Devonviolet Acres

[Devonviolet]

That sounds delicious!

It IS delicious! We had the last of it tonight, and it was every bit as good as it was the first night.

 

[Devonviolet]

We have a new addition to the Devonviolet herd. We have a big beautiful, white, buckling, with black eye spots and one (left) black ear. We named him Stew (short for Stewmeat). A good friend of ours named him!

Melody was due on Friday. Her udder was nice and full, but I was still able to feel ligaments on Friday morning. DH checked for ligaments on Saturday morning and wasn’t able to feel any. He went out and checked for kids around 2:00 and didn’t find any.

It rained on and off all day, and the yard was one massive mud puddle. By 5:00 it was raining pretty steadily, so DH put off going out to feed animals. Close to 7:00 it was still pouring out, but I suggested he put on his rain gear and go out to feed the animals and check on Melody. Sure enough, he found one kid in the goat shed with Melody and 9 other goats and the two dogs. So, I put my rain coat on and went out to see if Melody needed help with a second kid. She is our biggest mama, has always had two kids, and never had trouble kidding. But you never know . . .

I tried bouncing her, to see if it might encourage a second birth. I didn’t really feel another kid, so decided to wait. I didn’t really want to go in to feel for another, because I didn’t want to introduce bacteria needlessly. So I decided to wait and give it time. In the end, it turned out she only had one kid this time.

When I went out, it was raining pretty fairly hard. Then, while I was out there, it turned into a full blown horrendous THUNDER BOOMER with TORRENTIAL rain coming down. When we got out there, we had 1/2 inch of rain in the rain gauge, by Sunday morning we had a total of 2-3/4” in the rain gauge!!!

DH went to the feed shed to get several buckets of goat feed and the dog’s food bowls.
We normally hook each goat up to a t-post and they each get their own bucket of feed, based on their needs (mama goats get more feed with alfalfa pellets supplements/wethers & kids get a handful of feed & alfalfa pellets ) and the dogs eat in their kennel (with the gate closed). So, you can imagine the FREE FOR ALL that we had going on in the goat shed. TOTAL MAHEM!!! Deo was next to me. He ate his food immediately and sat there looking up at me adoringly. Violet was back in her favorite corner. She didn’t eat her food, but was protecting the bowl from the goats. Whenever one came too near, she growled and lashed out at Deo. HUH??? He wasn’t anywhere near her! So I hollered “VIOLET, NO!!!” at her and she went back to her corner. We had the heat lamp turned on, so Stew was back there with Violet and she was ever so gentle with him.

After a while, I realized that Melody and Stew were standing right next to me, by the opening to the goat shed. So, I decided it was time to take them over to the goat pen behind the chicken coop. I scooped up Stew and DH put a leash on Melody and we headed over to the pen. Two of the younger goats managed to scoot past us, through the gate. I kept the others in the goat yard and closed the gate. After we got Melody and Stew settled in the water tote shelter (top removed/on it’s side). I realized there was a cacophony of goat calls coming from the goat yard. I turned and looked in the direction of the noise and there were 7 goats, all lined up in the opening of the goat shed (out of the pouring rain, of course), looking our way and hollering.

I was so caught up in the chaos of the moment, I forgot to take photos. Yesterday, it being Mother’s Day, we drove to Dallas to spend the day with my daughter and her family. We didn’t get home until after six. I was exhausted, and my right foot and knee really hurt. So I didn’t get photos yesterday. I will have to go out this afternoon and take some photos of Stew and Melody, if the ground dries out a bit. Right now the ground is still a mucky mess!!! I’ll post photos when I can get out there and not sink 2” into the mud!!! UGH!!!

 

[Devonviolet]

Life has been crazy around here and I just realized I never posted any photos of our beautiful new buckling, Stew.


Here he is with his mama, Melody. I had a couple others, but they somehow got deleted. he is a sweet little boy, hopping around like any other new goat.

While I was out there, taking photos, I got the following photos of Crystal and her two boys that were born March 21st. It’s hard to believe they are over two months old. The tri-color one is quite a bit bigger than the buck skin one. We got a LOT of rain (2-1/2” in one day) the night that Stew was born, so the ground is a bit muddy. UGH!!!

 

[Baymule]

Stew is a handsome boy!

 

[Bruce]

I got the following photos of Crystal and her two boys that were born March 21st.

No pictures

 

[Devonviolet]

No pictures

Sorry. They are there now. I was cropping them.

 

[Ridgetop]

So glad to see you back on BYH! We have missed you. Horrible news about your foot surgery, can you have it redone?

Our whole family loves goat meat. Lamb is close, but goat was their favorite. I use ground goat and ground lamb in all recipes that normally call for ground beef. Taco meat, spaghetti, enchiladas, etc. ground goat and lamb is wonderful.

I ended up hiring a tree service to take both trees down. This guy was really good, and I negotiated a good price. He also brought his stump grinder, and for $400 he ground 25 tree stumps! I thought that was a great price for all he did! He also brought his log splitter and split the big trunks, which were each about 30 inches in diameter and 30 feet long.

Our new place is in Yantis, so fairly close to you (as Texas distances go). I need the name of good tree guy - we have several really old trees around the house and along the drive that are splitting and rotting. We need to take them down. Since you really liked the guy who did your work, I would like to see what he can do for us. DH would normally put on his gaffs and climb up himself to cut off the branches before dropping them but he gave his gaffs to DS3 years ago and neither DS1 nor I will allow him to climb up a tree anymore, even though 80 is the new 50. So we will need a tree guy to remove those trees and grind the stumps.

 

[Devonviolet]

So glad to see you back on BYH! We have missed you. Horrible news about your foot surgery, can you have it redone?

Our whole family loves goat meat. Lamb is close, but goat was their favorite. I use ground goat and ground lamb in all recipes that normally call for ground beef. Taco meat, spaghetti, enchiladas, etc. ground goat and lamb is wonderful.

Our new place is in Yantis, so fairly close to you (as Texas distances go). I need the name of good tree guy - we have several really old trees around the house and along the drive that are splitting and rotting. We need to take them down. Since you really liked the guy who did your work, I would like to see what he can do for us. DH would normally put on his gaffs and climb up himself to cut off the branches before dropping them but he gave his gaffs to DS3 years ago and neither DS1 nor I will allow him to climb up a tree anymore, even though 80 is the new 50. So we will need a tree guy to remove those trees and grind the stumps.

Sure. I will give it to you privately. He does a good job, but he is expensive and as seems to be the case, here in Texas, he tends to do things on his time schedule, so things don’t always get done in a timely manner. As long as you know that ahead of time, you will be fine.

Oh and, no I can’t get my foot redone. As it was, he operated on my foot four times, and really screwed it up. So, there is no fixing it. People have suggested I sue him, but when I finally realized how badly he had screwed up my foot, we were in the middle of packing, to move to Texas, and I was already stressed out about the move and not being able to help with the packing, since I had to keep my foot elevated, to minimize pain and swelling. I also know the futility of long distance law suits, and I’m fairly sure that he fabricated documentation to support him doing more than needed doing, so he could submit extra charges to the insurance company ($$$$) and so I would not have any recourse in a court of law. May there be a VERY warm place in H*LL for him!!!

 

[Ridgetop]

Horrible experience! And of course, as arthritis sets in it will be worse pain. Awful for you.

I agree with the lawsuit. When I got cancer, my reguar care doctor refused to send me for biopsies, etc. when I complained of a lump. The lump kept showing up on mammos and requiring ultrasounds. The primary care doctor refused to send me to a specialist for further tests (HMO required her referral) until I complained to my medical insurance. They got into the act and demanded I be sent to the specialist who found a malignancy. Due to the delay of a couple years, it had spread further so we sued. The finding was that that a failure to do anything by the primary care doctor (send me for biopsy in a timely manner) did not constitute the "doing of harm" on which medical malpractice cases are based and which you have to prove. She got off with no finding against her. The radiologist, who kept recommending further tests but did not state that it looked like cancer, had to pay a small amount which barely covered my attorney's fees. We got nothing. Oh, except the cancer proceeding to a further stage by the time it was diagnosed. Luckily, DH was working through the union by then and I went to a special cancer consultation at UCLA through a PPO where they reviewed everything. (The primary care doctor even tried to prevent me from obtaining my medical records - another fellow there at the same time for the same reason said they did the same to him.) UCLA did not like the margins and insisted on redoing the lumpectomy. The surgeon found another malignancy next to the first one. All good for 20 years now.

 

[Devonviolet]

Horrible experience! And of course, as arthritis sets in it will be worse pain. Awful for you.

I agree with the lawsuit. When I got cancer, my reguar care doctor refused to send me for biopsies, etc. when I complained of a lump. The lump kept showing up on mammos and requiring ultrasounds. The primary care doctor refused to send me to a specialist for further tests (HMO required her referral) until I complained to my medical insurance. They got into the act and demanded I be sent to the specialist who found a malignancy. Due to the delay of a couple years, it had spread further so we sued. The finding was that that a failure to do anything by the primary care doctor (send me for biopsy in a timely manner) did not constitute the "doing of harm" on which medical malpractice cases are based and which you have to prove. She got off with no finding against her. The radiologist, who kept recommending further tests but did not state that it looked like cancer, had to pay a small amount which barely covered my attorney's fees. We got nothing. Oh, except the cancer proceeding to a further stage by the time it was diagnosed. Luckily, DH was working through the union by then and I went to a special cancer consultation at UCLA through a PPO where they reviewed everything. (The primary care doctor even tried to prevent me from obtaining my medical records - another fellow there at the same time for the same reason said they did the same to him.) UCLA did not like the margins and insisted on redoing the lumpectomy. The surgeon found another malignancy next to the first one. All good for 20 years now.

I’m SO sorry you ahd to go through that!!! I’m so glad you are doing well now!!! It just boggles my mind why doctors refuse to follow up quickly, on even a hint of cancer!!!

Years ago, my sister (now dead from metastatic cancer) had a spot of skin cancer on her chest. It took her doctor six months to remove it. By the time she got around to it, it was so deep she had to do general anesthesia to do the surgery. But by then it was too late and it turned into breast cancer, which metastesized to her spinal cord, causing her to be paralyzed from the waist down, before she finally died from all the cancer in her body.

A similar thing happened to my other sister. For several years before she died, she was having increasing trouble breathing. Her allergist just kept prescribing inhalers. The day before she died (she was in a rehab hospital, in San Jose, CA), I talked to her several times, during the day, trying to convince her to let me speak to the charge nurse, because the Rehab doctor wouldn’t talk to her. She wouldn’t let me because she didn’t realize how bad she was. I had to keep ending the call, telling her I would call back because she was so short of breath (SOB) and was wheezing so badly. About 8:30 that night, I got a call from her nurse, telling me they had sent her to the ER, because she was so SOB that she couldn’t even get up to a bedside comode. In the ER, they intubated her, because she was in such bad shape. The next morning, I got a call from the ER doc, telling me he had looked at her X-rays and her lungs were so black (they are supposed to look white on X-rays), it was not survivable. He thought they might be full of cancer, but given all I now know, I think they were full of a severe fungal infection. Anyway, since it wasn’t survivable and there was nothing that they could do for her, I told the doctor to take the breathing tube out. About a half hour later, I got a call from the ER Nurse, who had taken the tube out. She told me my sister had died five minutes after the tube came out.

My point for telling this sad story, is that she was SOB for years and her allergist had merely prescribed inhalers, which didn’t work. Three months before she died, she had gone to Stanford Medical Center for a lung biopsy, but no matter how many times she asked, the Rehab doctor would not give her the biopsy results. That was a clear case of malpractice - the Allergist and the Rehab doc!!! And do you know what her incompetent doctor put on the death certificate??? “CARDIAC RELATED” !!! Not a word about her lungs being so black that she couldn’t breathe!!!! I reported the doctor to the Rehab Hospital administrator. He agreed with me that she had not given my sister good care, but I seriously don’t think anything was ever done about it!