Settled In

I did manage to get Dolly and Victoria settled in the garage.  Well, I got them in there.  Victoria really needed to come in. She was cold.  Once she got in there she ate a bunch of sweet feed and chowed down on some hay.  She was feeling much better before too long.

Victoria munching hay in the garage; they have a big area bedded for them.

Dolly is Dolly.  This is far from the first time she’s been brought in during cold snaps.  She got a drink and just hung out.

Dolly

But Victoria is being naughty to her grandmaa (just a little).  I did tell her she better be good to Dolly and keep her dang horns off my car.  I just got it back from being fixed.

Victoria eating again; Dolly retreated to hide behind my car.

Everyone else is getting plenty to eat.

2TC

Strangely, I went about two weeks without being able to get corn from the farm store. Seriously? I live in Iowa. How can you not have corn?  When they finally got it back in stock, the price had gone up $1.50 – $2.00 a bag.

But the critters have to eat, so we should be good to go.

Onyx, Maybeline, Odie, Daisy, Zora with Ms. Goose

The birds are in their building.  I’ve been keeping it shut quite a bit.  I do worry about all my old hens.  I already lost one.

I’m really concerned about Mr. Peacock.

He is the oldest animal on the farm, and he’s getting pretty old.  He has to be at least 16.

We’ve all settled in for the cold spell. I hope everyone stays safe through this huge crazy weather.

My Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Week

I know I said I was going to focus on the positive, but this has really been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week.  It started on Monday.  I had my doctor’s appointments.  Other than having to wear dark sunglasses, my eye appointment and mammogram were fine.

Glad I had my mom to drive me home

I also saw the podiatrist.  My assessment going into the appointment was that I’m a hot mess from the top of the ankle to the tip of the toes on both feet.  And, basically, I was right. And at some point I evidently chipped a bone in my left ankle. The right one is just full of spurs and arthritis. Fun times!  It’s looking more like a surgery is in my future to clean out that ankle with the arthritis and spurs.

Tuesday is when I discovered Bambi had passed.

Those ears!

Wednesday morning, I left for work and ended up having a deer commit suicide by jumping into my car.  Honestly, I am feeling really lucky that it wasn’t worse than it was.  The car runs, and other than a headlight gone and the door only half opening, it’s functional.  It will get fixed next month.

Deer damage

When I got home that afternoon, I discovered that Flower has bottle jaw.  Her eye membranes are pure white.

Flower (taken on Friday; she does look a little better)

Thursday, Freddie tried to kill me–multiple times.  He will get sold rather than wethered.  I have a policy of not keeping goats who try to kill me.

Freddie

Astra was also acting sick.  She had no appetite and seemed really cold, but I couldn’t find anything wrong with her otherwise.

Astra–she seemed fine the next day.

And Friday…the streak broke.  Thank goatness.

Another Weekend Project

I had two goals for the first weekend of spring break:  building a fence to prepare for kidding and cleaning out the north stall of the garage.

I am so tired of my garage being a barn.  Even though I’m cleaning out half of it, the other half is still barn because we have rain in the forecast for this week of kidding.  I might need it.  Anyhow, I got my wheelbarrow out and started scooping while everyone was in pasture so I could leave my big red gate open.

Odie

I kid you not, I had only taken one load to the compost pile when the llamas came up from pasture.

Odie and Aurora

Maybeline

Of course, they thought they had to check it out.  That meant opening and closing the gate every time I went through it both directions.

Then the goats came up, and my path to the compost pile filled up with obstacles.

Did I mention the wheel on my wheelbarrow is flat and I need to go to town before I can fix it?  Despite all the drama, I did manage to get the job done over the weekend!

Bob telling me where I needed to do more cleaning.

Now I can put my car in there again.

2018 Ford Fusion

It’s a new-to-me car!  Yay!