Well I had hoped to take a few new pics to post and announce her name at the same time. I tried a few favorite names out on her, and it seems the one 'she' likes best is Ginger (Ginger Snap when the situation calls for firmness.) She fetches, loves her ball and rolling it under the chair, and then going under the chair and playing with it there. She sleeps in her Pet Taxi, and settles down once she knows I too am in bed and settled down for the night. She stayed out the other night (was only in the 50's I think) and slept in the back of the truck in some mulch, along with 2 of the other girls. Little by little the other girl's are accepting her better and there is less growling. I'll keep you posted with pics as she grows up. Thanks to all for all your wonderful (and some not so wonderful...lol) names. Sue and Ginger

Sounds like a special pup. Are you sure you want to add in hours of cooking, calculating and general brain power when you have a new baby in the house? Even my adult rescues do a great job scrambling my brain waves...... See dogaware.com for a lot of information on feeding a dog fresh food. Good reading, books to refer to and so on. I've been feeding fresh food since 2007, that melamine scandal right when I had an elderly dog come up with kidney disease did it for me. I've fed cooked and I've fed raw. Raw is so much easier and you waste less - bone. I haven't fed a pup, understand you feed the same amount as you will the adult dog but divide the meals up so pup can physically take it in and digest it. I check the diet against the NRC numbers using a nutrition database and the calculator from Monica Segal's book 'Optimal Nutrition' and adding a bit of this or that to be sure it meets the goals. I did have success cooking a basic raw diet by cooking a whole chicken, removing skin and meat and cooking the bones in a slow cooker until the bones were soft enough to puree in a blender. Then I took double the weight of the raw chicken in liver, beef and pork cooked and blended/chopped that then mixed all the meats and the bone puree together. Any cooking liquid is part of the meal, keep it all. My raw fed dogs get a multi vitamin/mineral supplement, vitamin E and fish oil according to size as well. To feed I calculated 2% of the dog's ideal weight, conveniently was 10 ounces. If the raw ingredients weighed 300 ounces and the cooked 260 then I'd feed that dog 260/30 a day. You can imagine the mess doing all this but the elderly dog no longer tolerated a raw diet. Dogs need a lot of meat. You can add in 25% mushy rice or pureed veggies to the basic diet if you like. That dog that needed 10 ounces of raw? He needed nearly the same minerals and vitamins as an adult human but packed into 600 calories a day. Any recipe that doesn't have calcium added or isn't mostly meat isn't going to work for a pup. Or make up a tasty topper of meat/fish/egg/liver and substitute that for anything less than 25% of the total calories pup needs. No need to be so precise about how much bone and all that is in there if you do that but you still need to figure out the calories per ounce or cup or whatever the topper has.

I'm going to do something like the first pic luckyblueeye posted above. A little conversation area, 2 chairs and an ottoman. When you say you like the table long ways....do you mean short end of table to short end of island? I think it looks a little odd but I don't know what else to do. I was thinking I'd get a large round table but I don't think I'll have enough walk room on either side of the table since I want to have my hutch and something else decorative on the other wall. I love having the table closer to the kitchen area though.

I like several of the ideas presented, including the deck, assuming it won't face West while receiving evening use. Depending on circulation/traffic patterns, a couple of chairs with a small table between could be nice. All of my other ideas were landscaping related, since I love gardening, and think it's plenty fun all by itself, lol! <3 A small accent tree (6'-10' tall & wide) without invasive roots would also be really nice -- or a circle of tall, colorful hollyhocks (sorry, I always think of hollyhocks when I think of farmhouses) -- maybe surrounded by short, cascading herbs/plants in raised planters/containers. I wouldn't necessarily center the tree; it might look good off to one side, framing a view from inside the house. In addition to the tree, if you wanted to add a water feature of some kind (old fashioned water pump inspired, maybe?), it would fit better in the space if the tree wasn't centered. Do y'all have any hummingbirds in your area? Plants that attract hummers and butterflies are always awesome right outside windows. You could use shepherd's hooks with hummer feeders, too. Or, depending on which direction it faces, I'd consider a pergola bridging the gap between the bedroom and porch. If it faces North, then I'd skip the pergola, to allow maximum sunshine into the window. You could grow a controllable vine (max height of 20'; no roots/shoots/tendrils that will work their way into your house's structure) up the pergola's legs and over the top of the pergola's roof. I'm partial to roses, myself, but you could use other climbing plants that are more compatible with whatever "modern farmhouse" means to you/your area. :-D