This Farm Friday is brought to you by puppies! Nellie went to her new home yesterday and the puppies began their trip to their new homes in Maine! We loved having them with us for the 6 weeks and 5 days we had them! But I’d be lying if I said I was going to miss picking up poop for 7 puppies.

From the day she set foot at our house, Quila has been the perfect dog. She behaves well. She never has accidents. She is good with other dogs. She’s a bit protective of me. She is the BEST puppy dog aunt on the planet! She does as good as any mama dog at teaching puppies what behavior is OK and what isn’t. We adore our Quila girl.

Quila and her fan club.

Samson the pony is really good at Civil Inattention. Meaning, you can be in the same room as him and he will pretend you aren’t there. He mastered that skill even more with the puppies!

Christian was going to show Samson who was the boss! Samson couldn’t get away from that small furry thing quickly enough.

Before embarking on their journey the puppies had to visit the vet for vaccinations and health certificates. At first they were scared. Then they played. And finally, they passed out.

Marcus finds vet visits to be tiresome.

On their last night with us we let them play to their hearts’ content. We knew they had 4 days of being in a car ahead so wanted them to use up some of that puppy energy. Well, Kately spent about 15 minutes in Jaguar’s stall playing in his feed pan while I mucked stalls. Silly puppy!

Feed pans are for playing.

As I write this post the puppies are making their way across Tennessee. I’m grateful that the rescue is keeping me included in the communication with the transporters. They all seem to be eating, sleeping, pooping, drinking and tinkling well! Safe travels little cuties!

Good Friday morning y’all! I cannot believe we are into the double digits dates of August! Soon school will be starting around here and traffic will be bad and the weather will start cooling off and all that comes with the change of seasons.

I’m trying to let myself enjoy the cooler temps we are having right now, but I’m having a hard time not being bitter about the lack of rain. We have been surrounded by rain clouds for a couple days and seen a lot of lightening and even some rainbows. But no rain.

When it gets warm, Tuffy gets in the water trough to cool off. This always cracks me up and it makes him SO happy!

Quila is a saint about letting the puppies climb on her. Some of the tan ones look a lot like her, so she’s extra cute with her doppelgangers!

This is Jackie, she is our newest foster. She had been in the Joshua shelter since about April. They had gotten to the point that where going to have to euthanize dogs to make room for all the new ones coming in the door, so we offered to foster her. She is a DELIGHTFUL little dog! Only about 27lb with lots of love and energy. We are smitten.

PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY ……………………………….. pass out. That is the theme of Dickens. He adores playing with Jackie!

Simon is lame right now with an apparent stifle injury (WTF, Simon!) and since Sterling is gone Coco is getting ALL the love! And it appears to make her very sleepy.

And speaking of Sterling, things seem to be going OK with his kid. Do you see his happy eyes? I think he REALLY loves his kid! I’m the proudest horse Mom this side of the Mississippi!

I’ll be spending the weekend wishing, hoping, praying, begging, and doing whatever else I can try to encourage the rain to fall!

The puppies are now just over four weeks old and they are on the MOVE! They are definitely bigger than the muppies were at the same age, but the verdict is still out on what breed mix they are. Any guesses?

The boys are all named for German show jumping riders and the girls are named for a couple crazy women in history from a Stuff You Missed in History Class podcast I listened to recently.

In the meantime, enjoy your puppy fix! We will have them for just a couple more weeks before they head north to their new homes!

Tilly in the middle flanked by brothers Christian and Marco.

Cute little poser! This is Ludger.

Puppy pile! Sister Tilly looking at the camera. She is lying on brother Marcus next to Ludger and Marco.

They are slowly getting brave enough to leave their tack room. I think this is Kately. 

Release the “hounds”! Puppies on the move!

Yesterday I posted a photo of a cut/puncture wound in Coco’s nose on my social media accounts and subsequently was asked by a few folks how I found said wound. So, here you go.

Note the trail of blood trickling out her nose. She also has a cut on the outside of her nose.

It was not a tremendous amount of blood considering it was a “facial” wound, which usually bleed a LOT. She did NOT enjoy having it cleaned and putting medicine in her nose, but I can understand that and she really wasn’t terrible.

This photo is after I cleaned the injury and before I put medicine on it, you know, to send to my vet. When my vet builds a new building at his clinic I really think it should be named for me after all the money I’ve given him this year.

This photo really doesn’t do the injury justice. It is at least 1.5″ long and .25″ deep, if not deeper. It’s a pretty stout cut/puncture. I still have no idea how she got it.

To make up for the gross blood/injury photos, I give you PUPPIES!

Sleepy baby girl #1.

There are only two girls in this litter. SO CUTE!

On the move girl #2 with brothers in the background. They are getting VERY active!

Pablo was being weirdly nice to the dogs yesterday. Quila wasn’t too sure of his intentions, however.

P: Hello, dog friend. I would like to smell you.
Q: WTF are you doing, you ass.

And this morning I got to share my latte with a visitor to the barn!

Hello young grasshopper.

It is BLAZING hot here in Texas so I’ll be getting rides in early in the morning this weekend and possibly cutting all my hair off tomorrow. Have a GREAT weekend!

I can’t believe July is nearly here! This summer is brutal so far with high temps and little or no rain. I REALLY hope we get some rain sooner rather than later.

Enjoy some funny farm pet pics!

I could start a series consisting entirely of Betty’s funny sleeping positions. This is the most relaxed Beagle in the world! We just love her! If you’d like to adopt Betty click here.

Sleepy Betty

Murtagh always waits for me to fill the hay soaker, then he jumps on the bucket or the dry part of the hay to drink the hay water. He’s a weird kitty!

Hot summer days make for a thirsty kitty.

If you follow my social media you’ve seen posts of our new foster dog, Nellie. She is about to pop with puppies! She visited the vet on Tuesday and they estimated she would deliver in 24 to 48 hours. We are now on day 4……… I suspect they will arrive this weekend. We appreciate prayers for an easy and safe delivery of healthy puppies!

Nellie!

These two are obsessed with Edith, our cockatiel. I think their faces are so cute how intently they are staring at Edith.

Cockatiel hunters.

Happy weekend! Coco is going to yet another little horse show this weekend. Hopefully she behaves better! What are you getting up to this weekend?

Today’s post is a shameless plug for you to adopt Patches! Patches is a less-than-year old chihuahua that I am fostering through the rescue group Urgent Animals of Fort Worth. Patches was not obtained through the Fort Worth shelter where Urgent gets most of their foster dogs, but from a hoarding situation. Last I heard there were THIRTY-SEVEN chihuahuas at this home and at least three of the females that Urgent rescued have had puppies!

Patches is the sweetest chihuahua in the world. Our previous chihuahua foster was the most fun chihuahua in the world. Patches would prefer to snuggle than to play, but she does like to play with her puppy friends.

Seriously. Her snuggling skills are epic. The tan dog in the above pic is our other previous chihuahua foster, Lily. Lily has already been adopted.

She is also skilled at assisting with the pre-wash cycle for the dishwasher. She is known to get IN the dishwasher to lick dirty plates. Don’t worry, we run the sanitation cycle.

She definitely gets along well with others. Even if they don’t like her.

Annie hates snuggling with Patches the most, so of course that is the dog Patches most wants to snuggle with.

I think you are getting the picture that Patches really likes to snuggle. Keep in mind that these photos are of her snuggling with dogs, because you cannot take photos of her snuggling with humans since she is usually under your chin making selfies nearly impossible.

She also gets along with cats. She loves all humans (although I don’t think she’s been around kids much, I don’t see this being an issue for her!). She is mostly potty trained. She got spayed recently. And she enjoys sunning. See below.

If you or someone you know has been dreaming of adopting a chihuahua, Patches is your girl! Fill out the adoption application at this link. Happy adopting!

I love my vet, but man am I tired of seeing and talking to him! Sterling is MUCH improved and I should be able to start riding him again early next week. THANK GOODNESS! Next up is to “fix” Coco. I think she is having mare issues, but vet wanted to rule out lameness so we finish that experiment this weekend and I feel pretty strongly will address hormones next. Good times. Thank you Simon and Jaguar for being “normal” as of late. Keep up the good work!

I feel like every Farm Friday will feature a photo of Patches sitting on one of our other dogs until she gets adopted. If you like chihuahuas you should totally adopt her. She is the sweetest, funniest little dog EVER!

Dear Murtagh,
Don’t sunbath in the stall with the horse most likely to try to kill you.
Love,
Your family

Simon is getting lots of rides right now since he is pretty much the only horse I can ride. He is still cool as a cucumber 95% of the time. LOVE this OTTB!

Bunny participated in our pursuit to give the vets as much of our money as possible this month. We thought she had a rotten tooth, but turns out it was just a random abscess. She did get her teeth cleaned and a few removed, but the abscess was likely from a spider bite or something like that. It popped on the outside and is oozy now. Super gross.

I’m excited for a fun weekend with my girlfriends. I hope your weekend is wonderful and if you are in the great white north that your snow starts melting! Spring starts next week!

What a week! Lots of emotions and stress! Sterling seems to be improving, thankfully. Coco is having some issues that appear to be related to either ulcers or ovaries. Hopefully we will know more when the vet comes (again) next week.

On a happier note here are some fun photos from the farm this week.

This photo is terrible and ridiculous, but SO funny. Boot City put the baking sheet on the open dishwasher door and Chivas CAMPED out and licked that thing for at least 30 minutes. She growled and snarled at any dog that got close to her! She’s pretty funny in her old age!

Meet Maggie, our newest foster dog! Maggie is from the Fort Worth shelter and is a 4yo Beagle. She has heartworms and is pleasantly plump so will be undergoing treatment and a diet. She will be available to adopt in about 60 days!

Murtagh lives in my tack room, but gets be out when we are at home (we worry about him getting eaten by predators with all that white fur) and boy does he LOVE his barn cat besties!

Lily, our foster chihuahua, was adopted last Sunday (YAY) so Patches likes to bother Annie now. Annie growls at her a lot, but it doesn’t dissuade Patches from laying on her and trying to lick Annie’s ears.

I’ll be spending my weekend cold hosing, sweating and cleaning Sterling’s leg and hopefully riding Simon since he’s the only rideable horse I have right now! How about you?

What a weather week! We went from a nice 60’s temps on Monday to LOTS of rain on Tuesday which turned to ice on Wednesday and Thursday. The horses are so tired of being in the barn!

Murtagh likes to help me with hay chores. He especially likes to ride on the hay in the wheelbarrow. He’s the best tack room kitty!

I can’t get enough of these two. Dickens is so sweet and let’s Patches chew on his ear for as long as she wants. Who needs a super sweet chihuahua?!

Jaguar lives in his own paddock now. He will be 25 this year and the baby horse shenanigans can be too much for his old bones. He likes opening the barn door for some self serve hay. He’s always been a master at opening doors and gates.

The ice accumulation has been hard on the trees in our area. I’m hoping these crape myrtles don’t break from the weight of all that ice, but they sure are pretty!

It has been cold in Texas recently so not a lot of horsing, but definitely a lot of puppy snuggling!

Murtagh the tack room kitty

Part I of chihuahua snuggles

Part II of chihuahua snuggles

Happy weekend y’all!