UPDATE

AC - thank you again SO MUCH for the AC unit Mum and Dad! It is such a blessing and cools the living room really well. We can set up a fan to point into the kitchen or the bedroom and it cools those rooms as well. Hopefully this will save money on our electric bill. THANK YOU!

Goats - we have sore mouth in our herd. What fun. It is a virus that can run from a week to 4 weeks. Nasty painful scabby sores appear on the mouths, nose, udder, or really anywhere. But, mostly the mouth and udder which is causing a lot of problems with milking. I am spraying every sore I see with colloidal silver, which prevents secondary infections, but does not seem to clear up the sores any faster.

Darlin' - she is sold! Erinn is on the hunt for a horse that she will love as much as she loved Thunder. Easier said than done! But, now seems to be a good time to buy a horse as prices are down.

Erinn - Still feeling pretty bad. Fever, etc, but we have FINALLY proven to ourselves (and just as importantly, to HER) that she is indeed gluten intolerant! So, now it'll be awhile before the last glutening symptoms leave. We arent sure if the fever is from gluten but there is a good possibility that it is. She was gluten free for two weeks and still had the daily fever, but her intestinal issues were greatly improved.

Mooky - is feeling good and doing very well! Working occasionally for various neighbors.

Small Engine Repair- We just placed an ad in the Harper newspaper for small engine repair. It is a bi-weekly newspaper. Hopefully that will bring in some business. Right now though, we are getting enough work to pay the most important bills. What a blessing!

Varmints - after the skunk incident, I went out to milk one morning and found Maggie with a bunch of porcupine quills in her head above her eye, and in one front leg. Why old Maggie? Why not the dogs? Hmmm.... Maggie ALWAYS sleeps near the barn gate so that she can be close to her kid who gets locked into the barn yard at night with all the other kids. The porcupine was apparently trying to get into the barn, or the garden. Not sure which. We set a trap for it and never did catch it. Then, yesterday, Liberty started barking ferociously at something at about 5 am. That's not unusual for her, but this time she went on and on. So I finally went out and followed her to the source of her anxiety. A porcupine! She is SO SMART - she would not get within 10 feet of it, but she was trying to head it AWAY from her beloved goats. I went to get Kris and when I came back it was gone, and I couldn't talk Liberty into helping me find it again. So, I woke Hannah up and she found it! Went right up to it several times barking and sniffing. I dont know HOW she didnt get a face full of quills. Kris shot it. Mooky dumped it in Mr. P's "trash pit" along with a kid that we lost the day before to "Sudden Death". Dr. D came out and cut the kid open and said it was most likely caused by the clostridium bacteria. Penicillin would have saved her, but she got sick so fast and died so suddenly... So, until we can pick up some CD and T vaccine for his kids, I am watching them like a hawk. At the first sign of anything I will give a penicillin shot. He wasn't at all upset with me about it, and said he had lost one the same way last month. I think it bothered me more than it bothered him!