Shelly's Progress

Hello to all,
On Jan 20th Shelly will be going in for brain surgery. Please pray God’s hand in all that happens. I will update our blog from the hospital as I can.

The hotel will run us $45/night (plus tax) and we expect to be there for 2 weeks. Currently there is a waiting list at the Ronald McDonald house of 20 families. You can make donations via paypal to clberryr@gmail.com. Thank you!

Please share this blog site with all who will pray for us during this difficult time. You can read Shelly’s Story here.

Thank you and Blessings,
Richard and Christie Berry

Bye Bye Matilde, we will miss you!

Well, Matilde’s health is going down hill. She won’t weight bear anymore and she is not as alert. So, today I will cut her hair and when Satch gets home we will put her down… I just can’t do it. But, I also can’t keep her suffering.

Sometimes it is difficult to know what is best. How long to wait, when to decide there is nothing more to do. I know that all things work for our good through Messiah, but it is hard.

The rest of the animals have made it through the cold snap and we have been closing the sheep and goats in the barn at night. Father, keep our animals protected.

Farm Journal 1/07/10

It was sleeting when I went out for chores this morning… I found Matilde (one of my 3 angora goats) lying on her side in the ice! I thought for sure she was dead! She had been attacked sometime in the night. Her skin on her right side is slashed and there is a large gaping would where the skin is open the size of a fist. She was alive and I drug her into the barn. I gave her some vit b complex, antibiotic, prevail, feed with molasses, warm water and hay. She was eating a bit. After chores I brought her to the house to clean up her wounds and warm her up, she was wet to the bone and half froze. I cut the hair away and found a real mess. I cleaned her wounds, sprayed them with furall. I think I’m going to have to stitch up the largest wound. Maybe I can shave it and get away with some super glue, but I’m not sure, will try that first. She is warming up now on the floor in the kitchen in front of the fire. I hope she makes it, she is the oldest and may just give up… we’ll see.

Praying for Yah’s hand on our animals as we figure out what to do and what happened.

Matilde and the Weather

Matilde is still with us. She made it through the night, she is still quite wet and not willing to stand. She is eating and pottying (on my kitchen floor!) She did stand for a few seconds last night. We are watching for infection. I am hoping I can move her to the back porch today before Sabbath, but we may have her in the kitchen for Sabbath instead because of the weather!

The weather… We are in the teens at night and warm up to freezing during the day. Not normal for our neck of the woods. Darn global warming! High today is supposed to get up to 23F if it makes it! So, sick goat will not do well outside if she won’t walk.

Today’s list of todo’s will include yesterday’s list since yesterday was spent vetting Matilde. I’ll post a pic in the gallery as soon as I have a minute.

Update on Matilde

Well, it is now evening, Matilde has been eating a little bit. She hasn’t attempted to get up yet, the super glue is holding. Now we wait. We pray Yah’s hand on His creation! She is drying out and resting.

Farm Journal 1/03/10 Update

Ok, so we didn’t do the bad deed with Spot… it is way too cold today, it warmed up to a whopping 27 F so far! Wow, heat wave!

I have good news!!! Our Bees are alive!!!! Yay, David went out to get the hives to clean up, but I suggested he check to see if they may still be alive… sure enough they were clustered way at the bottom of the hive box, still buzzing…very quietly and staying warm. He put a brick on top of the lid so it wouldn’t shift off and they should be ok!!! Makes me want to cry! I’m so happy!

Another piece of good news… 31 is in standing heat! Came in this afternoon… called Kelly to AI and he should be here in the morning. It’s a good day!

Farm Journal 1/03/10

It is a cold day with the temp this morning sitting at 16F ~ Brrrrrr!

We’ve been getting around 7-8 eggs daily (so glad the roosters are outa there!)

Shemayim’s dry-off is going well. She gets upset when we go out and she doesn’t get to eat as much, but she’ll be fine, just perturbed.

We lost our last bee hive this past week. :(  I went out to feed them before this recent freeze and they were dead. Apparently, the lid was askew and they froze (could’ve been dogs using the hive to hop the fence?). So now I will have to buy 4 splits to be where I am supposed to be this spring. 

Expensive honey!

Today we will castrate Spot-O-Beef! Oh Joy! Last night Satch watched Dirty Jobs and Mike Rowe was cutting lambs! He had pulled the ball sac with his teeth… yuck! I promised Satch I wouldn’t use my teeth! Bleh! I won’t be able to video tape the process because we are short handed for the work, but will give a blow by blow description when we are done!

We will pick up the stove pipe and chimney for the wood cook stove today… hope to get it in soon so we can have better heat in the house… currently we are using an LP ventless wall mount heater, sitting on bricks with canisters of propane attached to it. The propane isn’t piped into the house yet, hope to do that this spring. If we can get the wood stove in it is big enough to heat the great room, then we can use the propane at night for the bedrooms.

I started a Medical Missionary course last night. There are 2 10 day classes: the first started last night and continues nightly until the 12th. The second will be in February.  Last night I learned so much I was overwhelmed and so excited! I look forward to the rest of the classes and to be able to help people with disease! The outcomes are amazing.

Well, I’ll catch you up with the castrating later! Yew!