This week began with Mothra getting her head stuck in a chain link fence.
It was early in the morning, I was about to head over to my cousin’s house to get ready for milking, when I saw her out in the yard. She had just extricated Mothra - for the second time! Apparently there had been a peanut on the ground just outside the gate, and Mothra had pushed her nose against the chain link until she pushed through. And then she was stuck.
Jan freed her the first time, went back inside, and then when she let the house dog out for his morning run in the yard, Mothra was stuck again. That was when Jan noticed the peanut and picked it up.
We were both way more upset than Mothra was. We had visions of her being stuck for hours, needing water, unable to free herself. But Mothra had none of these thoughts. She was thinking about her next peanut.
We talked about patching the chain link while we milked, and decided we should use baling twine - we have an entire barrel of it. We pull several feet of it off each bale of hay in order to break the bales into flakes. We thought we ought to patch the fence just the way you’d darn a sock - which our grandmother had taught us both to do. Although, neither of us darn much any more. Jan’s sister Judy taught me a much better way to patch my socks. I just knit a big patch and sew it on over the hole.
Anyway, here’s our patched fence:
OK. You can probably see why I knit entire patches for my socks, rather than darning. This looks like the work of a five-year-old. BUT, it has worked perfectly. No one has gotten their heads stuck since!
Now some terribly sad news. Over the weekend, my beloved cat, Zuli, died. We had been together for nineteen years. Nineteen! He was an old, old cat. But our souls were entwined. And he had the biggest heart of any animal I’ve ever known. I am just lost without him.
I am so grateful that we were able to live here the last seven months - where I’m home every day, and we were able to be together all the time. It was a good final stretch for him.
Here he is, shortly after we moved here, with little Bela, who he generously welcomed into our family two years ago. Zuli is the big tabby, Bela is the little white cat.
On Tuesday we sent three of our goats off to live in Oklahoma. Rain, Delta, and Puddle. Rain is Puddle’s mother, and Delta is Rain’s half-sister. I had been telling them about this adventure for days - hoping they wouldn’t be scared when we loaded them up for the drive. I actually heard Jan singing “OKLAHOMA, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain” to them on the milking stand one morning.
Their transit went like clockwork, though. Jan and I both got up really early. I loaded up the hay cart first thing, so it’d be ready to feed the rest of our goats when we were done loading the three does. I took grain out to the goats who get grain in the morning.
Then we milked everyone, but kept Delta and Rain in the breezeway between the houses - because there’s a gate from the breezeway to our driveway. Here's Delta and Puddle in the breezeway. That's the gate at the back that leads to our driveway. And my bike, which I use to bike to our mailbox nearly every day.
Julie, their new human, planned to arrive right when we were finished milking, and that’s the way it happened.
Julie showed us how she’d set up her van. She had a big crate secured to her back seat, and two more crates in the cargo area of her van. She’d already covered the bottoms of the crates with puppy pads. We had brought flakes of alfalfa to the garage to put in the crates for the goats, and we added peanuts - way in the back of the crates - hoping that the goats would more willingly get into the crates if they smelled the peanuts.
Jan has a ramp that she bought back in the days when she had Great Danes. We set the ramp up so that it went from the driveway to the crate. We decided to load Rain first. Jan put a leash on her collar, and Rain just walked beside us like a dog. It was so smooth, I could hardly believe it. She just walked up that ramp and into the crate. OK, Julie and I both had to give her a little push at the end. But she didn’t complain one bit. We reached in and got the leash back off her collar, and we had one girl loaded.
Delta was much the same, and Puddle only weighs thirty pounds, so I just picked her up and carried her to her crate. We were loaded in no time!
We get vaccines in the mail from a veterinary supply company, and they have to remain refrigerated. The vet supply mails them in boxes that are fitted with thick styrofoam liners and have those blue freeze-y things on the bottom. Jan saves these boxes for occasions such as our great goat transit on Tuesday. She loaded a vaccine box with food for Julie for the road. Hard-boiled eggs that she peeled. Grapes and cherries. Nice home-made bread. We figured Julie wouldn’t want to stop and eat. Because she’d have to leave a van full of goats in the restaurant parking lot! I don’t even know if that’s legal!
We said goodbye to our sweet girls. Our girls are going to a farm that has a pasture and a forest! Imagine! And Julie’s husband is a vet. If anyone can help Delta have babies that'll thrive, it’ll be them. We had been in a terrible quandary because Delta is such a sweetheart. She’s everyone’s favorite goat to milk. But, not only was she the mother of our two premies who died this spring, she also miscarried the spring before that. We were in agony trying to decide if we should breed her again, or if that would bring us all only sorrow. Now she’ll have a vet as one of her humans, so she’ll have every advantage. And she went with her sister and niece. I think they’ll have a really happy life. Thanks, Julie!