Heather Huffman's Blog, page 17

Meet Buckleberry Finn!

As much as I hate waiting, sometimes it’s totally worth it. When September came and went with no goat baby, I decided Goatsy was just going to be pregnant forever and I stopped watching.

So naturally, I came home from taking the boys to school on October 1st to realize she was in labor.

It wasn’t an easy delivery by any means, but it could have been a whole lot worse. She only needed minimal assistance, which is good, because this was my first time to help deliver a goat. Even if neither of us knew what we were doing, the end result was a healthy baby boy.

Though I was hoping for a doeling (girl), the little buckling (boy) we got quickly won my heart. He was born with his tongue sticking out, and he still sticks it out all the time. (Not ALL the time, like enough to make me worry or anything – just enough to be cute.)

I fretted over him the first day or so because I guess I just like to worry. There were a few hiccups (like half of Goatsy’s udder not cooperating), but they all seem to have ironed out now. And now that Buckleberry is old enough to have hit his jumping phase, I’m pretty confident he’s healthy and all is well. (Baby goats LOVE to jump. They’re pretty proud of the fact they can.)

My youngest son picked the name. He’s thrilled we went with his suggestion. I think it’s cute.

So far, I’ve only poked myself in the eye once because I was watching the baby goat instead of what I was doing. Productivity has slowed to a crawl around here. Even the dogs and cats sit lined up along the kidding pen to watch Buckleberry play. I have managed to take over 200 pictures of him in the two days he’s been alive. I can’t promise not to take 100 more today…

Baby goats are good for hours of entertainment.

Poor Goatsy was too tired to clean Buckleberry off, so I got the honor. It never stops amazing me, being there to watch a life begin.

 

He wasn’t too sturdy on his feet the first day. He landed on his rump a lot.

Notice Po in the background – that was his spot the entire time Goatsy was in labor. He didn’t let anything come near that corner of the kidding pen.

Kali was fascinated, watching him learn to stand

He kept peeking at me over his mom the first day.

See what I mean about the tongue? It’s cute.

That first full day, everything was fascinating, even the hay.

Sticking his tongue out, again

He’s standing so proud – he reminds me so much of his daddy here!

He has the prettiest blue eyes

The cats are fascinated by him. He’s fascinated by the tire playground.

He’s very proud now that he’s learned to jump

 

Barnyard Mix

I’m feeling a bit defensive for my beloved mutts lately. You see, in every area of farming and rural life, there is a contingent of people who swear by their favorite breed of whatever.

There was the former neighbor who told me she’d never breed mongrel ducks because they’d be ugly, and I’ve encountered a slew of chicken enthusiasts who think a mixed breed bird is an abomination.

It’s the same with the dogs and goats. People get in their heads that one particular breed is the bomb and nothing will every convince them otherwise. Quite honestly, I don’t care to. Opinions are like belly buttons; we all have one and they’re entitled to theirs.

I do, however, want to take some time today to post some pictures of my favorite mutts because I love them and want to celebrate their lives and their place in my life.

This pekin/ancona mix was the only drake (boy duck) from this year’s hatch. He was also the very first to hatch, so he’s special.

This is my absolute favorite duck from this year’s hatch. Pictures just can’t do her justice.

Shoeshine and Po were an unlikely mix that many told us would be a disaster. We took a chance on them and wound up with two of the best all-around farm dogs a person could ask for.

Katie and Blue love to slip through the goat fence to play in the hay. The goat behind them is a mutt, too, but he comes from amazing milkers and he’s the sweetest buck on the planet.

This is the rooster I plan to keep from this year’s hatch. His daddy is a bantam Cochin. I have no idea who his mama was, but I think he’s going to be beautiful when he’s all grown up!

This little hen is a cross between a Partridge Wyandotte and a bantam Cochin. I think she’s just about the cutest thing ever.

Kali and Charlie on their daily patrol. These two dogs are the backbone of the whole place…

Another of the ducks we hatched this last spring

 

Still waiting

I’ve come to realize a few things in the past month.

For one, I’m really glad I’m not a goat. For another, there is a reason most goat owners carefully log breeding dates – so they know when to expect babies.

The third thing is something I already knew, but I’m being reminded of: I really hate it when things are beyond my control.

Yep, we’re still waiting on Goatsy to have her babies. At this point, I’m convinced she’s either having quads or she’s actually been taken over by a parasitic alien. It’s up the air which is the case.

Oy, what a week

I should have known it wasn’t going to be a good week when my vacuum broke. I live in the country and have three sons – my vacuum is a dearly prized necessity. Since Adam and I have been wealth-challenged for the majority of our marriage, I’m pretty good at fixing things. Still, nothing I tried put my poor little vacuum back together again.

Next up on my week was Blake, the middle son. He’d been complaining about a sore under his ear. No matter how much we cleaned it, the darned thing kept getting worse, so he earned himself a trip to urgent care, a whole lot of high-powered antibiotics, and a few days off of school while the plague on his face healed.

Cue Dylan, the oldest. Monday night he took a few good hits at football practice, the kind that leave a guy staggering a bit while he assures his coach he’s fine. Tuesday morning, he just can’t get out of bed and tells me he really isn’t feeling well. So he stays home with the leprous child. By the end of the day, his lower right abdomen is in serious pain. He’s not running a fever but he’s showing other symptoms that have me a little on edge. So when he’s no better come Wednesday, back to urgent care I go, this time with child #1. Luckily, #2 was back at school by this point.

At this stage in my narrative, I have to pause to say that Reggie (the Jeep) must have felt left out, because he decided on Tuesday that it would be a good time to quit working. He’s our only vehicle. Thank God we have friends who know what they’re doing and are willing to help out. So the entire time I’m juggling kid drama, Adam is outside with our friend Dave trying to figure out why the danged Jeep won’t start. About all I’m good for on that end is Googling possibilities, which the men assured me was quite helpful.

So back to the kiddos… my mother gave us a ride to urgent care on Wednesday, where they examined Dylan then sent him straight over to the emergency room because they were afraid he either had appendicitis or internal bleeding/damage to an organ. Since he still wasn’t running a fever, the appendicitis was unlikely.

Commence testing. Seven hours of testing. The poor kid wasn’t allowed to eat or drink just in case they decided to do emergency surgery. He was nauseous, so the no food wasn’t a crisis, but by 9 pm he was kind of wishing they’d let him have a cracker or something. My mom and I weren’t at all nauseous, so the no food thing was kind of a crisis in our book, but we abstained out of solidarity.

The good news is Dylan didn’t need surgery, just time off physical activity. (No football until Monday at the earliest and the big game against their rivals is Tuesday.) Still, in the grand scheme of things, I’ll take it compared to what could have been.

All I’ll say about the insurance being submitted wrong is grrr.

Thursday, a little voice told me to try my vacuum again. It worked, and I’m calling it a miracle. I think Jesus knew I needed something to go right before I wound up in a corner braiding my hair and babbling.

Then Dave came up with a brilliant work around to get Reggie running again. Part of that was installing a push-button starting system, so Reggie is now high-class. Unfortunately, it’s gone to Reggie’s head because his instrument panel (and lights) won’t stop flashing. They were before, that was part of the problem, but now I think he’s just being a diva. Or there’s a short somewhere, but I’m leaning towards the diva explanation.

Child #1 is back at school today, although he’s hanging out in an “academic recovery room,” which just means he gets to stay put all day instead of changing classes. I love how much his school has worked with us to help Dylan. The people who work in the schools here are pretty fantastic.

Adam is seeing if he can figure out the mystery that is Reggie.

Even though it’s Friday, I guess my week is far from over. I still have to send a bunch of chickens and ducks to freezer camp tomorrow, which is my least favorite part of farming! I’m a little scared to ask “what else?”

My youngest son said something this morning that put it all in perspective for me, so I think I’ll end with that. He informed me that he’s ironed out his projected career path through life.

At age 18, I’m going to be a ninja. At 20, I’ll be an FBI agent. When I’m 31, I’ll be a PE coach. When I’m 40, I’ll be a redneck millionaire. Then at 50, I’ll be a pastor.

I’m glad at least one of us has things all figured out.

Their successes and my failures

I’m not sure what’s come over us, but the women at my church have been brutally honest lately – myself included. This epidemic seems to be spreading through the football moms as well. We’re all suddenly admitting our failures.

I’m not sure what sparked this onslaught of transparency, but it’s been astounding. The women I’ve always thought were the most together are openly telling me they feel like they’re totally dropping the ball in at least one area, or they’ve never been any good at something else.

What’s been the most eye opening about the entire thing is that they think it’s just them. Each one of us is looking at the other women around us, seeing only their successes. When we examine our own lives, we see only our failures.

Even if it’s only just in my little corner of the globe, it’s liberating to see the women around me to let themselves off the hook just a skosh. I love seeing our walls come down and to be able to just enjoy each other, to build each other back up.

Sure, we all have an area we could do better in. But we’re also a superwoman in our own way.

Eeek

Am I the only one who feels like I blink and another week has passed? I keep telling myself “things will slow down when [fill in the blank]” but it hasn’t happened yet. And still, I never seem to accomplish anything. I think such is the nature of living on a farm, writing, and raising boys. There is always something else that needs done.

Somehow in all of this craziness, I’ve got to find the time to read my niece’s first novel. She’s 15. Seriously, I couldn’t be prouder of her. What I’ve read so far is really good, so life needs to pause long enough for me to finish!

My boys and I are all struggling with being back on the school schedule. Just keeping up with school, homework and one child’s extracurricular activity makes it darn near impossible to keep up with family time and things like our daily Bible study. I miss my kids. I miss sleep. I have no clue how other moms do it!

That said, I am taking a couple hours tonight for me. There’s a Pinterest party at my church, which gives me an excuse to make some of the recipes I’ve been saving for the past year. I’m getting pretty excited about that. Actually, embarrassingly so, but they look sooo yummy. Now my stomach is growling just thinking about it.

Don’t forget that over the next month, there will be more stops on the Goddess Fish blog tour. It seems to be the tour for telling secrets, so you definitely want to tune in!

Last, my boys (the younger two) had been harassing me for a while, asking if they could have a dog that was a pet. (We have four big guard dogs that protect the farm.) I told them we had enough dogs. Then my pastor’s daughter happened to have a litter of beagle mix pups. (Well, her dog did anyway.)

Somehow, I wound up with not one but two of them. Sigh.

Okay, who am I kidding? I’m as crazy about them as the boys are. Meet Blue and Katie. They follow me like shadows all around the farm and keep me company when the boys are gone.

This and that

Hi all! Just a quick check-in to let everyone know that we’re still waiting on those baby goats.

I’m kind of excited because my church is throwing a Pinterest Party, where we all bring a dish we prepared from a recipe on Pinterest and do a craft we found on Pinterest as well. I think this is brilliant – it gives me a reason to finally make one of those recipes I’ve been pinning. If you have any ideas, let me know! (And if we haven’t connected yet on Pinterest, here’s my profile.)

The blog tour for Fool’s Game is kicking off today as well, so be sure to stop by to check it out!

Today I’m over at Room with Books and JM Stewart’s blog.

I hope you all have a fabulous week!

 

Waiting for baby

Waiting for each of my babies to be born was an excruciating exercise in patience. By the time labor set in, I welcomed the pain because it meant the wait was over. I’ve never been very good at accepting when something is out of my control, and when it comes to babies being born, they are most definitely in charge.

It’s been 9 years now since I’ve had to endure the baby wait. I kind of figured I had some time before I had to go through it again, assuming it would be with grandkids.

I guess Goatsy wanted to be sure I got her good side

And then I got goats. Not that I’m comparing my kids to goats, but having my children was the last time I was this excited about pending labor. One of my two favorite goats is due to kid any day now. This will be the first goat baby or babies born on our property (Nigerian Dwarfs can have anywhere from 1 to 4 kids at a time).

I’ve read and re-read all the signs of labor. I have my bag of supplies ready for the big day. We got the fence up around a special pasture, and I built a little house for Goatsy and Snickers. (Our other favorite goat is in with Goatsy to keep her company.) I’ve checked Goatsy one thousand times at least during the past week. I even cut my fingernails off just in case I had to assist with the birth. (I am a little sad about the fingernails.)

Yesterday, I was just about positive she was going in to labor soon. Today, not so much. It turns out I have about as much control over goat babies as I did my own.

Sigh.

One of the cats decided the new goat house was a great perch.

Kali has been keeping an eye on the girls for me.

Fernando isn’t so sure about me putting two of his ladies in a separate pasture.

Castle, my son’s cat, stopped by to say hi to Snickers and Goatsy, who were lounging on the roof. It was super helpful.

Snickers thought I might have a tasty treat in my box of supplies. That was super helpful, too.

 

 

Five things I’ve been doing instead of keeping up with my blog

1) Getting settled into a back-to-school routine. As hard as it is to believe that summer vacation is over, the boys are full-swing back into the academic world. For the most part, it’s gone pretty well so far – although I’d forgotten how much I loathe the alarm. My middle son was the most excited about the school year since he’s at the middle school now. His enthusiasm has been dampened by his math/science teacher, who seems to be rather snarky and impatient with the kids. The man has no patience when the kids don’t understand him right away, and since Blake’s accident, he tends to get confused somewhat easily. I’m trying really hard to give Blake coping strategies since he’ll one day have a boss who doesn’t care about his traumatic brain injury any more than this teacher does, and we’ve added Mr. Cranky to our prayer list (but I don’t have him on there as Mr. Cranky, promise). Still, I’ve told Blake all he has to do is say the word and I’ll happily unleash my inner Mama Bear on this teacher.

This is last year’s picture. Looking at it, I can’t believe how much this kid has grown in 12 months!

2) Being a football mom. Back-to-school is one thing. Football season is an animal all its own. Don’t get me wrong, I love football season. The highlight of my day is watching the team practice, and I am counting down to their first game. Still, there’s a lot of work that goes on to be sure the team is fed before games and getting information out to other parents. Then there’s the fundraising. Last year’s big event was Kiss the Pig, and kids put money into each coach’s jar to see who would have to kiss a pig at the last home game of the year. This year, we’re looking to top the pig venture, but so far we don’t have any brilliant ideas. Well, we had one, but the coaches shot it down right away. Apparently none of them were willing to dress up like a cheerleader or even do a cheer during the game, so we’re back to the drawing board. (If you have any ideas, I welcome them!)

3) Blogging. Not too terribly long ago my husband and I revived a blog we’d kept up until early 2012. It’s called echad, which is the Hebrew word for one. On it, I talk about what being a Christian means to me in today’s world. I write about my struggles, my triumphs and random insights from my Bible studies. Every week, I post my favorite quote from my pastor. Since my husband and I both have a heart for social justice, we also regularly talk about those issues and how people can get involved in making the world a better place. Although my faith is integral to who I am, so it’s never absent from my writing, I also don’t discuss it here much because it just doesn’t feel like it’s right venue for that. So, if you’re interested in learning more about that side of me, I encourage you to check echad out!

4) Fencing, and not the interesting kind. I don’t know if the fencing projects will ever end. I think and hope I’m almost finished, but I also thought I was finished with my goat pen for the season and then Cinnamon kindly showed me I wasn’t. So we’ll see. Over the course of the summer, my family has fenced the alpaca pasture, two goat pastures, and a yard in the front and back. Most of this was done with saplings we cleared from the pastures and scrap fencing we found. The last fence for the season is the horse pasture, and it should be complete by Thursday. Even thinking about all we’ve done makes me tired all over again. I have to admit I’m really proud of us, though. My aunt came over for lunch after church last Sunday. She hadn’t seen the place since we moved in last March. She couldn’t get over how much we’ve done, and that made me super happy. Suddenly, it all felt really worth it.

5) Watching Duck Dynasty. I know I’m late to the party, but my 9-year-old has recently introduced my family to the wonders of the reality show Duck Dynasty. It took about two episodes for us to become totally and completely addicted. I love the family in that show, and watching their antics has become my family’s new favorite way to unwind after a day of our own adventures. Our schedule has been so chaotic lately that at the end of the day, instead of checking in online like I’m supposed to, I find myself vegging out on the couch with my boys in front of Duck Dynasty. (We still don’t have cable. We bought the DVD.) If that’s not a good bonding experience, I don’t know what is.

 

And the winners are…

Before I announce the winners from my blog contest, I have to apologize for keeping everyone in suspense for so long.  Remember the leg injury I mentioned last week or so? Well, and I know this will surprise everyone, I apparently didn’t give it enough time to heal before I started pushing the leg too hard. As a result, I wound up with an incredibly painful swollen lymph node in my thigh. There was a hospital visit and a blood clot scare that ended with an admonishment to take it easier for a while.

The leg injury still smarts a bit, but it is definitely much better and getting better every day. Of course, by the time I was allowed off the couch again at all, I was so far behind in my life that it took a few more days before I was able to even think about catching up on the book stuff.

All of that to say I’m very sorry for taking so long to post this, and without further delay, here are the lucky winners:

$50 Amazon Gift Card – Karlee

Mason Jar Soap Dispenser – Cindy Davis McMinn

Pig Yarn Bowl – Jen Linn Dale

Handmade Goat’s Milk Soap – Tammy Dalley, Pamela Hargraves & Sydney Dobronyi

Ebook pack –  Jane J. & Ellen Totten

Congratulations to all of the winners and a big thank you to everyone who entered! The winners should be hearing from someone on the Booktrope team in the next week to coordinate getting your prizes to you. (Probably Sophie, she’s super sweet; you’ll like her.)

For those of you who are, like me, scurrying around like a crazy person with the back-to-school season, best of luck to you!