countdown

We can now count the time before Keksi's due date in days rather than weeks. Or, to be more precise, a week and a bit. In our house we're getting a little nervous because so many things can go wrong. However, Keksi seems her usual chilled self so I'm certainly not trying to stress her out with my worries. In spite of her sister's more difficult time, she does come from good whelping stock in Neka, so I'm being optimistic.

She has been on Panacur 10% wormer for a while now to make sure the puppies have no disgusting parasites. Perhaps I've been lucky, but I have yet to see canine worms.

And, to be absolutely clear, in case it does not go without saying, I have no wish to see any either.

So Keksi has now moved back in with us for the duration of her pregnancy, the arrival of the puppies and staying until they are fully weaned at 6 or 7 weeks. She has slowed down considerably, although she's still up for a game if anyone is offering. She is doing a bit of running with Maija on their walks in the woods. Very quickly, though, she decides that she probably shouldn't be running after all. As well as slowing down, she is panting quite a bit when she's just lying around.

But most dramatic is the change in her shape. Here she is lying down at work this morning.





Only 5 puppies? Really?












In the meantime, in other news, after an enormous amount of work done on one side of our garden a couple of years ago, we decided to rush and get the fence on the other side replaced before we have a bunch of Finnish Lapphund adults and puppies running around. There were a couple of weak spots and one or two actual holes that no canines had discovered as yet. However, the puppies would have for sure, being nosey, clever and capable of finding everything single thing they ought not to.

I did feel sorry for the fencing guy, though, as we've been having sub-zero temperatures for a few days now and he was out there working in arctic conditions. In this weather, I've been making sure to keep the bird seed topped up and lots of fat balls hanging from the trees. That brought all kinds of visitors to the garden, including the usual array of bluetits, great tits, chaffinches, sparrows, black birds & robins. Then yesterday we had the rare treat of seeing a few goldfinches and even my own personal favorite, longtail tits.

Then an even more colourful visitor in the shape of this young male pheasant (perched on the fence).

















Of course, he didn't hang around long once he spotted Keskiyo trotting over to say hello.




















Keskiyo, of course, has been spending as much time out in the freezing garden as we will allow. These days he has tennis balls permanently frozen into the pond that he likes to bark at from time to time. Easily amused.