It's beginning to look like spring!!!

Ok, not really, there's a blizzard outside at the moment, but I got my favourite seed catalogue in the mail a few weeks ago and I finally had the time to peruse (my new word) it. www.veseys.com

Sigh..... so many seeds so little time and land.

Every fall I swear to myself that next spring

"I will not go beserk in my seed order!!!"

Yeah...right....

I promise that I will only stick to the tried

and true. I will stick to

only a few veggies and not plant

veggies for the entire

community!

THEN!!! The seed catalogue shows up.

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and all those promises are gone out the door!

sigh.....

This year I will try to control myself.

Yes, I will try.

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NOT!!!!!

It's an addiction. I can't help myself. I know I'm going to get

some weird, strange new seed that I will or will not successfully

germinate. Like 2 years ago I tried asparagus peas. Probably the most

disgusting veg I have ever had the misfortune of trying.

(hubby just told me that he found out that you have to cook asparagus peas

not eat them raw, like we did....hmmmm maybe we should try them again.)

I was reading this blog to hubby and he said that he's going to hide the

catalogue and then I will have to get a purchase order from

him to order the seeds. Little does he know that

I can order on-line!! heh heh heh

Well it's time to go and have a nice tall glass of fresh, raw, goat's milk and a

devil's food Texas size cupcake with cream cheese frosting.

Have a Blessed Evening.

Lisa

Merry Christmas and Happy Boxing Day!

Ok, I'm going to try this again.

I've just deleted the entire blog for today by mistake.

I'm not impressed.

Well first of all, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas

and a happy Boxing Day.

A few days before Christmas J. and I baked cookies. We

kinda cheated and got Pillsbury cookie dough.

Oh well ... so sue me.

J. is really a pretty good cook. I think most

men are it's just that they fake it. It's easier for them to fake it and get

your wife to do it. I'm lucky

my hubby is a good cook.

In this area most people open their gifts on Christmas eve. We are

no exception. I got a Tassimo Machine! Can you tell I'm excited!

We got hot chocolate, decaf, regular and cappucino for it.

I worked till 3pm that day, then I came home and I made a chicken fricot

and J. and I made a birthday cake for Jesus, since it is his

birthday the next day.

It does say
"Happy Birthday, Jesus" under

all those sprinkles and sparkles.

I was having most of my relatives come over after the midnight mass

on Christmas eve. Well around here

midnight mass is really at 9pm.

Anyway we had chicken fricot, birthday cake and chatted

till 1am. Then everyone went home,

we went to bed and Santa showed up.

He left alot of Lego for J. and treats for the cats and goats.

Even though J. got the Lego, Dave got to put it all together. One kit had over 700

pieces!!

The cats were beside themselves with the new toys.

The goats got Squeezy Buns treats. They love those.

On Christmas Day we finally had snow. Well really it had snowed a few

days before and it actually stayed. We haven't had

a white Christmas in years! It was nice.

I was actually Whisper's first snow. She was not impressed.

We actually let them go in the pasture without the

fence being on, since the snow is over the

wires and it would ground it out anyway.

So far, they've not touched it.

The pigs loved the snow. Dave fed them outside since it was a beautiful day.

I got a really good photo of Wilbur trying to "hide" behind a

"HUGE" tree.

The chickens weren't too impressed with the snow. But that's nothing new.

I really think that the cold hurts their feet.

I'm thinking that Febe's mange is back. She's scratching again. I'm not sure what to

do now. I'm wondering if it really is mange. Whisper doesn't have it.

Speaking of Whisper. We just cannot tell if she's in heat or not.

It's driving me nuts! I think she was on Christmas Eve. There was

a teeny, tiny bit of slime. But that's it.

My parents came over for Christmas Day supper. My mom brought

rappie pie so I didn't have to cook. That was nice.

It looks weird, but it really is good.

Today we visited my aunt. She had major surgery a few weeks ago and

she's not permitted to do much of anything. So we brought left over fricot and rappie pie.

Well I have to go and make supper and bring the goats in. Hopefully this post

won't get deleted.

Have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Remember "Jesus is the Reason for the Season!"

Lisa

The newest in goat fashions!

Again another interesting week here at Spring Peeper Farm. Winter has hit and it's hit hard. Cold, cold and cold. I've lived in Alberta for a little bit several years ago and I have to say -40 degrees Celcius in Alberta is equal to -15 degrees celcius in Nova Scotia. Actually our -15 feels colder than the -40. The wind and the dampness of the ocean goes right to your bones and doesn't leave until July hits. It's not usually that cold here thank goodness. Where I live the winter stays around -5 to -10. But this year the thermometer is stuck at the dreaded -15!! It's so cold.

The 3 things I really hate about winter is the wind, static cling and carrying buckets of water to the livestock. Other than that I really like winter. We are in the middle of a storm at the moment. It started yesterday and it's just about done which is good, since I have to go for minor surgery tomorrow and it's a 2 hour drive to the hospital. We'll have to leave around 5am to get there on time.

Well the mange is gone from Febe. It seems to be anyhow. She's no longer itchy and her coat is getting shiny again. This is good. Now I have a new problem, she refuses to go on the milking stand. I was talking to my goat lady and she said the only reasons a goat refuses the stand (this is a goat that is used to the stand) is if she's been scared by something or sick and she's neither. I could let her dry up and say forget it till next kidding, but that's letting her win. With goats this is a very unfavorable situation. You can never, ever let them win. Because next kidding when it's time to start milking again, she'll say "I didn't have to go on it last winter, I don't have to go on it again. Meh."

So, since Dave leaves usually at 4am for work and he could help me get her up (she's heavy 150 lbs) I don't want to get up that early. So I'm going to change her milking to the evening when he's around to lift her up. These goats are going to be the death of me! ARGH! Whisper I cannot tell when she's in heat. I have been looking every day twice a day for 6 weeks and nothing.

The goats were getting cold, so I thought I'd get them sweaters. Febe's only needed the arms cut a bit but I cannot find one that fits Whisper. She's so small. I got them at the local thrift store.

Well that's about it for now.

Have a Blessed Day!

Lisa

Thank you Chris!

Phew, Chris came over tonight to needle the goats with Ivomec. He showed us how to do it for next time.

Well I'm happy to say that they never even flinched. No screaming or passing out and the goats didn't do bad either.

We had to cancel movie night with the girls tonight. They were both sick. Oh well. Next year.

Lisa

Winter is here!!

Well, well, well...ole man winter is finally here. Except for today it has been a very cold week. Everything is frozen solid. So this means that we now have to carry the water to the animals. Bummer. That's not fun. It takes extra time in the mornings also.

Well last week was a very nice snowfall. I love snow. I know most people think I'm nuts, but it's so calming to watch it come down, except when you're watching it come down on your windshield on your way to work. Then it's not so relaxing.

My wisteria tree at 6a.m. It looks like a spider.

Looking towards the road at 7 am.

We also put the tree up last week. We had the original pre lit tree. Before they came out on the market. Our tree has its branches on hinges and we also have a walk in attic. So many years ago we put all the lights on the tree and when Christmas is over we just take the ornaments off the tree and Dave ties it all up, puts an old blanket over it and off it goes in the attic for another year. Ta dah!!! Next year we don't have to put the lights on the tree. It's already done! Yay for us. I hate putting on the lights.

We had a turkey dinner at our church on Sunday. It was a success. It's only the second one I've done. The church ladies help alot though. We had one glitch. We ran out of veggies. The first one we made we had waaaaaayyy to many so next time hopefully we'll have just enough.

We also went on the house tours in the afternoon. We toured 5 houses. All very nice. We'd like to do it one year when the farm is all in order. We would open the barns and decorate them also. I think it would be cool.

The Havelock Trio..Terry Stone, Charlene Sabean and Glen Sabean.

Then after all that we went to a small church in a place called Culloden to see our friends "The Havelock Trio" sing. They also invited us to sing a song also. We sang "Merry Christmas, Mary" by Paul Overstreet. I think it went over well. It was the first time we sang other than in our own church. That was weird and for some strange reason I wasn't a bit nervous. When I say it's a small church I mean, it's a really small church. It only has 10 pews, that only sit 4 per. But I love going there. It is so sweet and the pastor seems really to have the spirit of God about him. Not phoney.

Here we are in our singing debut.

We also had our Christmas concert last Sunday. Dave and I were just in the choir this year and J. was the cutest little sheep. This is a picture of the choir, I'm right in the middle looking goofy as ever with my penguin sweater.

Well, now for farm news......

Febe has mange. It's not dry skin. I have no idea where she got it from, but I am not amused! Especially since everywhere I read it says it's because of unsanitary conditions. My barns are very clean. I called my vet to see if Ivomec will kill the mange and he said, he'll sell it to me, but he won't tell me anything about it because it's not proven on goats. Grrrrr... So what am I supposed to do? American websites say that it's ok to use Ivomec on goats but nothing in Canada. Are Canadian goats different? I don't think so.

So I called another vet that deals alot with goats and he said that there is no problem in using Ivomec in pregnant does. Just remember that there is a 60 day milk withdrawal (I was going to dry her out after Christmas anyway) and I guess it really stings when you inject it. That I knew because Dave uses it on the pigs and they scream something fierce when you inject them. The first time he did it, it actually brought the Charlotte to her knees. He didn't realize that it hurt them. Nobody had told him. He thought he had killed the poor thing. Now we know better.

Tomorrow a friend of ours that regularly injects his goats with Ivomec is going to come and show us how. I'm going to try not to cry.

Well I have to go to bed it's getting late and it's been a hectic weekend. Tomorrow night I'm having a few girlfriends over for Christmas movie night. I can't wait!!!

Have a Blessed evening

Lisa

Another cleanthegoatpenandchickencoop day.

Guess what? The day after I planted the garlic it snowed!!! I think that winter is here. This morning the hoses were frozen to the goat and pig pens, so that means we now have to carry water to them to drink. It was great while it lasted.

Whenever I can get something of value for free I try to take advantage of it. So today Dave hooked up the trailer and off we went to get shavings at our local coffin plant. Yes, you read that right. Some friends of ours own a coffin factory and there's alot of shavings, so we get to be the recipients of this great help. They even put them in garbage bags and boxes for us. How nice of them.

The hens are laying wonderfully. They are actually laying better now than they did this summer. Knock on wood. I hope they keep at it.

We aren't getting many scraps from the stores these days so they pigs are going through a lot of bagged feed, which is not cheap.

Somedays I wonder if it's all worth it. Then I'll see our full freezers and a healthy glow on our son's face and it'll all be worth it. I'll hear about how sick all his fellow classmates are and how J. isn't. Or when he does get sick it's usually nothing more serious than a cold. Which is good since he gets prone to having Bronchitis when he does get colds. So his immune system is getting a lot stronger than his classmates, since they are constantly getting stomach flues, month long colds, and the dreaded H1N1. So I guess all this work must be worth it. At least what we spend on feeds, we save on medications. lol

Whisper seems to be down in the dumps today. I'm not sure why. I'll have to keep an eye on her. Febe is itchy. She is constantly scratching and I only see dry skin. Last year we had a lice problem with Whisper's mother, but everyone got treated and it got rid of the lice pronto. This I've looked with the flashlight and everything and the only thing I see is like dry flakes. She's not losing hair. It's just since the weather got drier. It might just be dry skin. I'll just have to keep an eye on her also. I also looked for fleas and nothing.

Well that's all for on the farm for today.

Have a Blessed evening.

Lisa

Better late than never. I guess.

Well we'll know if that saying is true. It's December 5th and I just planted my garlic in the garden. I'll let ya'll know in the spring if my garlic wasn't planted too late. I did talk to one of my gardener friends and she said,"well at least the ground isn't frozen." So we'll have to wait and see.

When I got to the garden, which Dave had plowed twice because J. had run over it with his 4 wheeler, it was full of little holes. Thousands upon thousands of little holes. I could not figure out what it was. Till I started digging...it was worms and night crawlers and worms. I could not believe it!! I thought they would have done south by now. That's what happens when El Nino is running around here. Everything is screwy. The trees are budding, the mosquitoes are out again (but not biting phew!)

Dave has turned the chicken coop into a chicken condo. My hens are in heaven. He took their pen, the meat kings pen and the area where the rabbit (that we used to have) into one big chicken condo. They now have two runs also. One that DOESN'T FLOOD!!! Yay!!! They are so happy. You can tell by the contented little smiles on their beaks.

All summer long I have been cursing the automatic waterer in the chicken coop. It was leaking and leaking and leaking. I would clean them out and within a few days it would be wet all around the waterer again. But the strange thing was that we couldn't find out where it was leaking.

While Dave was remodeling the condo he was taking the waterer out (since winter is suppose to show up something this year,) it was raining cats, dogs and donkeys . He noticed that it wasn't the waterer that was leaking....it was the roof! Ahhhhh!!!!

Tomorrow night is the Sunday School Christmas concert. It should be cute.

Rats, rats and rats!!

One bad thing about being on a farm, is the rodents. I really hate the rats. Even though we keep the feed put away, we have the veggies and fruit from the store and it's impossible to keep them under wraps. So we spend a fortune on rat poison. We don't dare use rat traps because of the cats. The cats leave the poison alone. They seem to know it's not good for them.

I walked in the chicken coop a few weeks ago and I had a big hole by their door. Grrrr rats! A few days after I picked up an egg and it was empty!! The rats had cracked a small hole in the egg and eaten the inside. This means war!!! I've put poison to no avail. (not in with the chickens). Then yesterday I go get my eggs....one is IN the rat hole!! I'm so not impressed!

Yesterday my dishwasher started leaking. Again. It's only a year old and we've been fighting this problem since day one! Me thinks I want the company to give me a new dishwasher! It's even ruined my floors and cupboards.

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

Santa Parade

Well it's Monday. That means cleanthegoatpen day. I also cleaned the chicken pen. That one was really sad and gross. It's been raining so much that it's like a mud, shavings and poop soup. Yuck!!! When Dave gets a free day he's going to join the meat bird pen and the laying hen pen together. It'll give them a lot more room to move and two places to go outside from. The other is smaller but it doesn't flood like the other one.

So now I have very happy and clean chickens and they also got a treat of lobster shells. They love to peck at them and it makes their egg yolks orange.

I discovered that a guy that I know owns a Christmas tree farm!! This is good. I've known this guy for years, but I didn't know he had this as a side line. What I'm getting at is that he has many, many, many fir trees that will never make it as a Christmas tree. Soooooo, he's happy to get rid of them for free!!! But who on earth wants an ugly fir tree. Wellllll....goats do not care what they look like, as long as they taste good.

So Dave and J. went to his lot on Saturday and loaded up about 10 trees for now. Well I have very happy goats. He said that he's got at least another 100!!! that he wants to get rid of.

Oh Happy Day!!!!

If you've never had goats before you're probably asking why on earth do I want fir trees for the goats. There is something in the fir tree that is like a tonic for the goats and it helps in an easy pregnancy and delivery. I don't know if it's an old wives tale or fact, but my goat lady (the lady that sold me my first goat), kept having pregnancy problems with her goats, so someone told her about this and she tried it. She never had a problem again in 25 years. Whether it's coincidence or fact I don't know. But it can't hurt.

We went to the Parade of Lights last night. I'm posting a few photos of it. It was really nice, but really cold. J. was so excited to see Santa, he was beside himself. There was so many nice floats.

A frozen child.

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Even the reserves got in on the fun.

So cute!

This was a very colourful truck

And here's Santa and the Mrs on the firetruck.

Ok, it's now after supper and guess what????!!! It's raining! Grrrrr. Those poor hens are having a hard time getting a dry run. The pen is still dry and they're loving it. They're even sleeping on the floor! Isn't that just sad?

I'm back!!

Wow! That was one heck of a flu. But I'm back! I only have a cough left that I was told will last for a month or so. Even though I'm no longer contagious people look at you in a weird way when it sounds like your coughing up a lung.

So many things have been happening but at the same time it's almost not worth writing about.

The weather here is beautiful. It's nice and warm and sunny. Though we are also having our share of rain. On a few days it rained and rained and rained. Friday it was a complete downpour. The day started nice and sunny. The weather man did say it would rain, but there was not a cloud in the sky, I thought," You wing nut! It's not going to rain." WELL! Rain it did. At noon it clouded over and put Noah's flood to shame. I ran to my car and it's only a few dozen feet. I was soaked to the bone. Yuck! Cold rain. I put my bun warmer on high in the car. It felt good. ahhhhh.....

We got the last 4 meat kings done on Friday also. We had 7 left, but I think they died of heart attacks or something. But the time Friday showed up there were only 4 left. But they are big. Well for our family of 3, 6 lbs is big. We'll use those as turkeys. Like I've said before it was a hard year for meat birds. It's so discouraging.

Tomorrow I have to clean out the meat bird pen, the laying bird pen and the goats. It's going to be a long day!

I decided that I'm going to make my own Christmas cards this year. But I needed a photo of a goat with a Santa hat. Easier said than done. Whisper was petrified of the hat. So plan B....J. is going to wear the hat while he holds Whisper. Again easier said than done. It took 30+ photos to get one kinda good one. Thank goodness for digital cameras. The one I'm posting is not the one I'm going to use.

Tootsie came home yesterday full of fleas and hard grease. The vet was closed so I gave him a flea bath till tomorrow. It's going be cost a small fortune to deflea and deworm 4 cats. Ugh.

J. and I went to a Christmas tea today with my mom and aunt. It was nice. I like those kind of things.

My mom is on the left and my aunt Elizabeth is on the right. J. took the photo. He did a pretty good job.

Well I guess that's enough for today.

Have a blessed evening

Lisa

Just a thought.

Why do we use anti-bacterial hand sanitizers and soaps, yet colds and H1N1 are all viral.

Day 7....H1N1

I'm wondering if I'll be able to go to work Monday like I'm supposed to. I can barely walk from the couch to the bathroom.

If I don't go to work Monday I will be in humongabonga trouble. It's our annual ladies night and it's all hands on deck. NOBODY can be exempt. I wonder what they'll do when I show up with my sweaty night sweats and my 101F (which is still there) and mingle with the customers. Plus I have to bake something to feed to the ladies. Nice H1N1 germs in there. I think I'll ask my mom to make her famous fudge.

Why do they call them night sweats when they are all day long?

I woke up with the worse headache EVER (I've had some doosies) at 3am this morning brought on by excessive coughing. This is why my hair hurts. Between Extra strenght Advil for migraines and hot packs on my head it went away.

I still cannot sleep in our bed. I don't know why. I've tried extra pillows changing positions and nothing helps. After 2 hours of tossing and turning I just go down stairs and sleep on the couch, which I promptly fall asleep. Weird. Maybe it's God's way of not letting me get too close to Dave while I'm sick. So he doesn't get it also. Not that he wants to get close to my stinky self. Yuck.

I can't really write anything about the farm, because I have no clue what's going on. Dave has been doing everything. Needless to say, the housework has gone awry. I also keep thinking of one week of no pay. Not good. Whether I'm stinky or not, I have to get back to work.

H1N1....day 5

Well yours truly has caught the dreaded H1N1. It's not pretty. I went to the doctor yesterday and he confirmed it and I'm off work till next Monday. Not good. I have no sick days. So that means a week without pay. Ouch. I think that hurts more than the flu.

It really knocks you out. I am feeling better today. I still have a 102 fever tho. But at least I ate breakfast today. On the bright side I have lost 5 lbs!!

It's a strange flu, with strange symptoms one of them being disoriented. I'm bored out of my mind because I slept from Friday to Monday. My mom said go on the computer or watch TV. But I can't concentrate on anything more than 5 minutes. It's strange. I am having a hard time writing this blog. My cousin has it also and she said the same thing. Your eyes even have a hard time focusing.

Oh another positive note after I survive this I will be immune to it. At the speed the government is going with the vaccine, we'll all be immune to it. So they can save their money on the vaccine. Maybe that's their plan after all.

Well that's about all I can write for this morning.

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

Finally!!!!

This has been a weird heat for Febe. I think she's finally bred. It's taken 3 times, but tonight I can honestly say that I'm sure she was in heat. Not a false heat, not a hmmm....I wonder... heat. A real, freaking out-I-want-my-man-standing heat.

I milked her tonight, nothing unusual except a little slime, show her the buck rag and nothing but that's been nothing new this week. An hour later Dave goes in the barn to feed the pigs and comes back in saying "I think your goat's in heat". I'm thinking "not tonight honey I'm tired", sigh... I have so much to do tonight and I wanted to sit down and colour with J. I mean it's not like it's down the road. I....well...I mean "We" have to hook the trailer up and drive 30 minutes to get to the buck.

So I get in the barn and Dave has her on the milking stand. She is almost screaming (she's a blatter everyday anyway, but this was different), her tail was twirling so fast I thought she was going to take off like a helicopter! So I figured we might as well bring her to the buck. So in the meantime I put her back in the pen with Whisper. Well, poor thing...she just attacked that tiny goat! I'm thinking "Oh boy she is just beside herself, she must be in heat".

So off we go and she got her fix three times and she's happy now. So I'm assuming she's bred. I'll let ya know in 21 days.

I'm telling ya, these goats are going to be the death of me. Holy cow!

Well that's my exciting news of today.

Have a Blessed Evening.

Lisa

Common Sense

I received this email a few months ago and I just loved it. It is so true in today's society. So I thought I'd share it with the world. Feel free to pass it on.

An Obituary You Really Must Read.

An Obituary printed in the London Times - Interesting and sadly rather true.

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, *Common Sense*, who
has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was,
since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He
will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
- Why the early bird gets the worm;
- Life isn't always fair;
- and maybe it was my fault.

* Common Sense * lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend
more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children,
are in charge).
His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but
overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended
from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for
reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.
*Common Sense * lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the
job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.
It declined even further when schools were required to get parental
consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could
not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

*Common Sense * lost the will to live as the churches became businesses;
and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

*Common Sense * took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a
burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.
*Common Sense * finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed
to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.
*Common Sense * was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust,
by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.
He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers;
I Know My Rights
I Want It Now
Someone Else Is To Blame
I'm A Victim

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone

If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do
nothing.

What is it with animals...

What is it with animals? What goes on in their little brains? Am I the only one that wonders this?

Daisy will take a nice soft blanket and suck the living daylights out of it. Why?

One of my favourite pasttimes is watching the laying hens after I've cleaned their coop and added new shavings. You'd think they were at the health spa. Especially since they have to contend with a muddy, flooded run.

Another fun thing to do is to watch them with strands of speghetti. I truly believe that they think it's an earth worm. They'll grab a strand and run!! It's so funny.

Febe is feeling under the weather. She's crabby, pushing Whisper around and she's not eating well. I don't know if the trailer ride to her date put her in this mood. She's also got diarreah. I find that she's a goat that you have to watch what you feed her. The least little thing will put her off her feed. I don't think she's bred though. We missed church yesterday because I thought that she was in heat. I guess not. So she's been on a trailer ride twice in two days. Maybe that's why she's crabby.

We will be getting piglets in February. Charlotte was in heat yesterday, so Wilbur did his duty. It's cute to see them all together. They look like one little happy family.

I'm having issues with the tractor. I can never get that thing started. It turns, then dies. I have a trailer load of chicken poop to get rid of and no tractor to haul it with. So this means the goats have to wait to have their pen cleaned. It also means that I have to wait for Dave to get home to tell me one more time...."what do you do to this tractor?". Then he'll turn around and start the darn thing with one turn of the key. grrrrrr...

As you know, Tootsie, is doing great. We were going to keep him in the house for good. But he was not liking this decision. I was just afraid that since he couldn't jump anymore that he wouldn't be able to defend himself. Well he's been jumping on the cupboards, jumping on the bed, jumping on the table. So he's now jumping outside. He is so much happier now. He comes in the eat and take a nap and a cuddle and then he's off again. From what I've seen, he's made a full recovery.

Well I have to go and do some more work.

Have a Blessed day!

Lisa

Halloween and goats

Well today was quite the day.

It started when I went to milk Febe this morning before going to work. I did my duty and checked her butt to see if she was in heat and low and behold she was all slimy!!! So I called and woke up my friends (because they have the buck) to tell them that hubby would be dropping me off to work at 8am then swing by their place to have Febe bred.

Dave calls me back about and hour and a half later ( I should have known something went wrong, because bucks are not known for their foreplay. Slam bam thank you mam, kinda animals). Febe was NOT in heat. She refused the buck. He tried once but that was it. Grrrrrr. I'm so ticked off. I'm figuring it was a false heat. I'll check again. (back to my pervert ways) and if she comes back in heat in 7 days the first one was a false heat. If it's 21 days it was a real heat. If not at all, well...the buck was good.

At the beginning of the week Dave decided to put Wilbur in with Charlotte and the little ones, that aren't so little anymore. All is going well and they're all one big happy family. J. took a picture of them today. They are so cute.

We went trick or treating tonight also. J. got lots of loot. Yum!! Lots of KitKats. I luvvvv Kitkats! But it was very windy. It's been really warm tho.

Tonight we got back late from getting candy so when I popped in the barn to milk Febe imagine my surprise to see that Whisper is in heat! And I mean really in heat. I definately didn't need to check her bum. It was there for all the world to see. I thought she was way to small, but according to the books she's 75 lbs. I will wait till next month. Just to be sure.

It's been a strange day. Maybe it's because it's Halloween!

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

She's gone...

We put down Roxie this morning. I cried and cried and cried. I haven't cried that much in years. We all cried. J. cried this morning, but he put a stiff upper lip, got on the bus and went to school. He's braver than I am. I cried till 10 am this morning at work.

My head knows it was the right thing to do, but my heart doesn't agree.

I figure that J. will cry tonight when he goes to bed.

I figured I'd put a few photos of Roxie on here tonight.

Productive Day

I'm having one of those days. It was a very productive day. I cleaned the goat pen, put away 5 loads of laundry, washed 4 loads, went to the hairdresser, did the banking (which I hate), made a large batch of banana chocolate chip muffins, tied the raspberry canes, cleaned the greenhouse and collected the tomatoes, stripped the beds, brought J. his lunch at school since I forgot it, drove him to drum lessons 45 minutes away, carved 2 pumpkins AND made a large supper of glazed ham, mashed taters, spinach, carrots and corn for my family. Phew! I'm pooped. Now I'm finally sitting down to relax a bit.

We've had to make a horrible decision today. It's been a long time coming though. Our dog Roxie has been suffering from Acral something or another (a very long word). In other words, she eats her legs and won't stop. It's been three years, about 1500$ in medication and vets and nothing works. It's stopped for a little while and now it's started back with a vengeance. She's at it on three of her legs. Except for that, she is the perfect dog. So tomorrow she is going to the vet and not coming back. We haven't stopped crying yet. I think that's all I can write about this.

Last night we harvested all the pumpkins. I love pumpkins. I think next year I'll just plant pumpkins and sell them. I didn't think all that many grew. We could only see half a dozen or so, but when we got in the pumpkin patch, there was alot more than 6.

Dave noticed that there was still alot of cherry tomatoes in the greenhouse. So I took a picture of him stuffing his face with tomatoes. He said "how many people do you know that are still harvesting tomatoes on October 26th!" It was so hot yesterday, and today it was sunny, but cold and windy.

On our way to carve the pumpkins in the barn (saves on the mess in the house) I noticed that Wilbur looked so depressed. He was just sitting there in the muck. Poor thing. Oh well, take heart Wilbur, Dave is going to put you in with Charlotte in a few weeks.

One of the little pigs looked under the weather the last few days. Dave gave it a shot of Tylan. Around here they use it as a cure all for pigs. We don't use it often, but it does work. We try and do things as natural as possible, but there are sometimes you just have to use medication.

It has rained so much here in the last few weeks that Wilbur, the laying hens and Charlotte are flooded. Charlotte's pen isn't so bad, but Wilbur and the hens are. The hens look like they're in a health spa with a mud bath. tee hee.

J. and I carved two pumpkins after he came home from school. It was the first time I let him carve it by himself. With supervision of course. He did a good job.

I had to tie the raspberry canes today. They were falling over themselves. I actually ate a few. Some were still on the vine. I saw a few will be ripe in a few days. That's how weird our weather is down here this year. I mean, Febe is still not in heat. Strange. She should be by now. Watch her go into heat tomorrow night, because I'm going to make my first Epicure party tomorrow night.

Well that's it for tonight.

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa