Good thing to – because if you haven’t noticed I haven’t been doing much studying lately.
Part of it is because I have been so crazy busy with the critters and family, but partly because when I pick up the Ki-Nook – the first things my little eyes notice is the Games! Oh super happy fun Games!! Time suckers!! Argh!

So I put some books on there and some files that I really wanted to read – hoping they would tempt me more than the games.
I racked my back and neck pretty bad a few weeks ago while shaving the goats for the stupid show. Good Lord how I hate to show the goats. A big ole PITA. But it sure helps when you are trying to sell goats if you have a few of those stupid fluffy ribbons.
So any case I have been in pain for weeks – the morning is not so bad – but by evening I am pretty much crippled. My husband keeps telling me to go the chiropractor – uh yeah – first off with what money? and second off with what time? besides my problem is in the muscles, not the joints, I am pretty sure.

Got a show on Saturday and a couple more goats that are gonna pop out babies in the next few days. I know we are overboard on the goats this year. I figure I can sell them or eat them. The milk is pouring in and I am loving that!

Today we are getting a mattress delivered for the spare bedroom – I have my step son and wife staying for a few days this summer and my friend’s daughter will likely be with us off and on since her step dad is getting a kidney transplant Today! Oh that will be so nice! My friend has been working her butt off trying to support the house and once her husband’s health is restored I am hoping she will be able to relax a little more.

In any case I think a real bed for guests to sleep on is a nice touch.

Okay gotta go milk the girls. See ya later.

But this week has been hard – my dad had his goat put don on Friday. The vet was super nice about it and it was really the best option for my dad.
My husband was home on Friday.
*sign* ladies I love my husband, I tell my self all the time. But the fact is – I am annoyed when he is home too much, and I know that is bad. I feel like we are each just doing our own things – yesterday we went out to visit a few stores and I was pretty unhappy with him.
At the gas station he was flipping out because there were a lot of people and the person in front of us was in the store shopping, instead of pumping gas! and then when he came out with his kid and the 64 oz soda (so you know they had a long drive ahead) he started pumping his gas! my husband almost exploded – and then the guy decided to clean his windshield! How inconsiderate of him! He ranted the entire time we were waiting!
What is wrong with my husband?
Negative comment after negative comment – bad attitude – selfish. And I am trying to tell him – seriously – this is a Gas station! every one has to wait their turn! It was worse than having a four year old in line for a ride at disneyland.

And on to other news – both of danny’s show goats are sick – I gotta get out and check them – the one has some cute babies on Saturday – but she is running a fever now – and the other was peeing what looked like cherry kool-aid.

Oh wait one more- my neck has been stiff for amost a month – so all the normal stuff I do is getting done slower and with more *ouch*
and my husband took off today because his alarm was off – I still have a million things to do. wish I could stay and chat some. I miss our cool little talks.

So my dad has this goat that was a runt of her litter- the momma was gonna just let her die – and we brought her in and started bottle feeding her – when she was born she was less than a pound. I gave her to my dad and he fussed over her day and night. Papa called her Tootsie.

She had a set of twins a couple of years ago but because she is so small I didn’t want to risk breeding her again – my dad kept the daughter and named her Alice. Alice had kids six weeks ago and pop decided to keep a girl from that litter and name her Pumpkin. So he has a baby, momma and grandma. Tootsie and Alice have always been together and love each other to bits. But since I was taking Alice to a show I thought I should seperate her from her kids and start milking her some.
So after I shaved all pop’s goats on Tuesday we brought Alice over to a pen on my side.
Tootsie was hiding out in her house the next day…the wind was blowing and I thought maybe her new haircut was making her cold. I tried offering her a treat and she wasn’t interested – I thought, maybe she was grumpy that her daughter was gone.

On Thursday morning I was trying to milk so we could get to Danny’s class on time and my dad comes over demanding I find out what is wrong with Tootsie.

Ummm I don’t know. What is she doing?
She is not eating! She hasn’t eaten anything in two days!
I dunno – maybe she is depressed? Put her in with her daughter and see if she cheers up?

Danny and I went to cleass – on the way home I got some Vit-. B-12 that is supossed to help with the goats rumen. When I came back I called the vet – this goat is dehydrated – she isn’t eating or drinking..I am worried. I tell them if she is still off tomorrow I will bring her in – but after a bit I decided waiting is not helping this situation and see if I can just bring her in – diagnosis? The goat has bloat – her rumen is full of fermenting grain packed in. It is a life threatening emergency!

I am thinking: crap! I gave her grain when I shaved her – but she didn’t seem to eat that much..but maybe she was stressed out enough with her new haircut and her daughter being gone that it really upset her digestion?

The vet says she gives the goat a 40% chance to live if she does the surgery – but it is expensive and if she finds that the intestines have started to die off then she is not going to be able to do anything. she says euthanazia is an option. Pop doesn’t want to hear that – he wants them to fix her!

Okay – so they go for it. They do an excellent job – her intestines are not dead, she makes it through surgery. She comes into recovery – she is on fluids all night.
the next day she is still alive!
So while I was milking pop comes over and tells me that she *might* have gotten out and into the grain the other day. and maybe that is what made her sick.
What ??
I mean that makes more sense – because the tiny bit of grain I gave her was…
Let’s put it this way – she went into the vet clinic after being off of feed for 2 days – we weighed her and she was 50.1 pounds. The took out everything in her rumen and put her on about a gallon of fluid and when we weighed her 28 hours later she was 42.6 pounds.
Grain kills goats.
If they can get their head in it – they will eat it until they die.
Fixing them is not cheap and often not sucessful.

Now Tootsie is still with us but her food and fluid intake is very minimal and I am still worried about her. I hope she makes it because I know my dad would be devestated if she dies, especailly over something so preventable.

PS we went to the goat show yesterday – but didn’t do too well – we were in a class of 14 and placed 9-11th in every ring. I told Danny not to feel bad – it is like being the dumbest kid at stanford – there was just some really fabulous goats there – even from out of state.
Maybe next show..

I am thinking I am gonna call the little girl Foxy Lady. I know it wasn’t even close to any of the options…but I think it will be a good name for her as she grows, plus she will have her own theme song.

The other news is – I am not watching the grandson anymore. Which, on one hand makes me pretty sad. Oh how I love having a little one to snuggle with! My daughter-in-law is trading her brother babysitting services, so it is nothing against me, but just they will need someone to watch their kid this sumemr and figure if they watch Austin for the last month of the school year it will be a fair trade.

On the other hand – homeschooling was not going as smoothly as it could have with the baby over every day. And Danny, though he loves his nephew, doesn’t like finding his stuff destroyed every time he turns around. So hoping that we can adapt to this change for the better.
The other news is that Todd’s youngest son (other that Danny) just got out of the Navy – he is living with his mom because his wife and baby are living with her mom and she wants a divorce and he can’t see his kid…it is a crazy mess. She unfriended me on facebook – so oh well – yeah he is a grandkid, but not a grandkid I will have a relationship with. Bummer that. I am hoping my stepson hears what his friends are saying and just decides to work hard, stay away from the party crowd and work hard to be a dad to that baby.

I think that is about it – we are hangin in there – had a little shaker on the San Andreas the other day but it has been quiet since. Gonna go back out and milk some more goats – lather rinse repeat.

Her grandma gave me two boys and one still born girl.

I thought for sure that little Heidi had more bucks waiting for me.
But the little darling delivered a doe instead!

and the colors on this girl are really lovely.

I am very happy! It was worth getting up every two hours to check on the momma!

I am working on a name for her. Her momma’s registered name is Hide N Seek and her dad’s name is Wild Man of Montesano.

Sinc eI was so sure she was going to be a He I first went with Trixie – but my sister said it reminded her of the dumb dog that lived across the strees when we we kids that the owners ignored and let die.

Ok so I haven’t really thought of any name I love, what we have so far is : Beatrix (the formal version of Trixie), Shinanigan (barn name would likely be Nanny though since we have a lot of goats with names startign with ‘S’, Whoopsie Daisy (barn name will be Daisy), Pixie…I just don’t know.

I would be open to names having to do with girls that were mistaken for boys.
Input welcome.

All the things that in most lives would seem to be markers or encouragers of a growing sense of responsibilty – graduating high school, first car, first job, going to the military, getting married, starting a family…with this young person, they seem to have been more like a series of unfourtunate events. Events that he seems to have learned very little from.

Actually I feel more sorry for my husband. My darling has no empathy, knows no psychology, is no counselor…he is actually a bit of a narcissist. He just can’t see why something that is so clear to him is so hidden from his son. They drove 2,400 miles together and knowing my husband, many of those miles were spent in nagging and condensending conversation. On topics that the young person already regrets. The fact that he is getting a divorce, that he will likely not be a part of his young sons life, that is soon to be ex-wife is a bit of a psycho herself and unfourtunatly smarter than her soon to be ex-husband.
So he is flat on his butt – no job lined up, family gone, going back home to live with his mom.

The hard part is – he is a likable guy, but he is like a dumb puppy. Eager to please, easily frustrated, never thinking things through. Ah well…

On to other news – I inheirited the pea hen. I can’t remember if I told you this story. On St. Patrick’s Day we had a pretty bad storm and a friend of mine had a peahen blow into her yard. Peafowl are kinda rare in this area and her neighbor raises them so she assumed it was his, but no… She asked around but no one claimed her. After a few days she thought the bird was looking kinda cramped in the brooding box, so she put her in with the chickens to see what they would do. They were fine. she checked on them every few hours. All fine. The next day…all fine… The next day – dead peahen.
well, no, not quite. A peahen that had it’s head pecked to bits, and maybe it’s eyes pecked out. So she brought the bird to her mom. Her mother is a genius and convinced the thing to live, even though it couldn’t see. Last week – she had to go to AZ, and her husband couldn’t do the peahen feedign by himself so he asked if I wanted to take her.
They told me one eye was gone and she can’t see out of the other.
They had been and feeding her and givng her water with a syringe. I convinced her to eat by hand feeding her watermelon and scrambled eggs- yum! And no wher other eye is slowly opening – will her vision ever return? I don’t know, but she is so sweet (most likely because she can’t see us) With all this TLC I think there is a good chance I will keep her.

And today we are waiting for more babies. Again. And I have to go milk the goats now. Again.

So I have been busy – just not interesting. forgive?

I don’t know what I was looking for initially – I think it was the blessing over the candles.
I have been trying to light candles every Friday before the sun goes down for…months (?) now, but I don’t know the blessing. I try to light them even if my house isn’t ready for Shabbos, even if I don’t have a dinner.

Anyhow – back to the story at hand – I was on you tube and clicking on all kinds of links and I came to this one: M22
The first page I got to was about teaching kids about the coming of Moshiach – ohh? that is interesting – it talks about all the signs of his coming and I was kind of toying with the idea of buying it to see what it was all about.
And them on the side bar I notcied “Moshiach Seuda” – what is that?
So I started reading.. and I am just going to copy and paste it here for you:

~ The Moshiach Seuda ~
The Annual Banquet of Moshiach
Pesach is a holiday of freedom. We celebrate and relive our redemption
from the Egyptian exile over three thousand years ago. But its real purpose is
to inspire ourselves for the imminent future redemption, that will take place
very shortly in our very own lives.
We start with the two sedorim, two evenings filled with customs and
meaning designed to help us relive the days in Egypt as if we were just there,
and remember the bitter exile and the awesome redemption as if we personally
experienced it.
Then come the last days. The Jewish people suddenly find themselves
trapped by the sea, about to see their short-lived freedom about to come to a
horrific end, and moments later they see the amazing miracle of the splitting
of the sea, and all the Jewish people finally escape their pursuing captors. And,
moments later, when the waters settle, and they see the entire Egyptian army
destroyed, they finally experience another redemption, a spiritual and
emotional one, as they realize that those dark days of exile are really over,
because the mighty Egyptian nation is now gone forever.
It was not something they could ever have imagined, but upon seeing the
Egyptian army dead on the seashore, finally the truth hit home: That the
Jewish nation will never ever be tormented by these people ever again, for they
have been completely and utterly obliterated.
Even though we went out of Egypt, it was not a complete redemption and
we remain in a different exile. It’s is less physically demanding, we aren’t forced
to build cities, or flogged and beaten daily, but our distraction from G-d and
the challenge focus on spirituality, and G-d’s truth, remains just the same.
The only difference is that we now have even harder taskmasters controlling
us: Ourselves.
Then comes Acharon Shel Pesach: A day where we focus exclusively on
taking all the lessons and all of our inspiration of Pesach, from the seder to
the splitting of the sea, and applying it to our daily lives, to help us escape
our current exile.
We have to realize that world the way we see it, will soon be changed
forever. Evil, which we see as an integral part of life, which we cannot
imagine living without, will soon be completely destroyed. There might
come a time where we will find ourselves trapped by it, and it may even look
like the end of our lives! But then suddenly, Moshaich will come, and it will
be gone forever.
One the very last day of Pesach, during the very last hours of the day, the
power of redemption is at its greatest.
It is at this moment that we can tap into the inspiration and use it to
‘jump’ (Pesach) out of our current exile.
We each have our own challenges. For some it’s keeping shabbos, for
others it is giving charity, for some it’s learning and for other it’s being more
patient and understanding of others. If challenged, we might just answer
‘This is how I am’, ‘this is me, I can’t change’. But the truth is that these are
challenges we all have to face eventually, we have to break out of these
personal exiles and limitations. And we can harness the essence of Pesach
and redemption to propel our lives to a level we could not usually reach on
our own.
The last hours of the Pesach holiday are when this energy is strongest. It’s
when we are most inspired. We have fulfilled all the customs of the six days
of Pesach, and now we have drunk the four cups of wine, we have eaten the
Matza, we have listened, we have sung, we have resolved and we have become
uplifted.
And at the last few moments, as we all close our eyes, singing and dancing
together, this is the very moment when we will feel that Moshiach is actually
here, when we can believe that if we would only open our eyes, we would
see him right there dancing with us. And if we truly believe that, with all
our hearts, then when we open them, he will finally be here.

Did that ring any bells for anyone out there? I did not even know there was a holiday at the end of Passover. And now there is this idea”…One the very last day of Pesach, during the very last hours of the day, the power of redemption is at its greatest….”

here is a little more on the history : Moshiach Meal
Fun huh?