Ridgetop - our place and how we muddle along

[Ridgetop]

Entire flock heading into the gully. I like being able to see them from the office window. I am wondering how to arrange my desk at the TX house in order to see the sheep.

Started emptying the file cabinets today. The one that does not have files in it is full of photos. I have decided to start sorting the 2 full drawers out and box them up for my children. They will all get their own photos now and anything else can be sorted in Texas and packaged for anyone who wants them. Or tossed. I found a photo of DH from high school. What a head turner! I am going to put it in my wallet. Hard to believe sometimes how good looking we all were when we were young. Now that we are prime we look wise, but back then we were all foxes! When our children and grandchildren say it in an unbelieving and shocked tone of voice I find it insulting though. LOL

Anyway, I told DH that we have to go through all the file cabinets since I have some files in mine that have the same designation in his cabinet and need to be assimilated or combined. He agreed to do it with me . . . . Some stuff is so old that it can be destroyed, and I need to go through and pack up any old files I need to keep in transfer or storage boxes. I still need a lot of those files to refer back to occasionally, so don't want to destroy them. My kids can do that later along with emptying closets and storage units of junk if I don't get to it first.

My cold is still hanging on. I am wondering if it is the same cold, or if I just get reinfected from Robert and Nicholas each time. Not to forget Annabel who also shares preschool germs happily. we are going to DD1's house tonight for birthday cake for DGS1. He is 16. My vindictive dreams of revenge on DD1 now come true. Her boys are 16 and 13. LOL I have to wrap some birthday presents. i got him a couple shirts that can be worn on dates. He just went to the Homecoming dance with a girl he invited. DD1 sent us a photo. His girlfriend is a full head taller than he is. Must be true love. Anyway, got to go wrap the presents and do more file drawer clearance.

DH said that DDIL2 told him they were trying for baby 3. Hopefully a girl. They are both nearly 40 so I guess they figure they need to speed up the action. Soon they will tell us they need more room and kick us into the 5th wheel. LOL DH wants to take the 5th wheel to Texas right away, but I told him not to do it yet since we will want to stay in it when we come back for visits at first.

 

[Ridgetop]

Lost a ewe lamb in my flock. I put her down. We have a ewe lamb that kept trying to prolapse. She was destined for the butcher with the 2 wethers in another week or so. DS1 came in and told me I had to "Come quick". He said that the lamb had completely prolapsed. Judging by other prolapses, I said maybe we could put it back and sew her up until we could get her to the butcher, but he said "No, we had to put her down now". When DS1 talks like that something is really wrong. He said she was ok this morning but just now when he went out she was screaming so he checked her. He said her entire insides were outside her body. I said to get the gun and I would come do it. When I got down to the barn I was shocked. This was a BAD rectal prolapse! Not only was the rectum inside out, but all her intestines and her stomach were out as well. Even her vagina looked like it was starting to prolapse. She probably would have been dead by morning, but we couldn't allow her to suffer. I shot her right away.

I have never seen anything this bad before and it certainly proves that prolapses need to be culled. I am going through my registration book to see if I can trace where it may have come from. These things can occur randomly though. I have had 2 other ewe lambs (under 12 months) develop prolapses and go to the butcher in the past several years. Since I have produced close to 100 lambs since getting these White Dorpers, I suppose I don't need to worry too much.

If anyone wants pictures, let me know and I will either post them, or PM to you. I have no problems with posting graphic pix when they are useful for a teaching application, but in this case all it will do is show why prolapses are to be avoided. Bad way to end a day.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

A prolapse that severe makes me wonder if it was spontaneous or perhaps an injury? Was it possible she got squished or hit or trampled or anything else catastrophic?

So sorry!

 

[Baymule]

That’s a tough one. I’ve only had one prolapse. I called you. You were telling me to catch her, wash it, push it back in and sew her up.
I had Covid for the second time, utterly exhausted from selling the farm and moving (y’all helped) and could barely drag myself out to feed and water.
So I took the short cut. I called a friend and told him to come shoot her, take her home for the freezer and feed his family.

Sometimes we have to do hard things.

I’m sorry about your ewe.

 

[SageHill]

Geeze, what a way to end the day. A ewe lamb too - eek. I can’t even imagine how it looked.

 

[murphysranch]

In us women, they insert a pessarie (sp?) to hold us back in. Not sure I'd like to be sewn up!!

 

[Ridgetop]

If it had been a vaginal prolapse no problem, Yes, I would have washed it off with ice water, sprinkled it with sugar (makes the swelling shrink down to help it fit back in), and maneuvered it back in - not easy but been there, done that. Then sew up the vaginal opening with an X of dental floss, and hope it held until we could get her to the butcher. But this was a full rectal prolapse - rectum out, then intestines, and stomach. Never seen anything like it before! Really gross and no hope for her. It might have been some sort of accident but no idea how it would have happened since the lambs were all in together and not near the horses, rams, or big ewes.

Here at Ridgetop we have lots of crazy stuff happen - but each episode only happens once though! Rarely do we have second occurrences, particularly once we have the equipment to deal with it. Even my adult sons didn't want to see those pix and they have helped with some bad injuries, and hauled off coyote killed carcasses.

 

[Mini Horses]

That prolapse type is almost unheard of. not to mention close to impossible. Wow. Sorry.

 

[SageHill]

If it had been a vaginal prolapse no problem, Yes, I would have washed it off with ice water, sprinkled it with sugar (makes the swelling shrink down to help it fit back in), and maneuvered it back in - not easy but been there, done that. Then sew up the vaginal opening with an X of dental floss, and hope it held until we could get her to the butcher. But this was a full rectal prolapse - rectum out, then intestines, and stomach. Never seen anything like it before! Really gross and no hope for her. It might have been some sort of accident but no idea how it would have happened since the lambs were all in together and not near the horses, rams, or big ewes.

Here at Ridgetop we have lots of crazy stuff happen - but each episode only happens once though! Rarely do we have second occurrences, particularly once we have the equipment to deal with it. Even my adult sons didn't want to see those pix and they have helped with some bad injuries, and hauled off coyote killed carcasses.

Perhaps it is the last one for the books before the move to TX. Saving the "best" for last.

 

[Ridgetop]

Got on BYH around 1:00 am for the first time in a week. I read everything I had missed. DH's knee is doing great and he has now gotten 110 degrees of bend in it according to the PT guy.

In the week I have been offline, the entire family has succumbed to some sort of stomach/intestinal virus. Unfortunately, we did not all get it at one time, instead we took turns having upset stomachs and diarrhea. We had it on top of colds and coughs which also went around the family. This happened twice, and just as it seemed we were recovering it struck us down again one after the other.

It started with Marv on October 21 after an Italian restaurant luncheon for his high school grad class reunion. He blamed the Italian food. The next day I cooked a Farmer John ham. DS1 and DS2 were sick and they decided that the ham must have been bad. They refused to eat any more ham. A 9 lb. FJ ham made 3 Anatolians very happy over the following 5 days.

The last person to get the intestinal virus was me. I had been suffering from the head cold and cough since returning from Texas. After bringing home Marv the Gimp, I fell victim to the virus. Twice. The last sufferers now are Robert and Nicholas. Hopefully it will end there.

Halloween came and went - I did DGD1's makeup - she said she was "Htebazile, Queen of the Night" - her name spelled backwards. I thought that was pretty clever of her. We ended up without any black makeup, so I got my cosmetics and gave her big "smoky eyes" instead. Her uncle said she needed more dripping blood from her mouth but I said she was a neat vampire queen. She was thrilled with the makeup and her costume. Robert was a Triceratops while little Nicholas was an avocado. The evening was pleasant - about 75 degrees so no need for giant jackets over costumes. We have known it to get down to about 48 degrees one year which was miserable - for the parents who were huddled in jackets, mufflers, and gloves. Some enviable parents held steaming cups of coffee. I myself took a thermos and ignored the jealous looks of shivering people that did not come prepared. I did not go with the kids this year. I retired from that several years ago.

While Trick or Treating DS2 and DDIL2 met some people that had grown up in La Tuna (a couple miles away but separated by the highway. They said they had bought in the "Estates" because they used to trick or treat there as kids. Everyone in our area used to T or T there since it was the only place that had streetlights and sidewalks. The HOA used to hire guards and blockade the streets to automobile traffic to provide a safe T or T area. Really gone down since Covid though. My son said only 1 house in 5 was lit up and giving out candy. Sad. They were finished in abut 2 hours.

DD1 allowed her 13-year-old to go with friends in another neighborhood, while the 16-year-old and his friends had pizza and played video games at home. At their ages my boys used reversable capes and carried pillowcases for their swag. In the bottom of the 0illow case was a second and different mask. after making the rounds of the neighborhood, they turned their capes inside out and switched masks for a second collection with their greedy friends. Their candy lasted until Thanksgiving, even after DH and I examined it for poison. Odd that only DH's and my favorite chocolate bars seemed to be tampered with and had to be confiscated.

During one of my periods in between stomach virus and coughing I cleaned out one of the metal file drawers. I moved all the photos in one drawer into a plastic bin to go through. I still have a second drawer of photos to unload. I decided to sort all the photos into groups for the kids and give each of them a box for Christmas. That will get rid of the loose photos (the albums can be argued over before the kids toss them after we are gone LOL) and the kids can deal with them now instead of after we are dead and they don't know who they are looking at.

I still need to take 4 lambs to the auction next week. I decided to get any cash out of them now instead of having them butchered and trying to move the frozen meat. Lamb and goat prices are all over the board at the moment. Hopefully I will hit the week they are up.

DH keeps asking when DS1 and I are driving back to Texas with another load and to "set up jugs". I told him that we are not setting up jugs yet since the sheep won't lamb until the end of March. Instead, we will be setting up the barn pen and a small night pen for the sheep to occupy when we bring them back. We will also set up a small ram pen with shelter. These pens will be training pens to teach them that food and water are served in the barn. Since they are used to coming in at night to eat, hopefully that will continue their routine so we can pen them at night for the first year.

Angel looks like she might have gotten bitten by one of the horses - a raw patch on her back. She also got a large open tear under her chin. Not sure what she caught herself on for that. Healed now so all good. She and Ozel have been starting to have small spats. I am not happy about that since the difference in age should have insured a good relationship. If not, they will have to be separated which I don't like since I want at least 2 dogs guarding together. It is safer for them and for the flock. DH is worried about Rika in the cold in Texas. He is talking about leaving her here. If she goes back, she will need one of those Igloo type doghouses but since the dogs don't like being inside doghouses since they can't see around their domain it will probably be wasted. I think making a raised platform on the edge of the barn with lots of hay to snuggle into might be better. I can insulate the underneath.

I really want to get back to Texas, finish the painting, and get moved in.