Introductions.

This year we added a few new members to family, so i thought some introductions were in order. :)
When we lost our dog Sampson in the fall, i knew we were going to get another dog eventually. i was not in a big hurry for this, still dealing with the loss and not wanting to have to train a puppy. i had been online researching dog breeds, as much as i loved our dog i was not sure i really wanted another beagle. They are not the smartest of dogs and they are very prone to wander. According to the research i had done, we would do best with an Australian Shepard, Blue healer or border collie.
One afternoon, while browsing through the classified for dairy goats i came across an ad for a free puppy. The ad was for a 6 month old Border Collie, great with kids, knew basic commands, all around great dog. Something about the ad, made me feel like we really needed to jump on it. So Kenan called the number, explained that we lived in the country, had goats, chickens and children and would love to give this puppy a home. The folks who had the puppy, explained they found her abandoned, tied to a dumpster. They lived in a trailer and didn't have enough space for her. They also told Kenan they had someone coming out to look at her within the hour, and had over 16 calls on her already. So we accepted the fact that we would not be getting the dog.
Then out of the blue about an hour later, the phone rings. The folk with the puppy, said they just had this feeling about us and they really wanted us to have her. So Kenan hopped in the car and drove all the way out to Blacksburg to pick the puppy. We had no idea what a blessing she would be to our family.

This is Sookie. While trying to decide her name Sage, decided her name was Sushi. Kenan then suggested Suki (avatar), which immediately worked for everyone. Our family being a bunch of Avatar fans. i decided to change the spelling to Sookie , because i'm a Gilmore Girl Fan and we had two cats named Kali and Sati...and i just didn't want another 4 letter name that ended in i. :) She is a short haired Border Collie, extremely smart and has been a wonderful addition to our family.

The next newest member is Delilah. When we first moved to Virginia 10 years ago, i told everyone i wanted a dog named Sampson and a goat named Delilah. :) We got the dog the first year were here, but it's taken 10 years to find my Delilah. She is a Pygmy-Dwarf Nigerian cross, she was 4 months old when we brought her home, so she is not quite 6 months now. We are hoping she will provide us with milk one day. i have seen some mixed reviews about milking Dwarf Nigerians and Pygmies. Some claim they are great milkers, while others claim the teets are too small to milk. Right now we are still getting use to just being goat owner. We won't breed her until next year, so it will be quite some time before we know if we can milk her. i expect that once we get used to keeping goats (it's a constant learning process) we may add a few more dairy goats to our herd. ;)

We are really enjoying them both. Goats have so much personality. Casper having been raised in the house over the winter, is a bit of a spoiled brat. Delilah was extremely skittish when we first brought her home. However, she is becoming a very sweet and friendly little goat. She runs to greet us and sniff our hands hoping we brought treats. They love treats. We give them a few carrots from the garden, lemon balm, comfry, blackberry leaves and a couple of corn chips now and again.

The last introductions are for these three sweet little peeps (although i know they were mention in the last post). They are all unnamed so far. The first little peep is an English game bird. In the last picture, the fluffy yellow peep is a Rhode island red-English game cross and the one to the left with the reddish fluff is an Americana-English game cross. We are pretty excited to see how the crossed breeds grow up. Our RIR and Americana are both great egg layers, but they have very little personality. The English game birds have great personalities...but they are not regular egg layers, they love to hide their eggs, and they love to set on their eggs. So it will be interesting to see what we get with them. It is always fun watching the tiny peeps change, as their feather come in and we figure out if we have hens or roosters.

We have had a lot of change already this year, and although i am not always the most open to change i do believe in constantly moving forward. Each year, we move closer to our dream. We progress little by little, sometimes there are road blocks, sometimes we back step...but we always keep moving.