Brief respite from rain
May 23, 2011
Yesterday was a busy farm day. Besides a massive, two-tiered list of things we had to accomplish, we also had a delicious breakfast, pie after dinner and received advice regarding an animal not doing too well on the farm.
On the list end of things, we moved Merriweather to a new pasture. He now has access to his old home and seems quite satisfied there.
We also transplanted some rhubarb from the backyard to along the front garden, next to the garlic. The change was necessary because we have our ruminants out back right now and, the goats at least, seem to be able to handle the leaves (though we thought otherwise...guess we'll have to keep an eye on them now). So they were mowing down our beautiful and big rhubarb, so we dug up a bunch of roots and put them in a more appropriate place.
Then, after moving Merri and getting his old fence all put away and his space cleaned up, I came around the corner of the barn to see Sandman, a goat we got from a friend, lying on her side, head lolling. Now, that's not a good sight to see. I honestly thought she was either dead or damn close to it. But when I approached her, she was perfectly alert, just did not want to get on her feet. So I trimmed her hooves while she was lying down, and we then tried to make her stand. She protested a little but eventually rose, clearly in pain.
Not knowing what else to do, we called her old owners, who called a goat person. Both came over and took at look at her. The goat manager was quite physical with her, and made sure that she knew she was supposed to be walking, not sitting. As he explained it, she has arthritis and sitting or lying down for long spells is the worst for the problem.
Once we forced her to move, she seemed to do alright, though was still not looking great. The goat manager had wondered about having to put her down, but said we'd give her a stay and she how she was doing in the next few days.
Beyond that excitement, we then busted out some garden chores, tilling and planting the bean and squash sections. Besides potatoes, tomatoes and second plantings of greens, we're pretty much all set in the garden, which feels good.
And now. the clouds and rain are back...ugh.
