Finding A Mountain

I think I mentally started this post a dozen times. So much has been going on the last few months, I feel like it has been a luxury to even contemplate posting, much less actually doing it! I think the main reason I am finally sitting down to post is I just want to get a few things out of my head, and clear my brain cells from some of the clutter.

In January, I took a trip by myself, for the first time in....I don't even know. Certainly BC (Before Children), and probably since early on in my marriage. Hubby and I truly enjoy each others company (even after 15 years of being together!), so there hasn't been a lot of incentive to go on a solo trip. This time was a little different. My folks offered to pay my way to California to have a week-long visit with family (I have quite a few relatives out that way) and to see my grandmother celebrate her 90th birthday.

It was a trip of mixed feelings. It was fun (although slightly stressful having to deal with airport security, etc.) traveling by myself. No kids to chase, no other people to look after but myself. I was sad to leave my family for a week, but it was a good experience. It gave me a much-needed breath of air, and allowed me to have a little time to myself and to see my extended family.

Seeing my grandmother made me feel sad. She is such a vibrant and bright figure in my childhood. She and my great-grandmother were such strong women. They were also both,tragically, rather crazy. I can understand their craziness to some extent was brought about by circumstances out of their control, but it has had lasting repercussions through our family relations. It was actually my husband who helped me forge a renewed relationship with my grandmother several years ago, and I think it was for the best. He told me that even though she was crazy, she was also an old lady and would not be around for much longer. So why not forgive her some of the craziness for the sake of loving your grandmother for her last few years on this earth. Such a smart man.

I felt so sad seeing her. It was almost like visiting with a shadow of herself. Some vague parts of her personality and speech were there, but her soul, her spirit was gone. She has been showing greater signs of Alzheimer's the last few years, and it has robbed her of much of her lively personality. She now lives in a home with 3-4 other residents, and doesn't remember much . I think it is a blessing, actually. She had such a hard life (crazy mother, remember?), and was such a bitch to her daughters (and daughters-in-law, and granddaughters, and probably nieces as well), that it a great irony of life that in her final years she remembers nothing. She didn't even remember me. I feel a little wistful that there was only a vague flicker of recognition, and sad that her memories are gone forever. It would have been interesting to have some written down or recorded.

Oh well.

In the middle of February, we discovered that someone in my in-laws neighborhood (where we have been staying with our animals) didn't like our piggies. They left rat poison in their pen, and some of the dogs got hold of it as well. Luckily, they were all fine, especially our two pregnant (!!!WOOHOO!!!) gilts/sows. So we realized that the universe was AGAIN saying "GET OUT AND MOVE", so we had better take the hint and FIND a way to make things work on land somewhere. After a few advertisements, we found out that people in Colorado were *really* interested in our pigs (especially the piglets to buy), and we found several folks willing to help us out in relocating our animals. One even had a place for us as well (!!), so for the last month or so we have been busily moving our pigs and goats and tidying up the place for human habitation. That is another story all together. Especially the "pig moving" story. Whew!

It is pretty rustic right now (no running water, no heat, spotty electricity, and even more spotty internet and phone service), BUT it is four walls, a roof and a ceiling for us, safety from poisoners for our animals, and hopefully a little more serenity and calm for our little family SOON. We are working very hard on making it so, so please forgive the lapses in posts as we try to work all this out. And keep your fingers and toes crossed that this is the right path the universe is setting us on!

Yup, I'm Tired

Truly, my eyes at least are tired. They have been hurting all day long, and I have no idea why. I must have scratched my left eye while I slept last night. It was hurting all day, and when I took the littles out to run a few errands, the sunlight nearly blinded me. I am going to read and go to bed soon. I don't feel like writing anything creative tonight. Good night, and maybe tomorrow I will have a creative flash and pen a truly magnificent post. Sleep well in the Blog-O-Sphere.

An Update on Rune

So I thought now would be a good time to give an update on Rune, our little goat who broke her leg. It has been three weeks so far, and she seems to be doing just fine. Fine enough that we decided to add a little protective covering to the splint she has on (because of the snow and mud), and let her go back to the herd.

It all seemed to go well, being re-introduced to Alice and Rain (her twin sister), as well as meeting two out of three of the new does. The smallest one was in the garage/infirmiry we set up for her for about 2 days while she recovered from the stress of moving, etc.

Doesn't she look great?

Never throw anything away

I admit it, I am a pack rat. I come from a long line of pack rats, as does my husband. It is something that often frustrates us, as we have a lot of "stuff" that we are trying to organize without anywhere to put it. We struggle with trying to decide when we should get rid of something, especially since when we do, we often end up needing it for a project weeks or months later on. It is especially difficult because we intend to build our own home, so we need a certain amount of stuff for it. Much is in the nature of building supplies (wood, countertops, metal, etc.) that will be useful when we start building, but can really get in the way when there is no easy place to store it. We also try to repurpose and recycle materials as often as possible, finding creative ways to resolve problems. Like when we needed to build a pen and shelter for our first goats with just what was lying around on the property (we spent about $4 total on clips for the gate. That is it); the Goatagon was the product of our creativity.

Yesterday I was once again thankful that we and my in-laws have this tendency to keep items we may need in the future. Early in the morning during my husbands routine of feeding and watering the goats, one of the little ones (Her name is Rune) got her back leg stuck in the fence of the goat pen and broke it. Hubby was very upset and came to get me inside, where I was working on the goat milk and breakfast preparations. We checked it out, and it was indeed broken cleanly between the hock and the knee along the cannon bone. 

Neither of us had ever dealt with something like this before, but since I remembered reading a few months prior about goats and broken bones (and in light of our recent successful experiences with our goofy dog), I felt confident that we could deal with it ourselves.

We quickly grabbed some thin scrap wood from the garage/shop, and some self-adhesive bandage from my mother-in-laws vast stores of random medical supplies (she was a nurse until she retired) and set about making a splint to keep her leg together while we figured out if there was another way to keep it stable. The way it worked out, Hubby realigned the bones and wrapped the splint while I held the goat and kept her stable and helped keep the wood from moving too much. It seemed pretty easy to wrap, and she didn't complain much while we did it. In fact, she happily munched a little grain we set out without so much as a peep. Of course, it was too easy. After setting her back in the pen with her newly stabilized leg, we set about our own breakfast and research on goats and broken bones.

My father-in-law, in his infinite wisdom (insert heavy sarcasm here) claimed that you couldn't put a cast on a goats leg, and we should just splint it (using the materials we already did, only he treated it as his original idea). During our research we found that you can either cast or splint a broken leg, and it should heal just fine after the 4-6 weeks it takes for a bone to knit. We both thought that a cast would be the way to go, but after spending a few hours calling around the various medical supply places in the nearest town we weren't able to locate any plaster cast material. Weird. The ironic thing is that I have several rolls of the stuff back at our home since that is what I have used to make plaster casts of peoples faces for my artwork.

So after also calling a vet (who was currently being snowed in, in the next state over and couldn't drive the hour here to check on our little doe), we decided that we needed to replace the splint with a studier one. We also realized that she would do better in an "isolation" ward so that Alice wouldn't act like a normal goat and head butt her or push her around while she is healing. So we gathered our supplies again, plus some metal splint material normally used for fingers (and an ideal size for an almost yearling doe) and we set about to re-splint her leg. It wasn't as easy this time around. I think the leg was starting swell more, so she was pretty unhappy with having the bones realigned and splinted again (and was rather vocal about it). We also had our daughter take photos (hence the occasional finger in the way and viewpoint) since I had to pin down the doe so her leg could be worked on by my wonderful husband. I am sure it was quite the scene, with us doing the mending while also having to answer her questions, keep Rune calm, make sure our son was staying out of the way, while handing over the necessary supplies as they were needed. We ended up putting her in a large dog kennel (another very useful item we rescued from a neighbors trash) in the garage where we can keep her warm, dry, and in a small confined area for her recovery. Hopefully we can set her out in a few weeks once it starts healing, but we will have to play it by ear and see how it goes.

I suppose there are several lessons to be found here, if you are the sort to look for them. Always be prepared (luckily my husband is a former Boy Scout, and a creative man to boot) would be an important one. He says this last year has been all about learning patience and a certain amount of veterinary medicine, which I would not argue with at all!! Prepare for the worst but expect the best; I feel is one that is always good to keep in mind. And to bring us back full circle, dear readers: Never throw anything away. You never know when you may need it to fix a goats' broken leg.

A Dog-Gone Mystery

One of our dogs is such a big goob. He is a sweet yellow lab, who normally is really well trained. However, when we stay here at the in-laws place, he kind of looses his brain. Here is a case in point. The neighbors on two sides have several dogs each. They love to run along the fence barking like mad at each other, whipping themselves up into a serious frenzy. They eventually stop, once they feel they have defended their own property from the dogs on the other side of the fence. Really annoying. Especially when our dogs join in on the game and get so focused on running the fence that they don't hear us calling for them to stop. I don't like having to practically drag my dog away from the fence and to his senses.

A few weeks ago, we noticed one of our dogs with a small hole in his side. We thought it was from one of the other dogs, or from running the fence. It was a pretty serious hole, which we treated successfully at home. Well, this week there are more holes, all at the same height. Yuck. Apparently we need to do some serious looking at the property again to see if we can figure out where it is coming from. Fun times!

Here are a few photos from when we cleaned it his morning. Much of the red is actually iodine, so it looks pretty ugly. It is starting to heal though, and should be just fine in a few days.