We had a pretty powerful thunderstorm pass through late last night, so Hunter didn’t get much sleep, and neither did I (because of her). When I rolled into the kitchen to make some coffee, she was on the couch with ‘that look’ on her face … she knew she was barking, pacing and panting too much last night because of the weather. BUT, at least she was cute about it. 😉
I ran around the perimeter trail to check on things, and found 3 or 4 trees down in one spot, likely because of recent weather. Nothing like starting one’s day with a little chainsawexercise.
There’s a bit of backstory to the first clip. I called my Dad to wish him a happy Father’s Day, during which he mentioned the “Let It Ride” movie that is centered on horse racing (comedy). We both love that movie, and said we were going to watch it for Father’s Day. So, in the first clip, I’m watching Let It Ride … while Hooey snoozes on the couch (not her brand of humor, I guess). I still LMAO at some of the classic scenes from the movie (e.g. “Nobody move! I have peripheral vision … it’s a gift … I can see me ears …”)
Broody hens …
Garden tilling in the dark (after it cools down) …
All the young ones (rabbits, chickens) are doing well.
We planted 320 veggie / melon seeds in the new soil block mini-greenhouse.
Added a new Springfield Armory M1A chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor to the inventory. Can never have too many M1As.
That young doe seems to be visiting us every day now, and getting progressively closer to the house. I think she likes baiting Hooey into the chase (SCUD-mode).
Hunter was kind enough to share her rotisserie chicken with me.
It is supposed to be oppressively hot & humid for the next few days … so we’re looking for indoor projects to tackle. 😉
Got the soil block tray system (now a mini, standalone greenhouse) completed and deployed into the garden pasture. Got 4 trays of soil blocks ready for seeding.
And, got the new bee hive fed with 8 quarts of bee syrup.
Trimmed the doors for the last set of 3 rabbit cages and poly-stained them.
Baby sat the rabbit litter so Hooey wouldn’t eat them (again!).
Add in the ambient heat and humidity, and you complete the ‘recipe’ for a long-ass-day.
Our day actually started at about midnight, when a huge thunderstorm passed overhead with a few lightening strikes on the property, one that destroyed our internet router/modem.
Spent some time (0:45 min) standing out on a spot on the property known to have the strongest AT&T wireless signal, chatting online with a Century Link CSR. Finally got a technician scheduled … but not for nearly TWO DAYS (without Web, music, TV, phone, …). Aaaarrghhhh.
Used gun maintenance supplies to clean and fix my Rigid finish stapler. Well worth the time and effort. Now I know how a pneumatic nail gun works on the inside.
Had a swarm of bees take up residence in one of many vacant bee hives I have stored in the workshop rafters. I’m used to my bees swarming OUT of my hives and back into Mother Nature … not the other way around
Sans web access, I had a lot of time to just play with the animals.
As the sun started to set, I worked in the garage designing a 3-tiered platform for the wood soil block seed trays I made the other day.
Something … not sure what … deer (I hope) or coyotes (I fear) were tripping motion sensors along the property perimeter all damn day. More than usual. As we wrapped up our day, they went off again, so Hooey and I took off, me on the KTM 990A and her on foot, to do a quick check around the property. Didn’t find anything. Alas.
Hunter was in rare form last night, barking at something. I can generally tell by her bark and behavior whether she’s barking at a deer, coyote, skunk or ‘unknown.’ Last night was an ‘unknown,’ as her bark was less excited, but more scared, and she came upstairs and barked in my ear (at 2AM!).
She has ‘that look’ on her face this morning … like ‘sorry about that barking thing last night … we good?‘
And, check out those talons on her! I probably cut her nails about once a year. Why? Because more so than ANY dog I’ve ever seen, she grooms herself and actually gives herself a mani-pedi pretty much every night. I watch her work on individual nails, trimming and shaping them. No joke.
As you can see, she’s pretty damn good at it.
You DO NOT want to be on the receiving end of those talons. Especially if you’re a skunk. Just brutal. 😉
We had a nice thunderstorm pass through a little earlier. One of the motion detectors on the perimeter started going off for a bit, so I wasn’t surprised to look up and see 6 or 7 deer on the driveway.
At night, Hunter can see a deer about a mile away. When the sun is up, I think her brain short-circuits and she seems to have less visual acuity.
When I was composing the video, she said she wanted to do a voice-over to redo that weak-ass woof of hers, then she choked and forgot to bark when I queued her. One chance baby girl, time is money! You snooze, you lose. 😉
Yip … another damn snake. This one was sneaking up on Hooey while she was watching me pull another trapped rabbit out of dome 1. From this video, you can see why I usually run Hunter into the house whenever a snake is involved. My biggest fear is she crosses paths with one of the big-ass copperheads we have around here. She would (as evidenced here) stick her big ol’ nose right in the snakes face and undoubtedly get bit, poisoned and rushed off to the vet hospital … if she’s lucky. My vet told me last year they experienced a noticeable increase in copperhead bites on dogs.
I guess I should be a bit more worried about the new baby chicks out in the compost pile nest, because they are about 1/5th the size of the baby rabbit that snake ate yesterday.
Hooey and I had a long weekend, so we inadvertently slept in a bit today. She will usually wake me up if I stay in bed past about 6A, but not this morning.
The fact that she was still curled up on the La-Z-Boy when I got up suggests she, too, felt the need to just sleep in a bit.
Shortly after this video, we went out to release the chicken flock from their (3) coops. When I opened the garden pasture coop, one of the black hens literally hit me in the chest, having dived off the roost as soon as the door opened. She hit the ground running and made a bee-line for the barn, where I found her standing in front of the coop door within which her preferred nesting box is. She was doing her version of the ‘pee pee dance’ and I swear there must have been an egg poking halfway out of her backside. I opened the coop door and she bounded right into the nest box.
Hunter (aka ‘Hooey’) is a pretty intense dog. Very smart. Very intuitive. Often times she looks at me with eyes that seem to betray a level of thinking you wouldn’t expect for an animal.
She has a wide range of emotions and feelings she can clearly communicate just with her eyes, and to a lesser degree ears and tail.
I just fed her a bowl full of kibble and sardines, so I’m not sure what to make of this look, but I can tell you one thing … she would do well to eat a $%^ breath mint. Wow … sardine breath! 😉
