Cutest Grandkids Ever

The Texas family has gone home. I need to get back to my regular work. But I also want to share some of these Cute Grandkid photos. After all, this blog is really mostly a scrapbook for myself as well as being partly about my business of weaving and raising sheep. When there are so many photos and I get behind then it's harder to start. Too many photos. This one or that one? Delete? Edit? Share? I made the hard decision and chose some of my favorites from one of the first days the kids were here. Kirby had gone on an overnight trip with the other grandma and I went with Katie and 17-month-old Kasen to San Francisco for an informal brunch following Katie's friend's wedding the previous day. We stayed about as long as Kasen could last and then took him to the beach.

                  I love the expressions on this kid's face.

Later that day...

             The hay feeders are a little high for Kirby to reach without the hay falling all over her.

                 Kirby told me she was making a nest for the other chickens.

Goat Frolic

Farm Club members came yesterday to help with lamb vaccination. We weighed and vaccinated and evaluated all 75 lambs but I didn't take any photos while we were working. The next chore was to work with the goat kids and Amaryllis. Amaryllis is off the pasture and in a smaller pen to keep her away from the green grass to prevent another bout of laminitis. She also needs to lose weight and she should get some exercise every day. The goats need to practice manners and leading when asked.

                  Goat paparazzi.

                I'm not sure that I'd call this mannerly but everyone had fun.

Thanks Farm Club!

Goats

Amaryllis is our donkey and has chronic laminitis (see this story). Because of that she can't go out on the pasture or even in the back corral while the grass is green back there. She is in her own pen with a wether as a buddy. That is a poor substitute for another equine  and the sheep isn't too thrilled with the plan either. I thought long and hard about getting Amaryllis a friend. It doesn't make sense for us to have another donkey or a mini-horse or any other equine--from the standpoint of space and cost of upkeep. When Stephany was still alive she was Amaryllis' best friend. Stephany was a goat.             The last time there were goats here they were Chris' Toggenburgs that he raised for his FFA project. Stephany was the last goat from that era.                                                          Before that I had owned one goat. This is an Angora goat named Chenille in a photo from 1997. Katie was 9 then.

I contacted someone I knew who might have goats for sale and went to her place when she had some ready to go.                 These are two of a set of quads. One was the smallest of the batch and the other was having some trouble drinking from the LambBar bucket with all the others.                  I am not planning to show goats and I am bottle-feeding so those points didn't matter...                    ...and I brought these babies home.                      Oops. A third goat came along--mainly because my friend didn't plan to raise him and I figured that I could find a home for him eventually.                   Te goats are popular with Farm Club friends.

                                                That's Ellie on the left and Amelia on the right.                 Their temporary buddy, Kevin, is in the middle. He's going to a new home tomorrow. Thank goodness.                       It's sure easier to feed two than three.

                       I have been keeping the kids in the barn  but the weather has turned nice and I wanted to introduce them to Amaryllis. She was definitely interested.                   I hope that they will become her new BFFs. Here is Rusty's version of getting goats.

Amaryllis and Her New Shoes

Amaryllis has laminitis and I've been struggling with her condition off and on for several years. I should have known better than to get a donkey as a guardian animal for sheep that graze irrigated pasture but I did not realize the risk. Donkeys can thrive in desert conditions and can easily put on weight under any other situation. That, along with a multitude of other related factors, puts them at risk for laminitis. She had a flare-up in October. I think it was a result of breeding season. I had the sheep separated into several different breeding groups and Amaryllis was getting little bits of alfalfa from under the fence that she shared with one of the groups. Maybe that had nothing to do with it but I thought that it might have been the trigger.

               My regular vet was out of town and I called U.C. Davis. The equine vets came out and evaluated her. This radiograph shows that there is slight rotation of the bone, which should be parallel to the hoof wall, but the coffin bone has not dropped down to the sole, which can happen in severe cases.                  Temporary pain relief was provided by some cushy pads that were measured and then cut to fit.

                 A paste of betadyne and sugar was applied to help the foot dry out...

          ...and then the pads were taped in place.             This was just to help cushion her feet until the farrier could get here for the next trim.             She was also prescribed a variety of medications to help with pain and weight loss, some of which I had used before.

This was a month ago. In the meantime I attended the Donkey Welfare Symposium at UC Davis. It was an excellent program but I came home more depressed about the whole situation. At home I was struggling with how little improvement I saw, even with all the medications.

The vet offered another idea--SoftRide boots. Those came today. They are an outer boot with a gel orthotics.

             The instructions said to wrap the foot with plastic wrap when you first try the orthotics so that you can send them back if they don't fit.            That is easier said than done. I got the plastic on the foot OK but by the time I had her standing on the orthotics they weren't in exactly pristine condition anymore.                   I decided that I'd just have to go for it and put the boots on.

          What an amazing difference they made. This is the first time I've seen Amaryllis walk without obvious pain in weeks if not months. I don't know if this is a permanent fix, but at least she is more comfortable now and will maybe be able to get a little exercise--even if that is just me leading her around the corral every day.