Growing up.

Upside Down J. on the monkey bars

I was pondering on this past summer, when I realized how much my baby has grown. Not only physically but emotionally and spiritually. He's become more responsible.

As much as I hate him growing up, it's also kinda neat. It's amazing seeing this little life you brought into this world, nurture it, love it, teach it, feed it, clothe it, pray over it and hope for the best. Then you see it blossom into a beautiful,God-fearing, God-loving, caring, hardworking person. Raising a child, you see the world through new and amazing eyes. You now see that a daisy is not just a pesky weed anymore, but a thing that houses little bugs (yuck), or a way to see if that little girl in your class loves you, or not.

Checking out the big toys at the breakwater they're building.

This summer I noticed that J. will get his snacks ready by himself, like using the microwave. Taking a shower and actually getting clean! Dave thought him how to drive the ride-on lawnmower. He now loves to bring in the firewood, because he gets to drive the tractor with the trailer. He's doing an excellent job and he's so proud of himself. We're so proud of him to. He goes to pick up the mail by himself.

First time driving the tractor

So proud and grown up!

There's so many little things that are too numerous to mention and yet some days you wonder if he's not reverted back to being 3 years old. But all in all my baby is growing up! Sniff..sniff...

Tomorrow is the first day of school. He's going into grade 4!! When he left for his first day of school in grade primary, I told Dave, "You watch, we're going to turn around and he'll be graduating from high school." Dave told me I was nuts. Well guess what...It was just yesterday that he started primary. Well that's what it seems like.

Time marches on. Things still need to be done like pigs need to be mucked out, goats need to be milked and puppies need to be taught potty manners.

Tundra on the trampoline!

Tundra is also one that is growing like a bad weed. The flea meds we gave her when we first got her stopped working, because she outgrew it before the other dosage was due! She gained 10 lbs in 2 weeks!

J. jumping on the beds at the hotel. Another little ritual we have in hotels. Can you tell we don't get out often? You can dress us up but you can't take us anywhere!

We all went to New Brunswick a few days ago for Dave's arm. We needed to wait over a year for a specialist's appointment here in Nova Scotia. Only a few weeks in New Brunswick. He got a few injections and we are hoping they are going to work. We crossed over on the ferry. It's a long 3 hour ride. But on the way back we chatted with two couples on the boat. They were great. One guy was a Bible thumping, fire and brimstone, Harley Davidson riding,Southern Baptist preacher! Another lady was a dog trainer. The ferry ride, just flew by! We have photos of them, but I didn't ask their permission to put it on my blog, so I won't. But that's what I love about travelling. It's not seeing new places and different things, which that is all fun too, but meeting new people. That's the exciting part!

Well we are battening down the hatches for Saturday. Hurricane Earl is going to hit us head on. Crud. We do need the rain, just not the winds. This is a picture of my sunflowers before hurricane Earl. I'll post another one after hurricane Earl on Sunday. I waited and waited and waited for blooms on my sunflowers. I finally got them this week and now Earl's going to show up and razor them. Oh I'm not impressed!

Dave and the sunflowers

But don'tcha find that they grew tall! Dave is 6 feet tall and they are dwarfing him. The heads are supposed to be giants, but I guess they put all their energy in the stalks.

Six little piggies and their momma.

Since there's only 6 piglets in this litter they are growing fast, fast,fast! They've been going outside now for a week.

Ginger

Oh and Ginger passed away this week. She survived the great mink massacre, but she couldn't escape old age. I had had her for over 4 years and she was old when I got her. I don't even remember where I got her from. She had also survived being almost pecked to death by her fellow hens.(Nasty things) But we had nurtured her back to health a few years ago. But old age marched and took over.

Well that's it for this week.

Have a Blessed day!

Lisa

If it's not one thing....

This is my last vacation week. Things started out boring enough. The only thing we had planned was going to the Annapolis Valley Exhibition. To you Americans I think it's your equivalent to a county fair. Charlotte was only due next week and she's usually a couple of days late.

Tommy feeling better and in his new bachelor pad.

Tommy had had a bad case of the poopies. It had been going on for a least a week. I tried everything. Deworming, changing his diet, keeping him inside on just hay and water. Nothing was working and he was losing weight fast. I think he lost a good 10 pounds. He was looking sad and listless. I was starting to worry.

Wednesday we planned on going to the Ex. Ten minutes away from the exhibition is a great goat vet. So I scooped up some poop, which is hard to do when it's water, and off we went.

We dropped the sample off, gave our cell number and went to the exhibition awaiting a call.

They called.

He was full of worms, eggs and coccidiosis. This was not good. We knew that it could be a life and death situation. They told us is could be treated, which was good. But at what cost? That's what we were wondering. I had read on websites that it could be expensive. Plus, even though the girls had immunity to it now, we still had to treat them for the worms. Safeguard does not work anymore. Needless to say.

We got to the vet and they gave us a whole bunch of well written out instructions, plus a HUGE bottle of medication and a smaller extra one for Tommy. In the instructions we have to give all the goats the meds once a day for 5 days. The extra one for Tommy smelled and looked like kerosene. It was nasty. Then I had to sanitize their stalls. Yeah...right.... How do you sanitize wood. So yesterday that's what I did, I cleaned the stalls, then sprayed them with Javex. Dave then powerwashed them. That's as clean as we can do.

Tommy has to be put in another uninfected stall and can't go in the pasture for a few weeks, till he gets an immunity to the coccidiosis.

But the best thing about all this is that it cost me a grand total of 26$ for all those meds and huge syringes. They never charged me for a call and the vet spoke to us for at least 20 minutes, didn't charge us for dispensing fees. Nothing. I couldn't believe it. The vets around here would have charged an astronomical dispensing fees, a service call and for the syringes. We were expecting no less than 200$.

The next day Tommy was doing so well. His poopies are already back to berries. He's eating like crazy and I'm sure he's already gained a few pounds. So it all ended in a happy ending after all.

Someone had lots of red ribbons! Dave and J. on the ferris wheel.

The exhibition was fun. They had the wild and woolie sheep riding competition. J. wanted to go but he's too heavy. You had to be under 50lbs and he's 56.

Wild and woolie sheep rodeo

They had nice chickens there also. But someone had dyed their chicken pink and blue. It was just so wrong.

Blue and pink chicken. Just so wrong.

J. and I in a John Deere wheel

The mini donkey I want so bad.

There was one thing I wanted soooo bad. A mini donkey. We all want one badly. But we don't have the time for one and they cost a small fortune. Someday when we're retired.

Tundra

Tundra is doing well. But she still pees alot. She listens better.

I've done lots of pickled beets and plum jam. The greenhouse is full of cherry tomatoes. So some things did well. The sunflowers are finally getting buds. I don't think we'll get any pumpkins though. They were all false blossoms.

Sunflowers super tall, teeny blossoms.

Well that's my update for this week.

Oh and I almost forgot.

Charlotte had 6 piglets on Wednesday. Mother and piglets are doing well.

I guess we had the dates wrong. Or she was a week early.

Six fat little piglets awaiting their needles.

Have a Blessed day!
Lisa

Spring has come to the country

Busy, busy, busy! It never stops. I sometimes just want to sleep and not wake up for a few weeks. That, I think would be bliss. But life goes on and the world is not going to stop to let me off anytime soon.

Well first things first. Happy Easter and our baby is now 9 years old. It seems like just yesterday that he was born. Boy I miss when he was a baby. He's growing up too fast. Soon he's going to graduate from high school! Oh well... such is life.

J.'s birthday.

Most of the farm animals are doing well. Except for Otis. Otis seems to be losing his fur at an alarming rate. Between his back legs he's completely bald. It's coming out in clumps. I've never seen such a thing. Mind you, this is only our second bull calf. We've asked several cattle farmers around here and they all say the same thing. "It's normal." Weird. Oh well. He's eating well, still a sookie and looking normal otherwise. So we'll leave it at that. If any of you have seen this before let me know.

Our new hens

We have a few new additions to the farm. We bought a few bantie hens ( like we didn't have enough) from a friend. He didn't want them anymore because he needed the room. 3 hens are just banties and one hen is a Millefleur and so is the rooster. That's why Dave wanted them. They are kind of scraggly, but the feathers will grow back one day.

I'm having a dilemma. I'd love to let my hens run free but we have so many wild mink in the area that I don't know if they'd survive or not. And also, will they lay in the house or am I going to have to go egg hunting on four acres of land everyday?

Charlotte and the kids enjoying the hot spring air.

The piglets are doing extremely well. They should be ready to hit the road next week or so. We are keeping 2 for ourselves. Dave brought a piglet to the school in Yarmouth last week. A friend of ours teaches grade 3 and they were reading Charlotte's Web. She asked Dave if he could come in with a piglet. I don't know who was more excited, the kids or our friend? Not one kid had ever seen a pig and only 2 had seen hay before. Isn't that sad. It's not like we live in New York City. There's farms everywhere around here.

We've come to another hard decision. We have to sell Febe. She's a great milker, great mom and great goat, but she's really, really bad with kids. The two legged variety. I cannot leave her alone with J. for a minute or she attacks him. This is not good. She's a very aggressive goat and I figure that she thinks he's a small goat she can bully and she attacks him. Last summer she smacked him in the chest and sent him flying. This cannot happen again and he loves the goats, he wants to help, but he can't when she's around, which is all the time since she's the head goat.

So this winter when she's dried off I will put an ad in the paper to sell her. She was due to kid today but she's late. I think it'll be a few days still. They can be up to 5 days early or 5 days late.

So since we are going to sell Febe I need another replacement. So without further ado let me introduce to ya'll to ....Hazy Day Cindi Lou Who!

J. and Hazy Day Cindi Lou Who

She came all the way from Sussex New Brunswick. That's an 8 hour drive from here. And no I did not drive that far for her. I have a friend that goes to Bethany Bible College in Sussex. He was coming home for the weekend so he was nice enough to bring her along.

She was born March 25 2010. She was in the CAE prevention program, so that means I have to bottle feed her. It's fun, but alot of work. All the milk I had frozen in the freezer for myself is quickly dwindling down for her. Oh well. She is a sweetie.

Well it's Easter today. The day our Lord and Saviour arose. We organized a breakfast at the church and we had an early morning service. I had my parents over for supper and had rappie pie and I'm stuffed!

Egg hunting

The Easter Bunny passed for J. and left lots of eggs outside for the hunt. The weather was great for it also. It's been gorgeous for a week now. We are getting June weather in April. On the down side it's extremely dry at the moment. It's usually so wet now that we feel moldy. So if it's dry now, by August when it's usually dry it's going to be worse. That means no fires, no weinie roasting, nada, nothing, zip! We'll just have to wait and see what the good Lord has in store for us.

Well I have to go and feed "the baby" and check on Febe.

Have a Blessed Day.