Sunday Reading - Beggers at the Door

Today I started making some progress on catching up the work I am behind in. It's been in the mid-30's temp-wise all day with a slowly falling mist and fog which has started thawing out the ground some but this morning the ground was still freeze dried and hard. Perfect January conditions for getting out to any of several standing dead trees I have to choose from that are back away from the roads.

I also forgot my logging chains because I left em hanging on the tractor. I need to remember they are not always going to be in my truck like they were before now I guess.

As luck would have it though I had the perfect candidate in mind for today. An old Elm that looked as if it would fill my truck bed up and had dried out enough to be a good compliment to all this split Oak I been burning. Elm doesn't put out as much heat as the Oak but it burns wonderfully and keeps a nice flame going even under low oxygen levels. The only complication I had was it looked like it might hang when I cut it. Luckily the felling went perfectly as well and she came down right were I wanted her to.

When I got home I found the neighbor's dogs had moved in once again. This is an on again off again problem we have had for years now. I am honestly not sure what the situation is down there. The guy who lives there is a farmer and seems like a nice fellow the few times I have talked with him but I think most of the land he farms is North of his actual house by a good bit. He isn't married but has had a couple of girl friends come and go over the years. As I said none of my business but I think he leaves for more than a couple of days at a time now and again and just dumps a big pile of food out for his dogs while he is gone.

This is pure speculation on my part mind you but I think the dogs eat all the food the first day or two and then come down here begging and longing for human contact. The cats of course hate them, our dog actually enjoys the company but the problem is if we start feeding these dogs they stay and then the guy's girl friend of the year will stop by kinda huffy like we are trying to steal their dogs.

Last Winter they got a great Pyrenees that I guess hated them and started spending the nights in our barn. I only figured it out after I kept finding it's nest next to the sheep area every morning. The dog would hear me coming and take off down into the field and I rarely saw it except in brief flashes but the neighbor's girlfriend was convinced we were trying to keep it, or at least kinda acted like we were. Not sure what happened to it but over the Summer I stopped seeing it.

They also had another giant dog that kinda looked like an Airedale but it only came visiting a few times. The three real problem dogs are one I call Moose because he is the size of one and about as clumsy in tight spaces and a little black and white dog I haven't bothered to name yet. There was also a little long haired hunter type female a few years back that did actually move in here for good for a few months until they came and got her and I never saw her again. She was a good dog but had a bad habit of rolling herself up in sheep wool like a burrito for some reason.

So that's the problem in a nut shell. If we feed them they won't ever leave and the neighbor will have to come up here and get them. Which could be weeks. If we don't feed em they hang out on the porch begging and whining hoping we will relent. The entire time I have the cats on my lap or in my face recommending I shoot the dogs and bury them in the back pasture while denying any knowledge of such an action.

The cats assure me they won't tell :)

Another words when the dogs show up there is no right move to make. Someone is going to be unhappy about the situation no matter what I do.

This afternoon the big one I call Moose got into the plastic barrel looking container that the peanut butter dog treats comes in we keep in the barn. He somehow managed to get his entire head stuck in the container and was running around the yard with it trying to shake it off. My son had to run him down and remove it. They have broken down entire shelves I had up int he barn to get to a bowl of cat food I had up there for the feral barn cat we have lurking around and will knock over the metal trash cans full of  dog and cat food too.

Won't do any good to load em up and take em back to their home they will cut across the fields and beat me back here anyway.

I guess rural life still has it's neighbor problems. They are just a bit different than the ones you face in the city. I think the rural ones are a bit easier to deal with all in all.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!