I'm back...finally

Wow! That took a lot longer than what I figured. 

The doctor told me 4-5 weeks in a cast. Well it ended up 7 weeks!! Needless to say it was about time it came off!  But it's not done yet. The cast is off, but my arm is not working like it should. So off to physio therapy I go. Plus I can't lift much either.

I thought that you'd like to see a picture of my arm now. Dead Sexy! I am now the bionic women.

Not.

Well my plans for this summer I had are quickly coming to fruition ( large word of the day).

I got my veggie/egg stand built. I'm doing my Vanna beside it. Pink shirt, pink cast and pink Muck boots. I'm stylin'.

Our turkeys have arrived a few days ago, the meat birds are growing nicely and the cattle have gone up the road to the big pasture.

Now check this out 

Nova Scotia

and this!

Spring Peeper Farm

I have been one busy chickie!

We did the nice guys again and rescued this goose. If anyone can tell me if it's a boy or a girl, I'd be much abliged.  We're calling it Alfred. He's a nice goose. Not mean at all, but he's afraid of people. He's fine with the animals, but humans, he leary. He is coming out of his shell though.

I've been making lots of new soaps and I started making cupcake soaps. It's my first try, but I'm kinda proud of myself.

Well that's about it for now. I just thought that I'd show my face to let ya'll know that I'm still alive.

Have a Blessed Evening.

Lisa

Missing in Action!

This blog is going to be short.

I'm typing with one hand.

For several years I've been dealing with what is called Keinbock's disease or by it's common name, dead bone disease. Most Keinbock patients have it because of trauma to the wrist. 

I was actually born with it. My radial bone is too long, thus rubbing my wrist bone and killing it.

I finally got in for surgery a few days ago. I'd been on the waiting list for a year now.

The doctor first thought that taking a few mms of bone would do the trick but after opening me up he ended taking almost an inch. He said that he could have taken more but figured it was nice an even.

So for the next 5 weeks I'm a one armed bandit, making typing and other things a pain in the butt!!!

So if you don't see me for awhile, it's because writing is an issue at the moment. 

But I will be back!!

If you're on Facebook Like our Spring Peeper Farm page.

Or follow me on Twitter @Peeper67

Relaxing with my pals.

Even though it's cold still the garlic is pushing through!

New friends for Philomene our widow....Philias and Françoise.



Have a Blessed Day!
Lisa

White Women Can't Dance!

This year the Nocturne de la Baie was renamed

La Clare-té de la Baie. It was to usher in spring since it was a long 

time coming. The festivities lasted all weekend.

I went to some of them, but I missed many of them. Since there's only so many hours in a day.

 We had a lovely girl from Help X

helping us. Thank goodness she was here that week to help.

But that's a story for another day

One night we decided to take it easy and to go see what was going on at Le Rendez-Vous de la Baie.

François Gaudet had painted the Sable Island ponies.

Then we decided to go and watch the African dance demonstration.

It was beautiful to see.

But of course it didn't stop there.

They asked if anyone wanted to learn.

Well since I consider myself something of a dancer (well when I was younger anyway)

 I thought why not??!!

I should have thought...WHY?

But I semi-dragged Barbara (our helpxer) up on the stage and I thought I was doing pretty good.

Till I seen the pictures Dave took.

I'm on the left with the jeans and red T-shirt.

I seem to be in rhythm.

Still going well I'd say.

But here's where I kinda lose it. What am I doing?

I seem completely perplexed here.

But then I seem to regain my bearings.

But when we were done, Jamie was brutely honest.

"Mom you can't dance."

So I figured that Dave would be nicer.

"Honey, you have no rhythm. Sorry."

In my defense I used to do a form of step dancing, which that being said,  there is no upper body movement. So it shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone....

White Women Can't Dance!!!

Have a Blessed Day and a Happy Easter!

Lisa

Not for the Squeamish....

Ok, you've been forewarned!

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The pictures you are about to see are not pretty.

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So go to another blog for this time if you're squeamish.

Ok, you were warned.

This post is about disbudding.

It's a super controversial subject among goat farmers, animal rights activist etc., etc..

I know some people don't mind goats with horns and they say that if the goat isn't nasty that it's not an issue, but guess what...in my opinion horns are an issue.

I have my son to think about and the other kids that come to visit to think about also.

Their safety is my number one priority.

Also our main buyers are 4H-ers and the goats need to be disbudded.

Several years ago, I mean 15+ years ago. I had a goat with horns.

The most docile wether you've ever seen.

One day I had to give him his mani-pedi.

Everything was going well when I turned my head and he turned his head at the same time. Then I usually wore contact lenses. I never wore glasses. But for some reason I wore my glasses that day. Thank goodness I wore my glasses! Because the tip of the horn hit me smack dab in the middle of my eye! It was all innocent. But if I had been wearing my contacts I would have lost my eye.

I swore never again to have a horned goat.

So here goes. This is how you disbud a goat kid.

I thought of doing a video and putting it on U-tube but then I thought that might not be a good idea.

Disbudding should be taught hands-on.

Not on U-Tube. 

It's dangerous and should only be taught by someone with years of experience.

The lady that taught Dave had 25 years of experience.

He didn't learn it on U-Tube.

I'm just putting the pictures on here so people can see what disbudding is all about.

First you take the kid and place it in a disbudding box. Never, ever try and do this with someone holding the kid. EVER!

We shave the kids head. I call it the mohawk. The reason we do this is because it saves on time that the iron has to be on the kid. The iron burns the buds right away instead of having to pass through the fur first. Honestly, the kids scream more about being confined in the box and having their hair cut than they do having their buds burned.

The iron is hot! Make sure it's hot. We have lots of iron marks all over the barn, to make sure the iron is hot enough. It heats to 1500 degrees

The iron is placed on the bud for 5-8 seconds, then taken off to let the head cool off.

We do this 2-3 times. Also we scrape the middle of the bud to make sure the iron gets to that point.

This way we get no scurs.

The most important thing is to make sure you get a copper ring. That kills the bud.

We usually don't get scurs after. The only time is when it's a male and he doesn't get banded right away. My theory is that the testosterone must kick in and cause the scurs.

But that's just my theory.

After it's all done, they don't seem any worse for wear.

But like I've said before, don't try this without having been shown by someone that's done it many times before.

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

Speechless...

I'm not so sure how much more I can handle.

This year has been the year from hell for farming.

It's years like this that make you want to give up.

And it's only March! I hope that it gets better instead of worse.

First it started with Woody. The vet had to come twice which is never a good thing.

Money, money, money...

Even after a few weeks Woody was still sick and not getting any better.

I finally thought...kill or cure.

I cut Woody off from his milk and his feed. Only water and hay.

It worked.

Thank Goodness!

Then we had another calf that the dairy had given us because it looked like Woody wasn't going to make it for a while. That one was doing well. Then almost overnight it went from healthy to dead.

The two weeks ago Murphy got sick. He got into too much grain. This was on Friday night. I called the vet and she told me what to do and we made an appointment for Monday morning. (Why do all these things happen on Weekends!) But by late Sunday afternoon he was not well. Not well at all.

So Sunday at 8:30 pm we were off to the vet. Yes, a hour and a half drive on a Sunday night.

So she fixed him up and he was good as new.

We only got home at midnight. But anything for our baby.

Then the ring and pignion gear on Dave's tractor went.

Ugh.

$950.00 later it's not fixed yet. That's only the parts. 

Labour...let's not go there.

We did have good luck with the chicks hatching. We had 21.

We hatch them in our bedroom closet and bring them to the barn in a makeshift brooder when they're dry. Our last one hatched yesterday and when Dave brought it to the barn he noticed Murphy motionless, with his eyes open, on the floor!

He ran to him and picked him up. He was cold and stiff as a board.

He thought he was dead, but he wasn't. Almost.

He called the vet and then called me at work in a panic. (Not that I blame him, I would've been freaking out also!)

So off to the vet we went again.

We had him in a box covered in blankets trying to warm him up. 

A few times I thought he wasn't going to make it.

He would grind his teeth and cry.

Then he stopped crying and grinding.

I was sure he was gone.

But somehow we made it to the vet with him still breathing...barely.

The vet gave him a shot of epinephrine to get his heart pumping again.

Then filled him full of glucose and warm liquids. Took blood for some tests and also gave him some painkillers and a shot of steroids.

When he was stabilized she ran the blood tests.

But they came back inconclusive.

He started coming around and seemed okay considering what he had gone through.

But Dave noticed that he seemed to have slow reflexes on the left side.

The vet called for a second opinion and they concluded that he had head trauma or a stroke.

We were just about to decide on the course of action, when his heart rate started to go down.

This was not looking good. He didn't have a good prognosis.

It was time to decide.

They escorted us into a room to talk and think about what to do.

And to cuddle him a bit longer.

Murphy is in goat heaven now.

I'll never know if we did the right decision or not, we'll never know exactly what happened either,

 but this way his suffering is over.

Ours has just begun. 

We miss him horribly. I'm having a hard time writing this without crying.

We'll have to wait till spring before we can bury him and we'll erect a small monument in his honour.

He really touched a lot of people in his short little life.

Like Dave said, he was our little buddy.

It's times like this I hate farming.

Lisa

The liquor store heist!

I have not been in a liquor store in 10 years.

But a few days ago I HAD to go in the liquor store.

I found a recipe online for vanilla extract.

 I have vanilla beans coming out of the ying yang, I thought I'd try my hand at making homemade vanilla extract.

But the main ingredient was alcohol. Not rubbing alcohol, but the good ole fashioned

 drinking kind of alcohol.

For those of you that are new to my blog, my family and I are Wesleyans. 

So that means that we abstain from partaking in alcoholic beverages.

We've been part of the Wesleyan faith for 10 years now, so that means we haven't touched a drop of alcohol or been in a liquor store in 10 years.

(with the exception of a few years ago, when I had to go buy my FIL a 3 liter of whiskey. Obviously, he's not a part of the Wesleyan faith!)

So Thursday night I went into the liquor store.

They must have thought me nuts.

I have walking around with an empty shopping cart looking lost till the cashier asked if I needed help.

(The shopping cart was because I had been in the grocery store that is attached to the liquor store, not because I was planning to buy them out!)

So she asked if I needed help, thank goodness!

She showed me the various sizes and types of vodka.

My goodness! There's a whole bunch of different kinds now!

So I stuck to ole faithful (what I used to get when I did partake!)

Absolut!

I just got a small bottle. Not the tiny little ones, but the next one up.

So from what I gather, this is the recipe to make vanilla extract.

Take 5 vanilla beans and cut length wise.

Put in one cup of vodka or another alcohol of choice.

Shake and let sit for 8 weeks or so. 

Shake every week.

VOILA! Vanilla Extract! I'll let you know how it tastes in 8 weeks.

I saved the vodka bottle so I can transfer the vanilla back to it, when it's done.

Just to freak people out! Hee hee

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

I betch'a can't get just one!

Ok, it all started with one of our goat friends and disbudding customer, Cindy.

First we bartered Peeper from her.

Then she came down with three minis to get disbudding as a part of our deal.

Well, she came with three....

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but she left with two.

How on God's green earth could you resist this!

I dare you. 

He stayed behind and we're bottle feeding him.

Look at that nose!

He's in love with Peeper and Peeper is in love with his new buddy.

Now what's this little one's name you may ask?

Well a lot of thought went into his name.

He needs a special one.

I found that looked so much like a donkey.

So we named him after Murphy, but since Jamie is so much into hunting these days, he wanted Cabelas or Winchester. At first I'm like ahhh....no.

But then the more I looked at him and the more I found his colouring was like Winchester Cathedral in England, where we had visited many, many moons ago.

So his name is Murphy Winchester III.

Why the third? Why not.

So far Murphy Winchester III is still a he, but in a week or so, he'll be going through the process of becoming a eunuch.

I'm not used to these minis. I'm used to 150 lb goats that eat like, well, like goats.

So the vet had to come over for Woody again. It looked like he wasn't going to make it.

He had a turn for the worse. So while the vet was there I asked how much should I be feeding this tiny little thing.

He quickly did the math in his head and said, "About 2 cups of milk."

To that I reply, "A feeding?"

"No, a day."

oh.

"How much have you been feeding him?"

"6 cups a day. But he won't even look at the grain! He's going to starve!" (In my self defense!)

"No wonder! He's not hungry! Tone it down to 3 cups a day or he'll turn into goatzilla."

oh.

So Murphy Winchester III is down to 3 cups a day. And if you're late for a feeding by even just a few minutes,  he does turn into goatzilla.

So just an update on Woody.  Before the vet got there, we were sure we were going to have a cow funeral. 

Then the vet showed up.

The healthiest calf around! They're just like kids. They'll make liars out of you every time!

The vet said he did have a fever and gave us stronger meds.

But since he was supposedly on death's door that afternoon, Dave called the dairy and put our name for another calf. They said they had one that was a week old, his legs weren't the greatest, but they were getting better. He was walking on his wrists? I guess that's what you'd call them. But they said they usually heal up well. They just didn't want to sell it to anyone. So Dave said that he'd take it.

Dave kept saying I have a feeling that if we don't take it, it won't be good for the calf..if you know what I mean. So we gotta take it. 

Oh good grief.

So Dave went and got the calf, (the price was right, they gave him to us)which is named Cabelas.

And Woody is doing wonderfully!

Have A Blessed Day!

Lisa