New One

Well after a dry two weeks, we've had another mom give us twins.  They are very very little and weak.  I don't expect one of them to make it.  Mom is very skittish and doesn't seem to have an interest in the babies.  I'll check on them in a couple hours to see if anything has changed.  I really don't want anymore bottle babies, but ...
Our little floppy head baby is still holding on, but I'm not sure how much longer she can.  From what we can tell she has extensive nerve damage.  Her legs and always shivering and she has no control over her functions except her head.  She manages to still drink her bottle.  We have several sneaky petes in the barn too always trying to get milk from those who are not their moms.  Some are very skinny and probably need to.  I really wish we had tagged these babies.  We have a mom or two whom I suspect has dried up and we haven't a clue who their babies are to bottle them.
I still have mixed feelings as to whether I want to just downsize our herd and keep them or actually sell everything.  Life would definiately be easier without them, but I do like watching and interacting with the moms.  Maybe we should give it a chance with a smaller herd and maybe we'll like it more.  It could be a difficult decision though as to who stays and who goes.  Some of the moms will be easy to decide upon.  Nature is taking care of some of the culling.  We've lost a few and at least 3 more look like they won't be around too much longer.  We're not sure what is causing it, but hopefully come spring when they can get out and graze things will look better.  I'm sure in about 2 months or so our first babies will be ready to go.  They sure are getting fat and big.  We'll also send a batch of adults that we no longer want then.

I've started Justine and Eddie's quilt.  I'm not sure I'm cutting it right for the amount of fabric, but hopefully it will work out.  I think this one I'll take and have quilted because I would like it done for their wedding.  I'll get the top done in time, but no way will the rest get done. 
I'm missing 3 of my blocks of the month.  I cannot find them anywhere in the house.  I know I have them, but where oh where are they?  I got on a roll stitching those up and now have to stop until they can be located.  My new block of the month is meeting on Tues. next week.  I'm looking forward to getting out I think.  I don't like hauling all my stuff over all the time, but it gives me help and conversation and a change of scenery.  I'm also going to be starting 2 new SALs.  Funky Flowers and EMS Flowers.  There are several of us in my online group that are going to be doing this.  I just need to be a little more organized and set time aside to do them.

Tonight Brad wants me to go with him 1.5 hours away to look at a snowmobile.  I'm not happy with the decision of his to get one, but he feels it will be useful for hunting coyotes.  Sure...
After he told me that all guilt from buying 'stuff' on the weekend went right out the window.  Since we only have enough snow one out of every three years to even use it, I'm sure it will sit in the shed like the motorbike.  Boys and their toys...

Well time for breakfast and tea now, and to check on Taylor to see if he is doing his school work without being told.  hahahahaha

Update

It's been quite a while since I was last on here.. Busy busy.  Taylor and I have been down at the barn 3 times a day to feed and watch for new ones.  We are down to 29 pregnant does.  There may be some in there that aren't pregnant but we won't know until we're down to the last.  A pregnancy test would be easier, but more expensive than waiting.  We now have 15 bottle babies--12 in a pen and 3 out.  We've bought 2 milk feeders, but the babies seem to like having the physical contact of people and they seem to only drink from it if we are there.  That isn't the purpose  :(   We have lost 3 babies recently to malnutrition (we believe)  Brad mentioned the possibility of mouse poop poisoning as there seems to be quite a few mice in the creep feeder.  We haven't figured which is better, the chance of the goats dying from toxemia from the cat poop or dying from eating bad mice poop.  I think we should stick a cat or 2 down there.  The problem would be keeping them in there.  They aren't used to the barn or the goats and I don't think the mice would be enough of a lure to keep them there.  I'm hoping Brad will take our first shipment of goats to the market on March 12.  I figure the bucks and any moms who have dried up or didn't have babies can be sent.  That will clear out several and we can then shift the older/bigger babies and their moms into a different area.  Will he agree?  The babies are now hopping all around and jumping up and down on the little snow banks around the barn.  It is so fun to watch.  I'll have to get a picture or video--maybe later today.

Well craft wise,   I'm trying to catch up on my 2010 block of the month.  I'm on July now.  I'm also working on the 2011 block of the month.  They are doing 2 a month and so far I'm on April.  Still on track.  I joined a few SAL's for cross stitching and it is hard trying to keep up.  We had our book club meeting and it was fairly good.  They haven't yet picked another book, the leader Janice is going to do that.  I also went to my first Homeschool meeting since moving here.  It is in Stettler.  The ladies all seem nice.  It is a fairly laid back group, mostly a social gathering over coffee.  I mentioned that I would like some topics every now and then, not just gabbing.  We'll see if anything comes up.

Well on to the rest of my day.  Happy Valentines in case I'm not on here again before then.

Busy Day

Rachel came home for the weekend yesterday.  Very nice to see her again. I miss having her around.

We continued to have babies all week.  No time to clean out the pens between mamas.  Today we started to clean the barn, but the moms just all started having kids.  We now have 6 possibly 9 bottle babies.  The last 3, mama had to be helped to deliver.  2 were breech and she was just too weak to push.  She had been in the pen for a week and wouldn't stand.  Hopefully she was just too heavy and now that she has had her babies maybe she'll get up and the babies will nurse.  In the end a few pens were cleaned out and fresh straw was put throughout.  When Brad came in there was another mom pushing.  One little tiny one is currently in the house so she can be fed every couple hours. We can only manage to get 1/2 - 1 oz in her at a time.  Hopefully we'll have a day or two of a break before a bunch more moms have a go.
Here's the little squirt of a bottle baby.

I managed to finish my Jan. and Feb. quilt blocks for my block of the month program and am now working on block 5 of another block of the month program.  I think things might be put on hold for a couple days though.  I do still have quite a bit of baking to do.  I managed to get some baking apples on sale for .99cents a bag.  I bought 2 bags, now I better do something with them.  I also have wanted to make Whipped Shortbread since before Christmas and still haven't done them.  Well I'm tired so that is all I'm writing about today..

More babies

Well we had 3 arrivals last night.  Good and healthy.  On the down side one of the moms is still in labour.  At this point we just need to get baby out.  The water broke this morning and baby still hasn't come out.  Mom has been pushing off and on all day.  We don't have any expectations of baby being alive, but we'd like to keep mom alive.  Needless to say I've been at the barn pretty much all day.  Brad wants me to go down with him when he gets home to help pull the baby out.

If all goes well, tomorrow is grocery day and visit with mom day.  I'm looking forward to it. 

I"m back to driving the van.  Brad's car is in need of an engine so he took mine (the car that is)  He has requested I don't go anywhere unnecessarily because the van takes more gas than the car.  Tomorrow's trip is necessary.

I made some progress on my 1 Corinthians cross stitch picture the last couple days.  Hopefully I'll be done page one soon.  I would like it done for the wedding to give as a gift.

I'm looking forward to Rachel coming on Friday.  I think I'll make her bring Danielle too.  Have a family fun day in the barn cleaning.. haha
That's it for now.

Our weekend disasters

Well it started pleasant enough.  My friend arrived on schedule with the kids and the dogs, no trouble.  Then within an hour our dog (who previously got along with my friend's dog) decided she didn't like him and drew blood.  Not much, but...so what to do..they are both outdoor dogs.  We brought ours in and hers out.  Less chance of marking territory. She followed me around all day, even in the craft room and she curled up on the cat bed.
Her other little guy is an indoor dog and he had to be tied in case of chewing and marking. Lyra was good as long as that fellow was tied, but as soon as he was loose watch out..I never heard such sounds or saw such a face as coming from that dog before.  Feeding time was to say the least interesting.  We were always switching off the dogs for pee breaks and food.
Sat. morning we had a new baby goat and my friend wanted to see it , so down to the barn we went.  They also wanted to try bottle feeding our other babies.

All was good.  We went to town-30 min. - to get some backing and quilt batting to get started on finishing one of my quilts and found that particular town doesn't have too many businesses open on Sat.  Not busy enough--go figure--a little disappointed we just got our groceries and went home.  Then pinned one of  my other quilts that I did have all the supplies for.

Brad spent from when we got home at 3 until 1:30 in the morning fixing his car that broke last week.  In the morning he came back from the barn with the news that one of our little ones had died.  We thought maybe mom wasn't letting him eat due to some sores on her teats.  Upon further investigation it turns out that was only the beginning. After holding mom so the other baby could suck I found out that some of her udder and both her teats were hard with no milk.  We attempted to bottle feed.  Not so good.  Ended up every time baby baaaahed we squirted some milk in.  In the end he got almost 6 oz.  We'll be trying again today and possibly calling the vet to see what can be done about mom, if anything.
Brad also attempted to go to his friends to pick up our deer meat and he made it 3 miles down the road and after getting stuck in drifts a couple times turned around to go the other way and made it 1.5 miles down the other way and his engine caught fire from working too hard to get through the snow.  Remember this is the car that he just spent all that time fixing.  So needless to say the weekend sure wasn't the pleasant time I was hoping for.  I didn't even get my cookies baked for Brad.  On the up note. I did get a great phone call from my good friend in Texas.  I miss her so much.  They are going to try to come up for Justine's wedding.

 I noticed this morning that the buses haven't been through, nor the plow--I'm suppose to get grain from the neighbour 4.5 miles down the road.. I wonder if I'll be able to.  I'll really have to listen for the plow later.

So what's up for today.  Chores and baking, laundry, cleaning out a kidding pen or two, getting grain, schooling Taylor, and making supper.  Maybe I'll be able to get a little crafting in there--not likely...ugh I'm so tired already and nothing has even been done.

A New Beginning

Well the teenage goats are gone.  All 120 of them.  Better late than never I suppose.  The man who took them said they looked healthy, just not very heavy.
  I talked to a friend who is also a farmer's wife.  I mentioned I was having a hard time with the knowledge that these poor babies were going to be slaughtered.  Her advice was to distance myself and try not to think about it.  I think she has the same issue with their cows.  So on with the new.  We moved all 26 new babies and their moms into the empty area.  Now we just have to watch them a little more closely as they are bound to be trampled with their mother's attempts to get outside in the morning.  One almost was this morning.  We also had a little guy left alone outside in the cold, snowy weather last night.  Her mom went into the barn at dark and she was left there on the pile of hay.  Good thing Brad went down just after dark to check instead of waiting until 9 when he usually goes to close up.  She may have perished by that time.  Even one of my little bottle babies couldn't wait to get out for hay this morning.  We had to track him down and bring him in to drink his milk.  We had 2 new additions to our collection this morning.  It was a pleasant sight.  Both dry and drinking and mom being protective.  Yahoo.  We got a heat lamp going, fresh water and some grain and got all 3 into a secluded pen.  Maybe we'll get a couple more today.
On the down side, our house smells distinctly of skunk.  I thought they hibernated...  I think it has taken up residence until our back stairs.  They are concrete homemade stairs hollowed out underneath for a dog house.  It is full of straw and some dog accessories because the dogs go in there to get out of the cold and wind.  I took a peek after I smelled the odour and it was very very strong in there.  I didn't see anything, but I wasn't going all the way in to check.  Maybe the dogs startled it and it sprayed.  Who knows?  Brad will have fun looking out for it.  Another critter for him to shoot.

My friend should be arriving tomorrow and hopefully we'll have a good couple days of stitching/quilting.  That is the plan though.  Maybe we can even watch a chick flick or two.  I guess I should make some more cookies today, Brad's stash is getting low and I don't want to be doing that with my friend here.  I should really be getting groceries, but I don't feel like going out today.  The wind caused some pretty good drifts last night and I don't feel like plowing through them.  I'll head out tomorrow morning. 

I guess my mind is pretty much empty now, my 5 day cold is almost gone and I'm feeling almost normal today.  I shall type again soon.

Is Today the Day?

Is today the last full day of these kids?  Hmmm we'll have to see.  The weekend was sad goatwise.  We had 2 moms lose 5 babies.  Not good for the stats book.  I also lost a chicken.  I think it was from the kaos the other day.  The dogs were pretty pleased that I gave her to them though.   I was feeling a little blue down there this morning thinking about all these joyful little beasts prancing around like they haven't a care in the world, knowing that possibly they have less than a week to live.  Saddle didn't want her full bottle amount this morning either.  I'll have to keep an eye on her today.  It could be that she is starting to eat hay and just doesn't want as much from her bottle.  The poor nannie that lost her babies was baaaing this morning looking for them.  I sure was pretty glum.  Hopefully the day will pick up and maybe when I go down this afternoon some wonderful mama will have had 2 healthy strong babies.

Well Taylor shot his first prey.  Brad made him shoot a porcupine yesterday on their way back from getting grain. I asked Brad why he made him do it and his answer was it was on his side of the truck.  I think Taylor was quite excited about it, but he knows I don't like the shooting of things for no reason so he made it quite casual.

I managed to bring another table into my craft room, so I can now sew in there.  It's starting to look good--I wish the trim was on etc. and shelves were up, but hopefully it will come.  All I need now is my tv and a comfy chair, so when Brad is watching something I don't want to watch I can go into my room and watch a chickflick and stitch in comfort.  I may steal Rachel's chair.(ssshhh). I have a friend coming on Thurs. to visit and quilt here.  Her, the kids and the dogs are coming for 3 ish days.  I hope it turns out to be a nice visit.  She is going to help me start the backing on the quilts I have.

I guess that is it for now.  Maybe one day soon I'll figure out how to put pictures up..