Skinks, Etc.

I'm always a little leery of slithery things, so when I caught sight of a tail disappearing behind Twenty-Two's "bed" in the nursery, I went to investigate to make sure it wasn't something that could harm him.  This turned out to be just a little something about eight inches long, shiny-smooth, very snakelike in appearance and movement, but with legs.  The word "skink" sprang to mind, but I had to check it out later to be sure.  It was, indeed, a skink, which I discovered is one of the largest groups of lizards, with over six hundred varieties.  This skink is nothing like my lizard totem who lives in the lettuce barrel, but anything that eats insects is welcome at Farview.

From past experience, I know that baby goats like to sleep in the shallow rubber feed bowls I use in the barn and so have kept an old one just for the kidlets.  Twins and triplets always cluster in their birth groups to sleep, and I think that for a single-o like Twenty-Two, curling up in the dish helps him feel not quite so much alone.  At nine days old, he's already getting tiny horn spikes.  I have no one available to burn the horn buds this time, but (if Tree Guy's friend comes through) since he's going to get a job as a brush eater and Nineteen has a scur, maybe a set of horns will be an asset.

Larry and Taylor drove up just as I finished barn chores yesterday.  It was the first time I'd seen Taylor since her surgery, and it was more than great to see her standing straight and tall.  If it weren't for the scar from the base of her neck to the lower back, one would never guess from her movement she'd had two rods placed in her spine to correct aggressive scoliosis.  Larry pirated some wire from the old boat (Steve would have been so proud, as he was the Scrounge King) and was able to jerryrig the wiring from his truck to the travel trailer well enough to take the trailer home to finish and improve the job.  I had a momentary pang as I watched the little trailer leave the driveway for the last time; it's been a part of Farview landscape for so long.  It had been lovely to visit with Larry and Tay for the afternoon.

It was a good day.

Under the Wire

Throughout the day, I had bathed Bessie's eye while waiting for the four o'clock appointment with Dr. Ric.  While out for a potty break in the afternoon, Bess caught sight of something and took off after it into the underbrush and came back covered with those godawful tiny Velcro burrs...terrible timing.  It took a full hour to brush them out of her coat...I was tempted to shave her down like a Mexican hairless.  (She'd done the same thing twice the day before.)  With the temperature hovering around one hundred, sweat was dripping as I worked on her...Dr. Ric was going to have to take me as I was because there'd be no time to clean up if we were going to make the appointment.  At the very last minute, I washed her face and checked her eye one more time...and this time I could see the foxtail and was able to remove it, much to her relief and mine!  I called and cancelled our visit, and explained I still had the ophthalmic antibiotic from our last go-round with a foxtail and would apply that.  Talk about just making it under the wire!  Repeated skunkings, leg injuries, foxtails, burrs...love her as I do, I'd have to say my little dog is a slow learner.

In contrast, in a week's time Twenty-Two has the bottle routine down pat, stands on his own four feet to drink, and no longer needs me to pry open his jaws to get the nipple in.  Tessie has also learned the breakfast-milking pattern and does no more than stamp her foot a couple of times during the process.  Some of the chickens need remedial training regarding bedtime and I, Pick-Me-Up Peggy under my arm, still have to herd them into the house every night.  Ah, well.

Call of the Wild

I didn't allow enough time to mow the front yard before chores yesterday, but didn't want to waste the "cool" of the morning so decided to attack the lavender bed again.  I'm not talking about plucking a few interlopers from amongst the posies; this hayrick, larger by far than Bessie Anne, is about an hour's worth of weeding...and I'm not done yet.

The beastie boys were either up early or out late, making their presence known as they made their way up the canyon behind Dennis's place long after daybreak.  Their yips and howls cause an atavistic response from Bessie Anne.  She doesn't buy in when the dogs down the road set up a commotion, but let the coyote pack pass by and she throws back her head and sings along.

Tree Guy and Number Three Son came by in the early afternoon to split another cord of the oak rounds down in the goat pen.  I'd talked to TG about needing to reduce the size of the herd, and yesterday he said one of his other customers would like Nineteen and Twenty-Two (when he's old enough, and neutered) as brush-eaters on his property.  I would be so happy to have the boys go together, a band of brothers, as it were.  I've tried never to sell just one goat unless it's to an established herd; they'd be so unhappy alone.  I've learned not to count my chickens until they've hatched (and it's darned hard afterward as they run around!), but I hope this customer of TG's really comes through.

Whiling away the heat later in the day, I was brushing burrs from Bessie's coat when I discovered she's evidently gotten another foxtail in her eye.  It was too late to get her to the vet's.  I'm hoping that cool compresses and a couple of doses of the antibiotic from the last episode have at least made her more comfortable until I can get an appointment today.

To finish the day with a bang, the girls were fighting down in the pen at bedtime and one slammed into the gate and caught my thumb in the latch just as I was going in to put down their snack bowls.  Running blood, I got the big ones settled in their respective stalls, but still had to give the nighty-night bottle to Twenty-Two.  I couldn't see in the near dark in the barn, but tried to keep the blood out of the milk and off him.  I was relieved to see later that I won't have to ask Dr. Ric to throw a couple of stitches in me after he's tended to Bessie Anne.

All's well that ends well.

False Colors

Grass might grow a couple of inches in a week or so; star thistle shoots up a foot or more.  I have star thistle and no grass.  In an attempt to beat the heat yesterday, I got an early start and mowed down the west point and down the drive before it was time to take on barn chores.  Even so, while cutting the last swath I could feel the sun start burning through my shirt.

After throwing down bird seed under the oak, the first chore every day is to let the Silkies out of the Taj and make sure they have water.  The roosters were loudly proclaiming their presence and greeting the sun.  Then I heard a tentative, almost whispered, "Cockadooo," response from the hen house next to the small pen.  Although none of the "hens" I've raised in this latest batch has yet to show any of the secondary male characteristics of comb, wattles, and spurs, it would appear that someone has been flying under false colors.  None of the flock would 'fess up as they came tumbling down the ramp.  I'm hoping there is only one impostor in the bunch.  I was going to put up a notice to try to sell some of the Silkie boys, but now I'll wait and see how many males are in the big flock; maybe I can give a group discount, or perhaps a "buy one, get two free" deal.  Otherwise I might end up down in front of the grocery store with a box of roosters like those people with litters of puppies.

It used to be the comfrey plant, but the epazote has taken over the responsibility of informing me that it's time to water.  The epazote wilts, I water, it stands up straight again.  It's like plant push-ups, and in this weather, the epazote is getting a good workout.

Getting a head start worked pretty well yesterday.  Maybe I'll mow the front and side yards as soon as the sun comes up today.  Or not.

Mother and Son

Milking Tessie yesterday was anticlimactic after the drama of the preceding days.  She pretty much kept all four feet on the stand and I was able to empty the udder, even to the bump-and-strip at the end.  Tessie is going to be a good milker once she gets over the urge to be a tap-dancer.  Given that she delivered so far into summer, I am only milking her once a day.  Twice a day is better for a couple of months at first, but it's just too darned hot for her and for me to do a nighttime stint on the stand.

Twenty-Two is really coming into his own.  Like all babies, at first all he did was eat and sleep.  Now he wants to play a bit after his tummy is full, and he's sucking down a full bottle at every feeding.  When I pick him up to sit him on my lap, he immediately starts nuzzling and doing the head butting that gets the milk flowing from the moms.  I've explained that his milk comes from the bottle.  His eyes are blue, and won't change to golden brown for another month or so.  Since I am now his "herd," Twenty-Two tries to follow when I leave.  It's hard to be an only child when you're a kid, goat or otherwise.

Hearing a noise on the deck this morning as I went to make coffee, I turned on the porch light and there was Rocky Raccoon, busy working on the lid to the empty dog treat container again.  Bessie Anne about lost it, yelling, "Let me at him!"  There was no way I would let her out...raccoons can really do a number on a dog.  I'm banging on the glass door, Bess is barking her head off, and Rocky just looked at us, said, "Fine.  Just fine.  You're a lousy hostess anyhow," and ambled over to the corner and down the post at the end of the deck in his own good time.  Obviously, I've got to find another place to keep the recycle bag.

Have To Laugh

Tessie and I had a successful milking yesterday.  That simply means she did not flood the room with milk.  It does not mean I had a clean getaway.  She has taken to holding one hind foot up, poised to tip the bucket.  I can block and hold it with the back of one hand, but that is awkward and makes it difficult to direct the stream from her smallish teats.  Consequently, I squirted milk up my nose, in my armpit, all over my bibbies, on the stand...and some in the bucket.  With a first-time milker, that's considered success.

Tess has taken the separation from Twenty-Two pretty well.  She spends her days with the herd and not hanging around the barn.  She does talk to him across the hall when she comes in at night.  I give her reports on his progress, and let her sniff his scent on the bottle and me to reassure her that he is doing fine.  The novelty has worn off and, though heads are raised, the group does not gang up on me as I go down for feedings.

The barn swallow who spattered the lawn tractor with mud evidently decided that side of the barn was too noisy and abandoned that nest.  What is it they say about real estate?  Location, location, location.  Of the two nests that were started on the hay side of the barn, only one was completed.  I disturb her only once a day when I get the alfalfa for the goats in the morning, and she vacates the premises for that short time.

Pick-me-up Peggy and I continue the nightly chicken round up.  Herding hens one-handed is a bit difficult, but how can I refuse this little girl?  She seems to love the ride-along.  Timing is everything, and life would be so much easier if I could put the chickens to bed after the goats.  It would be darker then and they'd probably go in on their own.  Bessie Anne is the monkey wrench in that plan.  Besides, I'd miss my little black-and-white helper hen's company.

Dripping milk in the morning, a chicken under my arm in the evening...some days you just have to laugh.

Should'a Known

I knew that first milking went too smoothly and it couldn't last.  Yesterday was a total disaster.  Poor Tessie's udder was shiny tight and I was working as quickly as I could to relieve the pressure when it was her turn on the stand.  It was going pretty well and I could fend off the occasional stamping hoof as long as she had food in the dish, but when she ran out, trouble started.  I discovered it is impossible to get a shoulder under the belly of a bucking goat to keep the back feet in the air and still milk an unhappy doe.  The inevitable happened and nearly a gallon of milk went flying.  It occurred to me once again that it is a good thing there is no one in hearing distance.  Fortunately, I was within a couple of squirts of being finished with Tessie, and I decided we could both live with that and I turned her out.  I had really wanted to save that last day of colostrum (produced for about three days after birth), but at least I had a quart left from the day before in the refrigerator.

The rest of the day went by in a blur of milk and water.  In the heat that has arrived again, everything needs watering at least once a day; plants, chickens, dog, cats, and goats (and sheep).  Every time I turned around, it was time for another bottle for Twenty-Two.  As it is for people babies, the bottle needs to be heated (what did we do before microwaves?), washed, refilled.  Trekking down to the barn, I am accompanied by the pushing, shoving herd on each visit.  Poppy has figured out that there is nothing in it for her and goes on about her business in the field.  Waking from a nap, Twenty-Two takes time out to pee.  And pee.  And pee.  He must hold it in between feedings, and we have a couple of minutes of silent communion, just looking at each other, before he finally comes to sit in my lap.  It's really pretty funny.  He has taken to the bottle like a pro, chugging down all but about an inch every time.  It's like watching a balloon as his belly swells with the intake.  It's hard to leave him, as he's started crying, not wanting to be left alone, when I go out of the stall.  It's a drawback to being a surrogate mother, as he gives a very human-like "ma-a-a-a," and I'll admit to giving a momentary thought to putting him in the laundry room (the chickens aren't using it).  Sanity returned just in time.

The midnight marauder got really ticked off.  I'd put an empty, covered plastic container that used to hold dog treats in the recycle bag on the deck by the kitchen door.  Yesterday I found the container all the way around on the other side of the deck, the lid covered with teeth and claw marks, but intact.  Unlike someone who shall remain nameless, the marauder must do his cussing under his breath because neither Bessie nor I heard anything in the middle of the night.

I'm holding the good thought for the milking this morning, but....