Devonviolet Acres

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

Miss @Devonviolet,

So wonderful to hear from you! I feared that you might have left us and I simply hadn't heard. I am thrilled to see you are still here and kicking!

So sorry about your hand. What a freak accident! Maybe it will get better with time.

Regarding the F-150, unless you have it priced really high, I would think it would sell quite well. Have you considered posting it on autotrader.com?

Thanks so much for letting us know how you are doing, and I hope you will keep us up-to-date.

Senile Texas Aggie

 

[Bruce]

I went to flick it off and inadvertently hit the middle knuckle on top of my hand under the bathroom cabinet. That caused the main tendon to sever, and caused a lot of pain.

Just what you DIDN'T need! Good thing you aren't hand milking goats.

Thanks so much for the update I hope the truck sells, it seems like it should since it isn't a beater. What a pain dealing with the Covid challenged DMV And hopefully the storage unit can be dealt with soon.

Lovely garden!

 

[Devonviolet]

Just what you DIDN'T need! Good thing you aren't hand milking goats.

Thanks so much for the update I hope the truck sells, it seems like it should since it isn't a beater. What a pain dealing with the Covid challenged DMV And hopefully the storage unit can be dealt with soon.

Lovely garden!

Thanks Bruce! Life does have a way of tossing challenges our way, doesn’t it??? Sometimes they come in droves! I’m hoping for a much calmer new year!!!!!!!!

 

[animalmom]

From your lips, @Devonviolet, to God's ear.

 

[Devonviolet]

From your lips, @Devonviolet, to God's ear.

Awwwww!!! Thanks animalmom!!!! I needed that!!! I think of you often, especially when I see weather reports for Stephenville. I went right through there, when I went to pick up the four boys. It’s hard to believe that was almost SIX years ago!!!

 

[Devonviolet]

I want to wish all my faithful, Backyard Herds friends a very Christ Filled Christmas. Please, let’s all not forget the reason we celebrate this day. It isn’t to celebrate each other with the giving of gifts or even family (while that IS important ), it is to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Savior of the world. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

Happy New Year, Miss @Devonviolet!

 

[Devonviolet]

Happy New Year, Miss @Devonviolet!

Thank you STA. I pray you have a very Happy and Safe New Year!

 

[Devonviolet]

Hi everyone. i know it’s been quite a while since I posted here. Many times I have thought of y’all and wanted to post an update. But, either I was too busy or too exhausted to write anything.

Our two Myotonic does had their twins in April, of this year. Crescent had twin girls on April 7th: Danielle looks a lot like Danny Boy.

This was Danielle at about four weeks:


Here she is with her sister (Soxy) and Mama Crescent:


Here is Soxy with her Mama:



Melody had a girl and boy on April 17th. Dan the Man (Dan for short - black and white belted buckling) and Moonshein Sonata (Sonata for short - white with black and white spots)

Here are Sonata and Mama Melody recently:


Here is Dan the Man.



Here is Dan on Mama Melody’s back. See how nonchalant she was??? Sonata started it, So Dan learned it from her.


In addition to these kids, we bought a Myotonic doeling, that we will be breeding, to Danny Boy, to have kids next Spring. She is a nice size goat, and will be 8 months old (a reasonable age) later this month. So, here is our pretty new doe:


This last year we were not able to get a garden in, so were not able to go to farmer‘s market. We had an exceptionally wet Spring, with multiple storms, with 5-6” of rain at a time. At one point, I was able to till the garden, to turn the weeds under. The first time, my shoes got caked with mud and I had to keep stopping the tiller, to uncake the tines of mud. But then, each time I tilled, it would rain again, making it impossible to get into the garden to plant seeds.

Then, the last week of May, we had a major problem with an underground electrical junction box, which should have been above ground, so water wouldn’t get into the wires. Well, with all the rain we had, that is exactly what happened, and we ended up with the water shorting out the main ground, coming from the electrical main, at the property line. It seems the original owner paid an electrician to do that. My husband knows a decent amount about how home electricity works. So he started checking electric outlets, in the house. When none of them seemed to be the cause, he went out to where we were told the connection was in the ground (out in the middle of the yard). We didn’t realize it was THE power main.

He started digging holes and eventually found the big junction box, which was sitting in water, in our soggy clay soil. When he tried digging under the box, he saw water drain out of the box!!! So, he left it, and we found an electrician, who came out and looked at the set up. He told us it was definitely not to code, and shouldn’t have been done that way. But if we pulled it up out of the ground, it would have been very expensive - which we couldn’t afford and it wouldn’t have made a huge difference from his second suggestion. He suggested that he could put special connectors (filled and sealed with a special silicone caulk) on the electric cable junctiions, that would prevent water from getting to the wires, and cause them to corrode, the way they had before. Since he did that, our electricity has been working fine.

When we were talking to him about doing the job, I was trying to keep six feet away, but he was coughing and sneezing. Since we were outside, I didn’t think much of it, but then he couldn’t come start the job right away, because he was home in bed with a high fever. Two days after we talked, I started coming down with a cold, with stuffy sinuses, a rough, sore throat and lots of sneezing. Usually colds don’t last long for me, because I take multiple things to build up my immune system - including elderberry syrup, supplements and antiviral herbs. This cold lasted three full weeks, but never went down into my lungs.

About two weeks after I started feeling better, I was out in the yard, wrapping bird netting around the peach tree, to keep the squirrels out, and realized I was gasping for air. I have never had that problem before. So, I went to the doctor, who thought it might be my heart, and he sent me to a cardiologist, who was going to do a heart cath. But before he could do that, I started getting chest pains, and ended up in the hospital. After lots of blood tests and a heart cath, I got a clean bill of health. My arteries were totally clean!!! But I was still very short of breath all the time. So, the cardiologist sent me to a pulmonologist, who also did tests and couldn’t find a reason for the shortness of breath. At that point I put my RN nurses hat on, and wondered if I had a viral or bacterial infection in my lungs.

Since I follow a naturopathic health approach, I decided to use colloidal silver (an old fashion natural antibiotic going back thousands of years), in a nebulizer, which creates a mist that goes deep into the lungs, to kill off infections in the air sacks. I used the nebulizer twice a day for about 15 minutes, and after three weeks, I saw a huge improvement in my breathing. Once in a while I needed to go back to the nebulizer for a couple days and now the breathing problems are a thing of the past.

In looking back, I thought I had caught COVID from the electrician, but it seems I only had a bad cold. I was tested for COVID antibodies and don’t have any. So, I didn’t have COVID. My husband and I do not think the shots are all they are cracked up to be and for a number of reasons have decided not to get them. We take a number of herbs and supplements that are specifically (and scientifically) proven to be effective at preventing the virus from replicating in our cells, so we don’t plan to get the shots. While we have been exposed, we have not gotten COVID, so it seems we are safe. I guess what my good friend, @goatgurl tells me all the time is true . . .. time will tell!

So, going back to the garden. With me being sick, we never did get a garden planted. I have been trying to get a Winter garden planted, but progress has been slow. I have some Winter veggie and herb seeds in the ground, and it appears they are sprouting. I also have 10x16” boxes with gravel in the bottom and potting soil on top of that, in which I have planted other seeds, which also seem to be coming up. I plan to put greenhouse plastic over our trellis’s to create a greenhouse, of sorts, for the coldest part of the Winter - we will run outside extension cords, so we can use ceramic space heaters (on patio blocks), to attempt to keep the temp up, so the plants survive until Spring. Again, time will tell - this is a first for me, so I am just really hoping it works.

For those of you, who remember our amazing Maremma LGDs, Violet and Deo. They recently celebrated their 7th birthday, and are both doing really well. They continue to do an awesome job protecting the goats and chickens. They also continue to be sweet, love sponges! They love to be cuddled and loved on, but I wouldn’t want to be the fool that tries to get into our goat yard, when we are away for the day or at night. They have occasionally shown what they are made of, when someone (or some predator) came on the farm, that they didn’t trust.

That’s Violet on the left and Deo on the right.

I hope y’all had a great Thanksgiving and pray that you will all have a Blessed Christmas - and remember . . . Jesus is the reason for the season!!!

 

[Mike CHS]

Great pictures as always and it is so good to hear from you.