Schoonover Farm Blog

We wanted to wait until our grief about Steve had settled and the summer vacations were over before looking for a new dog.  Then we had William’s hospital stay as well.  But then I started looking at the Skagit Humane Society page more closely.  We visited once looking for a dog without success.  I signed up for alerts for lab dogs at the shelter and yesterday got this notice.

I was working today, but Tom went, visited and said he was the only dog not barking there.  And he seemed friendly, sniffing his hand.  I went by after work and took him out to their dog area for a meeting.  He was obviously really nervous.

But he seemed to get a little more comfortable and definitely enjoyed being petted.

I called Tom, and we decided to adopt him.  While I was waiting I found our tile there commemorating our deceased pets.  This is from a while ago because we have a lot more deceased pets now.

Here is Teddy after I got him into my car in their parking lot.

And here he is as we arrived in our driveway.

Now he’s in the front yard looking somewhat nervous.

Raleigh is being standoffish with a fluffy tail.

We have a Seahawks game to watch so he came in with us.  He was initially staying really close.

Tom seems to love him already (as do I).

In head profile, he looks a little like our dog Vanessa. She was my all time favorite dog (sorry Steve- I loved you too!).

I pulled out the wine glass that Tom got me for Christmas.  I have had a hard time using it because Steve died 5 days after Christmas, it says “pet the dogs”, and we didn’t have plural dogs anymore.  It always made me sad when I pulled it out.  But now we have plural dogs again!

He is starting to get more comfortable.

Wally is taking it all in stride.  She even chased him around the house once.  Roscoe is quite upset, hissing and spitting even when he isn’t close.  So far he is quite respectful of them and the beagle.

And now he even fell asleep.

I think this is going to work out perfectly.  Less sure about the Seahawks.

P.S. We may end up calling him Ted rather than Teddy (with apologies to my cousin).  Tom even suggested Ted Lasso.  Not sure that is going to fly.

The first frost of the season happened here Sunday morning.  This was the first day I haven’t worked so I was able to deal with this.  The outside tomato plants all died.  So I picked all of the fruit off of them and will try to ripen them inside now.

The green bean and squash vines all died too.  So I picked all of the squash.  What is not ripe, I am also trying to ripen inside.  The green beans I picked and am drying them to collect their seeds for next year.

I also picked our quince today.

We did the animal chores, gave Jameson his last shot and wormed all three cows.  This is somewhat challenging but now accomplished.

I had carved the grandkids names into a couple of pumpkins when they were green.  They are less green now so I will try to finishing ripening these as well.

There were some successes in the garden this year.  There was a lot less issues with loss from pests.  The plastic pipe pieces we put at the base of the beans appeared to help decrease the cut worms eating them.  We put blood meal down in the soil, and it may have helped as there is almost no rodent damage of the plants (particularly the squash this year).  The new fencing seems to be keeping the rabbits out.  But the weeds are still an issue.  They choked out the tomatoes in the hothouse and the cucumbers, Swiss chard, and melons in the garden.

Coming back from picking the quince, I loved seeing Wally in the back of the truck.

For dinner, I tried to replicate the Pesto Sungold pizza which won accolades from Food and Wine.  I still have plenty of Sungold tomatoes and pesto.  Tom made a meat pizza.  He got the big green egg heated up, and we cooked them on it.  It was hot enough to warp Tom’s pizza pan.  The bottom of the crusts were a little overdone, but the pizzas were good.  I am pretty sure mine wasn’t as good as A. K. Pizza, but I still liked it and it was different.

In really sad news, the Winthrop Rhythm & Blues Festival will not take place in 2027 following the loss of their longtime home at the Blues Ranch.  We have been going since 2002 and were looking forward to the 40th anniversary.  They are looking for a new location, but it doesn’t sound like it will happen next year.

Today we spread the barn’s bedding materials.  Tom scooped out the barn with the tractor, and I used a pitchfork to clean up the pens and the edges along the walls and fencing.  Tom loaded it with the tractor into our rented spreader and then distributed it.

This is the north side of the barn after the cleaning.

Then we moved to the south side of the barn.  The chickens were pretty freaked out by all of this.

Even the sheep and goats in the fields were anxious.  Mary Ann and Daisy weren’t sure what was going on.

This is the south side of the barn cleared out.

Tom positioned the straw bales to be spread.  The turkeys were quite curious about this.

And here is the barn with the new straw.  Tom put netting up above the gates to keep unwanted critters out.  It’s orange so will take some getting used to.

But it is nice to have this autumn task done.  Getting ready for winter.