Monday, October 18, 2010

Pink Dad

It was a beautiful weekend. We’re getting into the time of year when we get to call all our friends and family across the country and brag about the fact that we’re out working on our gardens and sipping ice tea while they are bracing for freeze warnings and dragging out the winter coats.

The honeysuckle is just a mass of orange flowers,
and our wild sunflower is in full glory. Unfortunately, I found out the sunflower was doing so well because the hose had accidentally been left on for only god knows how long and it was responding to the large quantity of water. I’m so not going to enjoy the next water bill, but I am enjoying the display of color







My sister participated in the Susan Komen 3 Day Walk, in Philadelphia this past weekend. Through a series of events last winter, my father was, um, persuaded to dress in costume to cheer her on. She got to pick the costume. I will never think of tutus in the same way…

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=BZ&Dato=20101017&Kategori=NEWS01&Lopenr=10170802&Ref=PH (photos 33-37 are my Dad and his buddy Cliff)

Brain wants to blow up the photo and hang it in the spare bedroom so that Dad will always remember that weekend. Brian is just really thoughtful that way!

I got to sit at the loom for a little while and finished up a rug I've been working on. All I need to do now is sew the ends back in and call it good..


We had a visit on Sunday, which made the alpacas very happy as they snacked on a bucket of carrots. All and all a relaxing weekend.

Friday, October 15, 2010

life goes on.

Finally, things are calming down again. Everybody is on the road to recovery. Nadia, as it turns out had scratched her eye. The cloudiness is now gone. Cartigan is doing much better. He still has a bit of a limp, but he is using the leg pretty regularly now, it will just take time to heal completely.
We’re working on a new theory with Jack. Another breeder asked about the possibility of a reoccurring abscess. It made sense. We may have been knocking an infection down with medication, but not knocking it out. He is now on penicillin long term, much to his dismay. Normally we would keep him on 10 days. Now we’re looking at a minimum of 20 days and possibly up to 4-6 weeks. He really hates the shots and does his damnedest to spit at me and kick me when I go to give it to him. But true to his sweet nature, if I don’t have a needle in my hand, he still wants his treats and kisses.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

May your life be interesting

Life had been rather dull around here. Which, in my mind, is not a bad thing. That all came to a screeching halt this week. To start with, we got our hay. Very good news, since we were out and working on borrowed bales. However, Mother Nature seem to think this was a sign to finally send rain. And wind. Everyday. Things are a bit damp out here but we missed the worse of Arizona’s weather as Flagstaff had four tornados touch down yesterday.
Sometime during the last round of storms to hit our area, Cartigan managed to injure one of his front legs. We checked him out and didn’t see any obvious signs of trauma, nor could I feel any swelling, heat or break. As best I could tell the pain was in his ankle area, probably a good sprain. We wrapped his leg in an ace bandage to help give him some extra support and he will now walk around slowly on it. Any faster speeds and he pulls it up and hops around on three legs. At this point all we can really do is try to support the leg as much as possible, try to keep him from jumping around and let time heal the injury.
Mean while, Nadia has developed a cloudy eye. Again, no obvious sign of injury and she is an older girl so this may be just a sign of old age. We flush it with saline daily. Next time Linda is out, I’ll have her take a look, but at the moment, it seems to be bothering me more than it is bothering Nadia.
The latest is Jack is having another one of his fever episodes this morning. As cool as it was yesterday I doubt it has anything to do with overheating. More than likely there is some other underlying chronic condition and we’ll just have to deal with this periodically for the rest of his life.
I’m beginning to understand why the Irish think the most powerful curse you can say to someone is “may your life be interesting…”

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Fall Festival 2010


The Fall Festival in Pinetop is behind us now. It went ok. It was quieter than last year; I guess the economy is still keeping people away. We still had a great time and did well for sales. It was nice to get out of the heat for a while.
A small farmers market that we had scheduled for this weekend was canceled because of the lack of participation, another sad note on the economy. Oh well, I could do with the rest.
We finally got a break in the heat. This week ahead is forecasted to be in the 80’s. It feels good to walk outside and not get slapped in the face by 105 degrees. The alpacas are enjoying the coolness as well. They are finally venturing away from the fans and coolers. Of course the drop in temperature has been accompanied by rain. I wouldn’t normally complain, we love rain, but we just got a load of hay and haven’t moved under the cover yet. There are tarps over it, but the bales still get damp, so we’ll need to uncover the stack and let everything dry out, and then restack it. Yippee.