BASSET EVIL

The other day I was enjoying my leftover spareribs (recipe not posted yet) when the dogs had surrounded me in the usual beggin' position. Now, mind you.  In spite of their powerful pleading,  that is the basset specialty, I knew that I would not and could not give them the tasty, succulent treat they desired, spare rib bones are not safe to give dogs.  However in the basset world the mere idea of a bone, the concept of a bone, the Aristotelian  model of a bone can lead to madness and chaos, the fogging of the basset brain.  Louie's eyes glazed over, with spare rib bone lust, the drool slowly hung from her jowl in a long stream of glistening siliva. Before I knew it - she snapped!  Literally and figuratively.  A tussle broke out and the fur was flying.  Heroically, Bob ran from the other room and grabbed the rump of Louie and I had the back end of Percy and we pulled them apart.  We knew little of the extent of the damages until later in the evening, at bedtime, when the dogs joined us as we snuggled under the covers, that the true damage was exposed.  Percy was perforated in the face!

Evil, Louie, bad Louie.  Poor Percy!  How can just the notion of food turn an otherwise pleasant and passive, stinky smelling hound into a crazed, blood thirsty, psychopathic killer?

No worries, Percy is healing well and is on the road to recovery.  I spent several times cleaning it with peroxide and putting iodine on it.  She's looking better every today.

Louie says she's innocent.  She can't take blame for when food takes over her psyche.

WHERE OH WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE, OH WHERE OH WHERE CAN IT BE?

I just looked back and realized it has been WAY too long since I posted, what was I up to?

Well let's start with the awful chicken murders. yes, we have, for the first time in 9 years, predators attack our flock.  It as awful, each day I'd find another chicken missing it's head or gone.  Then after many attempts at fixing the fence, electrifying the fence, locking them up at night, putting out a flashing light at night, live traps (all I caught was my cat) and sitting in my car with a shotgun (ok I didn't have a shot gun, but I thought about it), nothing worked. One afternoon we saw a fox walk right into the pasture in the middle of the afternoon!  We also figured out that the thing that just bites off the head is a weasel.  So not only did we have one evil predator - we had two!

The last night they got some free food was the last straw.  I went out to lock them up, and there were 4 hens, killed!  One still breathing but with his neck covered in fang marks (or what ever weasels have).  I was pissed!  I locked up the remaining chicken, the one remaining duck and my friend's two ducks (lucky he never got them!) I was babysitting and put a message into my friend to see if she would take them for a week until I went down to Illinois to return the ducks to their summer home on the pond.  She agreed.

I left her my one remaining chicken and took my friend's duck and my remaining duck down to Illinois the next weekend and placed them on the pond.  poor Uno!  She had no idea what to do!  Compared to her little kiddy pool, this must've looked like an ocean!

So now my little old chicken run is barren and sad.  I so miss the laughter of the ducks and the sound of the chickens when they announce how happy they are they laid an egg.  And now no eggs!  Not sure what I'll do now, perhaps wait until next year to get some more because I don't want that darn weasel or fox to come back.

APHRODITE ? - 12/21/11

"The other day this goat showed up in our horse pasture. Not sure what we are gonna do with it, my dad thinks we should find it a home.  Can't catch her though."  "Really?" I said,  "I'll take her!"

Of course I said that.  I'll take any unwanted animal or stray.  She was very difficult to catch but eventually we cornered her and got her by the horns. She was a beautiful Boer goat.  How she came to be no one knows, she just appeared in that friend's horse pasture that day, just like Aphrodite, the Greek goddess that rises from the sea foam. And as she enchanted anyone who saw her, just like Aphrodite, we named her such.  It was befitting of such a lovely young goat.  My dream is that she escaped from the meat truck on the way to the butcher.  I could see the other goats yelling yelling from the back of the truck, "Go, go!  You did it!  Be free!!!"

 She was a perky, spunky little goat and was very difficult to catch.  We finally did and brought her home.  this was over five years ago.  It took her a little while to become accustomed to the love around here.  Within a few months she became our friendliest goat and to the day, she would be the first one to greet you when you entered the goat pasture.  She loved to have her head scratched, right between her horns, because obviously, she couldn't do it herself.

The other day as I was out to do chores, I realized that the few days before when she had difficulty getting up, that things were for the worse now.  She couldn't stand at all.  She must've suffered a back injury as she was totally paralyzed down the back.  She couldn't get up and if I touched her she would wince in pain.  And I couldn't even scratch her between her horns, she would toss my hand away.

I called my friend and asked her to come over and put her down.  I am really not a true farmer as this is something I cannot possibly do, I can't kill an animal.  I've had times when you have to do what you have to do, but I can't shoot an animal, and I can't watch an animal suffer.  So I called in the one person I know that could do it, a hunter.  She came and we dug a hole over by where we buried my horse Annie a few years ago.  We put her in the back of the tractor trailer and I held onto her the whole way over to her final resting place, petting her and letting her know how much she was loved.

We placed her in the hole and I walked away, not being able to watch such a thing.  I tried not to think about it, but the tears came.  I don't care what anyone thinks, I love all my animals as if they are my own children.  It's never easy to see them go.

Life on the farm is never easy, but this is the worst part by far.

Rest in Peace, Aphrodite.  You will truly be missed.

PERCY HAS LOST A FRIEND

If you had seen Percy in the last few months, you saw that she was lonely and decided she would grow a friend on her side that would be with her always, show her unconditional love and listen when Percy needed a shoulder to cry on.  This growth had gotten so extremely big that it was looking like it might actually take over and no one wants your friend to become a barnacle and suck the life out of ya.  So we took Perc to the vet to have this growth removed.

Now this next picture is not for the faint of heart as it is pretty gross.  Gross because Percy returned from the vet looking like Frankenstien's monster. Well, at least with the stitches everywhere she could have been sewn together by the likes of Dr. Frankenstein.  Not that I am calling my vet Frankenstein, ok? Don't go running off to tell her that I think she sucks as a suture-ist. That's not true!

The vet took care of all the growths she had, even though i wasn't worried about most of them: when she has had small growths before I would just lance them myself, drain them and within a few days they were gone (yes, razor blades and iodine are handy on a farm - i've learned a lot around here in these last 8 years).  But not this big one it was huge - it coulda won prizes.

and when you have itchy stitches, you start lickin'.  If your a dog, or maybe if your a human too I don't know, I've never done it.

So that leads to the epitome of all shamefulness for dogs:

THE CONE OF SHAME!

The only problem is Percy is a genius and figured out that if you just tuck your cone under your leg, you can lick it anyway.

Back to the vet for you, Percy!

It did get infected and we took her back for some major anti-biotics and some LickGuard.  She's doin' better now.

Only time will tell if Percy will get another friend.

BULL-HEADED AND BLOODIED

Yes, i have bull headed goats.  Not very often does it happen, they are usually docile creatures but i think they have cabin fever like i do.  So last night at feeding time i go out to the goat barn, get all the horses fed, throw them goats some hay and out comes Ezzy to get her grain and be milked.  She hops up on the milking stand and as i go to grab the chain to lock her in i notice red!  Bloody red!  Yikes! "What the heck did you do now?"  I ask her, no response. Why can't someone ever answer me when I ask a question???

This reminds me of the time a few years ago when at morning chores i found a large 4" x 4" piece of her skin dangling from the side of her body!  She looked like a halloween decoration! We never did figure out what happened there - but we think it might have involved someone else's horn.

yes, here are the nasty looking pictures:

Now really, would a family squabble be that bad as to head butt a family member so hard that you put a hole in your head?
I think to myself, "Well this should be easy to figure out who the opposition was - look for blood on their noggin."  So i am also thinking, "Gosh another wounded soldier out there."
I look around at all the other goats, only to find one with a little red on the head - Demeter - her granddaughter!

Gee, what kind of grandmother head butts her granddaughter?  What was the quarrel about i wonder? She wouldn't tell me, la sigh.
















It looks like Ezzy got the rough end of the blows, barely any blood on this girl and no open wounds.


But now i have to clean up Ezzy, so i go get some hot water out of the granary and wash out the wound.  Problem is Ezzy hates her head touched.  See- she has this scur. Scurs grow when a goat is disbudded (burning the horn bud)  and it is not done properly. Occasionally a new growth will emerge called a scur - a misshapen horn - which should be removed and to remove it you just take some pliers and pull or sometimes the goats just shake their head and off it comes.  But Ezzy thinks this hurts tremendously so she refuses to let me get near her to pull it off anymore.  So now she is head shy.

So after fighting and bloody water splashing everywhere, i get her cleaned up and spray the wound with - what else- Wound Kote.

Now she gets to walk around with a purple dome.

Life on the farm!

PERCY'S FACE MIGHT EXPLODE

So the other day, i noticed that Percy had a wound on her face.  This is common around here will all the animals we have, occasionally there is a fight amongst them, especially when food is involved.  So i thought nothing of it as it looked like a slight scratch on the side of her snout just below the eye.  So i left it be.  And there was my mistake.  The next day we found Percy lying on the couch (that part is not unusual), with her face incredibly swollen! (that part is unusual).  

Now after all these years, one must learn much about animal husbandry when one has 60+ animals to care for, so we shall blame my failure to acknowledge the first notice of the wound and not treating it to the swelling of her face. Bad Grandma!  So i quickly went to work:  i cleaned the wound with fresh water, applied iodine (a must have with animals!), and thought about giving her a shot of penicillin.  I shied away from the penicillin though, just thought that it would be better to see if just cleaning it would help first before antibiotics were needed.

Sure enough, in a few days she was back to her old beautiful face, and lounging on the couch - all fat and sassy!