I Must Be An Alien

After reading the two following articles, I have decided that I am really an alien who somehow got stranded on this strange planet within the last few years.

This whole cow burping thing has me shaking my head and the thought that U.S. Citizens are taking this serious leaves me totally dumbfounded.

Greener diet reduces dairy cows' methane burps - Yahoo! News
(Don't tell anyone but goats and deer burp too)

The following is a quote from the second article about the Wild Horse Bill:

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that enacting the bill would cost up to $700 million.

Barrasso says the government shouldn't spend $700 million on wild horses while the nation is in debt.

Barrasso, Lummis oppose House's wild horse bill - KIFI - Idaho Falls, Pocatello, Jackson WY

I like wild horses and burros but $700 million dollars, when people are losing their jobs and homes? Anyone who would support something like this has not been affected by this present economy, has more money than they need and should be sharing their wealth with the needy.

Torched

It was after dark when we went back out to punish the hornets for their evil deeds. If you don't think that they are evil take a close look at the picture above. Do you see the blazing skull?

They were still stirred up even after several hours and after dark. They were swarming around the nest, so my DH had to run in, splash the gas and pitch the burning match at it. Luckily he got ignition on the first throw. I am sure that some of them escaped with their lives but hopefully they will rebuild in a friendlier neighborhood.

The Gate

An innocent looking gate you might say. That is what my poor Husband thought this afternoon. A gate that doesn't get much use until he decides to switch some horses around. He opens the gate and a few of the horses go through without any problems but two decide to be difficult.

Somehow, and I am not sure of the sequence of events, but he throws the gate back into the wide open position and something latches onto the top of his ring finger. With the other hand he grabs the offender and dislodges him. Then he notices that there seems to be a swarm of offenders all around him. He then removes himself from the area and looks back with curiosity. That is when he sees the hornet's nest.



He comes to the house and applies a paste of baking soda to the sting and tells me the story. I drag myself from my sick bed, grab my cane and camera and hobble out to the gate, staying at a safe distance. I tell him that he smashed the nest against the gate post and that is why they were so upset with him.



He says, "Yes, I can see that now." He also informs me that a hornet's sting is the worst. Bumble bees cannot hold a candle.

Both of our Sons were stung yesterday by Bumble bees, they thought that they were Wood Bees and the eldest Son accused us of lying to him about Wood Bees not stinging. Since I am sure that I would never lie to him, I am thinking that they have just misidentified the species.

Wood Bees are shiny and Bumble bees are hairy and from what I was told, they had a nest in the ground next to a stump or in the stump. Our youngest Son looked like a prize fighter with his swollen eye.

Anyway, back to the hornet's nest, my DH is planning on dousing the nest with gas tonight and lighting it. I did give him some benadryl and he is out in the hot sun on the tractor mowing one of the pastures. I didn't feel that this was a good idea but just try telling a man anything.

This nest was close to the ground, so that is suppose to mean a mild winter. But I just talked to a friend who said that all of the hornet's nests he has seen this year were up high.

Calf Bloat

Angus is now 12 weeks old, he looks really good and has been very healthy but yesterday evening he developed bloat. I gave him baking soda and a little veg. oil. My DH bounced his belly around until we got some good burps.

I checked on him at around 2:00 am and he was bloated again, went through the same process plus gave him yogurt and he responded well again.

I just went out and he looks bloated again. Any ideas what I can do and what we are doing wrong to cause this??

My DH is still giving him a bottle once per day just to get rid of the replacer that we have. He has free choice calf starter, calf manna, hay, grass and water.

Crocs

Finding time to blog is getting difficult. My Husband, bless his heart, has decided to make me shoulder the whole load of taking care of my goats with no help at all from him. He thinks that I will realize that they are too much trouble and I will get rid of them.

Little does he know that I still enjoy them and the only real problem that I am having is that I keep falling. I fell again yesterday. I have been turning Cooter out of his pen to eat, instead of feeding him hay that we don't have at this point. So he spends most of his day in the yard eating my blackberry bushes and strawberry plants. He also makes visitors quite uncomfortable by his pleasant aroma and peeing on them and their cars.

Yesterday he had been out all morning and had taken to eating what hay we do have in the barn. So I went to put him up and as I was coming back down to the house I ended up on my back again, right on level ground. It was muddy from the previous night's rain but this was so unexpected. As I struggled back to an upright position, I began to think that this was not all together my fault or the fault of the slippery mud. It must be my shoes.

I love Crocs and have several pairs, they are just comfortable and easy to clean. But I don't think that they are the proper foot attire for goat/chicken farmers in muddy environments. So I am in the market for an easy to slip on but well cleated barn shoe. As for my Husband, I am hoping that he will give up this plan of his and allow me keep my goats. After all, I don't spend endless hours shopping and/or spending his hard earned money. I also don't run all of the gas out of his vehicles because I don't go anywhere.