The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday — What More Can I Say ?!?

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Dayphoto

The next to the last field has been opened — that means Dad is done doing enough of the tractor work it’s time to put the gated pipe together and start the water on that field. This field is another corn field, but the gated pipe will water the pinto bean field.

Dad and Mom had to put the pipe together for the pinto bean field because the run off from the last corn field goes to water the bean field and the last alfalfa field before leaving our farm and heading on over to the next farm. But since the bean ground isn’t ready yet, the water will run through the gated pipe anyway and water the older alfalfa field then leave our farm.

We moved siphon tubes and got the water flowing. Sure was a good feeling.

The next day, Mom asked us to get in the back of the pick-up and go to TOWN.

Oh, what joy!

Boomer has learned to hop in the back now and he loves to ride with us. Remember when he first came he was very afraid and wouldn’t get in the truck unless I got in first? I think he has made huge strides in being a good farm dog!

Anyway we got to town and Mom dropped us OFF at the Dog GROOMERS!!!!

That was hours of misery. I shook and trembled and moaned the whole time. Boom of course LOVED the whole experience. He hopped right into the bathing tub and sat there while Mom and the groomer put me into the waiting area.

DID

NOT

WANT

THERE!

About 90 minutes of pure hell and torture Mom came and picked us up.

Yep! That’s me.

I can’t decide if I like this new look or not!

Makes me feel —- well naked.

And Mom wouldn’t let me jump into the ditches, said I was just shampooed so I have to stay out of the muddy water.

MEAN

GEEZ!

Then the heat of the next day hit and

Hummmm

I guess this new look is alright.

I feel a lot cooler!

Fuzzy

The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday — The Canyon

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Dayphoto

Boom and I have been DYING to get to go somewhere, besides just here on the farm….you know—a mini-vacation. By that I mean A RIDE IN THE BACK OF THE PICK-UP!

But it hasn’t been happening!

Yes, we’ve been to the upper end and to the back forty and over to bad burn and irrigating.

We have helped Mom in the yard and even road with Mom to deliver stuff to Uncle Evan’s (although we didn’t get to get out and see Zookie and Bella), but we have NOT got to go for a fun pick-up ride!

A pick-up ride to some place really cool with lots of new smells.

Mom did make her house-cat….Monkey…go outside and work with us in the yard a couple of days.

Boomer and Monkey like each other so they had fun until Monkey went back inside.

Sammy-Sam the outside cat doesn’t put up with Boomer and me very much so he’s no fun.

We just wanted to GO FOR A RIDE!!!!

We would beg and hop up (well, Boomer hopped up, I can’t hop anymore) and put on our happiest faces, even whapped the ground with our tails (well, Boomer whapped, I just wiggled mine).

Nothing was working!

Bummer!

Huff!

Sigh!

THEN IT HAPPENED!

Mom came out and asked if we wanted to go for a ride!

Yippppeeee! Boy did We!

Dad and Mom gathered up a huge rope and a great big chain, put them in the back of the Dodge with us and headed down to the Canyon!

WEEEE! DOWN TO THE CANYON!

Couldn’t be a better place!

When we got there we saw why—Aunt Shannon had gotten her truck stuck in the spring river run off.

Dad got her right out. Just a quick hook-up and pull.

And we went back home.

Boomer and I loved every second of it.

I sure hope we get to go again soon.

Mom, said she hopes the next trip to the canyon is NOT for something like this!

Fuzzy

The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday — The Upper End

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Dayphoto

We headed up with Mom and Dad to dig ditches to the burn area over on the Back Forty and to the back pastures. They are going to put run-off-water there to see if anything can start growing again. It was lots of work for Mom and Dad but Fuzzy and I had a right jolly old time! We sniffed around to see what is happening up here. The Upper End is where the HEADGATE is. Right now all the cows are around the head gate but they will be moved off tomorrow. These are not our cows, but the south end of our farm’s neighbors. He had to move the bulls when the water came in as the ditch riders and Mom and Dad (and us) have to get to the head gate to keep the trash out. Bulls don’t like to have strange people moving around on their property. The head gate is SCARY! It thunders and foams and roils. It’s really big and has a tiny board to walk across it, which I never do. You have to walk across it, then stand on the tiny board to clean out the trash from the gate with a rake….Mom is terrified, but she ‘gets it done’. We had a sort of mini tornado last evening the wind was so horrible. Dad was on— ON — the head gate (terrible frightening thundering crashing water)…when the storm came through the place. The wind about threw Dad into the roaring foaming mess and even ripped his glasses off his face. We all tried to find the glasses but figured they were swept away in the canal. This morning Dad went on back to clean out the trash and guess what…THEY WERE THERE! Safe in a whole other spot! AND the cows didn’t stomp on them either. We are so joyful! Anyway, as Mom and Dad were working on the burn area, Fuzzy and I found Bunny. We like bunny and he seems to like us. Just hangs around us as we sniff back and forth. Sometimes Bunny even lets us sniff really close to him before he hops away. Sometimes we find footprints…those get really good sniffs. We don’t have wolves here, which we are ALL glad about, but these foot prints will help you see what we sometimes see.

Getting water to one of the burn areas took all morning. Dad said “that will have to do. If this works then we’ve helped part of the burn.”

Mom asked Fuzzy if he was ready to ride back to house.

Man, that dog can move when he wants too. Fuzzy beat both Mom and I back to four-wheeler he was so ready to get home.

The sunrise this morning was pretty cool…there was a cloud that looked like a mini-tornado.

Hummm, maybe that isn’t a good thing!

Boomer

The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday — Back to Work

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Dayphoto

We are back to work! Hanging around and just doing what we want is now over, our work has begun. That’s what Mom told us yesterday as we headed out to help irrigate.

See we don’t farm with Dad. We stay with Mom wherever she is. Our job is helping Mom, always. Sometimes Boomer will go out some with Dad but Dad is always on a tractor or something and that is just not fun running alongside a big piece of equipment.

We ride (like Mom does) and then we work.

Boomer and I really like it.

We really like helping out too. There is so much to do. Sometimes there are mice to snap in two and sometimes not, but there are always smells to smell and for ME there is water to play in.

It’s getting a little harder every year to get OUT of the ditches, but I don’t have any trouble getting into them. Mom doesn’t like for me to get into the ditches anymore because I can’t get out very well. But I still do it — I just wait until she isn’t looking and I jump in.

The day before Dad made all the ditches on the place—first he made the main ditches, these are the ditches that carry the water to the fields from the head gate (the head gate takes the water out of the canal onto our place).

Then he made the waste ditches, these are the ditches that take the water away from the field and drop the water back into the canal so the next farm can use the water.

After that we had to wait for the ditch rider to open the head gate so we could begin work.

Work started at 6:00 last evening. We worked until 8:00 because there were so many weeds and burn trash in the ditches, but we made it.

Boomer and I helped. I even got into the water a couple of times which made Mom yell at me. She said the water was too full of trash and it would stick to my fur so I had to get out.

Geez!

Trash on fur is not a big deal.

But she made me get out.

It was rather hard to get out, so I hung with Mom looking for mice in the tubes while she dug out ends and started the tubes with water.

Dad had to work on the trash in the head gate and the transmission ditch, and then he came and helped Mom set tubes.

The trash WAS bad.

And the wind was bad. The wind kept blowing in other trash so we had to stay out and keep the water from flowing over the sides of the cement ditch for ever so long.

Boom and I really enjoyed it.

Mom and Dad said they were tired.

They worked all morning, then helped Evan move furniture into his new house and set up his new kitchen and then chased water all evening. The second they sat down in their chairs they were asleep.

Boomer and I were still good to go, but since the folks were so tired we decided maybe we wouldn’t chase Freddy Fox or any of the raccoons tonight or even get on the barking telephone system.

Around 11:00 Dad had to go back out in the wind to check tubes again to make sure they hadn’t trashed back up and stopped or the water was flowing over the sides of the cement ditch into the work fields.

We went part way and then turned back. ½ mile is pretty far to run for me anymore and Boomer didn’t want to leave me.

By that time we were tired so when Dad got back we went to bed also.

Anyhow our work has begun.

We love it, couldn’t ask for a better life!

Fuzzy (and Boomer)

The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday — March, 30, 2012

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Dayphoto

We finally made it through March, well almost made it; we are at the end anyway, just one more day to go.

Mom thought we ought to hop onto the four-wheeler and ride over to see how the fire-burned area is doing.

Most of it is still burned. Nothing really green there yet, but when we got to the hill pasture WOW little sprigs of green showing up everywhere.

Mom said she is not surprised about that since the hill pasture is a mixture of grasses; the fire there just took off the dead. (It also jumped the road and ran through the corn field toward the house, and it also jumped into the alfalfa filed that burned right up to Mom-mom and her family’s barns. But I didn’t remind Mom of that, she was still a little sad to see the whole mess.)

We then headed on down to the back forty,and then over to the west field, then the upper end.

Still pretty black!

When we got to the south end Boomer got off and hiked around a bit

while Mom wrote down the fence post count in a little book she was keeping for the insurance guy.

Mom told us dogs that Dad wanted to NOT have to build fences anymore and look at what he has to do now—the whole west side of the place, the ditch company took out the whole north side and the whole east side. He will have lots and lots of fences to fix now. Although, there is a possibility that maybe the west side will be fixed with help.

The Ditch Company will probably NOT do the work on the north and east side so Dad and Mom will get to do those fences.

Building fences are not easy, it isn’t stringing the wire that is hard, and it’s digging the fence post.

Of course, us dogs get to go help. We really enjoy helping out there, we really do!

Almost back home I wanted off. Boomer found some deer tracks and bayed at me to “come smell.”

So Mom helped me off.

We sniffed around for some time. Mom got tired of waiting and went back in. I came back after I checked out all the news out there.

Fuzzy

The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday — Spring

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Dayphoto

Boy is it ever hot in the house anymore! Fuzzy and I used to love to be in the house, I would lie next to the fire and let it cook me and Fuzzy would lie next to Mom’s chair so she could pet on him randomly!

We try it now, but it gets way to miserable real fast.

Mom has us sleeping outside again, which suits Fuzzy and I real well.

The dog houses are warm, sometimes so warm Fuzzy stays outside of the dog house until the air cools down enough the dog houses feel good. I stay out with him for some time also. I do go into the dog houses much faster than Fuzz, but that is really so I can get the side I want to sleep in.

So anyway we love being back outside…there is so much to do, and to see who is walking through the place. Wonderful!!!

So the last two or three nights we’ve had a ball. We ran barking up to the hay stack area, then we ran barking over to the old bean field, then we had great fun barking at Freddy Fox. Mom was rather upset with us, but she said “Well, there has to be a reason you are barking. Let’s go see what is out here, that you have to warn away.”

Now this was cool. We took off with Mom; she carried a flashlight and shone the light here there and everywhere. We didn’t see anything, but that was okay. It was fun just walking with Mom after mid-night.

Since this worked out so well we barked lots for the next two nights. Mom would come out…look around, tell us to stop barking.

All this barking really does make us tired the next day. But we sleep in.

Then last night Fuzzy and I decided it would be good to get Mom outside and go for another walk. The time was, oh, maybe, hummmm, let’s see maybe 3:30 in the morning… when we heard the Dog Telephone Relay start.

Perfect! Someone to talk to!

Bark, Bark, Bark!

Woof, Bark, Howl!

Sound carries really well in the night.

Bark, Bark, Bark!

Woof, Bark, Howl!

Bark, Bark, Bark!

Woof, Bark, Howl!

In about 10 minutes of this we had all our dog friends in the whole country mile barking and howling and baying.

We had a chorus going on.

Then the light for the outside snaps on!

Both Fuzzy and I start wagging our tails and getting ready for Mom to hit the sidewalk so we could walk out to the gated pipe. (Mom is always on the lookout for coyotes. One thing Mom does NOT like is the coyotes in the yard.)

There—

The back door is opening—

“Get ready to go, Fuzzy! Here comes Mom!”

“YOU DOGS SHUT-UP RIGHT NOW!” Dad belted out to us.

“AND I MEAN THIS INSTANT!”

Whew!

EEEK! Dad was really mad!

Fuzzy and I rushed right back to the dog houses and stayed there the rest of the night.

(Sometimes Dad isn’t any fun.)

Boomer

The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday — Another Fire

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Dayphoto

It happened again! We had a huge fire on Tuesday, two miles long. The fire wiped out everything on the west side of the farm, except Mom-mom’s house, barn, and other outbuildings. The firemen were able to stop the fire five feet from all of the structures.

We were all scared!

Boomer and I stayed right with Mom. We rode on the back of the four-wheeler and never left it. (Boomer is really bad about jumping off and heading out to see what there is to see when Mom gets off. He always gets in trouble, but he just gives all of us a Beagle smile and does it again. But this time he listened.) The smoke and the flames were horrible.

The cows all circled up, with the baby calves in the middle, just like the books say they do when there is danger. The cowboys came up and stayed with them just to be sure.

At several points the fire jumped into the hay fields and the corn fields rushing right over to toward Mom, Dad, Boomer and my house. It was frightening. But just the day before Dad had disked all the ends by the gated pipe and the road to our place. That’s what stopped the fire there, not the firemen.

The very next day, Wednesday, the Uncompahgre Ditch Company sent the ditch cleaners down to clean out the canal to ready it for the water next week.

Dad talked to the guys said he had a very huge fire yesterday and would they be extra careful, they said they would and took off.

They didn’t!

They swooshed their 8” propane weed burner and burned everything in sight, even burned up our over 100-year-old cottonwood tree, that made Mom cry. Mom and Dad saw the guy swirl the burner around the base of the tree.

Mom, Boom and I, Mom-mom and Talley hauled water to the tree for most of the afternoon, but it finally burst into flames and left this earth. Mom told all of us that she felt like she lost a very good friend that day.

Now the whole north side and the whole east side of the farm have the fences burned to the ground.

What a mess!

Dad has been busy, getting the fire report, talking to the neighbor about repairs, and getting the ditch company to fix the fences.

Mom says her digital camera is a blessing.

Since one of the very long time ditch companies board member is our neighbor to the north, (by two miles) and we get up before the sun shines, by 6:30 in the morning, Thursday, Dad and board member were touring the damage the ditch company did.

The tree fell over around 8:30 Thursday morning. The Ditch company people wanted it to burn up so they didn’t have very much to clean up. (They made the mess, they clean it up, Dad says. The board member and the manager of the company agreed)

They also agreed to the repair of all the fences on the north and east side of the farm.

Around three o’clock in the afternoon the tree eased itself into the canal where it continued to burn.

8:30 that night the fire trucks were back out to our place, as someone passing by saw the burning tree for the first time and called it in to the fire department.

The ditch company, which hoped that they wouldn’t have much to do, vanished in several streams of water after the fire department got here.

So this is where we are, the day after the Ides of March. Hopefully we are on our way to mending.

At least the west side fences are still standing.

Knock on wood!

Fuzzy

The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday — March

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Dayphoto

Finally, Fuzzy and I, Mom and Dad have made it through the mud days of March. March is spring for us here in Western Colorado…..well, at least our part of Western Colorado.

March is also the time of mud, wind, and little green shoots of weeds and such.

March is still cold. There isn’t much anyone can do about it. Fuzzy and I are still wearing our heavy outside fur, and Mom and Dad are still in their carharts and sometime mud shoes.

But the bulk of the calves

and the lambs have been born and the best of all……the days are growing longer and longer!

Winter’s darkness (which squishes you at both ends of the each and every day) is gone! Gone until sometime next year! GONE!

Fuzz and I love it!

Around here everyone is glad to see March arrive. It’s the time when all the farming starts, and well….that’s what we are about. Stirring the soil, having the seeds delivered, fertilizing the ground, getting everything ready to plant.

Dad has started ‘opening the ground’, which means he is doing tractor work, which means there is always some little grandchild that likes to ride with Grandpa, up and down, up and down. They do get bored after about three rounds, but they still want to be up high on the tractor with Grandpa.

I love helping Dad…we go out and do shovel work together.

Fuzzy would like to go, but he has trouble doing too much. We do lots of chasing of things around the yard, but he really can’t walk much past the haystack area.

I love Fuzzy. I only go with Dad if he invites me, because I worry that Fuzz will be disappointed he can’t go.

Anyway spring is here, folks! And Fuzz and I are happy dogs!

Boomer

The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday—The Government Hunter and Trapper

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Dayphoto

Boomer and I have been seeing and hearing those wily coyotes quite a bit lately. Ever since we did some night singing with them, they have been, hum, well, L.O.U.D! They have even been right in the fields between Hank’s house and our place.

I guess we shouldn’t have mocked them the other night. (It was fun.)

We’ve been real silent when we hear and see them in the fields close by…the last thing Boomer and I want (and Sammy the Cat) is those wild yellowed-eyed mean ‘ol coyotes coming on INTO the yard, ours or Hanks!

I think the main reason they are so close, so very close, so very, very, very close it is uncomfortable is the new calves popping up all over the place.

The other new predators we have are the ravens and the crows. Mom’s been trying to get a photo of the two of them (the ravens and the crows), but they are slick, slick, slick. Just as soon as she gets close enough to take a photo they fly off.

Now the reason we don’t want the ravens and the crows hanging around is the same reason we don’t want the coyotes….the brand new baby calves.

You see ravens and crows love nothing more than to eat eyeballs. And if they can peck-out a newborn’s eyeball and smack it down for a delicious little lunch, then by golly they do. The Mom cows are pretty good about taking care of the new little kidlets, but still all in all those huge black birds are a danger.

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Boomer and I run out into the field whenever we see the huge black birds hopping alongside a new born calf, barking and baying. They flutter up with in a swoosh and then settle right back down. But if we have done a good job, the Momma cow has moved in even closer so we dogs can’t get up by the baby. Or she has run off down the field with the calf, either way we hope the birds leave.

They really aren’t afraid…the birds, I mean. They just fly up a short ways in the air, then settle back down after we turn around and leave.

It took Mom and Dad a little while to figure out we weren’t trying to chase the cows…..I WOULD NEVER CHASE A COW IN MY LIFE—–I AM A COW DOG!!!!! And Boomer?! Well, Boomer just runs along doing whatever I do, so he is basically harmless. When they yell at us to get back into the yard… NOW! We hurry back as fast as our legs can takes us. Then I look at Mom and Dad with indignation and hurt written all over my face. Boomer just smiles and swaps his tail on the ground in a most sincere way. (I can’t whap my tail as I only have a tiny little short one).

Since we seem to be having lots of predator activity Dad talked to the Government Hunter and Trapper. He said there have been a slew of complaints about the coyotes, the fox and the ravens. He said they are working to thin down the populations in the draws surrounding us for about 5 miles in both directions. So I guess we just wait and be very vigilant.

Boomer says we have to stay vigilant and valiant, Hank says he will help.

Mom said, “You boys, you just take care of your yard— the rest of the farm, the draws, the swamp, and the hillsides are up to the rancher, who is renting out our place for his first year heifers, the government hunter and Dad.”

I agreed, the 4 acres of yard, sheds, and barns are enough for Boomer and me.

Fuzzy

The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday — Night Singing

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Dayphoto

Friday nights are basketball nights. Well, not for Mom and Dad, but for Hank’s people. They load up in their van and head off to the local high school to watch the Girl’s play and then watch the Boy’s play. If they leave right after the kids get home off the bus they can watch the J.V. Girls play and then the J. V. Boys play, after those groups play, then the Varsity Girls play and then last is the Varsity Boys. It’s a long, long night of basketball.

Mom says you develop bench-butt, — after seeing all their kids through all the sports: Football, Volleyball, Basketball, Track, Swimming, and now Soccer (For Blade) she said they will wait until the grandchildren start the Jr. High and High School sport process to go sit for hours and hours on hard benches.

So off goes Hank’s family for hours and hours and hours of ball.

That leaves Hank at home……alone….with just his shock collar on, the four cats, and two goats, and their 2 chickens. (Hank can’t go out by the chicken pen; they fixed his collar to stop him BEFORE he gets to the chicken pen. I think it had something to do with the little incident up here last week that got him banned when Mom’s hens are out, I think.)

Just so you can get a good picture in your mind of how things happened you need to know that Hank lives a little more than a football field away from us. Hank has a white fence all around his house, but on the side that faces our house is a gate. When the family is gone Hank goes out the gate and sit close to the fence (he would get shocked if he goes too much further out) and ‘talks’ to us.

Fuzzy and I walk over to the hole in the hedge and sit outside the electric fence (we could run over to see him but we would get in trouble) and we ‘talk’ back.

It used to be Hank —- when it was really, really cold this winter that Hank would holler “Grammme, come get me!” for ever so long. Finally Mom would get in the car drive down and get Hank and bring him home to play with us. She would call Mom-mom and tell them she had Hank and that they need to come by and pick him up on the way home.

It’s warmer outside now so she doesn’t go get Hank.

Anyhoo, Hank, Fuzzy and I were talking back and forth: “Bark, Bark, Howl, Bay, HOOOOOOOOO, Bark, Bark, Bark!”

“Woof, woof, woof”

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“That’s enough!” Dad said as he was coming in from working out in the shop.

So we stopped for a little while.

Then Hank barked over asking us why we stopping talking. Fuzzy told him Dad pretty much told us to hang up the phone.

“Oh,” Hank replied. “Where is Grandpa now?”

“Inside”, I barked back.

“Good” We can talk again.” Hank woofed at us

The night was starting to get to going good, the sun had set and the sky was turning a dark blue, as we picked up our conversation where we left off.

Suddenly…

The coyotes started yipping into our conversation—“Hey, you dumb dogs; you are nothing but soft dollops of pudding pots.”

“What?!” All three of us barked back in surprise.

Then the game was on….

“Bark, Bark, Bark!” —Us

“Yip, Yap, Yip”—Coyotes

“Bark, Bark, Bark!” —Us

“Yip, Yap, Yip”—Coyotes

“Bark, Bark, Bark!” —Us

“Yip, Yap, Yip”—Coyotes

We gave them a good run for their money, and we were winning too.

Fuzzy warned both Hank and I not to get careless now, we are winning this deadly game of ‘copycat mocking’ so we high-tailed it back into our yards. (Hank to his back step and Fuzzy and I to our back step.)

Back safely I gazed around the whole yard…everything was quiet. “I guess we beat the coyotes at the copycat game, Fuzzy!”

We both felt so happy we starting laughing, we laughed so hard that we fell down and rolled in the grass and grabbed our sides it hurt so much we were laughing so hard.

Sure was a good feeling!

Boomer