal for what looks like some good sheep.
Here are the links so you can see the sheep we are looking at:
Sadie and Sydney – http://www.inglesideicelandics.com/index_adultsheepforsale.htm
Pearl – http://www.inglesideicelandics.com/index_lambs.htm
Should we get:
A. Sadie
B. Pearl
C. Sadie and Pearl
D. Sadie, Pearl, and Sydney
A or B = less cost up front, a little bit less cost on maintenance, and no income from lambs next year.
C = more cost up front, a little bit more cost on maintenance, and no income from lambs next year.
D = larger cost up front, a little bit more cost on maintenance, and possible income from lambs next year.
New pet
Posted onToday I got a new pet, and I’ve already taught it some tricks!
It can walk:
And stand:
And come when called:
Pumpernickel
Posted onWow, just a slew of entries today from me. But I couldn’t resist putting up some pictures of Pumpernickel from this afternoon:
Floyd County Fair and Taste of Floyd [rant warning]
Posted onToday was a mixed day. We had a lot of fun at the first annual Floyd County Fair today. There was a cute olympic event that involved milk chugging and cheese eating, and lambs, cows, tractors, and vegetables.
Then we went to the Taste of Floyd at Harvest Moon Cafe. Maybe a better name would have been the ‘Harvest Moon Sample Plate.’ I’ve been to numerous Taste of
So, let’s see, get people to spend five dollars a person to try a few things that they can (conveniently) find at the store hosting the event, thereby bringing in lots of extra business to the store. Oh, there was a wine tasting area too – that was another five dollars. I didn’t see a single local restaurant represented at the Taste of Floyd – doesn’t that seem pretty strange? And you couldn’t even look around first to see if there was anything you wanted to try – Cabol actually saw someone turned away who just wanted to look around and maybe BUY some of the things sold and not taste! Now there is a good business philosophy.
In summary, the county fair was great – I hope we are around to see many, many more. The Taste of Floyd basically felt like something designed to pull in tourists. That’s another thing we noticed: at the fair, I felt like I was seeing the “real” citizens of Floyd County. The ones who greet each other by name, whose children all know each other, who can stack bales of hay two at a time in 30 seconds, the 4-H members showing off their lambs. At Harvest moon the crowd seemed to be retired baby boomers and tourists (or both) and younger people, all trying to feel hip and trendy because they are there samplin’ all that fancy overpriced ($7.00 for a jar of spaghetti sauce?!?) organic stuff and feeling like they are “making a difference” before they head back to their McMansions and plasma tvs. I’ll take the county fair crowd any day, thanks.
Hay Hay Hay
Posted onToday we went to get some hay. I always thought I was a pretty good packer when it came to filling vehicles, but these folks somehow managed to get 21 bales of hay into our pickup. It may not sound like much for a truck, but bear in mine that the cap was still over the bed, which severely limits how high you can stack bales.
We also realized that the craft shack (now known as the hay shack) is the perfect place to stack hay. You can pull right up to the door and it is dry inside. Only some of our barn is perfectly dry, and sometimes the moisture wicks up from beneath and starts to mold hay stacked on the ground. Now we just keep 1 or 2 bales down in the actual barn. Pumpernickel seems to really enjoy the new hay, it seems to be a better quality than what we had before.
Today is the Floyd county fair and harvest festival! Must get there in time for the cheese eating contest!
R.I.P. Sourdough
Posted onSourdough died a bit ago.
She had pneumonia. Andy went down to check on them around 9 or so, and Sourdough wouldn’t get up. He called the vet, and by the time she got here, Sourdough was lying on her side and breathing sort of shallow. The vet went to her truck to get an IV and some other things, and by the time she got back, Sourdough was barely breathing. So, Andy and the vet decided to just let her go, and so they sat with her until she died. Andy trimmed off as much of Sourdough’s fur as he could, so maybe some day when I know what I’m doing I can make a nice scarf or something. We buried her under a birch tree up by the craft shack.
New digs
Posted onYesterday I finished our latest and greatest chicken tractor and we moved the d’Uccles into it (since they were pretty crowded in the last one). It’s larger (4×8 versus 4×4) and has more room inside so they can lay eggs and still have room to sleep and poop without (hopefully) getting the eggs dirty. They still need a few roosts, but I keep forgetting to grab the dowels out of the truck.
New house
Next step is to clean out their old house and move the little chicks in there. Although that will not be permanent, as they will eventually outgrow it unless we give some away first. We also might move some in with the cochins and japs once we can figure out who are hens and who are cocks.
Feelin’ Froggy
Posted onA couple of days ago we were outside doing stuff. Andy was waaaaay over by the workshop, and he did a little dance and bent over and picked something up and wiggled and came over and had a HUGE toad in his hands. I like toads.
This really was a big toad. I wanted to be able to show everyone how big, so I asked Andy to put his hand near the toad. Of course, the giant hand scared the toad and it fled. Andy swiftly grabbed the toad and clutched it close to his bosom. (I guess his reflexes aren’t too old for amphibians…just reptiles.) I was so proud and beamed as I got this photo.
Then things suddenly took a turn for the worse….Andy shrieked and threw the toad into the air. The toad flewwwwww and went kerplunk on the gravel! I squeaked and waved my hands in the air, “You tossed the toad!!!”
“It peeeeeeeed on me!”
“You could have killed it!”
“But…it peed on me!”
I laughed and laughed and laughed. I’m laughing right now thinking about it. Teehee. The toad peed on Andy.
The End.
Sheep Update: Sourdough’s bottle jaw (sheep necks get swollen and full of fluid when they have bad worms — it’s called bottle jaw) is almost completely gone, and she’s up and about more, going potty, eating a little. She wasn’t eating a whole lot, so Andy called the vet, and I picked up a syringe of steriods after work. Yup. I got to give a sheep a shot. The steriods are supposed to help her appetite and also help reduce the inflammation in her tummy and guts from the worms. Pumpernickle’s bottle neck is still there, but she’s very perky and was running around and even baaa’ed.