High Desert Cowboy- How far is it up north?

[High Desert Cowboy]

Gus Gus update. Tuesday he still couldn’t get up by himself. After 10 minutes of physical therapy with a belt he was able to walk by himself slowly. Wednesday was the same, he was unable to get himself up and needed a few minutes of belt therapy to get his feet under him. Yesterday it was raining when I got up and I was ready to go get Gus up before he drowned in a puddle and I looked out the window and there he was standing on his own. Today he is up on his feet and moving about. He still looks a little poorly but after being on the ground for a week you really can’t expect much else.

 

[Mini Horses]

The littlest things bring hope still

 

[Baymule]

I hope he continues to improve.

 

[High Desert Cowboy]

Rain rain and more rain. I feel like I can’t really get much done as it’s stayed cold and rainy which hinders a lot of my activities. But Gus Gus is doing great and you can hardly tell he was ever down. Now we just need to get everyone sheared but things need to dry first. At least it’s stayed chilly enough I’m not worried about them overheating.

 

[Baymule]

I hear ya on the rain!

 

[Mini Horses]

BUT -- you actually needed the rain, right?

Of course, it seems to come just when we want to do things easier to do without the rain. And on the days we're home to do

GREAT news on Gus!!

 

[High Desert Cowboy]

Funny how time flies when you’re having fun. Especially wayyyy to much fun. Some updates.

Gus Gus our ram recovered from his episode and today seems to be 100% back to health.
Elle the show goat is gone. She took 2nd in her group and 4th in her weight class overall. She was bought to be a breeding doe and we actually knew the people she went to so that made my daughter happy. My daughter took 4th in her class for showmanship and is looking forward to raising another goat next year. My son saw her check and decided he wants to get into showing next year and wants to show a sheep.
Everyone else is alive and well.
Here’s a fun story from our summer though. A friend of mine called me up wondering if I would be willing to castrate a mini pig he had just picked up for his mobile petting zoo. I told him it would be no problem and he brings over what he was told was an 8 week mini pig. Pig was a lot older than that but he was small enough I didn’t worry about it and we got it done. We let him down to monitor him for a while post op and my friend starts to tell me that the little pig had been demonstrating behavior that wasn’t exactly polite for a child’s birthday party. As if I needed demonstration, the little pig wanders over to where my son and his bernadoodle are relaxing in the shade and MOUNTS the bernadoodle!

As you can see, Buddy is the epitome of patience. He stood up and walked to the other side of my son with the pig in hot pursuit. My son decided to help his dog and tried to use his foot to push the pig away. Rather than a deterrent, the pig decides my son’s leg would make a wonderful dancing partner and changes targets. Impolite behavior indeed! A few weeks later he’d gotten it all out of his system and is now a favorite at parties, where children adore and praise him. My son still won’t go near the little feller though!

 

[Baymule]

Good to see you back, don’t stay away so long!

 

[High Desert Cowboy]

It has been a ridiculously hot summer this year, and it’s been an abnormally warm fall up to this point. We got one day of rain on Thursday and suddenly it’s like the weather remembered it’s supposed to be getting chilly and we went from short sleeves to sweaters overnight. I’m ok with that though. Chickens are molting and I need to finish some changes to the coop, I really don’t want to have to buy eggs. The huge chicken farm around the corner from us got hit with bird flu for the second time in 30 months, and they’ll have to replace something like 1.8 million birds.
I also need to build a new hoop house for the sheep, the old one got moved and I never put one back up. Babies in the cold is no one’s friend. Two years ago we got hit with -30 weather and it lasted for the whole month I was lambing, I won’t even say how many I lost because it was flat depressing. Option B would be to potentially put mamas and babies under my mud room. It’s an addition on the house that left a 4.5 ft high crawl space about 14x14 underneath that could potentially be used for storage. I figure if it gets really cold throw a little straw in there and it would be a great spot for a ewe or two. Also need to talk to my neighbor about maybe buying some Polypay sheep because he is changing over to dorpers so he won’t have to pay someone to come shear. Where I only have a handful I don’t mind shearing my own. If I had to do 100 I’d probably be paying someone too though. But Heart is getting up there and where I sold my best ewes and brought in some replacements who died, what I’ve got left for breeding isn’t really much to crow about. It’s all just time and money.

 

[High Desert Cowboy]

I’m really loving this cooler weather. Today I spent some time working with Blueberry.

We’ve had some gnarly wind lately so working with her has been somewhat more challenging because she truly does not like the wind. I guess some part of working with her had to be difficult.
Bella and I then spent some time moving the sheep around the corrals. She loves her work. I would dare say she loves working her sheep more than she loves me!