Animals are a personal heaven

Yesterday we lost our precious goat Oreo.  I'm actually out of town right now working which doesn't make this any easier.  Poor girl had been sick for about 3 weeks now and we had made the decision that if she was still in the same condition when I came home we'd put her down.
I'll be honest I cried for a good while yesterday, too some people she was just a goat but too me she was my child, my goat child.  I had picked her and sunday up from the stockyards as tiny baby goats not quite a year ago.  We bottle fed them both and they even lived in the house for a short period of time when it got really cold outside.  Oh but they loved the showbarn, they loved to play with the calves and run and jump.  She even thought she was a dog at sometimes I do believe.  She would try to herd the cattle up and out when it was time.  I can't help but sit here and cry as I write this. 
I am very lucky that I still have precious sunday but I'm very sad for her too as she's lost her best friend and sister.  Now we already have plans on getting another goat as soon as I get home as a buddy for miss sunday but I know it will never replace our oreo.
Now to the non animal person this would just sound plain crazy talking about an animal as if it was your own child.  But when you tend to god's creatures they do become your childern.  I believe in god full heartly and I know he is waiting for me in heaven along with many loved ones I've lost both in animal and human form.  If you don't know me personally I've attended my fair share of funerals these past couple of years and I would gladly be happy to retire the black attire, but I know that god has a reason for death as he does life it's all in his master plan, including my poor oreo.  Some people say that animals don't go to heaven they have no soul that it's only a people heaven.  I don't believe them at all, god created us all equal and I believe that in animal form as well as human form, you can't look an animal in the eyes and tell me it doesn't have a soul.  So when it's my time I won't be sad I'll be happy because I know my oreo and all my loved ones will be there welcoming me with open arms, paws and hooves :)

2010 Dodge Ram 1500

New Truck :)

As promised here is pictures of my new purchase.  If your thinking of purchasing a new truck I highly recommend the new dodges.  I absolutely love this truck!  It's a 2010 1500 Big Horn, I was in no way planning on buying a 2010 but I actually found this one USED!!  Got a great deal and now feel way more productive and in my own skin driving this bad boy compared to the hybrid!

Bye Bye Camry you will be missed!

After being pulled out of the ditch for the umptenth time this week with all this snow we've been getting, I decided to trade in my camry hybrid for a truck!  I mean I've been fighting the decision for a while now and this was the decision maker.  Now your wondering why a good ol' american farm girl is drivin a camry? Let alone a hybrid??  Well when I bought the thing new in the fall of 07 I was traveling full time with my job and at the time they just remburst me mileage.  About 4 months after I traded for the camry the state got me my own vehicle a jeep grand cherokee, but I was determined to keep the hybrid because heck here at the farm we have 2 rangers and a dually so if I need a truck I could just go borrow one from the main farm.  As you know in Nov. we bought our new little farm here in camden Andy and I did.  My poor camry was in hauling overload then, poor thing was stuffed constinitly with feed, equipment, animals, etc.  Well when this snow finally hit the poor camry finally bit the dust.  Oh I will definitly miss the camry and the 50 miles to a gallon I got.  But o did I get a beautiful truck to replace it!  I will post pictures of the new vehicle later!

Sleeping with the goats

On our farm we advertise that we raise cattle and performance horses, but from my last blog as you can see we have two nanny goats named oreo and sunday.   They are my babies I picked them up at the stockyards last spring as complete new borns in fact their dried umblical cords were still on!  As you can guess with some help from the family we bottle fed them and raised them with the cattle.  They are a complete joy!  You never know what these crazy girls will do.  Well when andy and I moved to our little farm here in camden we brought the goats too.  Of course they've settled right in by now and entertain the roadtravelers with their tricks ( I found random pics of sunday on bella's back on facebook from people I didn't know!)  But unfortunately we noticed about 3 days ago that oreo was a little "off" so we called the vet adn they said she had a type of worm so we doctored her for that, she still wasn't any better then wednesday night I noticed that the right side of her face was completely paralyzed poor girl can't move her lips or even blink her eyes now because of that, that particular eye has dried out and extremely inflamed :(  The final diagnoses was yesterday when she began circling!  She has circling diease so at least I was able to get her treated for the right thing, but we have her and her buddy Sunday moved into the house.  Doc said it'd take a couple of days before we could tell if she was gonna make it:(  So last night I cuddled up too poor oreo in the basement and rubbed her back until she fell asleep (cried a little in there too).  She made it through the night and seems to have slight improvement but idk if that's me with wishful thinking.  So please keep my baby oreo in your prayers.

Bella the cow and her trick partner Sunday the goat!

This winter has been unusally long and hard with lots of snow and my least favorite MUD!  Our goats have been taking it the worst of any of the animals as they hate to get dirty, they tip toe around the mud and run around it as much as possible.  We have our one donor  Bella here at our house along with our replacements, unfortunately Bella doesn't produce naturally and just flushes for us, so we keep her around with the replacements so she isn't in heat around the heavy preggers.  Well as you can imagine she is rather large since she doesn't raise a calf.  I don't know if Bella is jealious of the other cows and their calves or what but I do believe she has decided to adopt our goat sunday as her own!  I started noticing sunday and oreo crawling up on Bella's back and sleeping or playing a round of king of the hill on Bella!  As you can imagine this is quite a hillarious site!  Well now they have taken the cake!  Bella now escorts miss sunday around the pasture on her back!!  We live on the main road and you wouldn't believe the cars slowing down to see our little circus act!!  But now poor Sunday no longer has to trudge around in the mud!!

Marriage counseling farmer style!

My fiance Andy was not born on a farm, in fact he grew up in town!!  So needless to say our relationship has been a eye opening experince.  Obviously he loves the tractors and all the sunny weather summer work.  Now last winter we lived in a apartment on Main Street in Weston.  This fall we purchased our small piece of heaven here in Camden, half way between weston and the main farm in Sand Fork.  Right now we have 5 replacments, 2 broodmares, 2 goats,and 1 stallion!  That's just the outside critters, inside we have my cowdog (blue heeler) belle who just had 6 puppies and our three cats!!  Needless to say I'm a big time animal lover and can't stand to see one suffer.
Well this evening before my Valentine was planning to take me out to dinner.  I went out to feed the critters and notice our goat Oreo didn't show her normal bouncy self.  As I went to look for her I found her in the run-in shed not being her normal cheerful self :(  I'm the first to admit I'm not a goat expert so I was able to get ahold of my neighbors who are.  They gave Andy and I a shopping list of meds and we were off to Tractor Supply since it is sunday.  After spending a buck or two we made it back home just before dark.  Poor Oreo wouldn't even stand up for me to give her shots.  After to pouting to Andy about 3 minutes about how cold and miserable it would be out here tonight and we don't have a barn for them he let me bring the two goats into the basement :) 
I don't know if I told you or not but we have a really old farmhouse and in the back of the basement we have a old cellar room that is empty but has a door and a shoot vent.  I believe this would be the best place to put them and go grab a bad of shavings to put down and some food and water.
Needless to say the goats are a little confused and scared.
We are now sitting in our living room watching tv with puppies running around and goats yelling at us from underneath!  So this is the test of time, this is the test of a marriage is if my city boy can hang in our animal house with this old farm girl!!

Disappointments

Disappointments...... theres a lot to be said about them.  I've had several in my life and they all really stink, I mean you get disappointed about a lot of things in life.  You have disappointments with government ( thought we were gonna end the war??), you have disappointments with your job ( I was sure they were gonna buy that heifer), but I believe the worst disappointments you get in life are with your friends and family, the ones you really care about, those are the ones that sting.  My whole life I've been set up with these kind of disappointments, I'm one of those types of people for some reason or another I put a lot of trust and faith in people for no reason at all.  I think it's my human nature that if I just met you and you told me you were gonna do something I would trust you to do it no matter how long I've known you.  Obviously I get burned a lot with this problem but no matter what I still believe in people and that it should be our human nature to be honest.  As you can probably guess right now my girls weekend got cancelled and no i'm not a spoil little girl that is pouting because she didn't get to go shopping all weekend.  I'm just upset, it's not like it was a spur of the moment decision or an idea that just popped up in my head.  We had planned this trip for quite a while, but yet people who are suppose to be my friends ended up cancelling last minute on me.  I guess I see it as a bigger deal then they do.  I started to wonder though if this was a sign for my upcoming wedding.   Was it going to be another disappointment in the long list of relationship failures I have had in my life??  I think this is why I'm such an animal lover, because to no extent they give me unconditional love and never disappoint me.  For those of you with animals I think you understand where I'm coming from.  I can be in the most horrible mood in the world yet I can walk over to the barn and sit and watch my cows for hours and it's the best medicine in the world for me.  I could probably pay a therapist thousands and thousands of dollars and they couldn't do for me what my cows do in about 10 minutes.  So even though my valentines day weekend has turned to bust and I really am starting to question some decisions I've made in my life.  I'm grateful for my animals because they never disappoint me.