Lessons

"Lord, give me patience...and I want it now!"  That's been my plea for years...right up there with wanting to be tall, thin, and have straight hair.  At this stage in life I realize I won't grow any more; I am preventing [more] wrinkles by plumping skin from the inside; having wash-and-wear hair has its advantages.  I'm still working on patience, and I'm about to have another lesson.  I've found another Tree Guy who is going to take down the big oak over the barn, probably next week.  He's got a great plan:  he's going to leave the five main branches on the massive trunk at about eight feet from the ground so they can be used as the base for a roof to shelter the girls until the trees I'll plant around the barn can grow to provide shade.  Fruitless mulberries are notoriously fast growing, as long as I can protect the roots from the ground squirrels and the trunks from the girls.  If I have any luck and a lot of patience, in about two years I should have shade again. 

Singing Pigs

If one is going to get ill, I highly recommend the twenty-four-hour variety.  It was/is wonderful to feel back to normal (a relative thing, normalcy), and so quickly.  On the day I wasn't feeling so great, I yelled at Esther to quit her every-morning Maybe I Will and Maybe I Won't dance in front of her bowl of cereal and just get on with it.  Yelling at a goat is like that saying, Don't try to teach a pig to sing...it doesn't work and it irritates the pig.  It's an exercise in futility. 

My friend Linda has questioned my animal husbandry abilities because I haven't accurately predicted Sheila's due date.  Goats gestate for two hundred-fifty days, give or take five days.  They're pretty much on the money, but that presupposes that one knows exactly when they were bred.  Sheila was sent off to visit the buck when she wasn't in season, and she stayed at Sex Camp for the better part of a month, so the best I can do is watch her for signs with no calendar to rely on.  She's bagging up (udder is filling), staying apart from the herd during the day, and the vulva is swelling.  The tendons in her back are still pretty firm.  When they go mushy, delivery will be that day.  Just like yelling, there isn't much I can do to hurry this process along.  Given the beautiful weather we're enjoying (a week ago there was snow), I don't want to keep her in the barn until I'm sure she's in labor.  You'll know when I know, Linda!

Linda also writes that she is taking a first-aid class...a great idea.  I had my own crash course with practical experience while raising three boys.  Broken arm and wrist, broken teeth, innumerable stitches, whole-body road rash from skateboards and motorcycles, black eyes galore, one was run over by a car.  Boys...ya gotta love 'em.  Linda isn't the first to say, "Ah don' know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no babies," but since this is close to the fiftieth kid I'll have attended, it's not my first ride at the rodeo.  It just takes patience...no singing pigs here.