Cold is Here to Stay

The snow is here to stay it seems. 22F on the milk room steps when I got home from work. Might go up to 35 next week but don't see any significant snow melt that would let the sheep go out to graze. Poor lambies. They are barn dwellers now, preferring to lie down on dry packed hay instead of wet snow. It will stay this way for four months in all likelihood. We walked the band of doggies up to the pond but it was hard work to walk through the drifts. Bodie broke through the ice and I thought I would have to grab his collar with my shepherd's crook to get him out, but he climbed out himself. It was a slippery walk back to the barn. Finn and Knut are outside again. We had them in the barn with the sheep while the storms were going on, but they prefer to be outside. The roaring wind freaks them out but it's quiet now. Mia begins her night shift at Morristown Memorial in NJ tonight, without her mentor to check on what she is doing with her patients. She will have 7 to 10 people to take care of. First she takes reports from the previous shift, then does her own assessment of the patients. She has to give them their meds and do any required treatments, draw blood, start IV's, call doctors, send them for tests, watch for changes in their conditions, do all the charting, etc. etc. After 12 hours I bet she will be ready to go home and go to bed, then sleep all day and come back for another 12 hour night shift. I can't imagine working so hard. Mia is young and unattached, but what if she had a family at home to take care of? Many of her classmates in nursing school had young families. I have 150 sheep and goats, not to mention rabbits, chickens, dogs and cats. Speaking of sheep and goats, I have to drag my behind out to their area of this barn and start slinging bales, hook up hoses and fill stock tanks. I had a scare with Breeze, my little white llama, who was lying flat out on the hay and didn't want to get up. I called the vet, who said it sounded like meningeal worm, oh no!, and to give him ivomec and banamine for pain. Since he was lying down Matt was able to lie on top of him and hold him down while I gave him shots. This was not easy with Breeze flinging his legs around. I decided to take the opportunity to clip his nails, which I have never done. Tibby Groves in NJ, who I purchased Breeze and Chris from, would come over and clip them for me, inside the catch pens we built. There are no catch pens here yet and Tibby is four hours away. I got his nails clipped with one hand holding his leg and the other doing the clipping. We rolled him up and he ran shakily outside of the barn. We took him some grain, and he started eating with gusto. He is still eating today, and looks fine. Who knows what was going on with him?