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Bill & Vickie Keller
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06/26/10 An update.....We have had many folks checking on us, worried since this has been the longest period we have ever taken to update our site and I can't tell you how blessed we are to have you all. I had a lot to do with my grandmother's things the last couple of months and you know as old home place's go there are the other relatives things too, that have passed. I had my grandfathers, my dad's and more, twelve relative in all. It is a humbling experience to go through loved one's personal belongings and living in the middle of it all the while. I honestly went through the month of May, I guess with it being Mother's Day, I just was not able to talk without tearing up. I think I may have made a few folks cry on the phone. I had to take some time off to regroup and get back to my old self. Bill and I both were mentally and physically burned out after the last year of around the clock Hospice care. I am now checking my e-mails and messages and I am sorry, but we could not publically post on the internet we were taking time off and would be in and out, nor on the answering machine. I have come home before to find people in my kennel with me not home and I won't have that. It tears my dog's up something terrible besides all of the obvious reasons. If I had only my heeler family and friends to think about there would be no problem. Since we have been on the internet the last three years we have encountered some off base folks to say the least. I had one lady call at three in the morning to tell me she was bipolar and had not taken her meds and could not sleep. I told her, well I could, now take your meds and call me tomorrow, ok. She did. But, that is as heavy as I want to get. I would rather tell the stories and have a good laugh about it all. ( If this is your first time with us please read previous post below. It does get better. We have gone through a sad time recently) OK, I'm back. That is all of the sadness. Now for all of you heeler family out there. I have another lady that wants to adopt the older dog we mention now and then..... "Bill." Sorry he is not for adoption. I have now, after 38 years gotten him trained. He is easy going and does make a good companion, but there sometimes are days I consider posting him for adoption on The Older Dog Page. He will be the one wearing the blue denim shirt just for reference. We do have some new puppies coming, especially for you folks wanting red's. I have bred for red, red and red. It is so funny how everyone wants blue and then next time around everyone wants red. I work on getting you all a top pup and I am excited about these litters. I am now getting back to my puppies. It feels good. We also decided to plant the garden after all. I could not stand seeing everyone else's garden and all the while I was mowing mine. I have never planted this late before. I soaked my seed 24 to 36 hours before I planted and almost every thing was up in three to five days. Within 8 days of planting my corn is hitting five inches high. We may have a good one after all. Really, we have too. You should have seen the folks driving by, rubber necking, at those fools planting a garden when it's a 100 degrees and everyone else's garden is already coming off. Ours may be producing when no one else has one going. Bill is hooking up the old well to use on it, so that will help to. He also made me a container garden out of an old hay manger and scrap metal. I will post a pic. It looks better than it sounds. I can't describe it. It holds a dozen suspended small barrels. I planted upside down tomato's, pepper's and eggplants. Then I have a whole other container garden he made for herbs, etc. Like I said I will post pics. Check back. I will put them on the blog page. I think when everything is grown out well in the containers I will send a pic to one of the farm mags. He really did a good job. The best thing of all --- no fire ants can reach them. Around here that is a big deal. To catch everyone up on us, this spring we put two beef and two hogs in the freezer. That will be our groceries for 2010 and 2011 along with the garden. We do this all ourselves for those of you that do not know us as well. A cousin, Larry, helped me with the sausage and it is some of the best we have had. Larry raises hogs and does his own butchering, curing and smoking of his meat. He and Bill are putting in my smokehouse this fall. I can't wait. If anyone has an old recipe for sausage and would share it I would love to have it. Larry's is a bought mix, we did not have an old recipe handed down and I could sure use one now. You know I have thought about doing a Farm Page with different ideas and where you all could post also. Let me know if any of you are interested then we will not bore heeler folks that are not. For those of you that do not know, Bill and I live with everything we own paid for, debt free, and one way we provide for ourselves is by being as self sufficient as possible. We live simple yet have more than most folks I know. I guess the Page would be more a do it yourself or on self sufficiency. We invested in four white Heritage turkeys this year from the 1600's. They are doing well. We have hatched out a couple of dozen. I tell you, you have never seen anything until you've seen a little 6 inch tom turkey spread out those tail feathers and throw down the wings and start strutting with the big boys. I've never seen anything like it. It is so funny. He may hit a soft spot and I will have to keep him. For us heeler folks anything that shows spirit stops us dead in our tracks. Kennel News - I bet your saying, about time..... Last year I pulled out a litter of pups from Sassy and Dink that I am really happy about. There are four females and two males. They are full blood siblings to Dixie on our site, if you want an idea of the bloodlines I am speaking of. I will be using these pups to start my next generation. These pups will be a fine foundation for my next line. They are all just as square and stocky as Dixie was at that age. Four are full mask. I will probably do one more litter with Sassy & Dink, pull the females and that will be it. I already have someone that first called in 2007 and has reserved a male from this upcoming breeding. I am sad to pass the news along that Sam passed away this week. The family that adopted him called me and it appears he got into something that poisoned him. I still can't believe he is gone. Speaking about adoption, we are going to have two of the older dogs to go up for adoption. We will be posting them this summer. They will need to go to families with a fenced in yard only. We have a breakneck, drive as fast as you can highway in front of our house and none of ours run lose. They would not be use to the wide open, especially at first. I could just about guarantee you, if possible, one would show back up at the door. That is the way a heeler is. Until they know they have a new home and have bonded with their folks they would say thanks for the visit, but time to go home. I will be posting Holly out of Sugar and Buckshot and then Trooper. He was two when I brought him in. He's out of one of my older pups from years ago and needed a home so we went to TN and brought him back here. I have had him for over a year. He is a sweet boy. I haven't bred him or anything. He just eats and loves to do that. It will be very important to match the right families for these two. I will post all of the info. One note, everyone is using the term adoption now because it sounds better yet folks are paying full price. That is actually a sale. My two cents! When I adopt one out, I adopt it. The charge will be for the actual cost of the spay or neuter. We do not make a profit on adoptions. I have one other thing to say on adoptions please. I had a lady call me from CA wanting a pup. She is a wonderful person. Someone put her on a horrible guilt trip for buying a puppy instead of adopting one. When she spoke to the rescue group in AZ they made her feel like dirt. She went with the rescue and their adoption. I told her no problem, she needed to do what her heart said. When it was said and done, the adoption price for a puppy they had two weeks was $150 higher than my puppy price (she had to have it spayed at her cost) and then instead of paying our $250 for shipping she paid them $500 for shipping, using the same airlines. The rescue was a private individual, a lady, doing good deeds. Sounds like a money making deal to me. No overhead, lifetime of shots, feeding 10 generations and years of dedication to a standard of commitment. Do be careful of wolves in sheep's clothing. I have one last thing and I will close. I know by now some of you are probably running out of the room screaming by now with this much Keller info but I would like to let all of our military folks know we are thinking of them. We pray for you all including the leaders of our country. This week the Lord has had me in a grieving spirit when I have prayed for you. He is watching over you, loves and deeply cares for you. I usually do not put personal things like this on our site but I feel I should. Where I feel the most grief when I pray is over Afghanistan. I feel with all of the terrible news there would be much more without his covering. Do know God is with you all and has prayer warriors around the world praying for each of you. God bless you all and our prayers are with you and yours. Vickie
02/04/10 Well, it does feel good to be back. My heelers give me a lot of satisfaction and joy just like yours do and it is good to be able to spend all day with them if I like. I do miss my grandmother though. She was my best friend. Not only do I just miss her being here but her wisdom as well. I do not think a day goes by that I do not think of something to ask my grandparents or parents. As I was told when I was younger, enjoy your folks while you can, one day they may not be here. I pass that wisdom now to you folks that still have your family. I have helped many learn to can and process their own food. Ball (Canning Co.) has a new book out in the canning section of any store that covers everything you could want to know. It is the 100th anniversary book, Ball Blue Book guide to preserving. I would suggest this book to anyone that wants to start putting up there own food. A novice could become an expert with this book. There are many of the old recipes. It covers freezing and drying food as well. The canners you buy now are totally safe and easy to use. They are now user friendly:). Anyone could put up food from fruit to meat, even the left over's from a large pot of chili. The flavors are so much better after being canned a few months. My dad would make a huge pot of deer and gravy after deer season. He would then put it in pint jars and place them in the canner for a great breakfast gravy over biscuits. I still have a couple of jars left now. He was always canning something. One year someone gave us several bushels of pears when I was in the fourth grade. He canned them into pear preserves and just plain old pear butter, but he did not stop there, he added green food coloring. He thought it would help us kids to eat more. Well green is not the color to add to food you want people to eat. We eat those green pears for three years. I have to tell you it did become strange to see the actual color of a pear after a while. I will tell you more about dad sometime. You will enjoy his stories. Mom was a city girl. It was quite eventful. Especially after turkey hunting he told mom it was a buzzard cooking on the stove. If it could not outrun dad we eat it. Be back later. Work calling. 12/09/09 Hello everyone!!! Merry Christmas! We are moving along on our building projects. As I have said before, if we could clone Bill about three times we would have it all done. He works the farm and is our carpenter night and day. He is wore out but in his element so don't feel to sorry for him. Believe me he cannot stay in the house. If I get an hour of TV time out of him we are doing good. Now mind you the TV time is what is holding him. Otherwise he's gone. Our heelers are all doing well. I pulled some young ones last year for myself and I am very happy how they are shaping up. You can just tell they are mine through and through. As I have said before if they turned out different than what I expect that would be the surprise. They are already learning from the older dogs. I hope to introduce them to you before long. I have one little girl (Cowgirl) out of Cowboy and Cleo. She is a blue girl but act's just like Cowboy did when he was young. I've pulled some of the stockiest kids out of Dink and Sassy you ever saw, well you've seen Dixie, for breeding later on. All of you that know all of my older dogs will enjoy getting some new faces. I think you will probably be able to see who they resemble by now just like we do people. Dixie is just like her grandfather. If you look at Ruger you will see he has the face of his grandfather Dink. I'm not talking of the mask pattern, but his side profile and the way he looks at things. I can see Dink all over him. I am excited about the new kids coming up. They will be my next generation, probably to take me to old age. The folks in my family have a small picture etched on their tombstones, like other folks do. Mostly deer for the men and a flower for the women. I told Bill last week I want a heeler on mine and on the back where the kids are listed I want Katy, Sylvie, Sassy, Dink, Cleo, Dixie, Jill, Trooper, and so on and so on. You get the idea. Years from now (hopefully), you will be able to find me in Mt. Horeb Cemetery right down the road, next to the preachers. (My grandparents and dad bought us all a spot when I was little.) I will be the one with the dog. I wonder if you can have a statue made? Ok folks, if you know where I can get a granite statue of a heeler do let me know. Wait till I tell the family this one. For real! Now a little more serious, Mamaw ( my grandmother) is holding her own. She has deteriorated a great deal and is a complete invalid at this time. We had very little response out of her over the weekend. Monday she was very weak but kissed me and told me she loved me all day. When the evening came around she announced she would not be here tomorrow. I was a wreck the next morning. My nerves shot. I couldn't really rouse her and a couple of hours later the workers came in and she woke up hungry. Life!!! As you all know only the Lord knows these things. So, I went and took a nap and was much better for the work day. That seems to be our life these days. I am not complaining. It is a season of life. Our older folks see us into the world and we see them into the next. My Med/Grooming building is coming along well. Most of the building is recycled wood from an old house Bill tore down. It is made from heavy solid timber and will have the old beaded board on some of the cabinets. Bill has most of the wiring done and is now doing the plumbing. Everything, insulation, windows, etc. are top notch. We want to grow old with the buildings in good shape. He has a helper now. Slade, a 17 yr old senior. I think someone was reading a western novel when they named him. He has really been a good help to have around. He is honest, shows up on time and a hard working fellow. I told his grandparents they did well in his raising. I could say he is a mini clone to Bill. Both are quite and at meal time he comes in, gets his TV tray and the remote. He finds what we are to watch on TV and he's settled in on one couch and Bill on the other. They never miss a bite though. What can I say? Our new Hereford herd is doing well. We are finally having heifer calves with this bull. Our bull was a show calf and can be difficult. For those of you that do not know cattle, when you have a bull that is like a pet he will be more likely to do what he wants, than what we want. He is getting good at making new openings in the fence where ever he decides. Bill is very frustrated. I imagine he will be finding a new home after these cows have calved and are rebred. Farm talk here now folks. He is a good looking fellow and does love to be scratched. He will be fine with a bigger spread. I have folks always asking how big our ranch is and I usually tell them, just a pocket on yours. In Arkansas it is mostly woodland and not much around us for sale. This is pine country. Paper and timber is the main industry around here. In Texas a small spread can be 1500 acres. I have a heeler friend in Montana with 150,000 acres. I don't guess I could ever leave here for a bigger place though. Roots run deep for me in this old river bottom.
09/17/09 Well! Since the 11th when I spoke of our building projects it has rained everyday! We did not get the grooming room in the dry and we had 6" of rain just today. We are taking advantage of the time and reworking the site. I am excited about our Photo Album page. We are using the pics on hand. If you have updated photos to be added do send them in. 09/16/09 Belle had her babies!!! Dink is the dad. Bill has been pulling the night shift with them and did a very good job. As I have said before we never have pups in the daytime. We set the alarm for every two hours right now when we need to check them. That is why we are looking forward to the pair of recliners I spoke about below (and a nice blanky). Cleo will have her pups in a couple of weeks. They love this time of the pregnancy. We put their vitamins and supplements in a little bit of canned dog food with gravy and they are extremely happy to see that little bowl coming their direction. I have a funny tidbit to tell you about. We were all talking about this swine flu. I had the shot in the 70's for the swine flu (different strain). President Ford said all people at risk should. My Dr said I must. I was expecting our daughter Julie at the time. So I did. But, was not happy about it afterwards. I really did have second thoughts about it. My brother kidded me that she would resemble a little pig, all of the stupid stuff. She did fine! But as they say, now for the rest of the story..... Bill said "Ahh, my little piglet" at first sight and now Ms Julie will answer to Piglet to this very day. 09/11/09 Hello everyone! It has been a while. We are doing well here. Our new kennel is coming along nicely as well as the additions to the farm. My new grooming room will be 16 x 30. I cannot wait. They are putting it in the dry now. The infirmary and med room is being built next to this building. To say I am excited is an understatement. Bill has put these out to the back of his shop here by the house so I can go in and out all hours of the night if needed. He is installing a monitor and has a nice pair of recliner's for the area when we pull the night shift. I am picking out paint samples, flooring and counter tops. I've already got all of my grooming equipment and supplies. We've gotten stainless steel fixtures for the med room some time ago and now have the large floor scales. As most of you know we pick up things as we go and I always preach on being debt free. It is such a blessing! It is also wonderful having a gifted husband that can build just about anything. We also have moved up a building from down the road (part of the house by our corral). It is always nice to have extra buildings just laying around. This building will have a screened area with a wrap around porch, benches and ceiling fans when it is finished. It is for our families to pick up their pups. We will also have a little store there with everything for a puppy. We are the distributors for our dog food in this county. We receive it the same week it is bagged and have been extremely happy with it. A few of the coon hunters in our area use it and will be able to pick it up there. My cousin, a canine officer here in town, will help us with this in his spare time. He and his dad are coon hunters as well. It will give them all a place to hang out and talk. We now have our septics and water lines in for the adult dog runs also. Each pad for the adult runs has it's own septic. Did I say I was excited? After living in NC and now having our temporary kennel set up here, it is like I have had my first home and now we are building the home (kennel) just like we wanted. The dream kennel. I will post pictures for you all as we go. We just finished fencing the last of the family land we had bought back. That took us a year. Mainly finding the time to work the different sections. We still have road frontage on two sections and we will be through. Maybe by next year. Everything we do, we build for us to last until we grow old and pass away. The kids will either have a good working farm and kennel when we pass on or a lot to auction off. Our cattle are looking good. We brought in a herd of reg. polled Herefords this summer. Our young bull is a hand full. He was shown and is very friendly. That can be a problem with a too friendly bull the bigger he gets. He butted Bill pretty good the other day when he wanted to be petted. He will literally lay into you and push you over for a scratching. I always scratch from the other side of the fence. One of our young bred heifers we bought just had a baby heifer. That was very good. We always have bull calves with the longhorns. I just love being around the cows. There is nothing more peaceful than watching livestock. Speaking of that we are redesigning the farm as we go for the view. I want to be able to sit on the back porch with my coffee or tea and take it all in. We have the Ouachita River behind us. We can't see it from our place, but it is not to far. Between us and the river are woods and field where the deer graze. We watch the deer. Our back of the house faces the east. It is beautiful when the sun comes up. You can see the mist and fog through the woods and every ray of the sun. In summer, the honeysuckle, gardenia's and magnolia fill the air with their perfume. As you see that is why I had to come back home. As Papaw said, it is in my blood. When we lived in VA and NC I would smell the rich earth and these perfumes in my head. It was crazy. But, a wonderful crazy. More about the farm - we have our hog pen and their little barn built now. The same place as the old one years ago. My cousin sent us two of his little gilts. These two little girls enjoy a half an acre under the oaks all to themselves. You know some animals have it better than people. They own more real estate per square foot than a lot of folks anyway. The orchard is complete. We just like our berries and grapes. We have an old well house Bill hooked to the tractor and pulled over to my garden under the oak tree (my kitchen window view). Now I have a huge garden shed with a new floor and a wrap around roof around three sides. He put trellis up on both sides of the front for roses and I have a work table, a sink with running water on one side and enough cover for all six tillers, lawn tractor and trailer on the other side. He also got me a little red Farm All tractor from the 50's. It is under there on the back side of the building too. My little heaven. Shelves every where. (A hen setting on eggs in one.) He's hanging my Master Gardener diploma by my bench. When he brought that little red tractor home I thought it would look cute in the flower bed. He said no. (I think he wants me to have mine and then the John Deere will be all his to tell the truth.) We have a old blue Ford tractor from the 40's or 50's down by the barn. Do not be surprised if you see it in a flower bed one day. I will get one yet. (I'll have it for Christmas lights in the winter) What is the use in being a red neck if you can't do it right. We now have netting over the peacocks to protect them and keep them in their yard. They are beautiful. I brought some turkeys in this year that are supposed to be from an old breed going back to the 1600's. They are pesky little things. Bill fed them for me since I have been so busy with my grandmother and they think he is Mother Turkey. We had to clip their wings. When he was running the water lines they were in his lap. They see him go out back and here they come running up from the barn. They were getting on the tractor with him! He had a pretty big problem trying to get things done. We try to keep Bill behind the buildings and trees when we are outside. It is nothing like seeing a half grown flock of turkeys in a stampede heading for Bill. I think he is ready for me to quit bringing in live things. For those of you that have asked about my grandmother she is not doing to well today. I do not know what I would do without Hospice. Our helper Mary is wonderful! Mamaw has her days and nights mixed up right now. She is completely bed fast and an invalid at this point. She is wore out in the mornings from working all night. (Dementia) As most of you know she raised foster children and other related children. I know of 42. In the mornings she is wore out from taking care of babies (she thinks) and then sleeps all day for the next shift. I take over in the mornings for her. I tell her I am gathering them all up and they have now all gone home. She wants me to cook them biscuits and chicken. She was always a caregiver and even now knows nothing else. But, besides being worn out from working she is a satisfied worker. We like to have never caught a little toddler boy (you just go with it) that got away yesterday morning. She was yelling, "Catch him". I told her he was now with his mother too and would not be back for a while. She said, "Good"! She had her 96th birthday in Aug. When I was growing up she always had a parakeet so I decided to get her one for her birthday. I went to the same pet store here in our little town where she had bought her birds for almost 50 years. These folks are close to 80. Mrs. Foster was not as steady on her feet when she was catching the little birds, but she did well. Yes I did say birds. I got two. We now have a little blue boy, Tweety, and a yellow girl with a green belly named Buttercup. Mamaw loves her birds. Well, I am sure I am beginning to bore you all by now. As you see it has been one busy summer here. We are planning our get together and hayride in the fall of 2010 for our customers. It will be a grand time. I will be back to write more about the kennel and update you all on the boy's and girl's. All of them are doing well. I let Cowboy think he was sneaking up on me this morning. His ears were flat and he was crawling like a cat. That boy has done that ever since he was a puppy. Then he springs up and jumps around all happy when I look surprised. He was so proud of himself. Till later. Vickie 06/06/09 I wanted to let you all know we are putting all pups on the site. It does take time to learn personalities as you all know. I want to thank you all for your patience during this trying time with my grandmother. We thought two weeks ago she was not going to last and now she is up wanting to know what there is to eat. She has had a steady stream of visitors, many I do not know. As I have told most of you before, her and Papaw helped raise many foster children, nieces, nephews and other folks in general. Papaw would say he just put in another garden. The folks that came in yesterday told of all the things they had done for them and how they had enriched their lives. I never seize to be amazed at the selflessness of their lives. Before Papaw passed one of the aids was asking him a series of questions about his life. She asked him what he felt the best about his life and his response was "I always put the food on the table." In his time that meant many things. I know we never lacked for anything at all and evidently neither did many others. I knew I had big shoes to fill but now feel overwhelmed by how much. I would have loved to have been able to match their deeds. On a funny note, I was asked to judge a little dog show last night and of course she was waiting up for me. I tell you it is nothing like being in your fifties and having a near 100 year old person waiting for you to get in. 05/30/09 Hey folks!!! It is good to be back. We have missed you all. Ma Maw has been in the hospital and Bill has been out of state so I have been burning the candle at both ends. I enjoyed it though I have to say. I was able to work without being on a schedule. Don't tell them but sometimes it is nice having the place to yourself. We do have puppies!!!!!!!! I get as excited as you all do. It is like opening a present as they are being born to see what we have. What are the markings, blue or red and boy or girl? That is the question for every puppy. We will have a pup for each person on the list and others as well. I will be contacting folks all this week as I can and we will do photos. At the very least, photos of each litter. Candy is doing very well with her pups. She is a blue speckled girl that will be three and this is her first litter. She did most everything herself from the beginning and needed very little help. She is also a very protective mom. She waited a long time for these babies, always watching and playing with other pups, so she is making the most of every minute. I know it sounds goofy, but some of these girls just love having their babies. I mentioned in a previous note to tell you about Jaylie's adventure. She is my five year old granddaughter. My kids frequent Dollywood since they live close by. It is a wonderful place for family. Jaylie was doing her night time prayer and prayed the night before they left she would see Ms. Dolly because she was so pretty and the best singer in the world. Well, to make a very long story short, she did. Dolly was there and Jaylie had picked one of Ms. Dollies flowers while waiting in line. Jaylie saw Dolly to the side of the stage waiting to go on and waved her flower at her. Ms. Dolly saw Jaylie waving that little flower and waved for her to come to her. Julie, my daughter, took her over and Ms. Dolly sat down on a large rock and pulled Jaylie right up with her on that rock then kindly accepted the little flower she had to offer. They chatted for some time about Jaylie, her princess shirt and many other things. Julie could not hear what all was said. The music was loud and Dolly had bent over Jaylie sitting beside her so she could hear her. Julie told Dolly about Jaylie's prayer the night before and Ms. Dolly told Jaylie how she had prayed to see a pretty little girl! Then she gave Jaylie the sweetest lesson on how she prayed every day and Jaylie should to because Jesus answers our prayers. It was a wonderful visit. When it was time for Dolly to go on stage Julie took Jaylie back to where Jay was standing. Dolly would wave at Jaylie all the while holding that little flower. Jaylie is not star struck. She does not know what that means. This was an answer to a prayer to meet someone very special to her and she fully expected to. She picked her flower and was prepared to see her friend and did. Afterward, she skipped away expecting more adventures. I do want to say thank you Ms. Dolly for being there and listening to the Lord to answer that little ones prayers. You also left her with a valuable lesson for life. I encourage everyone to check out Dollywood. We have been there many times. It is a park built by family for family. Gotta go. Be back soon!
05/10/09 First off, Happy Mother's Day to you Mom's. It is a very special day and even more so for those of us that live by memories. I do have my precious grandmother though and thank the Lord for every day we have. She called me into her room after midnight last night. She wanted to hug me and tell me she loved me. Speaking of midnight, Holly decided to start having her pups about then. We will let you know more about them soon. Sugar is basking in pregnancy. She is getting all the special treatment with the yorkies and kittens keeping her company. She is carrying the mother load and they are about done I do believe. We are just waiting for that timer to go off. Probably after midnight tonight I imagine. We will be back to update you soon about the pups and let you folks that are on the list know what we have. I tell you all frequently, so please do not get tired, but we do thank you all for being part of our lives with these puppies. It is so personal and you all are so dear to us. If the Lord had not given us this unexpected surprise of a kennel with heelers we would not be getting to know you all. All ways look ahead and never look back. We never know what He has in store for us. I will write more later. My little five year old granddaughter had a special visit with a very famous lady yesterday. I do want to tell you about that and Mamaw's special request for Mom's Day dinner was a Sonic Hot Dog and strawberry shake. She is easy to please. 05/08/09 I did want to let you know JoJo is having her pups. I think at this time we have five boys and one girl. She looks as if we may have one more. There has not been a runt in the litter. They are all blues and have heads like a block. I do not know why they cannot have pups in the day time. I think in all of my years I have had only two litters in the daytime hours. My dogs love one to three in the morning just to get started. Sugar is doing some extremely heavy breathing today as well. I am sure she is waiting for midnight. We have her all tucked in her whelping area. She has taken up with a kitten this week. Really, she just rolls her eyes a lot, all the while the kitten is having her as a nice furry mountain to pounce on. We will keep you updated on her progress and Holly's as well. There will be an adoption listed later today for a seven year old girl. She is spayed and housebroken. A wonderful girl with family and children but wants to be the only girl of the canine kind in the house. Do check our Older Pup and Dog page later if you are interested or know of someone that can give her a good home. She is in Oklahoma and is not one of my pups but I think from what I hear would be a welcome addition to the right person or family. We will also be posting a photo of her. You know what they say about love at first sight? That is the way it always happens. If your not sure then she would not be the one for you. Oh yeah, her name is Reba, she's a redhead and lives in OK. That is the way us folks in this area are. I have had one named Reba also. We like our Reba. I think Ms. Reba has had more dogs named after her than anyone could guess. (That is a compliment if someone tells her now!) We have been approved for hospice with my grandmother. This is good news. It is hard to get her to a Dr. in her condition and this will enable us to have a Dr come to our home and a RN as needed. I know I have been hard to get in touch with, but I am hoping this will give me back some of my free time. I do thank all of you for your patience. This is a time in our lives that is hard going but at the same time will be over far to soon. 04/28/09 Puppies are due soon. JoJo looks like a little blue melon and Holly is not far behind. Sugar is rounding out as well. If it was my garden I would say we are having a healthy crop of puppies. All three are already on their puppy food to keep them built up and full of energy. We give our girls full feed during the last three weeks of the pregnancy and the best feed we can get. I can sympathize with folks when they have made up their mind to get a pup that they want it today. But, you would have to be leery of a breeder who always has a pup available that day. They would be over breeding their girls and have an extremely large number of girls available. That is a puppy mill. Otherwise it just would not be possible. I went to a fellow's place up in the mountains one day to take a look at his girl I had heard about. She was precious. She was seven at the time and after talking to him in length I found she had never missed a season coming in without having a litter of pups. He spoke of how much money she had made him. (He sold his pups out of the back of the pick up for $150.) She was in wonderful surroundings, lived in the house. This is not a puppy mill but poor breeding. One of those buying from a home breeder where the puppies are inside. I did everything I could to buy her, but he would not sell. He said he loved her, she was the best dog he ever had. By the way, speaking of feed earlier, we now have a company in E Texas making our feed and bagging it for us. We have been using this feed since Dec. and are quite happy with it. It is always fresh and the dogs love it. We literally get the feed within days of it being bagged. I will list it on the Truck Patch page for folks that might like to try it. I want to take time to thank the Miller Family of Rootstown, OH for the wonderful seed they sent me. They raise Indian Corn and were very generous in sharing seed with us. This is a wonderful family. You might want to check out their site. They do raise and sale beef and other livestock and produce. Small farming and business is what America is about and looks like were we all need to put our energy before long. Check out the Miller Farms in Oh. and thank you Dominique for your generous gift. 04/21/09 JoJo is filling out quite a bit with her pups that are due around the first. Sugar and Holly are about two weeks behind her. Belle evidently had a false pregnancy. She is a big girl to begin with but pulls down to nothing when she has pups. We've also bred Candy, a blue and white speckled girl. She is over two and a half and has not ever been bred. Her personality is a very sweet girl, easy to please, but at this age, full of herself. I am not sure if she took or not at this time. She was bred to Duke and they are both young in experience. For those of you patiently waiting we should have that special pup for you with these breedings. We thank those of you waiting. It is mother nature. Everyone is getting ready for that big Aussie blow out. (Once a year shedding.) We will be updating the photos for the girls not listed as soon as they finish. (Zoe, Glitter, Holly & Candy) Boy, Ruger is filling out. That is one square boy. Also, you all haven't seen Duke. We will get him on too. He is full of himself. 3/30/09 As I stated on the front page, Belle is like watching a pot of water waiting for it to boil. We do have Sugar and Holly bred. I have a girl that is two and a half, Candy, that I have not listed before. We hope she is bred also. She has not been bred before. She is a blue speckled girl and one of my pups owed to me from another breeder. Candy is out of my stock on both sides, mom and dad. JoJo is bred also to Ruger. This will be all I breed the next few months. We will be laying out for the hottest summer months. Nellie's retirement home is just wonderful. She is enjoying it so much with her new mom Dorothy. Jeff and Dorothy, thank you once again for giving her a special place in your hearts and home. 03/25/09 Belle is nesting now. She will be having her babies soon. They usually start this within three days of having them. We are putting the garden in between rain. It just starts to dry out enough and then we get more rain. Bill and I were planting in the dark one night. I can't complain about the rain. We have gone through many droughts so bad the front yard cracked like a dry river bed. For those of you that have been kind enough to ask about my grandmother, she is doing better. She is back to herself again. Our aids had a 24 hr virus which turned into 10 days for Mamaw. It was terrible. It really had me worried one night. I was not sure she was going to make it. As I say many times over, it is hard for me to call our folks customers. You all are family to us and we thank the Lord for you everyday. We never know what he has in store for us. When I started with these little dogs who would have ever guessed it would open the door to meet so many wonderful folks from around the world with so much in common. Just like our heelers are a special breed, we are too. 03/13/09 Cleo is having her babies this morning. She is not carrying to many so they will be chunky from the start. Belle on the other hand is pretty plump. She is carrying the mother load as I said earlier. I know she feels so lucky at this point to have taken so well. ( Not really.) She is a low rider today. I almost have to help her turn over. We will keep you posted. We are now working on the Tip and Memorial Pages if you have anything to add. 03/12/09 I made it back from NC. It was a wonderful trip. My 5 yr old grand daughter, Jaylie, cupped my face in her little hands and told me I was adorable. I will remember that the rest of my life. My grandson Troy, two and a half yrs old was not into showing love very much although I did get some sugar on the side without him knowing. He was happiest being a bear chasing me around the house and beating me up from time to time. Us grandma's get what loving we can, what can I say? When I returned home I had the sweetest little plaque waiting for me from the Johnson girls. It is the little willow art angels. This one is holding a puppy and is precious. Thank you so much! Pam thanks for the recipe! I collect old recipes, the older the better. She sent her aunts chow chow recipe. A real treasure! I will be canning this up this year. It was an honor for her to share such an heirloom with me. Cleo is nesting right now, so we are hoping for her babies real soon. I was beginning to think she decided to just forget all about it. Belle is in the last stages as well. She looks as if she is carrying the mother load and is quite uncomfortable. We are breeding three more girls (Holly, Sugar and JoJo) and then will be laying them out for a year. Business is booming on our pups, but since we are keeping it small this will be as big as it gets. These pups are a joy and lots of work. We put so much of ourselves in these babies. Yesterday, Max our Pyrenees guard dog, got in trouble with a new mama hen. She misplaced four of her babies in the process. I brought them in for the night. Mamaw said "Oh, look at the little bitties!" After having the little chirpers outside her door by the heater all night the new wore off I think. They are back with mom this morning. After driving 13 hrs, I got back home as fast as I could to get the garden broke up before the rain. There is nothing like running a tiller half a day to cure a long day on the road. I do love my garden. 02/24/09 The Johnson Family, Pam, Emily and Amanda came from Kansas to pick up their little red girl and to visit Saturday. What a joy this family is and our little girl has it made with them. "Rivers" is already spoiled rotten. We had the girls try purple hull peas at supper. You have to try purple hull peas when you come to the south. They were shelled on the front porch. (Mamaw will be put to work this year shelling peas.) The Lord has blessed us and enriched our lives with the families that have our puppies. Our family grows with each new home. I want to thank Adele for the wonderful gifts. She sent Mamaw a button (shirt button) sewed to a pillow to push when she needed something. (When Mamaw was being sprung from the nursing home she wanted me to order a button to push when she wanted something. I told her I would order her one, but what did she think I was plugging it into at home. She said never mind). Adele, Bill really enjoyed the chocolate. He said you do get the "good kind". It was so thoughtful and I will enjoy the Cattle Dog Stationary. A good resemblance of our breed is hard to find and these are wonderful. We have started our new herd of Reg. Herefords last week. Photos will be posted. Big Red (Bill's Longhorn girl) does not seem to be to impressed. She has the prettiest speckled red calf. Outlaw our Longhorn Bull has now produced seven bull calves this year. As of this week he is now on my cousins farm producing for him. I thought Bill was sad to see him going off down the road then he confided he just hated seeing those horns and that hide leaving. 02/04/09 Mamaw ( my 95 yr old grandmother) has officially moved back home. She had enough of nursing home life. We can now call this Cornbread Kennel. We have cornbread twice a day, always made from scratch with buttermilk and then a bowl of vanilla ice cream at supper time. Just like when I was growing up. Wait until she has to make the biscuits again. Vacation time is over! No one around could touch her biscuits. She always made the best. I want to thank Patty (in FL) for sending us the best citrus fruit I have ever eat. They are called Honeybells I believe. They are wonderful. Thank you Patty! You are such a blessing. It is hard for me to call our folks customers. Our folks are family to us and Patty is family without a doubt. 02/02/09 Zoe does have seven pups, all blue and full mask. Beautiful pups. There are five boys and two girls. They now have their eyes open and trying to walk around. 01/19/09 For those that have been asking Zoe has had her pups. We have seven at this time and all but one may be full mask. She was in labor last night at about ten so it was an all nighter. The pups started coming about four this morning. She does well. She has had a couple of litters and is quite the expert now. They are all in a nice little puppy pile when she goes out. The dad is Ruger. He and Zoe are my pups but this is the first time I have put those two together. I was excited to see what we would have. All are blue of course with the these two blue parents. We will get you a group photo real soon. I was beginning to think she was going to just dry up and forget it. 01/12/09 We have had a lot of inquires about Zoe and she is nesting now. The girl is one low rider and is doing her fair share of grunting. Bill had taken her outside to run around, eat and get some sun when he said it was time to go back and get her so she could do her business inside. It would be funny if it wasn't for the after affects of her business. I get all of this input from folks and "dog whisper's", but in the end only a pregnant, contrary girl knows why she is doing what she is doing. In all facets of life, a late term pregnant woman gets her way and there is no need in arguing with her. You can quote me on that. 01/07/09 The news for this month-Mamaw will be coming home Feb 1st. She has had enough of nursing home life and is returning home. They told me at the nursing home she was getting so much better the last couple of weeks. She has improved leaps and bounds . She is so chipper and outgoing now. Well, she made up her mind before Christmas. We told her we would get her room ready, the needed equipment and helpers in for her but it would take about a month. Moral of this story, never underestimate older folks. This 95 yr old is still running her own life and telling her business to only the people she wants to. Some think she has dementia because she is a quite person. My instructions for the spring - She is ready to shell peas, snap beans and it looks to her like some of those young roosters out there is ready for the freezer. Oh also, did I get the electric bill and the water bill paid? I guess her vacation is over.
Zoe is getting ready for her pups. She is nesting and a low rider at this time. Cleo has been bred to Cowboy and Sassy to Dink. This will be the last time for these two girls for a while.
A lot of you have asked if we ever have Yorkie pups to let you know. We do have our first litter to place. There are two little boys. We have had Yorkies for over 20 years and decided to breed ten years ago. We have finally built up our girls to three generations of our own girls and are ready to offer pups. This is the same way we did with our heelers. We took our time before we placed pups to know that we could stand behind them. Remember what I always say, "Fufu and heelers keep you balanced". ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
09/14/08 We appreciate every one checking on us through the hurricane. We came out pretty good. We had the winds with this one so it moved through quickly. We had two huge old oaks break in half. It is sad to see such old trees destroyed. One is in our goat pasture. I looked out the kitchen window and thought it had killed my little dairy herd. I saw goats under it. I took off and yelled at Bill the same time. When we got there they were having a buffet and all were fine. Bill said one trees misfortune is a goats good fortune. We were soaking wet, but the goats are happy. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ One other thing happened. (Something is always happening on a little farm.) I was doing the dishes the other night and heard a chirp. I thought, is their a bird nest outside? Sure is late in the year. Then I heard it again. We put our chicken eggs in a little wire basket on top of the cabinet over the dishwasher and I thought for sure a baby chicken had gotten up under the dishwasher because the eggs in the basket were fine. So I had Bill in there with a flashlight looking under the dishwasher thinking we were going to have to pull it out. But, then my lightening fast mind thought where is the broken shell. I heard it again. I picked up an egg, put it to my ear like you would a seashell and there that little thing was. He had not gotten out of his shell yet. He was a chatty little thing. After we got Bill out from under the cabinet we put the little egg under a desk lamp and finished helping him out the next morning. (Bill had picked up an egg that had fallen out of a nest with a sitting hen.) We did get him back with mom so she could raise him. Take a look below for photos of his little journey. The first photo, he is still in the egg basket. The last photo shows him getting sun with Mama on the edge of an old stump.
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