Too late for Lucy

Morning chores brought tears to my eyes. Lucy is succombing to the meningeal deerworms brought on my eating the slugs. I carried her out of the pen as gently as I could and put together some hay for her to lie down on. I can't bring myself to actually do the deed of putting her down. I have to let her go naturally. I don't think she is suffering much. She's not crying out in pain, nor is she thrashing around. The doggone deerworms are doing their worst. And there is absolutely nothing that I can do. This has been such a tough year for us with our animals. Lucy and Brian take the cake, tho. They were great goats. It was tough to bury Brian, it will be tougher to bury Lucy. It's not that I like Lucy more or better than Brian, but I'm sick of burying goats. And cats.  Luke, the German shepherd, is doing just fine. He doesn't sleep much, but he's still pretty healthy. He's 11. Kayleigh, the Golden Retriever, is 9, and other than her snoring, she's still going strong. Harley, the Doberman, is still very much a puppy. But she's only 2 years old, so she should be.

Getting back to the goats ... Brian was always so very silly. We have so many pictures of Brian where all we see is his head above the gate. In looking at these pictures, you wouldn't think that he even had a body! Brian was the goat we took to church. We could lead him around everywhere! He behaved so well in church, and made a great addition to the sermon about the use of a scapegoat by the Israelites.

Lucy was a great mamma. She was probably the best mamma we've ever had! One of her and Freddie's kids was a best in show grand champion Pygmy goat this past summer. Her little Willow is a show goat now, earning ribbons and championships. She was always so calm and loved her chin being scratched. She was the first goat we purchased with a beard. We nearly named her Aunt Ruth, after the VeggieTales song.

Meningeal Deerworms

This has been a rough year for us raising goats. We battled a hearty battle of coccidosys earlier this summer and lost 2 does. Brian was affected, and it weakened him. My goats have been well wormed. I put our two very pregnant does (Lily and Ginger) in a pen with Brian and Lucy. As I said, Brian seemed quite weak, yet. Lucy appeared to be injured. It seemed as if she had a pulled muscle or a back injury and was favoring her rear back leg. She hasn't been in any pain. Last Thursday evening Brian laid down and would not get up Friday morning. I ran across an article that said sometimes the dewormer can cause a severe drop in a goat's iron, causing anemia. I tried to find some iron supplement for Brian on Saturday and had him stand propped up on a bale of straw. He could not stand on his own. Sunday, he died.

Lucy's condition has been getting worse. I was all set to bring her to the vet on Thursday, but I'm not going to now. I know what is wrong with her, and it isn't an injury. This is the same thing that happened to Brian. She has contracted meningeal deerworms. The wormer I used doesn't protect against deerworms. Deerworms are transmitted by whitetail deer through slugs. We have whitetail, and we have slugs, and I know the goats have eaten slugs. Unfortunately, Lucy and Brian ate slugs that were carrying the deerworm. The deerworm do not affect whitetail deer. They just pass through, but if a goat eats an affected slug, the deerworms start eating their spinal tissue causing paralysis and death. The paralysis is irreversible. Lucy can't get up on all four legs anymore. She should be dead in the next couple of days. This really sucks. Next Saturday, I'm picking up some Ivomec Plus, which will kill the deerworm and prevent against them contracting it again for the next month. By then it will be too cold out for slugs, and I won't have to worm the goats again until April.

Moral of the story is that if you live in Michigan where there are deer and slugs, use a better wormer. I'm losing two great goats. Lucy is the best mamma ever, and Brian was amazing. He was our clown.

Ascent from Darkness - by Michael Leehan

I have just read the book Ascent from Darkness by Michael Leehan sent to me courtesy of BookSneeze. This has been a rollercoaster of an emotional ride. I do wish I had prayed before I opened the book, because I really didn't have a clue to what I was getting into. His journey is filled with darkness, and sometimes it seems overwhelming and unbelievable. I just didn't expect it to pull me down so far as I read of his tribulations. The end, however, is breathtaking and brought tears to my eyes as Michael told of his conversion to Christ. I don't cry for much, but the joy that welled up within me was tremendous. This book is incredible. I wholeheartedly recommend this book, with care, however, as it is deep and dark and frightening. The supernatural world is nothing for us to be playing around with. This book, on the other hand, may be a great help to someone who is struggling with the faith. It is a clear warning against dark powers, and it is a clear warning to believers in God to live out their faith, because there are many other people just like Michael watching and waiting for us to show that we do indeed have a light in us, of love and of hope. Read this book with care. Pray as you read it. Pray before you open it. Praise God as you finish it.

well, it's been fun, but ...

I really haven't blogged for awhile here, but today seems like a good day just to write something. My F150 took a nosedive, blowing the #3 sparkplug, the mechanic fixed it, but it blew again the next day. The mechanic isn't giving my money back, so I have to file complaints. I'm up a crick without a paddle as far as taking them to court because the State of MI says that if the repair wasn't under warranty, the minute I drove off the premises it was all me. I can, however, file a complaint with them, and they'll investigate, and I can file a complaint with the BBB, and this mechanic already has a #4 rating with them. I don't think either will do much good.

So, I've been driving my parent's 2000 Chevy Venture mini-van, and hating every minute, but it did get me around. I hadn't vacuumed out the back of it yet, and I'd had straw in there, on top of three feed bags, so it really shouldn't have too much loose straw floating around back there. There is a package of 6 cinnamon rolls which I'm certain are going south real quick now. I left them there Thursday when Chris and I took off for St. Ignace (wonderful 4-day trip, by the way). Monday, the doggone thing overheated on me. I was 3.5 hours late for work. I stayed at work until about 8:30pm after going to Kellie's basketball game. Then we picked up Chris and were home by about 9:30. It was an awful day. I did learn that there was a little plastic piece that broke off a hose that caused it to overheat. Tuesday (yesterday), the mechanic called me and said that the head gasket had been blown. Well, that's just lovely. I gardened last night. I planted the stuff I bought over Labor Day weekend and pulled weeds. The goats were happy to eat them.

This morning, we were all up at around 5am (Luke loved it as he had been trying to get me out of bed since 4:30am - he's our German Shepherd and thinks that the earlier he can get his breakfast, the happier we'll all be). Chris and I did chores together. The abcess by one of our chicken's eye seems to be going down. We'll see. She's an older hen. I digress. I might not make it to church on Sunday as Chris has to work. However, I might be able to check out a few vehicles on Saturday and run some errands -- like grocery shopping! Ew. Grocery shopping on Saturday is probably the worst. We'll see. I may have a couple of pickups to look at as well. It's been a lot of fun trying to get our ride situation together (note the sarcasm - and if you don't read it over again until you do).

Great Book!

I just read Thunder Dog by Michael Hingson with Susy Flory sent to me courtesy of BookSneeze. I have to say this was the first book I've ordered to review that I was looking forward to reading. I've done two others, but I wasn't as excited to read them as I was this book. I was antsy with anticipation! This book didn't disappoint. Michael Hingson reveals a remarkable life, even if he wasn't blind. His dog, Roselle, proved to be an equally remarkable participant in this story. She aided in keeping people calm as they descended the tower, and stayed on the job, keeping Michael and his co-worker/business partner safe as they traveled away to safety during the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center.

I highly recommend this book as it is inspirational, uplifting and full of hope. This attack was probably one of the most frightening moments in our nation's history. If Michael made it through the turmoil, then we can make it through our own lives' problems with God's help. This is a crazy-amazing story of a man and his dog, a dog afraid of thunderstorms, but when on the job, fearless and calming to all those around them. Read this book. It will not only give you an insider's look to what was going on in the World Trade Center after the evacuation started, but it will give you an insight into the life of Michael Hingson and the obstacles he has overcome to become a business owner and inspirational speaker.

July was a LONG Month

Our two baby goats were killed by the heat a couple of weeks ago. It's been a hard pair of deaths to take. My husband dug a nice big hold by one of our pines and we burried them together. It was very sad.

I need to update you on the rest of the goings on at Decker's Acres. We acquired 3 Blue Slate poults a couple of weeks ago. They were over a month old then. I only paid $4 each for them, I'm quite sure it's because it was the start of fair week. We didn't get much for our chickens then either, but oh, well. We moved the entire flock of birds to the garage part of the barn and set up a temporary nursery for them. We'll probably do this next spring when we hatch more, and they grow. I need to clip their wings again, but other than that they are doing great. I picked up 4 Red Bourbon poults from another farm. They were just hatched over this past weekend. They are in the box, growing. They are way too little to go in with the bigger birds.

I've canned quite a bit so far: strawberry jam, cherry jam and blueberry jam. I have to do more blueberry jam tonight as we are on vacation next week and shouldn't let the blueberries go bad.

I also got 3 gallon-size freezer bags of purple beans blanched and frozen. We've eaten a bunch as well. I need to get more planted before we take a vacation as well. The tomatoes are starting to make nice big green fruit and when we return from camping, I'll have to start canning those, along with a bushel of peaches I'll have to buy. My carrots and onions aren't doing as well, but that's my fault - there are so many insanely tall weeds out there! In getting my back garden in, I let the front one go to weeds and it is just a little insane. On another note, I should have plenty of pumpkins this year! I'm not sure what I'll be doing with all them, but the crop is looking so much better than last year! You gotta love goat poop!

Eee Iii Eee Iii Ooo

A little snippet of my chores duty as of this morning ... after having 2 little does born yesterday, buying 2 adult does and about 25 chickens (about 13 of which are roosters) ...

Get up and throw some barn clothes on
Grab scoop of cat food
Go to chicken coop and get the chickie water and the chicken water

Then I take a walk around the garden to the barn

See how my tomatoes and beans are growing?
Then it is off to feed Juno and take care of the goats

After I water the goats and give them sweet feed and hay, I get to drop water off back by the chickens and deposit the scoop for the cat food back in its bag and get in the shower to go to work!