H1N1....day 5

Well yours truly has caught the dreaded H1N1. It's not pretty. I went to the doctor yesterday and he confirmed it and I'm off work till next Monday. Not good. I have no sick days. So that means a week without pay. Ouch. I think that hurts more than the flu.

It really knocks you out. I am feeling better today. I still have a 102 fever tho. But at least I ate breakfast today. On the bright side I have lost 5 lbs!!

It's a strange flu, with strange symptoms one of them being disoriented. I'm bored out of my mind because I slept from Friday to Monday. My mom said go on the computer or watch TV. But I can't concentrate on anything more than 5 minutes. It's strange. I am having a hard time writing this blog. My cousin has it also and she said the same thing. Your eyes even have a hard time focusing.

Oh another positive note after I survive this I will be immune to it. At the speed the government is going with the vaccine, we'll all be immune to it. So they can save their money on the vaccine. Maybe that's their plan after all.

Well that's about all I can write for this morning.

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

Finally!!!!

This has been a weird heat for Febe. I think she's finally bred. It's taken 3 times, but tonight I can honestly say that I'm sure she was in heat. Not a false heat, not a hmmm....I wonder... heat. A real, freaking out-I-want-my-man-standing heat.

I milked her tonight, nothing unusual except a little slime, show her the buck rag and nothing but that's been nothing new this week. An hour later Dave goes in the barn to feed the pigs and comes back in saying "I think your goat's in heat". I'm thinking "not tonight honey I'm tired", sigh... I have so much to do tonight and I wanted to sit down and colour with J. I mean it's not like it's down the road. I....well...I mean "We" have to hook the trailer up and drive 30 minutes to get to the buck.

So I get in the barn and Dave has her on the milking stand. She is almost screaming (she's a blatter everyday anyway, but this was different), her tail was twirling so fast I thought she was going to take off like a helicopter! So I figured we might as well bring her to the buck. So in the meantime I put her back in the pen with Whisper. Well, poor thing...she just attacked that tiny goat! I'm thinking "Oh boy she is just beside herself, she must be in heat".

So off we go and she got her fix three times and she's happy now. So I'm assuming she's bred. I'll let ya know in 21 days.

I'm telling ya, these goats are going to be the death of me. Holy cow!

Well that's my exciting news of today.

Have a Blessed Evening.

Lisa

Common Sense

I received this email a few months ago and I just loved it. It is so true in today's society. So I thought I'd share it with the world. Feel free to pass it on.

An Obituary You Really Must Read.

An Obituary printed in the London Times - Interesting and sadly rather true.

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, *Common Sense*, who
has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was,
since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He
will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
- Why the early bird gets the worm;
- Life isn't always fair;
- and maybe it was my fault.

* Common Sense * lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend
more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children,
are in charge).
His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but
overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended
from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for
reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.
*Common Sense * lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the
job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.
It declined even further when schools were required to get parental
consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could
not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

*Common Sense * lost the will to live as the churches became businesses;
and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

*Common Sense * took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a
burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.
*Common Sense * finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed
to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.
*Common Sense * was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust,
by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.
He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers;
I Know My Rights
I Want It Now
Someone Else Is To Blame
I'm A Victim

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone

If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do
nothing.

What is it with animals...

What is it with animals? What goes on in their little brains? Am I the only one that wonders this?

Daisy will take a nice soft blanket and suck the living daylights out of it. Why?

One of my favourite pasttimes is watching the laying hens after I've cleaned their coop and added new shavings. You'd think they were at the health spa. Especially since they have to contend with a muddy, flooded run.

Another fun thing to do is to watch them with strands of speghetti. I truly believe that they think it's an earth worm. They'll grab a strand and run!! It's so funny.

Febe is feeling under the weather. She's crabby, pushing Whisper around and she's not eating well. I don't know if the trailer ride to her date put her in this mood. She's also got diarreah. I find that she's a goat that you have to watch what you feed her. The least little thing will put her off her feed. I don't think she's bred though. We missed church yesterday because I thought that she was in heat. I guess not. So she's been on a trailer ride twice in two days. Maybe that's why she's crabby.

We will be getting piglets in February. Charlotte was in heat yesterday, so Wilbur did his duty. It's cute to see them all together. They look like one little happy family.

I'm having issues with the tractor. I can never get that thing started. It turns, then dies. I have a trailer load of chicken poop to get rid of and no tractor to haul it with. So this means the goats have to wait to have their pen cleaned. It also means that I have to wait for Dave to get home to tell me one more time...."what do you do to this tractor?". Then he'll turn around and start the darn thing with one turn of the key. grrrrrr...

As you know, Tootsie, is doing great. We were going to keep him in the house for good. But he was not liking this decision. I was just afraid that since he couldn't jump anymore that he wouldn't be able to defend himself. Well he's been jumping on the cupboards, jumping on the bed, jumping on the table. So he's now jumping outside. He is so much happier now. He comes in the eat and take a nap and a cuddle and then he's off again. From what I've seen, he's made a full recovery.

Well I have to go and do some more work.

Have a Blessed day!

Lisa

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