More Eggs, No Milk

It is Spring Break for some of our Grand-kids, so they have been taking turns staying overnight at Papaw and Mamaw's house. I have walked several miles with them around the farm and Papaw has walked several miles with them on Mr. Shorty. Poor Mr. Shorty has earned his keep this week.

Our hens are finally laying a decent amount of eggs. We are getting anywhere from 4 to 9 eggs a day. Then occasionally my DH goes into the loft and finds a nest, that makes our egg production number jump.

We haven't milked Calico for a week or so and she is about all dried up. Collette is still being Collette and I am still unsure of what is going on with her. Our neighbor and fellow goat herder said that she had a goat deliver a kid the other day without any signs at all. She thought that she was a long way from kidding. She had no udder, no puffiness or swelling. Goats are all different and they are always planning new ways of fooling you.

I was planning on selling my Buck as soon as both does kidded this Spring but now I will probably have to keep him until fall. Once I get both does in milk, I am going to keep milking them as long as they will produce milk or until I get tired of milking. No more breeding and kidding unless I get lonely for some new kids.

Write Your Representative

My German neighbor said that they went through what they did simply because they wouldn't stand up and say, "NO!".
Write Your Representative and always be sure to vote!

Doe Opinions Please

The picture below was taken September 24, 2009, nearly 6 months ago.


These two pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago.



This picture was taken a couple of days ago.


Is she bred or just fat? I thought she was bred 6 months ago and stopped milking her, so I have lost confidence in myself. I thought I felt movement months ago, her ligs feel loose but she has no udder or changes in her udder, no swelling or puffiness on her tail end. If she is bred, it was an oops breeding because the Buck got in with her. I know he was with her in December but I thought she was already bred at that time.

A Family Evening

We were so blessed to have all of our family with us on a sunny and warm evening recently. My oldest Grandson and I went for a walk before everyone else came. We went right down into the creek onto a new sandbar that has formed this winter on our stretch of Indian Creek. We have a rather large island with big trees on it, where the creek splits, but now a new island is forming beside the first one. This is good for us because Indian Creek was eating away at our pasture, now it is going the other direction.

I took a few pictures of the creek and the islands. My Grandson did what most boys do he skipped rocks and got his feet wet.

Later our youngest Grandson got to chase a few chickens and meet Angus.

One Tough Cookie

It ain't braggin' if it's true, is it? Well, my 5 year old, middle Granddaughter is just plain tough in more ways than one. First, she was born with a holey heart, an atrial septal defect. She didn't feel good and was a very grumpy baby. When she was 15 months old she had to have a device implanted in her heart to fill in the largest hole. It is called an AMPLATZER® Septal Occluder, a wire disc shaped device made from an alloy of nickel and titanium. She came through the procedure like the trooper she is.

Next came the dog attack at two and a half years old. She had several puncture wounds on cheek, jaw and around her left eye. Her bottom eye lid had a chunk missing and was split open. She was cool, calm and sang Christmas songs on the long trip to the Hospital. She remained composed for all of the stitches, she was sedated but didn't like being held down. She was very brave for the removal of the stitches as well.

Then there are the splinters that you naturally get on a farm. I have removed two splinters from her fingers so far. She doesn't squirm, whine or cry when I poke, prod and squeeze, she even watches.

So that brings me up to Saturday. Somehow she managed to cut the tip of her little toe nearly off on Thursday. The entire top skin of the tip of her toe was cut loose and was only being held on by a small piece that was still intact. It looked bad and painful.

She had complained about it only after she noticed the blood, her Mom asked what happened and she said that she couldn't remember. I guess it didn't make much of an impression on her. Sometime later the toe started throbbing and she did do some crying.

Friday night the girls spent the night with us and we soaked her foot in Epsom Salts a couple of time. I was afraid that it might get infected because she was running around my house barefooted and we couldn't get a band-aid on it. After one soak on Saturday afternoon my DH looked closely at it and declared that the excess skin needed to be removed. Her Mother had talked about doing this herself. So I called her Mom for approval after our Granddaughter gave her approval.

I stuck a Banana Popsicle in her mouth, read her a funny story holding the book so that it blocked her view of what Papaw was doing and he did surgery. She never flinched, jerked or made a sound accept for laughing at the story.

My DH held out his open palm with the thick cap of skin in it and she said: "I didn't even feel it!". She did have a hard time putting it back in the Epsom Salt water because it burned but after about five attempts she finally got the nerve and stuck it in without pulling it back out.

Now bandaging it was another story, she griped, moaned and argued about having to wear a stupid band-aid on it. My DH applied ointment and wrapped it with gauze and tape, she was not happy about this but her arguments and non-stop griping was so funny that we just kept chuckling. She can be quite dramatic. She didn't want a big old ugly bandage on it and thought she could talk her way out of it.

She is tough in other ways too, like arguing. It is hard to win an argument with her and she can be pretty tough in protecting her sisters and brother. She is also quite the scrapper, her Dad has taught her to fight and she plays a little too rough sometimes.

She is the comedian of the family, is outgoing, friendly and never shuts up. Even when she is trying to be tough and serious she cracks us all up. She can also make you very nervous because you never know what she might say to strangers or even to friends and family.

Do Not Be Afraid Of Fear

What is fear? It is a natural defense mechanism. It is an emotional response to danger. It was given to man and animals to preserve life.

Multitudes live in overinflated fear. What used to be called Nervous Breakdowns are now called Panic Attacks or Anxiety. These disorders are uncontrolled fear, fear on steroids, I am not advocating this type of fear. But maybe if people understood fear a little more they could learn to control their fears instead of being ruled by their fears.

Fear itself is a good thing, it is a necessary evil. Why do we want to pretend that we don't need it anymore? Humans have become so arrogant that they don't want to deal with anything that makes them uncomfortable and fear is uncomfortable.

Fear can most certainly save your life. It can save you torment and trouble too. It can keep you from making bad decisions and bad choices. What some people call intuition or premonition may in fact be a type of fear, a warning signal.

We can try to rid ourselves of our fears by desensitization. Dwelling on things that cause you fear or imagining how things could possibly go wrong in your life will not desensitize you. You will only imagine things much worse than they might actually be and you will end up having a severe case of anxiety.

So what is the best way to overcome your fears? Don't. Learn to deal with your fears and find answers for your fears instead of trying to overcome them. There are reasons why you are fearful, figure out what those reasons are and deal with them.

If you fear losing your job then come up with a Plan B, start working on a resume. If you fear spending the rest of your life alone, start looking for someone to share your life. If you can't make relationships work then start looking at yourself and asking the hard questions. Make the needed adjustments and try again.

If you fear death then you need to look at your spiritual life. Study, don't take a person's opinion or teachings. Learn for yourself, until you are fully persuaded that you are ready for your journey. Don't be lazy in this aspect of your life.

The worst thing that you can do is to deny your fear, to push your fears away and stop listening to them. Fear is a human emotion and very necessary. If you stop fearing then you place yourself at great risk.

A Girl and Her Rooster

All of my Granddaughters were packing around chickens the other day when I got this picture. My youngest Granddaughter chose a banty rooster instead of a hen. She has always hated chickens and has been afraid of them so we were all surprised when she felt the need to keep up with her sisters.

Twitter

Since I joined Facebook, I thought that I might as well take the next step and join Twitter too. While I mostly understand the purpose of Facebook, Twitter has me scratching my head. If someone would like to explain it to me, feel free.

Facebook and CRS Gold DFM

To all of my Blogger friends and followers, I have taken the plunge.

Alright, I wanted to promote CRS Gold DFM Equine Probiotics on Facebook, so I signed up for a Facebook page. There isn't a way to promote a product page without having a personal account with friends and all of that stuff. So I have given in to temptation and started a personal Facebook page as well.

The good thing is that I can continue to blog here at Spinning Yarns from the Farm and it automatically posts onto my Facebook page. Thanks, Tonya, over at The Simple Life, for that tip.

This means that I won't have to spend all of my time posting on both sites. I also removed email addresses from my blog so you won't be getting my blog emailed to you anymore.

I may eventually add a Rope Halter page but not right now because I have all of the orders that I want to deal with.

Here is the CRS Gold DFM page.

Does Anyone Blog Anymore?

I guess that I am not the only one who quit blogging. I had some time to go and check out some of the blogs that I use to keep up with and they haven't been updated in months. I think that I can guess what happened. It's called Facebook.

It seems that Facebook and Twitter have taken over the internet. That is where everyone hangs out now. I haven't given in to that temptation yet. I know that I should put my little businesses on there but I just hate starting another new venture that will take up more of my time.

Another thing that I have noticed since I have been back on Blogger is that my comments always have spam in them. It is so annoying to see that you have comments and when you go to approve them you have to reject them instead. Just more wasted time.

Running Low On Milk

Calico's milk production has fallen 50% in the last six or seven days. She is just drying up on her own like she did last year. My plan was to dry her off in a couple of weeks but she got the jump on me.

I thought that I would look back through my blog to find out when she started weaning me last year because I remembered blogging about it. The date of that blog was March 2nd. She is very consistent, isn't she?

She was due on May 10th last year and she kidded on May 11th. She is due on May 15th this year, so she is on schedule. I am just not ready to give up the milk right now. This is going to mean having to drink store bought, watered down cow's milk.

I was hoping that Collette would have already kidded by now and I would be getting close to being able to steal a little milk from her babies but I am about to give up on her.

I have no idea when she is due and the experts who have looked at her have been wrong too. Maybe she is just really fat. She keeps getting bigger and is starting to lay around more. I need to turn both of them outside for some sun and exercise as soon as possible. Saturday is suppose to be sunny and 52 degrees.