An Overdue Update

It has been a long time since my last update and I apologize for that. It has been really busy around here for the past month or so. Brad has been away a lot since October due to work, which means I've had more responsibilities to tend to. With spring being here we've had a lot of birthing going on around here. We now have 11 lambs! There were 3-4 kid goats born as well, but they're no longer on the farm. One kid billy I gave to a friend to take care of because his mother didn't want to feed him. She would take care of him in every other way - lick his butt, cuddle with him, and protect him, but she just wouldn't feed him. I guess she is a pretty dumb goat. That nanny goat had had twins, but one died the day he was born. Then another goat had her kid/s, but we have no idea what happened to it/them. One day she was pregnant, the next she was searching for her kid/s acting like she had no idea what happened to them. I don't know if a neighborhood dog got it/them, if it was coyotes, or if they died of natural causes. Whatever it was I haven't found any sign of it/them anywhere.

With birthing goats comes milking time. I began milking both nanny goats each day for 7-10 days before deciding to let them go dry. My midwife told me I needed to figure out how to take it easier, because of signs of a possible premature labor, which I couldn't risk (of course!) The only thing in my everyday life at that point that I could afford to get rid of was the milking. Feeding and watering the animals is mandatory, obviously.

A couple of weeks ago a Black Welsh Mountain ewe died and Brad had told me if that happened to remove its liver, so that we could send it to a lab and figure out why a lot of our Black Welsh just keel over without any signs of something being wrong. So, when I found one of our Black Welsh ewes dead as a doornail in the pen one morning I knew exactly what I needed to do. I ran back to the house for a knife, then dragged the ewe out of the pen, and began gutting her. I had never done this sort of thing alone before, so of course I did the one thing you're not supposed to do for pleasant gutting - I punctured the stomach. Or at least one of them - sheep have four stomachs after all. It was a really gross job after that point (it would have been gross enough without puncturing the stomach), but I found the liver, rinsed it off, put it in a freezer zip lock baggie, and put it in the freezer. At some point we are going to send that off. We suspect that the Black Welsh have a copper deficiency, because Brad recently talked to someone else who has Black Welsh sheep and found out that most of her sheep had died before she figured out they need more copper than most other sheep. The problem with this, of course, is that too much copper would kill them and not enough kills them. So, we have to find the right amount to give our Black Welsh and give it to them in a form where the other sheep won't get it along with them. Also, before we assume it's a copper deficiency we're going to send that liver off and see what the test results reveal.

There have been several other "guy" jobs that have come up, but I won't bore you with all of them in detail. One of them was that our furnace ran out of heating oil and the fuel company couldn't come fill up my tank until the following day. Since it was a really cold day/night, I had to make sure the pipes in the house wouldn't freeze. To do that I had to deal with copper pipes, stinky fuel, and a bucket (that's a long story in short form). Another job: our huge hay stack had to be moved back for a hay delivery. I could have waited for Brad to do it on the weekend, but I hated the thought of him spending his weekend that way when I could help. So, I took it on myself to move that stack. Amazingly enough, even at nearly 6 months pregnant, I only got a minor backache. Each hay bale weighs 100 pounds and I had to move about 40-50 bales to make enough room for a hay delivery. I tried not to lift too many of them - mostly I rolled and scooted them until I had the pile the way I wanted it. I did get a bit scolded for that job. Not even Brad wanted me doing that! I thought that was sweet. Everyone was right; I shouldn't have done that. I also shouldn't have thrown straw bales over into every pen to make fresh bedding for the animals. The straw bales aren't 100 pounds... probably more like 75 pounds, but it was still an awkward, difficult job a pregnant lady shouldn't do.

My sister, Mariah came and stayed with me for 2 1/2 weeks, which was great. I don't know how I would have kept up with housecleaning without her. She was here during the time I was milking goats, which was good. It was hard catching those goats! Our older nannies are trained to get up into the milk stand by themselves, but these younger ones have to be chased. That's where having two people to do the job came in handy. Also, it was nice having someone to play games with, craft with, watch movies with, and just take my mind off of missing Brad.

Well, I guess that's enough of an update for now. I hope everyone is doing well!