Acouple mornings ago, I got my milk things together and started out the door. When I got to the milk barn Dutch door, the top was open and I saw to my amazment and horror, nine goats feasting on grain, stomping on stancions and cabient and dragging paper towels everywhere!!!!!! I hollored to Mom, who was letting out the horses and she hastened to my assistence. We were able to get them out quickly, but I was concerned about them bloating. I kept a very close eye on them and no one got sick!! Praise God! At one point during the day, it began to rain, which caused the goats to scurry back into their pens. I was disappointed, because I wanted them to be able to graze and walk around. I began to earnestly pray that God would stop the rain and he did!!

The vet came again on Wednesday. She pulled the stitches out. Granite's eye had almost healed completely! There was a little ulcer, which she said would probably become a small hard white dot, but that he would be able to see around the white dot!!! Praise God that his eye has healed and that he should be able to see out of that eye!

The vet came again on Tuesday. She took the stitches out and found that part of the eye had ruptured causing an ulcer. She did say though that the eye looked very healthy and that there is no fear of him losing his eye completly. We still don't know if he will be able to see out of that eye though. She sewed his eye back up again so the ulcer could heal & she is coming back next week on Wednesday. Please pray that he would not need anything more done that time as this is getting a little expensive :-) But, even while saying that, I thank God that his whole eye didn't rupture & that the vet has a lot of wisdom on what needed done.

Friday morning, it was cold and windy. I let three ponies, Bullet, Liberty, and Ginger, into a pasture to graze. They all ran out the gate into the pasture, which got PonyBoy excited. PonyBoy has a cateract in one of his eyes which makes him more nervous when he sees other horses running. I then went into the pen that PonyBoy was kept in. He was more excited then he has been this summer, but I didn't think too much of it, seeing it was cold and windy, which usually makes our horses a bit more spirited. I led him out and while I walked to the big pasture, tried to make him drop his head. When a horse drops his head, so his topline is level, it means that the horse is relaxed. I have been doing that a lot with him and it seems to have helped him calm down. This paticular time, however, he didn't like the idea of being calm. Also, he bonked me with his nose, which means that he thought that he was dominent and that I didn't matter. I bonked him back to show that I did matter and that I was the one who was dominent. Kayla opened the pasture gate and I led him through. It was cold, so I dropped the halter off him. He turned to leave right away, which is another sign of him thinking he is the dominent one. I turned to leave immediatly, so that I could be seen as the boss. He again didn't like that idea and no sooner then I had taken a couple of steps, I got a full print of a horsehoof on my shoulder blade!!! I turned and yelled at him and he took off running. I couldn't do anything more, so I left. A little bit of redness appeared soon after the kick, but Mom rubbed some Arnica cream on it and it disappeared. I haven't felt any pain from it and I am sure that I didn't break any bones. Praise God it was not worse and that it was me that he kicked. My younger siblings would have got it in the head. As it is, we are selling PonyBoy, we were trying to sell him before, but this adds a new desire to have him gone so we don't have to worry about any more kicks. He broke Dad's hand and has tried to kick me before, but this is the first time he has been successful in getting me. Again, thank you Jesus!

Our colicy experiance with Blue our horse

Yesterday evening, Mom noticed that Blue our Walkaloosa was not eating his hay, which is a definate sign that something is wrong with a horse. Blue was laying down, so Mom clucked to him, trying to make him get up. He finally did, but the leg that he was laying on was stiff and sore. I immediately thought of Colic, so since I was busy with Dinner preperations, Dad walked him around the pasture. Blue did not want to walk and just wanted to paw the ground, lay down, and roll. If a horse is colicing, these things mean that it is in pain. We took turns walking him around and around the field. Blue also had bulging knots in the stomach portion near his flank and we couldn't hear anything moving or gurgling inside. He was stopped up! At ten p.m., we gave him a small amount of hay and water. When he began chewing, it began his intestines working again. We started being able to hear some gurgling. We couldn't give him much hay as that would just make the problem worse, so we gave him a small amount of hay every once in a while. This morning, he was walking around and wanting to eat more, so we spread a small leaf of hay around the pasture to keep him having to move. We are hoping and thinking that he is past the danger part. Praise God!!

We had the vet out on Tuesday. Before she even had seen Granite's eye, she knew that he had got his eye poked. We pulled the stanchion out of my milk barn and put him on that. That way, less people would have to hold him, but he couldn't move around much. After the vet put some numbing eyedrops in his eyes, she gave him a couple shots of numbing medicine in his eyelids. Then she tried to scrape off the white membrane, which was actually his enlarged Cornea! The Cornea had fluid in it that made it enlarged. At first she used a Q'tip, but that didn't work, so she tried with a knife, but that didn't work either. She was able to make a hole in the Cornea, so that it could drain. When she was done with this, she got ready to sew it up. I ran into the house, I was feeling a little sick, with needles, his baaing (he wasn't baaing because he was hurt, but because he didn't like being constrained, but still.... it didn't help things!) When I got into the house, I knew that my body was trying to faint and I was trying to not let it. Mom told me to put my head in between my knees and that helped almost immediately. I then was able to go help hold Granite again. When I got there the sight that met my eyes was a curved needle 1/2 way out of one eyelid and 1/2 way out the other! The vet finished sewing him up then gave me some ointment to put in the eye twice a day. The eyelid isn't completely sewed together, so it can drain. Now we are hoping and praying that the eye doesn't explode or prolapse. We are not sure if he will be blind in that eye or not. The vet is coming next Tuesday to check up on him and take the stitches out.

Granite was born to Grommette and Molassas this year. He is now 4 1/2 months old. A couple of days ago, while we were working outside, Mom noticed that something looked wrong with his eye. I was actually working in the house at that time, so Mom came inside and alerted me. I changed out of my nicer clothes into "goat" clothes. Already he smells like a buck and I did NOT want that smell on my nice clothes! I pulled him out of the buck pen, so I didn't have more bucks around me than I needed to and looked at his eye. His eye had turned completly white with a red rim. It looked like it was protuding out of the eye socket, but on closer examination, I found that there is a membrane that forms a bit of a pocket over the eye. It looks terrible! I am not sure exactly what it is yet, but I have been giving him shots of Bio Mycin, putting drops of eye antibiotics in his eye and giving him minerals and vitamins. I will -if I have time- post updates on him.