Scotch Mallow Six Week Report

Scotch Mallow is a fine 5 point Basset Hound.
She is pet quality, but will be a very good pet .

Scotch Mallow is a grand example of the Basset Hound Standard, 5 points using the AKC Standards.
Her mother has a serious flaw, but Scotch Mallow show little signs of carrying the flaw.
However, she does not have to coloring we desire and is quite a bit larger than we are going for, so received no aesthetic point.

As you can see, her skin is a bit exaggerated.
She is a deep sleeper and a big eater. She is an 11 pound puppy at six weeks.
Scotch Mallow has the disposition of a very loyal pet.

She has a heavy frame and more than ample skin folds.
Her ears are well back on her head.
Her coat is showing signs of becoming a bit darker, but I would expect a brown and white dog.

As Basset Hounds go, this is a great example of the breed and receives 5 points.
She is a pet quality puppy and should make someone a fine home companion.

Junior Mint Six Week Report

JUNIOR MINT IS CHOSEN FIRST!
Thanks Randy and Sharlene!

Junior Mint at six weeks receives 5.5 points on our quasi-objective standard.
She is a pet quality Basset Hound which might be bred if the rights are secured.

Junior Mint is a wonderful little girl and a fine example of the Basset Hound.
She is nearly perfect and received 4.5 points using the AKC standard.
She is very pretty and gets the additional point for being aesthetically pleasing.

WHAT A FACE!
She is well formed and has exceptional ear length.
Her coloring is symmetrical and her face mask is great.

Junior Mint has wonderful skin and stance. Her coat will probably gain quite a bit of brown as she ages.
Her stance is fantastic with stout legs to carry her 10.1 pound body.
She is obedient, adventurous, and very cuddly.

Junior Mint might have been last to come into the world, but she is definitely one of the best.
She gets 5.5 points using our quasi-objective standards and though very pretty is
only a pet quality puppy.

Tootsie Roll Week Six Report

Tootsie Roll is a very healthy 10.3 pounds at six weeks and receives 5.75 points using our quasi-objective standards. She is a Pet quality puppy and might be bred if rights are secured.

Tootsie Roll is nearly perfect and receives 5 points using the AKC Standard.
Her mother has one serious flaw, but Tootsie shows no signs of any.
Though her ear length and coloring are very good, aesthetically she receives .75 points.

Tootsie Roll is a wonderful little girl who is comical and playful
despite the grumpy look on her face.
He coloring is good, but not symmetrical.

Her ermine spotting is spectacular.
Her skin is loose and will likely gain quite a lot of brown as she grows.
Her stance is very good and she is very obedient.

Tootsie Roll is a very good Basset Hound and receives 5.75 points.
Tootsie Roll is a Pet quality Basset Hound and will make a wonderful companion.

Skittles Week Six Report

Skittles at six weeks is a 6 point Basset Hound using our quasi-objective standards.
Skittle show signs of becoming a Show quality contender.

Though difficult to see here, this is a nearly perfect example of Basset Hound. 5 Points
Aesthetically she is a beauty and gets the  full 1 point addition.
A healthy little girl at 9.4 pounds at six weeks.

The stance tells the tale. She loves having her picture taken.
Her skins is loose and coloring symmetrical in every way.
The white legs will not likely turn brown, but some brown is present in the fore quarters.

Who wouldn't love this face, but there's a personality behind it.
Skittles is an adventurous, brave, and extremely playful.

The stance tells the tale once more.
Skittles is quite lovely and shows all the characteristics of becoming a show quality Basset Hound.
Though her mother has one serious flaw, Skittles shows no signs of any.
She gets six of six points.

Milk Dud Week Six Report

MILK DUD has new parents.
Thanks to the Lewis family.

Milk Dud at six weeks is a 4.5 point Basset Hound using our quasi-objective standard.
He is pet quality but might be a good breeder if rights are secured.

Milk Dud is a wonderful puppy, but only gets four of the five AKC points available.
This is due to a dew-claw re-emergence on one fore paw which might be corrected by a veterinarian.
Otherwise he is very good aesthetically and gets .5 points for pretty.

His coloring is very fine and there are mounds of extra skin.
Milk Dud is all male and shows signs of a good hunting dog if properly trained.
He is healthy and large at 10.1 pounds at six weeks.

His coloring is nearly symmetrical with less ermine spotting that we like.
He is a lover and hugs your hand with both paws when carried.

Milk Dud is a wonderful dog with little brown showing in his coat, but his head will likely carry brown ears as he grows older.
He is a wonderful little dog. Quiet and obedient (for a puppy).
He is a 4.5 point Basset Hound using our quasi-objective standards.
He will be a good breeder if breeding rights are purchased.

Sugar Baby Week Six report

Sugar Baby at six weeks is a 5.75 point Basset Hound using our quasi-objective system.
She is Pet quality and might be bred for pet quality Basset Hounds with our permission.

AKC Standard perfect. 5 points
Aesthetically .5 points - But LOOK at that amazing ear length!
She is still the smallest of the lot at 9.2 pounds.

Short in stature, she lacks the immediate focus of a show quality Basset Hound and will need training.
Her disposition is very sweet and somewhat playful.
She is brave and loves to explore; but only with the true explorers, not on her own.

Her coloring is nearly perfect, hence the extra half point point.
I see little of the brown coming out of her coat that I see in others;
but there is a hint of brown throughout her ears, so expect a brown headed girl.
Her ermine spotting is well distributed and mostly brown.

Sugar Baby's a bit camera shy and impatient.
Her skin is ample and the slouch we look for over her eyes is good.

She shows no negative traits, but her mother has a pronounced vulva which is quite large for her size. Minus .25 points
I expect that Sugar Baby will not reach very high at show and pronounce her a 5.25 point pet quality puppy.

February 26, 2016

This is a good shot of the trash pile. It is amazing.

This is where we started last April.

February 26, 2016

We had planned to do some burning this weekend. The idea was to build a hot fire and try to get rid of some of the tree trash over the weekend. We picked a likely candidate for the first burn.

The big thing behind the boxy thing is a very large plum tree I knocked over on Tractor Day 3.
The boxy thing is the hearth we built to start the fire.

As it turned out, the whole thing was entirely too easy. We finished the tree entirely on Friday evening along with a large fig tree and a load of yard debris.

The remaining stump will have to be gotten rid of. No telling how.
We also were able to burn a large bit of the broken furniture too.

February 21, 2016

We went out to the Farm yesterday and cleared out the Shipping Container of all of the trash and  one small family of mice. It took about three hours and added maybe ten yards of debris to our already HUGE and very problematic debris pile.

The first thing I noticed when we first found the property was the shipping container. The trash was just pouring out of the thing. You couldn't see very deeply into it and the trash pile was about four feet high at the entrance. We didn't explore it the day we found the place, that came later.

One of my favorite container stories took place the weekend after we met Collette and were given permission to look around.

This is the container as it appeared to Jack and Me in the story following after.
Of everything you see here, almost none of it remains today. And the rest is about to go.
Our house will sit just behind the un-named thing
about one-third of the way from the left of this picture.

Jack and I went out on a nice early Spring morning while Ann was at work. I went back as far as I could into the container, about half way back. There didn't appear to be anything of value in the entire thing. While on my way out I heard a soft chuckling sound coming from no-place in particular. You have to imagine how creepy the whole experience was. Even without the un-named chuckling thing the place was creepy enough, but the chuckling sound made things much worse. Jack was out of there immediately, talking about horror movies and how this was what the main plot of them was. But I was a bit more interested, so I stomped around a bit, hoping to hear the sound again. Eventually I heard the laughing sound again.

Scanning around I saw a foot sticking up from somewhere near the entrance. As it turned out the sound came from a white teddy bear buried head first in the trash. I pulled it out and it chuckled once more as it hung upside down from my hand, me standing up near the ceiling on a pile of broken furniture. I left Teddy sitting on a head-board to scare off any other demons lurking around.

Yesterday, once more, I heard a human sound coming out of the remaining debris. A little stuffed animal was singing Elvis Presley's: "You ain't nothing but a Hound Dog" right up until I threw it out onto the pile. A pile of what remained of the people who did this to the land before it became what will one day become the Creekside Farm.

This is the container after we scraped most of the ground.
Our home will sit about fifty feet to the left and fifty feet
behind where this picture was taken from.

Nasty little bears aside we love this place and have put it some long hours trying to get it cleared enough to begin cleaning it out. Yesterday we did the impossible once more: we cleaned out the container, all forty-five feet of it. The stuff we kept, stuff that once blonged to someone else and we kept to tell the story of a part of this place, only filled half a small wash tub. Of all the stuff we found there was absolutely NOTHING of any value in any of the ninety yards of debris..

That's how this whole thing has gone so far. Long intervals of waiting for things to happen and short intervals of really sweaty work digging through trash.

Today you can see most of the trash in one long glance.




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February 15, 2016 Puppy Update

Tootsie Roll is a healthy 6.1 lbs.

Her disposition is as laid back as it ever was, 

content to snuggle, content to snooze alone.

Tootsie Roll has slightly better than adequate features,  great ears  length and color symmetry. 

The fore legs are a bit light, but she is only four weeks old and her skin wrinkles are wonderful.

At four weeks I give her four of six points.

Junior Mint is a terror. But a healthy terror at 6.1 lbs.
Her disposition is playful, she can be found looking for trouble.

Junior Mint has adequate features at four weeks.
Ear length is even with the nose but positioned really well.
Good wrinkles and heavy legs, her markings are great.
I think she gets four of six points at four weeks.

At four weeks and 7 big lbs. Milk Dud is everything you want of a male Basset Hound.
He is inquisitive, self sustaining, and aggressive. He doesn't care what you think.
From the top he has his father's figure: narrow waist and wide hips.

Mild Dud has fantastic stance, good coloring and awesome ear length.
Look at that skin folds and heavy legs.
He is a winner at five of six points.

Skittles is a healthy eater at 6.5 lbs.
She is as playful as they come, but loves to snuggle up.

There is a possibility of being show quality in Skittles, depending on how her color comes in.
Her stance and coloring today are near perfect.
And though her ear length could be longer, it is very well back on her head.
She is five of six points at four weeks.

Scotch Mallow is a chunk at 7.6 lbs., but she has always been the biggest.
She is going to become a great home-body Basset.
She is not especially cuddly, not needy. A bit playful, mostly sleepy.

Most people would consider her a very good Basset at four weeks.
Her ears are good, not great, but all of the other parts are very good.
Skin wrinkles are ample, coloring is adequate, legs are very heavy.
At four weeks she is four of six points.

Sugar Baby is our show quality champion, but at 6.1 lbs she is small.

Our goal is to breed smaller Bassets, so this is good.

Sugar Baby is extra cuddly, and brave for her size.

If I were to keep one puppy, this is the one.

Sugar Baby is everything a Basset Baby should be.

Great coloring and very symmetrical. Heavy legs and great stance.

Her black ears are extra long with wonderful golden linings.

Her skin is maybe a bit tighter than I like,

but this is a six point Basset Hound at four weeks old.

February 14, 2016 Tractor Day #3

We spent eight hours running a skid steer loader around doing destruction

.

February 10, 2016

Ann and I went out to the Farm this afternoon to cut some fallen trees off the back fence. We had removed the support from some of the trees outside the fence when we removed the trees inside the fence, so the winter brought them down. After an hour of making another pile of burnable debris, we had to trail-blaze through the berries to try and get the remainder down. But by the time I got us two-hundred feet along the back fence, my arms were so tired out we had to give up.

This gave us a few extra hours with nothing to do so we decided to run by the Kabota dealer to find out what other implements of destruction we could rent the next time we had the money. The guy made us an offer we couldn't refuse. So Saturday is going to be our third tractor day.

We are so excited.

February 9, 2016

I planted 96 Mondo grasses, three hundred more to go. . .

February 8, 2016

We we fortunate enough to have done the paperwork, prior to Collette's passing, so that the title to the Farm will transfer into our name and we can begin in earnest. We had the help of the County's wonderful counter help (I think nearly every counter in every building) so eventually we found the right combination of paper and person.

I know, not much of a post. But it is a pretty big one for us.

February 7, 2016 Puppy Update

The puppies are doing very well, getting big, making progress. Everyone is larger:

• Tootsie Roll is 5.3 pounds and still loves to wander
• Scotch Mallow is still the biggest at 5.7 pounds
• Sugar Baby is slipping behind and only weighs 4.1 pounds
• Junior Mint is the cuddliest at 5.3 pounds
• Milk Dud is a wonderfully aggressive male at 5.1 pounds
• Skittles is right at 5 pounds

Everyone got to experience the outside world today. . .

And this is just a good picture.