Tag Archives: Honeybun

Turkey Eggs 2021-07-14

Below the longleaf pines, in a thicket: ten turkey eggs. Mama turkey flew up in a tree. Turkeys lay one egg a day, so it took her ten days to deposit those.

[Landscape]
Landscape

The dogs found them. Honeybun made off with another egg in her mouth. Blondie covered the getaway. Continue reading →

Happy and Sad times at the farm

May has been a bit of a tumultuous month for us on the farm. At the beginning of the month, our Nellie was killed by truck on GA122, at Hagan Bridge. It has stunned us all that such a horrible thing could happen to our pack. Our grieving has been deep and continues.

However, we are lucky to welcome Blondie to the fold. She is a one year old Carolina dog and Honeybun and Yellow Dog are now showing her around the farm, introducing her to the delights of the woods, the fields, and the swamp. We don’t know much about her, she was a stray that managed to find her way to a rescue organization, and from there to us.

Dogs [Dogs in the cypress swamp]

[Nellie: forever young]
Nellie: forever young

Dogs and snake of the day 2021-05-18

Honeybun was happy to back off. She is barely visible, bottom left.

The snake was making a big show of striking at them.

[Honeybun, Yellow Dog, snake]
Honeybun, Yellow Dog, snake

Yellow Dog was more, “I hate snakes. That’s a snake. I’m gonna get it.” But eventually she gave a huff and flopped down to sit near the snake. I had to pick her up to get her to move away.

Then the snake slithered quickly into the woods.

-jsq

Nellie discovers a gopher 2021-03-10

I figured she must have discovered a nest of venomous serpents. Nope, Nervous Nellie was barking up a storm over a gopher tortoise.

[Gopher, Nellie, Honeybun, Yellow Dog]
Gopher, Nellie, Honeybun, Yellow Dog

That threatened species Gopherus polyphemus was actually somewhat threatened, since Nellie was trying to gnaw on her shell. Continue reading →

Porch Dogs guarding the Swamp Throne

Dogs at work.

[Porch Dogs guarding the Swamp Throne]
Porch Dogs guarding the Swamp Throne

Probably I shouldn’t assume everybody recognizes this sort of environment. This is a shallow cypress swamp, with mostly cypress and blackgum trees, with a few loblolly pines, plus slash and longleaf pines and oaks around it. That’s actually different from a pocosin swamp, which has mostly smaller shrubs. Both are fairly common in the U.S. southeastern coastal plain.

This cypress swamp used to be full most of the year, forty or fifty years ago. Nowadays it’s dry most of the year. We’ve been having rain every few days for a week or more, so finally it’s almost full.

When that happens, we like to put kayaks in and boat around. Which is interesting due to all the cypress logs to navigate past.

Those are two of my dogs. They live here, in several hundred acres of land my grandfather bought in 1921. They are working dogs, protecting us from snakes and catching rodents. They don’t attack other wildlife (well, except raccoons), because we teach them not to. They do like to run fast, especially in water.

About the swamp throne, only the initiated know, and Tom H. Tom H Johnson Jr ain’t tellin’.

More rain coming.

[Still not quite full]
Still not quite full

More pictures: Continue reading →