At the end of my rope!

Oh my word!! What a week it's been.

We got the results of the CAE testing and things were not what we expected. Tomi was negative, Febe was positive. That I expected. But the surprise being that Cindi was positive also!! That I was not happy. She was supposed to be from a CAE negative herd! I'm so mad at that that I cannot even talk about it.

I've been giving Febe supplements from Fiasco farm but they aren't working. This morning I actually thought I had to get her put down. She couldn't get up. It was so sad. Her hooves are bad also. We're not sure if the CAE is putting her feet out of line so much that her hooves are curling and causing her pain. Or if the hooves are just bad because they were never well taken care of from the get go and it's making her pain worse. Dunno.

So today I called the vet and we had a long talk. He's going to email me the new findings about CAE so I can email them to the former owners of Cindi Lou. Then I asked him if I could up the dosage on the glucosamine and the MSM. He said I could at least double it. Goats are not like humans and other animals, they sometimes don't absorb the supplements well like regular one stomach creatures, so he said for me to leave the glucosamine dosage the way it is but to up the MSM dosage. I guess MSM is a natural pain killer. It will take up to 3 weeks to take effect but it should work. He said his parents use it and it works wonders. If this doesn't work, then I have to resort to Blaut. I think that's what it's called. It's a horse pain killer, but you cannot drink the milk after. The kids could but humans can't because it would be like drinking milk laced with aspirin, tylenol and advil. Not a good thing. But imagine...my headaches would be totally gone!

The sad thing is that after the signs of CAE become apparent, you can breed her one more time and then it's done. She needs to be retired. That was our original plan in the first place. So we are going to breed her one last time and whatever girls she gets (hopefully twin girls) we're going to keep. I am so sorry I sold Azelle. I contemplated on keeping her, but like Dave said, we wanted a black doe.

But going on to happy news, I was asked back this summer to speak on our farm and why we started in the soap making business to a group of ladies called La Societe Madelaine LeBlanc. So Thursday night, off I went with power point presentation and all my soaps to speak to these ladies. I was nervous as all git out! Yes, I used to be worship leader in church, but this was different. But they even gave me supper! So I gave my speech and they loved it!! They asked questions and everything. Then they swooped down on my soap and bought over 170$ worth of soap in 10 minutes!! Vultures they were. My problem now lies in that I have no more of my best seller! They wiped me out. Usually I'd be super happy about this, don't get me wrong I am happy, but on Thanksgiving weekend (two weeks from now), we were asked to go to a fall craft fair in Digby and it takes over 3 weeks to cure! Ack!! Oh well, I've been making soap this last weekend. Every day! If they buy it, I'll just have to tell them not to use it for a few weeks.

Finished product, just a bit of cleaning up to do.

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

The Dawdi Haus

Dave putting in the last screw in the veranda

You know when you're so tired, you can't think straight, yet you can't stop either? Well that's how I feel right now.

I am this close...(holding my thumb and index finger about half a millimeter apart) to going nuts, crazy, bonkers, loonie bin bound..you get the point.

This is the kitchenette

This weekend the Dawdi Haus was finished (well enough for him to move in). So all last week we have been packing, and packing and packing and then yesterday (Saturday) while I was all day at work, Dave and very nice friends helped us move all the stuff. Then the work really began. I got home from work (and it was a busy day and we were really short staffed) and I had so many boxes to unpack and put away before grandpa could go to bed.

The living room area

He was slightly confused and upset since he didn't really want to move in the first place. But it needed to be done. Dave couldn't keep running two households. He was getting stressed out and burnt out. So the choices were either move in with us or go to an elder's home. So here we are!

The Dawdi Haus, like the Amish call it.

But all that being said, my house, the living room especially, looks like a bomb blew up, or a tornado hit it. I'd say an F4 tornado. It's so bad, I don't even want to take a picture. That bad. I can't stand having my house in such a disarray. I mean, don't get me wrong, my house is not always clean, ok, it's never clean....but it's never this bad. This is the part that is stressing me out the most!

J.'s room needs to be completely emptied, cleaned and painted. The living room needs to have the new mouldings put in, the walls resanded, then washed and then painted. I just painted the entire room a few months ago!! I hate painting. Like I tell people, I'm a paint expert, I'm not a painting expert. When we started the addition I didn't think it would affect the rest of the house.Boy was I wrong.

On top of everything, I'm supposed to be making soap this last week, I need to restock. This coming Thursday I've been invited to speak to a lady's group and bring some soap to sell. I'm hoping I've got enough stock for that night, plus, I need to print more labels and finish my speech. But my problem is that Microsoft Works is holding all my stuff hostage! I can't access it. ACK!!! So tomorrow I have to get on the horn and call my computer dude.

Simone!

But after all this...there is a little ray of sunshine...called Simone. Dave's dad wanted a dog when he moved in. Really he wanted a Beagle puppy. Ahhh...no. So we convinced him to get a retired mini dacshund. She's a retired breeder. We just got her today and she's a sweetie. She cuddles everyone.

Ok, I have more to say, but I'll wait for another post. My thinking capabilities are gone.

Have a Blessed Evening.

Lisa

Addition update

North corner of the house before

North Side, after

Wow, it's crunch time! Down to the wire.

We expecting Dave's dad to move in by Saturday. We hope. It's been crazy. Today after church we had a few friends come over and move some furniture from Len's place to ours. I spent 3 hours packing up the china cabinet. Egad! There was some stuff in that thing.

Dave's mum, Marg, collected stuff and stuff and more stuff. Some of it cute and unique, some downright umm, there's no way to put it nicely, tacky! But it all went into the boxes.

Front of the house before

Ten egg boxes later, I was done except for several large platters.

So that's it for this update. Hopefully next week I'll be able to say, "We're Done!!" Wooohoooo!

Front and north corner of the house, after

We'll just have to wait and see.

Veranda almost done, ran out of wood.

This is the living room, kitchenette area. This is just part of it. I'll post more photos after it's done.

I love the colour of this room, it turned out better than I expected, the photo doesn't show the richness of the yellow. It's not too bright, but not too drab. It's Beautitone, Biscuit.

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa