I would like to apologize to all of my faithful readers for taking such a long break since my last blog.  I have had a kind of mental block since I decided to sell the goats and have just not felt up to the task of writing.

My son got married on October 10th and there was much stress and many preparations for the fine day.  I was very happy with the wedding ceremony and the reception.  The bride and her family did an excellent job.

I decided to sell the goats at auction in Phoenix because I did not get much response to selling them through Craig's List.  They were all picked up on October 18th.  I will eventually get a check for them.
I am at a loss as to the direction I want to take for our little farm since the goats are gone.  The goats were a lot of work and I have noticed that the feeding routine is much easier now that they are not here.  But I do miss them.  They bleated a greeting every time I went in or out the back door and that sound is no longer part of our landscape.  

Tinker, my big male brown alpaca, has become ill.  I first noticed a big swelling under his chin about a month ago.  I kept praying that it would go away and that his natural immune system would fix him.  However, when the skin under his jaw burst open and solid white puss started oozing out, I knew that the time had come to make the dreaded trip to the vet.  So Steve took a day off from work and we took him in yesterday.  I was hoping it was a simple thing, like a sticker lodged in his mouth or something.  Silly me!  Of course, it is much worse than that. The vet cleaned the wound that had opened up but she could not really extract much puss at all.  She said everything was hard and she could not really tell what was going on.  So she took X-rays and blood.  She came up with three possibilities.  She said it could be Valley fever, or cancer, or some other big long scientific disease name that I could not pronounce nor remember.  So we are playing a waiting game until the blood work comes back.  In the meantime, we are giving Tinker 4 small pills twice a day.  She also gave us a pink sauve to put on the wound and keep the flies off.  It smells like peppermint or something but is not very nice at all.  Tinker was a real trooper through all the poking and prodding that he was put through.  He is so thin now too, just skin and fleece in spite of the fact that he has not stopped eating.  To give him his pills he will be getting a small amount of molasses covered grain so I hope this helps him gain back some weight.

I am leaving today to visit my mom and family in Delaware.  My mother is reaching a stage in her life where she needs more help and supervision.  She has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.  So I will be dealing with that on this trip.  I will try to post a new blog when I return on October 28th.