Pink Eye and Other Stuff

This post feels like a homecoming... a sign of maybe, just maybe, life returning to normal. I've kept an ever growing list of topics to report in my absense. And here's the first:

We had Copper, our breeding buck, come down with a rather serious case of pink eye. The first I noticed was that it seemed as though he were always winking. The next day it was closed. I thought he scratched it or something. The next day it clouded over. Remembering how quickly goats go downhill, I jumped online and determined that it was indeed pink eye. In kids, you squirt breastmilk in their eye a few times a day... so does that work with goat's milk? I never did try that. Allopaths got me scared so when Friday hit (having been caught with a sick goat that didn't last the weekend), I ventured to a feed store to get the big guns- antibiotics. I went to one store that only had stuff for dogs. The second store had the same stuff and swore it was the "only thing that works on pink eye" (I had mentioned allowing it to run its course to this store keeper's horror). I went to buy it and discovered it had expired in '08. Well, if pink eye's as common as it seems to be, why aren't more people buying treatment if this is the only stuff that works?

So I went home empty-handed. No, I swung by a grocery store for some epsom salts. For Copper, I squirted a few drops of colloidal silver in his eye. The does (who all were in milk), I washed their eyes with epsom salt water while they were on the milking stand. Noel started to show a tiny bit of crusting over, but it never amounted to anything. I gave Copper his treatment only twice (mostly because he was NOT cooperative!) and his eye started clearing up immediately. Later, when I was talking to a vet who we were doing a swap with (another post), she said pink eye can cause miscarriages. I had assumed that Noel and Fudge were both pregnant but I never noticed any signs of something amiss. But then they never did get it. The epsom salts did a great job of preventing it.

And to fill in on the rest of life, Homesteading Hubby has been employed again by a fabulous company! God has blessed us richly indeed!!! And his layoff turned out to be perfect timing... my father grew very ill and died in those 4 weeks while he was unemployed. It in some ways felt like we were getting punched in both eyes, but really, it was good. My husband was home to take care of the kids so whenever my dad needed me I could be at his side. He came to live with us and died shortly after. I then had to see to tying up the lose ends on the sale of his business and other estate matters and could do so without a worry as to how I was going to care for 3 small children and milk the goats too. I was just finishing up the worst of it all when my said hero got a call to start the following week. Its been a hard month, but I'm confident that my dad is with our Savior now. I miss him immensely, but I think it helps that the pain is clear, not some weird psychological messiness. I miss my dad, plain and simple. But he's safe, healthy and gardening in heaven where there are no weeds. I can't ask for better for him.