Not Much of Interest, But the Farm Looks Great!

We've spent the last few days primping our farmstead. All the little building pieces for various toys now returned to their proper places. All the pallets, scattered here and there where they were initially needed are now stacked neatly in a useful spot. Phil did a dump run, and I've dragged branches and made a burn pile.

Our farm, for the next day or two, will look as good as it gets. For now.

It doesn't often look like this, for good reason: we have done basically nothing productive all week.

We had one good scare, though. Phil was pushing the emptied garbage cans back into the truck after dumping them, when he noticed a black widow inside one of the handles. Since we had both carried the cans over to the truck, that means one of us had our hand within inches of the spider, without knowing it. I'm thankful the spider wasn't more aggressive.

That brings our total to four we've seen or killed. I don't want to know how many are hiding where I can't see them.

Our Bianca is bagging up, which means her udder is growing larger. I think the Bessette's cow bagged up about three weeks before giving birth, so it's no indication of anything but, well, her day is getting closer. As it has been since the day she arrived here.

One more chick died. So we're down to 49 chicks. Attrition has set in.

After hearing about bottle jaw in sheep, where blood-sucking parasites cause such great anemia in the animal that they eventually die, we've been monitoring BB the lamb more closely. The first day, his entire jaw was incredibly swollen. The second day, it was perhaps half the size. Then it split into two small swellings, one on either side of his face, until yesterday it was just about gone.

Phil thinks maybe BB ate something, or had a sting, that made his lymph system go crazy, but he is gradually getting better.

However, the protuberance under the chin in bottle jaw also tends to reduce in the morning and return by night, and there is a bit of that pattern going on.

Sometimes it's hard to know what to do.

Phil tried to fix the power steering pump on the truck. He'd already replaced the hose, which was leaking, but the pump, too, appeared to be leaking. It didn't go well, and the new pump the store said was the right size was not the right size. He can't get one bolt on the old pump re-threaded, either, so the truck is not drivable.