So I was doing the animal chores this morning.  I gave the hogs some Seahawks donuts that Tom had bought for them.  They liked them. They do not like bread or apples, but they love donuts.

I noticed that Hazelnut was acting differently yesterday, but I couldn’t catch him.  Today I was able to coax him into the barn with grain and caught him.  I had stupidly left the bandages on his broken horn.  I had been watching it and not noticing any flies or drainage so I thought we were OK.  But as you can guess, we weren’t.  I pulled the bandages off, and he had fly strike in the bandages and on the horn.  I treated it with hydrogen peroxide, screw worm aerosol and Blue Kote.  I then made the fateful decision to let him go back in the field rather than leave him in a pen (which would be pure torture for him).  Time will tell if I made the right choice, as I clearly did not with leaving the bandages on him.  At least now he is eating grass so hopefully will be on the mend.

I am so sick of maggots though.  They turn my stomach like nothing else.  I really want it to freeze and get rid of all these awful flies.  I did recheck the cows again after the horn/maggot episode.  Sonja still has open superficial wounds on her neck, but they look OK.  The other cows looked fine.  The chickens all seem OK, but you never know under all those feathers.  Ditto for the sheep under their wool.

As far as the chicks go, the first hen keeps terrorizing them and not letting them eat or drink  So I made the executive decision to remove the mean hen but leave her two chicks in the weasel-proof pen.  I figured the seven chicks being able to eat and drink would be more important than the two older chicks’ loneliness.  Plus I think they are old enough not to need their mother’s heat.

Finally, everything has been breaking recently.  The manure spreader broke with heavy manure in it that we had to scoop out.  Tom was able to buy new drive chain links and weld them onto the drive bars.

The refrigerator in the trailer died too.  Tom bought it more than 20 years ago used from Bob McRae when Tom lived in Bellingham.  We ended up bringing the refrigerator here when we moved, and Bob McRae is now our neighbor.  Funny coincidence.  The fridge has been reliable for a long time plus it used very little electricity.  But now it is dead, and we have been looking for a replacement.

The window on the door to the pump house broke.  I pulled most the glass out so the dogs would not walk on it.  We put this door in when we built the pump house when we moved in.  It was an old door at that time.  We painted it purple for our wedding here.

Plus our front gutter is broken.  These were put in when we moved her 17 years ago.

Lastly, and most importantly, our washing machine has broken.  This is not nearly as old.  We think it is the lid lock mechanism.  The appliance repair person cannot come for 2 weeks.  So we are trying to fix it ourselves.  As we live on a farm, plus have an elderly dog and it is mud season, so there is a lot of laundry that we need to do here.  Tom kindly went to the laundromat yesterday which apparently was an experience.  As I type, Tom is replacing the mechanism, and hopefully we will be able to wash again soon.

It seems like Tom has become a repairman rather than a farmer.  And it is getting old.  But part of our issues are due to having old stuff to begin with.  So there might be a lesson there.