Stella is due for her first kidding on Sunday, July 1. So today she got what Marta calls the "spa day" treatment. I trimmed her hooves, gave her a CD-T shot, and shaved the hair off her tail. None of those are fun for either one of us. I put her in a halter and tied her to the side of the barn and then gave her grain to distract her.
The shot came first and it's like she didn't notice. Yes!
Next I trimmed her hooves, the task I find the hardest and probably do poorly. I got smart this time and did her rear hooves first before she'd eating all the grain. Goats have no defense except to run from danger so they're especially skittish when one of their feet is held off the ground. I probably did another poor job of it but her hooves are better than they were.
Shaving the hair off her tail makes birthing neater. There's a lot of slime and amniotic fluid, so cutting the hair off her tail means less mess after birth.
At my older brother's prompting I've waved the white flag on Sally's issues. I have NO confidence that if I pulled the distributor and installed it again the outcome would be different. I also know that wouldn't solve the fast idle problem. So this morning I drove 6 miles up to a guy who runs an auto repair business out of his place. He's very legit - two lifts, good equipment - and is the one who did the suspension work on Sally when I first got her. (I didn't want to do that laying on my back on our gravel driveway.) I'm going to drive Sally up there tomorrow morning and he'll FIX it. The distributor will be easy for him, I'm sure.
He thinks the idle issue is a worn throttle shaft. Very possible and something I can't fix. He'll either put in a brass bushing or try a stiffer spring. He says that fix sometimes helps the shaft seat like it should. I'm fine with that if it works!
Volcanos, North Korea, mass murderers, embargoes, key primary elections...
and the media is giving hours of coverage to a dis-invitation of a football team for a glorified photo-op at the White House.
We Don't Care!!
The truck didn't hit our ceiling but I still let it go. It was within about $200 and I just didn't feel comfortable going that close.
Something else will come along that will do the job. In his time.
Goat kids instinctively move from milk to solid food as their stomachs change to better handle hay than milk. Out in the barn Cannoli and Donut watch their mother eat alfalfa and go over to try it out. With Eclair in the house we have to provide him the means to make the gradual change in diet. Which is why we have a 5-gallon bucket of alfalfa laying on its side in the kitchen. So far he hasn't shown much interest but nature will have its way and he will soon.
(No, I'm not going to model that behavior for him.)
When we got home from small group this evening I thought about my mother and what she'd think about a baby goat and a bucket of alfalfa in the kitchen. Not something I remember from my childhood.
Note: as I typed those last two paragraphs Eclair went over and nibbled on some alfalfa from the bucket. :)
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