Squishiness!!!

J. and Oreo

Sweet Azelle

Last week it was so cold that we were wondering if spring would ever show up!

Then the rains began...and continued....and continued....and are still continuing! Monday was actually a beautiful day. It was the only beautiful day we've had in FOREVER!

On the up side going to the barn makes a wonderful squishy sound.

May 6, 2011

I have been trying to get to this blog now for a week or more and I can't seem to find the time.

Easter has been here and gone. It was nice. We had a nice service at church. We even formed a small choir for the day. My mom made a nice glazed ham.

Annual Easter photo. My baby is growing up!

I took our annual Easter photo with J.. He got that bunny for Easter when he was 3 weeks old. So every year I take his photo with it. The first year, the bunny was holding him! Now he's holding the bunny.

Cindi Lou was due on the Saturday before Easter. Well she waited till the next Friday while I was at work.

Half way there!

Dave called me at work. This is how the conversation went,

Dave: "You'd better come home NOW! "

Me: "Why? What's wrong?"

Dave:" I think you're goat is having her baby and I don't know if what's going on is normal."

Me:" Ok, I'm gone!"

I literally flew home. In the 3 years or so that I've had goats, I've yet to see a goat birth. I have no clue what is normal and what isn't.

I'm Out! I'm Out!

So after a tense 2 hours and several phone calls to our pastor (no, not for prayers, he used to be a dairy farmer) and lots of crying (me and her) Cindi Lou gave birth to a bouncing baby boy! We knew she was only having one. We named him Prince William since he was born on the day of the Royal Wedding.

Oreo wondering what all the commotion is about?

Azelle thinks it was much ado about nothing.

Ok, If I don't get all the attention here soon, I'm not going to be impressed!

We have three new critters to the farm. Three sweet kittens. Two black ones and Dave picked up another one last week. He's a tiger striped. The black ones are called Sylvester and Junior and the other one is Tigger. Don't forget, it's a 10 year old that named them.

Sylvester! Or is it Junior?

Febe has been giving us so much milk that we don't know what to do with it. I had been milking her once a day since the kids are only nursing from one side. So one goat is actually supplying two kids, a family and a bottle fed calf and I still have a fridge full of milk!

But the last few days I've been noticing that her milk had a pink tinge to it. Yesterday was really bad and really nasty. It smells normal and tastes normal, but it's really ewwy knowing that you're drinking blood. Yuck.

We called the vet this morning. He figures that she's burst a blood vessel in her udder. It's nothing serious but we have to milk her at least 3 times a day and take the kids away from her and bottle feed them. This is going to be fun. Not. It's going to be crazy around here.

Well it's bed time.

Have a Blessed Evening.

Lisa

A week in photos.

It's been a busy week!

Dave has rebuilt the stalls. They are now 3 even sized stalls. A lot better for the goats.

The new stalls.

He also went to the cattle sale last Saturday. He found me a nice buggy for bringing my bales of hay or what have you around. It's in excellent shape.

My cattle sale find.

Then Sunday evening we had a pre-Easter service. We had a few people from other churches come and sing also. Becky and Chris sang from our church.

Chris and Becky.

They sang beautifully. Gave me goosebumps.

This cross actually survived the church fire.

Well I know that Cindi Lou is due this weekend, but honestly, does this goat look pregnant to you? Nope. If she has a baby I'll eat my shirt. But who knows? She's not even showing signs of kidding. No pawing the ground, no nesting, no jitters. Nothing, nada.

Is she? or Isn't she?

Febe was due on the 21st and she actually gave birth on the 21st! That's a first! She's always late. So she had a girl and a boy. The girl is small, so I've been supplementing her a bit. We named the boy Oreo. The girl is Spring Peeper Azelle Marie. The reasoning behind this name is simple.

Lunch time!

An elderly friend of my mom's was not well. So I told her that I'd name a goat after her. She was thrilled. Then she passed away a few weeks ago. Azelle Marie was her name.

Spring Peeper Azelle Marie

Azelle looks like a mini donkey. She's a sweetie. Oreo, well, he just has weird markings.

Oreo!

We've also been on the hunt for new barn cats. Well we found 2 brothers. J. named them Sylvester and Junior. Really original. Honestly it's hard to tell them apart. Junior has one white toe on his back leg.

I think we're kinda cute!

Can you tell who's who?

J. got a gift from grandpa for Easter. A pellet gun. It's pretty cool. I wasn't too keen on it at first. We're not really a gun family.

Well, it might be spring but man it doesn't feel like it. I have yet to put clothes on the line. It's too cold! The temps are not bad, but the wind is biting. It's bitterly cold. If the wind would die down it wouldn't be too bad. We're still making fire in the furnace like if it was January for crying out loud!

The eggs in the incubator didn't make it. Two hatched but the chicks would die soon after. I don't know what the scoop was on that. They were a week late in hatching. I don't know if at one time the temp dropped in the incubator and I didn't notice. But it's all very discouraging.

I hope you liked the week in photos. Well that's what it seemed like anyway.

Have a Happy Easter and a Blessed day!

Lisa

Teddy

The last week we've noticed that Teddy had scours. We didn't realize how bad. I'm not sure but I think we gave him too much milk. Anyway we gave him anti-biotics, dewormed him and gave him electrolytes.

But even with all we did, he passed away last night. When Dave went to feed them this morning, Teddy was curled up in the corner, gone.

Moocher is lost. He's lost his buddy. He keeps bawling for him. It just breaks my heart. I don't think I'll ever get used to losing an animal. It's different when they are sent away to be ...well..you know... but when they're in your care and depend on you for their welfare it's different. Unless you're raising animals it's hard to describe.

Tonight we went to see Dave given an award for volunteering. We were so proud of him. It was for his work in the Fire Department.

My hubby! The tall handsome dude in the uniform.

Every year our community gives a banquet to all the volunteers of the area. It's nice to have them recognized.

Well that's it for tonight. Just a short post. Short and Sweet.

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

Acadian Pickers!

Yesterday was such a beautiful day! Such a tease since we're having rain and wind at the moment. AND....we're expecting rain and wind till the weekend coming up. Oh I'm so not impressed!

Oh well...eventually we'll have nice weather.

After we got back from church yesterday, J. and I decided to go exploring. First he practiced on his, what I call, "A mother's nightmare". He's learning well. Dave is training him to drive it sensibly, BUT accidents still happen.

A mother's nightmare

Anyway, I digress.

Back in the day (don't you just love that saying) they didn't have municipal dumps or garbage trucks passing every week to pick up your garbage. Soooooo....instead they just threw everything in the woods or their own little dump.

It might seem like a bad thing now, but then it was the norm.

Now it makes for an interesting afternoon. Amateur archeology.

American Pickers, Acadian style!

J. had a ball. He had my gloves on and started digging. Mostly broken bottles and rusted out buckets, but to him treasures.

We did find some nice bottles and one weird item. It looked like a buoy. Today I asked Dave, "what do you think this thing is?"

He said, "It's a toilet tank floater."

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our wonderful finds including the toilet float.

And here we thought we had a cool and unusual find! We thought we were just like the American Pickers. I guess not. J. would pull out an old bucket and say ,"I'll give you 50 bucks!" Dave would yell out SOLD!

It was so funny.

Oh! Remember the carrots I left over winter? Well here they are. The tops a mushy, but the goats love them.

Dave did some recreational tilling yesterday also. Doesn't that nice black earth just scream, PLANT ME! PLANT ME!

Oh yes it does.

This weekend was my first hockey free weekend since last October! Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty I'm free at last!!!

Ok that might be a bit dramatic, but after spending all my weekends either at various hockey rinks or working AND various hockey rinks freezing my buttocks off we deserve a break. Well till next October anyway.

Have a Blessed day

Lisa

And then there was two....

This time last year we had 5 cats. Now we have 2. We only have one in the house now. Binoo. Daisy is gone. She chewed her last electrical cord. That's all I have to saw about that.

Outside we had Shadow, Tootsie and Duke. Now we only have Duke. What happened to the other ones will remain a mystery. Again, we figure coyotes. Now that we have Tundra we don't see them on the property as much anymore, but the cats don't stay on the property. They like going in the woods. That's where the problem lies. The coyotes are just pacing and waiting to come on our land. Dave heard them yesterday morning and they were close. I heard one after supper. It's still light out. They don't wait for darkness anymore.

Febe giving me some lip and the evil eye!

Today Dave was a busy little beaver. He remodeled the goat pen. It used to be one big one and one tiny one. Now it's three regular size ones. Febe wasn't letting Cindi Lou eat enough so something needed to be done. I was also concerned when the kids were born. Was Febe going to be aggressive towards Cindi's kids. Hmmmm...yup. So this will be better. I moved them tonight. Tommy is freaked out, and Febe is not a happy camper. Cindi Lou is happier than pig in slop! Or happier than a goat in a briar patch! She can eat what she wants, when she wants, as fast or as slow as she wants! Happy goat!

One happy Cindi Lou, ready to eat to her little heart's desire.

We got two calves for our winter beef. We've been bottle feeding them like we did last year. We were only going to have one, but Dave had called two dairies. One called and we picked up calf number one. He was huge! Then three days later the other dairy calls. So Sunday we went and picked up calf number deux. This one was small. Honestly I have no idea what we are going to do with two of them. One is enough. We'll probably end up selling one of them.

Oh their names are Mooocher

And Teddy.

How on earth can anyone eat a steak called Teddy?

Well I don't think the eggs in the incubator are doing anything. I've been candling them but all I see is a big mass on just one side. Strange. It's in almost all of them. This doesn't sound too promising. One week to go.

Well that's it for this week.

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa