Smokey comes when he is called because when he was small, if I caught a mouse, I would give it to him and call his name. Jade, one of the Maremma sisters, does not really like cats much. None of the dogs do, but they tolerate them because they belong to the farm. Smokey likes Jade though and sometimes follows her. When the hay was delivered, it gave the dogs a new height from which to survey their kingdom. Smokey followed Jade up the bales and tried to snuggle with her. Jade was tolerant of the situation, though it did not look as though she having much to do with that cat. He was just there and so was she. Aren't they cute together though?
Smokey the cat was born here in the summer. He is the only kitten left from the litter. His brothers were killed, one by the skid steer when he ran under the wheel and the other ?.
Smokey comes when he is called because when he was small, if I caught a mouse, I would give it to him and call his name. Jade, one of the Maremma sisters, does not really like cats much. None of the dogs do, but they tolerate them because they belong to the farm. Smokey likes Jade though and sometimes follows her. When the hay was delivered, it gave the dogs a new height from which to survey their kingdom. Smokey followed Jade up the bales and tried to snuggle with her. Jade was tolerant of the situation, though it did not look as though she having much to do with that cat. He was just there and so was she. Aren't they cute together though?
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The old dog lies by the fire in the old farm house. He is content and quiet, enjoying the moment and at peace with the world. In the distance the raven calls, but his ears have turned inward now, somewhere between dreamland and the sound of his heart beating. The old house groans under the strain of the frozen air outside, frost threatening to creep into the bones of the ancient wood. Still it stands, loved and welcoming to all who enter. The dog knows. He rests while outside the others do the work. There is a quiet ticking of the hot fire heating the cast iron and in silence two gyro fans rotate from the rising warmth, sending it outwards in the pretty living room. Some nails have started to pop through the well trodden wooden floor, telling of years gone by and better days. Still, the quaintness of the home permeates the atmosphere and the hearts of all the guests, four legged and two. It is a cozy place to stay on a cold and frosty day. Livestock guardian dogs are not like other breeds. They are aloof, almost to the point that it appears they are not even paying attention, but they are. They even know what you are asking of them, though they may or may not respond. They might come if they are called, or not. They might sit, or not. But come, well, that is almost always not. We have been working on stay. The reason there are so many dogs is to protect the livestock. They need to stay to protect them though, not gallivant through the farm chasing squirrels away. Yesterday, Ofcharka had two porcupine quills in his face, not lodged tightly, thank goodness, but they were there. He had to go to the vet's last year to get a mug full of quills removed and that was an ordeal in itself. Try getting a 150 pound dog into a vehicle when he does not want to go. I ended up getting a sedative from the vet to administer to him to just get him into the truck. Anyhow, it means he has been hunting in the woods. Two sides of the farm now have 5 foot high buffalo wire fencing. This keeps the large animals out of the woods and the dogs on their side for the most part. I would love to fence the other two sides the same, if I could train the dogs to stay with the animals. Then when the sheep and goats left, they would go along and protect them from predators. The problem is they did not bond to the sheep. Ofcharka will stay a few minutes with the sheep, then jump the fence and leave. Harley does the same. The pups have learned to get over the fences now too, so they do not stay. They seemed like they were going to bond with the sheep, but the pull of the pack was greater and they continually either dug out, broke through the fence or climbed over until I finally gave up. But, today I told them all to stay on the other side of the fence while I was feeding the horse and llamas and to my great surprise, they did. At least for about ten minutes they did, then Jenna went through the hole in the fence, followed by the rest of the pack and Ofcharka just jumped over. I yelled at Robbie, the border collie, and again, to my great surprise, he went back on the other side where he was supposed to be. That was a first. He and Jade were sharing a bone, though, so there was some incentive to be there. The dogs are all very young, with the pups at 7 months as the youngest and the majority around 2, except for Harley, who is 5. I will keep working with the dogs, of course. It is my intention to get a two long range shock collars as well. They kept the cows away from the farm yard last summer and that is not what I want them to do. Getting their attention might change that, especially Robbie and Ofcharka. The rest sort of follow Robbie, then Ofcharka. If I can control Robbie, then there is hope. He is a hard one, and today he was a star, absolutely excellent and followed every command. I am still in shock! But I sure do love those dogs, just as they is! The temperatures have stayed in the minus 20's for a long time, gong down to minus 32 and 34 at night. For the most part the sheep and the dogs, except of Harley, who has arthritis from being fed GMO grain based dog food when he was a pup, are pretty comfortable. Both the dogs and sheep can curl up on the snow and sleep there and not be cold. The dogs curl up and their bushy tails cover their noses. The sheep are well insulated and the alpacas seem to be too, more so than the llamas. Those poor goats run out to eat and shiver and run back to their barn, staying there until they have to eat again. They do not like the snow or cold and only travel on their paths, never venturing their little hoofies into the snow. The Angora goats were not shorn in the fall, so they have long thick warm coats that will be of little to no value other than insulation, because the fiber will mat and it is so full of vegetative matter from feeding alfalfa hay. It does make good insulation though. Some of the chickens only venture out to eat and drink and spend the rest of the day on their perches in the coop, trying to stay warm. The ducks and geese come out to eat and drink, but drop onto their downy bellies frequently tucking their toes into their feathers so their feet do not freeze. In their coop, they have a thick straw bedding that insulates their feet from the icy ground. Still, one duck froze in his sleep this winter. The trees can be heard cracking loudly when it is crispy cold, freezing as they stand. In the winds, these weakened trees are blown over and up rooted or simply broken in two. No other living things are seen around the farm, no weasels, no coyotes, nothing, because of the pack of livestock guardian dogs that keep it safe. The lens on the camera continually fogs over because though it is very cold, there is also a mist in the air of ice particles. It has snowed non stop for the past three days, lightly, but non stop. One would wonder why anyone would choose to live in such a frigid area, and yet, further north, there are much colder regions where people also live. Just because winter is so hard here in northeastern Alberta, the anticipation of the beautiful summer is so looked forward to. But, darn, it is cold right now. Jenna does not look for shelter, just curls up and tucks her nose under her tail. Robbie does not have the same beautiful thick double coats that the livestock guardian dogs do, and he does get cold and shivers. He sleeps in the house and Harley gets to come in for the afternoon to nap where it is warm.
What if I had to make a choice to keep only one dog? Hmm. Robbie is with me 24/7 and is my dog for sure. He is good natured, but has a bit of a nasty streak when it comes to the frenzy of catching and killing. Towards humans, he is great. But, if I had to only keep one dog on the farm, it would be Jenna. She is shy, sweet, so pretty, small, protective and very loving. She would not make a town dog, because she is a barker, but that is her breed. Maremma dogs do bark to warn predators to keep away. Jenna is the low dog in the pack. Even the puppies are taking precedence over her now. They are bigger for sure. She does not try to challenge them anymore. Her early start in life was bad. The owner fed the puppies, but never watched to see what happened. The sheep ate the dog food and the puppies were starving. They ate grain and wool to stay alive. Jenna was obviously hurt too, likely kicked, certainly yelled at, and most probably hit. So was her sister Jade, and they are wary of people. Yet, Jenna will come to me and seek attention. She has the greatest big smile and she talks. I love that little girl. Shhh, don't tell Robbie. This is what the dogs eat, and the cats, this, plus the same ground coarsely. The trouble in winter, is that it is frozen solid when I pick it up from the butcher's and then is stored outside, where it remains frozen solid. Thawing meat that is as cold as minus thirty degrees is not an easy feat. The porch, the brand new porch, is so cold that the meat stays frozen. Heck, Robbie's water freezes on the floor, but that is another sad tale. In the meantime, the dogs need one of these boxes of meat daily. There are 7 dogs, 5 of them very large and the other two medium sized. They eat a lot and since they are only fed these meat scraps and occasional, but infrequent household scraps, that means a constant supply of meat. Giving them a thirty below frozen box of meat is hopeless. They cannot get it apart, try as they might, so it needs to be thawed in the house. I have brought some in and left it on the floor near the fire, waking to a huge bloody mess the next morning. I did get a Rubbermaid tote to do this in now, but it is in the bed and breakfast house and the dogs need this meat today. So, I set the largest pot I have on the wood stove and managed to balance it there caught on its legs, while sitting the block of frozen meat scraps more or less in it. Filled with water, the pot is steaming the meat apart, but not without making a mess. Gross! The tin foil is catching some of the drips. I do have a larger copper kettle pot, but the wood stove top is small and the copper kettle does not balance there easily either. I will try it tomorrow, hoping it does not leak. The pot at the back of the stove has water in it too, to help steam the meat apart so the dogs can eat it. This take a long time, most of the evening actually. Why do the dogs get fed this food? Dogs are carnivores. They are not meant to eat grain, which is what dog food is made from, except the very high end (read that ridiculously priced) food. For seven large dogs, I would be spending about 500 dollars a month to feed them a high end no grain food. As it is, I feed them these meat scraps and the cost is about 200 dollars a month. If they were fed a good quality commercial dog food, the price would be about the same at $48 per bag. Another bonus with feeding meat to dogs, is there is less going out. Grain is not utilized and most of it comes back out the other end. Meat is used as food and digested, leaving only small stools. With seven dogs, that too, is a consideration, though the livestock guardian dogs will go a long distance so as not to soil their own territory. I like that. Just the border collie needs to be cleaned up after, and that is not so bad. As the puppies get older, they too are leaving the farm yard to do their business. That is how those dogs do it. That also marks their territory, giving animals a whiff of the dog's scent warning them to stay away. So, the meat is on the wood stove, sort of and the dogs are waiting for supper. I will bring the Rubbermaid over and leave a box of food in it overnight. That should lessen this thawing task considerably. Ah, but I do love those dogs, those dogs who fight with their lives to protect that which is theirs. It has been near minus forty with a wind chill as well. Today the chores were done as quickly as possible. First I hammered the ice out of the buckets. Next I put in fresh water, which was already freezing minutes after pouring. Lastly, I fed the animals. Four lambs are sick, the three new Blue Faced Leicesters and the new Dorper ram lamb. He has diarrhea and has had since he arrived. The previous owner said not to worry about it since he was just wormed with a very strong wormer. The vet said he likely has coccidiosis and gave me a 50 dollar drug to inject him with. The BF lambs have pneumonia and had to get a different antibiotic, which was another 50 dollars. Sheesh!
At least the dogs were trying to keep warm by running and playing. At one point Robbie found something and teased the others with it. Ofcharka and Harley, were not interested in Robbie's ploys, but the others fell for it, except Mikey, who stays with the sheep most of the time. He just went home. He is the low dog and gets beaten up quite a bit. Rather than risk that, staying home seems preferable. I agree. These guys were entertaining me while I was buzzing around trying to keep warm. Brrrrrrr~ There are 5 Maremma crosses and Ofcharka as the livestock guardian dogs on the farm, and Robbie, the border collie. The two pups are 7 months old now and are bigger than the girls. They are just getting their adult teeth and have started to challenge the female Maremmas, who felt it was their job to keep the pups subordinate and in their pen. Now, Joe, though he still cowers to the girls, has begun to stand up for himself and show those new teeth he is getting when Jade challenges him. It seems there is never enough food to go round because Joe and Mike do not get their share. Joe is cagey though, and he waits around until no one is watching or the dogs are busy eating and slowly sneaks in to take something for himself. If Jade sees him she chases him away. Mike does not even try that. He stays far away and safe, so I bring him food or the poor fellow would starve. The pups are sweet natured, gentle giants with huge feet and big hearts. Harley is like that too, only and older more experience version. Ofcharks is a quarter Maremma, but he still chases butterflies, or he did in the summer. It was an absolute delight to watch this horse sized dog flouncing and pouncing on a flittering butterfly. So sweet. Tonight I put Ofcharka with the goats for an hour while I was doing chores. He does not mind at first, and does not try to get out of the pen, but he eventually wants to come back to the pack and patrol the farm. My biggest fear is that the dogs will go to the highway and get hit. Large trucks run right by the driveway and most drivers here would not think twice if they hit a dog. That is sad. So, the dog pack numbers seven beautiful, absolutely the best big (well Robbie and Jenna are not real big) dogs and I love each one to bits. There are seven dogs at The Fat Ewe Farm, all of them livestock guardians except Robbie, the border collie, who is the herder. The pups are 6 months old now and refuse to stay with the sheep. They do not mind taking their afternoon naps with the sheep and they basically grew up in the sheep pen, but now they are bigger, they can climb over the fence to be with the pack and they do. Having a pack of six livestock guardian dogs can be challenging. I must be the alpha in their eyes and so far there has never been a question about it. Once in a while the dogs have challenged me, but I scream and yell at them and flip them over on their backs and hold them down at the throat, or at least did when they were younger. Now, I do not have to. The dogs are housed in dog city for the winter, but they do not avail themselves of the houses offered unless they want privacy or it is very cold and snowy, as in a blizzard. In minus 20 weather, they park themselves on some hay somewhere and pay attention to what goes on. During the day, they may sneak into a house to sleep uninterrupted by the day to day activity on the farm. They have a house they prefer, though if it is occupied, they will choose another without incident. The two largest houses are made from the big 1000 liter plastic tanks that are encased by an aluminum cage. I had the bars unscrewed and the inside plastic removed, then I cut a hole in it about the size of Harley and Ofcharka, filled it with ten inches of dry straw and put some more straw on the roof. Then the roof has a plastic sheet on top to keep the straw from blowing away in strong winds and to provide a little more warmth. There is a sheet of plywood in front of the openings as well, which blocks the direct wind from blowing inside the houses. There are two small plastic barrel houses turned on their sides. Little Jenna could easily fit in one, or Robbie, if he is not dragging anything along with himself, but usually he is. The other barrel has been adopted by the cats, and it has a covering of hay over it for insulation. When more snow comes, the blanket of white will further insulate the houses. Mike and Joe, the pups, have their own houses in the sheep pen, however; if they are not going to stay there, I will have to remove them to the yard. First, though, I will try giving them the option of easily returning home. Perhaps once they know they can go in and out on their own, they will be more apt to return to the sheep. In the photo, dog city is in progress. It can get very cold here in the north of Canada. Robbie is not built to sleep outside in winter, but the other dogs are. They just need a good shelter in case of bad weather and the option to be able to use it if they please. In the summer dog city is a row of wooden houses with lots of open spaces and dirt floors, just to keep them out of the sun and rain. In the area, the neighbours report coyotes, bears, foxes, and other predators and problems with deer, but I do not see nor hear any of these. That is the what the dogs are for and I am grateful they do a good job keeping predators at bay. For that and so much more, I give them deluxe accommodations at the Fat Ewe Farm. Some days I have the luxury of sleeping late and not doing too much when I do wake up. Today was that sort of day. It was cold last night, minus 10, but the sun was shining this morning and the temperature quickly rose to 14. What a gorgeous day. I put plywood up on the lamb shelter to break the south east wind and enclosed a portion on that side as well. In winter, some of the most brutal winds come from the south east. The sheep do not go into their shelter much except when the wind is bitterly cold and when there is a blizzard. They hunker down in the snow and their wooly coats keep them warm and toasty. In the morning there is a depression in the snow where their bodies have melted the crystals enough to hollow out a portion. The lambs do not do this so much, unless they are by their mothers, but the mothers will be breeding in a month and the lambs are too young, so they will remain separated this year. Lambs and their mothers recognize each other two years after being apart and perhaps even longer. It is a delight to see them celebrate their reunion of love. After that, I hung solar lights on the porch, and tiny ones on the arch way I created with a livestock panel earlier in the day. When the climbing rose is mature it will cover that arch, I am hoping. In between, the dogs got some raw liver, which they gobbled down, or at least Mikey and Joe did. The older dogs were not hungry at that time and lazed in the sun after working all night. It was chicken catching day today because the roosters are scheduled to go to the processors tomorrow morning, but I could not bring myself to catch them. I called my neighbour Dale, a most wonderful man who actually practices what he preaches. He is a Mormon and is the pastor! I am glad to know him and his wonderful family and I know when in need, I can call for help. I try not to abuse that privilege, and would also assist him if he should ever ask. He brought his nephew along and the two men caught the roosters and put them in the large dog kennel for the night. It is in the smart car wagon because the transmission of the truck broke and I cannot afford to repair it at this time. I am grateful to have the smart car wagon for times like this for sure. Dale and his nephew also caught the last 7 chickens that were roosting in the tree and I stuffed them in the coop to be imprisoned for the next 5 days until they know to come home to it at night. I would hate to lose those hens, those wonderful broody hens that raised wonderful chicks this summer. They were hard to catch too! Now they are safe and warm. Snow is not forecast until late November, yay!, a switch from last year, thank goodness, and temperatures are to remain mild until then too. Yahoo! More chores were completed during the day, then the dishes were done when I came inside. I cooked Portabella mushrooms with kale for supper and then had a bowl of popcorn. The moon is stunning tonight, illuminating the sky and the Earth. Isn't life grand? |
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AuthorFluffy writes daily about the experiences on the farm and with the bed and breakfast patrons. Archives
October 2020
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