Mudville.

It's turned to winter again, but on Christmas eve our world was still mud. I'd had to park in the yard and walk to the house for a while. THIS was the scene at our house:









I won't complain, not one bit.

Now we are buried under a blanket of snow, the water buckets are covered in ice, and I can't seem to get my feet warm. But the driveway is solid enough for me to get the rest of my winter hay delivered. So i guess it isn't all bad.

We got another deer last night for the family freezer, a nice big fat doe. That should be enough meat to last us a while. I feel much better knowing we have enough to get us through for a bit.

On an unrelated note.... Dexter is really sucking up these days. he is in the dog house again. It's a good thing he is cute.

Two posts in one day!!!

Brego seems sound again. Thank goodness.

I've been working him less than consistently because, well... because my life has been a huge bowl of yuck soup lately and I've been too much of a debbie downer to do more than deal with the most basic things. But for my sanity I need to do this, and for his health and well being of course. lol.

So today i worked him lightly, I was going to long line him but he was full of himself so i just longed him and unbraided his tail then longed him again. Basically just walkingtrot each way, until he was actually listening to me and not sticking his nose in the air and hollowing out his back.

Early in the work:



Later in the work:

I... I don't even know what to say....

It's been up there for an hour.



he was standing too close to the fence so I tossed the hay over his back but only two flakes made it over, this one just stayed there.

 

 Snow is accumulating on top of it.



he doesn't even seem to notice it, let alone care.

I can't stop laughing.

I'm dreaming of a greeeeen Christmas!

OK, maybe green isn't the right word. Mud brown is more accurate, really. But "not white" is fine with me. "White Christmas" may be one of the few holiday movies I can stand to watch (Love the music, Bing Crosby's voice is butter. Plus Danny Kaye cracks me up) but I won't shed a tear if we don't have snow.

Brego seems to be enjoying the weather as well. He has been full of himself in the mornings, dashing around snorting.



This was a few weeks ago. I should get more when i go out and feed this morning.

It's not like we haven;t had ANY snow. But this winter, so far, hasn't been..... well it hasn't been "typical winter in Michigan" for sure.



But, I mean, for Michigan in December this barely even counts as snow.



Nightshade was not happy when it did snow. hehe.



My only concern is that when winter finally realizes it has been easy on us it will make up for lost time. *shudder*

I really need to move south. Not way south. Just to hardiness zone 7. lol.

*slaps forehead*

Dexter is living up to his name. He escaped the back yard this morning and tried to kill chickens (keep in mind they are significantly larger than he is) and then while we were gone destroyed my lovely bookmark and Tsu's good headphones. That is the highlight reel of his greatest hits of the day, there was more, but I am trying to not dwell on it too much lest I give in to the desire to punt him.

And now he is sleeping beside Nigel, curled between my feet, looking up at me when i move and disturb him with eyes full of adoration and worship. Stupid obnoxious dog.

Gosh he is cute. I want to strangle him so bad right now. My beautiful bookmark, that was a one of a kind work of art gifted to me by an anonymous friend. *sob* He actually pulled it OUT of my library book and destroyed it. What dog DOES that?

I'll tell you what dog does that, this one does.



He is much more adorable when he has eyebrows and whiskers but i groom him myself and last time i oopsed his face.

This was prior to the oops:

as a new puppy, with the toy he has now completely destroyed and we have thrown away...



and more recently, with his usual grown up haircut...




*sigh* From now on he has to go in the crate when we leave the house. He has been sooo good for so long, but he is still only 9 or 10 months old and i think we trusted him far too much far too soon.

I can't wait until his eyebrows and whiskers grow back.

Baby news: never a dull moment.

So, early this week we got a call from the OB about the results from Tiff's ultrasound. They found a Choroid Plexus Cyst in Demetri's brain. She very strongly stressed that these are not uncommon and are harmless in and of themselves but they can be a marker of another issue and we needed a level 2 ultrasound with a specialist to rule out anything more serious.

Luckily they were able to get us in with the specialist almost immediately. Unfortunately, because we live in a massive no man's land, the specialist was almost 60 miles away, and our appointment was early in the day. Of course Tiff was nonchalant as always but Josh (daddy-to-be) and I are the worriers in the family and we stressed enough for everyone.

Thankfully, after the second ultrasound they found nothing, not even the initial choroid plexus cyst, and none of the physical deformities associated with the genetic issue it can be a "soft marker" for in some cases.

*phew*

It was a stressful busy week for me, and i am glad it is over.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

One of the great things about this blog is that it is mine. :-)

I can't control actual conversations, which right now are mostly about why I haven't "made" Tsu get a job (Um, hello? 1. have you seen the job market around here? You know MI custody law says we can't move more than 100 miles until Tiff turns 18, so we are sorta required to stay here in this awful market for another year and a half.  2. I can't 'make' anyone else DO anything. I sorta wish i could sometimes, but I can't, so I'm getting sick of being yammered at about that.) and how somehow if he isn't putting in 20 applications a week i need to make him do that, or being told how I have to do this or do that or make Tiff do this or do that (again with me having to "make" other people do things? *sigh*), or being either pitied or chastised because I'm not thrilled about having an infant in my home again. I'm tired of people trying to fix me because I don't like babies. I'm equally tired of people telling me how screwed up I am for not liking babies. THIS is nothing new, I just thought once I passed child bearing age people would be off my back about it forever and the constant "what is WRONG with you, you don't like BABIES and KIDS?" would never come up again. But no such luck. I seem to be in a never ending loop of trying to explain that I will love my grandbaby (I HAVE ULTRASOUND PICTURES!!! SQUEEE!) but that doesn't mean I will be overjoyed with having him (IT'S A BOY!!!!!!) living here for his first year, no matter how strongly I feel that it is the right thing for us to do for both Tiff and the baby. I did not at all enjoy Tiffany's infancy and childhood (but I got some great pictures of her to show off out of it, because she was adorable as all get out). But she never felt anything less than loved and wanted and adored and Dimitri will never feel anything less either. I didn't enjoy talking about "baby" stuff when I was pregnant/had an infant, and I enjoy it even less now. (Right about now my CF friends are all laughing at me derisively or feeling sorry for me, depending on how much they like me, lol. Don't worry my dears, you should be catching on now that this is not going to turn into a constant baby blog, lol, and any baby posts i DO make will be clearly labeled and separate from farm posts).

I can't really avoid that all in my daily life. But I can here, because this is MY blog, and MY domain, and if I want to update on things about all that I can (did I mention I have ultrasound pictures of my grandbaby??) And if I don't want to.... *crickets chirp* *subject change*



Last night I weaned Rosie.

Say hello, Rosie:



Rosie isn't always the sharpest bulb in the deck of cards....





I was going to give her 12 to 16 weeks with her mom. We are at about 10 weeks and she is turning into a bitey little nurser. Look what she did to her mom's teat!





It was getting difficult to milk her without contaminating the milk with blood! YIKES!

and Rosie has been growing like a weed, I mean she actually lays down to nurse half the time, she has to kneel to get under there anyway.




So last night she moved out of the doe stall and into the other stall with Chickory.




Look at that! Chickory is 11 months old. Rosie is 10 weeks. Same dad, related moms. The only genetics they don't share are the ones from their maternal grandmothers. She has grown SOOOO much faster than the wethers I had last winter. And she was big when she was born but not nearly as big as the boys were at birth. I just wonder if being born at a time where all her food could go to growing instead of staying warm made THAT much difference?

Speaking of growing.... I think Nutmeg is starting to show a baby bump.




Nutmeg, on the right, should be due early March for kids with my mini fainter, Nightshade:



Ivy should be due mid to late april. I don't think Nightshade managed to do his job with her so she spent some time with Parsley. I know he did his job, lets just hope she did hers. I wanted them both to have kids with Nightshade the first time but the babies with Parsley will likely be worth more if I want to sell them instead of process them for freezer camp.

These girls are so pretty.

 

I hope next year to have either a meat bred myotonic to cross them with or a registered Toggenburg buck so I can register and sell their kids. But that will probably mean selling both the bucks i have now and buying a new buck and with our current finances that isn't likely. So I may just keep the boys I have now.

OH, Gratuitous roo pic! Jewels and Fluffy Butt are hoping to get some stray bits of cat food, so they hang out by the porch. We have to keep the gate at the top of the porch steps closed otherwise they roost up there and poo on everything. lol.

FaceBook, and the year that can't end soon enough.

 First, those of you on FaceBook, please "Like" my farm page, http://www.facebook.com/pages/PhoenixDown-Farm/136510583125084 I post there almost daily, sometimes multiple times a day.

My friends, thank you for putting up with my lack of activity and still popping in to comment when I do post. Hopefully that will change as the new year rolls in. Several difficult situations have been resolved or are at least at a point where I don't feel obligated to keep it to myself.

In a nutshell... my husband lost his job and still isn't employed. The state came after me for child support even though Tiff had been living exclusively with me for over a year, froze my bank accounts, hauled me into court three times, started proceedings to issue a warrant for my arrest for the child support,  and refused to drop it unless i proved my case by taking my ex to court. It cost us our entire nest egg we'd set aside for keeping us afloat and another chunk of cash we had to borrow from my father, and once I was able to prove my case in court they awarded me about 1/7th the actual court costs. Which means our 6 months of survival money is gone, never to be seen again, and i am in debt. But it kept me out of jail. *sigh* Then shortly after the court case was resolved I found out my 16 year old daughter is pregnant.

i think now you can probably see why I wasn't terribly chatty. On top of that I have always dealt with some level of seasonal affective disorder and without health insurance I'm handling it with lights and supplements... and to be honest with everything going on right now that's not really doing a lot for me. But as we close in on the shortest day of the year i know it's just a matter of time before the serotonin levels pick back up in my noggin and the chemical issues that bring me down start to back off.

This has really been the scariest, hardest, most heartbreaking year of my life to date. And the struggles are far from over. I've had to put some of my plans for the homestead on hold (I won't be planting a garden this upcoming year and i won't be able to start on beekeeping any time in the foreseeable future. I may also need to downsize the goat herd if things don't turn around soon). But for now we are holding on and making due.

I certainly hope and pray that the next year is better than this has been. I discovered a quote not to long ago that have been clinging to like a lifeline. It comes from an unlikely source.

“I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
― Marilyn Monroe

Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together. I've seen it true in my life in the past, I have to believe it is true now and in the future.

Thank you for following my blog, for those who have sent me emails and private messages giving me support without even knowing what was wrong, I love each and every one of you. Your kindness and support when you didn't even know if something WAS wrong has moved me and carried me through painful times and in ways i can't express here. There just are not words.  the English language is sorely lacking at times.

I have some more interesting and upbeat things to share with you now that the news flash is done. But for now I leave you with this... one of the most beautiful sights i have ever seen in my life... My heart horse.

 

Good heavens....

I need to post more often.


*blush*


Things are complicated my friends... and have been for a while.  It makes it hard to chitchat here at times.

I shall try to remedy that soon.  :-)

Until then, check this out:










Rosemary II, 1/4 Alpine, 1/4 Boer, and 1/2 LaMancha.  Out of Sage and by Parsley. Thank goodness she got Sage's ears, lol. Future dairy doe, isn't she lovely? I promise to get new pictures soon. I love her ears, and she is just as sweet as sugar and pie. Nice clean teats, and her mom is already giving me a quart or more a day even with the kid on her 24/7. I can't wait to see how she milks once I get a 12 hour fill on her.

Nothing of any great importance.

Lazy fat cat, Irvine:



The chick has doubled in size and is getting real live wing feathers:




FluffyButt the Broody Hen. She is a good broody, she gets off the nest once or twice a day for food, water, and a dust bath, so she is holding her wight well and keeping her nest clean, but still taking good care of her eggs.



Brego is a creeper and has been in my face everywhere I go in the pasture/barn.



The other day it was pretty hot, and he sweat, rolled, sweat some more.  He was filthy.



Sage is getting bigger, we are just over 3 weeks away from her due date. UGH! Those FLIES!






I tried to get some good pictures of Ivy and Nutmeg and this is what I got:

This one is probably the most accurate picture I have managed to get of their colour. Rich chocolate, lovely.

A full herd again!

Ivy and her sister are back together. I'm calling her Nutmeg. They are almost a matched set, hehe!









Sage doesn't seem to care a bit, hehe.



I'm impressed by how casually these girls take everything. Oh, ride in a car, new home,  blah blah blah... whatever.

Also...





Dexter is a bit annoyed at all the attention the chick is getting. So he keeps trying to slip between me and the brooder. lol.

This + this =

This:



+ This (one in back, to the right.. the one in front is currently holed up in the coop sitting on about 7 eggs):



=











I was using a terrible little incubator just because it was super cheap and i wanted to try it. I managed to get one of the two eggs to hatch, but it went three days over due. Chickie is currently living in an old fish tank in the kitchen with a heat lamp. It's a noisy little thing, but cute as all get out. I keep calling it a "he" but lets hope it is actually a she so we can keep it.

This is amazing, really. i want a real incubator, so I can do this right next time.