About Ellie

 

Dearest friends,

Miss Ellie...

with a set of kitty cat ears in the picture.  I haven't posted nearly enough pictures of Ellie. Gosh, back when Eli came home with us it was a full time job taking pictures of every cute move he made.

But with Ellie, it's different. She was almost four months old when we brought her home and already out of that cute, sweet, adorable eight week old ball of fur stage. 

Oh she is still adorable, but more into the lanky, long-legged stage...She looks the same in all her pictures...

Her favorite toy is a sock rolled into a ball. Ellie is a very smart dog...she is housebroken! Totally! She goes to the front door, scratches, and then sits and stares until one of us walks her outside. 

a little clumsy too, but a sweetie pie. She sure makes us laugh.

Eli still hasn't taken to Ellie like we hoped he would. Oh he tolerates her but only for short periods of time. Ellie's wagging tail swatting him across the face and too many wet kisses and Eli is ready to take a nap on the back porch...alone. The vet thinks it's the big age difference. 

Guess who is not at all impressed with a new dog in the house!

Woo Woo, such a grumpy look!

Boring!

Can we please talk about something else?

Well, that's my post for tonight. Thank you Savannah for requesting Ellie pictures. Thank you all for visiting.

Love,

Henny

Kitties and old dog houses and stuff

Thank you for the nice comments on my "hen" post. The little bitties are doing well, and mama too. No ad on Craigslist, yet anyhow. 

You know what Victoria...I would love to set up a table at the road and sell eggs. I believe it would work, but I bet Poppy would say "no". Oh, I delight in doing things like that. 

Friends, would you look at this solid color purple Iris...

I found it growing near the little cemetary where our little Weetie is buried. 

I do believe this is the prettiest Iris I have ever seen, here anyways. We have Iris spread hither and yon...at some point in the last 30 years I must have slung a bucket of rhizomes out across the yard. Would help if some of the grass and weeds were cleaned out.  Maybe one of these days. :(

The evening sun setting sure makes for some pretty pictures...

I had walked to the kitchen sink to wash my hands and noticed the sun shining on the pink roses and Heidi. Kind of special, I thought.

We've worried so about Eli missing and grieving over little Weetie, but sometimes I think Smokey misses him most of all. Smokey and Weetie were always with me at the garden...

Smokey and Weetie were big buddies. They were the same weight and height and boy did they play together. 

Smokey checking out the raggedy old dog house...

It was funny to watch Smokey hiding somewhere waiting for Weetie to come trotting past...

Then Smokey would jump straight up, and the chase was on...

until Smokey went up the side of a tree, leaving Weetie behind. But then, Weetie would lay waiting for Smokey to come back down...payback! There are two old dog houses in the yard and Smokey found a snake in the other one.

Was in the goat lot a little while ago and turning around to close the gate...thought the colors looked pretty...so I got the camera...

The teeny tiny garden is beginning to grow. I've built the wattle fence and used bamboo for tomato stakes (thanks Windy and Brian). I'll post pictures soon. 

Can you believe we just came through the wettest winter on record...and now we are having the dryest spring on record. Heard that on the news this week. I'm having to water the garden to keep the plants alive. 

Well, that's about it. Hope to be back here real soon.

Love,

Henny

Hens on Henny Penny Lane

Oh goodness, I was going to tell you how crazy the hens go in springtime, but then, who am I to talk! I go just as crazy. Every day is packed with happy stuff to do outside and crapy stuff to do inside. 

Why, there's no telling how many steps I walk a day. If only there was time to stop and put my Fitbit on. :) 

So about the hens...

Way over a month ago, three hens decided they wanted to set (as we used to call it). Every day it was a fuss and a fight over a nest box and a few eggs. 

and all the while Poppy preaching, "don't let those hens set. We can't sell the eggs we have now. We sure don't need more chickens".

So, without Poppy knowing, I met with the hens and here's what we decided...Each hen got a nest box and two marked eggs. I then put up one new nest box for the other laying hens. Finally! Peace and quiet in the chicken house, until...

Chicks began hatching.  Time flies, doesn't it!  Two mama hens, each with two baby chicks. Had to get busy and find them all a safe place, so I divided the little covered guinea pen into sections, making homes for the two mamas and their babies. 

Then Poppy found out...not to worry I told him. My plan is to sell the whole lot on Craigslist. My ad reading..."Mama hen and two chicks $15.00. Take them all; Two mama hens and four chicks $25.00."  Got immediate response in emails...so I called the first one. Turned out to be a nice couple with a young son who live about five minutes from us. How nice!  I worry too much about animals and want them to be cared for properly. They bought them all. :(

Now the third old set'n hen has been a worry. Three time, I've been in the chicken house to gather eggs and caught her off her nest and sitting on the fresh eggs...while her three marked eggs lay cold and unattended. Forgot to tell you I gave this hen one extra egg. Anyhow, I would pick her up and put her back on her marked eggs. 

So Poppy, once again, "you need to throw her eggs away and take her off the nest. She'll get over it. Those eggs are not going to hatch. Just throw them over the fence in the woods".

But I waited, and late yesterday while gathering the eggs, found two teeny tiny chicks under mama hen. Checked again this morning and there were three. :)

Don't know if I can part with these. I've worried so about the others having to leave home.

We'll see.  Long ago, women folk talked about what they bought with their egg money...I bought mulch and plants with my hen and chick money.

Appreciate your visiting. Hope to be back soon...

Love,

Henny

Poppy holding the babies...

 

More good luck, hopefully!

Hey dear friends,

Well, I'm back, and intend to stay back! 

What's the weather like where you are? Where did May go? I made a useless trip to Lowes in Henderson this morning for a few gardening things and almost froze to death. This weather!  47 degrees, raining, and windy. The cashier in Lowes garden center was bundled up in a coat and had a little space heater running full blast.

Oh, about the picture of the rough dry hand and the four-leaf clover...I always wondered if the big type clover ever grew one with four leaves...and now I know. Found this one in the teeny tiny garden. I sure did! 

As for the dry rough hands...

it's the dirt in the teeny tiny garden. But that's okay, plants are beginning to grow. 

Looks like I'm cutting the rows off too short on this end. Shoot, there's room for more beans and peppers in these two rows. I'll fix that tomorrow, Lord willing. 

Back to Lowes...they were out of wooden tomato stakes, the main item I went for, and no eggplant! Guess I can cut a few tree saplings from around the pond to use for stakes. 

Can't go without showing you Eli and Ellie...

Oh Ellie is a big sweetie pie just like Eli. She is so smart and is already housebroken. Like Eli, Ellie responds to kind words and telling her what a good girl she is. 

This is how they both looked after chasing each other round and round the living room furniture three or four times. ..in this teeny tiny house. At first, I thought it was thundering! You should have been here!

Oh, just one more thing. There are lots of big poplar trees out here. Aren't the blooms unusual...

Such wild colors. Can't resist picking them up when the wind blows them off the tree.

Well, thanks for being here, for putting up with me, for being my friend. 

Love,

Henny

PS...The kitty cats are fine too and send their love.

A bit about the kitty cats

Hey friends,

Well, I'm still wanting to do better at posting, visiting you, and replying to your comments...I have good intentions. :)  Poppy tells me I have too many things going on at once.  Oh, the other day he said to me, "that's why you never get anything done"!  "NEVER GET ANYTHING DONE!", I asked! 

Anyhow, Poppy brought me these lilies when he came home from turkey hunting a day or so ago...

Turkey lilies, he calls them.  Googled them and these are wild Easter lilies. Now I'm wondering if the wild Easter lilies we used to pick at Aunt Berlies were white instead of blue or purple like pictured in my mind. That was a long long time ago.

Poppy says there is a field of these lilies where he hunts. I added a sprig or two of Rosemary, apple mint, and liriope to the vase.

Oh, before I forget! Poppy killed a big tom turkey! First one in two years. He was tickled to death. Me, not so much. :)

Kitty cats, kitty cats, kitty cats! Had a request for more about the cats (think that was you, Willie. Thank you). :)

Smokey and Dumperoo stay up and off the floor as much as possible these days; you know, with a big overgrown puppy in the house. 

some days Smokey says he has had enough!

and Dumper finds a little peace and quiet on the back porch behind the plastic tablecloth. Pardon the mess, I'm painting an old rocking chair.

Actually, our little Ellie girl has been sweet to both kitties. She just wants to play and doesn't realize how big and clumsy she is. 

It is a nice break for me and the cats when Ellie and Eli take a nap. That's when I vacuum the floors or slip up to the garden...

Not much to see here but I've got a start; six cauliflower plants, three pepper plants, one row of green beans, half row of kale, half row of potatoes, four tomato plants, oh and Arkansas little leaf cucumber in the half barrel. 

Like I said, not much. After all, it is the teeny tiny garden. Don't know why it is so hard to find plants this year. I've always bought vegetable plants in the little six pack but not this year. Can't find any. 

How dumb of me not to start seeds early in the greenhouse. Two pepper plants at Tractor Supply cost me over eight dollars! Poppy says we would be better off buying the peppers at the grocery store. But that's no fun!

Here's a little something I put together this week...

These two plum trees have been slow growing...the larger one bloomed for the first time this spring. Anyhow, the rich soil, top soil, kept washing down the hill so I buried these edging bricks along the edge and filled in around the little trees with compost and mulch. The Guineas came right behind me and wallowed holes in all my hard work. That's why there are now three flowers pots in the bed. :)

and up at the garden...

the four Dutch Iris I dug from amongst the weeds are beginning to bloom. Aren't they beautiful. 

One more picture and I will end this boring post..

Don't know who was more tired, Ellie or me...

Eli, in the background curled up in his chair looks pretty tired too.

Thank you friends. Hope to be back here soon.

Love,

Henny