Crrrrazzzy!

Yikes!

It's been crazy here.

And most of it has been from our own stupidity!

Like I said in my last post,  Azelle has a major case of mastitis on one side of her udder.

It might be permanent. We're not sure.

The vet said to give her till mid summer before deciding anything.

She was due on March 26. But she's always 5 days late.

Well on Good Friday she decided to kid one day early....at 2 a.m. till 4:30 a.m.

Ugh.

I was there to help, but unfortunately the first kid was stillborn.

Not quite sure why, since he was the bigger of the two, his presentation was perfect and he was the firstborn. The second kid was ok. They were both boys.

That was the first kid we ever lost. 

 I guess we've been lucky.

We think that Azelle has a small bladder infection, so she's been on meds and pain killers for a few days.  Plus her mastitis.  Poor girl. We named the kid Christian since he was born on Good Friday.

Christian

Then Maggie was due on March 19th. The day came and went. Five days went by (and goats can be 5 days overdue without issue) She didn't look any worse for wear except  that she developed a vaginal prolapse.  The vet told us that it would probably be ok, but to keep an eye on her.  But I had absolutely no idea when she was due.
Obviously my dates were wrong.  

Then Easter morning I go in the barn and through the stall boards I see 8 little extra legs!!! A boy and a Girl!!!

Maggie's boy

The boy might be sold already and we're keeping the girl incase Azelle's mastitis doesn't go away.

Mary Bernadette

I named the girl Mary Bernadette.

Mary because on Easter morning the two Marys showed up at the tomb to be surprised by what they saw....I showed up at the barn and I was surprised by what I saw! 

Bernadette is my grandmother's name. 

I had a full incubator of eggs that was going along tickety boo. When a few days ago I realized that everytime I looked in the turner had the eggs in the same position.

The turner wasn't working!

Crap.

I candled them and out of 42 eggs, 6 might be viable.

Then the chickens were free ranging a few weeks ago and got in the rat poison.

Double crap.

They went on meds to combat the rat poison (but we don't think they ate enough to do damage or only a few got to it). But in the mean time, since eggs are so porous we have to wait 6 WEEKS before eating them again!!! Holy moly!  Yet the guy at poison control says it should be ok to eat them anyway. But the vet says otherwise.  So we're going to err on the side of caution and wait 6 weeks.

Everyday I'm throwing out 2 dozen eggs.  I see the dollars flying away. Sigh....

Live and learn.

We also bought two pigs...Dave's idea. But they're going to be put in an area in the goat pasture that grass is not growing.  It will be fenced in so the goats can't get in.

This way the pigs will dig up that part and then next spring we can plant grass seed so the goats can graze on it.

We were planning a farm day in two weeks. But with all the issues we've been having with the animals we had to back it to mid May.

But there seems to be a lot of interest in my "Springtime on the Farm". Check it out on Facebook.

My only worry will be parking. We don't have a lot of parking here. One of my neighbours said I could use her driveway. I'm going to have to ask the other ones also.

Well that's it for today.

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

Priorities

I have been trying to write this post now for a few weeks, maybe even a month. It's hard for me to admit failure and this post is going to be partly about my failure, but also my sanity.

We've all been rethinking our views on farming. It's getting to be too much. We have no time for anything other than the animals and our fulltime jobs.

One of my favourite pastimes is beach glass hunting. I used to go at least twice a month in the summer. I haven't been in over a year and a half. I'm constantly frazzled, I never have time for J., my garden is over run by weeds and the summer is just started! I could go on and on and on,but I'll stop here.

I'm selling two goats. I don't need Esme and Whisper. J. was upset at first, but then he realizes that it's for the best. He realizes that mommy is just a few straws short of having the proverbial back broken.

I mean honestly, I need one goat, not 4! But you can't just have one because they get lonely. So that's why I'm keeping Febe and Cindi Lou. I'm also going to try having a buck. It's going to save a lot time and money. We got Tommy a few weeks ago. He looks almost identical the Cindi Lou. It must sound like I'm contradicting myself, getting rid of 2 goats and buying another one. But I think I know what I'm doing. (I hope)

I mean, if I breed all four goats, where on earth am I going to put all the kids for one thing, and all the milk?

But with all that being said, we've been trying to sell them and so far no offers and I mean we are selling them cheap! So it seems I'm going to be stuck with them a bit longer.

Now on to the pigs. Some days Dave just wants to get rid of the whole lot. Of course, like me, he finds it takes way too much time. They take 80% of his time at home, then he also has to take care of his elderly parents 5 minutes away and all the maintenance of the house and farm. But he can't just get rid of them and then just get a few in the spring for meat. We get scraps from the stores and if we give that up for the winter, then we lose it for good. So that means we cannot afford to keep the pigs, because the feed here is way too expensive to keep the pigs. So the veg scraps help alot. So we have to keep them all.

One thing he's done is gotten rid of Wilbur. He was too big and getting too rough with Charlotte. So we sold Wilbur for 250$ and got another breeder for 145$. His name is George (I'll pet it and feed it and love it and call it George. lol) He's tiny at the moment, but it won't take long and he'll be ready to do his business.

Every once in a while I feel like I'm in the wrong line of business. I so want to stay at home with my family and farm, but it's just no feasible. Some days my heart aches to be at home with my family. I'd love to be able to find some work from home but in this neck of the woods it's next to impossible. We even looked into opening a goat dairy farm, but it would cost at least 50k if not 100k. So that kinda took care of that idea.

Well I should stop this post here. I think I've ranted and raved enough for tonight.