Welcome Hildy!

You'll forgive the absence of updates as we gave up as much computer use as possible during Holy Week. Nevertheless, we do have some fairly big news here on the farm.

Last Thursday, between work and our parish's Holy Thursday service, we drove over toward Grantsburg to pick up our puppy. A mixture of two traditional European guardian dogs (Mastiff and Maremma), the pups raised by Love Tree Farms are ideal guardian dogs for medium to large homesteads. Our only concern is that our property and the level of activity will be too small -- we'll stay tuned to that.

Love Tree raises a great deal of sheep and goats and some cows, in addition to making their own breed of guardian dogs. They also sell homemade cheese and pizza too. It's a neat place; check out their blog sight.

There were four or five pups left from the litter of ten when we went to pick our dog up. The three in the pen we were dealing with seemed sad to have bid adieu to their siblings in recent days. Our selection, whom we've named Hildy (after St. Hildegard of Bingen), was one of the smaller pups in the litter. She was terrified about being removed from her companions and was only consoled by being held and gently petted.

We chatted with Mary, the helpful breeder, and got some tips about training and feed, etc. Then Steph got in the back seat of the Civic holding Hildy and I chauffeured the gals home. Earlier that morning we finished a fence around the chicken coop so that we had a decent sized enclosure for Hildy to bond with the chickens in.

The reason we got Hildy is to guard our chickens and other future livestock, but that means she needs to be attached to the animals and not to us. This is well and good in the abstract, but the first few nights when you walk away from your incredibly adorable ten week old puppy and she cries and tries to dig her way out of her pen to be near you it tugs pretty good on the old heartstrings. Not yet a week into her tenure as the boss at Magdalen Farm, Hildy is already very happy to be in her pen with her little flock. For a few days she and the chickens wanted nothing to do with each other, but now they share water, food, and space quite happily.

She is a wonderfully good natured little pup whom we've come to love a great deal already. We were glad to introduce her to much of Steph's side of the family yesterday. She was pretty scared, but warmed up to everyone as they insisted on petting her -- though she did pee on both Jared and I in the process.

For now she is sleeping in a big plastic drum, turned on its side, elevated off the ground a bit, and lined with some raw wool kindly donated from Love Tree Farm. The wool is both warming and comforting as it smells like her former wooly friends.

If you're in the area, stop by and meet all of our new farm additions! In addition to two cats, we're now raising one dog, four pigs and 27 chickens!