Yes, I've been missing in action :-) Busy, busy. I have to tell you all about meeting up with some good friends, the pool, our goat drama and how my juicing feast went. But I'm not sure where to start. I also need to put up another bunny adventure. I think I will save the meeting up with friends until I have a chance to upload the pictures from my camera. And the bunnies need a post of their own. Let's start with the pool! My sister is going to be soooo bummed she missed this!
At some point Jeremiah told Isabella that he would take everyone to this one pool. That time came this past weekend. We tried going to a much more local pool, but it was closed for repairs. So we went to one that was half indoor and half outdoor. Isabella spent all her time at the diving board. The boys and I spent all our time in the very *large* kiddie pool (the depth ranged from 10" to 18", perfect!). And the other girls and Jeremiah spent their time in the 'indoor' pool which was much deeper than the kiddie pool. He spent a lot of that time teaching them to swim. At some point he came over to the kiddie pool. He was concerned about all the honey bees buzzing around. They seemed to be interested in the water that was on the concrete....at my feet. I voted for not killing them as honey bees are seemingly headed for the endangered species list. But he didn't want anyone stung. He managed to kill one. But that left a whole lot more left :-) There wasn't a ton, but quite a few. The kids didn't even seem to notice them, which was fine by me, no one freaking out. So a while later Jonah got out of the pool and started walking towards me. He bent down and picked some treasure up. He then came running to me, all smiles, and yelling, "wook, mommy, wook eet!!!" Translation: "Look, mommy, look it!!!" Then he holds up his treasure to my face. I notice this treasure was moving! He had grabbed a hold of a honey bee, and it's back end was facing me! Yikes. "Jonah, drop it! It's a bee!" He flings it off, and that thing was mad!!! It was loudly buzzing and swirling all around, it finally gained it's senses and flew off. Phew, for a moment there I thought it might sting him. Jonah was a bit freaked out after that. Ha, ha. I was very surprised he hadn't been stung by the way he was holding it. Either way it all ended well.
My juice feasting has ended. It did help, ever so very slowly. But by day six, although the pain in my ear was gone, there was still swelling, as my ear was still all stuffed up. Not to mention the day before my cough went from bad to worse. Not a good sign. I was growing very weary of it all. We were meeting friends at the park that morning at 11AM. The herbal store opened at 10AM. So I made sure to be there right when it opened. I had gone there earlier in the week to see if they even had anything that could help. Someone showed me a product for allergies. So I ran in to grab said product. But before I purchased it I decided to ask the woman there if she thought this would be the right product (I'm all for second opinions) and described my symptoms. Right away she said, this sounds more like a yeast problem. She believes that most allergies are yeast problems, not hay fever, or seasonal allergies or the like. I agree, which is why we need to do GAPS. So she shows me this yeast detox, it was only a three day supply. She told me I should notice a difference in 24 hours. I bought the yeast detox and the allergy stuff (just in case). I took the pills as soon as I got in the van. Forty-five minutes later I had to yawn, which made my ears pop. Nothing new as that had been happening all week. But all week, when my ears popped they would close back up in 30 seconds (no joke). So I was trying to enjoy my 30 seconds of opened ears. Well 30 seconds turned to one minute, that turned to 3 minutes, to 30 minutes, to 3 hours....to 3 days now!!! I also felt this pressure lifting off my sinuses and chest. My cough significantly improved, all within those first couple of hours!!! Amazing. The cough still has not gone away all together. She said if I had a bad problem I might have to take another 3 day course. All I can say is I am very thankful for the reprieve of all the yuck I had going on. I have an appointment with our holistic practitioner in mid June. I am hoping to start to get a handle on these allergies. And we should be set up to go back on GAPS come July. I think I will have everyone do the intro diet, along with everyone taking the yeast pills, plus I am looking into a parasite cleanse. It would be nice to get everyone 'cleaned' out. With a healing diet and lots of probiotics I am hoping to see some big changes in everyone.
Speaking of parasites it looks like they are doing a number on some of our goats. With all dis-ease you need to look at the root cause and any contributing factors. This weekend we learned a lot! We have one dwarf goat that has just never seemed healthy. Her coat is always wiry. And she has been lethargic a few times. Plus under her eyelids are very pale ( a sign of anemia from worms). Goats are notorious for worms. And a lot of the worms are becoming resistant to the current dewormers. I had the goats on an herbal dewormer, but fell behind in it. (Bad me!) Now both of our milking does has mastitis. Not a good thing. Thankfully we have caught it at the beginning. We did chose to give them antibiotics. Which means I will need to blast them with good bacteria. There is a natural remedy we saw on our beloved goat site, but we decided to go conventional this time around. Not to mention one of the milking goats is losing hair in two spots. They are small spots. But knowing that Isabella had ringworm, it is possible she got it from the goat. Obviously our goats are not well. Well we know of one contributing factor for that, and this weekend found a second contributing factor. The first is barn maintenance. Unfortunately even with putting the time into figuring out a decent plan for our barn, you can't possibly know all that will happen once it's built. Well, drainage is a big problem. We moved a huge felled tree that was seemingly blocking some of the drainage, but that didn't fix the problem. We will now have to shovel off a ton of glop and put down cement to keep the area dry. We will be putting up the feed bins so that the goats are not eating off the ground. Jeremiah visited a new feed store in which the owner was well versed in goats. He said if the goats eat off the ground just once, they have worms. Yeah....well our goats have worms :-O Ha! Jeremiah was there to buy a huge round bale of hay. One issue is our goats haven't had the proper roughage that they need. This will help. He also talked to the guy about the feed we were giving our goats. He basically said we were killing them slowly!!! Yeah, well that explains why they all seem to not be doing well. So the solution?
1. We bought them a bunch of hay, like 1,000 pounds of it, yes that says, one thousand!
2. We bought them the proper feed.
3. We have a plan (that needs working on I'm sure) to improve the barn yard
4. I just got done doing the three days of antibiotics for our two milkers and plan on giving the whole herd a medicated dewormer. I made a large order from Molly's Herbals for the herbal dewormer, and immunity tincture, and an herbal supplemnt. There are two herbal blends used for the dewormer. One with wormword, and one without. The protocol is to use the wormword blend for three days in week one, then weeks 2-7 to use a one day dose of the second herbal blend. But knowing how sickly the goats are I plan on doing a protocol of week one, 5 days of the wormwood blend, weeks 2-4 a three day dose of the second blend. Then repeat for the next two months. Then I will switch to the normal protocol.
5. Start giving the goats a daily dose of good bacteria and the herbal supplement.
6. Give all the goats the recommended dosage of the immunity tincture for the first 5 days of the next three months.
7. Make a concerted effort to find my homeopathy cell salt blend. I don't know where it is. It may have fallen behind the fridge. I know I had it when I was pregnant, but can't seem to locate it now. But give that to them, in their water on a daily basis.
I also plan on doing this for our chickens as well. They have not been laying as much as they should be. Although, that might just be a case of them laying in places we haven't figured out, and that one goat in particular likes to eat them as well. Even so, they can get worms as well, so it won't hurt to try to get them as healthy as possible.
Phew! I think that is enough for now. This next week or so will be spent trying to get the place in order. I plan on spending an evening or two somewhere with WiFi to get more organized. I want to really spend the summer concentrating on training the children in chores, cooking and good behavior. Even though I want to have started yesterday :-) I know I need to take this slowly. But with no school, I feel lost! Ha, ha! Once I get everything written down I'll share here my plans. If for no other reason than accountability AND so I don't lose any of it!
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