Posts from — February 2010

I came down with a nasty stomach flu Tuesday morning and was flat out for all of Tuesday and most of Wednesday.  I’m feeling better now, but I’m behind the eight-ball catching up.

This morning didn’t go so well.  Angel was a pain in the butt about coming out to be milked.  She doesn’t want to leave her babies.  The other five (including Addie and Billie who have babies) are happy to come out for the food they know they are going to get in the milk room, but not Angel.  Gel had to really get on her to get her to come out.  Once I got her on the stand, she was okay in the beginning, then she started kicking.  Not much irritates me more than trying to milk a goat who is kicking.  Angel may find that her babies will disappear one day if she keeps this up.  On the other side of the coin, Addie doesn’t seem to care much about her baby.  Frequently, I see him out there trying to nurse, but Addie keeps moving away.  He is getting some milk, he’s not crying, but I hate to see him trying so hard.  Damn, I hate to have to bottle feed babies, but this is getting to be a bit ridiculous.  Fennel is due any day now.  I wonder which side of the spectrum she’ll fall on.

March 22 can’t come soon enough.  I’m fed up with dealing with Buster and his bullish behavior.  You have to keep a close eye on him when you go in to take care of the poultry.  I tried to put him back up with the sheep this morning, but he immediately started riding them.  I know he’ll ride the goats if given half a chance.  He’s causing damage to the structures in the poultry pasture by rubbing his horns on them.  The next calf will surely be castrated.

Gel was a worthless jerk while moving Buster up to the sheep and then separate him out from the sheep and bringing them back.  Right now, his brain is located in his testicles.  Split will be the last intact bitch that will be kept on the premises.  Sure, I could neuter Gel, but he’s healthier as an intact male.  Split is going to be spayed before her next heat.

I’m trying to rehome Dream and there’s a good chance I’m going to sell Merlin.  Merlin has been rough on Dream.  He doesn’t let her eat and I don’t have the time or patience to stand guard while she finishes her food to keep him from getting it.  At this time, we do not have a proper place for horses and I hate the thought of them standing in a mud hole (not that most horses in this area are not standing in mud holes).  I was letting them out to graze on the 15 acres, but once his belly gets full, Merlin gets into trouble.  Yesterday, he broke one of the windows on the milk parlor.  While I like the idea of having a horse and of course I love riding, etc., let’s face it, horses are essentially worthless, bottomless money-pits.  I can’t afford to keep worthless animals.  If it were not for his meat, I’d sell Buster as well.

Okay, I’m really, really cranky and a lot of it is due to the never-ending shitty weather and being sick.  It will get better, right?

Until later …

We didn’t get as much done this weekend as I would have liked, but sometimes that’s the way it goes.  The kid pen is completely covered and hopefully it will stay that way.  I’ve milked four mornings in a row now.  It still feels a bit odd.  I now know why many dairies take the babies away from their mothers.  The mothers can be a pain in the butt during milking.  Addie and Billie are pretty good about coming into the milk parlor and settling down, but Angel is another story.  It was just starting to rain when I went out this morning so I sent Gel in to bring out the goats.  Everyone came in but Angel so  I give Gel permission to light up her a butt a bit.  Maybe tomorrow she’ll cooperate better.

On Sunday, I started to think about getting my spring garden in.  I thought I was going to be able to use a plastic-covered cattle panel that I would lift up as needed, but that idea failed miserably.  I broke down and bought some plastic row cover off e-Bay.  The price was very reasonable and the seller is in North Carolina so I should have it early this week.  It’s raining today, but tomorrow is supposed to be nice so if all goes well, I’ll work on getting the hoops secured and get some seedlings planted.  I’d love to get some tomato seedlings started in the house so I’ll have a jump start on the growing season, but that just might not happen.  I am still having difficulty with cold-weather gardening.

The cover on the ShelterLogic building that I bought for the horses, then tried to convert to a cat kitchen got ripped during a recent wind storm.  I am toying with trying to put the plastic I bought for the row covers over it, but I don’t know that it will stay in place.  Given how the weather has been lately, you can’t count on any type of tarp or plastic staying in place.

Somehow this weekend, I injured my right knee and it is really bothering me today so I’m going to cut this post short and go and put it up.

Until later …

I was asked what the difference in taste was between goat milk and cow milk.  Originally, I didn’t think there was any difference.  When I was drinking goat milk last year, it taste like milk.  I haven’t drunk goat milk in several months now.  I am drinking a glass of it right now and I do notice a difference in taste: it has more tang to it.  It is not at all objectionable, but it’s there.  Of course, the goats are in their beginning stages of lactation so that may mean some difference in taste, but it should be much.

Yesterday, I got over a half a gallon of milk from Addie which is pretty good given she’s nursing her baby 24/7.  It is nice to be milking again.  I milked Angel and Billie as well, but they were pretty much just “two squirts in the bucket.”

It is slowly warming up.  For the first time in a long time, the hose wasn’t frozen which was a good thing because I forgot to drain it.  I drained it Wednesday night, but it was still frozen.  We are supposed to get to a whopping 54 degrees today; 58 on Saturday and 62 on Sunday.  Time for celebration!  We might break out the gas grill over the weekend.  While we could still grill when it’s cold, for some reason, I can’t get my head around grilling when it’s so cold.

Do you ever sleep so hard and deep that you feel like you can’t wake up?  I was sleeping that way last night until I heard a loud howl right under the bedroom window.  It woke me bolt upright!  I thought it was a coyote until I realized Gel wasn’t on the bed.  I know now why he was howling: Split is in heat.  Spring must be in the air as Dream is in heat now too.  So Gel is lying here looking extremely uncomfortable and Split is under lock and key.

Yesterday I bought some young chickens.  I got some “Buff Bantams” (a cross between a Buff Orpington and a Bantam).  They are cute as buttons.  I also bought some regular Buff Orpingtons and some Black Australorps.  We are selling quite a few dozen eggs a week so I wanted to have young chickens ready to start laying in a few months.  Both Wally and I enjoy watching the chickens and we like having the variety of different breeds that we have.  Like the goats, the chickens pay for themselves.

This weekend we plan on getting the tin on the horse run-in, weather-proofing the kid pen and the smaller chicken pen.  We’ll move the sheep this afternoon.  We have several social events to go to this weekend which is going to cut into our chore time.  I guess that isn’t a bad thing, but given that we are finally going to have a nice weekend, I’d like to be outside getting things done.

Until later …

Yesterday, I got a letter from the North Carolina Employment Securities Commission letting me know that I qualified for another 12.8 weeks of unemployment.  That’s a relief.  In addition to that little bit of good news, two interesting paralegal opportunities came up on Craigslist.  Many of the job opportunities on Craigslist are bogus, but the two paralegal positions that I interviewed for came up on Craigslist.  You need to be careful about almost everything on Craigslist; but it can be a handy tool.

In addition to getting the letter, I got to speak to my good friend Helene for almost an hour.  I wish I could talk to her more frequently as she always gives me food for thought.  One of the topics of discussion was Split.  Helene’s dog, Kestrel, is quite like Split.  Helen tracked down Kestrel’s breeder and has had the benefit of the breeder’s insight on Kestrel.  What I really need to do is to simply back off her for now until I have appropriate stock for her to work and at that time, work her tail off.  In time, she will settle down and turn into a really good dog.

Wally and I have discussed Split an awful lot lately.  We can’t fault her work; she’s a good dog; but at this point in time, she needs to be put up when we are not able to supervise her.  For example, I took both dogs with me when I went to get milk this morning.  Before we left, I let the horses out of their paddock (a/k/a the mud-pit).  When we got back, I let the dogs out of the truck before I opened the gate and pulled the truck through.  Gel stayed with me, but Split immediately went out after the horses.  As another friend said, she’s working on adrenaline; her brains are not coming into the picture at all.  I should say that she may, in time, turn into a dog that we can live with, but that’s only if she survives long enough.  You’d think at two years old that she’d be a bit more settled, but she isn’t.

It’s all one big learning experience.  At least now I am a bit more settled than I have been over the past couple of weeks.  That notice that you get when you fill in your weekly certification that says you have two weeks or less of compensation remaining rattles you beyond belief.  What do you do when you send out resume after resume; fill out application after application and get no calls?  I know I’m not the only one in this position, but sometimes I feel very much alone.

One day, this will all be a bad memory.

Until later …

So much for the plans to feed the cats outside.  It just wasn’t going to happen.  You’ve probably heard the saying: Cats rule and dogs drool.  It’s quite true.  I decided it was less effort to wash the kitchen floor every day than it was to try to feed them outside.  Not to mention my hands all but froze off every morning that I was out there hacking up meat.  Oh, and carrying the meat and my equipment outside, down the icy stairs, was quite the trick.

I’m sure we’ll find another use for the small ShelterLogic building.

I put Addie up with her surviving baby yesterday.  She spent most of the time crying to be let out which I finally did around 3:00.  Then I watched her carefully.  I don’t think the one baby died due to lack of care; I think there may have been something wrong with him.  He was the second kid delivered and he may have been in the birth canal too long and suffered some trauma.

We decided not to put the babies up last night.  They need to be dehorned over the next couple of days which is stressful for them.  That stress coupled with how bloody cold it’s been here at night (low 20’s) might cause more deaths.  We’ll try next week when it’s a bit warmer.  I’ll bring the three does with kids into the milk parlor around mid day and see how much milk I get off them, but this is more to get a bit of extra feed into them than to get milk.

I did get a good amount of cleaning done yesterday.  I only have two more rooms to get done today in addition to running some errands.

On the job front: do you recall when you’d look at the Sunday newspaper and there would be pages and pages of help wanted advertisements?  My neighbor saved both the local and Charlotte Sunday newspapers for me this week.  I had to hunt the classified section of the local paper.  There was only two pages of advertisements.  The Charlotte paper wasn’t much better.  Will there be any end to this?  I do not think the economy is getting any better.

Until later …

I went out this morning to feed everyone and discovered one of Addie’s babies was almost dead.  I thought he was dead until I picked him up and he moved.  I brought him into the house and tried to warm him up, but he died about 30 minutes later.  Damn!

Right now, Addie is up in the hitching area with her surviving baby.  She’s not happy about the situation, but tough.  Maybe if I leave her up with him for a couple of days, she’ll bond with him and care for him as she should.  Given that I’m going to have to milk Addie, I might as well start milking the Billie and Angel.  As soon as it warms up, I’m going to go out and get a tarp cover over the “kid pen” and bed it down with some straw and we’ll put the babies up tonight and I’ll start milking tomorrow.

I checked Billie’s babies and they both have full bellies and clean butts.  Angel has turned into a fabulous mother.  It will be interesting to see how Fennel does.  She’s due February 23.  I don’t like having to “jug” dairy goats with their babies, but I might have to so that this doesn’t happen again.  Fern has raised babies before and Lilly is young enough so she should be fine too, but I’ll keep a close eye on them.

Until later …

Mondays, in general, seem to suck.  I don’t know what it is.  Maybe it’s the anxiety attack I suffer until I know my unemployment deposit hits my bank account (which it didn’t do this past Monday because of the holiday).  Maybe it’s the feeling of not have a job to go to.  I don’t know what it is, but I told Wally this morning that I might just have a nervous breakdown and get it over with.  Either that or slit my wrists.

The weather isn’t helping.  The house is a disaster area, yet I can’t get up enough ambition to clean it.  Maybe today, since the sun is supposed to shine, I can get some cleaning done.  I did bake, cook and do laundry.  I made a loaf of cranberry, walnut corn bread, a pot of chicken soup and some regular corn bread.   I’ve become the corn bread queen.  My cornbread is kick-ass (coming from a man weaned on corn bread).  The soup was really good too.

I did try to use Split to move the ewes and lambs up to the ElectroNet, but it was a disaster.  She was a crazy-ass fiend and that settles it, she will not be worked until I have suitable stock to work her on.  If I had been working her regularly, which I haven’t been, she might have been fine.  These days she’s nothing short of a crazy-ass fiend.

Then a FedEx truck got stuck in the driveway.  The tow truck that came to pull him out almost got stuck as well.  I asked the driver why he even came down the driveway.  He said it was because his rear view mirror was broke and he couldn’t see to back down the driveway.  Great; I wonder if FedEx will pay for the damage the trucks did to the driveway.

Then Addie and Fennel got into a rip-roaring fight that went on for hours.  I don’t know that Addie is taking very good care of her babies.  I guess after four or five years of not raising her babies, I shouldn’t have expected her to be a good mother.  As far as I’m concerned, the practice of removing babies from their mothers is a bad one for the babies and their mothers.

Then when bringing Buster in from the front pasture, he got in with the goats and started playing bull with them.  While a bull calf may grow bigger and faster than a steer, our next calf will be castrated.  Dealing with hormones in a 100 pound animal is one thing; a 400-500 pound animal is another.  I so can’t wait to get him in the freezer.

Maybe today will be better …

Addie kidded yesterday afternoon.  I was very glad to have that done.  I didn’t feel like things were going all that well with her.  Wally had to help deliver the first kid because his head was bent backwards.  The second one came out without any issues.  She had two, big buck kids.  Not-so-good, I would have liked for her to have one (or two) does, but it is what it is.  Addie is going to be six this year and I am not sure she has ever raised babies on her own.  She’s not the best mother (nor is her daughter, Billie), but I think they are doing okay.

On Saturday, Wally and I brought one of the three dog runs that were set at the top of the driveway into the goat pasture and installed it behind the goat shelter.  Sometime this week or this weekend, we’ll get a cover over the run and that’s where we’ll put the goat kids at night.  I’ll start doing this next weekend.  I could probably put Billie and Angel’s babies up at start milking them in the morning earlier than that, but I think I’ll just wait until the weekend.

One more ewe lambed on Saturday: she had twin ewe lambs.  Rain and snow was forecast for today so Sunday afternoon I took the ATV and Gel up to the ElectroNet to move the sheep down to the poultry pasture where they’d have some shelter.  It would have gone without too many issues except that Liath slipped her collar and took off.  Liath will run along side the ATV on a long line and that’s what I tried to do with her, but her collar slipped.  I could hear the neighbor’s dogs barking and Liath took off towards them.  Great.  I had to leave the sheep and go after Liath.  Amazingly, Gel helped me catch her: he continually blocked and bit her whenever she tried to run away from me.  Eventually she gave up and let me catch her.

While the two livestock guard dogs know their names and are very happy to come to you when inside a fence, when they are outside a fence, they completely forget they have names.  Liath is particularly bad.  She has a scary energy about her when she’s running loose and given that she’s already tried to kill one of the neighbor’s dogs, she’s like a loaded gun with the safety off.  Once I finally caught her and got her collar secured, we headed back to the sheep.  All of them moved off Gel except for the ewe with the newest lambs.  She did not charge or challenge Gel outright, but she didn’t want to move.  Gel held his ground and she slowly moved with the rest of the sheep.  As we entered the field closest to the house, I saw Buster barreling down the hill bucking, twirling and bawling like a fool.  Before heading up to get the sheep, I took him out of the poultry pasture and put him out into the front field and hoped that he’d put his head down and stay where I left him.  Was he ever happy to be reunited with his sheep buddies; unfortunately for Buster, I didn’t want him mingling with the ewes and lambs for fear that he’d hurt them.  His hormones are kicking in big time and he’s becoming more and more difficult to be around.  I will be glad when he goes to the processor.

I managed to split Buster off from the sheep and got them through the gate only to run head-on into the horses who had been watching the proceedings with great interest.  There’s another creature full of himself: Merlin.  I shooed the horses away and finally we got the sheep up into the poultry pasture which is where they are now.  Liath is up in a dog run and Buster is still out in the front pasture.  I might try to use Split to bring the sheep back up to the ElectroNet this afternoon.  She desperately needs some work.  I may kick myself for using her; but I won’t know until I try and I really need to get her something to do.

Before I starting writing this post, I was sitting on the couch thinking to myself that I should get up and do something, but all I want to do right now is to go back to bed.  I am tired and I guess I have reason to be tired.  In addition to moving the dog run into the goat shelter on Saturday, we took the small ShelterLogic building out of the horse pasture and put that up near the house.  We organized a lot of the crap that had accumulated around the dog runs and got the ShelterLogic building set up so I could start feeding the cats in there.  Remember when I wrote that we were supposed to go several days without snow or rain.  Ha!  That was wishful thinking.  Because cold rain/snow was forecast for Monday, on Sunday morning I suggested to Wally that we get the frame for the horse shelter built and put a tarp over it so that they’d have somewhere dry to go.  Building projects always seem simple in concept, but once you get going on them, they are not simple or easy.  Heck, even just lugging the lumber is hard; holding it up in the air so Wally can nail or screw it; oh, and trying to move around the mud!  I hope we can get all this bloody building done in the next six months or so.  I’m sick to death of it.  At least the horses have a dry place to stand.  They may not be using it, but it is there if they want it.  The tarp we used is on its last legs, but it’s better than nothing.  We’ll get the tin on it this weekend; if the weather cooperates!

We still need to finish getting windows into my milk parlor!

Unemployment is driving me crazy.  I send resumes knowing that I won’t get a call.  To make matters worst, my car was repossessed a couple of weeks ago.  I knew the day I was laid off that I was going to have a hard time making that car payment.  I was seriously bottom-up in that loan.  I called the lender to ask for revised terms, but all they were willing to give me was a free month.  I was making payments, but not the full amount.  Around December I got an application for a work-out which I completed and sent in, but I didn’t hear any more from them.  Then two weeks ago, the tow truck arrived.  Luckily I was able to get my personal belongings out of the car.  I have mixed feelings about the situation.  It’s sort of a relief because I knew it was going to happen; but I liked the car a lot and wish that the bank would have been willing to work with me.  It wasn’t as if I wasn’t paying them at all because I was.

I was without a car for over a week before I found a seller willing to work with me.  I am now driving a 1998 Toyota pick-up with 177,000 miles on it.  The truck has been well cared for so hopefully it will continue to run well.  I like the truck a lot and I really needed a truck.  At least no one can take this vehicle away from me.  This serious of events has completely sealed the door to driving to Charlotte.  I would have liked to have had a truck a long time ago; I was using my car like a truck; but I didn’t want to drive 100 miles per day in a truck.  The car was better on gas and more comfortable to drive long distances.  Now I need to find a job, heck, just about any job, close to home.

You may recall that I almost sold my dairy goats and it was to get a new vehicle.  Luckily, I didn’t have to do that.  Things do seem to straighten out if you give them time to do so.

Things are just bad these days; but it isn’t all bad.  Both Wally and I are healthy; all of the animals seem to be healthy and well.  Wally still has a job, but his hours were cut and they’ve been laying off people.  Hopefully Wally will keep his job.  As best as I can tell, I have another six months of unemployment left.  I guess we can be thankful for that …

Until later …

We have four inches of snow on the ground.  The weather forecast said we’d get a dusting to an inch.  Sure … I guess we are in good company.  Forty-nine of the 50 states now have snow on the ground.  What a weird winter.

The ewes and lambs made it fine.  I brought a bale of hay out to them this morning.  Goats are fine too.  We were going to go and get hay today, but I expect that will need to wait until tomorrow now.

Until later …

We are back to only having dogs and cats in the house.  I sent the lamb to live with my friend Janice.  I know Janice was dying to get her (she loves bottle babies) and this farm is really not a good place for a bottle lamb.  A bottle dairy goat is one thing, but a tame sheep, not a good idea.  She would not have bonded well with the rest of the flock and she had no fear of the dogs.  She’ll be a well-loved pet at Janice’s house.

Ruth, the Rhode Island Red hen is back out with the flock.  She’s still not using the injured foot, but she’s getting around well enough to be with the rest of the hens.

It’s nice to have the farm animals out of the house.

If all goes well this weekend, I’ll have the 10 x 10 ShelterLogic shelter up here near the house so I can start feeding the cats in it.  It will be good to get their feeding out of the house.  It will be less mess and fighting.  You’d think cats that grew up here would get along, but they don’t.  Cats, as a species, are solitary creatures.  They can live in a group situation if there is sufficient food, but fights are common.

Billie, our favorite goat, had her babies this morning.  I had to play midwife and pull the first one, but the second was delivered without any problems.  She has a buck and a doe.  The doe is gorgeous.  She’s black with white trim.  The buck is colored like Billie.

Addie is holding out; what for, I don’t know.  She looks like she’s about to pop.  Fennel is due around February 23, then we have a break until May.  It looks like Fern (the goat) is bred this time.  I certainly hope so.

Until later …