tBlog - Seldom Seen

Farm life is sometimes quite disgusting!

07.04.05 (8:40 am) [edit]

This $th of July didn't turn out the way I had planned it!

Saturday night I worked until 8pm and I was planning on meeting a friend and her daughter here in town to watch the fireworks, but just before I left work I got a massive headache so I just came home instead of going to watch the fire works. About ten minutes after I got home my mother came in the door and asked me if I could help her... one of the lambs had fly eggs in its wool. I really didn't feel like I was going to be much help because by this time my head hurt so bad. I rarely get headaches but when I do .. look out!

Mom and I were trying to clip the fly eggs out of the wool with scissors, then we discovered that there were some that had already hatched... (this is so disgusting!)... and there was an area on the lamb's back about 5 inches in diameter that was just packed with maggots. They were down under her wool so just looking at the top of her back you couldn't even seen them until we pulled the wool apart. There were hundreds of them. I was thinking that I'd just shear her down to the skin and wash her off ... well... the electric shears would not work so I started clipping her by hand with scissors. That wasn't working because they were spreading into the rest of her wool faster then I could clip them out. Mom was trying to hold the lamb still, while I clipped. The whole Time I was thinking about what was going to happen to this little lamb if we didn't get all the maggots out of her wool. I knew if we kept at it we could get them because they hadn't broken her skin yet, they were just in the wool If they had created a hole in the skin then it would have been harder to get all of them, they would have gotten under the skin too. Eventually we did get them all but it took us about two hours. When we were done we washed and dried her but the poor baby was so traumatized that she was shaking all over, because she isn't used to being handled.

Last night *KM* asked me to go shopping with her... (I hate shopping..LOL) but I went with her because I haven't seen her in a while and it gave us a chance to talk again. After we got back to my house we watched a Extreme Makeovers [yeah I know we live such an exciting life :-) ], and it was after 11pm when she left my house, so I didn't get a chance to post here.

0 Comments

Good Morning!

07.02.05 (7:54 am) [edit]

Hopefully you are all having a Happy and Safe July 4th Weekend!

I just returned home from delivering a baby goat to the one of the local 4H groups. The leader called me yesterday to ask if they could borrow a baby goat for the parade today. I took one of the baby pygmies. He wasn't very happy about getting taken away from the rest of the herd this morning, though I'm not sure he understood what I was saying, much less believed me, I tried to reassure him he'd be back home before lunch time.

Everything else here on the farm is quiet this morning. The Aussie made his rounds to see if there were any groundhogs out that he could chase, but when he didn't find any he came back in the house and is now laying on the floor by my feet sleeping. The other dog is in "her" chair in the other room watching TV... what a life! The cattle are leisurely milling in the barnyard ... I guess they are enjoying these cooler temperatures, 60F so far today.. beats the near 95F that we had a few days ago. I noticed that one of my hens has decided to sett on her nest of eggs... so maybe I'll end up with a few baby chicks this year. Earlier this spring one of the other chickens sat on a clutch of eggs, but none of the eggs hatched. So we'll see what happens this time. The bottle fed piglet is getting used to the idea that he has to live in the barn with the other animals, instead of in the house with me, but he just can't get used to the idea that not all pigs get their tummies rubbed on command... I fear he will never be a "normal" hog...LOL!

I received more info about the Food Matrix Committee, and they are having another meeting this week. One of the topics of the meeting will be the Incubator Kitchen concept that we are currently working to develop within our community. This would be a commercial kitchen open to food producers within our community at large to bring their ideas and ingredients to an “Up to Code” environment, with assistance from professional chef’s available, where you would be able to create and market your product through a retail store in conjunction with the Kitchen. I am very interested in this Kitchen because I for one would never be able to get a certified kitchen in my home, because I have animals in the house (the health inspector would not overlook a pig in the kitchen LOL). This group is in it's beginning stages so it will be exciting to watch it progress and help area craftsmen start selling their products.

I have to go get ready for work.. yes, I have to work all weekend. I do have Monday off though and that is the day my family is having a picnic, so that works out well.

Have a good day :-)

0 Comments