Spring Break

I hope you had a wonderful Spring Break.

We had one that was full of animals and some heartache.

We took care of some bummer lambs for the week. Our neighbors wanted some lambs to raise. They left on a cruise and my other friend ended up with bummer lambs!

Licorice likes Scout, and Scout likes Licorice.

Licorice came with her brother, but her brother was so sick and cold that he died that night. I was so sad! Licorice was sick when we got her, too. She got a shot and some other care. It was a lot of work! She was fine 3 days later.

My friend had another lamb, so we took in Apple. That's a funny name for a lamb!

Licorice and Apple liked to follow me around the house in the evening.
I put diapers on them because lambs are NOT house trained!

 The lambs are so young that they need bottles. They will get bottle-fed for about 6 weeks.

Our neighbors came home from their cruise and were so excited to meet their new pet lambs!

 Licorice and Apple are in a great home with a family that takes good care of them. They will live inside in a dog crate for a few weeks. When they are big enough they will live in the pasture with the other sheep and a goat.

The chicks are growing, and their feathers are coming in.
They are starting to look more like their parents with black feathers around their necks.

I moved the chicks to a bigger cage.
The adult chickens love to come visit the little chicks.
The chicks will look like the adult chicken on the outside of the cage.

Our peas are coming up, too!
I'm so happy we'll have peas this spring!

I planted peas on March 16th, the day before St. Patrick's Day. That's about a month ago.

Two chicks hatched over spring break, too. It was so fun to find a chick pecking it's way out of the egg!

Unfortunately, the mama turkey didn't take good care of the chicks this year. She usually does a great job with chicks. One lived so I gave it to the neighbor girl who is raising it. She named it Penny. I didn't have enough room for another chick!


The last hard thing that happened was that Echo managed to get a piece of fencing hooked through her eyelid on Monday.

The vet was in Idaho.

Oh, no!

The vet was in Idaho so I had to take it out myself. I was very uncomfortable about getting the hook out! I didn't want to damage her eye!

I gave her something called 'calf calm.' It helps cows and calves calm down if they are nervous about something. She didn't mind me squirting some in her mouth.

Look!
I can do hard things!
I got the hook out of her eyelid!
She didn't mind, I don't think it hurt when I pulled it out.

She also got a shot of Penicillin to help prevent infection. Barnyards aren't clean. It would be easy for her eye to get infected.

Every morning and night I spread salve (special healing cream) on her eyelid. She's such a good cow that she doesn't mind. Sometimes she acts like she likes having the cream on her eyelid.

Her eye was still pretty swollen on Tuesday.

I want Echo's eye to get better so I put the salve on
twice a day, every day. I know that if I do what I'm supposed to
Echo's eye will get better.

It's working!
The swelling is going down.
Echo's eye looked much better on Thursday!

Sometimes I have to do hard things on the farm. Sometimes I really don't want to do them, like taking the hook out of Echo's eye.

Are you wondering about River's new kids?

That was another hard day during Spring Break. They were born early one morning. I wasn't there. Usually River is a great mother and takes good care of her kids.

She didn't this year. She didn't take care of them at all. This year we don't get to have fun watching goat kids run and play.

We all have hard things to do, things that we don't want to do. Every time I do something that's hard, that I don't want to do, something I may be afraid of doing, or scared of failing at.... every time I do something like that I get stronger!

My sister sent me this card to remind me that I can do hard things.

We can all do hard things! And the great thing is that when we do hard things we learn and grow!

Sometimes it's hard to do something nice for someone else. You may be uncomfortable, or scared, or worried that they won't like you. 

Do something nice anyway! Tell your mom or dad all about what you did and how you felt when you did it.