This was taken on 2/20, up in the woods in Hemlock. We went up this weekend and almost all of the snow is gone! They may still get snow, as it’s at 1700 feet. The dogs seem to like it either way.

I still haven’t had a chance to try sewing with the new machine. And we are probably off to visit the stepson this weekend, so likely won’t get a chance this weekend either. I am dealing with this:

There are other pictures of Jack on this blog. We got him back when we bought the place on Fern Prairie. He must be 15 or so now. He is the best cat I’ve ever had, smart and affectionate. About a month ago, his back legs started getting weak. I made an appointment to get him to the vets, but the truck broke down that day. Was almost two weeks before we got him in. The vet thought it might be bone spurs and gave me some prednisone for him. He was doing okay then, not walking well, but could drag himself back on the bed. And he had enough bladder control that I could take him over to the cat box to do his business. He’d even wake me up at night for that.

He has unfortunately gotten worse. He has feeling in his legs, so he’s not paralyzed but he can’t walk and has problems holding himself upright. And he is incontinent. I’ve managed to make it so that he can still be up on the bed at night, but I am doing a lot of laundry for the towels to keep every thing dry. I suspect it is just a matter of time. So, not a lot of sewing going on. It can wait for a bit. My vet has been on vacation this week, so I’ll talk to him next week and see what he thinks.

All the other cats that came with me, when I moved here, are buried in the yard somewhere. Jeter, Chuck and Pete have been gone for awhile. I tell myself it would be easier on Jack if he didn’t have to make that move. If he was healthy, there’d be no question about it. But he’s old and starting to fail. I may have to leave him behind, with his old buddies. It will be hard.

Lon has talked a lot about getting a second dog. He really likes Loretta, but thinks she would like to have another dog to play with. I’ve been hearing this on a regular basis and have my doubts about it. But he came up with an ad for a free Springer Spaniel and asked me if I wanted him. Without thinking about it too much, I said yes. I’ve had two Springers. They have great personalities, but tend to be hard headed. I like the Springer/Golden cross better, since they tend to mind better. (And that’s what Loretta is.)

Anyway, Jake’s owner got in a bad motorcycle wreck that morning and the doctors thought it might be a year before he’d recover. His family put the dog up for adoption. It’s not as heartless as it sounds. He is a high energy dog and loves to bark. When you spend a lot of time in the ICU, you just don’t have time left for an animal like that. So we wound up with Jake. He’s 9 months old, handsome and goofy. He’s extremely people oriented and does not like to be left alone. For the first three weeks, Lon slept in the recliner so that Jake wouldn’t bark all night. (The cats have retreated to the bedroom). We are finally past that stage. We have a large wire crate which has helped with all of this and I am now trying to get him to settle down around the cats. He just gets so worked up! And Loretta hates him. And I’m not talked about irritated–she turns into an ugly snarling dog when he’s around her in the house. She’s better with him outside. So the house is still in an uproar. But we truly like him. He’s a sweet dog and has real potential. He is a much better watch dog than Loretta.

And we discovered that he loves water:

One of my favorite new blogs does her resolutions on Groundhog Day. I thought it was a great idea!  So here are my fiber resolutions (which I’m going to cross post over on Spinditis.)

• Knit three cardigans. At least one will be done from handspun
• Buy yarn only for specific projects. The only exemption is sock yarn.
• Sew at least three new skirts and tops.
• Make at least three new pairs of socks.
• Sell off some knitting books/magazines
• Use or give away yarn and fiber stash
• Design one sweater and one shawl
• Make as much food as possible from scratch
• Start an herb garden.
• Do more dyeing.

I want to work in color this year. I love my natural colored fleeces, but I feel the need for more color. I also want to work more intentionally this year. I want to knit sweaters to go with clothes that I make. I don’t know how many more years I will be able to knit and spin. Best to start working with an end in mind.

It’s the holidays and I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. But Petey, my old polydactyl cat is dying of cancer. He doesn’t have much time left. He’s down to skin and bones and today, he doesn’t want to eat anything I offer him. And I tried everything I could find from the store. So I wanted to write my post now, before he goes.

I got Pete from the Humane Society. I lied and told them I didn’t have any pets, because I didn’t have licenses for my animals. I wanted to save one cat. They had a large multi-caged area with kittens and Pete was just one of many. He kept tapping at the cage, and giving these short little meows. I asked to see him. And I told him that he had no idea what he would be getting into, with multi-animal household. He let me know that he was ready for anything, so I took him home. From what little I know of him, he was found loose on the streets. He is a polydactyl, with six toes on each front foot and seven on each back foot. He has one fused, double claw on his front foot that can’t be retracted. I named him after Pete Townsend, for his jumping ability.

Jeffrey and I used to joke about him being an alien from outer space, sent down to learn about humans. He is a character and really did seem to be studying us. He loved to get on Jeffrey’s shoulder for pets. Lon tells me that Pete will visit him at night, after I’ve gone to bed. Petey has always been a very vocal cat. Even during his illness, when I get up in the morning, he makes sure I know that it’s time for breakfast. He took care of Jack as a kitten, although they have sort of a love/hate relationship now. When I lived in that unheated trailer, Petey would join me under the shawl on top of my covers and stretch out in the warmth. He has always loved to be covered up under a shawl. It’s strange for him to turn his back on that now.

It’s been about a year since he had what I now believe was a stroke. He was circling when he walked. The vet wanted to run tests, but I convinced him that it was an inner ear infection. He got steroids and stuff for his ears. I was not happy with that vet. He acted like I would have a problem giving Petey pills. Petey has never hurt me and I had no problems at all giving him meds. In fact, I shared my prednisone with him and I think that is why he lasted so long. I did decide that he will die at home. I’m not taking him into the vets’ again. And so it has gone, with him getting thinner and thinner. It is painful to watch of course. He truly is a shadow of what he used to be. But he is at home in familiar surroundings. And he will be with me until the end of his life.

Black cats are hard to photograph, so I don’t have any many pictures of him as I’d like. So here are a few attempts to capture the cat that preferred to be in motion.

UPDATE: Petey died Christmas morning. I think I checked him right before he went. He’d manage to make it to the kitchen, ready to ask for food one more time. He’s been buried in the back yard. RIP, Petey. I’ll miss you.

I thought it was time I took a picture of Pete, since he was recently sick. He’s definitely doing better. And I like this picture of Fanny. It’s a bit surreal. She likes to sleep on top of that sewing machine.

I’m on the last couple of days of steroids. I’ll be completely off them. I think I’m going to be fine. I’ve managed to get the house cleaned up a bit. I’ve been doing some spinnning lately so most of my recent posts have been over on the Spindlitis site. It’s been great weather recently, but I still don’t have a garden in yet.

I’m taking a couple of days off for the Fourth. We’ve talked about watching the fireworks on the beach at the Fourth, so I wanted to give us an option to go. I think we can set up the van to camp out if we want. This is still in the planning stage.

They don’t live with me any more, but they are still having kids! Here’s Lily with her two brand new kids.

Lily was bred to a mini-nubian buck so these kids should be small goats. This is her second kidding and I’m happy to see that it went well. One last goat picture. These are Scamper’s latest:

These are Lily’s first kids. She had a trouble free kidding, which I am really happy about. And these might be the cutest kids ever.

Finally managed to take a few pictures of the goat kids. It was somewhat intense sun for us, so they are a little washed out.

Scamper kids

Notice that this part of the yard is in serious need of a cleanup. I have plans for a dump run next month and we will finish taking down that partial shed then as well.These are the kids I call the fairy goats. They are not much taller than our puppy, Loretta. They were born in January and I think that is part of the reason they are so small. The mom, Scamper, is not a big goat and I doubt they will be very big. The front kid we call Suzi. The back kid is the wether, Gee-Bee.

Maddie’s kids

These are Maddie’s two kids. She’s sort of at the back of the picture. They’re pretty well mannered. We don’t have really great names for these. The wether we call “Eyebrows” because he has an eyebrow shaped white spot on his forehead. We call the doe “Skunk-head” because of a larger white blaze. You can tell Jeffrey came up with these names.

Lily on the move

This is Lily, one of the orphaned kids from last year. We love her and Ragnar, the brother. They are so nice to work with. I think we are going to go with bottle fed kids from here on out. Lily is sort of a hillbilly goat, as she was bred by her father this winter. We moved him in during the height of the snow to add to the heat in the shed. Guess there was a bit too much heat. We will probably not keep her kids as a result. I am hoping she comes through this first kidding okay so that I can finally have a milk goat again. Her bag is developing nicely. I guess we’ll find out how it goes in the next month.

Loretta up close

It’s sure hard to get good pictures of young animals. It’s amazing to us how much Loretta looks like the golden/springer cross we used to have, in this picture. She’s such a good puppy.

Loretta posing

This is a slightly better picture. She’s still growing but I doubt she will be as big as Wallace, our lab.

She’s a good puppy, really she is. But she has what we think of as “springer mind”. She gets so focused on what she’s doing that she simply cannot hear us. Today is an example. I took her out before work. She was off in the woods at the neighbors. I walked up the drive to check on her and she was staring up the road. Then I noticed the elk, the same ones that have been coming down lately. I yelled “NO” at Loretta and the elk took off up the hill. Of course, when they started moving, Loretta started off after them. They were already gone by the time she got to the hill but I still couldn’t turn her around. I had to start up the hill, stick in hand, before it finally sunk in that she was in big trouble. She turned and ran back down to the trailer. When I caught up to her, I gave her a shake and chewed her out. She was sorry. She’s always very sorry and sad afterwards. I just hate the thought of her getting trampled by angry elk and somehow, we have to get her to learn what no means. We’re friends again, but it’s going to take time to turn her into the dog we want.

This is Loretta. She’s an 8 week old Springer/Golden cross. It’s hard to take good pictures of black dogs.

I’ll try and see if I can get a picture of her awake this weekend.

Well clearly, I have not posted about the goats lately. They kidded on the 14th, both of them. I heard Scampers kids when I went out to check on them that morning. Maddie has hers right after I left for work. It took her a half hour total to birth three kids. Both goats had triplets and both had two does and a buck. This is good. It will give us a bunch of does and hopefully a few milkers out of the lot.

Of course, it was cold when they were born, but it was a good thing they weren’t born this week. Temps have really plunged. They were below freezing a bit before at night, but warming up to the 40s by day. Now we are in the teens when we get up, down to nine degrees F this morning. It’s in the 20s during the day. Jeffrey is having problems hauling water as the hose he normally uses is under two feet of snow, which is now basically ice covered concrete. The long walk out to the car is treacherous, as it is also slick. So far the animals are doing okay. The kids curl up behind their mothers back, lying between her and the stall divider. We moved Bucko into the goat shed the last few nights, to add a bit more heat. There is composting hay and such in the stalls which also bleeds out some heat. But basically, it’s not good. The older they get, the less we have to worry. I’ll try and take pictures if it ever warms up.

(I know you like these!) I was sitting around the trailer yesterday, listening to it rain. I heard this noise that sounded like a chick in distress. I thought it might be one of the little orphan chicks so I went outside. But as I got off the porch, the sound faded. So I went back on the porch and followed the sound. Moved a board out of the way under the trailer step and then moved out the foam stuffed down there for insulation. I saw a large pile of eggs and one very cold little chick. I picked him up and moved him inside to get warmed up. I thought, this just isn’t going to work. I’m not going be able to raise a single chick inside without a heat lamp. So I went back out and checked again. There was a buff on the nest. Chick and mama have been reunited. I hope that she wasn’t off the nest too long. I left it so that we can remove any eggs that don’t hatch. It just seems crazy, to have chicks this time of the year.

I’m getting more typewriters. I’m on a manual typewriter kick. I actually have three although one is buried in the shed. I’ve been typing on an old Remington and also picked up a 1951 Smith Corona Clipper. And it’s fun. I’d forgotten how much fun it is to bang on a keyboard that has levers. I’ve got two more typewriters I’ll pick up tomorrow, thanks to Freecycle. Low tech is so much fun.

First, the keepers:
Spot, now renamed Lily

Next is Jeffrey’s goat Ragnar:

Did a little wetherizing this weekend. We have four buck kids and the Scamper twins have basically been horny from birth. They are big stocky boys too. Since all the goats are closing in on three months old, it was time for a change. I used the burdizzo again, which bloodlessly crushes the cords to the testicles. I then give a shot of Owee-Eaze which is 55% grain alcohol. It also has some herbs in it but is like giving them a shot of whiskey. I try to make sure that I catch the cords the first time, so I don’t have to do it again in a few weeks. We’ve done the bands and cut them, but this really seems to be the least painful.

The difficult decision was Ragnar. We’d considered keeping him for a buck, as we are still thinking about selling Bucko. The problem is that there is a chance that he might not work out as a buck and we’d have to get rid of him. We really like this little guy and I’ve been trying to convince Jeffrey to train him as a pack goat. So we decided to go ahead and do him as well. The goats were a bit subdued afterwards. They are not used to strong drink. The deed has been done and is behind us.

I got my hoof trimming set from Hoeggers and it is worth every penny. I did Scamp, Maddie and Bucko’s hooves. It slices right through them. It also sliced through my thumb a bit when Scamp moved at a bad time. I bled quite a bit but it’s healing up okay. And that’s about all the goat updates I have. I’ll try and post the latest pics this week.