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Wilmer made it through several hours of surgery on Thursday. I've been with him the last two days & nights at Shriners & got home this morning. I did not get much sleep but he's the guy who has had quite a time. His surgeries were extensive & he is now in long leg casts. It is amazing to see how long his legs are when straightened out & to admire his feet now both facing forward. He has received extraordinary care & I must confess that the small kindnesses the nurses extended to me when I was most sleep-deprived made so much difference in my ability to continue to try to comfort him.

It was a pleasant distraction to help Eric unload chicken feed & to clean & sort eggs today. The chickens are laying just a bit more each day as the daylight hours lengthen. I'd mentioned all of the pretty white pullet eggs from the Buff Minorcas a while back. Now the other young hens are beginning to start their first laying & I am getting lots of adorable little eggs in various shades of brown. All of this indicates that we should have an excellent egg season!

Pig Update: The pigs got a healthy little treat this evening as I cooked up four dozen eggs for the two of them to share. They simply love that treat!

Sesame Street

I never realized how amusing Sesame Street can be. Katy, our baby, just turned 19 & we really didn't watch much of it when the three children were small. I think it was only on once a day & not really part of our routine. Wilmer, our little guy from Honduras, thinks it is hysterical. I have been sitting with him while he laughs at some running joke about a camera. I am not sure what exactly is going on as I've used a little of this time to keep running out of the room to do house chores. Since Wilmer is so into the program, I am using it to have him help me with my Spanish. He keeps trying to tell me in English what is going on but I keep asking him for the Spanish words. He spells them for me & laughs when I try to pronounce them.

We are still going non-stop. Wilmer's appointment at Shriners Friday was great. He got lots of attention & they explained step-by-step with real equipment what would happen to him before his surgery. Because we do most of our own vet care, I have IV tubing, syringes & lots of other cool doctor stuff here so he has been coaching me through what will happen when I go to the hospital. He has measured the angles of my knees & feet dozens of times & has taped an IV tube to me repeatedly. I am thinking by now he must be fairly comfortable with the whole process - as long as they let him be the doctor!

Too busy to blog.....

Little Wilmer from Honduras is taking lots & lots of time. He is a sweetheart but needs steady attention & supervision. Today is the first day I've even been able to walk to the back of the farm in a week. I am missing that but realize the importance of what we are doing so cannot mind it terribly. Thanks goodness Al, Glen & Eric have gladly picked up my slack. Katy also came home to join us at Friday's Shriners appointment & play with Wilmer some over the weekend.

Wilmer went to Winthrop University on Monday & got to go swimming at their indoor pool with Katy. He'd been insisting that he could swim in our pool, even with the ice on it. Indoors just seemed like a better plan!

Pig Update: The pigs are eating well & growing. They've been enjoying a little more variety in their diet as I've been sending out scrambled eggs & they've been playing with/eating ears of dried corn that came from Country Boys when they did the after-Halloween clean up.

Even busier...

Wilmer is a non-stop little guy! He can scoot all over the house & has quickly learned to open everything including the front door. He thinks it is funny to let the dogs & cats in & out but not all of them should be in or out. We've hung a set of sleigh bells on the front door so we know when he sneaks over to open the door. Since he demands such diligent care, I have seen very little of the farm lately. When the ground was frozen we made a few quick trips out in his wheelchair which allowed me to gather a few eggs or check on one of the older goats. Fortunately Al & Eric have kept up with the farm.

We've had two days where the nighttime temperature was in the teens. Several duck eggs were frozen & split longways each morning but the majority were fine. Hay consumption easily doubled for the two cold days.

Pig Update: The pig stall got a good cleaning today. They are meticulous about only using the bathroom in one corner so the job is not too complex but certainly needs to be regularly handled. These "institutional" Clemson pigs are not nearly as social as the small-farm ones we've gotten in the past. They are very high strung & everything seems to scare them. They are eating well but the pig with the lame leg has not gotten any better. Fortunately, he has only his brother for food competition. He'd be in sad shape in a larger group.

Busy, busy

Blogging may be slowing down as we received Wilmer, the delightful young man from Honduras, on Thursday. We spent 4 hours at Shriners' so that he could be evaluated. It is a wonderful place & Wilmer was a happy patient who was quite cooperative. He got lots of attention including a few x-rays & a neat motion study where he was wired up & videoed to assess his gait.

He is 12 years old & fascinated with electronics so when I buckled him in the car & went to load his wheelchair, he checked out buttons & knobs on the dashboard. Fortunately, I had the car keys in my pocket. It was a brisk 40 degrees but he insisted on putting the window up & down until I managed to catch him off guard while the window was up & hit the safety lock. He was puzzled that the window would not go down as we were zipping down the interstate but was soon too busy looking at passing traffic to care.

He is bilingual so we had a good time on the way home as he helped me brush up on my high school Spanish. He properly pronounced and spelled the names of all of the colors until I got them right.

When I opened his car door at the house, three of the dogs stuck their heads in to greet him. Lila is a huge Anatolian Shepherd, Tootsie is our midsized abandoned black mutt & Madison is the howling beagle. Wilmer grinned from ear to ear & buried his face in Lila's neck. I was surprised simply because when we kept Marcdaile, the beautiful little 3 year old from Haiti, she was initially scared of the dogs & eventually only got to where she wanted one at a time around on her terms. But Wilmer was right at home.

The boys were still cleaning up brush from the power company's trimming so had a fire going in the front pasture. Wilmer was interested in what they were doing but also anxious to see the house. Glen, our oldest, carried him in & set him in the living room. He was quickly at the phone, television tuner & everything with buttons to push. He did not seem to mind when I asked him to stop, simply returning to cuddle the dogs who had followed us into the house.

After a few minutes in the house, Wilmer informed me that he wanted to see the boys. I put his coat back on, told him to wait at the door & went to get his wheelchair from the car. I was hoisting the chair out of the back of the car when Glen called out that Wilmer was coming. He had pushed the door open & was shuffling over the door sill & down the front step. I called for him to wait & he stopped. I quickly dragged the wheelchair across the front lawn & to the steps to load him in. I pushed him as far as the concrete drive & then he happily wheeled up & down while watching Glen & Eric toss brush on the fire. He spoke & waved, they spoke & waved, he listened to his CD player for a bit & then spoke & waved some more. Each time the boys would drop what they were doing, call him by name & wave. After ten minutes he decided he was cold so I brought his wheelchair to the door, toted him back in & let him play.

This "going out to see the boys" went on about three more times. On one of the trips into the house, Wilmer spotted an old baseball by a door & asked for it. He had already demonstrated at Shriners' that he has quite an arm on him. He spent one of our waiting periods pitching a stuffed duck at the three of us who'd accompanied him to the hospital. I knew based on his strength & enthusiasm that he had no business with a baseball in the house so promised we would buy him a ball later.

Now I am rushing to finish the blog as I hear him stirring. Dinner was good & he is a great eater. We did go in to town to buy him a soft soccer ball, a few other balls & a big bin to store his things in just so the cats don't sleep in them or the dogs don't nose through them. He wanted a red bin & was ecstatic that it was his. Mr. Potter pushed the wheelchair in the store & I pushed the cart. Wilmer kept reaching back to cling to Al's arm, cheerfully shouting at us as mommy & daddy. When we got home, we put his red bin by his bed, packed his things in it & he was content.

Before bed, Wilmer & Eric, our 21 year old, shut all the doors down the hall & spent a lot of time batting the soccer ball up & down the hall. Finally Wilmer admitted he was tired, brushed his teeth & went to bed at about 9:00. We put his bed in the dining room so that he does not have to go up & down stairs to use the bathroom. I closed the shades, left a small light on for him in the kitchen & never heard another peep until I heard him take himself to the bathroom at about 5 a.m. & then shuffle back to bed.

So, based on yesterday's activity level, I'm imagining I will have little time to sit at the computer, having to devote my occasional moments of calm to regular farm chores. But it is all good & it looks like Wilmer will be quite a blessing to us.

Making Preparations

We are preparing for two different events. The first is the arrival of Wilmer, a young fellow from Honduras who will be joining us for at least two weeks prior to his surgery at Shriners' Hospital. We know very little about him at this point except that he has been a sweetheart to his host family in Atlanta. I will meet him tomorrow & am excited!

We are also getting ready for the cold weather that is forecast. Mr. Potter had already put a new round bale in each pasture at the beginning of the week so everyone has a good supply of hay. We've filled water troughs to the top & will do so again tomorrow once the temperature is above freezing. Most of our troughs are filled with hoses so we drain those before a freeze. That way, once the day warms a little, we can use the hose again without trying to blow long tube-shaped ice cubes out of it. That is fairly amusing but takes too long when I just want to fill a trough & move on to other chores.

The last thing we did this evening was to move Bart & Leo into the stable where they can stay warmer. Bart, the adorable fellow looking into the camera in the photo, is our crippled sheep. He came down with grass tetany almost two years ago as a lamb. We managed to nurse him through the initial total paralysis that less than 1% of sheep survive. Many would have thought the time, effort & expense was ridiculous but we could not NOT do it - that is just how we are. Because of his residual paralysis, he must be helped to stand each morning & I often give him an extra little boost after a daytime rest. Sometimes he can manage to get himself up if he has not been down for long but we do find him every morning to help him. When he sleeps, he has to lay all the way over on his side with his legs sticking out. Most sheep sleep with their legs curled under him but Bart's do not quite bend like that. I am fearful with the predicted cold weather that he won't be able to keep his legs warm so he's now in the barn along with little Leo.

Moving Bart all the way to the barn was interesting as he has never had a rope around his neck or walked on a lead. But it was dark & I was in a hurry so decided to grab a lead rope, loop it back on itself for a makeshift collar & try to walk him to the stable. When I first looped the rope over his head, he backed up & looked startled. He dug his feet in when I began to gently tug him. Mr. Potter was walking by me with one of the cans of kitchen scrap from the Hyatt & reminded me to be patient. I asked what he had in the can that might speed the process. He came up with a few "fresh from the morning breakfast buffet" pancakes that looked good as new. I had Bart's attention after the first nibble & he trotted all the way back to the stable just a few feet behind me. So not only is he warm for the night but he has learned a new discipline - walking on a lead while following a pancake!

Pig Update: I checked on the pigs throughout the day & filled their water. They have decided that they can eat pig chow without having to wait for their eggs which is good as I'd fed extra eggs to the dogs this morning & didn't have a lot to go on pig chow. I had also flipped them a few ears of dried corn throughout the day. Those were all stripped clean in the corner of their stall. They have laid out their living arrangements which is pretty common for pigs. They sleep in the same place & always use the bathroom in the corner farthest from their bed.

Odds & Ends

Much of the day was spent working on bits & pieces of little chores. I picked at a little bit of newly-washed fleece that I'll be using for a residency in a few weeks. I finished spinning another ball of white yarn but did not get out to dye it as it was just a little cold to work comfortably in the stable without turning on the heat & I wasn't excited about doing that when dyeing can wait.

I wound off half a dozen 4 ounce balls of white yarn that we will be using for a knitting class tomorrow. I am excited about this as the teacher will be leading the students as they each knit a white wool scarf. At the end of the 3 week class, I will bring in all the supplies & we will dye their scarves. I just love the dyeing process!

The boys kept a fire going outside much of the day as they are still cleaning branches that were left behind when the electric company trimmed trees. Although the tree company offered to chip the branches, we asked them to leave them as is because the goats LOVE to eat the pine needles & bark off of them. Again, I will remind you that these are very well fed animals but relish variety in their diet. Now that the branches are bare remnants, they can be burned.

Each day I am getting just a few more chicken eggs. And I had another little pullet egg from the Buff Minorcas! The ducks & chickens are plucking away at their straw bales in the chicken yard. Once they pull enough straw out that the bales become very unsteady mushroom shapes, we'll have to knock the bales over so that a bird doesn't die when a bale collapses on it. It would certainly be a shame for the birds to have worked so hard just to end up killing themselves.

Pig Update: The two were not very interested in their pig chow today so I tried wetting it. They still turned up their noses. I came in the house, fried up a dozen duck eggs & sent those out with the boys. They reported the pigs enthusiastically tore in to them. I really don't mind spoiling them.