Here's the rest of the fun stuff that I wasn't able to fit into yesterday's post!

Last weekend despite our sick goats we still managed to do some hefty barn chores. Twice a year (Spring and Fall) we do a big clean out of the barn. That means scraping poop and hay. Bunny poop, chicken poop, goat poop... the whole nine yards. It's never a fun time. I shouldn't take credit, Dave does all that work. Though we have found ways to make it easier. First off, a pitch fork! I think that's Dave's saving grace. Last year he did it with a shovel and I don't think I have ever seen him cry so hard in my life.

A lot of people ask "what do you do with it all?" Well, this year we piled a lot of it into some garden boxes. Things probably wont grow that great this year but when next summer rolls around we'll have some wonderfully fertilized soil. We also mixed some compost in there too. The rest of it we just chuck on the ground at the farm. Actually, we should probably move some of it so some areas on our yard where the dirt was washed away. Between the goats and the dogs they squish it into the ground and it becomes a soupy smelly mess in this rainy weather. But when the sun comes out it breaks down pretty fast and the grass grows pretty well on it. 

So for those wondering why I avoid farm visits this time of year... that's why!

Along with cleaning out the barn Dave added a little area for the goats. The goats now sleep there because they're safe from any cold drafts. I think it's going to be great for them in the winter! I took a picture of the barn before it was cleaned with the extended area below. It used to be an area for us to walk and sit and store some things.

If you're curious as to why we have a broken dog kennel in there... when Kevin was a baby that was his little 'safe zone' where he would hide when Sam and Dean pushed him around. Eventually he outgrew it and they broke it but he still goes and hides there when he gets scared. We just don't have the heart to take it away from him! 

While Dave was working away inside the barn I was lobbing down stumps and branches. Last summer we added a grazing area for the goats behind the farm. In the last year they have completely cleaned it out. And I mean they ate so much that they ripped the bark off the trees! See the before and after photos below. We'll be adding on another section for them this summer. 

Okay I'll stop boring you with landscaping and gardening stuff.

Any of you guys love your poodles as much as I do? I thought I'd share with you where I got these awesome pants! I fell in love with an artists paintings a few years ago. She does beautiful portraits of poodles usually setting in France. But she doesn't stop there... she does a little bit of everything including illustration's for children's books and of course now she does clothing! BUT if you look at her website and you don't connect with anything you see, she does commissioned pieces of art work and also does custom designs for her clothing. Click here to see her work! She has Facebook, Etsy, Instagram etc if you ever want to follow her amazing work like I do!

So along with a lot of exciting things there always comes some not so happy things. That's life. One of those unhappy things was one of Audrey's puppies was returned to us. Unfortunately, one of the families we chose to get a puppy could no longer care for their puppy because of some personal issues at home with one of their children. We were heart broken to have anyone go through a situation like this. Thankfully, it was in no way the puppy's fault and we were very sad to have to re home her. The good news is that Luna, (Dobbit's Vanilla Bean) is in wonderful care now and is very happy in her new home. 

Okay, back to happy things!

And oh the most exciting things!

​I saved the best for last!
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2 weeks from today we will be driving home with our new puppy! Can you believe it!

It still doesn't seem real. When we got Audrey and Lucy we had the ability to go visit but since this puppy is all the way in Quebec we don't have that luxury. 

The puppies are 6 weeks old now. And NO we still have not yet chosen which cream boy we will be taking home. They change so much during those first 8 weeks of life it can be hard to pick which one! We do have a name picked which we will announce later and I almost have a registered name picked... I need to get on that! The breeder has been awesome and sending lots of photos to help us make a decision. 

​The breeder gave them all temporary names, as you know. Below you'll see Moose, Makaw and Finch stacked. How does one decide!? They are all so cute!

More puppy pictures!!

Thanks for reading!

- ​Amanda

As most of you know Sam and Dean had emergency surgery last weekend. Here's what happened.....

I woke up Friday morning very relaxed and excited to start my long weekend. I was sitting out on the deck enjoying my morning coffee with Bogart.

I noticed a weird sound. Yeah I recognize that sound. It's a goat. But why are the goats crying? Usually they are still sleeping at 7 am.
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I make my way up to the barn to check things out. I look in the window and everything looks fine. I can't tell which goat is crying but I don't see anything crazy happening in there. Dave then follows me up and lets the goats outside. That's when I noticed Sam standing in the corner crying and straining away from the other goats.
At first I thought maybe that he hurt his leg. I patted him down but didn't notice anything unusual. He kept leaning back and signaling to his rear. So then I though well maybe he's constipated. I decided to sit for a few minutes an observe his behavior.

As I watched him I noticed that he was straining like he was trying to poop but then he would have little dribbles of pee coming out. Then I knew right away what was going on. He had to pee.

I got my phone out and went Google crazy. Sadly I didn't find anything that sounded promising as far as trying to fix his problem from home.
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I called the Metro Emergency Clinic and they told me to call Fundy vet. It was only 7:30 am by then and the vet didn't open until 8 or 8:30.  We tried for that time to massage his genitalia to work out the stones to hopefully get him to pee. Nothing worked. Poor Sam was crying and in a lot of discomfort.

Finally I got a hold of Fundy vet. They gave me two options... 1) a $1200+ surgery OR 2) euthanasia. Neither of those options worked for us. I resorted to Facebook and called for help from friends and family. I was told to try Complete Care in Lake Echo.  

When I called they said they had a vet that could see me if we went down there ASAP. So off we went. We piled Sam into the back of Dave's Dodge Journey and drove there. The vet we met there was Dr. Morrison. He seemed very confident that he could fix Sam with a little surgery right then and there in the exam room. Usually this procedure is done inside a barn so we weren't concerned about anything.

He gave Sam some conscious sedation and some local anesthetic and then quickly did a surgery that removed the end of his penis to make his pee hole larger to pass the stones.

When Sam was able to walk around he started peeing again!! Yay!! He saved Sam! Dave and I had to rush out to go to Dave and Robyn's wedding so we left Sam there for a few hours to recover.

Thankfully we made it to the wedding in once piece. We were JUST in time. We managed to get ready in the car on our way there but we did still smell like a dirty goat!After the wedding we drove back to the vet to pick up Sam where he was feeling great again. We brought him home and all was good! I did notice that Dean was acting a little funny but I thought I was being paranoid - which I usually am. Normally I trust my 'sick animal instincts' but this time I ignored it.

At 6 pm we check the animals, all was good so we left for the wedding reception. We had a great time and when we returned home at 10:30 pm we went to check on the goats one last time before going to bed. That's when I noticed Dean was acting very weird. He was crying, grinding his teeth, stomping and banging his head on the wall. OH NO!! Shit, shit, shit!! I called the emergency number at Complete Care again and thankfully within 10 minutes Dr. Morrison returned my call. He agreed to meet us at the clinic again to check out Dean.

We piled Dean into the car and met him there at around 11:15pm. He checked over Dean and agreed the same thing was happening here. God have mercy on us! He did another surgery on Dean. Dean was a little more difficult to do because he had less sedation so that we wouldn't have to stay as long to have him recover to bring him home. Every time the vet was almost done Dean would start flailing around and kick. Ugh! That was exhausting. 

FYI- Sam is 106 lbs and Dean is 155 lbs!!

Finally he successfully completed the surgery and went into his recovery position and had a nice long pee! While we waiting he trimmed up Dean's hooves and gave Dave some pointers. He also removed Deans scraggly horn for us since it was starting to dig into his head.

After all was done and good went headed back home and got home around 1:30-2 am. We got the goats settled in and went to bed!
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Since their surgery last week both of the goats are doing fantastic and we are forever thankful for Dr. Morrison's hard work and late night availability saving Sam and Dean!! 

For those wondering why this happened here's your answer.
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This time of year hay becomes as rare as gold because nobody has any left after the long winter.

Our supplier was out of hay so we just started feeding them more grains to supplement the hay until some became available. Since Sam and Dean were castrated at a young age their private parts were not fully developed. So in this case where we gave them lots of grains it created a sediment in the bladder which in turn blocked their pee hole since it is small and under developed. The surgery removed the end of their penis to make the opening larger to allow the sediment to pass. The vet sent a sample off to a lab to have it tested! If we didn't do surgery their bladder would have ruptured and soon after they would have died.

A friend of mine let us buy some of her hay stock pile to hold us off until we can get some more!

​Lesson learned!

​We are just happy to have our boys back to normal again!

- Amanda

Has it really been a month since I've posted here? Wow.
​Time goes by fast this time of year. I have lots of updates for everyone though if you follow my personal Facebook and Instagram you probably know everything already! 

May 6th was Dave's birthday. He turned 26! Yay! I thought it would be cool to go out and buy these festive popular balloons that everyone seems to be buying.
It's all fun and games until you realize how much they cost... I think after tax it was around $30 for 2 balloons. Then they asked me if I wanted a weight for them (you mean that's not included?, ugh). Alright, cool, there's another $3 added onto these novelty balloons. So since I'm cheap I decide to only buy one weight for the two balloons.
I get home and put them down and I realize that I made the worst decision ever. I spent $35 on these dumb balloons and since I didn't want to spend another $3 so they would have individual weights, they now stick together so you cant see what numbers they are. Ugh! So I find a dog bone and tie one balloon around that. Great! Problem solved! Well yeah, great idea until one of the dogs decide to chew that bone and starts running around the house with a balloon tied to the dog bone looking at us like "what's so funny?" Well it made for a good laugh at least.
Now since I paid that much for the balloons I feel like I need to keep them and reuse them. But do you think I could get the air out of them? Nope. Can't figure it out. So I'm left with these blue foiled limp balloons hanging around on my ceiling until they deflate on their own. I've committed thus far so I refuse to just throw them away.
​The other day I woke up and somehow one of the balloons traveled upstairs into the bathroom. Scared the crap out of me. Good thing I was in the bathroom... just kidding :). No but really it had made it's way up there somehow.
So anyways, I just thought I should let everyone know that if you're thinking of buying one of these balloons that nobody at your party will actually care if it's there. Instead go spend your $35 on some really good food, they'll like that more.  

Stay tuned this weekend as I have lots of more updates on what happened to Sam and Dean, our new puppy and more!!

​PS. I have to put it in separate posts since I'm too cheap to upgrade my account to 'premium' and Weebly wont let me fit my one-million words and photos into one giant post! :)
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-Amanda