New babies on our farm

We don’t have cows anymore and I have kept everyone up to date on my experiences with lambs, but this year we did get a couple of new babies on our farm.
Daughter-type-person Angie has blessed us with a couple of four-footed-furry-farm grand-animals. A couple of months ago, she had to have one of her dogs put down because of cancer. It was heartbreaking. But just a few days later, she found someone with a litter of heeler pups and she has always loved heeler dogs, so she took her aussie Blue to meet some puppies and “just look.” She was almost ready to leave when this tiny female runt came up and crawled into her lap. Blue sniffed the little thing and licked it a time or two, and I think it was love at first sight for both Angie and Blue.
The little pup came home with them and started settling in. With Angie’s work schedule, I got pupper-potty duty on the days she was working. She was crated in the house, but she enjoyed her little runs and playing with Blue. She is house broken now, so when Angie is home she is never shut in the crate, but does choose to sleep in there. She is still shut in at night, mostly because she is a bed hog if allowed on the bed at night.
She has been named Missy, but more often than not gets called, “Squishmallow”  — nicknames are funny.
A couple of weeks ago, Angie was scheduled to start her vacation, which she had planned to coincide with the pending birth of a foal. She knew the mare was getting close, but was surprised when, on the morning of her last work day before the time off started, she looked out the window to see the mare in the pasture with a little foal. She went out to get the foal into a shelter, out of the cold and then decided her vacation would start a little early as she wasn’t quite ready for the new baby.
She spent that day building a corral to keep the mare and baby contained where she could keep an eye on them. The corral has since been enlarged to give the little one some more room to move, and keep her and momma separated from the other mare. I don’t think the little filly has a name yet, but she will certainly pick her own name soon.
It is always fun to have babies on the farm. We miss the cows, so having some babies around makes it fun.

Baby Beet Salad
- 1 cup French dressing
- 2 drops Tabasco sauce
- ½ teaspoon minced fresh thyme leaves or ¼ teaspoon dried thyme leaves
- 3 cups cooked baby beets
- Lettuce
- 2 hard-cooked eggs, chopped
Mix French dressing, Tabasco and thyme in a saucepan, simmer 5 minutes. Add beets, quartered, cover and refrigerate overnight, drain. Arrange beets on lettuce or other crisp greens. Sprinkle with chopped eggs.