Other BLOG

I have started a Culinary Journey and will be blogging this at www.hummingbirdhillfarmculinary.blogspot.com

I have picked two cook books to work out of and try new recipes. Inspired by Julie and Julia the movie.

Saved the best for last!!

He loves to cuddle in bed in the morning. He sleeps with the big dogs at night. Last night Max shared his doggy bed for most of the night with this little guy.

Strike a pose!

We are down to one last puppy for sale in our house. This is Mr. Green. He is 12 weeks old. He is such a lovely puppy! Very curious, playful but also very loving. We have started clicker training the basic commands with him and he learns SOOO quickly! We started "officially" potty training him and that is also going well. With so many puppies before we were only able to manage paper training our puppies...but now with our undivided attention we are able to start the potty training officially. :-) Brings back memories of when our dogs were this young.

Male Dogs vs. Female Dogs

Many people have asked me, "what is the difference between male and female dogs?" We currently have three male dogs and three female dogs and this has been my personal experience between them.

Both Males and Females -
Submissive pee when they are younger
Hump other dogs (typically as an act of dominance)
Bark
Shed
Chew on things
Obsessed about the ball/water/frisbee etc.
Loving and eager to please

Female Dogs -
-More expensive to get fixed
-Tend to be smaller in most breeds, but this is not always the case.
-Easier to scratch their bellies, no other "parts" get in the way
-Moody and hormonal
-"Princess" mentality, will sulk if they don't get their way
-Affection and play on their terms
-If you fix a female before she reaches sexual maturity you will not have to deal with blood spots on your floor, decreased territorial and other bad behaviors.
-A female dog in heat can be very very moody and snippy, even if she is a sweet heart any other time
-Playful as a puppy but can be stand offish as an adult.
-My females have been my primary diggers in my yard.. not sure if this is to fill a need for "nesting" or just coincidence

Male Dogs -
-Cheaper to get fixed
-Tend to be larger in most breeds, but this is not always the case.
-If you fix a male before they reach sexual maturity they will not feel the need to hump and lift his leg to mark his territory. Actually if you fix a male dog young they may never lift their leg at all!
-You can easily train a male dog not to lift his leg on everything, especially during your walks
- More affectionate and loving
- More outgoing and sure of themselves
- Loyal companion

Sustainable Living - Puppy Style

Our puppies are helping with our sustainable farming journey. We have used straw in order to contain puppy messes in our garage. This is the same straw we used as barricades in the garage when the puppies were a lot younger and less active. We also use straw in the nesting boxes in our hen house. So once the puppies are no longer with us, we will continue to use the straw for our chicken coop. Every morning Kurt and I clean out the garage, placing the old straw on our garden area. The chickens then spread out the straw and continue to fertilize the straw. This spring we will till the straw into the ground and it will provide good natural nutrients to our vegetable garden. We have also used the puppy straw as mulch around our fruit trees, plants and roses. The straw in our garden has helped to keep the weeds down and will naturally aerate the soil when it comes time for planting. The puppy straw has helped to keep the mud down in the walk ways in our chicken coop. You didn't know you were looking at "green living" puppies that are helping the environment, now did you?

Conversation around the watering hole...

**SOLD** SM1 (Sunny Male 1) aka Red

We call this pup Red. He has a block head and is the reddest pup out of the bunch we have left. He is very eager to please. He is also very playful like T2 and Mr. Green. He is very curious about the chickens and loves to play with the cats. He explores out in the woods and often brings back a stick with him. Obviously, he has found a new passion and that is digging. In all these pictures he has a red dirty nose from digging in a new hold Ginger made. He will be getting a bath in the tub tonight :-)

**SOLD** SM2 (Sunny Male 2) aka Bucky Jr.

This guy is so mellow and laid back. He is the one pup that craves human attention the most. He also likes to dig, play, run and explore but when we are around he just wants to be near us. My guess is one day he will be a 80 pound lap dog! He is named after his Uncle Bucky, who is also very laid back and mellow and has curly hair/ears.

**SOLD** SM3 (Sunny Male 3) aka Mr. Green

This guy is hard to get a good picture of! He is always on the go. Playing, running, digging, wrestling.... I ended up with about 30 pictures of his backside or of the grass! He plays hard but settles down at night and is very cuddly. He was the first pup to be able to "hold it" through the night. We call him Mr. Green simply because he is the only Sunny pup to have a Green collar.

Pulling on one of the other pups tails.....

**SOLD** SM6 (Sunny Male 6) aka Shaggy

We have nicknamed this guy Shaggy. His hair has started to grow out on the sides giving him long wing tips! He is a very mellow, lovey pup. He is very curious and likes to venture out into our woods. His face is very expressive!

**SOLD**GM2 (Ginger Male 2) aka Toby 2 or T2

This guy is a real charmer. He is the leader of our puppy pack. He likes to follow the big dogs around everywhere and do what they do. He has a big block head. He will be medium color. He likes to chew on just about anything :-) We have nicknamed him Toby 2 after our Toby. Our Toby also liked to chew on things when he was a puppy. Thankfully he has grown out of that though :-))

Happy Puppy Video

11 weeks old

All of the puppies and big dogs playing together in the backyard. We are doing a test run without the mama's in t-shirts. We'll see how it goes. SO far the puppies have been to busy digging, eating grass clumps and wrestling to notice.

Two puppies decided to play in our fire pit! These are Golden Retrievers... not Black Labs! lol I think it will be bath time tonight!

Bucky Jr, T2, Mr. Green and Shaggy

We are family...

Sunny, Meli (previously known as Doey!) and Huck

The house is starting to feel empty!

As of today we have sold 12 of our puppies, leaving us with 8. The garage actually feels empty and with much less poo to clean up! :-) We have met some amazing families that will give all our pups great homes! Some of the new names for the puppies are: Bart, Oliver, Layla, Ranger, Dutch, Ellie, Sadie, Maureen, Molly, Mylee, Jazz & Muddy.

8.5 and 7.5 weeks old! Where does the time go?

This is GM4 eating his first milk bone.

This is a cute picture of GF1. We have nicknamed her "Molly".

This is a picture of GM1. I have nicknamed him "Teddy Bear". He is just so mellow and has a beautiful block head.

I am not sure what puppy this one is, however put a beer in his hand and the remote in the other and he would be set :-)

This is a sleepy picture of SM1.

Another picture of GF1 "Molly".

This is a picture of SF2, AKA "Doey". We have not yet gotten a good picture of this wonderful girl! She is ALWAYS on the go. go.. go....... She is my pick of the litter. The smartest of all the dogs. She has big, bright beautiful eyes that capture you... hence the name "Doey" for her doey eyes.

Playing games under our bed....

This is a cute picture of SM1. He is a great all around average guy. Very mellow, adventerous and spunky all at the same time.

Today we had 8 puppies in the house with us... this is some of the mischief they were getting into.

These two pictures are of GF4. A very mellow girl who will be dark red. She loves to give you kisses every time you pick her up! I took these pictures because this is something Ginger does in our bedroom everyday, rests her head on the windowsill and looks out. We still have some chewy marks on our window ledge when Ginger was a puppy and sat looking out the window.

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As of today, we have sold 5 puppies to some amazing families. Kurt and I feel so good about the homes our puppies have gone to. We know they will have amazing lives! Everyone has promised, so far, to keep us posted on the puppies growth and will send us pictures from time to time. It is very bittersweet for both Kurt and I. We have grown personally attached in special ways to each and every puppy. We have started to figure out their quirks and personalities :-)

Our daily puppy routine has changed some now that they have gotten bigger. Every morning Kurt and I go out together and clean up the garage together. We pull out the old hay, sweep the garage, flip over the dog blankets, fill up food and water, let the puppies outside to play for a bit and wipes up all the poops that didn't make it onto the hay. We then mop the entire garage with Lysol to kill any germs and frankly to make the world smell a bit better :-) In the afternoons, Kurt goes out and checks on the pups and fills up their food/water dishes. When I get home at night, Kurt and I go back out to the garage pick up any poops, fill up food and water, change their blankets to clean ones and sweep the garage.... and of course hold and love puppies all day long. We have this routine down pretty good... once the puppies are all sold to good homes Kurt and I have decided we will take morning walks together in the time we would have been cleaning up the garage.

Ginger and Sunny are both doing excellent. We have had to place t-shirts on both of the girls in order to 100% wean the puppies. Ginger and Sunny actually don't seem to mind the t-shirts... I personally feel embarrassed for them both! The puppies were frantic for milk the first day we put the shirts on the girls.... following the girls around all over the yard. As of today, the puppies have seemed to get the memo that there is no more milk supply and have left the girls alone.

Huck still has a bandage on his food. He broke the sutures last weekend after playing ball for some of our friends. We took him back to the vet this past week and they placed some staples to close up the incision. So, we continue to have an ace wrap on his foot for 12 - 14 more days. I am going to take Ginger into the vet this week for a follow up check-up and her rabies vaccination and will take Huck back in for staple removal two weeks from now.

Otherwise, all is well here on Hummingbird Hill Farm. I am now 6 months pregnant and loving this time. I am having some friends over next weekend to start putting together our nursery (paint, etc.) I am feeling the baby kick and dance in my belly all day long. Kurt has yet to feel the baby kick from the outside yet. I have to remind myself to take it easy, sit down and put my feet up from time to time. I feel like I have a lot of energy but it is short lived when I get to working in the garage, etc. This weekend I pruned all of our apple/cherry trees, roses and started to tend to my flower gardens again. I am very anxious for spring to arrive! I can't believe this past Saturday we almost hit 70 degrees!!! in early March!!