Adventures in Paradise

I'm not going start this blog at the beginning. I promise to do 'flashbacks' or catch up if and when we ever have dull moments.

I will however explain the name. Adventures in Paradise came about more or less as a joke. We were having a normal crazy day right after moving to the small town of Paradise. I posted a few pictures on Facebook and at the end, almost as an afterthought, I added #adventuresinparadise. I have had comments (interestingly enough, mostly in person) from family and friends that they thought it was linking to my blog. No, not until today. Today it is an official blog!

I probably would have waited even longer to do this had we not spent the weekend at a family reunion. Technically for hubby's side but after attending for 27 years I am pretty sure they are my cousins too. Several different family members wanted to know more about this weeks happenings and some even gave condolences to T about losing Thor the Buffalo last week. One aunt wanted to know why my posts didn't go into more detail. Well Auntie, because it is Facebook, too many details are bad fb etiquette. Plus my dear mother-in-law has told me for years that I should write a book about our adventures. Even my Grammie chides me on a regular basis that I "need to write that down." She is a journal keeper. Even as a child I can remember her writing the daily happenings in a planner. She didn't even care if we read them! She always puts the high and low temperature for the day. (Which by the way is cold for Aug 3. Rainy and cold! At 6:30 pm it is 63°. At about noon I heard the radio announcer say, "it's a balmy 57°") I hope that after she is gone we can find several from when my mom was growing up. So today is rainy and cold and I am tired from all the reunion fun plus everything else. I haven't had much sleep the past few days. (Probably not much sleep the past month. Okay, let's be honest, I'm a mom. Sleep is, apparently, optional.) I added all of the above and came up with B.L.O.G.

I have been thinking about getting goats ever since we made the decision to move. The Dad and a couple of our clan are lactose intolerant so I am hoping we can all drink goat milk. I researched breeds that have the best milk and Nigerian Dwarf was at the top of most lists.  About 2 weeks ago B was on a local online classified page and told me that someone had goats for sale. We headed out to the look at the kids and ended up picking out a couple of brothers and their cousin. She should be old enough to breed in November. Then came the names: Sister named hers Sweetie Pie is, and as her name suggests, she is a sweetie pie. The 2 brothers are a little black and white Mac named Sir Alistair and a little brown one that looked just like a miniature buffalo. B and I wanted to name him Bison or Buff (short for buffalo) but T wanted to name him Thor. He did agree that Thor the Buffalo sounded like a good name. We were told that the brothers we're about 8 weeks old and weaned. I had a hard time believing that since Thor spent the first week trying to nurse off of Sweetie Pie. But he was eating and playing. He was just much more mellow than his brother. After about a week he gave up attempting to nursing and got an eye infection. I know some people with goats and was told that it was probably pink-eye. Hubby and I were headed to the farm store to get a few things anyway so I just added antibiotics to the list. Before we pulled out of the parking lot to come home Mac called to say that Thor was unresponsive in the pasture.  The Littles we're pretty upset by the whole thing! We have yet to be able to make contact with the breeder. But the next day The Dad noticed that there was a nub of umbilical cord on Sir Alistair.  I am fairly certain that the brothers should have still been with their mother or bottle-fed. I have bottle-fed kittens, puppies, pigs, calves and even a couple of colts. I am very capable of doing it and would have done it had I known! People make me angry! Sir Alistair seems to be doing great, I wonder if Thor wasn't as strong as his brother? I am sorry Thor the Buffalo, you were a lover, such a snuggly thing. We do miss you!
We picked out a spot just over the hill for the Pet Graveyard and the next day I cleared brush and made a trail to it. Apparently, we picked the right spot because I found a dog collar hanging on a tree branch. The Littles spent time drawing pictures of Thor, both for in the box...errrr...coffin and on the fridge.  T wants another goat but he wants to be the one to pick him out this time. Sounds reasonable. Next week we will see if we can find him a new friend.

The same day we lost Thor, B told me that some friends had their duck eggs hatch. The next day we adopted 3 ducklings.

Animal count today:
2 dogs
2 cats
4 chickens
1 bearded dragon
2 goats :-(
3 frogs/tadpoles
3 ducklings

That friends, is why this is The Funny Farm!