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.
Well, last night was quite hilarious. I was talking to Hilary on the way home and of course, as always, my phone cut out just as I was pulling into the carport. I curse you Sprint coverage! I got out of the car and the goats came to the fence to greet me and ask for dinner. But Bell was being really loud. I was slightly annoyed and told her to cool her jets. Then I realized while looking at her, she seemed stationary and quite distressed. I ran out in my heels to find Bell's noggin stuck between the fence post and the barn.
Now, the goats have pushed this particular fence post out and wiggled free of their enclosure more times than Mike and I can count. So my husband, being good at fixing all things and especially dedicated to thwarting the goats, fixed the post so that they could no longer escape. Bell certainly tried and Mike's plan worked. End result - Bell got her head stuck.
Mike - 1
Goats - 109 million
Quite comical actually, but no matter how hard I tried to un-stuck her, I couldn't budge her. So I had to go inside and change into some work clothes. I then attempted to find a drill and bit on Mike's workbench. (Which, if you've ever seen Mike's organizational skills... you'd feel sorry for Bell.) Finally I had found the proper instrument for saving Bell and I went out to remove the braces that held the fence to the barn. It still took several minutes of maneuvering, but Bell was finally freed! She was pleased to be free and gave me a loving nuzzle of thanks.
I have pics that I stopped to take. Bell was quite annoyed, as the whole process took forever as it was. but, I think they are quite funny and I couldn't help myself.
Mike and I also pushed ourselves to head out to tackle the tree planting project. I came up with an amazing new frittata recipe, that I may share eventually. I can say it will be made again, yumm!! Then after savoring the hearty egg dinner we hit the north side of the house project. We spaced out the cedar trees that we purchased to become a wind block and then made a plan. I was digging holes and Mike was cutting down the dead trees. TWENTY-ONE holes was a lot of holes!! My arms and hands were shaking by the time I was done. Mike then went on to putting trees into the ground and I weed-whipped where the dead trees used to be. We got 10 in the ground and watered before it was pitch black. Well, it was actually pretty black as we picked up, did chores and headed inside. Happy all of the hard work is done and now we just have to plant the rest!
Guinness getting his first bath.
I've been working hard this week on projects. Most of my immediate projects are focused on the cold weather coming. Because it's going to be here before I know it! Last night was an annual bath for the goats and a thorough pen cleaning. Being gone and having friends do chores for us, two things happen. First, the goats are inside (not in the pasture) and that makes more waste on the floor for me to clean up, in comparison to when we're home. Secondly, our fantastic friends (I mean it. All who help us are amazing!!) that take care of our animals while we are away, do not clean barns. Not that I would ever expect them to, but it means when we are gone weekend after weekend... it just piles higher. Ugh.
Cleaning the barn.
Pepsi and I at bath time.
The big project this weekend, if we can avoid the rain, is the chicken coop. I would be ecstatic if Mike and I could get the remaining construction done so that I can get it painted, all the goodies installed and the chicken run up in the next week or so. I am going to need several weeks to get the small red barn cleaned out from the chickens and ready for the goats to live in again. I cannot wait to get some of these things done. It will make life for us, the goats and the chickens so much better!
We have been doing so much in August that I'm exhausted! After our excellent trip to see the concert, we got ready to camp back at the pond for the Community Group Campout weekend. It was really nice that a whole bunch of us actually camped there back all weekend this year, instead of going home at night. There were so many people because everyone is having babies! I swear we've tripled the size of the group in just two years with all of the new kids. It was fun seeing all of the new community group babies do what we grew up doing all those years ago.
The biggest adventure of the weekend was roasting a goat. Mike & Will have been talking about eating a goat as long as we've had goats (approximately 2 1/2 years). I have absolutely denied them a taste of any of my goats. So, they found an alternate route to the goat feast they were looking for. They bought the grand champion from the Clinton County 4-H fair and we ate it this weekend. It was quite the adventure! I was in charge of cooking reconnaissance and supervision. The boys did all the hard work. They butchered the goat on Friday night. Then I seasoned the two halves up and put it in the fridge for the next day. All in all I bet hanging weight it was maybe 35 lbs. (note. Much smaller then they lead me to believe, I had lots of extras for seasoning.) I did copious research and came up with some guidelines for cooking it. The most astonishing thing I learned while researching is that goat meat is even healthier than a skinless chicken breast, amazing!! We kept the roaster around 200 degrees and it took about 7 hours. The boys tended it all day and then cut it up for dinner. I seasoned one half with lemon, olive oil, rosemary, garlic, oregano, basil, salt and pepper, very traditional and the other half got a treatment of tomato and Worcestershire. There was much like and dis-like and a great divide between which flavoring was best. I guess I'm glad I did two different ones! I have some adjustments that I would make for the next time, but for a first goat roasting experience... it was a good one. I will say that seasoning such a large hunk of meat is tough work.
I had so many laughs and a fantastic time over the weekend with all of our family and friends. Now we're excited to head out to New Hampshire! Mike & I began packing up last night to go visit Doug, Christy and our new niece Helena!!
Eventually I knew I had to get back to blogging. Apparently the time has come. I have been striving to get more things in my life as organized as I would like them. It certainly has been helping with some things. I have been pushing myself into the mantra, "Things must be hard before they are easy." So I have been doing many things that I have been putting off for ages. Like cleaning my office. I attacked it this weekend. I have thrown out so much paper that has been clogging up my life. It felt AMAZING. Now when I go upstairs, everything is filed and I can sit down at the desk and actually do work. What a miracle.
Life has been flying by fast and furious of late. We have done so many things. I'm planning on posting some pictures from the holiday and whatever else has happened of late. This weekend made me realize how much I have yet to learn as far as being an animal caretaker. It also made me realize how good my instincts are and that I should trust them always. I will always listen to those who are more educated than I (veterinarians), but I will not feel so unsure of my instincts the next time something goes wrong. Because if there's one thing I've learned from my farm animals... Something certainly will. I also learned how wonderfully blessed I am to have people surrounding me that know so much about animals and are willing to help me grow, learn and survive having animals.
Bell stopped eating and excreting waste (nice way to say not pooping or peeing..hehe) on Friday. This mirrored Vernors symptoms exactly. For any who do not know, Vernors was one of our original goats and she got sick and died a day and a half later. The vets could not tell me what had happened to her. I was freaking out! Luckily, I eventually calmed down and Mike and I called the vet and Denny (my savior). The suggested a few things and I had suspicions of other things. We went and got some medicine from Denny and had a good talk with Pam and Denny about the possible problems. They agreed that both my ideas and the vets were plausible. We started treating for both things Friday night. By Saturday morning, Bell was up and about and eating happily. Whew! I am very excited that Bell and her babies to be are ok. It was an intense weekend, monitoring Bell and deciding what needed to change at our farm to fix the problem.
We decided to move the goats away from the chickens until we can build a new home for the chickens. Mike and I worked very hard Sunday morning cleaning a space in a different barn for Bell and Pepsi. And then Mike spent the day making a beautiful new pen in the big barn. I will take some pictures tonight and post them when I post the others. I'm going to make it a goal to build the best, yet cheapest chicken coop possible. Wish me luck!
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.
