bovine drugs

nimue is on banamine (bovine pain killers) and eating and drinking wonderfully. now, if we can just keep her from contracting the secondary infection (pneumonia) we are in the clear. whew, if we survive the vet bills. we'll be back on top again.


thanks everyone that prayed and kept us in their thoughts. we are doing so much better. we were exploring the depths of depression and things looked bleak. the collective consciousness of prayer and well wishes really worked.

thank you, thank you, everyone that has kept us close to their heart


pablo all we need and already received are your well wishes.

a glimmer of hope

she is still up and walking around. she eats (very little) she pees and poops. if she had either of the aforementioned diseases she'd be in much worse condition--down or dead. after hours of tabitha pouring over cow disease websites. after nimue presenting a new symptom. after talking to a different veterinarian, better, nicer and more competent. we and he believe that she has blue tongue disease--not fatal.

NOT FATAL

secondary infections can be fatal. he recommended antibiotics. we gave her her first shot this morning.

we are meeting him to get more medicine later today

nimue our cow is dying

nimue is on deaths door. we went to visit her where she was visiting her beau. she was lying down and got up very slowly. as she painfully walked across the field i could barely stand to watch her amble toward us. she was skin and bones. i gave her alfalfa pellets and she couldn't eat them. she was drooling heavily and it appeared that she couldn't eat hardly at all. tabitha and i freaked out. if you have been reading this blog you know what an important part of our lives she is.

we dashed to the monhallands and Lance was luckily home. he said "we have to save the family cow." he helped us load nimue and calf for a journey to the vet. the nearest large animal vet is close to fifty miles away. we sped there so quickly that tristan noticed how fast we were driving. i said that we don't normally drive this fast only in emergency situations.

at the vet they were swamped with emergencies. we waited forty minutes. when the vet got there he sized her up and had us load her in the stanchion. he basically told us that there is two things that could be wrong with her and that both of them were fatal.

what?
fatal?
the kind of fatal that nothing can be done for?

anyway after about an hour of crying we managed to convince him that we wanted to treat her or test her for every possible thing that could cause this and wasn't fatal. he was an insensitive jerk and made tabitha cry even further.

eventually we loaded her up and Lance and Darla took nimue home. we went in to pay the vet bill knowing that i had about thirty and change in the account. up until this point i was holding it all together fairly well. tristan said "mommy, i don't want nim to die." tears welled up in my eyes and i put my head down. feeing so vulnerable and having my son plea for our cows life was more than i could take.

i don't know how we'll recover from this one, emotionally or finacially. a new jersey will cost $2,400, if tabitha can convince herself to milk another cow. the kids know about death but not from this standpoint.

bathroom progress II (photos)

the toilet is out in the yard, literally.


the tile goes down


here the toilet is back in it's proper place. the supervisors approve.


a glimpse of the future


when they said the difficulty rating on this was difficult i didn't expect it to be so difficult on the physical scale.


my little helper


taaa daaaaaa the apple bath. it still needs cleaning

bathroom progress

in spite of all the busy farmstead activities. i have made some real progress on the bathroom. i actually took my first real bath in years saturday night--our old tub held less water than a mud puddle. currently, the floor tile is only half down. that was a major feat given the timing necessary. taking out the toilet, removing the old flooring, putting down new subfloor, installing new tile and replacing the toilet needed to happen as quickly as possible. we only have one toilet. i managed to do all the aforementioned in an evening and completed by late saturday morning, the next day. i laid the rest of that half of the room and installed the giant apple tub in time for an evening bath. i was so sore that i really needed a soaking bath.

sunday was already booked with ranching needs so i haven't finished the floor tile install yet. nimue went to visit a new beau. he is a young jersey bull that will hopefully sire our next heifer. we eventually hope to have two milk cows. we plan to keep at least one cow in milk year round. this should negate the need for milk goats.

speaking of goats and to answer the most asked question about their departure from the pile. goats are too much trouble the constantly are escaping and being naughty goats. i had a whole post entitled scapegoats which some of you caught. in an effort to be funny i unknowingly crossed the offensive boundary. that post was promptly deleted but thanks to those who commented on it anyway.

we slaughtered five chickens yesterday after visiting with nimues new caretakers for the next month. slaughtering is such a gruesome endeavor. it really stinks to take a life and eviscerate it. so much so, that it gives me a huge respect for the meals that come from it. not to appear zealot about the whole processed food machine but we really like not taking part in the tyson sin against nature.

the farm seems quite. the garden gives a nightly salad, the chickens crank out ten eggs a day and the broilers will be slowly entering the freezer over the next two weeks. the goats are gone. nimue and boca are temporarly gone. the only farm noise is the crow of the remaining roosters.

the garden is such a funny thing. it provided exceptionally well for us this summer. tabitha canned tons of sauce but it was much different than we expected. the tomatoes are all but done. no green ones left to make green relish/salsa--that is a sad thing. next year we might try some successive planting with determinate tomatoes being a later planting in an effort to get some green tomatoes for fall canning of green relish/salsa.

i'm working on a garden entry that will contain some of our lessons learned from this summer. it is an idea from christy. it should prove useful for years to come.

the kids are doing amazingly well. tristan loves his gameboy. bowser is very frightened of his gaming prowess. he reads very well. it amazes me. simple math is still a bit away but computer games are allegedly great for developing math skills. kassi is getting back to a normal sleep schedule. she really likes to be read to lately. it is funny how stereotypically girlie she is. we have made every attempt to not socialize her differently from the boys but she is innately girl. she has little collections and keeps them in bags. she changes her clothes several times per day. she definitely has a shoe fetish. toly is revealing himself as the feistiest o'melay yet. he is extremely clever, freakishly strong and likes to make people say no. what a crazy combination. a force to be reckoned with. i wouldn't have him any other way.

i hope to make real progress on the bathroom again this evening. the other day i replied to all of last entries comments but blogger lost it somewhere in cyberspace--maybe hacker has it? i don't have the heart to start that huge comment entry all over again. thanks to everyone that offered support, ideas and well wishes.

everything is fine

i was envious of hal seeing a mama wolf spider. now i just have to be envious or his photography skills. i just noticed danielle has a photo of one also


this is me painting our bath tub. yellow bathroom and red bathtub, primary colors anyone?


it is still wet. maybe we'll flip it over tomorrow. see a before shot here.


this is my new (to me) truck. i like it so much already. it should prove very useful.

Nimue
the cow is still on the mend. we still don't know if her milk supply will return. for now, we just want her to get better.

Toly
is all better and feisty as ever

Tabitha
she is also all better, almost instantly after the antibiotics.

Aunt Cindy
we still haven't talked to her. we hope she comes to missouri and stays a while or indefinitely. i know she could still use a hug.

the farm
the goats are gone (THANK GOD). we sold them and i'm happy to have them out of here. we butchered noisy roosters yesterday. good riddance to them also. the ducks are great. the girls (hens) are almost up to full production. tabitha harvested 1/5th of the beans. we have a small harvest of cucumber seeds. probably not enough to include in the christmas gift seed pack:( the fall garden seems to be doing well. Boca (Nimues calf) is nursing on Nimue full time in an effort to increase her milk supply.

I'm still a bit worn down from all of the recent drama. thanks everyone for the prayers and well wishes.

very sick

our cow is very sick. we might loose her. toly is fine, an ear infection. tabitha has strep throat. tristan is struggling against some unknown illness. it's crazy here.

conspircy revealed

toly is sick. he has a slight fever and won't stop crying. now we know why all of the forces were conspiring against us not leave for the funeral. i'd hate to be seven hours away from home during this one.

Trip to funeral canceled

After getting the Thompsons to take care of our farm while we were gone. After getting everything ready, kids clothes ready, tabithas clothes ready and my suit ironed and ready we can't go. Our cow is very ill. She has mastitis, needs treatment and monitoring. She is part of our family and could easily get much worse--in a life threatening way. Our family depends on her for so much. She is a huge part of our livelihood. We cannot afford to loose her.

The kids are all worked up to get to meet new friends, the Gleesons. Tabitha and are just sick about not being able to support Cindy in person. What a F'ed up thing to happen. We were literally thirty minutes from leaving. I hope Cindy understands. After all in most peoples eyes it's just a cow. Our cow feeds our kids in a fashion that we could not provide otherwise.

Can you tell that I am in turmoil over this? Heavy sigh..

a sad reason to see favorite relatives

Tabithas aunt Cindy lost her very cool husband the other night to a heart attack. We are driving to Oklahoma tomorrow for the funeral. Our good friends are milking nimue--they learned how to do it this morning. We'll make it up to them somehow.

Charles was a very cool person and perfect for Cindy. I can't imagine what I'd do if I lost Tabitha. Death does weird things. It alters perspective and makes me think about things that I usually avoid. Our mood is very somber. The trip will take it's toll on us financially. I used up our reserve to buy the truck. Things will be tight for a while after this. Money isn't even slightly important compared to being there for Cindy. We have to give our support in person however inadequate it may be in this situation.

It has been raining all day, fitting. The seven hour drive isn't something that I look forward to. We used Tristan's birthday present money from my parents to get him a new game for his Nintendo for the ride. It hasn't really set in that Charles is gone yet.

On a brighter note we are staying with the Gleeson family in Oklahoma City. It promises to be an oasis surrounded by all of this gloom. The kids will love it. They have several children and parent in a similar way to us. I look forward to meeting them in person.

Painting--fun for everyone

they got to help. these are the kind of childhood memories that we'll cherish.

so much fun. help was relative to their age but appreciated none the less.

the bathroom is now very yellow. it glares of mexico and we love it.

we got some rescue poultry. ducks, chickens, bantams and more ducks. i'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. progress on the bathroom seems to take second chair to the needs of all the animals.

here some of them are hiding in the okra.

we also got a new bed. our friends made it and we really like it.

it has been sitting in our garage for a while waiting for me to put it together. i'll do anything besides working on replacing that sliding glass door. tearing into it seems so daunting. what mysteries await to foil sealing the gaping hole in our house.

i found a flea market deal of these cool blue glass canning jars. some of them were half gallon size. i really like the imperfections that make each unique. included in the box was a bunch of old clear glass jars also. we'll use the whole mess to store pasta and stuff.


i also bought a 1984 nissan pickup. as a farm truck. i'll be able to commute to work and tabitha can take the kids to the park for play dates, deliver milk or whatever.

seed saver in training

princess seed saver kassiopeia offering you some morning glory seeds. this will be in our present seed package along with many others.
flowers, tomatoes, beans, cucumbers(?), possibly some peppers and many flowers.