Happy Birthday Skipper & Lovee

Sometimes big things come in small packages. Today I helped deliver Skipper, a little boy goat, black and white and full of cute, and Lovee, golden and full of adorable. It was about as nerve-wracking as you can imagine, with a young first-time mom, my first time attending a goat birthing, and with a cold draft shooting up through the barn door into the barn.

But, so much went right! First off, triple blessings: we went to check on the goats before going shopping and saw she was starting to deliver, it wasn't raining, and I had everything ready. Sweet!

When Skipper seemed stuck, with just his two feet showing, I massaged a tiny bit and he slipped right out.

Lovee had no problems being delivered.

Momma Ginger appears to be very healthy and happy.

No kids were rejected.

Although Skipper needed a little help warming up, nursing, and standing, once he got going he got stronger pretty quickly. I worried that we might lose him.

There are still concerns. Ginger has stepped on Skipper a number of times and doesn't seem to be careful about where she lays down. We're not sure how the rest of the herd is going to react to the newcomers (they're all locked out of the barn right now.) The last time we had the barn shut up, Ginger pushed her way out. I've reinforced the door, and she doesn't seem inclined to go anywhere, but if she does that again and the babies try to follow, they will be crushed.

We've had a racoon nosing around. It could kill the baby goats.

So, there are worries, but I think they're pretty traditional worries. Part of farm life is understanding that things don't always go well, and sometimes they go pretty horrifically. There's pain, sorrow, loss, grief and regret. Plenty to go around for everyone. But, we had a really good day today so far. In about twenty minutes we'll go check the goats again. Who knows what we'll find? With luck, two healthy baby goats and a content mother bedded down for the night, safe and sound.

Goat Drama

There's terror in the hills!

Okay, maybe not, but there's definitely nervousness, and anticipation.

One of our baby girl goats appears to be pregnant. Scandalous. I believe she was close enough to having 'made weight' if I count back the months that it should be safe, but we certainly didn't intend for or plan this. She's heavy in the body, but not wide, just ... low. And her udder is filling up. We've had cloud pregnancies before, so there's always a chance of that. But I have a feeling that it was just a matter of chemistry. Two young goats, falling in love, and despite massive disapproval and obstacles (two layers of fence between them) they somehow had at least one clandestine meeting and will be ecstatically happy parents. Maybe.

I'm really glad they had their BoSe boosters way back in a timely manner, and that I wormed them way back in a timely manner with a wormer that's safe for pregnant goats, and so forth.

At least the weather has been gorgeous. I don't have a lot of worries about finding a frozen baby goat in the field. That hasn't stopped me for keeping a close ear out for unusual bleats in the night. So far it's always been Thurston, our young buck, who I hear making odd noises when I go out. He's quite the vocal young boy. But one of these days ....

I hope that, assuming she's actually carrying a baby goat or three, that it will be an easy birth, and that we'll have a healthy kid. Or two. Or three. Because her mother and grandmother both often had triplets. Yikes!

The Training Continues

I can almost read her mind.
Staying home all day is sooooo boring and the only thing to do is mess with the cats but I'm not allowed! Seriously?

Otherwise, Chase is adapting well to home life. She gets loads of attention, both positive and negative, but not owie negative (though sometimes she gets scared.) She gets to sneak cat food. She doesn't have to share her doghouse (although she has to stay in it at night.) She can vacuum the kitchen whenever she wants. There are fun new tricks to learn, like stay, though stay is very, very confusing. But getting released from stay is the best thing ever!

Bummer, though, she's had two baths this month. Two! Humans are so weird.

I'm a little worried that she might put on some weight, now that she's not chasing cars all day. She goes out about every two hours, but not for long and she's not allowed anywhere near the road, so she doesn't get past a doggie trot in speed. I'm thinking, maybe she should get a play hour in the morning and another in the evening, right around rush hour, so she can chase cars and get some exercise. My worry is, though, that she'll go right back to bullying Brian instead of going on patrol. So we'll see. If Brian came in during that hour, that would be one thing, but Brian is afraid of the floor and won't come in.

Wish us luck! So far, so good, though it's a process, like anything else.

Shelter

We built a new shed for our baby boy goaties! The days are growing shorter, which means young goat hearts are turning to thoughts of love. The baby girls are much to young to be mommies, so we had to separate our buckling, Thurston, from the others. Goats don't do well alone, so Gilligan, the wether we got at the same time as Thurston, will be keeping him company. And although goats are very hardy, they still need things like shelter, a source of fresh water, a small daily ration of grain, salts, baking soda, hoof trimming, stable spray when the flies get too bad, lice control, and daily health checks.

All the goats share a fence line, so they can still see each other and graze close together provided both groups are willing. In January we'll be able to put them all together again. In the meantime, every few hours or so, Gilligan and Thurston realize they're 'alone' and bawl. That usually gets the girls bawling back at them. I've had some short nights as a result.

There's one huge bonus to isolating two goats in the lower pasture. Thurston and Gilligan have been spending most of their time eating blackberries. They've really done a good job getting the brush down in a very short time. That whole section was starting to overgrow, and now it's reasonable again. I can foresee a day when the lower pasture is all grass like the upper pasture, and another large patch of this invasive weed will be eradicated. Yay!

In other news, we have at least three feral kittens living in and near the barn, and we're officially on chick watch, as it's getting close to time for some eggs to hatch. We just got a good tip about feed from our neighbors which will help our hatch-through considerably. Sadly, it may be too late for this group, but we're keeping our fingers crossed.

Stay tuned: we're going to try to trap the kittens so that they can be taken to the vet for shots, spaying/neutering, and a general health check. This is the plan, but they're sly little cuties and we may not be able to catch them. Wish us, and the kittens, luck.

Birds of Other Feathers

My new birds are settling in. By that, I mean I'm managing the ongoing stress as best I can while they figure out that their new home is not the most horrible place in the world.

The day I went out to take pics of them happened to be sunny, which meant all the pics of the black hen turned out really cruddy. I'll get her on a cloudy day sometime. Until then, here's the splash hen, who has yet to have a name stick to her. She's sweet, and destined to live at the bottom of the pecking order, poor thing.

And here's the new rooster, Argent. I like that argent means silver and also sounds like sergeant without the s. He's mellow but not a pushover, and when he finds his feet, or beak, or wings, or whatever, I think he'll get along with Sophie, my pain-in-the-butt silver-laced Wyandotte hen, just fine. At least as well as I can get along with her. She's always sneaking up on my and zinging me at the top of my thigh/base of my cheek. She favors the right side. Dang, I'm tender there, and she knows it! Anyway, Beatrice, my American Araucana/Buff Orpington mix, gets along with everybody. If it were just her, I could throw them in together with no worries. Except, well, you're supposed to quarantine new birds. They don't have the same immunities and bugs as my local birds, and by local I mean my farm. The neighbors probably have a completely different mix of bugaboos that their birds carry and are immune to. Despite knowing this, I keep my birds all in the same coop overnight because there's no other safe place to put them, and then they're separated during the day.

And, because these things happen, we have a rat problem right now. Still working out how to get rid of the one under the coop without endangering the chickens. Thinking ....

Other than having to get up at first light every day to check on the birds, distribute feed and separate the flocks, this has been pretty easy going so far. The birds are stressed, of course, and I worry, and every day seems to bring a new challenge, but they're totally worth it.

Bouncing Good Kangaroo Times

I didn't post about this at the time. Too much other stuff. But we had a wonderful, unique visitor to our little farm recently.

Yes, she is a for-real baby red kangaroo. She spends most of her time in her carry pouch. She's getting quite heavy. I got to lug her around for a while so her human mommy could take a break.

For the record, she is as soft as she looks. And she's very sweet and quiet. And she leaps! We would have let her run around with the goats, but we weren't sure how they'd react to each other, and if she got into the blackberries, we might never catch her. I think she would have leapt back into her pouch very quickly, but better to be safe than very, very sorry.

Besides, she'd be very lonely in the woods in the Pacific NW, with no other kangaroos to play with. I hope she'll visit again soon!

When the Coyotes Sing

Misread of the day: Urban Wine, for a second, looked like Urine Wine and I thought, ew, what?!

A long-haired, pure black (doesn't have any sun-faded brown areas even!) kitty has been dumped in our neighborhood. It's not feral. I can't get close to it, but it understands domesticated kitty concepts like food comes from houses. It's also been in our house (I think) eating from the kitty food bowl.

Here's another plea that will not reach the right ears. Please don't dump your kitties in the countryside! Yes, most of us will feed these animals but our own cats will fight with them, and if they get injured, there's no way to get them to the vet. Also because they're so skittish and scared, we can't take them inside at night and they will inevitably be eaten by coyotes.

After I noticed it around for a few days the kitty, which I believe is female, disappeared for a couple of weeks and I thought damn, I guess that's it. But now she's back. My son is calling her Oops for the moment.

The coyotes sing at every sunset very near our house. And often during the night they yip and cry while they tear apart and share whatever kills they've managed to snag. One of these times, it will be Oops.

Every morning now I wake up and wonder if Oops will come up to the deck to snatch a quick meal, or if we'll never see her again.

Sigh.

Cute and Fluffy

I found out today why the cats sometimes race up to the house all puffed up.

I feared it was coyotes.
I suspected that it was another feral cat roaming around nearby.
I also suspected it might be the neighbor's dog, a small, friendly sort that actually doesn't mind cats but our cats don't know that. All they know is that it smells bad.
I always looked and never saw anything.
I thought it was odd that it seemed to happen at all hours of the day, rather than just dusk and dawn, when most of the predators are out and about.

But today, while walking in the garden with The Poop, she got all puffed up and stared and I saw it.
A bunny.
An adorable, wee little bunny.
Turns out there was another bunny, too. It ran when I scared the first, terrifying bunny away after multiple coaxings for The Poop to 'go get it' did nothing but make her sit down with her back still mostly arched and her tail still completely puffed up. The second bunny, which she also hadn't noticed, took off after the first one and made The Poop retreat back toward the house.

Yes, I know that bunnies can actually be pretty fierce and that they have wicked claws (all the better with which to dig into your intestines, my dear) but still. Seriously? The bunny is half her size, and she's a very small kitty.

The one that really baffles me is that Wizard is scared of the bunnies too. He's like four or five bunnies-worth of muscle.

I guess they've watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail too many times.
Oh well. That just means that I have to put up a tighter fence around the garden.
I wonder if the bunnies laugh as the kittehs run away in terror ....

Sometimes, Fun Things are a Chore

Another animal day.

First off, woke up and looked for Carey on the deck, like I do every morning.  No Carey.  It's really hard to keep my hopes up when I hear the coyotes cry all night.

Then, deer, not once but twice.  They savaged my super-expensive ($2.45 for only 25 seeds!) broccoli, but I didn't see that.  What I did see was a doe with her spotted fawn helping themselves to our apples.  Which was fine, and actually really cute.  We have more apples than we know what to do with this year.  There's really only so much applesauce, apple pie, apple tart, apple juice, baked, fresh, and caramel and/or candied apples a person can eat, you know.  They did a nice job of picking the fallen ones first, before moving on to the ones hanging from the tree branches.  How nice.  Every time a car or truck went by, the doe would look annoyed and the fawn bounced around or dashed like mad for cover.  They left, and then returned for more after about an hour.

Last but not least, the suicidal baby robin.  I tried to save it.  Really I did.  The girl and I chased it around until I caught it and put it up in our big trees.  It should have been able to hop and half-ass fly from branch to branch all the way back up to the nest.

But, of course, when I went back out to change the sprinkler, there it was.  The Poop was stalking it.  She ran for it at the same time I did.  She dropped it because I yelled at her at the same time that one of the parent robins dive-bombed her.  The Poop jetted for the edge of the tree's dripline while I dutifully put the stupid, spotted thing with not enough flight feathers or tail to fly back into the tree.  All the cats were then banished to the house.

If it's still alive when we get home, and on the ground again, we might have a guest for a week or two while it finishes fledging out.

Wildlife.  Ugh.  Didn't I used to marvel at it when I was a child?  Actually, I still do, and it's neat that we get to experience this up close most of the time.  Sometimes, though, it makes me a little crazy.

Happy Sad Dreams

I'm at Papa's Ice Cream & Deli, having a yummy sandwich with my DH and the girl, who just passed her final exam at driving school.  Soon now, she'll have enough practice to try for her driver's license.  I'll warn y'all if she gets it.

Still no sign of Carey.  I sometimes (often, actually) dream about our animals after they've gone missing or died.  In the dream she came home in through the dog yard.  For a few minutes I was completely, ecstatically happy.  I wanted to run and tell the girl, but first I had to pet her and pick her up and tell her what a good kitty she was.  Then, of course, I woke up.  The dogs were barking, so I went out in a robe and slippers and looked around just in case.  No cats, no coyotes, no raccoons, no deer.  The dogs calmed down after I went out.  I think the fog, which was pretty thick and smelled like dry dust, kind of freaked them out and my going out and looking around reassured them.  Or maybe they thought they were all in trouble.  Maybe both.

I spent a few hours typing on a book and then went back to bed.  Today is going to be a loooong day, with maybe five non-consecutive hours of sleep.  I feel okay now.  I'm dreading the carb crash later ....

Review: The FURminator: My Hero

Not that long ago I had lunch with a writer friend of mine, and we got to talking about my ten thousand animals.  She suggested that I use a furminator on our dogs to help strip out their winter coats and help prevent mats that might form too close to the skin and eventually cause serious sores.  She used a big one on her horses, and extolled the virtues of the might furminator to me while we had salad.  I was intrigued, but her description of the price tag made me flinch and file it under the category of pipe dream/luxury item.  I was under the impression it was an electric thingy, too, for whatever reason, and decided that I'd just shave the dogs if needed.

Then yesterday I ran into a friend of mine at Petco and she recommended it too (she uses a small one on her cats) so I caved and looked at them.  They're not electric.  I got a medium one for long-haired dogs for my dogs.  I'm glad I didn't get the large one partly because of the extra money, and partly because although it might have been worth it on the big sections, the larger comb would have made it harder to work on their legs and stuff.  And I was happy that it wasn't as expensive as the one my friend used on her horses.  Size makes the difference, it turns out.

Finn had way more undercoat than I realized he had.  Working with the regular undercoat puller I use, I would have cleaned up his hindquarters in a few minutes and considered my work done.  But running the furminator over his supposedly-clean back was enlightening.  Yikes.   I pulled almost as much undercoat off of him as I did Brian, Brian the Fluff Generator, Brian the Puffy Source of Endless Hair, Brian the ... you get the idea.  

For full-time (or in our case, mostly full-time) outdoor animals, pulling out the undercoat isn't just a matter of neatness or appearance.  Those old undercoats hold a lot of dirt, and way too much insulation value for our increasingly warm temperatures.  I'm really glad I helped Finn rid himself of it before August. Heck, if I hadn't pulled it, it might have hung around until his winter coat came in and shoved it off within reach of our normal brushes, and by then the dogs would have been dangerously filthy, even with baths.  It's just too hard to wash that stuff out, even using the awesome rubber brush to help work the suds in down toward the skin.  

Brian had some mats in his fur that I buzzed off so that I could save him some tugging prior to using the tool.  He hates having his mats pulled.  (So far I haven't let them go so long that they end up matted close to the skin but they are clingy ...)  It turns out that I shouldn't have buzzed them after all.  The furminator pulled out the remaining smaller mats very easily and Brian never gave me the 'owie mommy' look he does so often when I'm using a standard undercoat puller.  I ended up not shaving much around his seat and pulled the mats with just the furminator with no trouble at all.  It's kewl, though.  His tail looks a little funny right now, but he'll be fully feathered in no time.

Getting that undercoat out turned out to be especially gratifying in Brian's case.  Both dogs had dirty undercoats, but Brian's hair is a different consistency than Finn's more labrador retriever-like fur.  The dirty undercoat pulled free of his guard hairs and an almost pristine white summer undercoat.  It was almost as good as giving him a bath.  Combing with a nice bath, he'll be in excellent shape to endure the heat we'll most likely experience in August.  These dogs do really well in very cold temperatures, but tend to suffer in anything over 75 degrees F.  The last two years I've taken Brian to get shaved, and this year I planned to shave him myself (after buying a spacer--the one I like to use on him broke) but now I wonder if it might not be unnecessary.  I think just keeping him groomed, and taking him to the river on 90+ degree days, will be sufficient.

The girl sat down and (very gently) furminated Wizard, our big, fat, very happy and formerly feral tiger tabby shorthair cat.  He loved it.  As an experiment I ran a nice cat brush over him.  We didn't get much.  We ran the furminator over it and pulled lots of undercoat and dander along with it.  They have small ones for cats, but I think that we'll use the one for our dogs on the cats as needed, being careful not to push because the teeth on the one we have are sized for long-haired dogs.

Furminators are expensive, but I think they're worth it.  Now that I have one, I don't see any reason to visit a groomer, which will pay back the worth of the comb by next summer, and that's for an ultra-minimalist grooming schedule (once a year.)  

One minor note about the instructions.  They suggest bathing your animal first and letting it fully dry before using the comb.  In our case, I think it makes more sense to use the comb as a kind of dry bath.  And then, when we get around to a big, wet, soapy bath, we won't have to try to clean old, wooly undercoat hair that shouldn't be there in the first place.  And that undercoat really hinders getting the soap down to the skin and makes rinsing that soap out much more difficult.  

Half of Brian's pile.  The rest is outside.  Bear in mind we brushed him last week to get the worst of it off.

Also, because they're pricy, I suggest that folks living within a budget to shop around and maybe investigate getting a used one if possible.  If you do get a used one, be sure to clean it thoroughly and disinfect it in case the animal it was used on had a transmittable disease.  I don't usually recommend a particular vendor, but in this case, Amazon has one of the best prices for new ones available.

I'm happy with the tool.  The dogs enjoyed the attention, and are tons cleaner, lighter, and cooler.  Wins all around.

Update:  Carey is still not home.  We made some calls and put up ads on Craigslist.  We also left some fliers around town.  Keep your fingers crossed for us.  Thanks for your well-wishes.

Tom Riddle Update

We had a little more snow today at the house. I hope that whatever it does overnight, it doesn't keep me from work (again.) It's been quite an odd year for snow. We've had it as late as April Fool's Day before, but nothing that stuck for long, never mind kept people at home from work and forced the snow plow guy to come out.

The cats do not approve.

It's very, very pretty, though.

Speaking of cats, our feral/barn cat, He Who Shall Not Be Named aka Tom Riddle (and he is a tom--an unaltered male--with unknown origins that we refused to name in order to keep up the illusion that he's not actually our cat which makes his entire name fun-ly appropriate) had something weird up with his eye. It looked really bad weird, so bad I thought he might have lost it. He'd been missing for three days, which wasn't really unusual, but when he turned up with yellow smeared over his face, one working eye and ribs poking out I thought he might be in real danger of losing his life. We had a plan in place to capture him and take him to the vet, but whatever had been going on with his eye appeared to clear up on its own. He's still very thin, though. We'll keep a close watch on him. The plan is to catch him sometime this summer and have him fixed, so I don't want to move the timeline up (he might not do well in cold weather after surgery, and I don't think we can keep him locked up in the bathroom without the whole house ending up smelling like a meth lab) and I certainly don't like the idea of catching him *twice* for medical procedures.

So, we'll wait. Wish him luck.

Don't Lose Time

I have a very good friend who sometimes talks about how people wasting his time is a form of murder. Our time is limited. From our perspectives we usually aren't aware of it because we seem to have so much of it.

I didn't always have that feeling of 'almost forever', though. I remember having this fear that the world would end at the end of 1999. That feeling was so strong that even though I doubted anything would happen, I shivered more than once as the year 2000 approached. I had calculated what age I'd be in 2000, and promised myself that I would do everything I wanted to before then so that I'd have no regrets.

I was only 12 years old, but I think I was wiser in that respect than I am now.

Our beloved Lucky, the epileptic black kitty, passed away from kidney failure the day before yesterday. He had about a decade of life. In that time it seemed that he sensed that there simply wasn't enough love in the world, and he craved it more than anything. Epileptics sometimes report a strong sense of impending death just before they black out into their seizure. I think he had that feeling too. He had a seizure just before he died, and I wonder if he thought damn, I've been down this road so many times ....

I had snapped awake about 5:30 am knowing something was wrong. I found him on the floor. Somehow he'd crawled out of the bed we'd made for him. From that point on he got constant love, the thing he wanted, the thing he desired above all other things throughout life. My DH and I took turns holding him in our laps. We gave him what we could, and as he'd always known, it still wouldn't be enough. But it was all the time he had to get attention from us. Death clicked the stopwatch and the race was over.

None of us have enough time to do everything. For Lucky, he didn't want everything. Just one thing. I think that focus gave him the kind of life he wanted.

Do you have one thing more important than the others? Lucky would, if he could, suggest that you pursue that one thing. And if there isn't one thing for human beings, maybe there's at least a concept like I had when I was a child of living life and accomplishing a certain amount in the time that we have. If you had only a decade from now, what would you want to accomplish before then? Chances are if you're reading this, you've already had more than Lucky. Have you used your time wisely, as he did?

Money Growing on Trees?

We had a fun time at our local fair. One of my favorite things was the Pirate Parrot Show. If they show up at a fair near you, be sure to go.

I totally have to train my animals to bring me money like this.

Totally.

Oh deer ...

Just for fun ...

No, it's not photoshopped. This is just life on the hill.

Copyright © Kamila Zeman Miller, 2011

It Can be Good when a Kitteh Sprays

Tom Riddle

We have this cat that hangs out around outside.

I refuse to adopt this cat.

This cat is an unaltered male and sprays everywhere.  This is extremely helpful to me, as I'm far less likely to let this cat that I absolutely will not adopt into the house.  I mean, I'm not even thinking about it, although it would be easy to do, since we're feeding him.

But we're not really feeding him that much.  Just a wee bit.  He catches rats and mice in the barn, and that's what I'd like him to do--to remain healthy and happy catching rats and mice in the barn, as opposed to hanging around so much on our deck cutely touching noses with the Poop and napping on the deck chairs.

Not that he's cute.  Well, okay, maybe he's a little cute.  But he sprays!  And, I haven't named him, so we're safe.

Actually, he has a name but we did not name him.  I was telling my friend R about him (not that I'm interested enough in this cat to actually talk about him to my friends that much--just a couple of mentions here and there) and she said, so you're not naming He Who Shall Not Be Named.

So I blame R that we call him Voldemort and Tom and Tom Riddle--which, I should mention is particularly fitting, him being a tom and all.

But we didn't name him.  That was R.  Just because he has a name now, it doesn't mean we like him.  We don't.  We just like what he does.  And I don't (usually) talk nice to him or anything, nor do I take any pleasure (well, okay, some) in the fact that I can get closer to him now before he runs off.

But, in the highly unlikely event that I put hands on this cat, he is not coming into the house.  Because, yay!, he sprays.  And even if we fix him, assuming we can put hands on this cat, it would not stop him from spraying.  

So we're never adopting this cat.  He'll stay outside, un-named (by us), forever.

I really, really mean it.

Even if it starts to snow really hard and his ears are folded down and he's staring in outside and we have a snuggly fire.

Because he sprays.

Thank gawd he sprays.

Raccoons

The dogs were going bananas and they just wouldn't quit.  I looked outside.  All their noses pointed in the same direction--the veggie garden.  Oh noes!  The young doe who's been nibbling on my trees and grapes was probably brazenly flicking her tail at them while decimating something even more precious, like my three small blueberry shrubs. 

I dashed out and--

It wasn't a deer.  It took me a while to count them all.  Six raccoons--two adults and four older babies--had made themselves comfortable in one of our silver maples.  

I got the girl and we snapped some photos before I let Chase out so she could sniff around the base of the tree and bark at them.  Then I sprayed them all with water.  We waited about a half hour--shower, rinse, repeat in another half hour.  One of them actually hissed at me.  But soaked raccoons are so cuuuute!  We brought out a stick and a sword just in case they attacked us, but although they were peeved, they didn't get riled enough to want to come down and teach us a lesson.  

The next night, about 3am actually so I guess that would be dang o'clock in the morning, the dogs started up again so I went out.  Just one adult raccoon, as far as I could tell.  I got the hose and sprayed him good.  

I haven't seen the raccoons since.  I hope they stay away.  The hens are safe at night in the coop, but our neighbors have their chickens loose and I don't want another slaughterfest.  Cute, but very, very destructive.

And darling when wet and hissing.

I may add pictures to this post later.  (Posted 8/8/2011)

All Animals All the Time

It seems like it's all animals, all the time around here lately.

Veronica had her first bath. (That's Veronica in the pic, but from last night, not today's bath.) She's exhausted from teh clean and fluffiness.

What actually got us started on the whole cat bath thing, though, was Lucky. He's gone into frequent grand mal seizure mode, as in last night he had four, and he's had at least one or two a day for about the past week to ten (out of the blue--this hasn't been building over time.) This up from having one once a month or so. He's on anti-seizure meds now twice a day. If his liver panel comes back eh then we'll have to reduce his dose, but for now we just want to halt the foaming at the mouth and spasms that last for a couple of minutes at a time. The poor kitty has been having some while standing up, too, and sometimes he recovers in that position, and others he flops over after a while.

All sadness.

But the good news is that he's otherwise healthy.

JR Bunny has something going on with his ears in the form of weird scabs. The vets were baffled. He got a Revolution top spot in case it's some sort of parasite they weren't able to find (no lice, no mites, no fleas ... nada!) and they sent him home with no real answers (though two vets and a couple of nurses all checked him out and scratched their heads and looked at lots of slides of samples taken from his quite clean though scabby earses.)

And then I decided it was well overdue time to worm (because it's been so warm!) the goaties and trim their hooveses. Trimming goat hooves actually isn't that bad, but it takes two people, so my much-suffering DH held heads while I trimmed feet. The goats I'm sure will be walking funny for a while until they figure out their balance points on their feet has shifted to better posture. It must be a lot like learning to stand and sit up straight after months of slouching. Doesn't hurt, but doesn't quite feel natural, either.

And then the DH and I jacked up the front porch a bit and put some fresh gravel up front for good measure. Where do the animals fit into this? Why, we had to do that because the big white floofy poopies (Brian and Finn) collapsed the porch's front corner by digging, and in the process brought the joys of mud to the normally graveled front entry.

It's not fixed, but it looks better, and it's not as dangerous getting up and down those steps. Still a bit dangerous, mind you, but if there was no danger, it wouldn't feel like home.

Must Write Faster, One More Mouth to Feed

I know, I never call and I never write.

Actually, I write a lot, but I haven't had time lately to post. I've been working on House of Goats. A couple of times today I had a crisis moment, thinking this couldn't possibly interest anyone outside of our family, but then I'd start giggling about what happens next ....

Several hours later I then have another long moment of doubt ....

We also have a new kitten. It's not my fault! Okay, it's totally my fault. A friend of my son's called. Their cats weren't getting along with the new kitten, and they absolutely couldn't keep it, and they couldn't find a new home for it (cue violin music) and it's a little siamese sort of thing except it's sort of calico, and it's about six weeks old (yowza, too young!) and and and

and I said (totally lying to myself) that we could take her in, at least for a while, and if nothing else we'd find a new home for her.

Well.

She was older than six weeks, thank goodness, but she was pretty tiny compared to our cats. And she was decidedly not cute. My DH wasn't impressed either. Quote: That is the ugliest cat I've ever seen.

I don't know about the ugliest. True, it looks like her head was put away wet in a dark place until mold took hold. But oh, what lovely blue eyes. More to the point, she was quite ill. We're talking blood in the eliminants, both sorts, obvious signs of worms and fleas, lackluster appetite, overly sleepy, etc. We isolated her from the rest of the cats and I had my son call his friend back. Where did this cat come from? A friend of her mom's. Can we get this friend's phone number? Her mom doesn't have a phone number or any contact information. (Wow, must be a really good friend. ?!) Has the cat had any shots, and has it been tested for FIV or feline leukemia? No idea. I'm not sure she even knew those were issues.

So I made an appointment for the morning and wondered if the poor thing would make it through the night. She did, and she did exactly what I wanted her to. She fought like a crazy demon thing. They couldn't get a temperature on her, and it took three people holding her down to draw blood for the test.

She had strength and a will to live.

The stress from the tests and exam and worming and de-fleaing and change of environment took its toll, though. About an hour after we got her home, she got really wobbly and her gums turned pale. I fed her a mixture of 1/4 tsp of karo syrup with a few drops of heavy whipping cream, by the vet's order after a frantic phone call. She perked up, and after a good meal and a long night's rest cuddled up under the blankets in the master bed (we're such suckers for sad cases) she bounced back higher than she'd fallen. Now all she has to worry about is finding her spot in the kitty pecking order.

I'd better get back to writing. We have another mouth to feed!

New kitten specs:

Name: Veronica

Approximately 3 months old--I've decided she's a Halloween baby.

Weight: 3 pounds

FIV and feline leukemia free!

Likes long slinks through the living room, playing with socks, sitting or sleeping on shoulders while owners are typing (she's totally a writing cat) attacking toes under blankets, and sleeping under blankets--sleeping on top of blankets with no people to snuggle against is for cats who fail at life. She is on premium Iams kitten food, which often gets poached by the other kitties. Does not like the big white puppies, but Dakota is okay.

The Three Doofuskateers

The dogs escaped today, and very weirdly, out of the three, the two who are usually gone the longest are the ones who came home first (after making me sweat for about three hours or so.)  Brian the Poopyhead, Mr. Loves His Comfort, Sir "Too Far, Will Lie Down Now" is often, after an escape, not only the first to come home, but the one who comes home after less than an hour away.  So, I'm quite worried.  Beast is exhausted and muddy, having gone way past the fun and into the misery part of traveling cross-country.  Finn is in better shape, but looks very concerned and often lifts his head from being curled up (they both got soaked in various downpours, so curling up is the best way to conserve heat until he dries off) and searches for his brother as far as his line of sight allows.

It was awesome to see them, three dogs at the firepit--except one of the three was our neighbor's dog, Sammy.  Sammy's daddy was away so he didn't know Sammy had gone on a little excursion with his best buddies across the street.  I think the muddy coat will kinda give him away, but he has a little time to clean up first.

I'd like to think that the soreness and sadness will teach them a lesson, but I know better.  These dogs, given a chance, would roam the many hundreds of acres that comprise the hills we live in again tomorrow, and would return only for food and perhaps a game of don't catch.  Don't catch, btw, is where we throw an object and they all run to get it, one picks it up, drops it again, and they all run back to us.  Throw is fairly loosely interpreted, so recently when I dropped a can of tonic water, Brian grabbed it and carried it off, and when I asked him to come to me, he dropped it and came very obediently.  I told him to go get it, and he did, and picked it up, and I asked him to come, and of course, once again, he dropped it and came over.  Don't catch.  A way for humans to get as much exercise as the dogs.

Anyway, earlier in the evening we heard some rifle shots.  This happens around here.  People sight in their rifles for hunting and such, and sometimes even practice.  It's just the timing and location of the shots that leave me even more worried about Brian.  

He'll turn up, and he'll be wet, and he'll feel sad and worried because maybe mom and dad will be mad and not love him anymore.  Brian, wherever you are, as long as you come home, mommy will be happy.  Honest.  But, you might get a bath.  You have to admit, it's a fair price to pay.  And don't forget, after every bath, there's always the head/towel game.  Sweet!