A Little Reintroduction to the Critters

 Since I had the bright idea to restart this in the middle of winter, with no real projects or anything else going on, I think I'll start with a little reintroduction of some of the critters. Yesterday was actually nice enough to take a nice walk outside. Still cold but not gale force winds, yay! It was bright and sunny and the snow sparkled like diamonds. I always loved that as a kid but we actually don't see a lot of that here, the snow is usually too dry to make those ice crystals.

First up, here's Toad, our oldest at the moment. She's 9 now, a St. Bernard X Lab. Who'd guess that?

You can see Buddy behind her and just to her left. He was the dog I made feather bed for, the things I do for dogs, hehehe!

Next up is Grunt, again with Buddy photobombing. She's our newest, only 1 1/2 years old. Spanish Mastiff/Anatolian and Hanging Tree Cow dog. I'm still trying to figure out if she's bright but stubborn or really dumb. I was leaning towards dumb, but after a few recent events, I'm now leaning the other direction. We recently had one of the cats, Squirrel get attacked by another dog. She actually leaped to the cat's defense and fought off the other dog. Squirrel did survive but it was a close thing. Grunt is practically his nanny now. She tends to follow him around and not let any other dog close.

Then we have Angus. Still our big goofy guy. He's 7 now and starting to show just a hint of hip issues. I guess not too surprising in such a big dog. He's still not quite sure why he's not allowed in laps. 

That's the house dogs. Next we'll go visit the goats and you can see the two LGD's. In this pic you can see Rosie on the left, Sadie the (sweetheart) Anatolian (aka Sausage Dog) and Scrat on the right. Rosie is due to pop at the end of this month, our likely first of the year. She and Scrat are both boer crosses.

And here we have Spunky in the lower left corner (boer), then Tidbit. remember when she was born? Next to her, missing a head, is Elsa. She's Alpine and our newest. Newest meaning she's been here 2 years. In the background on the left is Crumpet. And just behind Tidbit is Max, our 8 year old Komondor X Akbash. 

Most of these girls are due to pop in April. It'll be awesome to have milk again. I really don't like my dry periods. I just noticed in this pic that Tidbit looks scrawny, she's really not. Elsa is a bit and is getting special feeding. She's low man on the totem pole so doesn't always get enough feed. She's a pretty good milker, though, and will milk through for a couple years pretty easy. I really like it when I get ones like that but I have noticed that they tend to not be easy keepers.

And just because here's a snap of the bucks. They were a ways out in the pasture, vainly hoping for some tender new grass. Not for another month and half at least guys, sorry. Andre the Alpine on the left and Lenny the Boer on the right.

None of the cats were cooperating so no cat pics. Same with cows. But that's most of what we have on the homestead animal-wise at the moment.