The dogs and goats

We bought 3 female goats when our one momma died. One of the females, the oldest, had already had a baby, which we brought with her as the third female. The other female was young, but old enough to breed. We quickly lost the oldest goat so now we have just 3. 2 young females and a young male. IT appears that the older of our 2 females is pregnant. We are expecting to have babies the middle of July. That will be perfect for county fair next year.

We also have een struggling with our dogs. I miss my Samson. We think instead of Lab and Rottweiler, he may have been Geat Dane and Rottweiler. I saw some Great Danes the other day and fell in love with their BIG heads. Since he died, we have had lots of trouble with Tama, our pure bred rottie. She went into a depression. All she would do is lay around (she was fairly fat) and she quit eating. We have had a time trying to get her back on track. We thought that in addition to the depression, she was allergic to the food we had switched to. She started losing hair and biting her feet. We tried several different treatments, starting with gioing back to a healthier food. We were giving her treatments for hot spots for her itching and nothing was working. We finally took her to the vet. This was about the same time our puppy started showing the same symptoms. We discovered that she had picked up mange. So now, a month after the vet, Tama has spunk, she had lost about 25 pounds during the non-working treatments, and she's got her appetite back and does more than just sit and scratch. They smell better too.

My first summer update

It's one week and two days since high school graduation. Already we have done a lot and nothing at all. Our church has a new Bible study they started. It's called "Walk through the Bible" and is held in the church arena. Before and after the Bible study, we are able to ride our horse in the arena. Of course, I also ride on some Sundays and Mondays when they aren't promoting the arena portion of the property. The advantage is that there are others there to ride as well. So I want to attend the Bible study but have not been able to attend but one time. That was the Thursday BEFORE graduation.

The weekend of graduation, the church had a Tractor Pull. If you've never attended one of those, I would suggest you attend one. I don't know that I would be interested in going every week, but when my church hosts it should be ok. We invited my Dad to come watch and he came over Friday. He also returned my kiddo who spent the week with him while I finished school for the year.

The first week of summer was spent kinda relaxing, kinda cleaning house. The kid got a new (to her) bedroom set. This required that she CLEAN her room. We have now removed 2 lawn garbage bags and 3 boxes (1 large) of junk that she doesn't need want anymore. We have to have the house clean by the 25th for the kid's b'day party.

Thursday, we loaded up the horse, dogs, and kid and went to my dad's. My sis fed us our birthday shrimp dinner. My birthday was in May and Dad's was June 1st. We hung out and chatted on Thursday night and I cleaned his house on Friday - all day Friday. After it was clean, we decided to get the horses out (my 4 legged and his 6 wheeled). My dad has been wanting to ride Koda for a while. We brushed her down and saddled her up. I always lunge her before I ride and started to do so that night and she decided that since it's rodeo weekend in a nearby town, she'd celebrate. She started bucking and rearing and running out of the lunge. I finally calmed her down. She did the crazy routine at his house last time we were there and I didn't ride her because of it. This time I was not going to let her get away with it. I took her into dad's smallest pasture and rode her around a little.

We had a birthday party to work (we do sound for our church) on Saturday. (Saturday was a very popular day for events...2 birthday parties planned, a family reunion, and a parade and rodeo). After the party, we went home and waited until it was cool. The kid and I went to the rodeo and hung out.

Sunday, Hubby's parents came over and picked up the kid to go home with them. We had lunch and shipped them off. They were coming in from the reunion and were hauling a camper trailer and a boat. They also were carrying 4 dogs. It made quite a show when they pulled in to the church parking lot. The dogs got loose and ran around and into the church.

Today, I worked on shredding old bills and then we had a meeting at the church. I couldn't let the evening trip to the church go to waste, so I took Koda up to practice riding in the arena. That was interesting. We did some turn work around some traffic cones and then worked on establishing a cruise control on her trot. I also want to start working on side passing.

I'll post about the goats and dogs tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'm enjoying not having many requirements.

Please hurry Summer

Ok, so I know I posted that it's coming and here and all but if that's so, why am I still at school???? Nothing much else is happening except trying to survive 2 more weeks.

Summer's coming...

(Well the holiday part, the weather's already here.)

Only 3 weeks and 3 days of school left!!! Summer's almost here!

Wow, summer's here!!!

I took Koda to church to ride today and, after church and lunch, I went out to groom her and start to ride. It was at that time that I decided that 91 degrees (according to our local school's marque) and humid was too hot to ride. There went the ride. Our church is starting a Bible study on Thursdays at 7 pm through the summer. I think this is a GREAT alternative to Midday riding during the summer.
One of the local news stations said that these were our actual numbers for the temp today. This does not include our humidity at 65%. Ouch!, I'm melting!

Unwelcome Guests

My daughter's puppy is having trouble behaving in the house. She is over 7 months old and still uses the restroom in the house. I took her outside at around 11:30 pm. Hubby started to follow me out and said "Oh, Crap!" and went back in the house. He saw a snake right by the garage door - the one that opens to the house. We started to chase it around the garage and finally caught it. I was moving stuff around with a garden rake and Hubby had 2 machetes he was hunting with. When we finally caught it, I was holding it still with the rake and Hubby started hacking. When it quit trying to get away, we moved it into the open and Made sure it was dead. I told hubby NOT to chop it's head off. I wanted to take it to school for the science teachers. They told me that it's a bull snake - good for killing rats and mice. They were VERY upset that I killed it. :( The arrow points to his head.




So today my hubby called while I was tutoring and said he found another one. Sent me this pic. I told him I wanted that one in the feed shed. I have a nice dinner in there for him. Bon Appetit, snakey. It must be spring. Many varieties of wildlife are popping up around our house.

Get the gun! or the camera!

So let me set the scene. I cleaned out the feed buckets and decided that at 6:45, I still was not ready to sit inside in a drab house. So I leashed the dog and went walking through the pasture. It rained Monday and Tuesday all day so I wanted to check out our pasture and the fences a little. I also like to check in on the pond. Well the pond is FULL and overflowing. I walked around behind the pond and was halfway to the area between the pond and the creek. By the way, this is where Koda found the snake last April. As I walked on top of the pond embankment, a coyote ran from between the pond and creek across the pasture and into the trees in the back corner of the pasture. I stood still and watched it go. When I called my hubby, he said the proper protocol is to shoot it. I was too enraptured or shocked or something to pull out the handgun sitting in my pocket. I didn't have a good camera. So I didn't shoot the thing either way. I'm glad I didn't have Koda too!

For the nature enthusiasts who want to slam me for possibly shooting a coyote, please remember that I live on a ranch where some of our income is provided by live prey animals. Well, in order to get money they have to be alive. Coyotes work to make them not so alive. I understand that they need to eat too, but my goat babies are generally part of their menu. Anyway, I didn't shoot him or her. I let it live to get hit by cars on the highway or shot by another rancher nearby, or kicked by one of the donkeys currently residing on our property.

I did start getting "eaten alive" though. The skeeters are out in full force!