New Lambs

It has been busy.  Driving Son is still exhausted as he recovers from ADEM.  We will have a meeting with the school to help make sure his needs are being met.  So far our school has been amazing at helping him, but we are realizing his healing will probably take the rest of the school year. 

The house dingbat (also known as Dakota) ripped into one of the chicken coops and killed one of the baby chicks.  College Girl has been working with the 2 surviving chicks so they are super friendly.  It’s fun to be able to carry the chickens around.    

 

We bought 2 lambs for Driving Son to raise as his FFA project for the fair.  Tessa immediately decided they were her babies and we are now seeing the Livestock Guardian part of her temperament.  The first time Darling Husband drove the fork lift near the Lambs, Tessa was sleeping near them and they ran and jumped on her then stood behind her as the fork lift went by.  Tessa knows the forklift isn’t a threat if you are under a tree so she looked up and went right back to sleep.  We have not worked with the Lambs as much as we should and they are still very skittish with people, but if Tessa or Luca are near they feel safe and let you get near them.  We are doing an experiment with the Lambs: one of them is getting grain and free ranging daily, the other is getting fodder and also free ranging daily.  

We are keeping College Girl's chickens with the sheep.  

Ups and Downs.....Someone Didn't Hit the Publish Button in February.

We couldn’t or didn’t want to pay out the money the plumber wanted to charge for fixing all our rental’s plumbing problems.  Darling Husband and I were working on it (I mostly kept him company and played gopher) when our tenant came home.  He jumped right in and started helping Darling Husband.  Together the men were able to fix the plumbing and the septic tank problems and ended up saving us a couple thousand dollars.

 Tessa and Luca with Darling Husband's twine.

We found a hole in the fence that the dogs have been getting through.  I had to run around for a few minutes before I could patch the hole and so I cabled the dogs.  When I went back to fix the hole the neighbor had patched it.  The dogs have stayed home for the last 2 days. 

Teen son who is battling ADEM is starting to feel better.  I spoke with a neurologist last night and they may want to give him IV steroids again.  Praying my son continues to improve. 

Getting the dogs used to the baby chicks.  I don't know how I forgot to take a picture of the chicks.

3 of the eggs College girl saved have hatched so now we have 3 noisey, lovely chicks in the house. 

One of the joys of farm life (even mini-farm) is it can’t all go bad at once.  Death happens and there is new birth.  The place that had a cracked water pipe is now a nice grassy spot the sheep are enjoying eating at. 

Darling Husband’s truck is still broken but the parts are on order, I am sure as soon as the truck is fixed something else will break down but that’s a part of the process.  We chose a full life with a lot of children, a lot of animals, and a lot of stuff.  The more stuff the more issues, but our life is full and I can’t imagine it any other way.

A Hospital Stay

I didn’t mean to leave on a cliff hanger. 

We picked Tessa up from the pound the day after I wrote the the last blog.  My son was complaining about not feeling well and I just kind of ignored it and told him to eat better because we were eating so much wonderful but bad for you foods from Christmas to New Years.  Finally the day after we picked Tessa up, I called Nurse Advice Line and asked if they felt we would be safe to wait until Monday to take him to the Dr.  They suggested we go to Urgent Care just to be safe, after a few minutes at Urgent Care we were sent to Children’s Hospital and stayed there for the next 5 days.  Teen Son was diagnosed with Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis or ADEM.  It is a rare, 7 kids in 1,000,000, auto immune issue that causes lesions on the spine and brain.  We were lucky and we caught it early many kids with ADEM show up at the hospital looking like they have had a stroke or partially paralyzed.  Teen Son was to get IV steroids for 5 days and then he would go home and slowly taper down the amount of steroids for the next 4 weeks.  Most children have a full recovery after 1 to 6 months we are blessed he has a disease with a high cure rate and blessed to live so close to Children’s Hospital.  Honestly when you are at Children’s Hospital and your child can walk and talk to you, you feel blessed. 

We came up with a routine: Darling Husband would meet the youngest 2 kids getting home from school and they would take care of the animals in the evening.  After Teen Son was given his last dosage of steroids I would go home and take care of the animals before school and get the youngest 2 kids to school.  Then I would go to the hospital and spend the rest of the day there. 

During this time Tessa was feeling neglected so she started jumping the fence it’s a 5 to 6 foot fence depending on where it is but I got a call from a neighbor who watched her jump telling me she could have cleared it if it was higher.  Then Luca started following Tessa, great now we have 2 escape artists!