Just another Day on the Farm

Well a offer came in my mail box today, Small Farm Canada is having a 2 for 1, I renew my membership (which I had already planned on doing) and I get one free year of this great magazine arriving in someones in their mail box for a year..

So I am giving it away to my readers.. rules are simple

1) open to canadian readers only, sorry folks, its a canadian magazine for small farms

2) Leave your name in the comments and share a funny farm story, it can be short, it can be long, it can be a farm joke, it can be when  you went to a petting zoo.. but try and make it true!

3) I will put each name on a peice of paper and have DH’s ma make the draw at the end of Sept when she visits..

4) you will need to be willing to send your real name, mailing address privately to me, so that I can give it to the correct person to be able to get your gift..

That’s it folks.. Good Luck!

Hi, there my goat stepped on a nail in the back of her hoof between when the leg
ends and the hoof starts. Bout an inch in, she can’t put much weight on it
today, it happened yesterday. I’ve been soaking it in warm salt water. If it
doesnt get better tommorrow should i get a shot for her? she’s my best goat, and
i can’t afford the vet right now.

-Well, if she just stepped on the nail yesterday, she is not going to be better within a day, it takes days and weeks to properly heal a nail wound.

Given that my first advice if you are unsure about things to to recommend you have your vet in, you kinda took that out of the the field with the, can’t afford the vet right now..

So that makes me ask, how about the goats breeder? Is she local, does she have a good amount of years experance with her goats, could she come over and give you a hand flushing the wound, checking it and help you figure out what if anything she would recommend for a antibodic.

If not the goat breeder, how about the farmer that lives down the way that has been treating his critters for years and has very healthy animals, might he come and have a look?

Soaking it in warm salt water is a great start, have your flushed the wound itself? How does it look, does it appear to be healing on its own with the soaks, have you made sure that the goat is in a very! clean stall with clean dry bedding, and has a goat friend in with her, she should not have to go far to get food/water, nor should she be in the herd, as the others will take advantage of her injury and push her around, but being put alone will stress a herd animal as well, so you are better off giving her either a offspring, or a lower ranked herd member that she is friends with.

Check your goat heath book and see what it says in regards to treatment, I have had goats and they tend to get into things, I had one that hurt her foot and I didn’t give antibodics for it, just care and soaks and she recovered well, with a larger heavier critter like  the cow, the books said that most of the time, they will get an infection and so I was pro-active on it.

You will need to keep an eye on all her basic health signs, feed, water, manure, temp and just how she feels, is she normal and active with bright eyes but just favouring her foot, or is she dull, hot and off her feed..

If she is looking good in all ways, eating well, bright eyed and active other then favoring her foot and you are faithfully keep the bedding, clean and dry and soaking her foot, the odds are greatly in her favour that she will recover just fine.

If she get a fever, goes off feed or does not look like she is feeling well, get help in fuguring out what medication you need to give. Hope that helps a little..

Wow, its hot out this weekend, the last week of baking aug heat, and its humid to boot, the sweat runs freely just from being, let alone working.. Still having said that its a perfect weekend for being home on the farm.

We got up at 5 and did the dogs as per normal but then growled at them to go back to sleep and was abe to sleep in almost to eight, puttering start to the morning, and then just started doing the checks, Tooties was very brave this morning and was waiting by her water bowl and was looking forward to her breakfast.

Brandy was out in the small pasture grazing and came when she heard my voice to wait for me  at the hay feeder and water spot, tried a new grooming tool on her this morning , its Girl the cows favorite but not Brandy’s, works great on her mane and tail though but she finds it to sharp for her hide, at least in summer coat, think she would love it in winter or in shed out in spring.

We did some lunge lining and you have to work at keeping her at the slower paces, she want’s to either trot or canter, and because I am not working on a proper line (I will get one today) I have control but not the light line weight I want, still I was able to give her much better range.

My sweetheart is so out of shape, but she’s game! I figure it would be a good idea to get her in much better shape before asking her to also carry my weight on rides to boot.. I stopped her while she was still ready to go, but had broke sweat in a few places..

After some fussing and a little braiding in a mane, we let the cows out and groomed girl, who is still not getting taller but I swear she is getting wider, she is never going to be a very big cow, but that’s just fine with me, she is perfect just the way she is..Marty looks so small when he is beside her but in truth he is growing like a weed as well.

As we are going to be out and about, we let all the birds out for some free time, where we have been taking things to them as the fox was getting way! to bold and while free range is great, you have to make sure your critters are safe.

Its a garden morning, my fall planted out garden is growing rapidly and I could not be more pleased, we have things coming from the garden but its still a much reduced harvest this year but it really depends on what we are looking at or talking about..

Looks like I am going to get a excellent potato crop, a grape crop, elderberry, a good corn and bean and root veggies crop, a poor winter squash, tomato crop.. thank goodness for living in an area that you can get a three season harvest.

Miss Bright eyes the turtle is doing well, I got a book on turtle care an she now as a few extra’s to call her own, like a floating lily pad, a floating cutle board to make sure she has enough calcuim for proper shell growth, and I picked up special food for her age, but mainly I just let her little pond provide her food, and give her a worm once a week, which she loves!

Did you plant a fall garden? and if so, how is it going?

O Friday, what a crazy busy day you were, ups and down and arounds.. my typical o so quiet fridays was filled with horses, visiting and meeting new folks..

Goals for the day- Tack up and small short ride..

– Lunging

Well, she needed to wait her turn in the training today as work was being done with a different horse for a good bit of the morning, This was very useful for me in two ways, first I got to watch and that is a refresher course on reading body lang and watching my current horse mentor working with and training her horse, we both are going to the same end goal but there are differences in how we are getting there.. so being able to step back and watch allows me to see and learn her cues, her training commands and allows me to afterwards to ask her to explain what she means by this word or that word and translate it into my own known horse lang

Just two quick examples:

She said, the head down, for a in just being broke horse who bucked, translated into my lang, it was a hard buck, what we both meant was that the horse didn’t raise its head up, there was no give on the buck, she wanted that saddle of her back.. Just so you know, her session ended on a nice high note, with a great ear massage and a much relaxed horse that was giving her trust at that point.

A second example is we time our moving Clicks different and our go words are different and already having ground worked with Brandy for a few days, she is already looking for my commands, T’s is click yup, and mine is “walk on click”

So Brandy was tacked up, and lead around, then T got up on her for me and I lead her around, then we took off the lead rope and she had a soft and short ride, she moves well, she backed, and she goes right with ease, she is harder on the left turn.

That was all I wanted to do and we got her off and cooled off and brushed down, picked up her feet..

Last night after supper, we took a walk and then we did some stretch movements and command work, groomed, ears and tails etc..

Then I tried starting her on lunging and was playing with sounds, when suddenly she started to respond correctly, I got her into the big pasture and gave her all the rope I had at that time and O My!! she knows how to lunge, we did a nice warm up slow, med and fast walk in both directions and then we went to town, one big circle was down from slow walk to fast walk to trot, to canter and back down again..

My big baby is so out of shape, she broke a sweat doing her routine but to be fair, so did I, she was just so beautiful in that soft gentle canter! and when she is not walking double slow to try and match me, she really covers ground in her own natural walking pace.

After I turned her lose, she came over and asked for a hug, not just a pat, not just little snuggle, she was comfortable with me giving her a full body contact big hug, that’s a first as well..

Saturday has arrived and I will write tomorrow, but the goals are bringing out a 20 foot and or a 30 foot lunge line for one training, a walk with command ground work for the second and drive lines for her third.. I am trying to do three training seasons of no less then 20 min and no more then 40 min

Wow, a week has flown by, and so much has happened in that time frame..

So first thing, I am quitting the gym.. I need to know when to cut my losses, and this is one of them, I am not going to get off the farm and to town X amount of times a day, the farm has so many things that need to be done, and the cost of the gym will buy a full round bale for my new horse plus her feed for the month..

The horse is the new gym LOL, and what a great workout she has been this week already..

So on the eating front, we had one moment of weakness and I paid for it for days later, Dh was on holiday’s for a long weekend and we had a blast!, we had a list of projects that needed to be done on the farm and we had a list of things to do off the farm, so it was a sleep in, have a fancy weekend breakfast, and then hurry! get that thing on the chore list done, and boot off the farm.. not everything we did cost money or at least not to much of it, like wild apple picking or exploring our locally area in regards to wild forage things, or picture taking, but we also got out to the show, and to a local cheese festival and to a sunday get together.

So in the middle of all our travel a bag of crunchy junk was got, and while it didn’t have wheat in it, it was made of corn, none the less.. it tasted great going down but wow, did I not! feel good about it later, its so off the list!

Otherwise, we are right on track with our meals, I find we are eating less in portion sizes while still getting the correct calories, its still hard sometimes because you just want to have something quick to make and unless you prepare things ahead of time, that is hard to come by, the quick thing for me is my orginal V8 juice heated up and used as a tomato soup.

So would it be any real suprise that when I did my weight in this morning, that yes, I am once again down in weight! I love seeing that scale going down! I have had no issues with my blood pressure this week either, and my energy level is good but boy when I sleep, do I ever sleep, going to bed early these days and sleeping a bit late in the mornings, well for me, I normally get up and going between five and six and a couple days have been more like seven or eight..

O and as I was in the city, I hit the bulk store and picked up a few flours I am allowed to have, don’t care for the arrowroot but it will work for making gravy but the coconut flour does work well in everything I have tried it with and so much cheaper then the ground almond flour, also was able to get some coconut oil on sale.

Went for my second massage which I have started working with my bonecracking treatments, and while the first one made me a little scared to go back, turns out I have alot of scare tissue in my hips area, and wow did it hurt the first time and then we worked on shoulders and neck area, well it hurt for days afterwards, was not sure I wanted to go back again or not but did and was so glad I did, there was a clear improvement in reduction of pain in the area’s being worked and she was able to go deeper and I had little to no pain the next day, but increased flexability with my stretches! Given the cost, I don’t think it will ever go more then once a month but if it continues to be of value, I will stay with it.

This week is simple, eat well, get my eight hours of sleep, do my daily stretches, keep up on the house and farm, and go play with Brandy!