Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. P Day to all,

Not too much to report today. Mostly sad things, but things are looking better for the animals here. Last night I had to stay on the ranch by myself, and I didn't sleep at all because dogs were whining, barking or rustling around all night and I still had 3 goats and 3 sheep to check every hour to see if they were going into labor. These last 3 goats and 3 sheep are going to be problems because they are either really old or first time mom's. The really old goats and sheep will probably have to have their babies pulled out by me or the person watching them,or they might develop complications in labor and die. There is a good chance that they might die with this birth because they are so old and skinny and worn out. So I had to check on them all the time, plus all the litters of puppies are getting old enough to make a ton of noise and they are making noise the whole night! I didn't sleep at all and I had to be out there at 11am yesterday, so it was another very very long day. However, none of the goats or sheep went into labor, so I am in the clear for another night. However, Mike and I are going to be pulling longer shifts so we each get another day off. He will stay out there a couple nights in a row, and so will I so we can have the rest of the weeks' nights off. It seems difficult because it is really hard for me to wake up every 2 hours and force myself to go outside in the freezing cold, but it will be worth it to have the rest of the days off. We also got another wwoofer, and once she figures things out (if she ever does!) she will stay out there 3 nights in a row and Mike and I will only have to do 2 nights a week each. This other wwoofer lady is really strange and doesn't seem to fit in at all, but she wants to be left alone and stay out there alone 3 nights a week, so we both were totally fine with that idea. She claims she has owned goats before, but she really has no idea what is going on. She said she came out here to wwoof to get away from stress, but clearly she did no research on wwoofing then, because that is not possible when you are wwoofing. She complains about everything, and gripes all the time, and I soon realized that she is actually out here looking for her 5th husband and is clearly running away from something back home. I just do my job and pretend to amuse her so she will go away. She is nice- kind of- but something is definitely off and we all notice it. She is harmless though, so I just try to indulge her.

Today was off to a sad start. I found half of a puppy behind the trailer. Yes, half of one. It looked like a fresh kill because it still had all its skin and muscle tissue and smelled fresh. However, I don't think it was one of our puppies because it didn't look like one and there would be no way they would be able to get out. I am very careful with them and lock them up very securely. Plus, our own dogs wouldn't attack their puppies because they are all used to each other and not dog aggressive. Maybe it was a neighbors dog who wandered into our yard last night, but that is almost impossible because the nearest neighbor is 35 acres away and we have a huge fence around the property that is designed to keep all our dogs in, so it would have to keep dogs out as well. I am still really confused about how that happened, and who the dog belonged to, but I didn't want to dwell on it. I also went to check on one of our mother dogs, and one of her puppies died. I caught her trying to bury it under straw and she seemed stressed out and upset about it. I didn't want her to think it was her fault, because she had a litter of 12 and dogs only have 8 teats, so some puppies don't get as much milk. The puppy looked just as healthy and as big as the other ones, so I couldn't figure out how it died. I know it happened right after I checked on them this afternoon, because I always make sure to poke each puppy in each litter to make sure they are all breathing and alive. Then I went to check on Terri (the Cujo dog) and 2 of her puppies were dead as well. She had a litter of 8 and now is down to 3. I am pretty sure she killed them by stomping on them because she was crying hysterically all night in her trailer and trying to jump out a 2 inch tall window gap and probably stepped on them while doing that. She is a horrible mother and I am positive she is not all there mentally. She definitely is a bad gene and will no longer be able to reproduce. Marv got her from a breeder in Idaho, so he didn't know her history. She might be inbred- which explains her psychotic actions. She tried to bite me randomly the other day, but she doesn't scare me. I just feel bad for her that she acts that way and stresses herself out so much. She is probably miserable being a domesticated dog, or she is just psycho. I vote psycho.

The rest of my day was spent building a gigantic straw stack by myself, which meant I had to climb all the way to the top of one straw stack and move the bales to another stack. Straw is really painful and gets everywhere and there is no way to get it out of your clothes- even after you wash them. I really don't like straw, and it is everywhere. We use it for everything, so it is always all over me. It makes me itch really bad too; and sneeze. I also had to clean out about 2 feet of old, smelly, pee and poo soaked straw flooring in the barn so the floor could dry out so we can re-bed the barn and rearrange some of the dog and goat cages. All our little baby goats are growing up so fast! They are almost ready to go into the general population yard with all the adult goats. This means they will be weaning off their milk and onto hay soon. They are so adorable. They are at that stage where they are learning to hop, run, and play so they spend all day literally hopping around their pen. They climb all over their mothers, and will try to climb on me when I am bending down to feed them. They also come to me when I call them by name! Trained goats......it is possible. After that, I did the usual: playing with Australian Shepherd puppies, playing with guard dog puppies, playing with older guard dog puppies, playing with older Aussie puppies, and playing with baby goats. I milked a few more goats today too, and collected eggs from the chicken coop. Today was a nice day, but cleaning out the barn floor was the most physically demanding task I have done so far. I am completely covered in bruises too; all over my legs, back and arms. I think they are from wrestling goats and sheep and doing a ton of manual labor. I am not as sore, muscle-wise, as I thought I would be. I really wanted to build more muscle here and get toned up, but I don't notice a difference yet. Just a sore back a lot. I am really tired every night too, which is nice. I actually am worn out and feel like I accomplished something everyday, and I can fall asleep on my own. I haven't even watched TV since I got here, and it is really nice. I was not really a big TV person before; I would rather read. I am doing a lot of that here, especially late at night on the ranch when I am killing time between checking on goats. It is really nice to be able to get away from everything though. No phones, TV, internet, or people on the ranch. It is so nice to just sit and listen to the radio and look at all the stars and not have a care in the world. It sounds cheezy, but when you can actually do that, you would love it too. There are even stars in the sky here! A lot of the, and I can see them every night because there are no lights around. The night sky and sunsets are so beautiful here because they go on forever. It is called Big Sky Country for a reason.

I also went to the Big Lots here today and it was so nice! The nicest one I have ever seen. I was amazed. Marv said that was a trashy store and he didn't like going in there. I just laughed so hard and told him to never ever come to California then! I have also been picking up on the vocabulary here. It is quite interesting. This is what I have learned so far:

1. Pick up trucks are called 'rigs'. Everyone drives a 'rig' here in Montana.
2. A cowboy's toothpick = a pocket knife
3. Soda is called 'pop'. No one calls it Coke, even if it is Coke. Its always 'pop' no matter what it is. And there is no Coke here anyway; it is all Pepsi products. And that means Mountain Dew everywhere so I am in heaven!
4. When I fell in the river, some guy said it was a 'Montana baptism' and that made me feel a lot better! I got a good laugh from him.

That is about all I have learned about vocabulary so far. I am learning a lot more about vaccinations and medications and all kinds of interesting things about using bovine medications or horse medications on different species' of animals, like goats and dogs. It's called 'off-label' when a medication designed for one animal is used on another. For example, we give penicillin often to the dogs and goats here for various reasons, but we use bovine penicillin. It says on the bottle that it is to be used for cattle only, but even the veterinarians here suggest using it for other species'. We also use a horse de-worming medication on the goats and it works the exact same. So that is good to know, and interesting also. I am also going to do more research on different types of vet practices; such as livestock vs. domestic/companion animals. I would really like to go with Marv to talk to different vets that he knows and ask them questions about their specific choice of animal to work with.

I have to go now, I have to get up early to build a new pen for goats and a new fence. But I get to sleep at home tomorrow night so I am really excited about that! Love and miss you all. I miss celebrating St. Patrick's Day, but this is more important right now and there is always next year!

More pictures soon! Love you all.

-Sam