Home of Many Tails

Foe personal reasons this blog will no longer be active. It was fun, while it lasted. Lots of love to everyone. Tatiana and Frank.

Summer is over.It was rainy and seemed short. But had color nonetheless 🙂

Strawberry pickimg at Dew Fresh farms

Our own berries. Not much, but ours 😉

Alice graduated from college!

We went shooting for father’s day

Ted and Lacey, senior puppy mill survivors,  came to live with us.

We also lost Skittles at 17 years of age. The hedgehog and both Parrots also went to the Bridge over the summer. They were loved and will be missed.

And then the summer was over.

Love to all

Thanks for reading

Tat

It is definitely past the time for a new blog post. Winter is almost over. I think we are expecting the last snow storm this week, 10 inches! At least i hope it’s the last. We sure had a lot of snow this season!

The ice dam on the roof was the biggest in 8 years!

Some of our furry children did not seem to mind the snow so much 😉

Rosie, on the other hand made us worry . On very cold days she refused to get out of her nest andf we had to feed her with the spoon, like this. She also had oatmeat cooked just for her. Well, she shared with the other barn dwellers, she is nice that way .

Cheery also did not fare so well over the winter. Cold was making her stiff and hard to move around, but she she was doing reasonably well untill this last week. So the doctor is coming out to see her. Hoping for the best.

Susie ewe did well, as far as we can tell.

Ducks, geese and chickens did fine. We have not lost anyone. And here was the first egg, sometime in February, I believe. You know spring is sure coming when you get an egg 😉

Snow on the barn roof…sliding off…and it fell

Then things started melting

One of the weekends we put together our thrift store find.

And the puppy got spayed

And Remus went to the Bridge on january 29th. We miss him. A lot.

Thank you all who read till the end

Happy spring!

Tat 😉

Two weeks ago Remus, the red Border Collie was diagnosed with osteo sarcoma. It progresses fast. As I am writing this, we are not sure if he will make it through the next few days. It is always a difficult decision to help the animal along to the Rainbow Bridge.

Remus

We’ve had Remus since 2009. He was about three when we got him and we were his last hope. Previous owner was going to put him down if no one adopted him. Remus is mortally afraid of thunder. To the point of breaking though the window and running off into the traffic. For 9 years we’ve tried every possible trick and drug to help him with it and nothing worked. He landed me in the hospital and out of work for 4 months after I tried to break up the dog fight and got bitten, my damaged hand will always remind me of our Red Dog. He always lays by my feet in the kitchen and he used to get in the fights with Sirius, the black border Collie. And he loves hanging out in the sewing room. Until a few years ago, when he had a neck injury and it became difficult to get up the stairs, he slept on our bed and all night sucked on the corner of the blanket.

We gave him nine years of, what we think is a happy dog life. We helped him then and we are going to help him now.

My only regret is that in was only nine short years.

We are responsible for those we’ve tamed.

Love to all

Good bye , old year!

Juno is growing

Two years since Phoebe came.

Just some yellow cat pictures 😉

And it’s Frank’s Birthday!!

Home made marshmallows are awesome. Taste different, of course, but oh so good in hot chocolate 🙂

Juno got a new toy from grandma.

We tried making cookine using the old cookie thingie, kind of like frank’s Mom had when he was little. Well…they tasted good, but were rather shapeless. Gueee, we’ll need more practice  😉

Possumly is back 😉

December 31 st.

Looking forward to the New year.

Thanks for reading

Tat

It is very strange , but I have not been able to write the post from the laptop as usual. Something odd is happening with the pictures . So the format of this post will be different from the previous ones. At least iluntil I will be able to fix the issue. Sigh…why does it have to be so difficult?

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Turkey this year was done using a new method. It is called spatchcock or butterfly. You cut and remove the backbone , lay the turkey breast side up, 1.5 hours and all done! Super quick, easy and tastes awesome.

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For some reason we have very few pictures from November.

The highlight of the month was the fact that Frank landed in the hospital with pneumonia. Four days in Intensive care. It was very scary.

I am not going to relive it here, was bad enough to go through the experience once. But some pictures were taken, not at the absolute worst, of course, but still bad enough 😦

And me, chins galore 🙂

And we are home

The end 🙂

Thanks for reading

Tat 🙂

We had an unexpected surprise in the middle of the month. The yellow hen that we’ve seen sitting in the pole beans, came out with three little ones.

As a rule we don’t hatch chicks any more, simply because if there are any roosters , they will have to be given away and it makes us sad. But occasionally there is a partisan hen that will quietly disappear into the garden and come back with the little ones. I won’t deny, they always make us smile.

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The garden shed is finally getting finished. It is amazing, but the summer is over and we looked back and thought, what have we been doing? And it’s not like we’ve been sitting around all season! Oh well…here is hoping for more productive times.

More shed. Frank calles it Shed-Mahal 😉 It will need to be painted, of course and have a door and windows put in. I also want little overhangs on each side to store things under. And maybe a small porchy-pooh on the front, just for looks.

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Some of the harvest. Interesting that we had hardly any tomatoes at first, and then they exploded.

Hot peppers (just some green chilis and serranos, not super hot) is one of my favorite things to grow.

Some more harvest

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We caved in and bought an Instant pot. Cosori brand. Frank calles it a smart ass pot 😉 Inky is sceptical, so am I. But I am willing to give it a whirl 😉

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Me with Cleo.

Some more children pictures. Beau, the little one in the middle. Cleo and Sirius.

The puppy and her favorite Pitbul.

Just Summer

This is where we live. We had glorious two weeks off at the end of August, beginning of September and  we spent them at home. We left the house three times in two weeks. When we feed people in the barn their evening meal, we can watch the moon come up over the fields. This is our happy place.

Thank you all, who read to the end

Tat 😉

The last month of summer is marked by more tomatoes, sunflowers as tall as…well, the tall thing and another attempt at pickles. Masha (from cartoon series Masha and The Bear) turned out to be a very helpful dollchild.

The tomato above is a brandywhine, grown from seeds saved a few years ago.  Definitely one of the favorites that we’ll be growing from now on.  The other must haves will be a German Bicolor, for some reason called Mrs. Robinson, 10 fingers of Naples  (Italian roma style) and probably Glacier Salad. This last one has a lot of 2 -3 inch fruit, fast maturing, looks to be fairly resistaint to disease and has pleasant flavour.

They were very very slow in maturing this year, and then all of a sudden exploded! So there will be a lot of tomato soup this winter 😉

Pickles are ok for the first week or so, but we don’t eat them fast enough, so they just sit in the fridge forever.

Definitely will be slowing down on the garden front next year. Which is a shame, really, as I do enjoy growing different things. But it is getting harder to keep up with the harvest. Will update the Garden page with more info later.

More of helpful Masha 😉 Mmmm..potatoes!

and zucchini pancakes, with sour cream. Von Fox brothers and Dino are ready to join in 🙂

Barn pictures.

Phoebe the button butt on the front porch. Can see Beau running on a mission.

This is what I’ve been working on. A miniature room. Still work in progress.

This beautiful Morning Glory bloomed on our beloved Sid’s grave. Silent hello from the Rainboow Bridge.

More August. Our very own dryed apples. And sunflowers, of course.

In the last week of August-first week of September we usually take some time off. Nice to have your brain reset, wake up together every day, not to rush anywhere, work on projects, slowly walk through the trees to the barn. Usually we don’t even leave the house  if we don’t have to, so sick of driving during the rest of the year.

Here is Frank moving some top soil bags , closely supervised by Spike 😉

And like this

And more. Spike, of all the dogs, loves car rides!

And…the best for last 😉 we got a puppy. On august 25th. She was 7 weeks old.

She was crawling with fleas and coved in sores, and was tormented by small children. Had to get her.

We could not drive back home for 3.5 hours coved in fleas. So we stopped  at the nearest Walmart, got a few gallons of water, flea shampoo, combs and towells and washed her right in the parking lot.  We were combing fleas for the next two days snd conquered them. The Dawn soap really works!

Daily flea search continued for a while, just to make sure.

We named her Juno.

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She loves being outside and is determined to be helping in the garden. Digging mostly 😉

The rest of the little ones are not so sure about this. Poor puppy is all alone on her end of the bed.

We have not had a puppy for 9 years. It is  definitely an almost new experience.

More pictures of projects.

Finally mowed down the huge patch of raspberries that grown to enormous proportions. Also made paths in the good patch of raspberries, so it is easier to get to them. With the garden, hopefully,  smaller next year, I want to concentrate on the berries and trees.

More puppy in the garden. Unfortunately, she loves chasing chickens and ducks.

I went to the Russian store and saw sugar cubes. Nostalgic moment, tea with sugar cubes 😉

Skittles and Juno are helping with book case assembly. Working hard 😉

Thank you all who read to the end!

Lots of love from all of us

Tat 😉

July.  Hot.

First ripe tomatoes. Butternut squash and Odessa squash. The Odessa is a form of zucchini. It has slightly different texture, more firm and takes longer to mature. Which means is does not get to a boat size as quick as the regular zucchini. It also keeps longer in the fridge.

To me it holds tender childhood memories of visiting my grandfather’s family in Odessa, we always arrived in the middle of the night for some strange reason and the aunt would fry breaded circles of this squash and we would eat them with sour cream. I found the seeds on Baker Creek heirloom seeds site and in the future I am thinking it will be the only squash I will grow. It is delicious sliced thinly and sauteed in oil or butter with some herbs or just salt and pepper and fried breaded slices are even praised by my husband, which is definitely a mark of a worthy vegetable 😉

Von Fox family and Dino found a little tomato. It is very small and there is four of them, seems like it’s time to go see what else they can find 😉  More about them on the Doll Page.

Some flowers.

A few veggies and black currants are coming in. A boat of a zucchini 😉

Frank took these pictures. He said that it was a great idea for garden decor. 😉 😉 And I was just trying to dry my shoes!!!

Some barn people.

More barn people.

And some of the kitties. The little blue kitty named Satin is terminally ill. We are trying to make her last months as comfortable as possible.

White Cat deserves to be mentioned separately. He is a feral cat we caught in the trap accidentally some years back. He was in such a bad shape that we could not put him back out. He lived in the garage for a couple of years then one spring he left. He was doing good at first , but then started looking pretty thin, so we began putting food out. Then came November and in the open garage door came the White Cat and settled on his old pillow. He’s done it  for, probably three years now, leaves in the spring and is back when the cold weather hits.

Happiness is 300 bales of hay! So glad we got the elevator.  Being how we are no longer spring chickens, this contraption really helps us out.

Here is the man who made it all possible and without whom there would be no home and many tails would not have existed.

Fourth of July at Alice’s new house. The food was very simple, since I worked the night before and was quite tired, but it ‘s getting together what mattered most.

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And just like that July is gone. But memories remain. And that’s what matters.

Thank you all who visited and read to the end

Tat 😉