This is Blizzard.

This is Bear.

Can you tell by looking at them what they’ve been doing?

Yep, rolling around in the mud, fighting.  What started out as a  playful romp, for some inexplicable reason turned into a tussle!  Thankfully, they didn’t do any serious damage to one another.

What to do?

Well, the idea is to find Blizzard another home!  He is only a temporary resident here.  A few Saturdays ago, I got a call from the guy who owns the Dairy Queen here in Farmersville.  He said that he had picked up a male Great Pyrenees off of Highway 380, and he wondered if the dog was one of mine.  [You know you live in a small town when people know you by your dogs.]

He went on to say that the dog had no collar or tag.  All of our dogs have collars and tags, but still, I’ve seen Bear slip his collar, so at the time, I couldn’t be sure the dog wasn’t one of mine.  I asked him to hang onto the dog until later that afternoon when I finished teaching in McKinney and could come take a look.

Once I saw the dog, I knew he wasn’t one of mine.  However, he couldn’t stay with Mr. Dairy Queen, and had to go somewhere, so I loaded him up in the Suburban, brought him home, and named him Blizzard in honor of the man who found him.

MudBud and Bear checking out the newcomer

Despite the sign I put up at the feed store, no one has claimed him.

So here we are with an extra dog.  Did I mention that he is an INTACT male?   I have him scheduled for surgery, but the first appointment I could get at Cause for Paws is still 3 weeks away.

In the meantime, Blizzard’s life here is a mixed blessing.  He does just fine as long as he stays on Bear’s good side.  There’s no telling what causes a playful romp to become a fight, but they are apparently sorting it out.  We have put Blizzard in the backyard on numerous occasions, and he always squeezes through the gate bars to get back out into the barnyard with Bear and the girls.  Life out there can’t be too bad if he keeps going back!

We are crossing our fingers that we have found a home for him with friends who are moving to a place nearby in March.

Let’s hope he stays out of Bear’s way until then!

Thanks to the rain, the sun, and Williard’s John Deere, there are green sprouts in our newly seed pastures.

This is the new pasture that was created by dividing an existing large pasture that is north of our house.  Our early bird 2012 Shareholders paid The Welder’s bill to make the fence possible that created this pasture, and we couldn’t be more thrilled!

A generous benefactor also paid Willard’s bill for plowing and the seed, and now we’re crossing our fingers that the wheat continues to grow into wonderful grazing land for our fiber animals.

Don’t you love it when a plan comes together!?

It rained Tuesday night. It rained on Wednesday. It rained more this morning, Thursday.  Why is it that we can’t get just a little rain? You know, one of those nice spring showers that softly waters the earth, and then STOPS for a while before it starts again?  Why is it that our rain here seems to always come in the form of a torrential downpour!?

I slogged out to the newly planted fields yesterday. Although there was some standing water, they didn’t look too bad.  It seemed the plowed earth had done a better job than the unplowed earth of absorbing the water.

The water isn't standing so badly beyond the fence where the land has been plowed

For a while, a north wind blew, swaying the limbs of the Weeping Willow tree in the front yard.

Despite all the mud, and my worries about my seed, it is good to see the pond fill up.

Mr. Willard Thomas was back in our pastures today with his beautiful green John Deere tractor.

This time it was outfitted with a seed hopper and pulling a harrow (at least that’s what I think he called it).

He drove his tractor over the plowed dirt, slinging seed, then lightly covered the seed and leveled the ground.

Within an hour of his loading up his equipment and saying goodbye, a nice rain had started to fall.  It is supposed to rain tonight and all day tomorrow. The rest of the week is supposed to be warm and sunshiny.

Just what we need for our seeds to germinate!

It was a Red Letter Day today on the Farm!  Mr. Willard Thomas came to see us, and brought his beautiful John Deere tractor and even more beautiful pull behind blades to disc up some of our barren land.

With rain in the forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday, it is a race against the weather to see if we can get the land chewed up, and the seed planted and covered before it gets too muddy.

His big churning discs, weighted with heavy concrete blocks, turned up our black land both in the new pasture that was created by our latest cross-fence (paid for by our 2012 Shareholders), and the east pasture that we added last year.

Tomorrow, we try to get the seed in before the rains come.

Big tractors, pulling big discs, leaving behind plowed land.  It’s a good thing.  Watch, and you’ll agree!

(Even Rascal was curious.)