Nesting Blue Herons at Cuyahoga Valley National Parks

Okay this is totally unrelated to jewelry but your are going to get that sometimes. Believe it or not I do have a life outside of the jewelry and the internet. Kind of. Anyway we live about 15 minutes away from the Cuyahoga Valley National Parks system in Ohio. Beautiful place and we spend a lot of time there over the summer, hiking, barbecuing etc. Lots of hills and valleys, a beautiful river that kind of thing. My husband and I decided to go check out the blue herons that nest along the park. They only nest in one particular spot for about a month. Blink and you have missed it. Well it was kind of a dreary day today, gray and damp about 60 degrees but we went anyway. It was an amazing site to see all of these beautiful birds building nests and feeding babies. Unfortunately most of my pictures look black and white and mostly look like silhouettes due to the gray nature of the day. But I am going to post them anyway lol. Also saw a beautiful magnolia tree just beginning to bloom at the ecological society. Maybe, just maybe spring is coming! I sure hope so!

Update on the Puppies 4 weeks old!

I apologize for not updating on the pups sooner but as they grow they become a HUGE amount of work. I spend more time cleaning up newspaper and mopping my floor than I do anything else. (not really true because I spend more time playing with the puppies than cleaning up after them, which means I spend most of my free time on the kitchen floor doing one or the other lol!). Any way they are growing by leaps and bounds and have started eating semi-solid food. This is a real relief for Libby because not only are their tiny claws like razors they now have teeth and are NOT afraid to use them. We have succumbed and named all eight of them. We have Zachariah, Lizzie, Hope, Zeke, Mo, Bluto, Boo, and Alexander. Zeke is still the runt and half the size of his brothers and sisters, but he more than makes up for this with attitude and will cheerfully jump into the pile every time even though he always ends up at the bottom. We have introduced them to chew toys, however they still prefer to chew on each other most of the time. We do frequently pull Zeke out and carry him around when the rest get to rambunctious because despite his attitude he just cannot defend himself all that well from the some of his much bigger brothers. Bluto and Mo are both just BIG puppies but so sweet and cuddly. Hope is the talker, she just is always making noise about something. Boo is just a sweetheart and Alexander is a huge bundle of friendliness. Lizzie is a sweetheart and loves to come over and cuddle and Zachariah will do anything for attention. Needless to say they are all terribly spoiled already. I will have another update soon. From the top left we have Zachariah, Lizzie, Alexander and Hope. Next week I will have individual pics of the other four.

Update on Puppies

As you can see by the pictures the puppies are doing quite well. They are growing by leaps and bounds. They are about 2 1/2 weeks old now and their eyes are starting to open and they are starting to toddle. Some of them are starting to bark and growl (which is hilarious coming out of something so small!).
As you can see, after eating it is nap time. Pure bliss if you are a puppy in a pile on a pillow! We have finally named them all (okay my fourteen year old daughter named them all) so I will try and take individual pics the next time and let everyone know
their names. As you can see it is hard work taking care of puppies and hard work for the puppies to grow so here is Libby and one of the pups napping together. And yes we spend way too much time loving on these puppies but who can resist warm fuzzy cute things to play with? Will have another update soon.

The Puppies are Finally Here!

Well, the puppies have finally arrived. Quite frankly I was pretty sure that they were never going to get here! We have a total of eight puppies. Two are blue

merles (the speckled ones) and six are black and tans. We have six boys and two girls. She had the first one at 3:45 am and the last one at about 8:30 am. They are all healthy and doing well.

As you can see Liberty is being a good mommy. We keep the puppies in a box with a heating pad when she is not nursing and cleaning them. Since we have two other dogs and not enough room to just keep them separate this works the best for us. Although Liberty is a pretty laid back dog she has decided that she really doesn't want Blackjack around the babies. (This is actually a bit amusing as he is terrified of the babies and runs whenever we show him one) So he is hiding out under the computer desk at the moment until she calms down a little.

She doesn't seem to have as much of a problem with Ella being around the pups as long as one of us is close by. As you can see Ella is making the acquaintance of one of her siblings. She is very interested and VERY cautious. Fortunately she has had experience with a prior batch of siblings so she is not totally freaked out. Well I will be posting an update on the pups next week and probably every week until they go to their new homes.