framing fowl -daily living

I am so sorry about Julie. You get a lot of family history wrapped up in a dog, 16 years worth. Lots of memories, lots of good times and lots of love. I grieve for you. I hope Annie spends the rest of her days healthy and happy.

Your truck smashed by an oak tree limb? Oh, that just ain't right! At our old house, it stayed in perpetual shade by 13 large oak trees, some in our yard, some in the yards around us. Hurricane Ike dropped one on our house and damaged others. One by one, they died and had to be taken down. We had to take down 4 in our yard. The house that donated their tree to remodeling our house had 3 more down their driveway, which was right next to ours. The bark started peeling off the trees. I caught the man outside one day and told him, "When your tree fell on our house, I didn't say anything, we just got it fixed. But if one of your trees falls on my husband's truck, I'm gonna whup your ass." He looked at me real funny, didn't say anything. The next week a tree man took down the trees. LOL LOL

That's funny about your neighbors taking their trees out finally. Don't mess with our trucks! My truck was pretty old and rust was getting it pretty bad.

Our tree was unhappy. The following week it dropped a limb on the electric line to the house. It split our power pole! Seems good again now.

Thanks for the kind words about Julie. We were lucky to have her in our life!

Oh my! Sorry about the truck. More sorry about Julie...that had to be hard. Hope Annie keeps on keepin on for ya!

Thanks FEM.

Sorry to hear about the loss of Julie and your truck I can imagine after 16 years, she must've been like family!

Thanks @sumi . She was like family. The house seems bigger with her gone. We're so thankful for the wonderful time we had with her though. And we've still got Annie. We're discussing whether we want to adopt a young dog or just enjoy Annie and maybe be dog free for a little while. My guess is that we'll get another young dog sometime soonish.

Another fun thing that has happened is a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to start working with her horse's pasture companion. Zuri was pretty crazy I guess a couple of years ago but has slowly been settling down the longer she's been at my friend's place. My friend didn't have extra time to work with her because any time she has, she spends with her horse and she saw Zuri's craziness and didn't really want to do much with her.

I grew up on horses but hadn't been around them since college. I've been doing groundwork with Zuri and have gotten to ride her the last few weeks. I don't have a lot of time I can commit so this arrangement is working out perfectly. My friend is just grateful for any time I can spend with her. I don't have to feel guilty or worry about the fact that I can only get out there once a week. It's been great for all of us! I love being around horses again!

Oh, and I was able to replace my little truck (Frontier) with a Yukon. Smoother ride and more horsepower. I'm getting the trailer brake controller installed so I can't wait to see how it tows our trailers!

Congrats on the new ride! (the four wheeled one). Have fun with the horse!

Oh my goodness! I can't quite believe it has been so long since I visited here.

We still live in rural Virginia. Sadly, our dog Annie passed shortly after Julie. We got a puppy last year that we thought was a lab mix. Daisie Mae turned out to be border collie/jack russell mixed. She was a handful! She's about 18 months old now and settling in to be a good dog.

MyT Man has been buying and selling used tractors and equipment which has been fun. Right now I have a Ford NAA and a diesel Ford 231 for around the place. We're using them to clean up 2.5 acres of forest to turn into pasture.

Over the course of the past two years, I had chickens again but had coons get them and I was traveling a bit for work. We decided on a design that will work for MyT Man to care for them easily while I'm away but don't have it built yet.

I had a small garden but need to move it to a little more shade and build up the soil. It's really sandy here and it was hard keeping everything moist enough, even with mulch.

This years projects are fencing and clearing forest.

I recently picked up some fermentation weights for wide mouth jars. I haven't done much fermenting the last few years and would like to get back in the habit. I'm hoping that getting back and active with this group will spur some kitchen creativity.

Welcome back! So sorry about Annie. Is that a pic of Daisy Mae? She's a cutie!

What do you enjoy fermenting? I love Kimchi and need to make another batch. So much to do - so little time!