Odds, Ends, and Leftovers

I managed to get my garden re-planted.  I didn’t have my camera up there though, so you get a picture of my garlic and potatoes in containers.

potatoes and garlic

My strawberry bed in containers is also doing well.

strawberries

Penelope has reached that awkward stage where she can easily put her head through the fence, but she can’t get it out.  I’m hoping that she outgrows this phase quickly.

Penelope

If not…I still have my horn apparatus left over from Hera.

Hera from 2018

Maybeline is such a pretty girl.  I hope the llama shearer comes soon since our weather is starting to warm up.

Maybeline

I am really starting to wonder how many kids Hilda has in there.  She’s still got a month to go.

Hilda (with Chiffon in the background)

Wanda’s fur is growing back where she was naked all winter.  I’m pretty sure our warm, humid air has helped it not be dry and itchy.  She been rubbing it off with her horn every time it started to grow back, but it is finally looking good.

Wanda

I’m guessing part of the problem with her fur having come off and her back injury were due to low copper.  I don’t understand that because she’d never shown a sign of the copper issues before.  Sadly, I’m afraid I am seeing the neurological symptoms of in vetro copper deficiency in her kids.  Lou is holding his own for now.  We’ll see what happens.

Lou fighting with Scooter

I’m afraid Lainey’s issues are too severe for her to continue much longer.

Lainey

This just breaks my heart.  I gave those goats a ridiculous amount of copper throughout the last year, and I’m getting ready to do another round in the next week or two.

Meg’s Infected Hoof and Garlic

Poor Meg has been limping off and on for a month now.  I’ve looked and couldn’t see anything several times.  I had my son hold her so I could trim it.  I still didn’t see anything that would explain why she was limping.  I only saw a tiny pinprick spot, but it was not soft or smelly.  Trimming helped a bit for a few days.

Megora Saanen

About a week after the trimming she was limping worse again, so I decided to use a garlic infusion on it to try and treat any hoof rot.  I don’t know how should would get hoof rot as dry as our weather is, but at least it was something.

I put about 1/2 cup of water in a pan and got a head of garlic.

Because this was a small one, I used most of the head.  I peeled the cloves and cut them so the liquid would more easily blend with the water.

I boiled it for just a bit.  It was enough to make the whole house smell for the rest of the day.  After it cooled, I strained it to remove the garlic.

Then it was ready to use.

I just needed to get my patient and check out her foot.  While I was looking at her hoof, I noticed that it was now bright red all between the toes and it had pus at the hairline on the front of the hoof.

Poor girl.  I rinsed it thoroughly with the garlic infusion.

Two days later, I managed to get my son to come hold her again.  It looked better, but she now had a black crusty spot on top.

There was a red raw spot, but it didn’t seem to have the infection.  I rinsed it with the garlic infusion again, and I did give her a shot of antibiotics also because I’m not sure how the garlic would do on an infection that was all through the foot.

It was looking better, but tonight she’s limping again.  I think she’ll have the vet look at it when he’s here on Wednesday.  If you don’t believe in the antibiotic properties of garlic, check out my post from last year on antibiotic garlic.

It’s really powerful stuff.

My Seven Links, an Award, and a Sunset

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been blogging for so long.  It seems that lately I’ve been reflecting quite a bit on my blog and how it has evolved over the past year and a half.  Claire at Whispering Acres was nice enough to share with me the opportunity to participate in My Seven Links.  This was started by Tripbase Blog.  You simply have to share seven links.

• My most beautiful post
• My most popular post.
• My most controversial post.
• My most helpful post.
• A post whose success surprised me.
• A post I feel didn’t get the attention it deserved.
• The post I am most proud of.

My most beautiful post is one of the most difficult to choose.  I love my farm and animals and sharing it with everyone.  I guess I’ll have to go with Under a Blue Sky.  I think I have to choose this one because it has my beautiful great horned owl, a beautiful blue sky, and several photos around the farm.

My most popular post is Making Honey Oatmeal Soap.  Actually it is the second most popular post with 413 page views.  I do know why it’s popular~it’s a great soap.  I’ve actually had people tell me they don’t ever want to use anything except this soap because it helps their eczema.

My most controversial post is An OMG Moment.  I wasn’t sure I should post about this or not.  After all, my full-grown steer was nursing my cow.  It’s kind of a strange situation that I didn’t know what to do.  Luckily, the situation seemed to resolve itself.

My most helpful post is really a tie between A Couple of Goat Pregnancy Notes and How Do You Tell if Your Goat is Bred.  Based on the number of hits I get to my blog searching for information on goat pregnancy, these have been helpful.

Litha May Street

The post whose success surprised me is also the one that is technically the most popular, Goat Teeth.  It has had 418 page views.  I feel kind of bad about this because I posted a little bit of wrong information.  When I said goats don’t have teeth on the top, I meant in the front.  They do have top and bottom teeth in the back of their mouths.

Dolly Ann Street

A post that didn’t get the attention it deserves is Antibiotic Garlic.  Really, I’m a huge believer in the benefits of garlic.  It’s virtually 100% antibiotic and has anti-viral properties as well.  Everyone should know about the benefits of garlic.

The post I am most proud of is It Might Be Time to Quit Milking.  It was fun.  It was challenging.  I actually took the pictures myself, which was quite challenging while milking.

This is my 562nd post.  It was a lot of fun looking back through them all to pick out those for my seven links.  Now the hard part~passing this on to three more people.  I’d love to see how pretty much everyone would rate their posts. but I think I’ll go with some blogs I have started following more recently.  Then I know which older posts I should go read.  So, I would like to nominate those three blogs who’s memes I’m linking up to today.

Deborah Jean’s Dandelion House who hosts Farmgirl Friday

Verde Farms’ Amy who hosts Farm Friend Friday

Beth at I Should Be Folding Laundry  who hosts You Capture where this week’s theme is Summer Sunsets

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I was also lucky enough to be awarded the Liebster Blog award by Jerry of Soap Box Tech.  This is an award for small bloggers~those with fewer than 300 followers.  I certainly qualify there.  I have 59 followers (not worth going to Blogger for the easy Follow Me button).  I love the comments that I get from people.  I hope people do find my blog worthwhile and helpful.  It’s quite an honor to receive an award that means “friend” or “love”.

Now I have the honor of passing this on to three more bloggers with less than 300 followers.  I immediately thought of my goat sisters.  Now some don’t qualify because they have so many followers.  Some aren’t bloggers.  This is all good because I have to narrow it down to three.  Here’s to all my goat sisters out there (even if I couldn’t nominate you) that have embraced their inner goat!

Mimi and Darla of The Goat Borrower.

Isobelle Golightly, the beautiful goat and her lady

Claire (and Lucky Nickel) of Whispering Acres

Finally, as the sun sets this summer day, I think we should all take time to reflect on our lives and how we share them with everyone.  I’ve had so much fun joining different memes to share my posts and read other people’s posts.  Blogging has been such a great way to meet so many kind and caring people.

Summer Sunset

I look forward to many more wonderful posts and the great comments everyone leaves.  Thanks for coming back and reading what I have to say.