Twenty-two adorable ducklings and two terrific turkeys have officially hatched. They have been relocated out of the incubator in Ian's office and into their brooder trailer in the garage under a roasty toasty heat lamp.
Baby duck.
Baby turkey
A batch of five ducklings went to their new farm today. Bye bye little ones.
A second batch of three are going to live with Uncle Matt and Auntie Skyla tomorrow. The remaining 14 will take up residence here on Gael Glen Farm until they attend freezer camp in the fall.
In addition to the ducklings, we also hatched out three turkeys. As I mentioned, two are doing amazingly well and are living the high life with the ducklings in the garage. The third, Unlucky Lucy, is not doing so well. She had a difficult hatch and has been living in the ICU laundry hamper in Ian's office.
Yup, she is alive. Just sleeping.
This was Lucy early this morning.
By this evening Lucy had fluffed up considerably and is chirping up a storm but she still does not look well.
Hopefully Lucy has a restful night's sleep and perks up even more tomorrow. Our fingers are crossed for her but things are not looking great for poor Unlucky Lucy.
Our neighbourhood was ablaze with bonfires today. Clearly others were as thrilled as we were about this morning's news that the burn ban has finally been lifted and the smoke was in the air!
Before the Fire Department changes its mind about this, Alistair and I spent the afternoon relocating various piles of brush around the farm to one central pile. After work, Ian and Seamus got the burn barrel up and running and we began to work our way through the huge amount of sticks, branches, grape and hop vines, old fence posts, etc. that we had collected.
Bonfire by moonlight.
But what is a bonfire without roasted wieners and smores? We wouldn't know. Easiest dinner ever with zero clean up!
Finally a day that had equal parts good and bad. What a relief!
Good: the animal chores were uneventful.
Bad: I had to (gently) chase Violet around the barnyard twice and crawl on all fours under the pine trees to catch her because she and Poppy refused to go into the barn at bedtime.
Good: Violet is still eating, drinking, standing and nursing Poppy.
Bad: Violet is obviously in pain and is less attentive to Poppy than usual.
Good: She was much less aggressive today to Molly and the twins than she was prior to the attack.
Bad: I accidentally stabbed myself in the thumb with a hypodermic needle when cleaning Violet's wounds.
Good: the needle was right out of the sterile packaging so I have not given myself some sort of disease.
Good: I remembered to slather sunscreen on the boys this afternoon before outside playtime.
Bad: Seamus had an allergic reaction to the sunscreen and now has a terrible rash all over his face.
Good: the Benadryl I gave Seamus had him sound asleep by 5 pm.
Bad: my kids have quarantine fatigue and were very uncooperative today on all fronts.
Good: my turkeys and ducks have started the hatching process. It is impossible not to be excited about hatching chicks...even if you are feeling generally uncooperative and whiny.
Today I lived a very balanced life. Be careful what you wish for.
I do not understand it, but it seems that lately my days are either terrific or terrible with no middle ground. I do not normally experience such frequent highs and lows; it is emotionally exhausting.
Today Ava tried to kill Violet.
Violet and Poppy a few days ago.
For the past several weeks, Ava has been spending her days in the sheep paddock keeping watch over the sheep and now the ewes and lambs. We know from experience that Charlie the donkey behaves poorly with lambs and so one of the main reasons I got Ava was to protect baby animals while Charlie is separated from them.
This morning I walked Ava over to the sheep paddock from the goat barn where she sleeps. She was leashed on a three foot tether which I was holding. As we entered the sheep paddock Violet and Poppy came over. Violet reared back to bunt in our direction to warn us to stay away from her lamb. This is typical mama ewe behaviour. I stepped in between them so that Ava did not get a bunt to the head since she was standing close on my side on the leash but it was too little too late.
Ava went ballistic. With me still holding the leash, Ava lunged onto Violet's back and sunk her teeth into Violet's shoulder. I screamed at her to stop and tried as hard as I could to pull Ava off of Violet but it was completely impossible. It was like a switch went off in Ava's brain that Violet was a threat and she would not let go. The three of us rolled around on the ground for what seemed to me like forever with me trying to pull Ava off of Violet, Violet trying to get away, Ava trying to rip out Violet's throat and poor Poppy running around us in circles screaming for her mama. It was easily the most traumatic thing that I have ever experienced.
I have no idea how but I finally managed to get Ava off of Violet and I dragged her into a crate. However, by this point Ava had ripped two large holes in Violet's shoulders down to the muscle. It looked so bad and bloody.
Ian and I immediately disinfected Violet's wounds with iodine spray. Our vet came out this afternoon to assess and clean them properly and give Violet antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory shot. I will have to continually flush the wounds out daily with saline until they heal and pray that she does not get an blood infection. I am miserable. What a terrible thing to have happen.
I have no idea what I am going to do about Ava. I am livid, scared, frustrated, and so, so sad all at the same time.
This weekend I experienced such an outpouring of kindness that it quite literally brought tears to my eyes. Some may wish for one fairy god mother to make their wishes come true; I, however, have three.
One dropped off several bags full of fresh fruit and vegetables because she knew I was almost out.
Another turned up bearing homemade baked goods and then proceeded to muck out my barns for me because she "needed the exercise" (so she said).
And to top it all off, this afternoon I received a parcel in the mail. It contained homemade face masks for the whole family and, get this, popsicle sticks to label my seedlings because she wanted to be sure that I "don't run out again".
Kindness like this is just so above and beyond that this past week's many frustrations pale in comparison.
Thank you fairy god mothers. You have made my heart fuller and my life easier.
We are emitting some "eau de barnyard" today here on Gael Glen Farm.
Having spent a good part of the day in the sheep barn, thanks to the arrival of our new set of twins, Gillian and Willoughby, I now smell like a sheep.
It was pretty tough getting a non-blurry photo of these two as they were constantly on the move!
Molly seems to think this is pretty funny!
Gillian, our ewe lamb, is bigger and a bit of an attention hog.
Willoughby, our new ram lamb, is already giving me more grey hair. When I found the twins this morning (they were born some time between my 2 am and 7 am barn checks), Willoughby's front right leg had a weird kink and he seemed to be favouring it.
I am wondering if he was positioned oddly in the womb or if it was in a strange position during the birth, or if Molly accidentally stepped on him. It is impossible to know.
Aside from his leg, he seemed fine throughout the day until my 5 pm check when I noticed that more of his umbilical cord seemed to be pushed out of his navel than had been earlier in the day. Gillian's cord was almost completely dried up while Willoughby's was now about 7 cm long and bright red. After a telephone consult with our farm vet, we tied it off with dental floss, sprayed it again with idoine disinfectant and are hoping for the best. The vet said that it is a good sign that Willoughby is nursing and walking around. Hopefully he has a good night.
I think "sheep lactation consultant" might be my real calling. I am proud to say that both twins are nursing and Poppy is continuing to nurse, though only off the left side.
This means that I need to keep milking out Violet's right udder to try to avoid the onset of mastitis. Violet does not enjoy being milked but having put some colostrum away in the freezer for future emergency use, any milk I get now will be used for soap making. Sheep soap, here we come!
Thankfully, I am not the only smelly one in our household this evening. After 8 hours of hard work, Ian smells like fencing. And even Liam smells! He planted a bunch of seeds this afternoon and helped Ali and I do some weeding. The smell of garden dirt is a wonderful thing!
Now that we are done lambing, we can begin to anticipate our next new arrivals - the ducks and turkeys hatch on Thursday! Hatching birds smell too - really, really bad. Unfortunately for Ian, the incubator is in his office so he will be fully immersed in the new bird stench upon their arrival. I will take sheep, fencing or dirt smell over chick stench any day!
We do not watch a lot of tv in our household (who has the time?!) but at the beginning of the quarantine period we introduced the boys to the old Super Nintendo from the early 90s as a way to distract them from missing school and their classmates. We were working our way through Mario World until we realized how obsessed Liam was becoming with it. It was literally all he talked about every waking moment (he probably dreamed about it too). We eventually put it away a few weeks ago because Ian and I could not handle Liam bringing it up every two minutes and begging us to help him pass Castle #5 (which we both tried to do for him but couldn't - it is really hard!).
Fast forward to three Nintendo-free weeks later and Liam is still talking about it. Frequently. For example, once the sun came out this afternoon, the boys and I went on a two hour forest walk. The whole time Liam compared every aspect of our walk to a Mario World game level.
According to him we were entering "the Flood World level" where our mission was to make it to the Covered Bridge while foraging for wild garlic ramps (akin to mushrooms in Mario).
While Mama and Liam were Mario and Luigi, Seamus was dubbed "Yoshi" as, being the only one wearing rain boots, he was necessary to push Ali's stroller through the deeper flooded areas.
I am not sure who Alistair was supposed to be (maybe a baby Yoshi?) but we nonetheless carted him along with us to the finish line. I am happy to report that he did not turn into a 1 UP upon crossing the bridge.
We found special tokens throughout the level which Liam said gave us "extra lives".
Seamus used up one of his extra lives when he managed to ride his bike right into a ditch (akin to jumping off a cliff in Mario World, I suppose). Seamus was initially very upset about this unexpected turn of events (see video) because "I just love this bike". However, when I pointed out that, in fact, this was like getting a free bike wash, it magically made everything okay. Nothing like a little positive spin to stop some tears, eh?
Goodness me. What an adventure. At least life with this trio is never boring.
As an added bonus, the boys foraged enough wild garlic to have both ramp tacos for dinner tonight as well as to make ramp omelettes for breakfast tomorrow. Given the dearth of vegetables in this household right now, I will definitely not say no to adding some fresh greens to our diets.
