well folks, after a 10day myspace hiatus, I'm back. I've had a pretty hectic 2 weeks since returning from the Thanksgiving road trip, and have been pretty out of touch with everyone. i'm sorry for just now getting back on here and reading backlogged emails and comments. If you make it to the end, I hope you'll get a piece of the picture about why I've been MIA.
The semester is ending at my work, which means it is one of my busiest times of year. In addition to the usual end of semester stress, I'm on a committee that is meeting frequently and in the evenings (I'll be at work past 8pm tonight). I'm taking the morning off to take care of some business at the house, because today is my only chance to do so this week despite the extra-long days.
Home hasn't been much of a respite lately...there has been a lot of farm drama. We've got moms that are too caring, and won't wean their babies, so we have to do it for them. A week ago, we separated two of the babies from their moms. We put a year-old female (Samsara) in with them for company. They spent the last week in a pen away from the rest of the herd in an attempt to wean the babies. Every day for the last week, when I went to feed the babies, they were wimpering and crying...hard and draining.
This past weekend (2 days ago) we did routine vaccinations on the whole herd (everyone gets a shot in the arm!). While I giving a shot to the female baby (Brinca), the male (Amcharo) decided that I was in the perfect position to jump on and start humping. Since I was standing bent over and had a syringe in one hand, it was not easy to shove him off and smack him as hard as I should have. After we vaccinated all the animals, we put the girls (Brinca and Samsara) back in with the rest of the girls. Since Amcharo is clearly starting to act like an unruly boy and can't be with the girls anymore, he needs to move in with the boys. We were hesitant to put Amcharo in with the really big boys, because he'll most likely get really injured...boys play really rough. We decided to try putting Amcharo with Dash, our year-old boy. When we got the two in a pen together, Amcharo and Dash sniffed each other, and Dash promptly kicked Amcharo in the head. It must have really hurt, because Amcharo staggered away shaking his head. That's when I broke down crying...despite having been jumped on by the kid less than an hour earlier, it was just heartbreaking to think about the fact that he'll never be with his mom again, and he'll spend the next few weeks getting beaten up by Dash and eventually by the bigger boys.
When we finished with the herd, we started doing some repairs on the chicken coop. The hut was long overdue for a new interior ceiling. The old ceiling had been put together by attaching insulation covered in cardboard to the inside of the corrugated metal roof. After years of mice and pidgeons and chickens messing with the cardboard, there were several big holes in the ceiling with insulation falling out. We had a pretty easy time ripping out the old ceiling, and mucking out the hen house. Things seemed to be going ok--demolition is a pretty good for healing a broken heart. The chickens had been running around the yard while we were ripping down the ceiling. We decided to take a break, and when everything was quiet, the chickens decided to explore their house. While I was standing in the coop enjoying watching the chickens, one of my favorite little hens caught a mouse, killed it, and started playing with it...that was the second time I broke down crying this weekend.
I'll jump forward to Sunday night when I spoke to my dad. My grandma has been in the hospital for the last week, and is not improving. The doctor wanted him to start thinking about what he would want to do if she needs a feeding tube in the next few days. I wish that I knew how to best support him in making the difficult decisions that he'll have to make.
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