saying goodbye

Today we said goodbye to three of our cows. This has been something that i've been struggling with for the last 3 months. I want to be able to take care of everything but instead i'm failing at it all because there is not enough of me to go around.
These cows were the the last of Brownie Farms. We have loved on these cows so much, yet one of them didn't seem to appreciate us much. Poppers was a bit too much for the kids. She pretty much has only lived here at the lodge. Her mom Popcorn gave birth to her only a month before we moved. Then, only God knows why, Popcorn died two days after giving birth. Josh wasn't planning on taking Poppers with us, he was thinking of selling her, but after Popcorn died, I begged to keep her. I had hoped she would be more people friendly, but she was always a little more standoffish, much like her mom. She did managed to give us Carmel though, who we are able to keep.
Lily, oh my sweet Lily, She was the hardest one to sell. So her Grandma would have been Brownie, had she lived this long. She was from Licorice who i wanted to keep too, but she was such a good milking cow, probably the best in Brownie's line that Josh said she had to be sold. It was hard to lose that line that was Brownie's. I love that little calf so much, but Lily will never be Brownie. Lily was chosen to come with us because she had managed to get breed by accident and then was found out to be having a girl. Her little girl was sold to a milking farm, so she will live on doing what the cows were meant to do.
Lily's calf that was born in October, was Cubby. He looked like a little bear cub. He made us work for having him and cost me a lot, but he was so cute. Being a bull calf i knew I couldn't be able to keep him for long.
This was always the hardest part about life on the farm, the animals leaving. but this time it closes a chapter in our lives. We do still have one calf, but she's not really from the farm. I do know that our cows will go on to be milking, well at least one will. Sounds like they both will be given a chance to make it on a dairy farm. This was the answer from God that i had hoped for. I didn't want them to be sent to the sale barn right away. It took a while but it had worked out. It's very hard on the three of us. Bella is the most sensitive. I feel so bad for her. She knows deep down it's for the best, but still hard to handle. In the moment I'm ok, but still pretty sad. I hated letting go a part of our farm life, but without Josh with us, it's just too much for me. I made it more then a year of playing farmer. I found myself someone i trusted to get hay from and i've managed to keep the cows pretty healthy. They have only escaped twice.
I'm so lucky that i was able to do this, and the kids have been able to experience this. I hope that going forward we can find some animals that are a bit smaller and not demand daily attention , should we want to get away on a vacation.  We love our cows and will miss them greatly.

Lily was more into the shot then my kids were

 Lily and Poppers , Carmel is in the middle

 This is how it should be...grazing cows

 Cows and kids

 Poppers trying to find out what time of tiny cow Max was

 Getting ready to leave..so we filled them up on treats

 This crazy bunch i'll miss a lot

 Cubby

 a close up for the camera

Selfie kisses from Lily

Carmel

Over Winter Break, we were surprised with Poppers giving birth to a sweet little heifer, Carmel. So i knew she would be coming, but i thought she would be a januray baby. Thankfully she arrived when we were home and when it was a little bit warmer out.  Poppers had no troubles thank goodness, but our other calf Cubbie, thought Poppers was his mom now since she finally had milk, and so there was no colostrum for Carmel. So we had to go buy some and try to bottle feed her. Also there was no hope of trying to milk Poppers. Being a heifer, Poppers was too wild to halter and even try to milk.
As soon as I got the bottle feed to her, she went to find Mama and figured out what she needed to do. Since then she's been fun to watch run around, interact with her brother (cubbie and her are half siblings) and grow.

Two every long weeks

So the first two weeks of May have been very long with for. Josh started to not feel well at the end of April and I made him promise to go to the doctor if something changed. He said he would. Well the next day he turned yellow again. He went to the doctor on friday where they did bloodwork and CT scan.  Thankfully my mom was able to take the kids for us as we spend most of the day at the hospital. Shout out to work for covering for me too!  We left with Josh has a blood clot and a narrowing of the duct between your liver and intestines, hence the yellow color. We were told he would be seen at the hospital on tuesday for more testing, so we spent the weekend as a family trying to get stuff done. So we got our Garden in and went Fishing.

..

Fishing ended with both Max and Josh getting sick. I was freaked out it was a stomach virus. Turns out Max’s was motion sickness and not being able to eat applesauce. Josh was related to his body not working right. But my house got de-germed  

Sunday I had to sing at church and some how my husband managed to get our kids to church and tame them while in church.  The boys took a nap together after church. I worked on getting laundry caught up and picking up the place. We then did a movie night since no one was in the mood to do much of anything else. Wasn’t a great weekend , nah, but at least we were together.

The rest of the week went by too fast. Josh went in for a scope down his thoat, only to end up being admited. He had a drain put in and stayed in the hosptial until thursday afternoon. I tried to keep the kids lives as normal as possible. I was home at bedtime with them, got them to school in the morning, and did speech and church.  Wednesday we found out that the blood clot wasn’t really there, instead it was a new tumor. Our hearts sank.  JOsh came home and we wait for him to recover.

Saturday Josh was feeling ok so that I could go out to eat with some girlsfriends and then off to Pewaukee to see Sara ready for Prom. LIttle did we know that she would be queen that night!

When I got back home we all loaded up and headed to the beach to go fishing. we meet up with our friends and had a good time. the kids were playing, the guys were fishing and the womanfolk got to catch up.

Sunday was mother’s day. I’ll admit it was bittersweet. My whole mind has gone to the “what if this is the last X holiday as a family” I don’t’ like thinking that way but it’s very hard not too. Also I hadn’t really planned ahead of the day. I wanted to go to the zoo, but it was suppose to rain, and we had just been in madison for three days. I didn’t know when we could do brunch buffet because I was singing at church so that took up from 9 to 11:30. So yeah.. we got done with church and stopped at Kohl’s. I need new sandals and Max needed a shirt that said something about Mom on it. He has about 30 with Dad, but none with mom.  While we were in kohl’s we tried to figure out where to eat. I called around on the way to Watertown and found out 1pm at Perkins was our only shot.  This worked out well as we stopped to visit my mom, give her a mother’s day gift and snap some pictures. After we ate, we headed home. The boys napped until Della and Tim arrived. It was nice to see them for mother’s day too. We had a good visit before they went home.  All in all, it was a good day. Not my first choice, but I was with my loved ones which is what matters most

we ended with grilling out steaks and movies!

From the kids, a cake, Bella did the writing, max ate all the frosting while no one was paying attention.

The next week started out with Josh finally looking better. He was able to go to work Monday. Tuesday put us back at the hospital to check out the drain and enlarge the tube, hoping to make the duct open wider and stay open. This was an all day thing, but thankfully we went home. Josh was in a ton of pain though. It took him two days to start to really control the pain. Friday he was able to return to work. I think it was good for him mentaly.  We spend out week helping to get ready for a rummage sale at my mom’s house.  Then Lily the cow got sick, so we had to have a vet call for her and now having to help her feel better. I finally got my hair cut, and it was nice to have a couple hours to myself. I’ll admit my emotions  have been all over the place. You would think, this being the third time, I would do better, but nope. Each time is different, and we are always in a different place in life. having the kids makes it even harder.

Friday was the rummage sale, Josh joined Max and I for lunch, then that night we did our normal grocery shopping. This weekend seems busy again, but at least no hospital stays in the next week ( that we know off)