New Girls!

Here's Maggie checking out the new girls, most of whom are her descendants. One is her daughter (named Fancy) and 4 of them are her grand daughters. These are some goats we bought from Prisca and Kerry partly to help them by reselling some of the girls, and partly so that we could get some of those good "Maggie/Tiffany genes" back in our herd.
We won't be able to keep anywhere near all of them, unfortunately! It's going to be a difficult choice. I milked Fancy tonight and it was so nice to have some extra milk. Kris got to have a glass of milk with his supper for the first time in a very long time. Erinn and Mooky will get to have smoothies tomorrow because I had just enough milk to start a jar of yogurt tonight. Prisca brought us a gallon of milk and some milk replacer too! What a blessing to have some milk for US, and not just the bottomless pit goat kids!! :o)

You know it's going to be a cold night...

...when the guineas head for the barn rather than their favorite tree! They get way up high in the barn on top of some lumber that is stacked on a rack whenever the weather is going to be miserably cold or rainy. Smart, huh?
We have some Ameracauna chicks that are a couple months old, and tonight I could only find one in the barn! I was rather worried about the other 6 and couldn't find them in any of their usual spots. When I was putting the goat kids in the kid pen for the night, I heard a faint peeping coming from inside of the kid hut. There is a heater in there wrapped securely so the kids cant get too close or knock it over, and the missing chicks were huddled next to the heater. So, I put their cold buddy in there with them and put a divider up so they don't get squished by goat kids.

Today the surgeon in San Antonio told Kris that he has an extra bone in his back (!) and that there is another bone "displaced"/out of alignment which is probably causing him more pain than the deteriorated and bulging disks are! Unfortunately, the doctor had a funeral to go to so he was very rushed. They had tried to call us at 8am, but we left the house at 7am!

Mooky and I dropped off Sonny and Sasha at the babysitters house at 7:30. Ha! Just kidding - Karen and Hannah graciously cared for the kids for us while we were gone. The other 8 bottle babies are old enough to go longer without a bottle. Kris and Erinn went and bought groceries and met us at GB's house around 8am. Then Erinn stayed with GB while Mooky went with us to San Antonio.

Since the doctor was so rushed, we didn't get as much information as we wanted. He did seem like a nice guy, and was very apologetic. He wants Kris to get some physical therapy and/or try the cortisone shots before surgery. He admits that these are both temporary fixes though... oh, and he wants him to take anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxers. (cough.choke.ha!) If we'd had more time Kris could have explained why he won't do that!

Sonny

This is Sonny. One of Maggie's triplet born in January. He was sold at 2 weeks old along with two other goat kids. He was then weaned from the bottle WAY too early, despite my instructions on how to properly raise a goat kid. The other two kids died of starvation and pneumonia, and Sonny was spotted by an amazing "coincidence". A lady I didnt even know saw him at his new home and after contacting me to see if I had any goats for sale, described this poor sick kid to me.
I asked her for the name of the people who had this sick starving kid, and when she told me I croaked, knowing it had to be one of our kids. The next day I drove to their house (with directions from the new friend!) and convinced them to sell him back to me. Considering he was at death's door, I guess they figured they'd love to have $50 for him! He weighed 14 pounds, while his brother and sister are getting close to FORTY POUNDS!!!

This is how he looked the day I picked him up.

This is how he spent 10 days. Either sleeping on a pallet or on Kris' lap, while his little body tried hard to adjust to having food again, as well as fighting off the pneumonia.

I took this picture a few days ago -

he is finally able to spend some time outside with the other kids!

h

Kris VS. Murphy

Kris has been busy!


Remember that tiller that Murphy broke? We ordered the necessary parts and Kris is putting it all back together. He will probably have that finished up by tomorrow.
Bamix? Kris took it apart and found that it was all rusty inside. He got it all cleaned out and working again, although high speed is now like low speed was. We tested it on a batch of mayo and it worked!
Sewing machine? Mum loaned me one, after Kris took the old one apart and deemed it "worn out".
Milk Machine? Kris took it all apart, found the problem, and fixed it!
Printer? Well, IMO all printers have serious issues, but I just need to get some ink and it should be working again.
Blender? GB gave us one she doesn't use.