Category: Around the Homestead

Everyone buys souvenirs on vacations and trips, right?  Everyone has different tastes, things they like, things they collect, and things that pull on their heartstrings.

Well, here is our souvenir from our trip to Arkansas:

Her name is Ruby and she weighs 9 lbs.  She was running along a busy highway in Kansas on our way to Arkansas.  We got turned around and called her over to us.  Surprisingly, she came running to us as fast as her little legs would carry her.  I grabbed her and ran to the edge of the highway, and Randy noticed as we were coming toward him that she was prolapsing.  We tied a bandana around her like a diaper, called mom to start searching for a vet, and called a nearby friend for a vet recommendation

We found a wonderful large animal vet in a little town in southeastern Kansas who stitched her up to temporarily keep her together until we could get her to a vet who could further diagnose her and kennel her for the duration of our trip.  It was getting late in the afternoon and our hotel would not accept pets, so we stopped at the first vet we found who was open.  The vet and her assistant were so nice and willing to help us out.

We knew she was prolapsing, had an ear infection, and was going to have to be vaccinated just by looking at her.  As the tests progressed so did her list of problems.  They are estimating she is 7-10 years old, but did say it is really hard to tell once a dog is passed the age of two.  She needed 3 surgical procedures to correct a hernia, spay her, and correct the problem causing her to prolapse, part of which was the spaying.  She has a bucket of meds to take care of the incredible infection she had growing inside of her.

It was concluded this little girl only had a day or two left before she would have died.  We dropped her off on Thursday and went back to visit her Friday afternoon after her surgeries.  She was already sort of drugged in the picture above from being temporarily stitched up.  When we saw her after her surgeries she was groggy and scared, but still as cute as she can be.

 We absolutely did not need another dog and everytime we find a dog in need we say, “at some point we are going to have to look the other way.”  However, we just can’t keep driving.  We just can’t look the other way and go on about our lives as if we never saw it.  It is just not the way we are built for better or worse.

Tomorrow morning we will pick up our little gremlin-looking dog with a cone on her head and head to Eureka Springs to do some outdoor sight-seeing.  In the meantime we have a shopping trip planned for a little pink collar, a little pink leash, and possibly a little tote to carry her around in so she doesn’t have to walk after everything she has been through.

Some people have shot glasses, refrigerator magnets, or t-shirts…..we have dogs someone decided they didn’t need anymore or were too much trouble.  We love each one we find as much as the last!

 We had a few days of cooler weather and used our new grill to cook and spend some time out back with our dogs…and our llamas.

Due to the drought our grass is really short and since Lexus and Celia are pregnant and Sylvia is still growing we decided to let them on the backyard where the bermuda has gone crazy.  They loved it and spent most of the weekend out grazing on it.

The new grill has a temperature setting which allows me to bake on it…which I did.  I baked a couple loaves of banana bread on it this afternoon.

Randy put a homegrown chicken I had marinated in a lime marinade and baked beans on the smoker.  They were awesome.  We couldn’t believe how good everything tasted.  We had cut some mulberry wood that morning to use in the smoker and hopefully this winter in the wood cookstove we have on order.

I think Hank felt a little left out with all the girls on the backyard, so we let him out the gate so he could eat leaves off the elm trees and graze all the grass just outside the lots.  He was pumped.

The break from the heat was nice, but we are gearing up again for another hot streak.  Hope everyone stays cool.

Bantam silkie

Sheep on wheat stubble.

Romanov ram lamb.

Ash, Thai, and Koal

We have two registered Texel rams for sale.  The are 3-4 years old and have registration papers.

On the left is Merle and on the right is Cash.

Merle and Cash

We also have 20 ewe lambs we will sell to a buyer on August 6th if we have not sold them off the farm by then.  They are Texels, but do not have registration papers.  We are selling them for $150/each and can acquire 50-75% recorded papers for them for the cost of processing the papers if interested.  We just weighed the lambs at 60-65 pounds.

We also have recorded Texel ewes for sale for $225/each.  These ewes are 50-75% recorded with papers.

If you are interested please leave a comment.  Thanks!

Times are tough here with no rain.  We are trying to make the best of it.  The sheep are out on wheat stubble that has crabgrass growing like crazy.  This will buy us time while we wait for rain.

Our pasture is done until rain comes.  If it doesn’t rain soon we will have to start dropping our winter hay.  Not something we want to do, but we are fortunate enough to have hay when many don’t and are thankful for that.

A beautiful Kansas sky!

We sold 23 Texel ewes this evening.  It was so sad to see them go, but with the drought our pasture could not sustain any more than necessary and was a blessing to sell them.  We are down to approximately 80 ewes for breeding stock now.  We have Dorpers, Romanovs, and registered Texels.  The Dorpers will lamb in the fall with Dorper/Romanov cross lambs.  The Texels will be bred in the fall to a Romanov ram and the Romanovs to a Texel ram to lamb in the spring.  We are also expecting two baby llamas in the fall from the bred llamas we bought at a nearby auction Easter weekend.  

We still have two registered Texel rams to sell and always have Texel lambs for sale.  With any luck at all we will have our herd downsized to where we would like it by fall as we prepare for winter feeding.  The extra money has been such a blessing to pay for the skyrocketing price of hay in our area.  Our lambs will go to the sale soon also and hopefully pay for the grain and protein tubs to get us through winter with a little left over to put toward the house.

The chickens have slowed down laying eggs due to the heat, but are still continuing to pay for themselves and provide us and our customers with plenty of eggs which is all we ask of them.  We are hoping for a cool off soon and some much needed rain.  We spend our days hosing down the llamas, filling their baby pool, keeping the mister going on the chickens, and the dog’s pool cool and clean. 

We have been off work all week, but with too many chores and too much attention needed at home decided to take a stay-cation as opposed to traveling somewhere.  We have had a wonderful time at home and don’t regret not being able to fly away somewhere.  

We have enjoyed projects at home and spending time with our animals.  The dogs appreciate the extra attention as do the cats and llamas.  We got caught up on de-worming our sheep and llamas and even managed to shear one llama, Sylvia. 

All in all we have had a wonderful, productive time at home.  Hope everyone is doing well.  Feel free to send some rain our way.