Update

It's been a LONG time since I've sat down to write here. I'm sorry! Things are moving along day by day here. Here's a quick snapshot update: Bees are doing good. We were able to harvest one box from them and still leave them with 2 full boxes of honey. They have an empty 3rd box on the hive for winter. I went back and forth on whether to leave it or not and figured, they don't get to make a tree smaller so I left it. The size of the hive has really shrunk since the height of the nectar flow. They are definitely preparing for winter. They have glued shut every little opening so I am not opening to disturb them. One window is still accessible so at least I can check on them that way. They were still flying about this morning, though I don't know where they are packing anything away in there. The pugs are doing well. Basil is currently in heat so we are keeping them separate the best we can. They have bested our efforts a couple times but I'm pretty sure we were able to catch them before anything happened. Twice I have had Barley with me in the goat area and turn around to find Basil with us. Sneaky little girl! Another time I locked Barley in the crate only to leave the house and get a call from Wolf a few minutes later that he just saw both of them run through the yard! Fingers crossed she isn't pregnant! There were a few days Barely was going absolutely nuts not being able to get to her. He has calmed back down a bit so hopefully she's on her way out of heat. The dang foxes have come back around a couple times looking for another meal so we decided to get a couple Livestock Guardian Dogs to protect our chickens. Lots of reading beforehand to make sure we knew what we were getting into. Glad I did the research! They are very different than a house dog. Of course, most of the info you find is for people who have herds of sheep or goats. Since we only have 2 goats and some chickens for them to guard (the cows and horses fend for themselves pretty well) our training situation is a little different and we don't subscribe to the non-socializing theories out there. We couldn't find any LGD here in CO so Wolf Pup (aka Little Owl) and I took a road trip to KS, OK, and TX. We came back with 4 dogs and 3 chickens. We sold one of the dogs and delivered the chickens to their owner. The other 3 pups are doing well so far. They are huge and so different than what I am used to for a puppy. They get excited but calm down really fast and just lay around. They are good with the chickens so far, only needing a reminder here and there, that they aren't toys. I'm sure they will continue needing to be reminded until they are grown, but overall it's nothing like the interest another dog would show. The calf, Little Man, has gotten pretty big already. He's only a few inches shorter than his mom. He is still very skittish and won't let us touch him much. I'm sure a lot of you already know about my adventure with Estelle (our cow). We needed to inseminate her so she can freshen for next year. To do this you need to give 2 shots 2 weeks apart and then load her in the trailer and take her to the vets office. I researched online and saw that the best place was the neck, but then the lady at the vet's office told me to do it in the buttocks. So when the time came I stood up by Estelle's head while she was eating, leaned over and stuck the HUGE needle right in her butt. She flipped around so fast and kicked me in the thigh so fast I didn't have time to react. She kicked so hard I fell backwards into the horses. Luckily they didn't kick even though I startled them pretty good. She also flipped so fast I couldn't pull the needle out of her. She wouldn't let us anywhere near her after that so the needle had to fall out on it's own. Unfortunately for me, I had to leave town on a work trip a few short hours after all this. My thigh was very swollen and started bruising immediately. Wolf figured out she ripped some of my muscle tissue there (quadricep contusion). I wasn't able to keep ice on it once I left home so it got pretty painful, especially when changing positions. Standing up and walking really hurt. It's been more than a month now and there is still some small lumps where the muscle is healing and the whole area is a grey color. There is also a big divet in my thigh. Before the next shot we built a milking stanchion to try to hold her so we wouldn't get killed. I made Wolf give her the next shot. I was having too much anxiety about it and didn't want her associating me with pain too much. He did it in the neck and while she freaked out she didn't kick anyone! The next adventure was getting her in the trailer to go to the vet. She did not want anything to do with it or our treats. It took Wolf and I 2 hours to finally get her in the trailer. It took 3 fences and an atv but we did it. Fingers crossed it took! The garden this year was atrocious. We got a few scrawny tomatoes, some teeny potatoes, a handful of baby eggplant, 1 cucumber, small onions, and 1 squash. We didn't get anything in the ground until late June. We had a very wet soggy spring and then a very dry summer. It was crazy weather. The good news: 1) I didn't amend the soil at all and things grew. That means next year when I do amend it should do great. 2) The hail netting I bought did a great job. It protected the plants from a couple hail storms beautifully. I think that's about it. One of these days I'll make some posts on individual things.

Puppy delivery adventure

Starting Saturday Basil stopped eating. I knew labor was eminent. She was acting uncomfortable. It took longer than I expected but around 8:30 on Sunday night I knew it was time. She was sitting on the couch with us and started nesting in the towel I had on the couch (it's been wet out so I'm trying to protect the couch from muddy paws). I told her, "let's go to bed." She jumped down and ran to her fenced off spot. She started nesting right away and wouldn't let me leave her side. If I left to go get anything she went to the gate and stood there staring at me whining. Last time her labor progressed smoothly. She had her puppies anywhere from an hour to 15 min apart. I expected similar this time. Boy was I wrong! The first puppy came at 9:30. He came out without a sac and his umbilical cord pulled off the placenta on his way out. 

First born

 He became cold really quick. I think he didn't get his last boost from the placenta. I held him but my hands are never warm enough so I put him on a microwavable heat pad. That still didn't seem to do the trick so I gave him to Greg. He put him under his shirt and warmed him. Eventually he had to go to bed so I put him on my stomach then got the heating pad in front of the space heater, and wrapped him in a hand towel on that. He finally stayed warm! 

Snug as a pug in a rug

During all this I kept expecting Basil to have another contraction and expel the rest of the sac and placenta. After about 30 min of waiting for that I decided to help her out. I took a washcloth and grabbed the little bit that was hanging out and pulled. Luckily, it came right out. 

Bit of sac hanging out

I expected the next puppy before 10:30. Around midnight I was getting worried. Got on the internet and found that up to 4 hours can pass between puppies and as long as momma doesn't seem uncomfortable or straining for long periods, all should be good. Around 1:15 I hit the internet again and found that low calcium and/or glucose can cause a stall in labor. Thanks to someone online for the suggestion to feed momma a bit of ice cream. Of course normally this would not be fed to my dogs, but under these circumstances, I didn't think a little would hurt. Luckily we had about 2tbls left of some all natural vanilla ice cream. I gave her about 1tbls of it and she gobbled it down. Within 5 min we had a second puppy. I don't know if it was the cold, the sugar, the calcium, or just a coincidence but I was happy. This second puppy also came outside of the sac and was hanging from her for a little bit by it's umbilical cord. 

Hanging puppy

I tried to hold the puppy up to help her but she kept spinning and sitting so I wasn't much help. Eventually the cord ripped and I was really worried it was going to hurt the puppy. It did look like it pulled quite a bit away from the body but hopefully all that will result it an outie belly button. I had to help her pass the placenta again. Luckily this one didn't have the cold problem since I had a nice warm spot with a sibling to cuddle up with. 

 Around 2:30 I again started getting worried. While I had found that 4 hours could pass, I also saw a lot of references to 2 hours being the max and after that to get your dog to a vet asap because the puppies could be in distress or start to die. I tried the ice cream trick again. It seemed to give her one contraction but then nothing. By 3:00 I was giving her a 15 min count down. At 3:15 there was still no sign of anything so I loaded her and the 2 puppies into the car. As soon as she got in the car, the garage door hadn't even finished shutting yet, she started acting like she was having contractions. I didn't really want her having puppies on my car seat so I brought her back inside. She ran out and pooped instead. Then just sat there like nothing was happening. I gave her 10 more minutes then loaded everyone back up in the car. The emergency vet is 30 min away and she acted like she was having contractions often, but no puppy. We made it to the vet, got inside, did the standard vital check and history, and they took her back for xrays to make sure no one was stuck. As the tech carries her back into the room Basil yelps and a puppy drops right there onto the floor. Luckily its fall was broken by the tech's shoe! It was quite a surprise for all of us. She wasn't whining or acting like she was in labor at all. 

Cleaning her first hospital puppy

 The xrays came back clear but they were surprised to see so many still inside of her. 

Next they did some blood work to see how her calcium and glucose levels were. While they were waiting for those results to come back they gave her a shot of oxytocin to try to speed things up. Withing 30 min of that shot the next puppy arrived. Again with no real sign of labor. Basil was just sitting calmly next to me, then yelped and there was a puppy. 

They setup 3 IV bags full of warm water covered by a towel to keep the puppies warm. But eventually we had too many puppies and they brought in a warm water mat and made a new bed for them. 

Sharing the warm water bed with her puppies

The blood tests came back normal. The next puppy arrived 12 min later. Each time a puppy came Basil would yelp and the vet would hear it and know to come check on her. That left us waiting on three puppies. Around 30 min in the vet wanted to do an ultrasound to make sure the last 3 weren't stressing since they had been in there so long. As the vet tech comes in to get her Basil stands up and drops another puppy. At this point I'm thinking an ultrasound isn't necessary since only two puppies are left but after 15 min and no more puppies they take her back to do the ultrasound. The cynical me is thinking this is just for more money at this point but I can't really argue since their argument is that the puppies have been in there for over 9 hours since labor started. While she is back there I hear a yelp and am not surprised when the door opens and the vet comes in carrying a puppy. She said the one that was just born had a slow heart rate but the last one looked good. It didn't take too long for the last puppy to come. 

Cleaning the last puppy

After 10 hours we were finally able to call it a night. Needless to say Basil and I are exhausted!

On the ride home.