From Ewe to You

Friday, September 3, 2010

Hospital visit

Hi all -- this is Dee's friend, Karen, writing today's post. If you've already read Wednesday's entry, you know that Dee has been struggling with increased back pain since her spinal testing a week or two ago. I just heard from Dee's husband, Rick, that she became unable to even lie comfortably in bed. She was admitted to the hospital early this morning. They're hoping to find a pain management approach to the problem, since medications don't seem to be making much of a dent. Dee, ever forward-thinking, plans to be posting her own entry on Monday. I'm hoping the hospital stay will be short but effective, and I know she will appreciate all healing wishes sent her way.

8:36 am | link Comments

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

A frustrating situation and a possible solution

I am flat on my back. For nearly five years, I have been plagued with back and leg pain and numbness resulting from the day in December 2005 when I rolled my pickup truck on icy roads. The truck rolled twice and came to a stop upside-down on the side of the road. The truck was totaled, and I was lucky to be alive, but have struggled with pain ever since.

The funny thing is that it didn't seem to affect how much I could lift or what I could do, other than the fact that I only had about six hours each day to do it. After about six hours of being "up," my back was finished and I was done for the day - I spent the rest of the day flat on my back, trying to reduce the pain enough that I would be able to sleep that night. This has been my life for almost five years now: a window of productivity six hours a day. I've gotten used to it, and have worked my life around that schedule. Of course, I dream of a time when my days were longer and I had no pain, but after all this time I had pretty much given up on the idea that that day would ever come. My life is what it is.

A few weeks ago, my doctor at the pain clinic sent me back to my neurosurgeon for further evaluation - he felt that perhaps there was more that could be done than just trying to limit the pain. My neurosurgeon eventually sent me for further testing. Last week, I went to the hospital for a diagnostic procedure to determine whether we could identify the disc that was causing the problem. The procedure was a success, and we now know the source of the numbness and pain that has become an integral part of my life - and I am scheduled for back surgery during the last week of September to fuse that disc - Hooray!

Although the idea of fixing my back is nearly mind-boggling after all this time, it does raise some issues.... I have sheep, llamas, chickens, cats, and three border collies under my care. Taking six to eight weeks off to fix my back leaves me with a whole lot of work that will need to be covered somehow. The animals can't just take care of themselves!

In addition, this procedure has left me flat on my back - and I don't know for how long! Testing the suspicious discs has irritated the nerves enough that I can no longer sit or stand - I am stuck here on the sofa or in bed, lying flat on my back for the entire day. Thank goodness I have a laptop!

The good thing is that fall is breeding season, which is not nearly as intense or as work-filled as late gestation and lambing season which begins in January. By that time, I should be returning to some semblance of normal. The sheep will hopefully be grazing for another month or two yet, so handling hay isn't yet an issue. I guess that if I had to choose a time for back surgery , summer or fall would be the best time.

So as we work our way through September, I hope that I regain some of the mobility that I have had over the past few years so that I can continue to work with my sheep for those six hours each day, putting them into breeding groups and watching for ewes who are bred. That may or may not happen, but either way, by the end of the month, I am scheduled for back surgery to get me back on my feet and return me to a large part of my life that I'll be missing while on the sofa. And what a thought: I might have a full fourteen hours a day to get things done! It's almost hard to remember what that would be like. Yes, what a thought....

4:48 pm | link Comments

Monday, August 30, 2010

Sophie and Indira surprise us

Last Friday I drove out to Boone, Iowa, to meet my shearer at his place and have him shear both Sophie and Indira. As I mentioned in last week's post, neither had been sheared for quite some time, so they had a lot of fleece covering - it was very hard to find the sheep under all that wool!

I had transported them in the back of our pickup truck, and had brought a ramp with side-walls so that they could get into and out of the truck on their own.... Well, that's not completely accurate. Sophie had so much wool on her that she would get stuck between the side-walls of the ramp. To get her down to the ground, we had to push her from behind as she clambered and pulled herself along.

Sophie was the first one sheared on Friday afternoon, and as Mason ran the clippers over her tender pink skin, it became more and more obvious that Sophie was very thin under all of that wool. As the last of the wool fell from her body, she had trouble getting her legs underneath herself and getting into a standing position - her balance now was so very different than it had been just a few minutes before!

Indira came next - so eager to get out of the truck that she jumped off the ramp and began to run across the yard, looking for freedom! Quick on his feet, Mason soon had a good hold of her and brought her back to the shearing floor in the front yard underneath a big ash tree. It wasn't long before she, too, began to lose all that wool that had grown since birth. In Indira's case, we had a different sort of surprise.... She too was very thin, but she also had a very big, round belly...it sure looked like she was bred! After talking to her previous owner, it turns out that her Romeldale/CVM ram had jumped the fence in either May or June, and obviously found Indira to his liking!

So, both of these girls are now much smaller than they were when we got them - no problem getting up or down the ramp to the pickup anymore! They are both still in quarantine in the barn while bloodwork, genetic testing, and fiber testing are underway. They have been cleared of internal parasites (as of their test on Saturday), and we are now working on putting some meat on those bones - especially for Indira, who should drop her lambs sometime in October or November. Sophie has been re-named in line with our system of naming our sheep based on their year of birth - in our records, she appears as Fiona/Sophie, but for our purposes, we will call her Fiona to help us remember that she was born in 2006. Both Indira and Fiona are slowly settling in and getting to know us and our routines. And, I have to admit, I love the idea of fall lambs!

11:05 am | link Comments

Saturday, August 28, 2010

What a bad day....

Bad days are always better when there is a little time between you and them. Or maybe it's just me.... Maybe it's my bad memory that makes them a bit more bearable after a few hours or days have passed, and we are well into better times. Whatever it is, that's where I am now. Yesterday was a bad day, but somehow the fact that it is now two a.m. on Saturday morning rather than still being Friday makes Friday look much better - much more tolerable.

You will notice that although I have been posting on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays since October 2009, I did not post a blog entry yesterday - Friday. The day got away from me before I could do much about it, so let's call this yesterday's posting, shall we?

The first bad thing that happened to me was the fact that I got stung by a wasp. That doesn't really count as a bad thing for Friday, because it happened on Thursday while I was painting the trim around the second floor windows and just under the soffits. Our second floor jogs back just a couple of feet near the southwest corner. How was I to know that a big wasp nest awaited me just around that jog? So, as my brush expertly spread the thick white paint onto the trim board, the wasps made their attack, and I ended up stung on the left upper arm. I suppose I was lucky not to end up with multiple stings, but I didn't feel all that lucky - only itchy and in pain!

The reason that this was a bad part of my day on Friday was that I had to go to the doctor's office for cortisone - I happen to be allergic to wasp stings. It's not like my throat swells shut or anything (yet, anyways!), but the swelling gets bigger and bigger unless I get cortisone to stop it. No matter how much Benadryl I took by mouth or spread onto the swollen area on Thursday, it just kept getting bigger. As soon as I woke up Friday morning, I called the doctor's office but, true to this unlucky streak, my doctor was not in the office on Friday - he was working at the walk-in care facility next door. I couldn't make an appointment to see him, but I could stop in next door and wait in line - something I didn't really have time to do on Friday; but then again, I didn't really have time to let my arm swell so that I could no longer bend it either. I went to the Immediate Care Center in Marion and waited in line....

The line was slow. I waited for almost an hour before they called my name. They took me into the exam room where I gave the nurse all the pertinent information and then waited some more - another half hour, to be exact. I was beginning to pace. The room was only about six by nine feet, but that was enough room for me to pace, so I did. Eventually the doctor came in, looked at my arm, and faxed a prescription for cortisone tablets to my pharmacy. Thank goodness Rick could pick them up then drop them off at the house over his lunch hour, because I had a busy day ahead of me. In fact, with all the time I spent at Immediate Care, it was now going to be busier that I had thought.

As soon as I got into the truck, I headed for the vet's office. On Thursday, I had found one of our ram lambs down in the pasture, unable to stand but pedaling his legs as he lay on his side. He looked bad, so I took him to the vet who gave him a couple of shots and ordered some electrolyte/energy mixture that was supposed to come in on Friday. My next stop after the doctor's office was to pick up the medicine for the ram lamb - I hoped it was in. I was a little surprised that he was still alive when I checked in on him before I left for the doctor, so I wanted to do what I could to keep him that way. I dashed into the vet's office, grabbed the bag of stuff and headed for home - I had too much to do to stay and chat!

Once I got home, I mixed up a portion of the 'Alfalfa drench' that I had gotten from the vet with warm water and ran up to the barn to dose the lamb. He still didn't look good, but I was doing what I could (and still am, for that matter). The bottom line is that on Friday afternoon, I started dosing him with this gooey drench using an old turkey baster; four cups every couple of hours - what a mess! I will admit that, as much as I love my sheep, this aspect did add to my bad day... I always feel frustrated and sad when any of our sheep are not well and we can't take immediate action that guarantees their recovery.

As soon as I was finished with that little guy, I had to load the two new ewes into the transport crate in the bed of the truck. I left the farm at about 1:45 p.m. for our shearer's place in Boone, IA. I needed to buy gas for the truck and still be at his place by 4:30 p.m. when he got out of work. Shearing these girls had become a health issue and something that could not be put off - the fleeces had to come off, and soon! Thankfully, Mason (our shearer) had also graciously volunteered to trim their hooves while we were there, so that was another health issue that would be taken care of at the same time. I only had to get them to him in Boone.

I think that was the worst part of the day, actually. I have severe lower back pain since I rolled my pick-up truck one winter almost five years ago. It has been five long years of medical procedures, surgery, and pain, with little improvement, but lots of prayer and hope. This past Tuesday, I had one more procedure added to the ever-expanding list, and my back has not yet fully recovered from that - the back and leg pain is still strong and constant, especially when I have to sit for more than just a few minutes.

I had a nearly three-hour drive to the shearer's place, then I unloaded the heavy ramp for the pick-up so that the sheep could walk out onto the ground from the bed. After shearing and hoof trimming, the ewes walked back up the ramp and I loaded the three pieces of the ramp into the bed of the pick-up and headed home - another nearly three-hour drive. The biggest problem I had was that I didn't want to take my prescription pain medicine when I knew I would be driving. Also, any of the over-the-counter stuff raises my blood-pressure, so I can't take that. Essentially, I had lots of pain and no way to relieve it except to get done as soon as I could and get home so that I could take something.

It was a long and painful drive, made worse by the fact that cortisone always gives me the jitters and a bad headache - this time included, since I had taken the first dose just as I left the house for the drive to Boone. I finally got home to unload the girls from the truck at nearly nine, and I could hardly move: my back was incredibly painful, my arm was swollen to double its size between my shoulder and elbow, and I felt like I'd had twenty cups of coffee due to the cortisone. It wasn't a pretty sight!

The two new girls are thin, but much more comfortable now that they have shed their heavy wool coats. We enticed them back into the barn with a bit of grain in a bucket - no complaints from them.... They came right in like they owned the place. As for me, I staggered into the house and took my pain medicine. It didn't help much - between the back pain that radiates down my leg, the cortisone jitters, and the itching, swollen arm, I'm still wide awake at nearly four in the morning.

Some days are like this.... Not all of our days here at Peeper Hollow Farm are sun, fun, and fluffy sweet animals. When I worked at a "normal" job in town, I used to take sick days when I didn't feel well. Now, even when I have a "sick day" because I am sick, I still have things that I have to do, regardless of how I feel. I still have lots of animals that depend on me for their health and wellfare - I can't just go to bed for the day and deal with it all the next day.

Sometimes Rick can take over some of it. Sometimes my friend, Deb, pops by to handle a couple of my chores when she knows I am not functioning well. In general, though, I am responsible for three border collies, three llamas, a dozen or so barn cats, about fifteen chickens, and currently about one hundred sheep - regardless of how I feel. It's a lot...but honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way. As is true for everyone, some days are just bad days any way you look at them.... They do look a lot better in the past tense, though - and that's where things are headed right now! I think I'll try for a little sleep, since it won't be long before the sun comes up and I begin another day....

3:58 am | link Comments

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Indira and Sophie prepare for freedom

An interesting drama has been playing itself out on our farm over the past few days. A good friend of mine has decided to sell off her entire flock of sheep, and I made the decision to buy two of them - both of them coming through our farm in the past. I have already written about Indira (last Friday's post), who was one of our lambs last year - the other one is a white Romeldale ewe named Sophie, who I actually brought to Iowa in a group purchase of a flock in Ohio several years ago. I bought about fifteen sheep at that time, and sold off one ram lamb and two adult white ewes - Sophie included - and kept the rest for my flock. This friend has been dabbling in sheep for a number of years, and her personal situation is such now that all of them must go, so I bought both Indira and Sophie for my own flock.

The problem is that although my friend has been caring for her sheep as far as feed and water, she has had little time for some of the other things that sheep need - namely shearing, trimming hooves, and those "personal hygiene" things that shepherds have to take care of. Both Sophie and Indira need a bit of attention - to say the least.

Neither of these two ewes has been sheared since January 2009 - well over 1 1/2 years. Both are Romeldale/CVMs, so their yearly staple length (the length of the fleece they carry at the end of the year at shearing) is typically four or five inches. When you part their fleece, you see that it is more like eight to ten inches long! That's incredible for this breed! And imagine the weight that they carry!

The problem with fleece that long is that it is very hot for them over the summer, plus the fleece begins to felt, making it unusable. We won't know how badly it is felted until we get it sheared and get a good look at it off of the sheep. We also won't know what kind of condition the sheep are in - thin, fat, or just right - until that fleece comes off: it is so long and dense that it is very hard to gauge how big the body is underneath it. In fact, Indira has never been sheared - she was a lamb last year, and if she had stayed on our farm she would have been sheared in January 2010. At the other farm, that didn't happen.

So, I have made arrangements to take these two ewes to our shearer in Boone this Friday afternoon so that he can shear them and trim their hooves. I have already dewormed them, and so can do our first fecal sample on Saturday to see if they are free of parasites. Once their fecal comes back clear, and they are sheared, coated, and have their hooves trimmed, they can go out with our flock to graze. Imagine how they will feel having left nearly thirty pounds (each, and maybe more!) of their fleece behind them on Friday! It will certainly be a freeing moment....

4:22 pm | link Comments

2010.09.01 | 2010.08.01 | 2010.07.01 | 2010.06.01 | 2010.05.01 | 2010.04.01 | 2010.03.01 | 2010.02.01 | 2010.01.01 | 2009.12.01 | 2009.11.01 | 2009.10.01