Cherry Tomato and Ginger Marinade

*disclaimer: This is not a food blog. I am not a foodie, however much I wish I was. Frankly, I'm fairly clueless in the kitchen, but sometimes I just get lucky. :)


That bowl of cherry tomatoes from yesterday turned out to be four pounds. Last night I picked another four pounds. This will likely continue until frost. Bring it on, I'm ready!


What I did with those eight pounds of cherry tomatoes was make a most excellent ginger marinade. I believe the original plan for this recipe was to create a type of side dish and not a marinade, but man is it ever so good on chicken and pork!


4lbs firm ripe cherry tomatoes, pricked with a fork
3 1/2 pounds sugar (yikes!)
4 cups water
2 lemons, zest and juice
1 tbsp grated ginger (I like to do 2 tblsp of ginger. I'm just a rebel like that.)
1 tsp pickling salt


Combine the water and sugar and let boil 5 minutes until the sugar is dissolved. Add the lemon zest and juice, grated ginger, and salt. Let that simmer for 10 minutes, then add the cherry tomatoes. If you're like me and want to use this as a marinade, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. If you want something that you can use as a side dish, simmer for 30 min uncovered. This will make it thicker and you will get about 6 pints. If you simmer while covered, you'll get about 9 pints, but the sauce will be very runny (which is fine for a marinade!). Ladle into hot jars and process in water bath canner for 10 minutes.






One of my "lucky" moments in the kitchen happened this morning. I needed food. Sustenance to get me through the coming day. Energy, not empty calories. But the fridge was bare except for some eggs and soft taco shells. Woe is me, what to do, what to do?? I know, check out the Pioneer Woman! She's always got easy and basic recipes on her site. What I did find was a recipe for a breakfast burrito: bell peppers, potatoes, eggs, sausage, etc. Well, duh, I used to make breakfast burritos all the time using shrooms, sausage, eggs, onions, and pepper jack cheese. But I hadn't made one in so long that I forgot about it. Ever have that happen? You fall in love with a food or recipe, don't make it in forever, then forget you ever had it? Happens to me all the time. Maybe I'm just getting old.


There was of course no sausage to be found in the freezer. And we had used the last of the shitake mushrooms the other night. I did find some monterey jack in the fridge and once I cut off the few spots of mold it was as good as new. Really. And when the fridge is bare, look to the garden! The eggplants are coming on strong now. There were no ripe bell peppers (I refuse to eat green bell peppers), but the banana pepper plants are loaded. A ripe Brandywine tomato was calling my name, and the as yet unused Thai Basil was begging for a chance to prove itself in the kitchen. A Walla Walla onion tripped me up on my way in, so I yanked it out and brought it with me.


I got the pan ready with some EVOO (Rachel, is that you?) and minced garlic. Then tossed in the chopped onion, banana pepper, and cubed eggplant. While that was cooking I chopped up the Thai basil and half the tomato and whipped up two eggs with a little milk. I sliced up the Monterrey jack (pepper jack would have been so much tastier) and laid it down the middle of the soft taco shell. Once the veggies were tender I poured in the eggs, scrambled them up with everything, then dumped half down the middle of the shell, letting the mixture melt the cheese. Then piled the mater and basil on top, rolled everything up, made a mess when the taco shell split down the bottom, and ended up eating everything with a fork anyway. But mmmm mmmm good!

Life is like a bowl of cherries

Or maybe life is like a bowl of cherry tomatoes.




I think there comes a time in every vegetable gardener's life when they question their sanity over planting more than one cherry tomato plant. These were picked just last night. It took forever for me to pick them because the plants have created a mini jungle and are now up and over the 5' tall cages and sprawling along the ground. For those mathematically challenged people out there, that means the plants are well over 10' tall. I was trying to figure out exactly how tall, but ran out of toes. At least I've got plenty of cherry tomatoes to can this incredible ginger marinade that I found last year. I will share the recipe once it's in the jar and I have pretty pictures to go along with it.

I picked my first watermelon last night! Yes, it's small. And yes, it's supposed to be yellow. For those of you who have never tried a yellow, orange, or white watermelon... shame on you! You just don't know what you're missing. This particular specimen is a Pony Yellow watermelon. It grows small so it's the perfect size for a single serving. I had never been a watermelon fan until I started growing these babies about five years ago. When I brought this one in last night I was reluctant to share it with Glenn. But since he was busy coring, cleaning, and freezing the 20lbs of tomatoes I had also picked last night, I was shamed into sharing. I love the yellow ones, but tops on my list would be the Tendersweet Orange watermelons. It's a shame my plants didn't make it this year.




And here is the long awaited Litchi tomato. It's a good thing I snapped the picture when I did, because they didn't last long! This small handful was gone within seconds of the camera click. And might I add... YUM! These are definitely a keeper for next year's plant list. Now I just need to figure out a way to preserve them, because in about a week I'll be inundated with the little red buggers. I'm sure they'd freeze ok, which may be the way to go until I figure out something better, like jam... mmmm.




The cucumber plants are finally dead. YAY. But I still had a basket full of cukes to deal with. Then on Saturday, it hit me. Dehydrate them. Sure why not? The first experimental batch I did was sliced way too thin and a lot of the slices ended up sticking to the dehydrator and coming off in pieces. But they were GOOD. And surprisingly, they didn't take long at all at 135 degrees. I got another batch started late yesterday afternoon and this time I made the slices about 1/4" thick. My dehydrator has four trays, so I sprinkled one tray with garlic powder, the second with dried dill weed, and the last two with sea salt. They were done this morning, and whoa Nelly! I was hoping they'd be a nice treat dipped in sour cream and chives come December, but I really don't foresee them lasting that long. Glenn was popping them left and right and I especially like the dill weed chips.




We started working on the "nursery" fence over the weekend. We're almost done getting all the posts in and just need to get a couple rolls of field fence and a gazillion and one fence staples. Once the fence is done I'll move Dolly and Junior into the pasture since they need the grass more and it will be easier for me to keep an eye on Dolly if she's closer to the house. Once we have the two stall barn in place, Junior and Dolly will go back into the big pasture and Meghan and Jewel will move into the nursery. I'd love to keep Dolly in with Meghan, but the two girls don't particularly get along. They both seem afraid of each other, even though neither one of them has even so much as laid an ear back at the other and they are both very low on the totem pole.

Appybutt also went home over the weekend. It was a sad goodbye and I still hear him calling for Mav and Hunter every now and then. Once Appybutt was gone we moved Stride, Indy, Chief, and Manny into the back with Mav and Hunter. There's a lot more grass back there, and it makes feeding the old fogies a little easier since they are directly behind the house. Once the winter weather gets here everyone will be turned out together in the big pasture except of course for Meghan and Jewel. It's getting time to revisit the whole Maverick gelding fiasco from several months ago. He still hasn't dropped the second nut, so we'll just have to bite the bullet and get the "big surgery" done on him. I have heard of a couple more vets that are a little further away, but will probably be more competent than the ones I've talked to already. We're also supposed to be getting a new vet not far from here, but he hasn't hung out his shingle yet.


I thought I'd end this post with a picture that shows how well the stay off the furniture training is going with Thor. I think he's finally getting it, don't you?

Garden Overload

Honestly, how many more pickles could I possibly make?? Luckily (???) for me, my cucumber plants have succumbed to the squash bugs and are dying at a rapid rate. I can't believe I'm happy about that.

Our chest freezer is just about full of frozen tomatoes. I'm going to have to buckle down and do some canning soon. Very soon.

This was Saturday's harvest. It's been this way, or more, every other day for the past week at least.

A closer look at basket #1. Just enough corn for dinner, a red onion to slice up on the burgers, and tomatoes. Of course there are tomatoes.

Basket #2 is mostly filled with cucumbers, with some cherry tomatoes here and there. There are also a ton of pineapple tomatillos on the bottom of the basket. And oh look! More tomatoes.

Here's a little advice for those of you who are still impatiently tapping your fingers waiting for your tomatoes to ripen: grow orange. I keep meticulous (read: anal) notes on my gardens, and for the past few years my orange and yellow tomatoes have consistently been the first to ripen, no matter how hot the weather. I would suggest these heirlooms: Orange Oxheart (great for sauce, mostly meat and big!), Kelloggs Breakfast (technically a yellow mater, but ripens to orange), and of course my favorite, the Pineapple tomato. For a pink tomato that ripens first in my garden I'd go with the Brandywine mater. Big, juicy, and some say the best tomato taste ever.

I could have also filled those baskets with chard and carrots. But I wasn't in the mood for canning and scrubbing. They'll hold till the weekend when I will hopefully feel more inclined to spend my day in a very hot kitchen scrubbing and cursing. Maybe.

You know how you almost always have trouble getting a group picture? Like at a family reunion, there's always an aunt Betty who wants group pictures of everyone and you spend an hour trying to make her happy?

First, someones eyes are closed.

Then someone is sticking out their tongue and making faces at the camera, while someone else is bored already and eyeing the buffet table.

Then the hungry buffet seeker is subdued, but the face maker has decided to go play horseshoes, the camera-shy kid is unknowingly walking through the picture, and someone else is, well, licking their butt.

I love family reunions.

Some days you feel like a nut

And some days you feel like a complete fool instead.

For the past couple of months I've been slowly riding Meghan, trying to get some pounds off of her, build her stamina, and get her fit. We still haven't cantered. It's just been trot uphill, walk downhill, round and round in circles, bend, flex, a trail ride here and there, etc. etc. The mare just kept gaining weight. I was feeding her very little on her "diet", they were all wormed when they got here, and there was simply no reason why she wasn't losing weight and getting fit. Yesterday I went to get her out of the field for some grooming and trimming. As we were walking down the hill she kept stopping and I'd look back to see if something were wrong. Every time I looked back I'd see that huge swaying belly. When I got to the bottom of the hill I stopped short and quickly adopted the famous deer in the headlight look. A memory of something the woman at the last 'rescue' had said came floating up from the recesses of my brain: "we didn't geld Chief right away, we waited a few months". DING DING DING DING!!!

Self-mocking ensued for a few minutes, then I shared my light bulb moment with Glenn. Then the cursing really got started and we had a few choice things to say once again about where these horses had come from. Meghan stood quietly behind me with this look on her face that said "What's the big deal, all you had to do was ask me. Can I have more food now?"

We're pretty sure Chief is the daddy-to-be. Which means not only with this foal be conformationally (new word, call websters) challenged, but it'll be tiny. I'm hoping there are some big horse genes in Chief and he's just small because of his starved childhood. He's certainly got a big enough head that doesn't match his small frame. I had originally hoped that he'd grow into his head, but gave up on that notion already. I *think* Chief was gelded in March of this year. So at the latest we could be expecting a baby in January-February next year. If I'm wrong about Chief's genes we could end up with something smaller than Zeus.

Now our quarantine paddock plans have turned into our nursery plans, Meghan has been temporarily removed from the available horse list on the web site, we've got a date with the vet next week, and we're way too young to be grandparents. Thor has still not fessed up to the whereabouts of the camera, so I don't have pics of Meghan and Chief for you. Maybe tomorrow? And maybe as the estimated date arrives we'll do a guess that birth date and time contest. Or a name that foal contest. Or a guess how many hours of sleep WVFarmgirl has gotten while on foal watch contest?

Too Many Pickles

Is there such a thing as too many pickles? If such a limit does exist, I think I've gone past it. Waaaay past it. We've had two large baskets of cucumbers sitting in our kitchen for a couple of days now and every day I've been adding to it. Glenn finally reached the end of his patience yesterday and said "I'll help you make pickles, let's just get it done. It shouldn't take long." Those are the famous last words of the inexperienced pickler. Those are also the words I had been waiting on. I'll help you. Ok then, let's get them done!

We spent five hours canning pickles yesterday. Have I mentioned how small my kitchen is? Have I mentioned before that I have almost NO usable counter space? Canning in my kitchen is so much fun, especially with two people in a small kitchen. And two dogs. And one cat. Rachael Ray would have a field day in our kitchen. You know how she's all about making one trip to fridge and counter to save time? HA. Here's how it happens in our kitchen.

1) Glenn washes and trims ends off the cukes at the sink, then piles them into the strainer.
2) I pick up the strainer, carry it over to the kitchen table where I then slice them into future pickles.
3) Once all the pickles and onions are sliced I realize I need pots to put them in so they can sit with canning salt and ice cubes. So into the pantry I go for pots. Then to the kitchen sink, because everything in this house has to have the dust rinsed out before using it. I kick Glenn aside, listen to his grumblings and watch the knife in his hand very closely, then back to the kitchen table to put the cukes in the pots.
4) Walk to the fridge to get ice cubes, then back to the kitchen table.
5) Walk to the spice cabinet to get canning salt, then back to the kitchen table.
6) Back to the stove to get the brine ready.
7) Back to the kitchen table because I realized I didn't have any pots left for the brine.
8) Spend a minute trying to come up with more storage options for the cuke slices so I could free up a pot.
9) Back to the cabinet over the stove for two casserole dishes, then back to the kitchen table.
10) Dump one pot of cukes into both casserole dishes, back to sink to rinse it out and start the brine.

I won't bore you with any more, but now you know why this took five hours. We did five batches of pickles: four more batches of the Methodist and one batch of Bread & Butter. Why so many Methodist? Because Glenn couldn't possibly go into winter without at least 30 jars in the pantry. Current pickle inventory: 35 Methodist, 20 Bread & Butter, 12 Dill spears, 6 pints dill slices. Now when my pregnant friend comes to visit I'll just need to pick up some ice cream.

I'd like to do more dills and I really want to try doing some sweet gherkins this year. But the bugs have started to get to my cukes and they're beginning to turn yellow, so I'm not sure how much more cuke time I've got this season. I also need to order more spinach, collards, and beet seeds for a second fall planting. But please don't hold me to that.


Appybutt was supposed to go home last weekend. Drunken neighbor said she's been working on the fence and would really like to have him home. I'm actually surprised that she remembered that he was gone. But she never showed up last weekend to get him. Of course she didn't. She would have had to walk at least a few hundred yards to accomplish the move. Oh, the horror of it all. So when Glenn gets home today we'll take him home ourselves. It will take two of us because I guarantee he's not going to want to leave. But once he's gone Indy, Stride, Manny, and Chief will get moved into the back pasture to hang with the bachelor dwarfs. I'll just have to ignore any dirty looks from Manny this time. They should be happy about it, there's a lot more grass back there and the Troublets will not be able to harass them any more. But I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot of whinnying for awhile until they get used to it.

Excuse the lack of pictures. The camera is MIA at the moment. I've interrogated Thor, but he's a tough nut to crack and won't tell me where he buried it.

The Delicious and Beautiful Pineapple Tomato

Ladies and gentlmen, let me introduce you to the best tasting tomato in my garden. Not to mention the largest, prettiest, and most productive! And please forgive the picture quality, I simply couldn't wait much longer before cutting one up for my chicken sandwhich with ranch, basil, and melted munster cheese. No, really. I couldn't wait.



Those three maters together weighed almost 6lbs! And they came off of ONE plant just today at lunch. There are two more about the same 2lb size on the same plant that are almost ripe and ready for plucking.




One slice blanketed my bread. And just look at how beautiful that is!



But I can tell you... it.. mmm... is even... mmm... more beautiful in my... mmmm.... mouth!

If you have never grown this heirloom before, please, for your own sake, give it a try next year. You won't regret it!

Call Me Ishmail

I thought we were going to be extremely busy this weekend, but I was wrong. At least about Saturday. Saturday morning we ran to the feed store because I wasn't able to make it there on Friday before they closed. Then we stopped by the Middlebourne Farmers Market to say Howdy to Anne. On our way to the grocery store afterwards we saw a deer on the side of the road that had been hit and couldn't get up. We are who we are. We stopped. She kept flopping around and getting closer to the road so I pulled the Jeep up between her and the road. The poor thing was panting and in terrible distress. Glenn didn't have his gun or his hunting knife on him, but luckily some dude from Florida stopped and said his brother lived right in town and had a gun. Would we like him to go and get his brother? Why yes, what a wonderful idea.

Anne stopped by on her way home from market a few minutes later and so did one of her friends, who happened to have a cell phone that actually had service (this is a new concept for us Nextel owners). They called the police, who really didn't give a rat's ass about the deer or her proximity to the road. Fine then, up to us. Floridian came back with his brother and his brother's very loud, very powerful rifle. We waited for a break in traffic on what had been a very busy road that morning, then BAM! The doe was out of her misery, but not out of my mind.

After that, the mind and body just weren't in to working. On our way home the wonderful idea of taking a break actually surfaced and we decided the best way to do that was out on the boat. And what better way to see if Thor likes the water than to take him with us?

The Captain of the boat, standing tall and proud on the bow as he keeps an ever watchful eye for icebergs and horny sperm whales in his Larry the Cable Guy t-shirt.



The First Mate knows no fear and looks death in the eye as he posts guard on the stern where 20' waves could easily wash him overboard.



He wasn't exactly washed overboard. We were looking forward and heard a loud splash. Poof, gone was the Thor. Then he surfaced slightly behind the boat, paddling for all he was worth. Good thing we were only using the trolling motor and Glenn wasn't doing his usual petal to the metal imitation of a speed boat racer.



Once we got Thor back on board we outfitted him with the latest fashion in swimwear. Just in case he decided to take another dip when Glenn turned into Mario Andretti on water.



Ahh... this is what the brain needed. And the body needed a little swimming, which also happened. I keep waiting to turn green and get all glowy, but it hasn't happened yet. The Ohio river is not exactly known for it's cleanliness in these parts.




And for those that have asked, yes, Thor has an appt to be neutered. But our vet is incredibly busy and can't get to him until Sept 15. This shouldn't be a problem since he doesn't leave my side. Ever. Which is a good thing since I couldn't possibly do anything without him. And I do mean anything. At least he's cute.

The Last Frontier

First, a rant. Then the guineas.

More like, the last straw with Frontier! Frontier is our phone/DSL provider and I've had it. I was so excited when we moved up here and DSL had come to the area just two weeks prior. No more satellite! Woohoo! We had satellite internet in VA and frankly, dial up was faster and more reliable. But the one thing I will say about satellite, is that after a thunderstorm it was usually back up within minutes. I only wish our DSL was that reliable! Our DSL goes out with every bad thunderstorm that comes through. And it seems like I'm the only one to ever report it. Inevitably, I end up getting on the phone with some college kid who, after I tell him the t-storm took it out, I've already done the diagnoses and rebooted my modem several times and it's probably a local outage, he still makes me reboot the darned modem. Then he's surprised that the magical and all powerful reboot didn't do the trick. Sometimes they think I'm even fibbing, just for the attention. The last time I went through this I asked to speak to a manager. The manager was incredibly patient and put a note on my account not to bug me with the usual rebooting routine, which can sometimes take as long as 30 min. This just depends on how far through college the tech on the other end of the phone made it before flunking out from beer bongs.

Eventually, the tech concedes that yes, perhaps it is an area wide outage and not just my modem. Then they put in a ticket and tell me to wait by the phone, a field technician will be calling me shortly. Hours pass, days pass, I keep calling in looking for an update. Sometime after the fourth or fifth call, someone tells me that hey, they found the problem! And guess what? It WASN'T my modem! They always seem so pleased with themselves at this point. Like, hey, I couldn't get your modem to work because it was an area wide outage -- not my fault! But it is your fault that you took days to figure this out instead of just listening to me in the first place. Grrrr! Our DSL went out Friday night, I reported it Saturday morning, and it just came back up around 8pm tonight. And rather than getting anything done today, since I couldn't work, I had to sit by the phone and wait for the technician call. Which never came. Because they found that lightening had taken out some doohickey at the DSL station. I only found this out because I called them again around 4pm (my third call of the day, since they said on Saturday that it should be up by noon today).

Thank you for reading. I feel much better now that I got that off my chest.

Guinea update: things are not well on the guinea front. We lost seven guineas Friday night in the storm!!!! WHY??? We did get an awful lot of rain during the night and there could have been a flash flood under the coop. But why weren't the guineas in the coop where they usually are at night?? Saturday morning I found seven dead, soaking wet, but otherwise untouched little guineas. The remaining six looked fine and were pecking around behind me as I crawled into the pen to pick up the dead ones. BUT, they were not touching the food I had gotten them! I ended up getting more of the same 22% chick grower that they had before because I couldn't find anything with a higher protein. I did buy some 31% fish food pellet that the feed store guy said people fed their fighting cocks. But I had it separated from the other food in the coop, so have no idea why they weren't eating either one.

Rather than have them starve to death, I made the executive decision to let them out today. I opened up a spot in the fence, called them over with my bug bottle, let them come out, then shooed them back in. Let them come out again, then shooed them back in. The breeder said to do this so they would know how to get back in at night. And no one was watching, so I did it five times. I watched them in the yard for about an hour and they seemed very happy and were tearing into the bugs. Then they moseyed into the horse pasture and disappeared for the rest of the day. I assume they went into the woods where it was cooler. Around 6pm they started heading back and stayed awhile in the backyard getting their fill of bugs kicked up from the lawn mower. But something seemed amiss with one of the white guineas. She was lying on the ground with her wings spread out while the others were happily eating. Uh Oh. She'd get up and walk around if we got too close and seemed to be walking fine. I stayed out in the garden and kept an eye on them to make sure none of the cats took the opportunity for a quick meal and to see if they'd head back to the coop for the night.

I was playing twister with one of the pineapple tomatillo plants, trying to get all the little berries without knocking any unripe ones off when I heard Thor sit down behind me. It was a minute or two before I unwound myself from the plant, straightened out my appendages, and turned around. Thor had brought me the white guinea and placed it on the ground behind me. She seemed untouched and very much alive, but she was just lying there. Thor gave me this look that said "Mom, I think it's broken. Can you fix it? (for dinner? with maybe a little gravy?)" I picked her up and she never even squawked. She lay her head on my hand and I felt her heart beat in my palm. Her heart wasn't racing and seemed to be thumping just a tad faster than mine. Here was another decision to be made. Do I take her to the coop for the night or do I find her buddies and put her back with them? She seemed weak and I doubted she'd make it through the night if her buddies decided not to come back to the coop. So into the coop she went. I dipped her beak in the water then placed her on the straw in the highest nesting box. A few minutes later she had hopped down and was at the doorway looking at me. Of course I have bugs for you, little guinea. She gobbled up the Japanese beetles as soon as they fell from the bottle. Dare I hope?

Garden Discoveries

As I was shutting down the laptop I heard the distant sounds of thunder. Yippee! We could really use some rain! But it was also getting darker out and I wanted to get some garden pics before the weekend. Because yet again, I will be busier than a puppy with two peters this weekend. So let's take a look at what I found in the garden today, shall we?

Jelly Melons have planned and are currently executing the greatest garden takeover I've ever seen. They're crawling all over the basil, climbing up the corn, and they're headed into the next bed to attack the eggplants and cucumbers.




They're also climbing up the corn. Which is where I saw my first baby Jelly Melon fruit. Kinda funny looking, like little tiny pineapples. I can't wait.



This is one of my Brandywine tomatoes. Since the first ripe tomato two weeks ago, I've picked 72lbs of maters. Except for the few here and there that I couldn't help but eat right on the spot, they've all been cleaned, cored, and frozen. If things keep going like they are, I'm going to need a very large chest freezer. Or maybe I just need to take a couple of days off work to spend canning salsa and pasta sauce? Now that sounds like a plan.



On Monday I had pruned one of my White Oxheart plants because it had gone up and over the cage and was falling down on some of the banana peppers. I didn't notice this bird nest until the next day.




And today, I saw these cute little critters! They look like they just hatched within the past day or two. They're so tiny! I tried to get the best picture that I could without disturbing the area around them. I hope mom keeps coming back and doesn't make me abandon the plant!



Everyone loves a pretty butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa)! I just thought I had ordered the orange version, not the pink. Haven't I mentioned before that I'm not a "pink" type of gal?




Could it be?? The first eggplant is taking shape! I foresee fried eggplant in my future! I love it sliced and fried in Italian breadcrumbs. I could live off that stuff. I'm going to try frying then freezing it this year and will let you know how it keeps.




The sun is coming out and the thunder has stopped. :( I guess it's time to go water the garden, feed the horses, and go for a ride or two. Have a great weekend!

The Mighty Thor

Here's Thor, spending a hard day at work with me. It's no wonder he sleeps through the night, work like this can be exhausting.





Please ignore the mess on the floor around him. He's still in that must-chew-rip-tear-everything puppy stage of life. If it's paper, either on the floor or within reach of his snout, just consider it gone and hope it wasn't important.

Someone asked me a couple of weeks ago how I did everything around here. The answer is simple. I don't. My house is a disaster area and I haven't danced with the pushmower in weeks. Every minute away from work is spent either with dogs, in the garden, or more often than not, with the horses. It's a good thing we haven't had much rain in the past few weeks because the yard still looks at least partially presentable. We couldn't cut hay off of it yet, which is always a plus. As for the house, I just don't ever invite company in. That's what the porch is for!


I think the stay off the couch training is going well, don't you?