F6 + 2 Puppies =

Since I've taken a short break from the blog, (2 years is like one day in my life!) I have a few things to catch my 15 followers up on before I get to the stories that brought be back from my blog-sabbatical. 

• Shortly after we lost Sweetums, we decided it was time to let all the animals go to a new home, and thanks to the beauty of Craigslist, this was a very quick and painless process. Maxine and the 2 calves were loaded up with a nice retired man who wanted to start a small herd of dairy cows. I didn't cry when they left. It was time. Via con Dios, cows! 
• Stephen and I started our own farming business, after his Dad retired in 2014.  Its called Fulford 6 Farming Company..."like" us on Facebook! 
• We decided it was time to get a family dog in the Spring of 2015.  Mallory, our beloved Native-American Brown dog, had been gone for a few years and the kids were begging. Stephen has always wanted an Australian Cattle Dog aka "Blue Heeler", so we began our search.  And we found 2 litters of dogs born a few weeks apart. So what does an incredibly busy family of 6 do when faced with a choice between 2 litters of puppies? Get one from each of course! 

So last spring, we brought home a male from one litter, Buffalo Bill Cody, and a female from the other litter, Waiting on Teagan. We call them Cody and Teagan for short.  Oh, why did we get a male and female from two different litters you ask? So, funny story..... Stephen thought it would be a cute idea to have puppies! Yes, this is ALL.STEPHEN'S.IDEA.  I can blame him for this one because I take full responsibility on the whole can-I-please-get-a-milk-cow-and-you-do-all-the-work adventure.  Puppies....cuddly, cute, stinky breath, sleep in your lap, melt your heart puppies. Who can resist them? Not us! (update: I can totally resist a puppy now. Show me a puppy and i will show you my callused and non-compassionate heart) But seriously, Stephen thought it was a good idea to get dogs with the idea of breeding them and having at least 1 litter...you know, for our kids. Because kids love this sort of thing, and it enriches their childhood, and it's kind of farmish to have a litter of puppies, and Stephen says "We had several litters of puppies around the farm when I was a kid (and look how good he turned out!)", and because mainly, we are super bored, with nothing pressing to do and breeding dogs and caring for new born puppies and finding them homes just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. 

This is Cody at 8 weeks old. Can you even stand it? The black eye patch slays me. 

This is Teagan at just a few weeks old. We went to see her and her parents/litter when she could barely open her eyes! See what I'm talking about? Totes Adorbs as the kids these days say.

And here they are at a few months old, BFF's, soul mates, life partners. They really are precious together. I've tried to tell them  parenting is a hard and holy calling. Has it sunk in? Only time will tell.