In the last week we have had three more hens present us with little flocks of chicks. One lot that was established out in the chicken yard and has vanished. Yesterday DIL Mitra was awakened at 5:30 in the morning by the sound of a fox making off with her mother hen. Likely that is what happened to mine. Mitra now has five motherless chicks to care for. As of this telling, Roshan has them in her lap while she does her homework. And they follow her around the house.

Martin came down from camp and gave my sheep their worm medicine. Well, he caught them (the hard part) and I administered the medicine. The lambs struggled as hard as they could but the ewes stood like ponies, once caught.

Last  night I joined Martin and family at the lake for grilled steaks. It was a fine evening. They had climbed Tumbledown again. It was a 6 hour hike and the kids made it just fine. DS Mark and DIL Annie were with us and stayed over until today for a nice mini vacation.

Tonight the lambs were very naughty. They did not come in with their mothers. It was fully dark by the time they showed up at the barn bleating their heads off.

Monday, August 27, 2012

I have been having trouble at milking time with inadequate vacuum pressure. I have addressed every little thing I could think of in my machine or procedure that could be causing vacuum loss and not seeing much improvement. Three days ago I switched machines and began using the Surge on Fern. She accepted it like a lamb although she had never had the surcingle on her before. But it didn’t milk any better. This convinced me it was the fault of the pump. I thought maybe it was worn out. Martin was quite concerned, as he had already tweaked the obvious things. Late last night he wrote saying he had realized it was not a matter of pressure but of volume. In other words it was clogged somewhere. He and the family stopped in here at 8 o’clock on their way back to Biddefordand he set to work disassembling the gullet on the thing and using a chopstick removed a bunch of gunge. For the first time in weeks I had no trouble with teat cups falling off. Huzzah!  His sisters and I agreed, his RPI education was not wasted.

My garden in general this year is a disaster, the shining exception being the tomatoes. The vines have no evidence of blight and there is no blossom end rot – I scarcely dare breathe this for fear of jinxing them. I am not sure what we did right. DD Sally planted a mixed packet of heirloom seeds in a box last February. Nancy and I planted them out in June in soil that had formerly been a comfrey patch. Two years ago DD Marcia got rid of the comfrey by solarizing the patch (cooking it) with a double layer  of tarp. Sally further prepared the ground last fall with rotted cow manure. The tomatoes look like catalogue illustrations. Many are those huge yellow and pink ones that usually go squishy before you can race them to the table.

For supper I made salade nicoise with lots of tomatoes and cucumbers – my cukes are pretty good too.

Tonight I made a point of putting the sheep in earlier and got them  in all nicely together.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Two days of superb Maine weather to brag about, bright, dry, around 65 – 70F.

Nancy H was here and worked all day harvesting the oats and wheat. It was a perfect day for the work. I kept trying to make her stop and rest but she said she was enjoying it.  It is all spread out now on sheets upstairs in the carriage house.

For dinner I am making ratatouille and roast breast of lamb, all of it from the farm.

Abby went to Rumford on errands. The cats were out of food.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

My poor old Bagel dog has a tumor and has become weak and disoriented. Last night he leapt through an open window of the carriage house and fell about 8 ft into the sunken garden. Now he can scarcely drag himself around. My vet is out of town.

Abby has written to decline the job in Oregon she was offered. There were some major uncertainties of wage and expectations. We are all relieved.

The weather today was once again very fine.

Friday, August 31, 2012

Friday morning:

Bagel lay down on the lawn yesterday and would not be moved. It was a warm night so we got him onto an old quilt and left him there. I slept on the couch so that I could go out every couple of hours and check on him. He moved only once all yesterday and all last night and that was to drink a little water. Today we gave him an analgesic to ease his pain. I do suspect he is in pain. I guess most people would euthanize their dog at this point. It is a struggle to decide whether to let nature take its course. Last time I had my dog, old Muffin, euthanized I did not feel good about it. I did not expect Bagel to be alive this morning. His eyes are shut. His breathing continues to be rapid.Now it is starting to rain. We have constructed a little tent over him.

This evening:

We gave Bagel some pain pills we had on hand but they didn’t help so far as we could tell. As the day wore on we foresaw another night of worse suffering. We explored the options and finally called Dr. Patterson in Farmington. He agreed to euthanize Bagel if we would bring him over. He would have come to us but he was exhausted from doing a 3 hour C-sec on a cow and he is as old as I am. Abby and I were able together to lift Bagel on a sheet and put him in the back of her car. Dr. Patterson gave Bagel a tranquilizing shot and a little later sodium pentothal in a vein in his lower leg. So now his suffering is over.  Dr. Patterson figured that Bagel did not absorb the pain pills.

Martin’s former partner,Mike Herkes is staying at camp and will come down in the morning and bury Bagel for me.