It’s October already! Where does the time go?

We went and picked up the goats this week. St. Paul’s raised the money sooner than we expected because one person is very excited to name the buck. We’ve just been calling him Bubba, Buford, or Big Daddy until they set his real name. It was an adventure getting them for sure. We loaded up a cage to bring them home in, and then realized it was not tall enough for the 4 goats, thankfully we did the pick up in a Wal-Mart parking lot. We took the cage off the truck and went and bought 2 large dog kennels. We put the 3 does in one and the buck in the other, put a tarp over that, put the other cage on top and strapped it down.

We got back to McDowell County and the guys dropped me off at home while they took the goats on to the center. Scott called me after they got them unloaded and said one of the does was acting strange and couldn’t stand. We figured she was dazed from the ride from Pikeville to Welch and would be fine in morning. He stayed there for a few hours to watch over her and make sure she was eating and drinking, which she did, but she wasn’t moving around a lot. When we went in the next morning she was laying by the fence line and I thought she was dead. We went to check on her, apparently she was up walking around at some point and had fallen. We got her away from the fence, and got her to eat a few bites, but she still couldn’t stand and her belly was rock hard. We called 3 different vets that deal with live stock, and they said it was either stress or bloat. None could do a house call and at that point there was one in Virginia that could see her, they said to try to give her Pepto-Bismol to see if it would help before we brought her in. We gave her the pepto but we didn’t think she would make the trip which is about 2 hours away for us.We finally got lucky with a vet in Princeton, it was his day off but he said bring her in and he’d come right on in and take care of her. They got her there, and the vet gave her IV’s and penicillin, and was going to keep her overnight. they said she didn’t have bloat and all that was wrong with her was stress brought on by transporting her. Unfortunately she died 45 minutes later. It broke my heart, but the other 3 are doing great.

When we decide to get more later we are going to see if there is a way to sedate them to prevent stressing them out. It’s awful to see suffering like that.

The one doe, we call her mama for the time being is doing great, I just wish we could narrow down a kidding date. We may have to teach her to use a phone to call us if we aren’t there. Big Daddy has been courting the other doe, so I won’t be surprised if come spring she blesses us with a kid or two.

In other news, It has been getting a tad nippy in the evenings, but some of our plants are loving it. Out tommy toes plants are ripening more quickly now, the broccoli is heading well, and the lettuce and cabbage just keep on coming. The beans are giving us a quart or two every other day. I’m about to freeze to death, but the garden keeps on keeping on.

Our bake sale went fairly well, we made about 70 dollars, we have stuff left so we are going to do it again on Wednesday.

Our cooking classes have gotten larger, the participants brought others with them this time. This class was about calories and fruit and veggies. We also go to try a piece of banana bread made out of something called Master Mix. It’s kind of a home made bisquick but healthy. I can’t lie, it was weird to me, not yucky, just weird. we also got healthy recipes that use it.

Let’s see what next week brings for us. Until then stay warm.

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