Our Week in Review June 1-7th

One of the things that keep us pretty busy is our animals.  We currently have 1 dog, 1 inside cat, 3 outside cats, 2 rabbits, 8 chickens (the girls favorite chicken Mrs. Feathers died last week...she was 9 years old!), 2 pigs, and 10 goats.  Raising livestock is a lot of work and can be frustrating and sad at times but I think it is worth the time and effort (and money!) we put in.  Besides teaching the children  the responsibility of taking care of animals we have learned so much about the health and care of animals, the production and commercial side of livestock, seen first hand the life cycle of chickens, rabbits, and goats, and so much more.  It is different raising animals to show then it is just to raise them.  We have to do different things with feed and supplements then you would if you were just having a goat to eat pasture grass. We spend a lot of time with our animals and it has been the most normal thing we have had going on since the Covid 19 Pandemic started.

Chickens and rabbits are some of the easiest animals to start out raising.  The hardest thing about rabbits is that they are sensitive to heat and heat stroke.  Chickens and rabbits pretty much just need clean food and water and places to sleep and be out of the weather. Goats and pigs are a little harder.  They still need food, water, and shelter.  Stalls have to be cleaned out every day sometimes more then once a day. We have to lotion and brush pigs and brush goats. We have to practice walking pigs and goats and goats also need to be braced. Goats need to have the hooves trimmed regularly and if they have horns they need to be tipped.  Pigs need to be bathed regularly and clipped for shows.  Goats need to be bathed and clipped for shows. Pigs are sensitive to heat so we have to have a fan on them and spritz them with water several times a day.

Goats have to be dewormed often.  This year we have had a horrible problem with worms in our goats.  The wormer we used to use has stopped being effective and we had some serious issues in our herd.  We switched to a different one which helped but not as much as it should.  We had to give another 3 day round this week but I am not confident that it will solve the problem.  We also had to give baby goats vaccines this week and band our boys so they will be wethers (bucks cannot show and we don't want more then one buck anyway.)

Our pile of dirt arrived this week so we began shoveling it into the barn to level it all out.  After the pigs rolled all through it they were filthy and since it got so hot outside I thought it would be a good idea to walk Scarlett to the hose and give her a bath.  She had never been walked outside the front of the pen before, just inside the pasture fence.  She started out doing ok until a sound spooked her and she bolted.  Our barn is still not completely finished and there was an wire fence panel leaning up against the outside of the pen.  When she ran she hit that wire panel just right on the edge and it went straight into her side(like a puncture)  and then left a big scratch down her side.  We got her settled, hosed off and back to the pen and she started throwing up.  I was really afraid there was some serious damage.  We sprayed her down with some antibiotic spray and called my pig expert and sent her pictures of the wound.  She told us to watch her and watch the site and see how the pig was acting and what the wound looked like in a few hours.  She seemed fine and it didn't look too horrible so we kept watching and waiting.  That was Thursday.  She still has a scratch and a small lump where it punctured and we are still spraying her with an antibiotic spray twice a day but she is eating and drinking and acting normal so hopefully she will not get an infection and will recover completely.  Sometimes it feels like no matter how hard we try we can't win.  But that's the way it goes sometimes.  You can't control everything! (at least that's what I try to remind myself.)

We kept the babies for a little while on Monday so their mama could do some work for her summer classes.

When we returned them the girls went and practiced the chimes.  The next day we went and recorded the girls on chimes along with their friend on violin and their music teacher on piano playing God is so Good to be played Sunday during the radio worship service.  Though Arkansas churches were given permission to open May 4th our church has elected to stay closed and continue broadcasting over the radio.  Hearing them play brought me great joy.

We went and walked at the park this week.  4 H sent out a scavenger hunt project and Lily was very excited about it.  She took  my phone during our walk because there were several things she wanted to get photos of for the scavenger hunt while we were there.  She needs a red bird still, it flew away before she could get the photo.

Nick had his online freshman orientation to pick his classes.  He will be taking Calculus 1, Comp 1, Computer Science, Computer Science Lab, Freshman Orientation, and World History (17 credits.) His financial aid online session is tomorrow. Nick and Alex were both hired at Sonic this week and completed their online training work at home this week-end.

It was very hot and humid this week!  We were glad that the pool lasted another year.  The children have swam for hours!

Our evening read alouds are The Last Ride by Susan K Marlow and The Return of the King by JRR Tolkien.

I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!