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

Wet and Rainy day.

Brrr...it's been a cold, wet and rainy day. J. was still sick yesterday with a fever so Dave brought him to the doctor on call. He's got bronchitis. Maybe that's why he's so sick. He's better now. The medication worked well.

Dave finished the ramp to the barn yesterday also. So that's one less thing to do on the never ending list.

Today, since it was a crappy day I decided to make a chicken fricot. It's really just a chicken stew with dumplings made with rappie pie (that's another story on its own). It was just the day for it. Now I have a big problem, I have some till the cows come home. I can never make a small pot.

I also thought I'd make another stick to your ribs dessert. Blueberry Fungi! Or some other people they call it blueberry grunt. I think it's a Nova Scotia thing. It's really easy to make.

Just take a quart of blueberries, half a cup of water and sugar each. Cook till it's made lots of juice, then drop spoonfulls of dumpling mixture, not the the rappie pie one, another one into the blueberry stuff. Close the lid for 15 minutes and simmer and DON'T PEEK! Then Voila! You have blueberry fungi.

It was all good food, oh and fresh homemade bread from the local bakery. I don't make bread. It's a waste of perfectly good flour. I've tried before.

Dave told me not to post these photos. He said they wouldn't look to appetizing to someone that's not Acadian, but I'll take my chances.

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

Whisper!!

Well it's official. I finally got all the paperwork in the mail today!! Whisper is now officially "Spring Peeper Whisper". She's a registered Nubian! Woohoo! The first registered goat from "our" farm. I'm so proud.

J. is still sick. He started with a fever on Friday night. There's no fever in the morning but by 11a.m. or noon it kicks in and doesn't stop till it hits 102 F. Not good. Then Tuesday and Wednesday he had no fever all day and then today he came off the bus looking like the bus had run him over! Fever 101 F. The only other symptoms he's got is a bad cough and a few little sniffles. The cough is so bad that even using Calmilyn with codeine doesn't work. Tomorrow Dave is off and he's bringing him to the doctor on call. I really didn't want to bring him to the doctor any earlier because there are so many people in the waiting rooms with worse things than he's got and I don't want him catching it! I want to be here for him tomorrow, but I can't . Blasted work! I have to work from 8 am to 8:30 p.m. because our Christmas Dreamland is opening tomorrow night. I hate working nights and weekends with a passion. My evenings and weekends are for my family. But when working in retail people don't seem to care that you have a private life. I'm very lucky in the sense that my boss goes to the same church I do and doesn't beleive in working Sundays! Thank goodness for small miracles.

Oh well. Such is life. What I would give to be a stay at home farm mom with enough money to live comfortably. Sigh.... Well I can dream can't I?!

Well it's time to go beddy bye.

Lisa

Gus

This is the part about farming I don't like. Gus our steer, is gone to the big deep freeze in the sky. Or at least the one in our basement. Sigh.... Dave brought Gus to the slaughter house today. We should get him back in a week and a half. I guess they have to hang in the cooler for that long. Something I never knew till a few months ago.

Dave brought home the liver, tongue and heart. The liver (which is huge! This I didn't realize) is going to my mom's. They love liver. Yuck! I've never been able to eat liver and my mom has never forced me to eat it either. When she was pregnant with me she had very low iron so the doctor told her to just sear the liver in the frying pan. Chew the liver, swallow the blood and spit the liver out!!!Ack! They didn't have iron pills in those days. So my mom always figured my repulsion to liver was because of that. Strangely enough, she still loves it. Weird.

But I digress... I don't know if my parents realize how big the liver is. The heart is going to my aunt's and Dave wants to keep the tongue. I flatly REFUSE to eat the tongue!! I cannot eat something that just a few months ago was licking and sucking my HAIR!!! Sorry it cannot be done.

Dave just got back from my parents. My mom didn't realize how big a beef liver was.

I have no problem with eating the chickens. They are just stupid. Meat kings have had their brains bred out of them, that's my opinion anyway, like the desire to brood.

Pigs, well you cannot really cuddle a pig. They're cute when their little, but then they get fat. You feel bad for a little while, but then the porkchops are pretty good on the BBQ and then you forget about the pig. It's just good.

But look at that face. Can you ever forget that face? Dave says when we slap on the T-bones on the BBQ in 2 weeks I'll forget all about Gus.

We'll just have to wait and see....

Have a blessed evening.

Lisa

This and that

J. has been sick for the last few days with a fever. Nothing else. Just a fever. Strange. This has happened before. It's hard to know what to do. Do you send him to school or don't you? I'll have to wait till tomorrow and see. The school and daycare policy is that if they have a fever they are to stay at home. If they have a cold or whatever, then they can come to school. Such a stupid rule.

Dave is bringing in the firewood. The photo btw, is of this summer when Dave was splitting the wood.

I decorated to Halloween and made pumpkin whoopie pies. Sooo good. We did go to church this morning because we were doing a special. We sang "God's bigger than that" Everyone liked it. One of my worship leaders told me that she will no longer be leading worship for the forsee able future. She is busy. She handles Sunday school and also sings. So it makes her run around like a chicken with her head cut off on Sunday mornings. So I see her point. I've been in that boat before. Taking more than you can chew. Now I have to find someone else. I'll have to take up the slack for a while though.

Febe is still not in heat. I got her and Whisper Squeezy buns. They love them! They're made by a company called Uncle Jimmy. They also make Hanging Balls. Which in turn are called Uncle Jimmy's Hanging balls. It makes you wonder where Uncle Jimmy's mind is!? Don't you think? hmmm. All these products are made for horses, but I checked the ingredients and they're all safe for goats too. I haven't got the balls yet. They are just too expensive.

It was nice enough to put the goats in the pasture today. It's been raining most of the week so they've been stuck in the barn. They were getting cabin fever.

Speaking of barn. Dave has finally finished the barn. Well almost. This is good.

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

Thanksgiving Day.

Last night we had our "End of Harvest" Bonfire. It wasn't a good night to do it since most people were at home with their families for thanksgiving and it was last minute. Only a few people showed up, but that was fine. We had fun anyway. It was cold though. Brrrr.

We gave a small tour of the farm to the ones that had never been here. The goats were all ready to say Hi!

This morning I cleaned the chickens but I couldn't get the tractor to start. So I have to wait for hubby to come home and start it. The goats will have to wait till tomorrow for a clean pen.

I also harvested most of the grapes. I have alot and I didn't get the ones on the top of the arbor yet. I make grape jelly. It's so good. Most people want me to make wine, but it's against our religion to drink alcoholic beverages so grape jelly is just as good.

I'm making a roast chicken, potatoes, carrots and corn for supper. Oh and stuffing. For dessert pumpkin pie. It should all be yummy!

For all those wondering what Wampoo is I'm posting a photo. I've never seen a store bought game before. This one Dave made for us after he took the pattern off a friend's game that he had made for his family.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

Is she, or isn't she?

It's that time of the year again. Is Febe in heat, or isn't she? Every day, twice a day, I check. Not the nicest thing to do, looking at a goat's butt, but it has to be done. I can't tell by just looking at her. Maybe in twenty years from now I'll be able to tell, but for now I'll just have to keep looking at a goat's butt. They say that one way to tell is if they're more vocal. Well Febe is vocal all the time, so that doesn't help. So I'll just keep looking at the butt. I don't think that Whisper will be ready to breed this year. That'll be one less butt to look at for this year anyway. Phew... thank goodness.

We had a family day today. We packed up and went to the cattle sale. The piglets were going really low. Around 25$ each. Good for the buyer, not good for the seller. We brought our last piglet to sell but we brought her back home. We refused to sell her for less than 60$. One of our buyers backed out of the deal we had and we were able to sell one of their piglets but not the other one.

We met a nice couple that's just as crazy as we are. Maybe a bit crazier. They have 20 goats!!!Ack!!But we drove to their house after the auction.( No we weren't stalking them, they gave us directions to their house) We stayed there for 2 hours just chatting outside. J. was ready to go home after 10 minutes!

We were supposed to have our "End of Harvest Bonfire" for the church tonight. Well it rained and rained and rained some more this morning and most of the afternoon. So we had to cancel it. It seems like we had to cancel everything because of the rain this year.

My parents came over tonight to play "Wampoo". Oh man, we laughed so hard. It's fun to have a laugh so hard it hurts your sides, your eyes are all teary and you just about pee your pants.

Have a Blessed Evening.

Lisa

Drum!

We drove to Halifax yesterday to watch the show Drum! We brought J. with us. It was the first time he had been to a live theater show. We all LOVED,LOVED,LOVED it!!!! Just go on Facebook and type it in groups. It was fantabulous!! I cannot say enough.

It's about 4 cultures (Acadian, Aboriginal, Black and Celts) coming together with music. Their history, their trials and tribulations through out the centuries. With of course drums being the main part of the show.

It's been raining so much these last few days I thought we needed an ark. My land!!Phew. Last week one day it rained almost a foot in less than a few hours. Then the sun came through like nothing happened. We have such strange weather here.

It was the harvest moon last night and according to old wives tales and the news, if you haven't had a frost yet, you're safe till next full moon. So I guess I'm safe till then. Because I haven't had a frost yet!!YAY!!! My pumpkins will be safe for a while longer.