Giveaway!!!

I've had alot of response to my giveaway....it's almost done.  If you haven't entered yet, now is the time!!!

Get details here.

Giveaway!!!!

Ok, this is my first Giveaway!

To get one chance I need you to email me and let me know what this is.........

Don't post it below because I don't want to giveaway the answer. So instead Email me at

springpeeperfarm@eastlink.ca

Put  in the subject line what you think it is.

To get another ballot if you're not a follower, become one.  Just let me know that you're a new follower in the comments section.

To get a third ballot, link this post on your blog.  Again let me know in the comments.

You've got till July 14th at 9pm A.S.T.

The winner will receive 3 wonderful, luxurious, handmade by moi and my man...

hold on to your hats!!!! 

Goat's milk soaps!!!

Who would have thunk it.?! Soap, whoa.

So anyway I'm just curious to see who knows what this is.

I know what it is. It's the first time I've ever found one.

Good Luck Everyone!!!And make sure you check back on the eve of July 14th!

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

Spring Peeper Gets a Special Visit

One thing I just LOVE about having a farm is when people come to visit.  We love getting company.  But sometimes in life you get a really special person to visit.

A friend of mine, Ginger, has a son with metachromatic leukodystrophy.

(say that 5 times fast)

She asked me if they could come and visit the farm. I said no problem. We'd love to have you guys!

Garrett was diagnosed with metachromatic leukodystrophy when he was 5 years old. He'll be 15 this Sunday. He was in a wheelchair within 6 months and had a feeding tube within 9 months and could no longer speak after 11 months.  At 15 years old he only weighs 40 lbs.

This is a brutal illness. It's robbed Garrett of his childhood and has created more stress in a family that anyone could ever imagine.

His family is amazing, but his mother Ginger, is the one to be admired.  She has done so much for her son. She takes care of him 24/7.  She doesn't get much respite from healthcare.  I don't think she's even ever considered putting him in an institution.

He needs frequent suctioning and constant re-positioning. 

What breaks my heart is that Garrett understands everything.  I cannot even begin to imagine what he's going through.  

Just close yours eyes for a minute and imagine not being able to move, to eat, to swallow, to speak, to make your needs understood, to be at the mercy of everyone around you. You can't even toss and turn at night.  You're trapped. You're trapped in a body that has betrayed you.

No I cannot imagine.

But this is what this kid is going through everyday.

We can only thank our Lord that he has a wonderful family that loves him and would do anything for him. 

I'm not going to go through the problems Ginger has with healthcare and getting help physically, mentally and financially. Because that would probably take a book, not just a short post.

I just wanted to bring awareness to this illness and to Garrett.

Happy Birthday Garrett! You've come a long way baby.

Garrett petting Denise our new kid

Ginger helping Garrett hold a chick

Ginger making donkey sounds to get Garrett to smile.

Going for a donkey ride...kind of

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

Canada Day weekend!

It's been a busy weekend.  I can't believe I survived it!

First of all Stockings was 5 days overdue. Of course. Why can't these goats kid on their due date.  The problem was that we were bringing Tomas to the airport in Halifax so he could go home. 

The lady I had to milk had never seen a goat born or delivered or anything. So I gave her a head's up on what to expect.  Denise was a good sport about it and had my cell number on her cell speed dial. 

I was still at work when I got the call.  J. and Tomas had stumbled upon Stockings and her newborn doeling, but since she was supposed to have twins, they thought that the long thing hanging on her behind was a dead kid.  Dave wasn't at home at the time.  He was gone to drop off the dogs at my mom's.  So I called him in a panic to high tail it home! He was closer than I was. 

To make a long story short.  That wasn't a dead kid stuck. It was just the afterbirth.  But the problem was that by this time we needed to leave and we still only had one kid and Stockings wouldn't let the doeling suckle.  Not a great scenario.  So I got on the horn and called our pastor. He's got goats and used to work on a dairy farm. So not much fizzes him.  He said he'd come and check on her. I also called our other goats friends and they would come and check on her also and try to get her to nurse.

In the mean time I called Denise and told her what was going on and that we had to leave. I was not happy leaving.  I wanted to stay home, but Dave insisted that I go with them.  

So between the three of them they got the doeling to nurse and the second one was never born.  I don't know if the vet made a mistake in the ultrasound (I hoping for this one), or she aborted it awhile ago, (which is very unlikely) or it's still in her (Gosh! I hope not!) but she's not showing signs of infection. I honestly didn't think that she had twins in her in the first place since she was so small.

So Denise kept calling me all evening to keep me informed and up to date on everything. She did a great job. She even asked me if she should go check on her around midnight.  I told her to go to bed!   

So guess what we called the doeling.....

Please meet Denise!

So we slept overnight in Halifax because Tomas' flight was at 5am.  He had to be there 2 hours ahead of time so that meant we had to get up at 2am.  I never sleep well in hotels so I got a total of an hour's sleep that night before I had to get up.  We left Tomas and headed home at around 4am.  It's a 3 hour drive home. We took turns driving or else we'd fall asleep. Plus Dave cannot drive for long periods now with his arm/shoulder the way it is.  We stopped in to see his dad and do a bit a grocery shopping so we got home at 9am.  We were zonked!!  We were supposed to go camping for the first time that night at a friend's campsite.  We did go, but we needed to nap first. We only got there around 6pm. 

Ya think he's zonked!???

A little while ago we bought a cute second hand camper.  So this was our trial run.  We even brought the dogs with us.  But we had to go home and milk the goat still. So that was a small pain in the butt. But all in all it turned out pretty good and we will be camping again.  Our friend said that we could camp there for July. But we didn't want to overstay our welcome, so we brought it home. We'll go again another weekend.

The Mansion on wheels.

J. enjoying early morning fishing from their verandah.

These people's camp is bigger than most people's houses. It's beautiful.  I didn't want to post photos to respect their privacy so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Simonne sunbathing on the lakeside and Emilie trying to find something to eat as usual.

So we came home on Monday all tired and dirty, but we had fun.  It was a wonderful family weekend, the first of many more to come now that I'm done with the farmer's market.  

One bad thing when I got home was that I checked on my spinach and it had already bolted.  I never got a chance to enjoy it!  The carrots didn't even germinate. I'm so not impressed!

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

Family Weekend

Well after long thought, prayer, mulling, hemming and hawing I'm done with the farmer's market. I've decided to put family first. Which is something I should have done a long time ago.  I now have Saturdays off and it's lovely.  I'm just so unstressed it's incredible.  Well less stressed anyway.  I'm not thinking of getting rid of the animals anymore.  I just had too much on my plate.  Maybe when I retire I'll go back.  Maybe....

I couldn't resist putting in a cute puppy picture to begin this post.

A few months ago I went to Ontario on a business trip. Of course you get loads and loads of samples. This was one of them.  I thought I'd give it a try. The instructions said that you could use it in a front loading washing machine and to use only half the bottle for a load.  So I only used a third.

This is what happened!!

I'm glad I only used a third and not half. It was supposed to be low sudsing since it's HE. Thank goodness!

Saturday we went to Digby and stopped at my least favourite place to eat.  MacDonalds.  Yuck.  But it's semi-cheap and it's quick.  Well let me rephrase that....most MacDonalds are quick, but the one in Digby is the slowest and the one most likely to screw up your order.  I'm not slandering them.  Slandering would mean that what I said isn't true.  This is true and anyone that has gone there can vouch for that.

Anyway....I digress.  I wasn't very hungry so I just ordered a Happy Meal.  When it came back we were all amazed at the size of the Happy Meal fries!  Look at the following picture...the container on the left is a large.  The one on the right is what you now get in a HAPPY MEAL!!!  I just couldn't believe it!  When 

they first gave the order to Dave it had 4 I repeat FOUR fries in it.  He sent it back and said fill

it up!  So it came back with 6 fries.

Their excuse....you now get a yogurt with a happy meal.  Well guess what chick pea...I'm lactose intolerant so what good is a tiny yogurt going to do!?  

It will be a long time before I go back to MacDonalds again!  But to do them a bit of justice the thing is just so darn cute.  It looks like toy food.

We went to Digby for a fire truck rally. It's their first one and it wasn't too bad.  They had a firetruck parade and a local TV personality was the parade Marshall.  Heidi Petracek.  So we all got our photo taken with her.  She's very nice and she's a cat person so of course she's wonderful!

We got to go up in the bucket of a ladder truck.  It was so cool!  I took pics of the town of Digby.

We just got home from Digby at 4pm when Dave thought to ask our hay dude when he was going to bale the hay.  He said now.  We were like...huh?  Now... it's 4pm.  So we ran home got changed and came back to load 142 bales of hay.  

Dave can't lift anything heavy now...so guess who loaded the hay. Me, J. and Tomas.  Dave supervised.

It was kinda funny because Tomas comes to me after a dozen bales or so all in a panic, "Look, look Lisa! I'm allergic to hay!" Showing me his arms.

I said, "No Tomas, don't panic, everyone is allergic to hay. So back to work." 

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

New Spring Peeper Member

Simonne needed a friend.  I had always planned on getting another one. Then Dave brought Simonne to the vet because she had the flu and saw "the ad".

New Addition

She's 10 weeks old, full of life and has stolen everyone's heart, including Simonne's.  Please meet Emilie.  I wanted to call her Magitte (a very old French Acadian name)  I thought it was cute. All J. and Dave could say was, "We are not calling our dog Maggot!"   So I told them I didn't want any cutesy names like Fluffy. I wanted a girls name.  So J. came up with Emilie.  She looks like an Emilie.  She's also a peeing machine.

But honestly, how big can a bladder be on this cute little thing?

Cutie Patootie

On another note. One of our friends from Louisiana comes down for the summer every year. I asked him last summer if he could bring Dave his favourite seasoning that he hasn't had in years!

So here is a happy camper!

Oh Happy Day!

Animal talk

Did you hear?...The humans are ready to clean our crap! Oh Happy Day!!!

The great things about donkeys is that they poop all in the same place.  Kinda like a donkey bathroom.  The bad thing about donkeys is that they poop all in the same place.  Kinda like a donkey bathroom.  So that means you have to go in the pasture and clean up their poop.  What a pain in the butt.  But at the same time it's nice not to have poop all over the place like goats.

Can I drive?

While J. and I were cleaning the poop, Stockings wouldn't leave us alone. She kept on jumping in the trailer.  It was kinda cute.

J. and "Thunder".

J. has decided to change Sally's name to Thunder.  He's in love with the donkeys, especially Thunder.  She's his new project.  He's decided that he's going to break her, so he can ride her.  She's never been ridden before.  So in the picture above it was the first time she had someone on her back.  Two seconds after I took this photo....Thunder decided to do the two-step. J. didn't go flying but it came close.  He got back on after though.  Like the old saying goes...

J. and Tomas...they found the holy grail of beach glass

The weather here has been non typical spring weather...heat, heat...heat!! And wet...wet...wet! This year I figured I'd plant one of the gardens in the old pig pen.  The day I planted it was nice and dry.  About a week later it rained and rained.  The next clear day Dave was wondering how the pumpkin, sunflower and corn was doing in that garden.  Well I kinda forgot it had rained the next day.  I sank.  And Dave laughed.   Then he says..."Don't move.  I'll go get something to help you."  He runs off and shows up with the friggen camera!  He was hoping that I was also going to fall in face first.  But by the time be showed up...I had gotten out.  He did get some pictures.

The mud was half way up my fancy boots.

These were the holes I left behind.

But on the bright side....the seeds have all germinated.  It's taken me several weeks, but the garden is all put in.  Finally.  This year I've planted lettuce, spinach, corn, ornamental corn, beets,yellow beans, carrots, sunflowers, pumpkins, garlic, onions, and peas.

The swallowtail butterflies are out and they love my lilac bushes.  Aren't they purty?!

Our little dog Simonne is going to the vet tomorrow.  She's had diarreah and vomiting a few weeks ago.  I thought I had fixed her up with kaopectate and rice water, but today she started all over again.  Dave is bringing her.  I worry about her since she's so tiny.

Febe is not doing well.  With all this rain, her joints are killing her.  It's really sad to see her.  If I was a good owner I'd have her put down.  But I"m too selfish.  I don't want to see her go.  If she keeps going this way by mid July I'll have to let her go.

Well that's it for now.  I hope you all have a Blessed Day

Lisa