Monday, June 29, 2015

june 29 2015
for those of you coming up and down the driveway, don't look up at the trees... it would make you very nervous...-- the forest has it's own survival plans for trees... and several of ours need to be creamated.   i saw one get executed by a bolt of lightning...and immediately the bark pealed off a  ?80 foot tall tree... spiraled right down to the ground pealing most of the bark.. at any rate i have a tree company coming to give me an estimate to clear back the forest  of dead trees.. there is a good size   "widow maker" -- stuck and prevented from falling. must have a professional because the gravatational forces around where you might think you could cut it.. are very pequiliar....i mean be careful to let someone else do it.  sometimes they fall UP.
 
did i hear somewhere that the indians used to cut a strip around a tree  and leave it standing for a year to dry out - so they would have dry firewood???? i do know if you use a tree to hold up a fence, you have to be careful...  or you have done just that...
i guess that is the  fyi of the day...

well-- the only other tree related story i can think of .. when we first moved in-- i noticed a regular old forest type rat going into the base of the tree in front of  what is now the guest house.....  i figureed i would get that one... and bsacked up my car sticking  a hose from my exhaust  into the hole and let it run.... after a few minutes of waiting... i happened to look up -- there  up 30 feet in the air was the rat.. and teh smoke was coming out of the hole way up there...  i had alot to learn about  wildlife...
mostly it is wild.
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we had a heavy rainfall--i am anxious to see if/how the guinnea chicks survived... last seen a fluffed up mom and dad were sitting next to each other... my guess is the chicks were under her-- probably very dry covered by  their "down comforter".
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carol called (  service dog hawkeye-- in maine)  apparently tufts is doing a bloat study... hawk is fine-- but they wanted information on his family history-- which of course we can give him... it took a while but it was rraining yesterday---  in my master list of dogs i have 260 dogs -- there are very few i do not know about...and am happy to pass on the information...  we have had a few bloats that i know about......maybe 5 or 6 since 1990. 

 the part i found most interesting.... we have not entered all the 2014 and 2015 graduate information,  and we have on the list  donated 99 service dogs plus my sd... bentley...   ... so for real numbers   260 minus  25 kept for breeding  minus 31 still too young...4 on the  list as doa... and we have not cleaned up the 2014 and 2015 donations....gives us a solid 50%---- when last i heard other adi members were in the 20% range.. so we aren't doing badly at all.

as you may have heaard me spout..... i don't approve of the puppy raising done by most of the adi training facilities...  they place a dog with puppy raisers and bring them back at 18 months for training... it may work as far as training goes.... but from the dog's standpoint they bond to their puppy raisers and then get taken away...  that was never more evident to me than pistol-- who just spend a couple weeks with alice and her family-- before she came back  here as a potential breeder-  we then gave her  to jade in an emergency-- worked ok.. but pistol/bristol  was not happy -- or  no longer perfectly behaved... came back here- and one day she ran into her "old friend " alice... and she came apart at the seams.. like chaos welcoming earlene-- only more so...  so i gave her to alice-- and they have been very happy ever since...
i think that from the dog's perspective the puppy raising concept is wrong... and therefore-- the prison concept also... our concept is  pleasent living --- mostly kennel-- some overnights-- but leave the  bonding to the new partner...

they all love megan-- but will turn and go with their partners  when things quiet down.
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in going thru the bloodlines..... i think we can breed jasper to scarlots x bentley daughter misha   hopefully july...
he is in portsmouth with stacy-- and i sent her an email last nigh inquiring on jasper's availability for july...
 in thqt gene pool we would have  for  grand parents---- mr Adams  from canada---- deagle , belgium ----  scarlot, denmark and one gereration further  bobby  ferom hungary.  and only one "inbred " situation where thumper jumped the fence and  bred his daughter giving us   bumpy-- who is bentley's father.

got all that??
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getting close to mariah's 30 days and possiblee  ultrasound...
i hope...
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Each summer I leave Yuma, AZ for my main home in Sandpoint, ID. This year along with the horses and dogs, I returned with 17 of my 18 chickens. One had gone AWOL when the van was leaving. She showed up a few days later and was fed by a neighbor. So this week I returned to AZ to pick up my Toyota truck and I put her in a dog kennel and traveled her back to ID.
 
I don’t see what’s so funny about that but it seems to put a smile on each listener’s face when they think of me traveling home with a chicken.
jennifer