Death and life

We decided to have the vet put Addy down on Saturday, March 29. It was a hard decision to make, but I appreciate everyone's comments. It made it a little easier. One side of me felt that I had to do everything to save her, but the other side of me felt that it would be wrong to put her through all sorts of medical procedures to extend her life a few months. We buried her in the front yard, and I'm going to buy an evergreen to plant above her grave. I was terribly distracted for several days and kept thinking about doing things for her -- feed her, let her outside to potty -- before remembering that she was gone.

Of course, life on the farm slows down for no one. In the midst of all this, we found a dead lamb in the pasture. It looked like a perfectly beautiful, fluffy white ram, so we have no idea why it died. It was probably only a few hours old. I wasn't particularly sad when my husband told me he'd found the ram. Obviously it was sad to learn that the little guy had died before he even had much of a chance at life, and I wondered if we would have been able to help him if we'd found him sooner. But since I didn't know him personally yet, I didn't have the profound sense of loss that I had with Addy.

Then I realized that our relationships with people and animals have a lot in common. Sometimes, friends ask how I can handle it when animals die, since we face it so much more often than people who don't live on a farm. I always felt kind of weird telling them that you don't get too sad most of the time. Why don't we usually get sad? I should have realized that -- just like when people die -- how you respond to an animal's death is totally dependent upon the relationship you had with them. Many year ago when we lived in Florida, a neighbor died. I wasn't particularly sad because I hardly knew her. I think a lot of our animals are kind of like that neighbor. I see them almost daily, but we don't have much of a relationship.

There are other animals, however, that are like Addy. You have a relationship with them. You have shared special times, and you are close to them. When my goat Dancy died, I was devastated. I cried for days whenever I thought of her. I fell in love with her from the moment I brought her home and was convinced there was something terribly wrong with her -- why would anyone sell such a wonderful goat? I had her tested for every goat disease imaginable, and it all came back negative. Why didn't her three previous owners realize what a gem they had? I'll never forget the day that I was a little late milking, and Dancy somehow got out of the pasture, walked up to the kitchen door and called me! I got the milk bucket, and when I walked outside she followed me back to the barn and jumped up on the milkstand! For that reason (and many others), I called her Dancy Darlin, and I still cry when I think about her -- like right now!

When her daughter Carmen dies, I'm sure I'll be equally devastated. Although Dancy gave birth to Carmen, the little gold and white doeling became my baby immediately. I found her soaking wet, ice cold, almost dead in the straw only minutes after she was born. Her brothers, who were twice her size, were already nursing when I walked into the stall and almost stepped on the tiny little doeling. Dancy probably thought she was dead. Carmen became my first house goat, and I knew I'd never be able to let her go, even accepting the fact that she'd probably be a tiny little runt forever. She fooled all of us, however, when she grew up to be a beautiful girl. She's my first home-grown master champion, and she has even earned her advanced registry milk star -- again our first goat to accomplish that goal. She and I have shared so much together, both good and bad. I hope she is with me for many, many more years.

Decision

Four weeks ago, Addy, my standard poodle started favoring her right front leg. I mashed on all parts of it from top to bottom and couldn't figure out what was bothering her. As each day passed, she seemed to be bothered more. Finally, two weeks ago, I took her to the vet. She did two x-rays and said it was probably arthritis and gave us some pain pills. It didn't look like the pain pills were doing any good. She continued walking on three legs. But the pain pills ran out a few days ago. I came home on Tuesday, and the girls told me that Addy has been crying and whining all day. Obviously the pain pills had been masking the worsening of her condition. I called the vet, and they said to bring her in. Maybe she had lyme disease.

Yesterday, we took her to the vet, and the lyme disease test was negative. They did two more x-rays and still couldn't tell us what was wrong. But Addy now had a fever of 104.8, which is several degrees high for a dog. The vet gave her a shot for pain and fever, and referred us to another vet with more experience in orthopedic problems. Today we took her to that vet, and after three more x-rays, he told us she has cancer in her shoulder.

He told us the first step would be to completely amputate her leg. That would get rid of the pain immediately, but in 2/3 of cases of bone cancer, it has already spread to other parts of the body by the time it is diagnosed, so she might only have a few months left. In cases where they also do chemo, it usually adds about a year to the dog's life. I've known people in chemo, and I can't imagine putting a dog through that. Add a year to her life when a part of it would put her in more agony? That doesn't make sense. But what do I do?

For now, she is taking two different types of pain pills. She is not eating, and she only walks to the water bowl for water and outside to potty three times a day. Otherwise, she is laying down. I remember one day when I was a reporter, I shadowed a doctor who had a patient with bladder cancer. She wasn't eating, her weight was down to 85 pounds, and all she kept saying was, "I want to die. Just let me die. It's too painful." Her husband and her son kept telling her that she didn't mean it, and she simply said the same thing again and again. When they insisted that she didn't mean it and begged her to tell them what she wanted, she said, "I want to be cremated." I look at Addy, and I remember that woman lying in bed, begging the doctor and her family to let her die so the pain would go away. If Addy could talk, I wonder what she would say to me.

Healthy and sustainable

This morning as I was sitting in physical therapy, I found myself counting the days until I am done with grad school. I've recently decided that I should never have a 9 to 5 job at a desk. My body just can't handle it. I need to be outside, lifting water buckets, shoveling the muck, and walking across my pastures. It's not work -- it's a necessary part of life. When I lived in the burbs, I thought about how ridiculous it was that I would drive to the Y to spend half an hour biking to nowhere and lifting weights that were never moved anywhere.

Since I've been in grad school, my daughters have taken up the slack at the farm. They've been doing a lot of my physical work outside. That was a mistake. A few years ago, I remember telling my husband that even if I could afford to hire someone to take care of the animals, I wouldn't do it. Now I realize I shouldn't do it. I've been in physical therapy for two months now, trying to strengthen the back and shoulder muscles that have grown weak from spending too much time at a computer.

Although I know our lifestyle is more sustainable for the planet, and it keeps us healthier because of the good nutrition, I have recently come to realize that this lifestyle keeps us physically healthier and stronger. I don't want to grow old and weak like those people I see in the gym at the hospital, recovering from the heart attacks that nearly killed them. It's no secret that people need to be active to stay healthy as they age, but 30 minutes at the gym a couple times a week is a joke.

When I told the physical therapist that I've started working more on the farm, he got pretty excited and repeatedly reassured me that I was doing a good thing. After my initial evaluation, he told me that if I don't strengthen my back muscles, I'm going to wind up in the same shape again and again. I imagine he sees a lot of repeat customers. He's probably more optimistic about my future knowing that I'll be getting some real exercise after my physical therapy ends.

Moving day for piglets

The weather is climbing well above freezing each day, so I decided yesterday that it was time to move the piglets outdoors. They are also eating a bit less frequently, so Katherine will only have to go out there about every three to four hours now. They were initially eating every hour or two the first week.

We put them in a 10X10 stall in the barn, and they seem to be having the time of their lives. They were running around like crazy yesterday when we first moved them. There is plenty of straw in there, so they can root and burrow themselves into it when they want. This morning Katherine found them buried in the straw under the heat lamp. Only their little butts were sticking out of the straw. Of course, they immediately popped up when they heard her open the stall door.

As for names, a friend had emailed me Pink Chop for the girl. Since we were already calling the boy Pork Chop, that sounded cute. We're calling them Pinkie and Porky for short. Last Sunday, Katherine took them to Sunday school with her. She's an assistant teacher for the early elementary kids, and she usually takes some type of animal with her every Sunday. The parents say that their kids are in more of a rush to leave for church than ever before, so no one is complaining, but I thought she was really pushing it by taking pigs. They were a huge hit though, and everyone wants her to bring them again sometime.

New chicks

The phone rang shortly after 7 a.m. this morning. It was the post office with news that our baby chicks had arrived from the hatchery. So, I jumped out of bed, pulled on my clothes, and went to pick up the chicks. I was very disappointed that more than half of the 25 did not survive their trip from Iowa, so the hatchery will be sending us more next week.

These are rose-combed brown leghorns, a rare variety of leghorn. The commercial egg-laying chicken in the United States was developed from the white leghorn. Since we have a freezer full of chicken, we only ordered pullets, which will grow up to be hens. Leghorns would not make very good meat birds anyway, because they tend to be small.

Leghorns lay white eggs. I continue to be amazed at how many people think that a chicken's feather color determines the egg color. It is sad to see that misinformation perpetuated on the Internet, but what's really amazing is when someone will argue with me about it. There was once a woman in my driveway insisting that white chickens lay white eggs. I told her that all of my chickens lay brown eggs, even the white ones, because the breed determines the color of eggs. She continued to insist that only brown chickens lay brown eggs. I rephrased my thoughts and said that I had never found a white egg in my chicken house, even though I have white chickens -- and I pointed to the white chickens in my yard. She told me that they said on the news that white chickens lay white eggs. I don't know if she ever believed that my chickens only laid brown eggs, but this will be fun, because now I will have some white egg layers -- my new brown leghorns!

After six years of having chickens, I suddenly got this brilliant idea. We are not terribly experienced at determining which chickens are still laying and which ones are not, so I decided that if I got white-egg-laying chickens, I would know how well my older chickens are laying. Next winter, once another egg season is done, the older layers will become stew hens and we will only over-winter the leghorns. Then next year, I'll order more brown egg layers, and I'll know how my leghorns are laying next summer, because their eggs will be a different color than the new ones. "People" say that chickens are good layers for about two years, so the plan is to butcher the oldest ones after two years. If I keep the leghorns for a third laying year, I might get either blue-egg-laying chickens or a white egg layer (like a Hamburg) that lays medium-sized eggs, so that I will still be able to tell them apart and know how well the leghorns are laying.

Commercially they push the hens so hard, they do not last more than a year. And I know some homesteaders who also use artificial lighting to push the egg production year round. So, I am wondering if my chickens might be good layers for a third year, since they live in a pretty stress-free environment. Even though I don't like the idea of buying new pullets every year (it's not very sustainable), I am interested in learning more about which breeds do well in our climate. Also, buying only one breed of chicken each year will make it easier to know the age of every hen. I have lots of questions and am certainly excited about my new hens and everything I'll be learning in the next two or three years.

Kidding season

We just welcomed our fifth set of kids tonight. I was putting the finishing touches on a potato au gratin before putting it into the oven when I heard Katherine screaming over the baby monitor. I couldn't understand much beyond, "Oh, my God!" Since I had just checked on Lizzie 45 minutes earlier and knew her tail ligaments were gone, I knew the screaming could only mean one thing, so I ran towards the coat closet and yelled to Jonathan to finish the potatoes and get them in the oven for me. As I pulled on my boots, I explained what "finish" meant.

When I ran into the barn I heard Katherine continuing to utter lots of exclamations, including, "He's huge!" I saw a little red buck dripping wet on the straw next to Lizzie who was doing her best to get him cleaned up as Katherine helped with a towel. I knelt next to her, and in less than two minutes, there were more hooves presenting. The kid almost flew out, and as I was drying it, Katherine asked if it was a boy or a girl, and as I glanced at Lizzie, I said, "I don't know. Don't have time. Here!" I practically tossed the kid at her as I grabbed a dry towel to catch the third kid that was almost flying out into the world. Final count was two bucks and one doe. The second and third kids were white. The little girl is quite the screamer. Lizzie Borden's kids are supposed to be named after early-20th-century outlaws, so I'm thinking Ma Barker and her boys. The little doe certainly has the spunk to be named after someone that tough.

On Wednesday, Odette had buck-doe twins, both tan, and I don't think that I mentioned that Shirley kidded 10 days ago on February 27. She had triplets, but one of the does was stillborn. Her kids are pictured above. The little buck is white and has blue eyes and is the most dairy buck kid I've ever seen. I'm thinking that I'd like to keep him, since his mother earned her milk star on her first freshening -- and he is gorgeous.

Next Wednesday, March 12, we have two does due to kid, then we should be done for the month of March. Caboose and Beauty are both due, but Beauty has almost no udder, so I am wondering if we are not somehow mistaken on her due date. She is clearly pregnant, but the lack of an udder has me wondering what's up -- is the date wrong, or is her production not going to increase much from her first freshening? The latter would certainly be a huge disappointment.

Piglet problems

I don't think we'll be raising pigs. This is the second time I've said that in the past few months. First I said it because we had some naughty pigs that kept getting out of their pen and rooting up our yard. When the snow melts now, and we have warm days, our yard is horribly muddy because they rooted up the grass. So, those boys went to the processor a couple months earlier than planned because we just got tired of chasing them back to their pasture.

Then we realized that one of the gilts was pregnant, so I thought that we might wind up raising pigs after all. She farrowed two days ago, and it was a rather traumatic day for all involved. Jonathan came running into the house in the morning yelling, "We have piglets!" I had to leave for work, but Katherine ran out there right away. The rest of my day was spent fielding phone calls from home as the story unfolded. First I learned that only four piglets were still alive from the eight that had been born. Two had clearly been squashed, and one was clearly an unhealthy runt. The last of the four dead ones met a mysterious death.

A couple hours later, Katherine went out to check on them, and another one was dead. He had been squashed also. She phoned, begging me to say that it was okay to bring the rest into the house and raise them. "They'll all be dead by evening chores if we leave them out there!" I couldn't disagree.

About 15 minutes later, my phone rings again. Katherine is crying so hard, I can hardly understand her, but the word "cannibalism" stands out. I finally discern that when Katherine went back to take away the three remaining live piglets, the mama pig had begun eating the dead one. When they took it away, the mama grabbed one of the live piglets and began chomping. We now have two piglets living in our basement.

Like most baby animals around here, they spent their first night in Katherine's bed; however, she said they are much more challenging than baby goats. They must be fed every hour or two, and that first night, the girl piglet wanted to eat every half hour, and she'd start biting when she got hungry, so Katherine was awakened more than once by a piglet nibbling on her -- and they have needle-like teeth. Last night, Katherine slept on the futon in the basement with them in a box next to her. It was less painful for her that way.

I agree that if we had left them out there, they would have been dead fairly soon. Both have scratch marks, bite marks, and bruises on their bodies, but they seem to be healthy. While I hope the piggies live, I am not happy about bottle-feeding a couple of animals that will eventually become dinner. Katherine insists on naming them. I've suggested that she name the boy Pork Chop, although I haven't come up with a suitable name for the girl. Any suggestions?

Chimney fire

Heating with wood is more complicated than I realized. This morning, our basement started to fill up with smoke. The chimney that goes from the stove to the ceiling had smoke leaking from the joints -- I thought. My husband said it was the chimney itself that was smoking, because it was so hot, the paint was burning off. Not sure, since I got out of there as quickly as possible and starting opening windows on the first floor.

My husband closed the vent, and within a few minutes, it appeared that the fire had stopped. I am certainly glad that we have a wood stove instead of a fireplace because a fireplace chimney would be hidden from view. Also, I'm not sure how you would stop a chimney fire if you couldn't close the vent and cut off most of the air from the chimney.

The wood stove has only been in for two months, so having a chimney fire is quite a surprise to me. I thought people got their chimneys cleaned once a year. My husband said that maybe we need to have ours cleaned more often since we're using it constantly. I guess it's time to do some more research. Anyone have any suggestions?

Stuck duck

Although I've heard of ducks getting stuck in freezing ice in a pond, we've never had it happen here -- until Sunday. I looked out the window and saw a lone duck sitting on the ice near the water's edge in the morning. An hour later, he was still there. And another hour later, he was still there. I convinced Mike that he would not be there for two hours if he were not stuck, so he went out there to rescue him. He discovered that the duck's breast feathers were frozen into the ice. He took out a pitcher of hot water and poured it around the duck's breast. The duck flapped his wings and stretched out his neck, but he didn't get loose. Mike took out a second pitcher -- and a third. Finally, as he walked out there with the fourth pitcher, the duck started to flap its wings as Mike approached, and he was free.

Real life

Sometimes I feel like what I'm doing isn't real. I'm not really a farmer or a homesteader. I'm just a city slicker who moved out here to play make believe. Then sometimes reality smacks me in the face. That happened yesterday. Another buck died. It's the third one this week. For the past three years, we've had bucks die over the winter. Although our does have not died, some have had trouble with aborting pregnancies and not getting pregnant. Last summer, when a doe died, I thought I'd discovered the culprit when I learned that she had been severely deficient in copper. I started to give all the goats copper boluses since it's the only copper supplement available without a prescription, and none of the vets believe that copper deficiency exists -- even when faced with lab results that confirm it. Since I started giving them the copper boluses, the does have improved dramatically. We've had no trouble getting anyone pregnant, and we've had no abortions (knock on wood) this year. But a week ago, my bucks started dieing.

Yesterday, I decided that we needed to get a better picture of the buck's nutrition. Maybe something is missing from their diets. Maybe they're dieing from lead poisoning. The health department won't test our water because it has sulfur in it -- no, I don't understand the reasoning. Two years ago we sent our water in to the state, and we were told that they would not test it because there was sulfur in it. So, I called the local vet to ask if she'd send the goat's liver to the state lab because that's where copper, selenium, iron, and lead are stored. The local vet is not a large animal vet, but seriously, how hard is it to send a liver to a lab? I don't think it's much different than doing a necropsy on a golden retriever dog.

Almost a dozen phone calls later -- to the local vet, the university lab, and the state lab -- I realize that my options are not good. The local vet won't do it, a reality that confuses me, as well as the doctor at the state lab. I start crying. I briefly consider driving 199 miles to the state lab to deliver the goat myself. I can't spend $300 on a necropsy every time a goat dies, but I can't just let them keep dieing without knowing what I need to do.

I call my husband's cell phone and office phone with the idea that I'll ask him to come home and remove the goat's liver, so I can freeze it and then mail it. As I'm dialing the phone, I apologize to my daughter for being such a wimp. Both phones ring until I get voice mail. I can't leave a message. It's too embarrassing. I hear my mother's voice saying, "Don't bother him at work with that!" I know what she would have done. I stop crying and say to my daughter, "I'm going to get the liver." She looked at me in disbelief. "You can help, but you don't have to. I don't care."

It's a small goat, so the liver should fit into a pint-sized Ziploc bag. I grab three, as well as a quart-sized bag, just in case I'm wrong. I find the disposable scalpel that I bought several years ago from the livestock supply catalog -- just becuase it was cheap, and who knows when you might need it? Or why? Katherine says that rubber gloves were left in the barn after the last time goats were tattooed. I put on my barn clothes and coat and head out. She follows me and asks, "What if we do something wrong?" I chuckle. "He's dead. What can we do wrong? If I faint, don't worry about it. As soon as my head goes down, I'll start breathing again, and I'll wake up. It'll be fine."

We put the goat in the middle of the barn floor, which is covered with straw. Having no idea what to expect, I say, "If there's a lot of blood, the straw will soak it up, and then we can just throw it in the garden. Blood is good fertilizer." I remove the scalpel from the packaging and ask Katherine if she wants to do it. She takes the scalpel and asks where she should cut. I know the liver is on one side, but I'm not sure which side, so I suggest that she just cut open the middle of the abdomen. At first, she just stabs at it, and the goat's belly deflates as gas escapes. I don't recall all the little details of the next 10 minutes, but she cut the layers of skin one at a time and accidentally cut open the rumen before we realized what it was. It was full of chewed up hay. There was no blood, and the parts were all rather fascinating. I never felt faint, and as we figured out the identity of each part, we announced it to each other and to the barn cat who was watching, hoping for a morsel. "Oh, this is the large intestines," Katherine said. "You can see the poop in there."

While most of the parts came out easily, we learned that the liver was attached. It took us twice as long to actually remove the liver as it did for me to find it. We didn't know how much of the liver was needed, so we wanted to be sure to get all of it. Once it was detached, I dropped it into the pint-sized bag, then took it into the store room to wash the blood off the outside of the bag, then put it into another pint-sized bag and another one and finally the quart-sized bag. The liver is in the freezer now, and today it will be on its way to the lab.

Last night, I was talking to a cattle farmer, expressing my frustration about the lack of large animal vets. He added that vets really are of little use to farmers anyway. "If you can't take care of it yourself, it's usually too late," he said. Yes, I've learned that too. While I was certainly upset that the vet would not remove the liver for me, I was also upset about my goats dieing and my feeling of helplessness. Death is a part of life, but our spoiled 21st century minds don't want to accept that. We want 0 risk; we want 100% success. At times like these, I remember Thoreau's words about wanting to experience all of life, even if some parts are mean and ugly. This is real.

Cutting open a goat in the middle of my barn to harvest the liver was a surreal experience for me, but it was not any different than simply butchering an animal. I've never done it myself, but I've watched my husband do it, glad that he was willing. While this experience was a big deal for my daughter and me, I remind myself that it's something that every hunter does during deer hunting season. While part of me thinks that my mother would have been proud of me for handling the situation, realistically I know that she would have expected nothing less.