The Story of a Lifetime: In Case You Ever Wonder

Sometimes I look up and wonder where the day went. In fact.....alot of times I look up and wonder where the day went. I can't really piece it together but i can tell you bits and pieces of what I did.....kind of. Yesterday....well, here is the way I spend my days.

I woke up to this....

This was taken AFTER the spoon met up with their butts. Ever loyal partners in crime, I suppose.

This would be Nesquik that Garrison and Grant....probably Grant....opened and lovingly spoon fed to his brothers close in age. He also managed to spoon feed it to the dishwasher, floor and about 5 cups. Ok....well, that's not so unusual to wake up to so the day had started and could definitely improve but wasn't too bad. Until we realized that Patty, who had been sick the night before, is now on her death bed. She contracted pneumonia while at the auction and, as is typical for kid goats, they present 7-10 days after the fact. Yep.....day 10 though she had been coughing from day 7. She had been weak the night before but was now unable to stand at all and was completely limp. She gurgled and coughed in her drowning state. By this time I am exasperated with everything animal related. I should be sad but at this point I'm just kind of fed up. As the morning went on she would pant heavily, gasping for air, and then quit breathing entirely. The children checked intermittently throughout the day to see if she was still breathing and still with us. But somehow she forged on in her deathly ill state. By this time she had not eaten in something like 15 hrs. So, now we were dealing with sick and dehydrated and starvation issues. I dosed out some year old amoxicillin still left in the frig from our last trip to the dr a year ago for an ear infection one of the children had. In our change of eating habits and lifestyle we have seen huge blessings and amazing results in health and we have not entered the doors of the dr's office in over a year. So, the only meds we had were that old. Oh well. She wasn't long for this world anyway so I figured it couldn't do too much more damage. So, 1 tsp of amoxicillin down and into the grass for some sun to try and revive her....or finish her off.

This is exactly how he was positioned in pregnancy while I carried them. Still so much baby in him despite the fact they're 3.

Meanwhile the children go in circles not doing any one thing but just avoiding the kitchen table and the school that sat ominously staring at them. All attempts at bread making and more wet wipe making were put on hold due to the whole Patty issue. The infirmary was in a disastrous state so I put the children to work on getting a grip on the house. While completely preoccupied with that Grant managed to stick one of his NASCAR's down the vacuum cleaner tube. No suction there...not to mention the tears that ensued at the loss of his car. With coat hanger in hand I set to work on the vacuum tube. Half an hour later and alot of frustrated heaves and sighs later I set to work with now a screwdriver in hand and took the entire underside of the vacuum cleaner apart. After lots of shaking, coat hangering, and poking of many foreign objects down the shoot it finally budged. This was what finally started poking out. If you look close you can see the red paint and black tires of the car. With it successfully retrieved I set to work putting it all back together. That took no less than an hour, interruptions included.

Back to goat care. While in the midst of that they managed to, unknowingly to me, escape into the backyard and go swimming in the dog water. With Grant...who would've ever guessed???......turning on the water spout he gleefully provided he and all of his young siblings the mud slide of their lives. With raucous laughing outside I just smiled and thought warmly to myself how wonderful it is to hear the squeals of delight from children as they play. So, they laughed on as I took pleasure in hearing their childlike joy. The warm fuzzies quickly transformed into exasperated frustration as I beheld their mud soaked bodies and play clothes, mud laden dog and the seemingly 30 ft mud "slide" that ran the length of the yard. Hosing them off in the 15 degree water I let them "drip dry" outside since I was no where near being at a stopping point in my day to give baths to 15 kids and a dog.

Never quite making it to the bed these days

More dealing with the goat. School work.

One of the little ones escaped inside and his mud mysteriously had purple sticky now glued to it. What the crap, man?????

Later on in the day the grape jelly was found in the nursery windowsill. This is exactly how I found it. It was posed so perfectly I figured if I couldn't beat 'em I'd just join 'em so I took pics to keep my sanity and in an effort to maintain some form of humor. Somehow I never managed to get pics of the muddy kids....maybe due to some small anger issues on my part.

Somewhere in there the goat formula had been 1/4 cupped out onto the utility room floor. Oh well......looks like we won't be needing it now anyway seeing as how the goat's more than half dead. Garrett now had a goat formula-ed clown smile ringed around his mouth so I'm assuming he was the culprit in that one.

Meanwhile....the goat labors heavily in her breathing but fights to live on. At one point she quit breathing for 20-30 seconds at a time and then would gasp and jump start herself again. Ugh!

School days

I left Brad and the children to meet up with fellow homeschooling moms just to sit and talk. I never expected Patty to still be living when I returned home. But, alas, she greeted me out in the carport with obnoxiously loud baby goat cries. Seeing as how she hadn't even been able to summon any noise at all for 24 hours my heart jumped at the thought that she might actually pull through this. So, back inside for the 10 pm shift with her. More meds and more syringe feeding, towel changing in her laundry basket and bedding down to keep her warm. Did I mention we also gave this goat crushed up Tums and baking soda with water to try and reverse her acidic state...which happens to be common in young sick goats. Info gleaned from the web. She was still unable to walk. I surmised she probably wouldn't make it through the night. I told Brad before we fell asleep to check on her 1st thing and if she had died to tote her out before the children woke to a dead goat in the den.

Loving the big seat

Brad went to kiss me bye this morning and all I could get out was to remind him to go check on her. He came back reporting that she was still going. Ugh! Can she just die or something???? Awful, I know. But I'm at my wits end with the animal issues. I awoke to her standing on her own and crying for someone to pick her up. Once out in the grass she began walking on her own and the her gurgly breathing and racking coughs has subsided....though not completely. The foaming of the mouth had stopped and the buckets of yellow congestion pouring from her nose had dried. Maybe......just maybe???? More syringe feeding...this time an entire 8 oz. A normal feeding for her....despite the fact it was all given by syringe. Oh well. She wasn't going to starve.

So...we arrive at the present. I sit procrastinating. The bread waits, the wet wipes need to be made. We're out. Ummmmm.......not good. Oh well. Water and paper towels have been known to do the trick when in a bind. After being deposited back in her basket the goat sleeps. Time for another round of meds and more feeding. I have stuff I need to ship out. I'm now up to 213.00 sold on Ebay. Still tagging stuff for the JBF sale. As far as I can figure it has the potential of bringing in around 700.00. I haven't even gotten around to the garage sale stuff. THat's taking place at Granny's the 2nd weekend of April so I have that to conquer to. I have no clue how much that might bring. I haven't even gotten to that corner of the playroom yet. So, I forge on in my endeavors despite dead dogs, dying goats, no more jelly, mud stained clothes still waiting for the 2nd round in the washer, a brown sticky kitchen floor and smeared red sticky cimmamon glue from some foreign candy I never allow the children to buy but somehow gave in to the night before last.......forgot to mention that smearing episode.

Big Country Sunsets Observed at the lake the night before last as we drove with both dog and goat in tow to explore the world beyond. It was amazing. Off to the west the colors melted into a vast portrait not even a master painter, armed with paintbrush in hand, could portray. A sunset where the one true God's, Creator of the Universe's, existence could not be denied. A sunset that cried out of His existence and said the world moves on.........that He holds us, embraces us, as we walk out this humanly, sin filled life. A sunset that cried out to acknowledge Him, that cried He loves us and that He calls us home to Him.....that this is not home at all. That this life is only temporary. That we are mere sojourners here.....and reminds us that we are here, created for Him and by Him. He still reigns. As the sun hung low to the west and splashed hues of insurpassable magnitude across the prairies and far off hills the huge yellow moon rose low in the east. It slipped in and out of purply blue wisps of clouds. Translucent in their color the gleaming moon illuminated and brought the purple clouds to life. Ducking in and out, slipping like a willowy wisp it glowed like a big ball of buttery gold. It looked like a big glowing yellow pill begging to be swallowed. And eventually the thought did come to mind just what exactly one would look like if the moon was swallowed. Fun pictures danced through our minds as the children and I envisioned just what it would be like to swallow the moon. The colors that shrouded and captivated the world were surreal. It was like driving through heaven and all time came to a stand still. There was no beginning and there was no end. Eventually the moon did take its place way up and the transformation from yellow to silver was complete. When we returned the little ones were put to bed and Grayson and Evye snuck out on the porch to watch the total eclipse as it went from silver to red for almost an entire hour.