Quilted Stockings

I found a pattern in a Country magazine from 1990's. There was a neat quilted stocking how-to pattern. I had a blast making these as gifts.

Mole-sicle

If you live in the country, you might have moles. They live under the ground forever tunneling like mad.I have seen the tunnels and never single mole. Until winter came. Now every morning there are frozen moles of various sizes and kinds frozen and sticking out of the ground.The are a tasty treat for the dog as she harvest them like an Easter egg hunt. The moles have very soft pelts. Now I understand what "moleskin" means.

On Frozen Pond

We have 40+ acres and 2 spring fed ponds. With all this cold weather in MO we have frozen ponds. A fun thing to do is toss ice across the pond. It makes the coolest sound. Ice sliding across ice makes a sound like no other. It is musical and fun to do. A good way to use up frozen dog water from bowls. It is worth getting the gloves on and bundling up in coats and hats and have an ice tossing.

The Story of Osa

After packing my small dog, 3 cats and 2 rabbits and driving 13 hours straight from TX to MO; I thought these would be my only pets. Ha! When you move into the country new pets soon await you. They appear under your parked car or under your deck one cold morning like the pet fairy came by while you were sleeping. Ah the joys of country living.
One cold morning I let my city dog outside to whiz, a huge German Shepherd scuttled out from under my deck. Startled, I grabbed my 30 pound city dog and made it back into the house for back up. Waking up A. we went outside to see what the dog's story might be. Staring back at us from the deck stood the skinniest female dog I ever saw. She clearly had pups in the past but was a just bag of bones.
So my hubby said we should let her go. But by mid day she was hanging around and not leaving. She had no collar. We fed her and she ate everything and slept the rest of the day. The next day she was still at our house. We called around, searched the Internet and posted found signs and took her to the vet. The vet scanned her and kept her overnight to check her over. The next few weeks we fed her and waited for someone to claim her. No luck.

The vet said she had puppies long ago. So after 2 months we took her to the vet to be fixed, vaccinated and micro chipped. She is now at her goal weight of 70 lbs. and is very strong. She is getting her muscle tone back. And slowly learning to trust men. I guess the pet fairy was looking out for her.

So now I have a great farm dog, only no sheep for her to herd, yet. So she herds my farm cats and my city dog. She keeps the mole population down and lives the best life a dog can have.