It's Spring! It's Spring!!!

Sunday Feb 28, 2010

Except for the mud and blackflies, I just love spring. It's a time of birth and renewal. Speaking of births, Charlotte gave birth to 11 little piglets yesterday. All by herself. See, they don't need our help.

Charlotte and the cuties.

Dave left for work early that morning. (so what else is new) He told me that she was going to farrow that day sometime since she was very antsy. J. and I had some errands to do so we left for a few hours and when we got back, there was 11 little bundles of joy! They were all nursing contently. This morning though, it seems like there is one that won't make it. He must just have been weak I don't dare go see in the barn. Dave will take care of that. Anyway. If he has passed, I can't reach him anyhow and there is no possible way I am going in there with her. Uh uh. No way Jose! Not this chickie. If there is one thing I have learned in these last few seasons with the animals, is that pigs are extremely, excessively possessive mothers. Chickens, goats, cattle etc... do not hold a candle to pigs. Mind you it's different taking a little chick from a 3 lb mother, than taking a piglet from an almost 600 lb sow! Think about it, a pig is the only animal that we eat that given half a chance, would eat us back!

Well I got my seed order in the mail last week. I actually controlled myself. Phew! It was tough. Dave had already passed through it and marked off what he think we needed. It came to about 30$. Then I went through....

The order came to 96$. Egad! So I cut back on a few things. It came to 80$. So I cut again. Everytime I cut something out, it's like cutting off one of my fingers. Sigh! Ok, well not really but I just want to grow everything!!! Needless to say I don't have the time, money and land to grow all I want to grow. It's just NOT FAIR!!! So then I cut again and the final total was 76$.

It was a strange day all around. First Charlotte gave birth then I figured I'd let the goats out for a few hours, since most of the snow is gone so that means I can get to the gate.

The girls trying to figure out what Dave is doing.

First I have to say that Febe and Whisper have never escaped. I don't even have to put the fence on most of the time. Well guess what!? I can't do that with the famous new escape artist, formerly known as Esme!

I put them in, stayed there for a while, then went in. As we were eating supper, I found that the "memmmm!!!"s were getting kinda loud. I looked on the front lawn and there were 3 goats. Not good. Esme showed the other 2 ones how the escape. Nice of her.

But then Dave said, " Didn't you forget that the fence had let go on the other end of the pasture? That means that it's shorted out somewheres."

Oh.

So hubby and son fixed the fence and the goats stayed in. Fancy that! Amazing what can 7 strands of electric fence can do!

Eggs..Eggs...and more eggs!

I fired up the incubator last week. It's more than full. 53 eggs! I'm going for genetic diversification. Big words for a French Acadian woman! I really don't know if it's a real term. But it sounds good. Really I'm incubating some of my hen's eggs and 2 other friend's eggs. Well not their eggs, but their hen's eggs. Then I'll have created a genetically diversified flock! Doesn't it sound so professional and scientific.

March 2, 2010

Well I started this blog 2 days ago and I'm still not done. Time just flies by. I just can't beleive how the hours pass by in a day. I need more time!!!

Yesterday started like a nice day. By evening things went from very good to very, very bad. Let's just put it this way...I'm fine but my car is not. After I dropped J. off at drum lessons, I figured I'd go get his birthday gift at Walmart. Well I made a left turn on a green light and got smucked in the rear passenger door. The guy was flying, but because I didn't have a flashing green I'm in the wrong. They can't prove he was speeding.

But when I looked to turn he was far enough away. So I had more than enough time to make it. Guess not.

So I don't really want to talk about it anymore. Like Forrest Gump would say... That's all I have to say about that.

Pigs UNDER a blanket!

Tonight Dave and I gave the piglets their go over. Within 5 days of birth, they need their iron shots, wolf teeth cut and anti biotic shot. That's all we do to them. They don't like the dentistry but they don't even peep when you give them their shots. I also took this year's Christmas card photo while we had them away from mama.

Tootsie trying to figure out what's going on.

Dave doing the vet thing.

Oh, on a sad note. That one piglet that I said looked like he wasn't going to make it ... didn't make it.

Well that's about it for this time. Really it's enough.

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

Short blog

I'm so excited! I have a new computer. It's a laptop and I'm finding it hard to type. I'm spending more time hitting the backspace button than I am the keys. It's so annoying.

Well Charlotte was due 3 days ago and we are still awaiting the piglets. That's why I haven't blogged in so long. I've just been waiting to say everything in one blog.

So all I have to say, is "Stay tuned folks!"

Lisa

My mailbox was murderized!

La Mailbox.

It is with deep regret that I must announce the passing of our mailbox. We believe...NO! We know that it was murderized! She met her untimely death last week late in the evening. She was so young (only a yearling) and full of mail, egg money and flyers. She served us and Canada Post well. She will be sadly missed....

Ok, on a serious note. Why oh why must the department of transportation kill our mailboxes? Do they take some kind of sick pleasure in seeing how many they can decapitate in one night? I think that each department has a betting pool at their garage to see who has the best average that night/day. Hmmmm? What do you think?

We have had problems with this before. I mean..come on..we do live in the country. We had also had problems with vandals. So we splurged last year because this one was supposed to be vandal and snowplow resistant. I guess they didn't take into account a snowplow backing into the mailbox!!!! Yes, you read correctly. They backed into it!!! I am so ticked off!

It all started with all the snowfall we've had this year. We live on a hill and after awhile there is no more place to put the snow, so the plow will come late at night and move it out of the way. I have no problem with this. Well on this particular morning, Dave got in the propane truck and drove to the end of the driveway. When he got to the end of the driveway he thought,"Hmmm.... Something looks kinda strange?" But he couldn't put his finger on what the problem was. He got out of the truck to investigate and noticed that the head of our mailbox (it's supposed to be all one moulded piece) was in the neighbour's driveway and our garbage bin, which weighs a ton and was frozen to the ground, had been moved!?!?!?! His first thoughts were that someone had crashed into it. But there were no tire marks. When he told me this I said ,"Didn't you hear the plow last night? It was moving the snow." That's when the lightbulb in his head went off and he figured out that it had backed into our mailbox and garbage bin.

But what really irks me is that the D.O.T. is not responsible for mailboxes! Huh? Why not? I mean if I went to their place and "accidently" or accidently hit their vehicles or their buildings and caused damage wouldn't I be responsible for my actions? Why are they above the law? I have to make sure that my mailbox meets all the requirements of Canada Post so it's not too high or too low or too in or too out. So I follow the rules but the D.O.T. is exempt? I think not! It's not fair!

Esme, can you tell that the electric fence was off.

Well enough about that. Esme is fitting in well with Whisper. They are now best buds. I'm so glad. Febe is still not happy with her, but they aren't in the same pen. I did put them out last week on a nice sunny day. They were all together and Febe was aggressive towards Esme, but not too bad. When they get to go outside more often it'll get better. That day I also enjoyed watching the cats Shadow and Tootsie play/fighting in the old apple tree.

Tootsie and Shadow, duking it out.

Febe doing what she does best...eat!

We went to a Valentine's Day potluck at the church on Sunday night. We played games and had way too much to eat. We also played a version of the dating game. It was more "Try and guess which is your wife." Dave and I were the guinea pigs and guess what? After asking all those questions, he still couldn't pick me out of 3 women. But to give the guy credit, the questions were very, very vague. Things like "Do you like salty or sweet?" Well come on! Most women like sweet.

We were also supposed to draw a valentine's picture on the table clothes. This is Dave's. Typical. You know you're a redneck when...

Dave's work of art.

The evening ended with picture taking. I got our "official photographer" to take one with my camera. She had to take a few since in the first ones she didn't have to "anti-riboulle" feature on. Anti-riboulle is a feature that all cameras should have. It's Acadian French for the skinny feature on your camera. Unfortunately it doesn't always work. Like most of the time. It's strange that it works better for some people more than others.

Have a Blessed Day!

Lisa

Esme

I have been trying to get at this computer now since last Monday! It's been a crazy week. This is actually the first time I get to sit and write something longer than changing my status on Facebook.

Monday night was drum lessons, Tuesday night - Bible Study, Wednesday night they had a movie night at the school, Thursday night was Awana, Friday night friends came over, Saturday I worked and the laundry was piled so high I needed a helicopter to get to the top!

Well, let me get to the main subject of today's blog. Esme.

If someone would have told me 3 years ago that I would drive 2.5 hours, ONE WAY, on a cold, freezing, windy, snowy Sunday...I would have told them they were nuts. Wrong gal!

If someone would have told me 6 months ago, that I would be bringing said goat in the backseat of my car! I would have promptly corrected them and said "No farm animals in my Jetta!"

Well, how we all change. I am the perfect example of that old saying "Never say never."

We have been on the hunt for another Alpine. My goal is to have 2 milking Alpines. I was just going to save one of Febe's doelings this spring for myself. Then Dave, in all his worldly wisedom said to me, "Where are you going to get the doeling bred? You can't bring it to Kenny's buck to be bred since that's her dad. Other than that, the closest Alpine buck is over 3 hours away!"

Oh sugar boogers!

So that's why we are on the hunt for an Alpine doeling. Well we found one! She's the sweetest thing. 9 months old and all black with a few white spots on her head. BUT...she was also 2.5 hours away! So off we went towards New Germany to pick up Esme. It was actually a very nice trip other than the weather. I do beleive that the area is deer capital of Nova Scotia. I have never seen so many deer in one area. They were all so calm and majestic. It actually seemed like they wanted us to take their photos.

So we got to the Griffin's place in record time. I must say, that they were super nice people. We chatted a bit, but had to leave if we were ever to get home.

This was my first look at Esme and it was love at first sight!

We had decided ahead of time that we were not going to bring the trailer for several reasons.

-Uses double the gas

-It's huge for one little, tiny goat

-It's freezing out!!!We would have had a goat-cicle by the time we would have gotten home.

Esme and I getting ready to go in the car.

So we put the back seat down, put 3 very thick,old blankets on the seat and hoped for the best. I have read many places that a goat that is laying down will not pee or poop. Well we put that to the test. It must be true. She stayed clean and so did my car! The car was a bit smelly, but hopefully the smell will go away in a few days.

Getting home and she didn't want to come out!

Esme is a cute goat, but she's also an escape artist. We decided that we were going to isolate Febe since she is preggers and put Esme and Whisper together. They are close to the same size and age, so if they were going to duke it out at least it would be fair. We put them together, but what happened next we would never have expected it. Whisper just effortlessly hopped out of the pen into Febe's! They've never done that. I just couldn't believe my eyes. So we put her back in with Esme. Then Esme jumped out! We thought that the walls were tall enough. I guess not. So Dave had to do some quick modifying. Now it seems like they're living in a prison cell. Hopefully when they go outside and blow off some steam we'll be able to take down the bars in the cell.

Kind of panicking in her new home.

Whisper decided that she was going to be the "big" girl. She pulled back those airplane ears of her's and just went after Esme. Then Esme started to literally run up the walls. After a little while everyone calmed down and tonight when I gave them their supper they seemed alot calmer and nicer to each other.

The new jail.

Hopefully things will calm down in a few days.

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa