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<\/a><\/p>\nWhich is a good thing.\u00a0 Because we were almost out of hay.\u00a0 And we couldn’t bring in new hay until somebody got her nest out of the last remaining hay roll.\u00a0 Which wasn’t as much of a roll as a small pile of picked over stems being guarded by an easily agitated and unnecessarily vicious broody duck.<\/p>\n
Emmie had hatched her ducklings the week before.\u00a0 But she finally brought them out of the barn and down to the pond.\u00a0 And like mothers all over the world, she was happy to pose with them in front of a scenic background for a family portrait on the afternoon of Mother’s Day.<\/p>\n Brianna, in typical Queen-like fashion, took the cake, though.\u00a0 She birthed 3 healthy kids—2 bucklings and a doeling—on Sunday night.<\/p>\n They had beautiful colors and we plan on keeping the doeling, Angel.\u00a0 Gabriel and CJ will need new homes.\u00a0 We have been inviting people over to hold them and pet them and ooh and aah over them until they have a sweet baby goat asleep in their lap.\u00a0 As that is the best and fastest way to sell goats. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n Julia’s days of motherhood came to an end as we managed to sell her buckling, Joseph, at the flea market.\u00a0 Because if you can’t sell baby goats to farm visitors, your next best chance is to stroll casually around the flea market with a floppy eared, frolicking buckling bouncing along beside you as you peruse the produce.\u00a0 Going, going, gone!\u00a0 We have yet to return home with a goat kid that we took to the flea market.\u00a0 Although, Julia’s work days aren’t over.\u00a0 Now that she’s not providing milk for her family, she’s providing milk for mine.\u00a0 Keep up the good work, girl!<\/p>\n With birds fledging all over the property, even fathers had to work on Mother’s Day.\u00a0 The tufted titmouses (titmice??) that nested in the barn yard had 2 chicks fly off successfully and one plop hopelessly to the ground.\u00a0 In full view of the barn cat.\u00a0 I had no idea that the male and female tufted titmouse worked together to raise the young.\u00a0 Until we (The Other Half) attempted to put the fledgling back in the nest and were swarmed by both parents.\u00a0 A tufted titmouse is not an intimidating bird.\u00a0 Until 2 of them are flitting from branch to branch, chirping hysterically and trying to peck out your (The Other Half’s) eyes.\u00a0 I wanted to get a picture of the The Other Half putting the fledgling back in the nest.\u00a0 But my zoom lens wasn’t strong enough to get a good picture from where I was standing in safety.\u00a0 Hey, someone had to survive to take care of our kids.\u00a0 Plus, it was Mother’s Day.\u00a0 Enough said.<\/p>\n But in case you were hoping for a pic of a cute fledgling and thought my post was headed in that direction, you don’t need to be disappointed.\u00a0 We spotted this mockingbird chick clinging to a bush at the local baseball field.\u00a0 Looks like his first flight wasn’t so successful either.\u00a0 And although no squawking birds were in sight, I’m sure his mother showed up to claim him eventually.\u00a0 She was probably out for a quick latte.\u00a0 With whipped cream.\u00a0 And a caramel drizzle.\u00a0 Which is sometimes what a mom needs to deal with her child’s latest crisis.<\/p>\n While all the other mothers were working on their holiday, I settled for a matinee with The Other Half and the kids to watch The Avengers.\u00a0 With enough popcorn and soda refills that I didn’t have to make any dinner.\u00a0 A win, win for everybody.<\/p>\n As a matter of fact, I even went so far as to delegate most of the mother responsibilities during the Middle’s birthday party, which comes hot on the heels of Mother’s Day.<\/p>\n Middle and Little made the party gift bags.<\/p>\n Big mowed the backyard.<\/p>\n Pretty made the burger patties.<\/p>\n Little cut the cheese.\u00a0 Hah!\u00a0 Cut the cheese!<\/p>\n Pretty drew the pirate ship targets on the patio.<\/p>\n Big and Little filled balloons.<\/p>\n Pretty and Big created the treasure hunt.\u00a0 They even went so far as to bury the clues, which would have been way too much effort for me.<\/p>\n I delegated and supervised.\u00a0\u00a0 Plus, I made the cake.<\/p>\n Which was pretty much the extent of my mothering at that party.\u00a0 Turns out Middle likes being mothered by his siblings just fine.\u00a0 And a good time was had by all, particularly the 8 to 9 year old boys.\u00a0 Who are now old enough to think constant mothering is a bit overrated anyway.<\/p>\n Just about the only mothering I have been doing over the Mother’s Day week was obsessing about Tina’s splints.\u00a0 When we took off her last long splints, we were discouraged to find that her left leg was still weak at the pastern and she wanted to “knuckle down” on it.\u00a0 We discussed several solutions and The Other Half suggested only splinting the left leg since the right leg was now straight, just weak.\u00a0 I nixed that idea as I thought she’d be too unstable on one splint.\u00a0 Instead we splinted both legs, but made the splints much shorter so that they would keep her pasterns straight while continuing to give her more leg movement and, hypothetically, building more leg strength.\u00a0 Note how that left leg still has a powerful bend.<\/p>\n Well, turns out that The Other Half was right and I should have just splinted the bent leg.\u00a0 When we changed the splints 5 days later, the left leg was not any better.\u00a0 Plus, the right leg, which had been straight, now also had a bend at the pastern.\u00a0 I had no idea how that was possible\u00a0 (the bent right leg, not The Other Half being right.\u00a0 Although, I wonder about that, too…).\u00a0 Total epic FAIL.<\/p>\n So we tried another adjustment.\u00a0 We splinted both legs but this time we only put the splint on one side of the leg (usually it’s on both back and front of the leg) and taped the leg tightly to it.\u00a0 I’d like to tell you there was a reason for this.\u00a0 Something based upon orthopedic science or occupational therapy.\u00a0 But it was just something we hadn’t tried yet.\u00a0 Too bad it didn’t work.\u00a0 Tina pretty much broke out of those splints in a few days on her own and both legs were still bent at the pasterns.<\/p>\n “Well, that’s that,”\u00a0 said Middle, “Time to put her down.”<\/p>\n “What are you talking about?” I asked.<\/p>\n “Remember?\u00a0 You said you weren’t going to spend a lot of time trying to fix her.\u00a0 You were willing to give it a shot but you weren’t going to keep on trying and trying.\u00a0 It would just be a waste of time”<\/p>\n “Oh, please,”\u00a0 I said as I gathered my bucket of splinting supplies.\u00a0 “Mothers always say that.\u00a0 It makes us feel like we can bail out when things gets tough.\u00a0\u00a0 But we never do.\u00a0 Half the kids in America wouldn’t be potty trained or sleeping in their own bed or wiping their mouths on their napkins instead of their sleeves if mothers didn’t keep trying.”<\/p>\n I splinted Tina’s left, weaker leg in a full splint—at least long splints had been proven effective at straightening her legs.\u00a0 Then following The Other Half’s advice, I left the right leg free and watched to see what happened.\u00a0 Oh, she bent the right leg a bit as she walked.<\/p>\n But she spent just as much time walking on it straight….<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n