A Good Day

 Saturday

Well, it seems that we are still feeding mama dog, as the trail cam caught her by the shed, this morning. It appears she has a running mate, a bigger black dog.  Possibly one of her pups? It's been a few weeks since we started leaving food for her so that could be a 3 month old pup, I guess. Or possibly the dad of the pups? Either way, I need her to come by when we are here so I can get her used to me, and then get her snapped up and spayed. She can stay feral if she wants to, she'll have the shed to sleep in and we'll put food and water down, if she doesn't want to be around humans much. At least though we could stop her having any more puppies in future.

Sometimes people like me are useful.

It's like when we had Mystery. Feral pup, 8 weeks old approx, and biting people out of fear. the vet told the shelter to euthanize.  The shelter owner thought it funny, that I (who is scared of dogs!) offered to take her and her siblings to attempt to socialize.  The siblings were ok to move on to another foster home in about a month, Mystery just stayed the way she was.  She cleaved to our German Shepherd/Husky, Angel, and got on ok with out other 2, Princess and Max, but had no interest whatsoever in human company. I always said I thought she was autistic as I could catch her when she was smaller, with a towl around her neck to where she couldn't turn and bite me.  I would lie with her on my chest for maybe an hour, she'd settle, let me stroke her gently, avoided eye contact at first but I would move her head and tell her she was safe now, and she'd be ok.  As soon as I put her down, it was as if she had never seen me before in her life. She lived in my kitchen for about 6 months, with puppy pads, as I was too scare to let her out in the yard as I didn't think she'd come back in. Finally, I took a leap of faith one day and let her outside with Angel, and called Angel in 5 minutesl later.  She followed Angel back in.  I did that about 5 times that day and that was when I quit using puppy pads in the kitchen for her. She was never able to move on to another foster home, and I wasn't about to let her be euthanized for it, so she lived happily with us and our tribe for 12 years.

So, if this mama wants to stay feral with limited human involvement, that's ok.  My own 2 four-legged sons and four-legged great-grandpuppy give me plenty of love and kisses.

Today, we rented a Ditch Witch, and hubby dug me some ditches where I need to plant the fruit trees when they come next week (they were ordered back in November and get shipped when it's time to plant) and some others where I'm going to need other stuff in the ground.  Easier than digging with a shovel, and I'll just need a couple of bags of nice potting compost, and weed barrier fabric and some mulch to finish them off. I'm going to get some earthenware plant pots to create an Amish-style underground watering system since we won't have irrigation there yet. It'll be gallon jugs for a little while, but I wanted to get the trees in when they come, so that they are started in their new home.

Sunday

I ordered the earthenware pots (apparently called ollas) for the fruit trees, and today am going to start some seeds in pots, indoors, so they'll be ready for my Spring plantings. I sent hubby to get me some potting compost so as to get them bedded nicely.

My plan is to have a very bountiful kitchen garden, and then to freeze, can and dehydrate when we harvest everything. I want to can again but it's been probably 50 years since I last did, so I need to re-learn, and now - apparently - the water bath method is frowned upon and it's pressure cookers all the way. As someone who is afraid of pressure cookers (oh yes, when you've watched one explode and everything fly around the room, you really don't want to experience that again!) I am thinking I will have the pressure cooker outside on an extension cord when it gets to that point, that way I won't need it anywhere near me while it's doing its job!.

So, mama dog apparently stole the bag of cat food earlier today (it showed on our trail cam). We had run out of dog food yesterday and were planning on buying a bag today, and she took the bag of cat food we had over there for the strays. So far, we've seen 3 strays come to feed. We've also put deer food down, and we have 3 or 4 come visit down by the creek, where we've been putting that. They look at the camera when I talk to them, trying to figure out where the humans are. I just want it to be a safe spot for them, and help them make it through Winter.

We were blessed again to have a Blue Heron down by the pond area, just standing there. I'm guessing it's the one we'd seen fly in a few days ago. Apparently, here in our neck of the woods, if they find plenty of resources in an area, they will stick around! I don't know that we have many fish in the creek or swamp, but there are frogs (apparently another of their staples) so maybe I will get lucky!

Seeds planted today indoors - watermelon, cantaloupe, mixed bell peppers, black and white rose, iceberg lettuce, black rose and 2 seedlings out of the fridge that I BELIEVE are possibly cherry (because they were refrigerated pits in damp paper towels wrapped in foil). Feeling content though, hoping they all grow.