Saturday night I had a coughing fit that ended with me screaming in agony from a burning pain at the base of my skull.    My first thought was I was having a stroke or aneurysm.  

Sunday morning I was feeling a little better and managed to stagger out to the barn with Bekah's help to get the milking done.   I'm sure if someone saw me all but crawling across the lawn to get to the barn they would have been thinking I was recovering from a hang-over.

I wasn't getting any better so Tuesday I went to see my doctor who ordered neck and chest x-rays because he thought I had pneumonia again.    Chest x-ray came back clear, and the neck x-ray only showed that I had arthritis in my neck so the pain was coming from a torn or sprained (i.e. whiplash) tendon or ligament and not a bulged disc.

On Wednesday the pain grew increasingly worse until I finally had my husband take me to urgent care.   The doctor there examined me and sent me over to ER where a CT scan was ordered.  I am happy to report they did find a brain in there! They also found several areas of sinus infection, but no bleeding on the brain.  

It took four rounds of pain and anti-nausea meds before I was finally able to return home.    The final diagnosis was a trifecta - a migraine triggered by the neck and sinus pain.    So now I am on antibotics and am hoping for relief from the sinus pressure in another day or two.    The neck will take 2-3 weeks to heal but hopefully I will have full functioning by the time we show on Labor Day weekend.  

Thanks to family and friends for watching the children for me and for getting the tattooing done that was needed for the show.    (The green ink on Itty-Bitty is from the tattoo's in her ears.)  I am so blessed to have all of your help!

As for the show, I still plan to attend and show the three goats in entered.   But I have lowered my expectations drastically in light of the fact that I will not be able to much if any training with the goats before hand.

Yesterday morning I took the plunge and entered, Rita, Itty Bitty and Choc-o-latte in the Oregon State Fair.  This will be my first foray into showing and I'm rather nervous getting it all figured out, and training the goats especially Rita, since she is a rather shy goat that prefers to stay away from people.

The three of them are entered in a total of eight classes, including the Breeders Trio, Get of Sire, Produce of Dam, Dam & Daughter and finally the Fair Special for Oregon Bred & Owned.   So Sept 4th is shaping up to be a very exciting, if nerve wracking, day.   Hopefully Bekah will do as well showing Choc-o-latte for me as she did with Photography at the Linn County Fair.

And speaking of the Linn County Fair, we stopped by there on our way back from signing up in Salem to pick up our photography entries and discovered that in addition to the blue ribbon her baby barn swallow picture had also received the People's Choice Award!  I am so proud of her!!

The Linn County Fair started today and of course Bekah and I were anxious to see how we did with our entries in the Photography open class.   Bekah won a FIRST place ribbon for the picture of the baby Barn Swallows.   And somehow her cactus flower picture ended up being judged in the adult catagory and she still won a THIRD place ribbon for it!     I am a proud momma!!

For myself, I won 2nd place ribbons for the pictures of Ari and Meeko, a third place ribbon for the picture of Choc-o-latte and a 4th place ribbon for the picture of Bekah in the pumpkin patch.  

If you didn't already see them the pictures of our entries were in the blog post just prior to this one. 

This Sunday Bekah and I will be turning in our entries for this years county fair.  Last year we entered just two each and came away with blue ribbons on all of them.   And I've been blessed to have winners in the years prior to that as well.    I think Bekah will have a very good shot at getting at least one ribbon this year in the under 12 category, my chances as always are up in the air and I will be on pins and needles until I can see the results of the judging next Thursday.

Bekah's Entries:

Goats weren't the only ones to raise young in our barn this year.   An obliging pair of barn swallows made a nest right where I told them it would be best and raised three babies that flew the nest today shortly after this picture was taken. 

It was very educational and entertaining to watch them building the nest, and then raising the hatchlings.    We got dive bombed by the parents a few times, although they only actually made contact with me once.   Since they tend to nest in the same spot every year we are hoping they will be back next year. 

When Choc-o-latte got moved to bottle baby status we had to have a companion for her and the only other kid was Itty Bitty.   I had planned on letting her nurse until she was at least four months old (she is 2.5 months old today.)

I had tried getting her sister Hazel to take a bottle, and not surprisingly was unsuccessful.   By 10 weeks of age they are old enough to wean, and rarely have any interest in a bottle.   But on a whim this afternoon when I had finished feeding Latte, I tried giving the little that remained to Itty Bitty.   And once she realized what was in that bottle she was 100% for the idea.   I ended up fixing her a fresh bottle which she happily guzzled.  So now we have two bottle babies.

With three of her four kids having been sold as bottle babies, Millie was understandably worried that her remaining kid was going to disappear too.   Her fear is ultimately what caused her remaining kid to be taken from her and raised as a bottle baby. 

Millie hid Choc-o-latte yesterday evening and didn't give in and call her to reveal herself until it was full dark.   When we found her in the bottom pasture she was wet and chilled from a light rain and obviously hadn't eaten in quite a while.   Took her to the house to get warm and dry and gave her a bottle for the first time in her life.   She glugged down a good portion and then snuggled in to sleep on my lap.   I decided at that point that we just couldn't risk Millie doing that again.  Granted the baby was hard for us to find, but I'm not so sure she would have been that difficult for a coyote to find.   Plus the fact that she was chilled and hungry led me to go ahead and make her a bottle baby.  

And since Itty-Bitty is the only other kid from this year that we are retaining it meant Itty-Bitty was weaned earlier than I had planned on so that Choc-o-latte will have company.    And the bright side, they will both hopefully become more bonded to us since they are the two kids from this year that seem to be the most independent minded just like their dams.

We have now officially sold every kid born this year other than the two doe kids (Itty Bitty & Choc-o-latte) that we intend to keep.   And despite numerous inquiries they are NOT going to be for sale either.  Sorry.

Hazel, pictured here getting her lunchtime bottle from Bekah, will be going to the same home as her 3/4 sister Misty (Rita's doe kid) tomorrow morning.

We hardly got a chance to get to know Millie's quads before three of them moved to their new homes.   But I am happy that they, along with Rita's two have all found good homes.    Bekah is a little disappointed as she was looking forward to feeding bottle babies.   However, for me that means once less thing to try to squeeze into a busy summer schedule.

Millie and her foursome are all doing well this morning and the babies all had full tummies when I checked.   They weren't real thrilled to be moved from their snuggle pile so I could get some pictures in the daylight but you can't really see that the darker doe kid is actually a rich dark chocolate color (like her sire's dam) except in good light.   That dark color really make her blue eyes stand out.   And her sister is equally beautiful.   It is going to be so hard to choose between them!

Shortly before 5pm this evening Millie finally got down to business and out popped a very tiny buck kid.   Next up was a much larger kid that was a complete breech.   Had to help that blue-eyed girl into this world quickly, but Millie was a trooper and she is a very healthy and vigorous doe kid.   

After Millie downed nearly two quarts of molasses water and taking a short break blue-eyed kid #3 made his colorful appearance.    And finally just when I was starting to think that was it, a lovely doeling rounded out the quartet.   These are the FIRST quads born here on the ranch.

Millie is always such a good mother and is taking excellent care of all her babies.   The littlest needed some help from a bottle but once he got a little colostrum in his belly he figured out how to get it straight from the tap.

We plan to retain one doeling for our herd, now the hard part is going to be choosing which doeling that is going to be.