Tibby

Tibby is a big black dog with a white chest and big brown eyes.  I love her.  She has a scar on her nose where she did combat with a snake once when she was a puppy.  Since then, she doesn't much care for snakes, and really, who can blame her?   I wouldn't like snakes either, if one bit me on the nose.   I haven't been bitten on the nose by a snake though, so I still get along OK with snakes.  In fact, I like them a whole lot and every time one shows up I go introduce myself and.....but I digress - this story isn't about snakes, it's about chickens.

Tib was still a bit of a puppy when she came to live with us.  She'd belonged to a student who tried to bring her to college.  It didn't work out so Tibby went back home to the student's farm to play with the horses and to fight snakes.  She was smart and got into a lot of trouble.  She missed the student.

At around the same time, it became apparent that our old dog was getting far to old to do his job.

Experiments with Ducks and Chickens

Our current ducks

Our second spring here, we decided to raise more domesticated livestock:  sheep, chickens and ducks.  We got the ducks because our neighbor has a pond and wanted some.  We got the sheep because I am a spinner and wanted to raise my own fleeces and because it is very difficult to raise anything this part of Indiana except cows, corn, soybeans and tobacco and the state is trying to expand into other crops, like sheep.  We got the chickens because, well, this is a farm.  

We got the chickens and ducks first.  We had driven all the way up to Indianapolis to a place that advertised itself as a hatchery only to find that it was a glorified pet store that did none of the hatching, but got weekly, Monday, shipments of chicks from a real hatchery.  They still had a very small selection of breeds by the time we got there on Saturday and we were able to get eleven chickens of various types and five Khaki Campbell ducks.  We got our first lesson in fowl production on our way home.   Those cute little fuzzy balls stink.

Name that Critter

Ever seen anything like this guy?    We found one today in the road.   It would have been inappropriate to take a picture of it in its current state of.....uh.....inanimacy, so we got this pic from here. We hope there are more of these guys around.

ID below the fold.