Spring Peeper Farm

Monday, April 20, 2015

Sigh.....

Spring has sprung.

Finally.

The garlic is growing, and the reason for the tomato cages is because...

The chickens are free range again. And they'll eat every little green thing they see.

Daisy is "over the moon!" about being outside again.

It doesn't look like it, but take my word for it...she's happy.

And Peeper is singing the praises of no snow, well not much snow anyway, longer days and warmer temps. Hallelujah!!!!! Everyone is in a better mood.

Only in Nova Scotia....two weeks ago it was -2 degrees Celcius at 7am and +26 at 5pm.

Gotta love Nova Scotia.

Have a Blessed Night!

Lisa

Monday, April 6, 2015

Goat Trip!

Earlier this winter we had the misfortune of having to put Pisnak down.

He had major issues with his joints and hooves. We figure that when he was a kid we had fed him milk from Febe that contained the CAE virus. So even though he was a wonderful buck, I couldn't stand to see him in such pain. We even tried pain killers but it got that even they didn't work.

So we chose to euthanize him. Such is life on a farm.

It's sad, but it happens.

We decided to get another buck from where we had gotten Pisnak.

A while ago when Hazy Day farm got a new doe I contacted the owner, Alex, that someday I would be getting a buck from that doe. Little did I know it was going to be sooner, rather than later.

The minute we found out that Pisnak was going to go to the great pasture in the sky, I contacted Alex to put in our order for a new buck from that doe. He wasn't cheap, but after while you have to decide if you're going to breed just for milk or for milk and quality goats.

We're going after quality goats and milk.

So fast forward 5 months and the future herdsire of Spring Peeper Farm is born!!!

He's more beautiful that I imagined! He's going to make beautiful babies!

He's in another province.

He's a three hour ferry ride and overnight stay away (since the ferry only crosses once a day)

or a 6 hour drive one way.....:(

We tried to arrange transportation but with our crazy schedule, Easter approaching and Alex's crazy schedule it was proving to be impossible.

Finally Dave said, " Let's bite the bullet and go on a Round Goat Trip!"

So last Saturday we left at 6 a.m. for Moncton, New Brunswick.

It was a beautiful day with only a few flurries in the forecast...yeah, we've heard that before.

We actually made record time getting there. We were supposed to meet Alex for the "drop" at 1:30 and we got there at 11:30. So we ate lunch and then just sat in

the Irving parking lot waiting for the "drop".

Alex arrived on time and we did the exchange, goat for money. Took pictures, exchanged a few pleasantries and we were off again.

The Exchange of goods.

I figured we'd be home by 8pm. At the latest.

Well that was before Dave spotted a HUGE and NEW Princess Auto.

So we stopped and Dave shopped.

We left and then had to stop at a pet store so Jamie could buy some fish.

By this time is was 5ish and the clouds were closing in.

Technically we were 3 hours away from home. But the snow started to fall. The roads were still clear.

But we left and hi-tailed it for home. We stopped in Coldbrook (which is 2 hours away from home) for take out Wendy's and left.

The road was still kinda clear, then about 10 minutes out of Coldbrook we were met with this.....

What should have taken 2 hours took 4!!! We got home a few minutes before midnight.

The picture doesn't do the road conditions justice. It was even worse than what it looks

like in this picture.

But we got home safe. Thank God!

So the new bucklings name is Hazy Day Something Special or as he's going to be known to us...Peanut.

There's a story behind why we call him Peanut.

But that's for another post.

Cate welcoming her future beau.

This shows he gorgeous and unique colouring.

Now to get Peeper a new friend.....but we'll wait till the snow is gone for that one.

Have a Blessed Evening
Lisa

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

The Winter from Hell!

I shall speak one more time about this winter and then I'll stop.

WoW!

This has been the worst winter since I was a kid.

It just did not want to stop snowing.

These pictures don't show exactly how much snow we've had. Usually in this neck of the woods we'll have a big snow storm...the snow will last a few days, then rain. And that will be the pattern till March when it pretty much just rains.

Let's put it this way, last year on April 18th I actually planted most of my veggies in my raised beds. By looking at the following pictures does it look like I'll be doing any planting anytime soon?

Ahh....no.

The last few days we've had sun, so some of the snow has melted.

But I still can't get to my birdfeeder. I've just been throwing the seeds on the snow.

Then this morning I thought, " Oh My Word! When the snow melts I'm going to have weird grass growing where I threw the seeds. Crud.

I'm so sick of snow. When I woke up two days ago and it was -10 Celcius I almost cried. It's the end of March for Pete's sake!!! GIVE IT UP!

But God knows what we need and obviously He thinks we need snow.

It's giving rain for Saturday!

Awesome.

Everybody has run out of places to put the white stuff.

About two weeks ago while we were having a particularly bad snow storm..again. I turned to my co-worker and said, " You know what I just realized? That we're going to have to go through winter all over again next YEAR!AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

She just said, " we'll cross that path when we get to it."

Oh well, it's gotta go sometime. Right?

By July it should be gone....right?

I think I'm going to cry.

Dave had to make a path to go dump the poop to our poop pile, but a few days after he made the pile it snowed again and you can no longer see the path...again.

Back yard. You can't see the pond or the cast iron egret or my blueberry bushes. Sigh....I hope they survived.

Have a Blessed Day
Lisa

Monday, March 9, 2015

The Worry Begins....

It's begun.

The stress levels are gone through the roof.

Kidding time!

Ack!

I hate it!

I love it!

I don't know what to make of it!

So far we've had pretty good luck with kidding time.

This year not so much.

Azelle was due yesterday, but she decided she couldn't wait

any longer and had them Thursday.

She started in mild labour Wednesday and by 8 am Thursday morning she still didn't have them. I had to go to work and Dave had the early shift that week so he was gone to work at 5:30 am. I worried and worried till I got to work. So I when I walked in the door. I called my dad to go check on her around noon.

He called me at 11:30 to tell me that there was two kids on the ground..phew! But...(there's always a but) momma wasn't looking too good and was trembling. I know it was chilly that day, but she shouldn't have been trembling.

So I left work early to check on them.

Azelle had cleaned them off a bit, but they were still wet.

She was in the corner like my dad said, laying down and trembling.

I checked her temperature and it was normal. I gave her a bucket of warm water and molasses and she only drank a cup or two.

Then I knew something was drastically wrong. Every doe I've ever had, including Azelle, just downs that bucket of warm, sweet goo after kidding.

I called the vet and left a message. It wasn't long before she called me back at work. (I have great bosses that let me leave for goat emergencies, but I still have to go to work and make money to pay for these goat emergencies!)

I needed to start her on penicillin and newcells.

But later on in the afternoon, she still wasn't well. I also needed to give her 7 extra-strength aspirin. But the vet wasn't keen on me giving her all that in case she had a tear in her uterus, she might bleed to death...not a good scenario.

To make a long story short, Dave called the vet again at supper time and we were ready to drive 2 hours at 7pm to get the meds (what we won't do for our goats!) when Jamie remembered my mom was passing by there as we spoke!

So I called her on the cell phone. She had just passed the vet's 10 minutes ago but she'd turn around for us and go get it! Phew!!!

Thanks mom!

So we started Azelle on more drugs than I care to admit.

By now the little bucklings' ears had fallen. They'd gotten too cold. So now I have an Alpine that looks like a Nubian...shudder.....

I'm working on getting them back up.

Sunday, Azelle is still not doing well and to add to the problems her udder is so tight that I can't even get the milking machine hooked up!

So on our way to church Sunday morning, guess who we meet!!!

THE VET!!!

We call and ask him to stop in. He said he'd be there in two hours.

Phew.

SO! Diagnosis....

Azelle has either a bruised uterus or a tear in her uterus. Also she's got edema in her udder. Edema is when you have water pockets in the udder. Not good.

We now have drugs for infection, drugs for water retention, drugs for the tear, drugs for the pain and drugs for....oh wait...that's it. It seems everytime I turn around I'm sticking her with a needle somewheres.

Already tonight the edema has gone down a lot, but she's still in pain. And I have to milk her out twice a day, even with the kids on her because she's making too much milk. She's got enough to supply ten kids.

When I milk her she doesn't move a muscle. I think she knows how well she's going to feel after I'm done.

But other than the fallen ears, the kids are doing great.

We called the buckling Spring Peeper Claude Chaloux, after a friend of ours.

And the girl (which we are keeping) Spring Peeper Caithness Clairee.

Many, many moons ago, like 19 years worth of moons, we went to England and the factory where they make Caithness glass. I loved the name so I decided to use it on this little cutie. Clairee is from a Steel Magnolias character.

We'll call her Cate for short.

So it's Cate and Claude. And they are CUTE!!!!