Rebecca's journal-may be time to restart this

[rebecca100]

I bought a lottery ticket. While I am getting blessings, I may as well try for some money too. LOL Actually i have never bought a lottery ticket in my life. MIL bought me one. Things seem to be actually turning around for us! Yesterday on craiglist I found what I had been looking for-a milking nubian doe!!!!! I paid $300 for her. She is registered and his buck is registered and he promised me free breeding to his buck when the doe is ready!!!!! She has been tested for disease and a baby(human) drank her milk and they sold cheese and milk too. So I feel safe about giving it to my kids. Unfortunately he won't breed one that is still milking-so I have to choose milk or babies. He believes that the doe needs to be dry,and dewormed, prior to rebreeding. Honestly it is a good thing to do even though I was a little disappointed that I couldn't just dry her up prior to kidding. FIL also bought a doe-she was not registered or currently in milk, but was bred and is due to kid in December and if she is not caught he promised breeding until she does catch. He paid $150 for her from the same man. Oh and on top of it all dh was NOT angry about me spending over my limit for the doe. He actually liked her and said she was worth what I paid!!! What a shock! Of course her friendly curious personality had won him over within a few minutes of meeting her.

 

[Blackbird]

PICTURES!!

Congratz!

 

[freemotion]

If you plan to breed her in early December you can still get a LOT of milk from her! Two months (that's what, 30 gallons of milk at least, right? Do the math!), then take a couple weeks or more to dry her off. And a free breeding.....well, you've likely read all the drama around finding a buck. Sounds like it was worthwhile.

So if your FIL's doe is preggers, can you get some milk from them? Then you won't go too long without milk. You can start milking about two weeks after the kids are born, separating them at night, assuming she is giving plenty of milk. If not, just wait another couple of weeks, until the kids are eating a bit more, then start separating them at night and milking in the morning, letting the kids nurse all day.

And you can start freezing some, too, a month or so before you dry her off. Slight texture change, so some may not like drinking it straight, but you can still use it in stuff. I used it for my favorite breakfast hot chocolate and barely noticed a difference.

 

[Javamama]

amazing!

 

[rebecca100]

Anyway ds had been upset about losing his big buck-Mountain Goat(who he raised on a bottle) a couple of years ago so when we found this, and with our two new does, we had to get it. A registered 7 month old nubian buck out of champion blood lines!!! For $75!!!!! We now have the nubians running together and my trusty, annoying old buck and the long haired doe and her babies together with the two groups seperate from each other. I am hoping that maybe he will be allowed to use that buck for his 4H animal. I don't know since we this our first year for that.

Anyway an update on the does. My doe is only giving a little over a cup of milk a day. I was going to try to bring her milk back, but it doesn't seem to be helping milking several times a day and increasing her protein. She came in season and bred to ds's buck and we have now decided to let her dry up. A cup isn't worth the trouble. I dewormed her today so the milk isn't useable anymore anyway and I would rather have healthy babies and momma over the small amount of milk I was getting. Now Fil's doe was suposed to be younger than mine-about 3 years old. Well she was foaming at the mouth the next day while trying to eat. I checked her front teeth which seemed to be fine although NOT 3 year old teeth. BIL came over and he and mil and I checked her back teeth. They were wore off at the gums and pitted. Fortunately not abscessed, just bad. Then we noticed that her front teeth are loose. Poor thing-she is really old. I had noticed and she had glue stuck to her fur before he got her and the man admitted she had come from an auction. I don't know if it was an honest mistake on her age or a purposeful lie. He definately wasn't going to tell us she had come from an auction. If I hadn't seen the glue from the stickers myself and asked about it then we would have never known. I went and got her some good pellet feed that I thought she could eat easier. She still grazes pretty well, just foams from trying to chew her food. AND NO SHE DOES NOT HAVE RABIES!!!!!
I guess we just need to learn to look animals over better before giving strangers our money. They are both still sweet animals, and I offered fil his money back on the old doe if he didn't want her anymore. I don't mind taking in a sweet old animal. He still wants her and believes she has plenty of useful years left.

 

[rebecca100]

Well I am excited. So far nothing has worked out right. The place down here that would accept animals was rented out the next day by someone else. Dh has still not heard a thing from the supposed sure thing jobs that he was supposed to get either at the prison or at the grain elevator place. His unemployment runs out in two weeks and my job is getting pretty shaky. The lady I sit with has been put on hospice in-home care and is doing poorly. It breaks my heart to watch her dying. Working in a nursing home I saw it many times and it still never gets any easier. Dh and his mother aren't getting along very good. Both have been staying in foul moods. Actually I guess it has been the weather since everyone seems to be looking for a fight. They are keeping my nerves shot. I just hide out with the chickens and goats. I'll bet that sounds like a lot to be excited about. It's not. This is: We rented out my dad's old place for the amount of the payment on our bank loan(which is only $250) and while dh was back in Arkansas he was offered a job and within 24 HOURS OF ARRIVING IN ARKANSAS HE WAS TAKING HIS DRUG TEST FOR A KICK BOOTY JOB!!!! 4 10 hour days at $17 an hour driving a water truck!!! That is $5 an hour more than what he was making driving a hazardous propane truck! It is local and the trucks shut down in bad weather. Driving a propane truck he was always pushed to go as hard as possible until he couldn't go any more in bad weather since that is when everyone seems to run out of gas and I stayed worried that something would happen to him trying to drive around mountains on ice and snow. The kids and I are going to stay here while he stays out on the mountain(our old place) in the camper. When our income taxes come in or if he can get enough saved up we are going to have a used mobile home brought out there and the kids and I will go back. It was getting pretty rough here. Dh's brother just got divorced and has moved down also, so we know he will be there for his dad, and we can always come back if needed. Mil is not happy that we are leaving, but she does understand that two families simply cannot live in the same house and that we left a lot behind to come be with them.

 

[TTs Chicks]

Great news!! Sounds like things are working out the way they are supposed to - ya'll just had to wait a little while. Believe me I know the waiting sucks!

 

[PamsPride]

Congrats on the goats and the job!!

 

[lorihadams]

YAY!!! Can you take a deep breath now?

 

[rebecca100]

Here I go again. I do NOT know what to do. Dh was supposed to start his job last week and they keep putting off his starting. Last excuse was his drug test hadn't come in yet. It doesn't take a week for a drug test to come in. Today he heard a rumor that they had filed bankruptcy. One of the employees he knew told him she had heard that too and she has put in applications at other trucking companies. His unemployment runs out next week. I lost my job a few days ago without warning. I was scheduled to come in and my boss called 5 hours before I was due in and told us (MIL and I) we were no longer needed. I had just paid all our bills fortunately, but unfortunately that left me with a whole $24 to my name. On top of it all the renter left without even bothering to say a word to us or pay any rent at all. Dh just went over there to find the elec. and water turned off and no one there. So dh and I are both stranded in different states with little to no money. He is staying in our camper at his exstepdads and I am staying down here with the rest of his family. He is going to haul scrap metal for the money to have the utilities turned back on at the mobile home and we are going to try to figure out how the kids and I are going to get back home with our animals. We have a horse trailer and old truck that we can try to get back with, but it will be a long stressful trip in an old truck that barely wants to take itself places. If we can get back home I think we will be okay. I can go to work as a CNA again(my certifications are for AR not LA) and then it won't be such a rush for him to get a good job and CNA jobs are way easier to find around there. If that doesn't work out we will just be totally destitute up there. The kids want to go home too, but in truth I am afraid to leave here with out the safety of a job either waiting for me or dh already working like we did when we came here. Honestly I truly can't see us staying here with his family even if he did find a job here in LA. We all hate it here. There are too many people and land is too expensive and we would be stuck living with his family when we already have our own home. And above all else no one can get along and I am sick of living with the chickens and goats and trying to follow my kids around to make sure they don't irritate anyone or touch anything they are not supposed to. The kids and their cousins fight with each other nonstop and quite literally NO ONE here is happy or it seems even wants to be here. This is family land we are on and MIL and FIL both want to move somewhere else. I pointed this out to MIL and she agrees but then she just starts putting down on AR like she thinks we are trying to force them to move there. I feel like I will have a nervous breakdown if the constant griping and fighting don't stop. I asked one day why no one was happy and apparently it is everyone else's fault that everyone else is unhappy. Please pray for us and that the Lord show us where we are meant to be whether it be here in LA with his family or home in AR. And if it is here in LA - that we find our own place. It seems as if there is a wall that is stopping our plans every which way we turn and when we think we have it made then- SMACK that way closes. You would think in 4 months in 2 states he would have found more than a temp. job by now. I know I sound whiney and I am sorry, I just needed to whine a little while to sympathetic ears. I do realize that a lot of this is our own fault for even daring to pack up and come down, but now I am just praying for Him to show us what to do. In a week we will have no money if something doesn't happen and worse yet we aren't even together. How is it even possible that this much can go wrong in such a short time unless there were a reason for it?