Equal parts

It's interesting how exhilarated I get when my weekends get jam-packed with 'must-dos' on the list.  Maybe it's the fact that I am connected to the world again - or at least the parts of it that mean the most to me.  It sure wasn't due to the weather.  It was a weekend of equal parts frustrating activities and satisfying activities.   Without further ado - recipients of the satisfying part of the weekend:

Ducklings at 1 month out for
the first time.

 

Apria, or LaLa seems happy
to be on grass again.

Norman - always photogenic, my
Cormo/Pony cross.

 

Juno - my problem child
for the week.

 

Linden - my problem child
the rest of the time.

 

The Patient

I thought you'd like evidence that the LLF dependents are still alive and kicking.  I spent most of last week wringing my hands over Juno, my elderly ewe.  She has struggled with a parasite load and seemed to be doing okay, when I came home from work Monday to find her with Bottle Jaw.  A quick message via FB to my friend, AnnMarie - my sheep/goat/llama guru, brought her down for a conference.  We wormed Juno again, then she gave me her secret recipe for an iron-building drench.  I have been drenching Juno twice a day, every day since.  It seems to finally be working, as she has perked up.  Since the drench is packed with molasses, I no longer have to wrestle her to the ground to drench her.  She sees the red drencher comes running - I dose her through the fence!

I got a new phone.  It only took most of the week and the threat of tears.  My carrier is Verizon and there are all these rules - contracts, blah, blah.  The phone my dear sister had sent was too outdated and they didn't even carry chargers for it.  With all kinds of finagling and my quivering lower lip, I was back in business Thursday night.  What a relief.

Saturday consisted mostly of my fanny in the driver's seat.  I put the ducklings out for the first time and then drove to VT to make a written report on the theft.  I then zipped back home to meet my roofer and duck house builder.  Then I drove south to get my hair done (thank God), then I drove an hour and a half to pick up a quarter pig for me and a baby beef share for my other sis, had an interesting conversation with the woman, then drove the hour and a half back home.  I did half my chores and tore out of the house to a neighbor's for a couple of glasses of wine, then back home to finish chores and feed my dogs.  That last bit was carried out under the withering beams of three sets of stink-eye.  Not one thing got done on the homestead.  Not one.

Soooo (as I am wont to say....) Sunday started at 7:30a and ended at 5:30p.  I made sure I had a lumberjack breakfast because there was going to be no lunch break.  I got the ducklings outside for their second time.  They are getting so big!  Then I started to work on the hoop house so that I could move the nuggets out of the two brooders.  This involved re-tarping it, cleaning it out (note to self: next time, don't wait a year), running electric (frost predicted) for a heat lamp, hanging feeders, finding and cleaning the big waterer and last, but not least, transporting all 30 of the fat buggers.  This was comprised of plopping a bunch of them into a box with handles, walking across the chicken yard, up-over-down the deck, across the back, through two gates and into the hoop house.  I repeated this process seven times.  I also discovered one dirty, sad, beaten down Nugget.  He/she had been smooshed, pushed and rolled in poop.  Sigh.  After I had gotten the rest in their last home, I put up the electronet and charger and focused on my patient.  I gave it a warm bath and a blow-dry.  Then I set up a little brooder in the - let's say it together: LAUNDRY ROOM (which, please note, saw no laundry done this weekend) - and let it recover.  It is a sorry thing and I don't know if it will fully recover.  But, it's warm, clean, dry and is eating and drinking.  I let the sheeples out into the back paddock for grass and managed to feed the dogs before 6P.  Not quite before the ... snow ... began.

In between, my sister and mother stopped by for her beef share.  I would usually be horrified for my mother to witness the state my house was in.  This time?  Didn't care.  I also lost a hen in a very mysterious way.  When I got back from the police station, my neighbors were hiking by and wanted eggs (and to see the ducklings), so we went into the chicken yard.  There, dead center (pardon the pun) was one of my Welsomers, neck broken, one foot pointing skyward.  There was no visible cause of death, but it looked to be violent.  She was not an old hen.  It was a shame.  (And very traumatic, apparently, for my neighbors.)  Let's hope they do not sue me.