Puppy Love

A couple weeks ago my mom and and my sister, Rebecca, went and got puppies-very, very cute puppies(I don't know of any that are not cute) but these are just one of those breeds that are soooooo...........cute!!
First, I knew Becky was going to be a getting a puppy-she told me but I had no idea that my mom was until Becky told me that she was going to go 'look' at them too. They called me that afternoon to inform me that they had new friends and my mom, literally had new 'friends'. She couldn't get just one, it would be lonely and the decision was really hard and the seller was going to make them a really 'sweet' deal on..................3 puppies!
Becky took one, a male who now has the name Sam; my mom took 2 females, a light tan one now named Abby and a dark one named Sadie. I was shocked that they bought two of them-time to fill the nest. LOL
So what kind are these puppies? Clues: they have really long ears that get into everything-even before the nose gets there, they always look sad-even when they are happy, they can get up to 60lbs but are 'low riders'-not very tall and they are descendants of Blood Hounds, oh, and if you follow the Pioneer Woman's blog you would know that she is obsessed with one-not that I blame her.

Yep.........Basset Hounds! This is Little Abby. She is definitely the baby in the bunch; the runt, not as out going, just has 'pamper me' all over her.

They got to come and visit the other day for a few hours so I started them off right with the proper house etiquette-the couch is a very soft, warm place to take a nap.

This is Sadie. She is very out going, vocal and is probably going to be the trouble maker.

Sam..........he is all boy!! He is a chunk. His favorite past time is eating and occasionally picking on his sister who are about half his size.

Abby........power napping

Sadie.........eat hard, play hard and sleep hard!

Sam...........look at those feet! And he's only 7wks old!

Okay, time to go outside and enjoy the sunshine. Sam here had found a stick.

The stick was learning how to submit

But due to short attention spans the submitting stick lesson will have to wait-time to go see what Sadie found.

Whew! That was hard work. Time to re-energize.

Oh, but the nap didn't last long.

Time to practice self-defense and attack maneuvers. Biting the nose seems to be a favorite-I'm not sure I would recommend this........for obvious reasons.

Jaw biting too.........all I can say is ouch!! Those teeth are like needles..........on the jaw and in the mouth!

Sam was not ready to be up and was quite annoyed with the wrestling that was going on.

Abby has the ear hold and it looks like Sadie may be out!

but apparently she said something funny........really funny! Saved by a joke!

Becky with all 3 bundles of joy, trouble, puppy breath, sad faces and lots of skin. Note the belly on Sam.

Time to go, but they will be back!

Upgrade

Yeah! After many years of patience and making due, my sweetie found us a new range for our kitchen. As you can guess, I was very excited about getting it and here soon we will have a new oven to match-my other one died...............about 3months ago. You may wonder why we haven't replaced it yet; I can do just fine with the grill, bar-b-q and crock pot plus the range and this way we have been able to continue to be saving a bunch of $$. Some my think us totally strange but that's alright-think what you want-I have found it kind of a fun challenge.
Before installation

Oooohh......so pretty

Getting it ready to go into its new 'home'.

TA-DA!!!

and its no longer that yellow...........which means that its going to show the grime and grease on it which means I am going to have to scrub it more.................mmmhh, maybe I didn't think this through enough?

What Do You Get

So what do you get when you put this with that? What color will you get when you mix that shade with this shade and what do you get get when you put a male white rabbit with a female brown/white rabbit?

Baby bunnies of course!!


This is Alex. He's the daddy

This is Faith-she's the mommy

And in amongst all that hair and hay are 4 little 'kits'-that's what baby bunnies are called.

Here's one of them-this is at 5 days old. The hair is starting to grow in-eyes won't open for a few more days.

Here's one that looks like mom.

They've already grown a lot in just five days.

Interesting facts that I have learned with having bunnies-I'm going to de-bunk a few myths;

-the mama rabbit only feeds her babies 1-3 times daily.

- 'if there is human scent on the babies, the mama will kill them and eat them". This is not true. If mom is too stressed by her surrounding environment, she will possibly neglect them. Its very rare for a rabbit to kill another rabbit-occasionally a female or male will to make room for new babies but this is extremely rare. In the wild, human scent would send up an alarm to the mom because all she smells is that there was or still could be a predator around-she would more than likely just abandon them but even that is quite often rare. Rabbits are herbivores, therefore the only time they would even possibly eat their babies would be if they were still born and its just kind of a way of 'cleaning up'.

-babies will nurse for up to 10wks but start nibbling hay at 3wks

-rabbits can't tolerate sugary foods-we learned this the hard way-RIP Snowflake.
Okay, now that you feel enlightened, I have done my part and must go now but please stay tuned to the updates on the 'life and times' of baby bunnies.

Cottonwood Ride

Yesterday was a beautiful day for a ride out on the range and just to simply be out. I had told the girls this year that we would do a lot of trail riding-except I like to go were there are no trails. Isn't that the point of riding a horse out on the range etc...? Maybe I should call in range riding, but then again, I guess we are making our own trail.
Anyhow, the girls, our neighbor and myself loaded up 3 horses and headed south of town to the Cottonwood Canyon turn off. We unloaded, saddled up, let the dogs out of the truck and then headed up towards the canyon.

The weather was perfect-not to hot and not to cold.

The girls on Nina. This was Marisa's first big 'trail' ride.

They took turns of both being in the saddle and then Marisa would get behind the saddle. It would depend on how squished they wanted to be and for how long and if we were trotting or not. Talk about a bunch of giggling.

My view from the back of Lena. She had to be reminded that large rocks were not going to eat her and nothing was going to jump out from them. Total lion heart.

Itchy nose-nothing like a thorny greasewood to get that itch.

Blazing a trail all of their own.

A little cozy in the saddle.

Marisa was starting to get tired at this point and informed me that she was bored. I couldn't believe it-she was bored, hmmmm...............she just may be more like her dad. I never really doubted this though.

Taking the long way back to the trailer.

This was Heidi's first time out and she was ready to be back to the trailer about and hour ago. She decided that trying to keep up with Hank, the other dog, wasn't worth it and so she just fell in line behind the horses.

The tongue was about to be dragging the ground.

A couple of very tired 'ponies'. I'm sure their tongues would of been hanging out too if they did such a thing.

One happy little girl.

One happy and very tired Heidi.....

who was very thankful that I remembered to bring a bucket of water.

Even her head was getting heavy.

A couple of very happy girls who were glad to be back to the truck-there backsides and legs were getting 'sore'.

One ride down and many more to come!