Kala's Journal~Newest Project :)

[dragonlaurel]

It's hard to let go, but those kids will remember that you cared. And that you did really cool stuff with them. Who knows- they may end up growing up and having gardens or farms themselves and you planted the seed.

 

[Kala]

As if this week couldn't get any worse...one of the goats has mastitis.

Her production really went down the last couple of days and she was just acting off. Then last night she had a discharge coming from her udders. And she had a fever. Uggghhh....I feel so bad that she doesn't feel well. When we're in the barn all she wants to do is cuddle and be rubbed. I keep going over our milking procedure again and again trying to figure out if we did anything that could have caused this. The vet said it could be from any number of things, but I still feel so bad!! My poor Betsy

 

[Javamama]

How's Betsy this morning? So sorry it wasn't just the weather causing her decrease.

 

[Lady Henevere]

Sorry about your tough week.

 

[farmhouserock5]

yes, that's terrible! I hope she feels better real soon!!!!!

 

[Kala]

Hey guys! Thanks for the kind words.

We just got back from watching the kids today. I'm slowly coming to terms with it all. I knew with my head that this would be for the best, but slowly I'm starting to feel that with my heart also.

And Miss Betsy is doing better already it seems. Her fever is going down and she's acting a little perkier. She still has a few more days of meds.

 

[Kala]

:Holy crapola batman! When it rains it poors!

Now that miss betsy seems to be on the mend we found emmy limping around the barn this morning! it seems like she may have pulled something in her shoulder but i'm always paranoid of deeper darker things. she just stands there staring and shifting her weight off her front leg. but honestly her favorite past time is head butting chickens so we're thinking maybe she slipped when she was outside chasing them around. hard to tell tho. no temp so we'll see.

and i just found the rooster that was already on the sh!t list eating an egg. well there solves the dilema of where the heck did all of the eggs go the last few days. he had a few hens in tow too that we marked. so kill mr cock (dh named him ) has just been added to the agenda for the day. dh went out into the barn with sandals on this morning and the roo did a "creepy matrix kung foo" move on him, so i think he's ok with camp for mr roo now.

so now im gonna go eat the cornmeal cakes that were soppused to be for breakfast which turned into lunch after being out in the barn so long this am. oh well, i would so rather these be my problems for the day than where to file form a, d and f.

 

[Kala]

I ended up taking a little bit of a break from things for a few weeks. Honestly everything with the girls was really more emotionally taxing on me than I had even realized. I had gotten so behind on things at the homestead b/c I was spending so much time away with them that I ended up taking a little bit of a break from helping out. I needed to finish a few things at home, and that one of the best things I could have done. I feel so much better. So we probably won't be going over a whole lot for awhile. The whole situation was really like just raking myself over hot coals everyday.

But in other not so depressing news one of DH's buddies GAVE us almost an entire winters worth of firewood. He switched to a gas fireplace and therefore had lots of wood curing that he didn't need. All he wanted us to do was come over and cut and split it and then he's gonna haul it over on his trailer...for FREE!! I feel the need to bake things for him indefinetely. He really saved our butts this year. We really underestimated how much time it would take and how much wood we would need for the winter. This is the first winter living in the new house that we had to do our own firewood, and we definetely would have had to buy a bunch if not for him. Last fall when we moved in the previous owners already had their wood for the winter ready to go and just left it all here. So we got a little spoiled.

Other than that we've just been canning and freezing fools. We found a local cheap source for sweetcorn and have put up about 6 1/2 dozen so far, not including what we'll be pulling our of our garden soon. I lost count of how many pickels we did. And thanks to OFG we'll be picking up a couple of boxes of canning tomatoes for $8 each at the Wittens Farm stand in town! Can't beat that. We'll also be processing a few more chickens this weekend so the feathers and sauce will be flying!!


'

 

[Wifezilla]

How are the goats doing? Hope everyone is ok.

 

[Kala]

How are the goats doing? Hope everyone is ok.

Yep. The one that had mastitis (Betsy) is all cleared up. She's back to her nutzo self. Aka, the goat that sounds like some kind of dying cow man. But we had to dry her up The good news is that we can breed her this fall and she'll be an even better milker next spring. The bad news is that DH is already having nightmares about kidding season. For some reason staring at a goat hoochie for days on end looking for "the change" and then delivering a small slimy kid does not appeal to him.

Emily however, the La Mancha mix, is just one sickly goat. I've decided that no matter what we do she's just never gonna be in good health. Betsy (cow man) seems to thrive on the supplements, graze etc that she has. But Emily just never seems to do as well, no matter what we do or try. I really should probably send her packing and get another but she was our first goat...so she may just get to mooch the rest of her natural born life for the sheer fact that she proved to us you CAN put a goat in the back of a jeep and still convince yourself that you're a sane and rational being.