Trauma

Meet Spanky

Liz James · March 16, 2020 ·

Meet Spanky…. when he was younger, I’m pretty sure he thought his name might be “No, Spanky” 😉.

Spanky isn’t a teenager anymore, but his antics (and his genetics) still land him in trouble on occasion. He is a fence jumper, and a digger…. and he loves to utilize his herding genes to keep the cows and horses all in line when he thinks we aren’t watching even tho he knows we prefer he not unless asked. #cattledogsskills

His failure to heed our attempts to keep him from getting into trouble has given him a snaggle tooth and a few hard earned life lessons.

So I wasn’t entirely surprised when Spanky went from running like the wind, to favoring his back paw last week. I was pretty confident he had gotten stepped on when he was in the midst of shenanigans. Nothing appeared to be broken…. just a sensitive paw. A couple of days passed, and instead of getting better, it seemed like it was getting worse… swollen in fact. So, before making a vet appt, I did a thorough assessment again, and this time, found what appeared to be a scab on one of the pads of his paw…. but a suspicious scab🤔. I grabbed a pair of tweezers and gently worked at the scab…. only it wasn’t a scab….. It was the mother of all thorns 😱. Poor baby! I felt terrible that I hadn’t found it sooner😥….. the good news is that, his relief was almost instantaneous, and after washing his wound thoroughly with colloidal silver and a couple of other natural healing agents, and starting him on Inner Defense to boost his immune system…. swelling is now negligible and he is back to bossing cows around when he thinks I’m not looking.

Being prepared isn’t a season…. it’s a life skill and it’s on the daily around here… ie: business as usual on the farm. We know how to care for our own, but we also know when we are in over our heads. I’ve got to make a vet appt this afternoon for something that’s beyond my skillset, and that’s ok…. that’s why we love our vets!….. But it surely is nice (and economical) to be able manage many health concerns from home!

Have a beautiful day friends!

xoxo~ liz
#hesmylittlebuddyandmyrighthanddogranchhand
#knowbetterdobetter
#everydayprepper
#ThanksYL
#wellstockedyearroundforhealthandwellness
#everyoneshouldkeepInnerDefenseonhandd

With Her Weight In Gold

Liz James · May 30, 2018 ·

Well. This morning started off with a bang. Literally. I was not sure whether to name this post “Family First”, “Farm Life Reality Part II” or the above title.

About 6:30am I heard a very specific series of barks. For those of you who are well tuned in to your dog(s), you know exactly what each bark means. Our dogs have some very specific ones:

Herding yip-barks
Hot air balloon notifications (we appear to be on the regular flight path of a few )
Sirens (the dogs will start yip-howling before we can even hear the sirens on the highway a few miles away)
Skunk/Possum barks. These are more excitable bark patterns, but not a “Danger Will Robinson” kind of bark.
Happy barks.
Warning barks (stranger danger!)
And then there was the one this morning….. ‘the enemy is here‘ bark.

As soon as I heard it, I flew out of the house wondering which enemy it was. When I rounded the corner on the back side of the property I knew we had a situation that wasn’t going to end well. Lily, our livestock guard dog, had backed a coyote into a corner (between fences), and no way was she going to stand down. Lily is an Akbash, a dog very similar to a Great Pyrenees, but in my mind, a far superior LGD for many reasons (another post for another day). These dogs are not fighters, although pressed to do so, they will defend themselves and will kill if necessary. No, their instinctive drive is to protect their family at all costs using intimidation first, and force as a backup if necessary.

We do not kill predators for the sport of it, but if we have one threatening our farm family, we will not hesitate. It is a rare day that we pull out a gun and use it for this purpose, but this morning, it was necessary. We have shot sick skunks and poisonous snakes. Coyotes, although they live all around us, generally stay off our property thanks to the dogs. This one had gotten brave, and that’s not good. A brave coyote will find a food source and then our farm becomes Luby’s cafeteria for she and her friends. This means that our chickens, our cats and kittens, and even our calves and smaller dogs become potential meals…… not to mention vet bills that start rolling in as our LGD’s have to sometimes engage the enemy in battle.

Today did not end well for this coyote, and it was stressful for Lily too. She would not back down even tho she is terrified of guns. She held the coyote at bay, and Charlie shot it. Lily scrambled back to the porch, shaking…… not because of the coyote, but because of the gunshot.

Lily prefers to spend her time outdoors guarding her farm-ily……unless there is thunder, fireworks, or gunfire in our area. Any of those, and she’s at the door begging to be let in (which we do). This said, I was concerned about her response to gunfire literally that close to her.

Young Living has an oil that is well used and loved by those who know it: Stress Away. I would venture to say that several million bottles of this relaxing blend have been used and relied upon over the years. It is one of my favorite oils, and for a very good reason too…. it is my ‘go to’ in times of stress. Consequently, I keep a bottle in my purse, and one in my lab coat at work, as well as one on my desk at home. It is literally like letting out a gentle sigh of relief simply by applying it to the neck and wrists.

Now, this morning, while the situation was an elevated one, it was not as stressful for me as say….. driving in Dallas traffic during rush hour…… or working in an intensely busy pharmacy with not enough help (Frankly, that’s waaay more stressful than the previous scenario!). Poor Lily, however, WAS stressed… not from the coyote, but from the gunfire.

So, after all was said and done, I slathered our hard working girl up with Stress Away and gave her some extra special loving for the good job she had done. Young Living oils are amazing for many reasons, not the least of which is that they work just as well (if not even better) on animals as they do on humans. I believe this is because animals have no preconceived notions about what therapeutic oils can and cannot do. They either work, or they don’t for our four legged friends…. but in my experience, they nearly always do.

I am happy to report, that after about 30 minutes, Lily had a very spoiled breakfast (with treats), AND she had no interest in coming inside to recover from the gunfire. In fact, she spent the rest of the morning laying in the midst of the chickens, guarding her peeps. I’d say both she and Stress Away did their jobs well this morning!

Hugs and love from the farm y’all…. Life goes on. ~ liz

Elsa, continued

Liz James · January 5, 2018 ·

My world has come to a standstill…..at least it feels that way. I take my hat off to all those mamas who have (human) babies. The 24/7 is real….. even more real when you’ve got one with a health problem.

Elsa’s entry into the world, while received happily by us has been fraught with issues. The last two days, we’ve been unraveling the problem(s) that have plagued her.

Elsa’s problem #1: Hypothermia at birth: Although we live in north Texas, believe it or not, it can get dang cold here. It’s a different kind of cold than up north where it’s drier. Here…. it can be bone chilling in the winter time. We found her within 30 minutes of her birth, but she was already half frozen even in that short amount of time. Despite our efforts of heat lamps, warming pad, time indoors in front of the fire with us, we could not keep her warm.
Elsa’s problem #2: Low blood glucose: It appeared that because she was so cold, she wasn’t eating. Not eating was causing a dangerous drop in blood glucose. Between this and the hypothermia, we were setting ourselves up for losing her.
Elsa’s problem #3: Pneumonia: Babies are so very tender, especially ones born under such dangerous conditions. For whatever reason, I’ve found that calves and foals can be particularly tender at any time of the year. The vet heard rattling in her lungs, and her oxygen saturation came back at 72%. That is not conducive for living long, as eventually organs will begin shutting down.

Once we found out she had pneumonia, we upped our game. Frankly, the vet, rather gently attempted to talk me out of saving her, simply by telling me her chances of survival were slim. That news came Wednesday. Today is Friday, and baby girl is doing better. She has been on a round of two antibiotics, and spent about 48 hours in our bathtub. Because we wanted to do everything we could to support proper lung function and boost her immune system, we’ve been diffusing therapeutic grade Frankincense, Copaiba, and Lemon around the clock. Our bathroom became an aroma tent for her. Two days of tube feeding…. and then we tried to teach her to nurse again, with very little success. We were all disappointed. Honey, (her mama) was THRILLED to have her back this morning after two days of absence. Honey’s mourning was heart wrenching. She went into a depressed mood, and didn’t even call for her baby. It was as if she knew she was dead. This picture isn’t so great, but neither one of them would stand still for a photo op.

Tube feeding is time consuming, but so is keeping a calf in the house….Keeping the house clean is a chore all it’s own. I’ve done load after load of towels and blankets. Little girl has proven that both her bladder and her bowels are functioning… this is GREAT news, as it means her organs are working. Her blood oxygen saturation level yesterday afternoon confirmed that….. it had risen to 95%. Because she is so tiny, she needs food every 2-3 hours. Feed. Clean. Repeat.

Honey, Elsa’s mama, can’t be forgotten in all of this…. she has a bag full of milk at any given time, and has pined for her baby. Throughout all of this, Honey has been a trooper. She is young, and has never been milked before…. so, on top of missing her baby, she had a crash course in getting to know me intimately while I milked. You can’t just walk up and start milking a cow. It actually takes time, trust, and a learning curve on the cow’s part. So this… milking….. has to also be added into the equation. Thankfully, because of scheduling at work, I was given a window of 7 days in a row off (Thank you Jesus!)…. but by next Wednesday, I’ll have to come up with a longer term plan.

This brings me to Elsa’s Problem #4: Last night in the wee hours of the morning as I was placing the tube down her throat for yet another feeding, I felt something odd on the roof of her mouth. No wonder the poor thing can’t suckle well…… she has a cleft palate! After feeding her, I promptly did a little research…. what are our options?…..are we looking at surgery, is death the only option…. what’s next? Surprisingly, I found a small group of farmers and ranchers who have successfully raised cleft palate calves. It appears that if you can get past the initial suckling problems (ie: get creative with feeding), they can actually grow up and thrive. I also found that this particular congenital defect is almost always due to ingesting a plant in the lupine family during a certain time of pregnancy. You know I’m going to be stalking those fields in the spring with the intent of destroying that offending plant.

Today is Friday. Technically, she should be dead by now. I won’t say she’s thriving, but I do believe she is at least 85% better than she was on Wednesday. But the “window”, according to the vet, is still 3 days away.

Y’all keep praying for her. She is a cutie, and she’s worth fighting for!

Hugs and love, Liz

Elsa’s Life Begins

Liz James · January 1, 2018 ·

T’was the night before New Year’s and all thru the barn,
Not a creature was stirring…….’cause it was dang cold on the farm.

The critters were nestled all snug in their beds,
With visions of warm spring days dancing in their heads.

With Charlie in his long johns and I in my leggings…..
We too bedded down for a year’s calm ending.

The morning came quickly, and someone was missing,
…. A cow named Honey had left without sleeping.

A package she left us half frozen we found…
A little calf so cold on the hard winter ground.

Shivering mightily, she lay there so weak…..
We feared our new year would begin with a valley, not a peak.

Spotted and tiny the little girl lay,
We towel dried & wrapped her in a blanket and prayed.

The temperature kept dropping, a crisis at hand,
So we brought her inside by the fire to mend.

A blanket, a fire, Frank & Myrrh on the (belly) button….
This baby girl was gonna grow up to be somethin’!

Slowly she warmed and began to stir,
And with a small ‘mooo’ we knew the coast was clear.

Two hours later she returned to her Mama,
Who was pacing the stall, clearly glad to be done with the drama.

Slowly she warmed and began to stir,
And with a small ‘mooo’ we knew the coast was clear.

Two hours later she returned to her Mama,
Who was pacing the stall, clearly glad to be done with the drama.

We hope your 2018 is filled with HEALTH, Happiness, and Prosperity! Thank you for reading my first year of blogging. You are appreciated!

XOXO, Liz