Stressful Week... Rejuvenating Weekend.

Well, as many of may or may not know, we had an awful scare here last week. Every time I think that I am beginning to come to terms with the hardships that owning farm animals brings, I am thoroughly reminded how challenging it can be. Last week after a wonderful Cooking Divas meeting where we made some delicious food (including this marinated zucchini that I am still thinking about) drank wine and enjoyed the general girl talk that abounds, I came home to a grave situation. Pepsi, one of our original goats, was not feeling well. I came in the door, flushed and excited to see Mike, when he said, "Don't take your shoes off, we need to go to the barn." My stomach immediately dropped out of my chest and hit the floor with a loud audible "thud". I turned around and rushed out the door and ran the familiar path to the barn. When I opened the door, what I dreaded was there waiting for me. Pepsi, shivering and hunched, stood in the corner of the barn looking every bit as sick as my mind had imagined. I immediately began assessing her from head to hoof. Poking and prodding her to see what may be wrong. She seemed a little bloated and with all the rain from the day we could only imagine, and hope, that it was bloat. So, we treated her with the one parasite medicine we had, to be safe, as well as the mineral oil and baking soda for the bloat. She burped some from the soda and oil and I kept vigil throughout the night hoping that she would start perking up. She didn't. Instead she seemed worse and she begin to have a twitch and seemed less and less cognitive. She didn't recognize I was in the barn until I touched her. I spent the night awake, researching possibilities on the Internet and nothing seemed all that plausible. We, of course, knew by the morning that we needed help.
A call to the vet was made and they promised to arrive by 11:30am. It was such a wait as I checked in on her and comforted her. She only declined and I watched the clock harder, willing it to move faster so that the calgary could arrive. Finally he was there and unfortunately looked as mystified as I was, which only made me dread the worst. Vernors went down hill so fast that the vets never even figured out what happened to her. I couldn't imagine surviving another one of my goats in the same manner. The vet and I discussed the possibilities that he could think of and what I had found on the Internet. We treated for as much as we could think of and struggled to give her an IV. I returned to the house overwrought, covered in blood, hair and drool. The only thing I could think to do was to take a hot shower, do some work from home and patiently wait for the vet to call back with the many test results. The afternoon seemed like days as I fidgeted around the house. Finally the vet called with the results! My phone lost signal, then again and again. I got in my car and drove around the corner to get signal and he didn't call back!!! The anticipation was killing me. Finally he called back and gave me the news that Pepsi had an extreme parasitic infection. We had already given her a wormer and hopefully she could fight through her current poor state and the wormer would have a chance to take effect. Fight through. I was optimistic, but Pepsi was in bad shape. She was twitching like crazy, almost falling over and stumbling drunkenly into everything around her. We had to wait it out.

Wait we did and we were rewarded with a slowly recovering goat! I am so relieved that my dear Pepsi is better. We had Charlie, Sarah, Mom and Dad checking on her over the weekend and the reports twice daily indicated that she was going to make a full recovery. We have wormed the rest of the herd and are looking forward to healthy goats for the rest of the summer!!


Over the weekend we spent time in Columbus for Helena's baptism. It worked out well that we went down on Friday and I got to have a meeting with a business associate. Saturday morning it was all prep for the baptism party. We squeezed in a bike ride and then hustled about doing this and that. We were glad to take a side-trip to Easton with Patricia and John to do a wee bit of shopping. We also had a nice relaxing late-lunch. We finished out a terrific Saturday with my first pizza picnic at Jefferson Mansion. Lucky for me, mom found a pizza place in the Short North called zPizza that had gluten-free pizza! It was delicious! Mike and I had a mean swinging competition at the park. I, of course, won... no matter what he says. Sunday we finished up prepping food and whatnot for the party, went to mass and then had the baptism. Helena was not a happy camper and cried throughout. Though, I'm sure I wouldn't be too excited about hanging out in front of a bunch of people, getting smudged with oils and then having water poured over my noggin. I think I would have cried too. We finished the evening with beers, cornhole, great food and catching up with family. Then a quick drive home that was sunny most of the way. It was a relaxing and rejuvenating weekend after so much stress.

Also, I would formerly like to state... that all who do not get along their in-laws have thoroughly gotten jipped, because mine are awesome!! They are tons of fun and we all love each other. I wouldn't wish for anything else.