Rainy Week - Good or Bad?

Not much going on this week, it has rained every day causing problems all over central Texas. Our driveway is rutted really bad and I think the sheep and horses are growing webbed feet. Good news is the pastures are really green, bad news is no one can bale hay.

One exciting thing this week, Jeff is home for a few days. He brought his cat Elroy to stay with us while he goes to Florida on vacation. Elroy is a sealpoint Birman from the last litter we raised.

I'll try to post a photo of him soon.

The "Mascot" of Unicorner Farm

Or maybe I should call him the "cornerstone" since he is made of concrete.

This is our trusty unicorn, he stands guard in our driveway. Jan and Chuck Easter, very dear friends of ours, gave it to us as a "farm-warming" gift back when we moved to the Axtell area. It's hard to believe but it has been over 9 years!

Wally the Wild Child

This is Unicorner Black Walnut, but we call him Wally. Actually Wally the Wild Child, he's a beautiful black miniature horse with an attitude. Here he stands with the afternoon breeze blowing his mane. Can you believe he is less than three feet tall! Wally is for sale and as you can see he is "outstanding in his field!" Check the Unicorner Farm website at www.unicornerfarm.com for more photos of Wally and his pasture mates. There is even a video of this little wild child!

Busy Weekend at Canaan

"The Land of Milk and Honey"

Our church, Canaan Baptist, is hosting the annual meeting this weekend for our division of the North American Baptist Conference. Canaan is a small country church near Crawford, Texas that was started by German settlers on October 25, 1891. My great-great-grandfather Engelbrecht was one of founding fathers.

Before the charter meeting, Rev. F.J. Gleiss was dining at the home of my GGGF and noted the abundance of milk and honey on the table and suggested that the church be called Canaan since the Bible refers to Canaan as the land flowing with milk and honey.

Today, we had a ladies' luncheon in the fellowship hall and decorated with the "Milk and Honey" theme. We used lots of yellow sunflowers and bees, and decorated with milk cans and bottles. A tasty salad and fruit plate was served followed by a delicious apple cobbler and ice cream. Yum!

You can visit our church's website at http://www.canaan-baptist.com/.

On the way home this afternoon, I passed this pretty field of REAL sunflowers. The foreground of Indian Blankets and Horsemint added some more colors.

Welcome to Summer

The sunset of the longest day of 2007 is the background of this photo of one of our crape myrtle trees. We love these shrubs and trees, they really do well here. Right now we have white, watermelon, hot pink and light pink colors growing around the driveway.

Fruit on the Farm

Summer is here, the fruit is ripening. We have a couple of grapevines that make some small tasty grapes. The wasps and birds usually beat us to them.

The pear-apple tree (we never figured out what they are) is loaded. The fruit on this tree is shaped like an apple on the bottom and a pear on the top. It tastes like an apple but has the grainy texture of a pear. Whatever it is, it makes delicious pies.

Happy Father's Day

I hope everyone had a wonderful Father's Day. We had a nice visit with Bob's dad yesterday. I sure miss my dad, so I thought I'd share a couple of photos of him.

Our Mini Panther and Lion

These are our outdoor cats, Inky is our miniature panther. He is a very good hunter, he keeps the mice population down in the barn. Unfortunately he gets a cottontail ever once in a while. If we can, we take them away from him and "relocate" them before he hurts them. Inky is about 10 years old, he was born at our old place in Lorena.


The Tunis lambs love to follow him around, much to his dismay. He also plays catch-me-if-you-can with the stallions sometimes. He has a kink in his tail now, because one of the boys obviously caught him.



The orange and white cat wandered up a few years ago. Inky finally allowed him to come in the breezeway to eat. He was really wild at first but one day he had a change of heart. We think he had a near death experience, maybe with a coyote and decided people were the least of his problems. He's still a tomcat and has a huge head, that's how he came to be named "Punkinhead".

After the rain

Yesterday evening we recieved a much needed one-inch rain. Bob had been noticing large cracks in the dirt while shredding the pasture so it was just in time.

After the rain we were blessed with this beautiful sunset.
This morning there was a heavy dew on the crape myrtles that are heavy in bloom right now. I took this photo against the sunrise.

Summer Scenes

Driving home Sunday from church we took the scenic route. This is a low water crossing over Hog Creek in north McLennan county. It is nice to see it flowing again, after two years of drought. The bottom photo is a pretty pasture with yellow wildflowers and purple horsemint.

Horsemint is a Native Texas wildflower, also called lemon beebalm, it has citrus-scented leaves. The flowers grow in clusters about an inch apart on a stem. This plant loves heat and dryness so it grows good around our place. It was used by Native Americans as a tea and supposedly replaced tea during the time of the Boston Tea Party. I've heard it is a natural bug repellant too.

Shout with joy to God, all the earth!

Shout with joy to God, all the earth! Psalm 66:1

The Lord has answered our prayers for one of my best friends! Her biopsy came back benign.

Fantastic Fox Footage

This beautiful female fox (vixen?) visited my cousin's house Sunday at lunch. While we were preparing a potluck lunch for us, she trotted up to eat the outside cat's food on the porch.

Steve (my cousin) says she will only come when "Domino" the cat isn't around, she is afraid of her.

New Breed of Cat - Toyger

At the Fort Worth Feline Fanciers show this past Saturday, I enjoyed judging some Toygers. The breed just gained Championship recognition in May.

The breed has a lot of Bengal influence. I really liked the contrast of the stripes on this particular cat.

Another new addition in May was the solid white Turkish Van cats. I also was presented with a couple of examples. They were very nice in type.

Other breeds at the Ft. Worth show that we don't see very often were the Egyptian Mau and the American Wirehair.

Baby Dedication

Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

Sunday we attended church as usual, but this week my cousin's grandson was dedicated and we had a wonderful service led by our pastor, Dr. Dub Oliver.

Kade Wilson Smith is 7 months old and his parents Karla and Randy Smith were also celebrating their 12th anniversary. Twin siblings, Kenzie & Koby participated in the dedication too.

Lambs vs. Landscaping

The lambs have been enjoying the nice spring weather and tender shoots of the plants.

Here is a photo of two sets of twins nibbling on a crape myrtle bush. That's Ruffles, Rick Rack, Raquel and Reba (l-r).

Luckily I found that the crape myrtles are non-poisonous. Unlike the oleandar bush I have to keep them away from. The lambs also love rose bushes. They keep ours pruned on the bottom.

I found a helpful and informative link about poisons to animals.

http://animalpetdoctor.homestead.com/poison.html

The Bad Boys of Unicorner

This is Lone Star Rowdy and his son Batman, our two miniature horse stallions. This photo was taken seconds before they squealed and reared up in challenge. I wonder what they are saying to each other.

We found our lucky "Star" in 1995, and he has continued to live up to his name. Though his show career didn't begin until he was an eleven-year-old, Star competed in everything from halter to obstacle, jumping and costume and never let us down. At the AMHR Nationals in 1996, he was awarded Reserve Champion Senior Miniature Horse Stallion and National Champion Amateur Miniature Horse Stallion. He received his Miniature Horse Halter Hall of Fame Award in 1997, a truly proud day for Unicorner Farm. Star is retired from the show ring now and is enjoying life as the "Top Stud" at Unicorner. He is 23 years young.