The first time I put this cone on blind Jake's head I thought it almost looked like an angel's halo.  Unfortunately, the reason he's now wearing a cone is because of decidedly unangelic behavior.  When Jake and Buddy arrived here back in November, they were terribly thin — and it took months for us to…

Not to be outdone by Granny's concrete island-in-the-snow, here is our barn cat Rocky showing off his island.  This is the picnic table outside our welcome center, slowly beginning to emerge from the snow drifts.  I got the photo on Friday afternoon. That's Lena's Barn in the background. You can see the 12-foot roof extension…

Friday was a very sad day for us.  We had to say goodbye to Cindy, who had been with us since last May.  She was the best employee we've ever had at the ranch … by far.  Cindy could do everything — from fixing fence to grooming dogs.  She knew as much, and often more,…

Good heavens, here we went almost an entire week without another sleeping Dachshund photo.  Fortunately, I remembered I had one "in the can," so to speak.  This is blind Callie, sleeping off her dinner the other evening.  She just loves laying upside down like this.  Here's the top-down view: It always makes us smile when…

It was supposed to be 12 below zero (-24 C) last night.  When we got up this morning, it was really 18 below zero (-27 C).  Well, actually minus 18.7 — but who's counting?  And it was still 18 below when Alayne and I headed out for barn chores. Fortunately, as you can see from…

I've been trying to get this shot for weeks now, ever since I first saw our barn cat Joshua drinking from the snowmelt coming off the tractor-mounted snowblower.  We call Joshua the "hydrologist" because he loves drinking from running or dripping water … from whatever the source.  In Beauty's Barn, for instance, he would hop…

There's just about nothing harder to photograph than a black dog on white snow, but Alayne managed to get these shots of blind Evelyn rolling around in the white stuff.  Evelyn loves to roll, whether it's on grass, dirt, mud or … snow.  Anything will do just fine, thank you. Back in late January I…

Our little sun-worshipper, blind-and-deaf Granny (the elderly Jack Russell terrier formerly known as Duchess), managed to find the one spot in the yard the other day that didn't have any snow.  The "island" she found is actually the concrete access cover for our septic system.  Not only was it snow-free, but it was also the…

I'm going to take a "blog break" this week and will resume posting on Sunday, March 8.  Until then, I hope you'll enjoy the Collie sisters' antics in the post below!

I was lucky to have the camera with me to capture another ridiculous lunch-time antic.  We had let the Collie sisters, Soba and Noodle, out of Kelly's Cottage to wobble around at mid-day.  Noodle is the girl with the white blaze on her face; she is much more compromised than her sister, but has just…