We are still having lots of rain here - when we moved, we didn’t realise West Wales was so wet. It is good for the garden though and the grass is growing back after a winter of mad dogs.
Hopefully the weekend will be nice enough to actually do something in the garden and maybe get some photos of the dogs without worrying about a damp camera!
Koda wasn’t in the good books yesterday after waking us up barking at half past five in the morning. Andrew went down to investigate and found four magpies sat on the fence closest to Koda, winding him up. He really hates magpies as if he leaves a bone on the grass, they fly down and peck all the meat off and he cannot do anything about it from the kennel except bark at them 
These magpies were eating pizza put out for the hens, which must be far more appealing than bones.
Jun 24, 2008 | | Uncategorized
For anyone that knows Alaskan Malamutes, you will know that 99.9% of them have an extremely high prey drive and cannot be trusted near livestock.
We found this out the hard way when Kiska and Koda decided to eat a few of our escapee hens. We have to be very careful with the hens, as they sometimes get loose and then they are fair game to the big dogs who will chase and kill.
So can someone tell me why it is, for the last few weeks, that I have found either Kiska or Koda IN the hen pen, hoovering around for food, without touching the hens??
Or, when Penny and Gertrude, the naughtest hens, have flown over the fence into full biting range of the dogs, they have not given them a second glance? In fact, Kiska has sniffed them and walked away and Koda has dropped to the floor.
I cannot cannot cannot think of any explanation apart from someone has transplanted their Malamute brains and given them normal-dog brains.
We have finally got some veggies in the ground and growbags! The greenhouse veggies are doing well and the veggies in the plot are too. All we have left to do is make a herb section and get some salad veg in
So far we have: Runner beans, peas, cauliflower, pumpkin, spring onion, radish, tomato, cucumber, courgette, butternut, melon, sweetcorn, basil, parsley, coriander, mint, oregano and sweet red peppers. And all from seed too. Next year we will have more groundy things like carrots, beetroot, parsnips etc but couldn’t this year as the land wasn’t ready. Still, we will have quite a bit to be going on with!
Jun 17, 2008 | | Uncategorized
We were sad to say goodbye to Alfie recently. He has gone off to his new home with a lovely family who have three Jack Russells - so he will be in his element
Other stuff - the dogs are all great - the weather has been really miserable recently, so I haven’t been able to get any decent photos. Here is one Andrew took a few days ago of Koda.
The veggies are doing great, apart from the fact that the veggie patch is still not ready, so the stuff that needs to go in the ground (beans, peas, root veg etc) cannot go in yet. I am determined to get it planted as I do not want to let my seedlings go to waste. Everything is grown from seed, which makes it all the more important!
Andrew did manage to get the growbag stuff in though. So the tomatoes, cucumber and courgettes are doing well. The pumkin plants are becoming monsters too!
We have “harvested” our first lot of herbs too - the parsley has been growing fast and is now hanging to dry.
And last of all, sadly we lost Vlad the hen 
Found her at the top of the garden which is strangely where they all seem to go to die. Run free Vlad.
Jun 01, 2008 | | Uncategorized
The weather has been so hot here for the last week. Too hot for the dogs really although Buddie and Alfie don’t seem bothered by it at all!
We decided to take them both to the beach this afternoon as it was slightly breezier today - still too hot for the big dogs unfortunately so they will have to make do with an after dark walk this evening!
They had a great time although we decided against the tennis ball launcher we had brought - it was just too hot. Buddie swam and swam - he loves the water. Alfie didn’t dare to follow him in! The strange feeling of the sand was enough for him!
They met up with some springer spaniels and a very handsome black lab - also a lot of school children who were litter picking. Alfie got recognised as a Fox Terrier which was lovely Most people I fear think he is a Jack Russell!
They managed to both have a taste of our crepes and strawberries after their run, which were thoroughly enjoyed by both humans and dogs. I can hear snoring coming from the kennel, so they must be tired and happy! There is nothing better than a lovely run on the beach.
May 14, 2008 | | Uncategorized
I haven’t been able to get into my Blog for some reason but my password has now kindly been re-set and here I am
There isn’t really that much to update about, but I will post some pictures of the gang and perhaps do a couple of posts with some backdated ones.
So most recent things? Well the dogs are all fine - Kiska is now completely bald and Buddie is starting to blow his coat. He loses his coat like a Malamute, so it is not fun and he needs a very good brush. My new nail clippers arrived from Jane, so claws will be trimmed at some point soon. Cue a screaming Kiska.
On the weekend, we finally laid the gravel in the kennel part of the garden. It was a mixture of mud and wood chippings before and now looks so much nicer.
All we need to do now is give the kennels a coat of paint, as they haven’t been painted for three years!! They should look a lot better then as they are quite tatty looking at the moment.
We also bought a huge garden box for all the dog toys, which Buddie has learnt to open with his nose. It is too deep for him to get any toys out though! He is obsessed with tennis balls at the moment so we bought him a giant bag in Pets at Home.
That’s all for now really as my food is cooked!! More later about veggies and chickens and things
May 12, 2008 | | Uncategorized
This is inspired by a post on someone else’s Blog.
We like to think we are “doing our bit” for the environment. There are many ways in which we can improve, but I think we are well on our way to Green Living. A good site I have just joined is Edenbee which helps you work towards achieving your goals in the way you change your life to make it more Green.
At the moment we:
- Keep chickens in order to obtain free-range eggs. We would have liked to rear table birds but I cannot see us doing it in the near future. I just like having the eggs and we don’t really have enough space for extra sheds without the dogs having less space in the garden.
- Do not throw away anything that can be eaten by dogs, hens or put in the compost bin. Nothing is wasted.
- Have just started our own vegetable patch. We have recently bought a greenhouse and are going to try to become fairly self-sufficient as far as veggies are concerned. We buy Organic if we need to buy anything.
- We recycle everything apart from plastic, as our local Council does not take plastic for some reason. However, Andrew has just found a plastic bin in a local town, so we can start taking it there. Glass, tin and card/paper are collected, and we have a three way bin in the kitchen to separate things. As a result, we only put rubbish out once in a while.
- When we shop, we only use canvas/resusable hessian bage for our groceries. We stopped using plastic bags a while ago and we have stopped using poo bags in the garden for the dogs. We only use them now when we have to pick up in a public place.
- Our baby’s nappies are cloth washable nappies.
- We have started doing things around the home like turning the oven off 5 minutes before the cooking time ends, unplugging chargers, washing clothes at 30 degrees, having showers instead of baths etc.
There are probably many more things that I cannot think of. I think we are doing pretty well as most people our age or living in our area couldn’t care less. It is nice to know that we are doing our bit and even though we can’t save the world, if more people lived this way then it is bound to make a difference. I just wish our council would take plastic!
Apr 12, 2008 | | Uncategorized
We woke up yesterday to a covering of the white stuff! It was weird as the day before had been so warm we had lunch in the garden. The weather here is very strange. It was sunny so it melted almost straight away but the dogs managed to have a good charge about in it first. Andrew took a video on his phone but for some reason it is so tiny you can hardly see anything so I won’t bother posting it.
It seems as though the snow made the tiles in the kitchen too cold to sleep on, and as Alfie’s bed was in the wash, he found another place to sleep - a Buddie shaped pillow
I am surprised Bud lets him stay there as although he is small, he isn’t that light and it must be quite uncomfortable to have something else sleeping on your back!
I was pleased yesterday as we ate our first “meal” from all our own produce. I baked some bread and we had egg and cress sandwiches with eggs from our hens and cress from our windowsill.
I am sure they tasted far better because we knew where everything had come from.
Koda and Kiska both had a bath on the weekend. Kiska is hard to bath as she keeps trying to escape. It is not easy trying to hold down a slippery seven stone screaming Malamute. She needed one badly as she is blowing her coat and we wanted to loosen the hair up a bit so it comes out quicker. Koda is easier to bath although I hate doing it. He shakes from head to toe and I feel so guilty, but he was bouncing round the garden like a puppy afterwards, so it can’t be that traumatic!
All the local crows’ nests must now be lined with Kiska hair. I brushed her on the lawn and there were about 20 crows gathering it all up an hour later - they took every strand
Apr 07, 2008 | | Uncategorized
First of all, can I say to the person who is leaving strange comments - your IP address is logged, and your comments are moderated and won’t show up here unless I approve them, so bugger off!
Since we have had our greenhouse, we have planted a few things to start us off…
We do have the seeds in the house of course, but they are only herbs and tomatoes. In the greenhouse we have put a larger variety of tomato, pumpkin, melon, cucumber, cauliflower, spring onion and garlic. No seedlings yet but we only sowed them last Thursday so they have plenty of time! This weekend we need to make a start on digging over the new veggie patch. I want to get some outdoor things out soon, although I might leave it a couple of weeks until the cold snaps we keep having ease off.
The herb seedlings are starting to poke their heads through now, and the cress is almost ready to harvest. The garden needs so much work this summer so I hope it is a nice, dry one!
Apr 03, 2008 | | Uncategorized
I got my greenhouse!
This is a photo of the one in the shop, not my own! It is bigger than I thought - 4ft x 6ft, so proper greenhouse sized and nice and accessible for me It is also warmer than I thought inside - it’s amazing how effective the plastic is. I can’t wait now to get planting!
I think we are going to use the strip of land behind our actual garden for veggies. It needs a lot of digging and weeding but once done, it seems ideal. I’ll start off with putting some runner beans in and see how they do. Then I can plant in any seedlings from the greenhouse once they are established. It will be lovely to have homegrown veg this year!
I think I’ll do some updates on this site today - Alfie needs a page of his own like the others do and I might do one for the hens too.
Mar 31, 2008 | | Uncategorized
I have finally got Andrew to agree to make me a vegetable patch! He made me a vegetable patch a few years ago but it still has chickens on it It won’t take much work - just putting a few posts in the ground, stapling some sheep fencing to them and putting the chickens on it for a few days to clear the grass. Then I will dig in the contents of our compost bin and we will be ready to go… or grow! I wanted the compost bin empty anyway as it needs to go on slabs so that nothing can burrow up into it.
I have made a start on growing some indoor things which has got me in the mood to grow more outdoors. I have started cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, mustard cress, basil, oregano, parsley, mint, chives and coriander, all on my kitchen windowsill.
I really need a greenhouse but have only just got Andrew to agree to the veggie patch, so that may take some persuading. There was one going on Freecycle a few weeks ago but our car would not have been big enough to collect it and I don’t know anyone with a van or trailer. Never mind - I’ll keep my eye open for another one and maybe get one of those little polythene ones for now. I had one last year but the polythene broke. I still use the shelves for potting, so another one would be handy for starting things like cucumber off. I wish I could remember where I saw one the other day for £12.99. We’ll see.
Mar 27, 2008 | | Uncategorized
