Woody and the Voodoo Doctor

I wanted to share with everyone that Woody had some very serious "lookers" yesterday. This is a great big deal because he has been with us for about a year, with no serious potential adoptors. I really like this family and hope they decide on Woody, but of course will be happy with what ever dog they pick because they are getting a dog from rescue. Some lucky dog ( maybe Woody!)is getting a great new home. A new home with the "voodoo" Doctor.

I have been looking for that exact sort of Doc for several years now, and even though a visit is probably not in the budget - I am going to make it fit in there because she ( the doc) does muscle testing ( I think the $20 word for it is applied kinesthesiology) and also some other techniques that have gotten me pain relief in the past. I go to sleep every night on a loveseat with a ton of pillows in order to be able to doze off for a while and I am hoping that better rest will make me less sluggish and maybe even get me back on the bike. Maybe improve my memory, to? OK maybe that is expecting to much even for a Voodoo doc!

Keep your fingers crossed for Woody!

Good News, a Big Mess and New Resolutions

That is just part of the big mess over there in the corner. There are fleeces ( unwashed in the bag - eeeek!), stash, stash, more fleeces and, oh yeah, more stash. I have a whole room upstairs that looks like this, and a bathroom closet as well. My stash runneth over. So, the resolution is to make a list, clearly visible on the dry erase boards in the kitchen of several things to accomplish each week. It was going to be things to accomplish everyday - but hey, I am taking this whole productivity surge slowly at first - I don't want to sprain something! The next thing getting posted is: Wash Fleeces. Then: Stash Management! If an organised person is reading this wants to help me get organised, I can pay you in - you guessed it - stash!

The good news is that some stuff seems to be a little more settled down here. The barn is getting back to "normal" after the series of terror attacks. The hens are once again laying eggs. The Turkey hens are probably finished with egg laying for the fall and winter and I for one think they deserve a rest. Timber is settling in and crying for his mama a little less. The new black boys, Barney and Andy, are getting more and more friendly. In fact, they are asking for head scratches and nuzzling for feed - so that is some big time progress. The boys are the softest fleeces ever and I really want to shear them now - but I don't trust the weather, darn it!

I had some time to enjoy my little farmlett this weekend and found this little guy lost in the garage.

I was happy to relocate him to a friendlier environment, but he was so cute, I had to get a picture of him first. While I was on the front porch scouting a safe place for Mr. Snail, I saw this pretty thing.

Yep - that is a moth. On my screen door to the living room wherein we have: The Big Mess pictured up there at the top of the page. The Big Mess contains unwashed wool and other tasty forms of wool that moths love to eat. See? I really need help with my stash, and right quick, before that moth and all of her pretty friends come in and have a winters feast! I wish the color came through a little better, the dots on her wings are a really pretty bright blue.

I also got to see a Norwegian Fjord Horse just yesterday. My daughter is riding him in her therapuetic horsemanship and boy howdy is he a cutie patootie! I hope she likes him and continues to ride him this session so I can see him again. When the job situation picks up around here - riding lessons will be back on my "to do" list!

For now, I am off to a good nights sleep.

Misery Makes a Decision

This has been a crazy time and I couldn't write about it as happening fast, and making me too sad to write about it.

Petie Pie was the start of it all. The little stinker got into the barn by body slamming the door hard enough to bend the inside lock while I was in the barn. I caught him, but not before a few unsuccessful and very painful dirt dives and also not before he killed a beautiful Cochin Rooster.

After that I wanted him to be placed in another foster home - but no one had room so we changed the locks on the barn door and figured the barn pets were safe. But they were not. Several days later, Petie and another dog dug under the barnyard fence and killed four chickens and a turkey.

Petie went to another home. The other dog with him was placed in an adoptive home and I hoped things would settle down at Dogrush. And, for a few days, things did settle. I had time to decide/realise that I have way to much on my plate here. Fostering is wearing me out and making me bitter, where it once made me happy and seemed to give purpose to my life. SO: (big announcement here) Dogrush Ranch is closing it's doors to foster dogs. Returns, of course will always be welcome back and we will still have the dogs that we dog sit for, so I imagine that it will take a while for the dog population to decline here. But decline it will.

Then Cammie died. I can't tell you how headspinningly blindsided I was. I had an idea that he was feeling poorly, but he went out to the field with his buddies for three days in a row, then just didn't seem hungry at night. Well, he wasn't hungry because he was bloated and full of fluid. He had bladder stones and couldn't pee. This went on until he died.

Here is the worst part. It is a HORRIBLE way to die, and he never made a peep. The vet told me that usually sheep cry and scream and kick at their stomachs and are just miserable when this happens. In fact, after the necropsy ( I HAD to know what happened,) the vet seemed really upset with me b/c ( I think) he thought I let my beautiful sheepie boy suffer until he died. But, I didn't know and Cam didn't let on.

So, life goes on here at Dogrush, with (hopefully soon) fewer dogs and no more death for a while. I am not afraid of death, but I really have a hard time with causing it - even if only through ignorance or lack of experience or just plain making a mistake.

There is a lot of happy stuff to write about but I will save it for tomorrow - PROMISE!

Finally!

Well, over the last ten days or so, I have had two goals: To get Maude groomed and to get a new blog up. I am just getting around to the second one, and darn-it, I am going to cheer like heck for getting this done!

We lost another Rooster to the heat. It was a Barred Rock cross and I think the stress of the heat and the mean guineas was just to much for the poor ole guy. I felt so bad for the nesting hen he was next to, though. There he was, keeled over and stiff as a board and there she was, in her nest, trying to lay her egg like a good girl with a dead roo next to her.

The sheep and goats are hanging tough and the few days of milder weather that we had gave them a chance to frolic a bit and leap on and off their spool toys. Little Timber got the handle to a plastic trigger sprayer stuck in his mouth, kind of like the spit sucker thing that the dentist hangs in your mough while he is working on your teeth. Poor little guy, couldn't get the handle off his lower teeth and when I found him there was blood and spit every where! He seemed to be doing better until he got an abcess under his lower jaw. Now the vet has me all freaked about CL(don't use the link if you have a weak stomach). But I am just sure the abcess is from the trigger that cut his mouth. But to I take a chance and move him to the barn?

Cam, pictured above, had a great day today. Poor Cam has a very bad rep around here for head butting Eddie and others. It was particularily scary when he went after a small boy who was visiting and knocked him down. But now Cam seems to have settled down and he was very polite to some barn visitors today.

The current fiber project is blending Cam's second fleece with Gabe's very white Mohair and making rolags to spin when the weather cools. And right there on your left is a picture of my big boy Gabriel, who looks caramel colored, but has a lovely white fleece after it is washed and carded for spinning.
I managed to get through today in spite of a broken sump pump in the basement and a broken car on a gas station parking lot. Fortunately, I was meeting Erin Seely, who supplies Wendell with his raw diet and she and her DH waited with me until my DH arrived to fetch me back home. Fingers crossed that the car can be repaired with in our budget!

Heres hoping that you all have a great weekend.

Everybody Wants to Be My Baby

Things can be a little crazy around a household with lots of rescued dogs and a lamb living in the bathroom. I know I already explained that little Timber is in the house because of his health issues, and that he will go to the barn as soon as he is safely able to. Lambs don't belong in the house, and now we have a lamb who thinks that people and dogs are his flock. Dogs can be the death of sheep and I would be more comfortable if Timber were afraid of mine. Instead, he tries to play with them, often head butting one of the smaller dogs and then leaping and twirling away, inviting them to a chase. Very dangerous, indeed.

Winston, the French Bulldog shown in the header photo resting his big head on Tulip, thinks he should be a bottle baby, too. Winston sticks close by Timber and never tries to hurt him - unless there is a bottle of lamb replacement formula in the picture. Then all bets are off an it becomes a real challenge to feed Timber with out having Winston grab the nipple and begin nursing! In this picture my friend, Lisa is in the Kitchen attempting to feed Timber with Winston trying to butt in.

When we were trying to transition Tim to the barn a few weeks ago, I fed him up there and Logan, a big Shetland Rambouillet cross from the same flock as Timber must have remembered his bottle baby days and insisted on trying to nurse from Timber's bottle. I wish I would have been able to take a picture of great big Logan trying to get anything out of that little red pritchard nipple.

I am off to an adoption event as this is our double event weekend. Wish me luck!

GRRRRRRRR

In the name of keeping this blog "entertaining" I am not going to post much this evening. I came home from my regular friday night with my mother and daughter to find Baby Timber in the bathroom crying at the top of his lungs. It is HOT in the house - again - and my -ahem- DH was sitting at the Kitchen table eating cornflakes and doing nothing. I asked, "Has he had a bottle tonight?" and received this reply: "Nah, he has been in there crying all night - I don't have time to mess with him."

Do you think he even HEARD WTF he said?

Baby T has been fed and has his 20 lb belly band changed. He was given fresh water, and creep feed. Then I went up to the barn to start the overdue night chores up there.

So, this shepherdess is going to shower and go to bed. I will have a happier post for tomorrow.

There is a Lamb Stuck in My Bathroom!

This is Timber. He is stuck in my bathroom. Not stuck as in: we can't open the door - nope we just can't get him up to the barn. It's a long story...

Timber was born the first week of May and his shepherdess was not sure he was getting enough milk from his mom. The shepherdess was leaving town and so little Timber became a "bottle baby" and the shepherd took over the feedings. That's where I came in. The shepherdess let me know that she had a Shetland/Rambouillet cross bottle baby for me if I wanted to take him. Uh, do I want a baby lamb...let me see now... cute , soft cuddly bottle baby tap, tap, tapping around my bathroom and kitchen in tiny diapers....what do you think I said?

So, you know. He was in the bathroom being bottle fed, and cuddled a lot. He was doing great. Then summer hit and we ( ok, not me but he) decided that we could weather the heat with no AC. We think little Tim couldn't handle the sudden change because he became ill. Very ill. Scary ill. Time to call the vet in a blind panic. We did antibiotics, probiotics and vitamin shots. I can't even remember what all we did. It took weeks to get little Tim back on track and we still don't know exactly what happened.

But Timber got better, started growing and spending time outside. He was eating all of the blossoms off of the plants in the vegetable garden, so we were anxious to get him out of the back yard and up to the barn.

We were starting the transition up to the barn, being VERY CAREFUL to not have him up there in the heat of the day. We made a little pen for him so the other sheep and goats couldn't beat him up. We made arrangements to get two little 16 week old black shetland wethers so Timber would have babies his size making the transition at the same time.

Then he came up lame, and sick, with a fever... back to the vet. (Now this shepherdess is totally freaking out and wondering what the heck I was doing wrong!) Turns out that with anitbiotics the fever went away but the limp got worse. Back to the vet and insist on xrays. Timber had a broken toe on his left front leg. Yep, Lambs have toes! Who knew?

I am going to skip the scary part where the vet talked about sending Timber to the University for surgery to the tune of THOUSANDS of dollars, and maybe not being able to do anything at all for him. I am also going to skip the part about how we ( the vet, me, a bunch of vet techs) spent a whole afternoon trying to glue a "block" to his foot so he could walk without putting pressure on his toe. Nothing worked and I took my limping lambie pie home.

The next day my absolutely brilliant friend, Lisa, got in touch with her farrier and together they hatched a plan to glue the "block" to Timber's foot. The next Saturday I met Lisa and her farrier at the barn and presto whammo - the block was glued with some magic brown stuff and it is stuck tight! After a few days of practice little Tim is tap, tap, tapping around my house again in a "belly band" because believe me, you might be able to get lipstick on a pig, but you sure can't get diapers on a lamb his size!

So that is why there is a Lamb stuck in my bathroom until: the toe heals, the vet can splint the opposite leg,* and the weather is a little less brutal so he can move to the barn. Where the two adorable black and silver shetland cutie pie sheepie boys are settling in nicely.

Whew! See? It was a long story.

I have LOTS more to tell you, but it can wait till tomorrow.

*Timber's opposite leg is growing crooked because of all of the pressure on it so he has Angular Limb Disorder in that leg now.