A Tough Break

Literally, a break.  I came home today and went to do chores like normal.  I walked into the barn and found my doe kid in the hay feeder, stuck.  I saw her leg was bent in an unnatural position, and I held my breath as I lifted her out of the feeder, and gently set her down.  Her leg just hung there as she stood on her 3 good legs.  I felt it, and it definitely felt broken. 

I put her in the front seat of the truck, and off to the vet we went.  The vet did an x-ray, and sure enough, she broke her leg (right rear) at the epiphysis (growth plate) up high, at her knee/stifle joint.  The vet put a splint on her leg, and taped it up well.  He said the break was up pretty high, and hoped the splint would hold it, but if it did hold she should heal in 2 weeks.  Luckily at this age, they heal very quickly.  I'll bring her back in 2 weeks for splint removal. 

She's resting now, in one of the lambing jugs, with her brothers in the adjacent jug.  I've had to separate her from Ida (her mom), and I'll just milk Ida and bottle feed her.  I worry if I kept her with other goats she'd try to keep up with them, or they'd jostle her around too much. 

Poor girl isn't feeling well tonight, but I hope after a day or so she can learn to hobble around with her splint. 

Wordless Wednesday

First day on pasture this year, April 19th.

Taters Are In

It's only a month later than normal, but my potatoes are in.  Usually in this area, people try to plant their potatoes around St. Patrick's Day.  This year, it was much wetter and colder than normal.  I got several varieties this year, and I'm excited to see how they do. 

I planted 3 rows in the garden.  The row closest to the driveway is Adirondack Blue, the middle row is Norland, and the row on the left is Pontiac Red (writing this down for my records).  I dug trenches and then filled them in with compost. I'll fill in more as the plants grow.  I planted the potatoes slightly close together, because I'm always worried not all of them will sprout. 

Compost in the trenches...

I had a helper gardening with me.  Actually, she's a hindrance.  The chickens get in the garden and scratch all my mulch everywhere and make a mess of things. 

I didn't really want to use up more space in the garden, so I decided to try out growing potatoes in a tower.  I used tomato cages I already had, since I plan on staking my tomatoes.  

I added a 6" layer of compost to the bottom, then started lining the sides of the cage with straw, so it'll keep the compost contained. Then I put in a few seed potatoes, and then piled on about 6 or 8" of compost.  I will add more compost and straw as the plants grow. Hopefully I added enough to the very bottom...

I planted 2 cages of Yukon Gold, and 1 cage of Superior (next to the driveway). 

Today I went out in the garden and planted peas, kale, and spinach.  Now I should have a while before it's warm enough to plant my favorite stuff....green beans, squash, and tomatoes.  I'm going to focus on mulching and keeping weeds down.  

New Camera Testing

I recently turned 33 and my birthday present was a splurge.  It's double duty, mostly for taking pictures of soap and other Purl & June products, but also a camera for family pictures.  David did some researching and one of the cameras he found was the Canon EOS Rebel t3i.  It got great reviews as an entry level DSLR, but still is capable of professional work too.  I got a kit that came with a camera and 2 different lenses.

The camera came in the mail on Wednesday (yay for Amazon Prime and 2 day shipping!) and I charged the battery right away but was too intimidated to do anything else but look at the camera sitting in the box.  Yesterday I got brave and turned the camera on and took some shots.  Most of the shots are of the dogs, and of items on the coffee table.  I can't wait to use it more and try really hard to read the manual.  My ADD comes out when I have to try to read long instructions, but I really want to learn about what this bad boy can do!

Here's a sample picture. I hope to be posting lots more pictures, and hopefully I'll be worthy of this camera's potential!

I can already tell is a huge, huge improvement over my $40 Black Friday special camera!

New 'Do

Buford is some sort of terrier mix, and he has the wiry, long hair that comes with most terriers. He picks up ticks like you would not believe.  I've already found 2 on him this season.  It was time for a shave!  I clipped him last year and it really helped cut down on the number of ticks he picked up.

Yesterday was the perfect warm sunny day for dog clipping, but I got a little surprise when I ran those clippers down him.  He's a color changing dog!  :-)

Before (he's the black one)

And after!

I knew he had some agouti coloring, where each individual hair has different color "bands" on it, but had no idea he would turn this blonde!  And check out his back leg....that's hair is all the same length. I hope he eventually turns black again, because I like him darker, but he's at least fun to look at now!

It's Finally Spring!

We had perfect weather this weekend, so we spent a lot of time outside.  Devin got a mini bike for his birthday (he turned 11 in March!), and it has been getting a lot of use lately!

They've made courses around the yard, and they time each other to see who is fastest. The bike is pretty weak, so even downhill it doesn't go too fast. 

David loves to show off his fancy trick riding. One of the kids' favorite things to do is chase David around while he rides the bike around the yard. 

I finally got out in the garden this weekend.  I got my onion sets planted (white, yellow, red, and Stuttgarter), along with cabbage and broccoli. 

Devin mentioned wanting to save a peach pit so he could grow a peach tree.  I suggested it might be much faster to just buy a peach tree....so we went to Lowe's and he picked out his peach tree.  Now it's waiting to be planted.

Kylee wanted to buy an apple tree, but since the apples needed a second variety for pollenation (and we haven't dedicated a space to a small orchard yet), she bought 2 blueberry bushes.  She helped plant and water them, and I gave both her and Devin a book where they can read about what peaches and blueberries need to grow. 

She and Devin also picked out some herbs they wanted to grow. Kylee loved the lemon balm, and Devin loved the mint. 

I know I'll sleep well tonight after all the work we've done this weekend!

Bunnies

I knit my mom this cute little bunny.  It's the Rabbit pattern by Debbie Bliss.  I used Noro Kureyon.  It was easy to knit and came out really cute!

And we got this new addition to our rabbit operation this weekend. She's our first pedigreed rabbit, and I'm very excited to see how she does.  She is 10 months old, a purebred New Zealand White.   She's not quite as colorful as the rabbit above, but she's cute too. 

Last But Not Least!

It has come to my attention that I never posted about the last baby born this year.  June had a large, single buckling on March 28th.  It was a hard delivery, but the buckling is doing a-ok.  June is having a few problems getting back to normal, but we're working on that and she's improving little by little. 

This little guy is a cute one!  Buford loved having him in the house for the first 2 days.  He loved giving him kisses, can you tell? 

Now he is out in the barn with Ida and her twins.  He and his brother and sister are for sale, too.  If you are interested, let me know!