rachels.haven's Journal

[Ridgetop]

Possums act dead so the dogs retrieve them and bring them in. Whenever they come back to lie the dogs grab them again triggering another "death pose". Our Pyr brought up a "dead" possum to the patio one year. When the children started poking the "dead carcass" with a stick it started to hiss and came alive. DS3 got his gun and shot it. Our Pyr watched in astonishment that it came alive again. LOL

 

[Ridgetop]

The goats on average aren't anywhere near as fatty as the ones I saw at the Franklin show though,

Fat dairy animals are not generally good yielders. Thus the saying "putting it all in the bucket". It must be a preference in your area for fatter goats. I prefer a rather svelte dairy animal.

 

[rachels.haven]

Well, we had a few days of heavy wind. Now it's going to get negatives cold for a few days and below freezing for a week and this area is scheduled for a collective 5 inches of snow.
Due date for 6 of the does is Wednesday. Didn't I plan that great!
I'm about to go outside and feed a lot of hay, fill water troughs, fill up the duck/goose pools (added 4 duck 1 drake khaki campbells this week), give the locked out dogs more hay to lay in and a bigger wind break under the smoke house wing and anything else I can think of.

I was going to pick up a few top notch dwarf bucks from a herd in GA today I've found reliable but one of them needs to be retested for CL after a suspect. I've had three goats from that herd so I doubt he's a converting positive but regardless the lady offered to hang onto the pair and retest in a month for me and so we will. At that point I won't be going down to get them because we'll be a goat kid nursery.

Active Aiden broke his hand Wednesday after accidentally hitting the couch while swinging his 10 year old gorilla arms...and because he's got a high pain tolerance I let him walk around like that for three days until the swelling started going down and his hand suddenly looked like the wrong shape and on further examination I discovered a metacarpal hinge that shouldn't be there (and of course, "but it doesn't hurt that much"..."). So I get bad mom of the year award and in the future if Aiden cries even a little, we got to the ER, not reach for the motrin and tyelenol and wait for tomorrow like we would for Dan or any of the rest of us. So yesterday we went to an Ortho urgent care appointment and got it x-rayed a few times and reset. ("Wow, he's got a super high pain tolerance" is a phrase that I don't want to hear and it gives me massive anxiety). Fortunately Aiden has great risk assessement skills so accidents because he's so active are his main achillies heel. Otherwise-

 

[rachels.haven]

After this medical business I'm so ducking done with everything it's not even funny. And it's not even 8 am. So here are the ducks, ducking around with everything to express my outrage.

 

[rachels.haven]

Oh. And I forgot to mention. Everything is currently a mud pit after heavy rains to go with the heavy wind. I guess it's going to become an ice pit.

 

[farmerjan]

We have not had quite the rain you have, and are about a day behind for the cold weather to come in. It is very windy today and expect it again tomorrow... then temps dropping. Total rain for us is 3.2 inches in the last week...
Bless you and you are not "bad mom of the year" already this year. He will get better, and you are probably better off with his attitude, than with him being a wimp that every bruise is a cause for a trip to the emergency room. Plus, with the swelling going down, they could do something... they will often not reset something like that when it is real swollen anyway.... so you would have been making 2 or 3 trips....
This wet/rain/mud is getting to everyone...

 

[Baymule]

You are going into negative temps…. I’ll stop whining about my trip down in the teens.

@farmerjan is right about not setting a broken bone when it’s all swollen. So don’t feel bad about not having the ER response immediately. Aiden is ok, you are a good Mom and life goes on.

Your ducks are totally ducked up.

 

[rachels.haven]

Thanks Baymule and Jan. That makes me feel a lot better.

 

[rachels.haven]

I heated water buckets (and the does have a tank heater for their trough). This week is not going to be cheap electric-bill wise, but kidding and near kidding does need water, and I need to be able to do something besides a bucket relay during my chore time. Everyone but the waterfowl have heated water. The waterfowl will bathe in heated water to stay warm and then freeze when they get out so they get a small head dunk bucket or three 2-3x daily. Onto the single digits, I guess.

 

[Ridgetop]

So I get bad mom of the year award

No you don't. That lifelong award belongs to me. DS3 fell off his skateboard and broke his navicular bone. (Surprised me too - I thought only horses had a navicular bone.) Anyway, he complained of pain in his hand so I said "Let me see - it is probably just a muscle pull." So I massaged his broken hand. When he stopped screaming in pain, I took him to the doctor for a cast. "Bad mom of the year award" - me.

You are a good mom - you recognized the broken hand even though he kept telling you it didn't hurt. And you did not massage the broken bones.