Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The New Goat House!!!


Oh my goodness!! I am so excited. Dave a.k.a Red Green made me a goat house.

You have to admit, it is an original. And it cost a total of 14$!!! Everybody wants to get rid of all those old satellite dishes and the farmer up the road had that feeder in the field that he wasn't using. He even brought it down for us. Then it only cost for the bolts to put it together.

Now it will need a coat of paint to stop it from rusting more, but other than that, it's perfect for a day shelter for the goats.

The weather here is so unpredictable. They can say sunshine for the next 3 days and that afternoon it will downpour. I hated leaving the goats outside while I wasn't here to bring them back inside in case it rained, but I had no choice. Now they have a place to go to eat and have a lick of salt without being in the rain.

I'm sooo excited!! Can you tell! :)

Lisa

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Ducks, clotheslines and Victoria Day weekend.

The following picture is now off limits for me. I have been told by my hubby to not use it for awhile. Oh I miss it. But it falls off it's track at the other end and when that happens Dave has to climb on top of the barn and then put a ladder on the roof of the barn to reach the wheel and the clothes that have gotten stuck up there. Not the most ideal situation. I don't really want my hubby breaking his neck for a few clothes.

Well Otis went to the big pasture up the road last week. Dave actually walked him there. A friend of ours actually stopped and said, "Aren't you supposed to walk your dog? Not your cow?" Dave said, "I don't have a dog, so the calf will do."


Otis actually found a friend in the pasture. That night we went to visit him and he actually made friends with a larger Holstein in the pasture. It was kinda cute, since all the rest of the cattle were what I call meat cattle and a few Jerseys. But there was only one other Holstein in the bunch and they became friends. I wonder if cattle are prejudice? Ha ha.

Pretty soon people are going to start calling me the crazy cat lady. We have a new addition to our cat family. It's not by choice. She kinda adopted us. This pretty stray has been eating the barn cat's cat food for months now and she's decided to become a bit friendlier. Well really it's amazing what a determined 9 year old and a couple of bags of cat treats can accomplish. So that means we now have 5 cats. Ugh.


Dave went to the cattle sale a few weeks ago and sold the twins. Sniff, sniff...But we cannot keep them all. I didn't get much for them either. Bummer. 66$ for 2 twin goats. Not good.

But while Dave was there he thought that he'd surprise us with a treat. So please meet our 3 new ducks. Or as I call them, "Supper for the wild minks". One has a bum leg, but you can't get with 20 feet of them. They are really petrified of humans. Hmmmm.... I wonder if a few bags of cat treats and a determined 9 year old would work on them?


In Canada this past weekend was Victoria Day weekend. It was a gorgeous weekend. I was off work!!!YIPPEE for me! J. and I did some gardening.


Well I have so much to blog, but it's going to have to wait for another post. I am having so many problems with blogger that it's now an extreme pain to blog.

I cannot move my photos around on my post, so I have to save everything, open a new post, copy and paste the body of the post to the new post, then copy and paste the photos to the exact spot I want them in the new post. So I'm doing all my work twice. NOT FUN!!!! It's almost as bad as trying to make cheese! Which I'm trying to do again tonight. Yes, I am a sucker for punishment.

Have a blessed Evening
Lisa

Monday, May 24, 2010

Cheese Making 101

Ok, I have milk coming out of the ying yang so I decided to try my hand at cheese making again.

So here it goes.....

Rule number 1


Don't call me!!! I can't make cheese worth *%$%!@#!~!!!! (that's the closest I'll ever get to swearing)

Rule number 2

If you call me for advice on cheese making, this is the advice that I'll give you.

"Get in your car and drive to the nearest supermarket! It's cheaper, easier and faster. AND you'll actually get cheese!"


That's all I have to say about that.


Lisa

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Wharf Cats


One of the Mamas


I thought that I'd blog about something that is close to my heart.

Living in Nova Scotia, close to the ocean is just wonderful. I tried living away from the ocean a long time ago, but I missed it so much I moved back. I do live inland, but it takes a total of a 3 minute drive and I'm on the beach.

That said, there are bad things here also. Wharf cats. There are hundreds of wharves in the area and some people think that it's just fine to dump unwanted cats and kittens on the wharf. They think that they'll have all sorts of food to eat. Rats, mice, fish etc.... This is just a cruel practice. People are getting more responsible for their pets, but some people are still down right mean.

Some people say, "If you want to get rid of them, just poison them or shoot them." I don't think so. That's just nasty and they populate so fast that when one dies, there's another five to take that ones place. Plus if the male cats are gone and can't defend their territory, other males will come and take over. The cycle starts all over again.

Several years ago my uncle retired from his job. He noticed all these feral cats on the wharf. These poor things were starving, stunted and inbred. Some were fullgrown, but looked like kittens, with short legs. He began feeding them and building little houses for them. He told my mother, who in turn started telling other people. Then it just snowballed from there. There is now a Clare Feral Cat society.




A very scared cat

They raise funds to buy food for the cats, build more shelters, buy live traps, get the females spayed etc... They need the live traps to catch the females to bring them to the vet.


Another Mama protecting her brood.

When they find kittens that are weaned, they take them away and get them adopted out. Most of these cats are now actually semi-tame. You can't pick them up, but they will let you pet them. Some are still extremely wild.


Mama going for food.

J. and I went to visit the cats. We checked the houses and we found 2 litters of kittens. They were just a few days old and extremely cute. I took a few photos, but we didn't stay long because it was freezing out and starting to rain. We'll go check on them again next week.


J. checking the condos


Cuties!!


Well I have to go. It's been a long day at work and I have goats calling my name for feed.

Have a Blessed Day.
Lisa



Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Sick goats and fishing time!

We had a sick goat on our hands this week. I mean really sick, like -have-to-call-the-vet-but-don't-really-want-to-because-it's-going-cost-a-fortune-sick!

It all started Saturday morning when I checked on the little darlings. I noticed that Esme's hind legs and tail were soaked. I looked around and noticed a large wet spot on the floor, it didn't look like diarrhea but you never know with goats.. I figured she just ate too much grass and had diarrhea. I left her in the barn for the day and didn't think much more about it.

Sunday morning when I checked on the critters I noticed spots of blood on the floor. I looked at her bum and noticed blood coming out of her vagina. Now was the time to panic! But she was acting normal, eating normal and I checked her temp and that was normal. I was completely confused. So Dave and I gave her a shot of Pen-G (penicillin) as a precaution. Needless to say, she was not amused to have a needle in the back of her leg. I still kept her in for the day and kept a close eye on her. What I was afraid of also, "was it contagious?"

Monday I called the vet in Middleton, since they specialize in goats. They were baffled. We talked for awhile trying to figure out what was the problem, but to no avail. The only thing they could figure out was maybe she had a varicose vein in her vaginal wall that had busted and it was bleeding. It would rectify itself. They had never seen it in goats, only in horses, but anything is possible. So she told me to deworm her and give her the Pen-G for a few more days and keep a close eye on her. Then 5 minutes later the vet called me back and said, "I was thinking more about this and even though this usually just happens in Oct or Nov, Esme might be having a pseudo-pregnancy. She's young and confused so she might have thought that she was pregnant. They usually have alot of mucous that discharges when they think they should give birth then have bleeding for a few days."

So my goat thinks she was preggers! What next. I checked her tonight and no blood. Completely clean. Hopefully it stays that way.


My first catch of the season!

So the rest of the week involved fishing for the first time this season. We all went to a river not far from our house. We each caught a pickeral. We are a catch and release kinda family, so off they went back into the river.


J. very excited!

Monday afternoon I cleaned out the greenhouse again and planted my tomatoes. I'm hoping it won't get too cold at night. It's been pretty hot the last few weeks.


My clean greenhouse. I gave up on the middle part.

The blackflies are out with a vengeance. They are hungry and plentiful. The mosquitoes shouldn't be too far off. Shudder...


Father and son

Sunday I actually had a few minutes (very few) to sit in my favourite spot.


My favourite chair. It might look strange but it's ohhh so comfortable.

It's been so dry that our little pond is going dry and my poor little tadpoles are getting a smaller, very smaller little pool.


Tadpoles. Little fish in a very little pond and getting smaller by the minute.

Since it's spring our very plentiful poplar trees are leaving little cling-ons everywhere. You can't get rid of the darn things! And they stain the clothes also. The cats are not happy with them either. Febe has some all over her beard and Shadow has some all over his butt. The photo doesn't do Shadow's cling-ons justice.


Shadow and the clingons!

This ugly part of the old barn used to be the pig pen. Needless to say it is full of nice composted pig poop! Lots of it. So we (Dave) are going to clean it up and it's going to become my pumpkin patch for my giant pumpkins!! Imagine the big pumpkins that will evolve from that poop! Ohhhhh yeaaaah.


The pumpkin patch in the making.

When you think you've seen everything on a farm, you see something else that makes you go "hmmmmm". A few days ago I went into the chicken coop to gather the eggs. The two roosters had kicked out the hens and were sleeping together in the nest. No, no don't even go there.

Well have a blessed day!
Lisa