Pioneering New Steps as a Big Girl for Josie... and Oscar the Grouch's on Dope?

Pioneer Day (here in Utah and elsewhere for the LDS Church) and this year was a definite day for some Pioneering of our own. A day of firsts, both bad and good.

Oh sure, RINNY BEGAN celebrating in HER way (Pioneer Day (and Saint Patrick's Day) is one of the most important and exciting holidays in the Pink and Fluffy RinnyWorld... she wraps her hair in rag curls the day before, dresses in pioneer dresses all day, bakes bread all day, and drives us nuts playing the Trail of Dreams soundtrack (she played the first Bodil Mortensen... well, first except the real one, in pioneer times. HA!) on repeat at top volume. But ended up being uncharacteristically brave and leaving on a weekend camping/hiking/river rafting trip in Idaho surrounding the Twin Falls Temple open house! I am proud of her.

My little "foster kid" however, is not doing so well. Actually, pretty much feeling like if we WERE Pioneers, I might be one of those moms burying their babies by the side of the trail and I was crying and crying. When Josie was sick before, she had a stomach thing. Her little premie stomach just couldn't handle the food she thought she was ready for and it made her very sick. But this was... well, IS... worse. She has a very scary infection under where her horns were. She screams in pain when you accidentally touch her head. I took her to work and the top farm workers told me to put Preparation-H on it to draw out infection and just keep an eye on it. But after that... she started losing balance. And then, Wednesday or so she was SLEEPING ALL DAY. Lethargy is NOT a Josie thing. She is the most hyper critter EVER!

I had NO confidence in Preparation-H solving something like THIS. I was pretty sure being all sleepy like that meant it was systemic and spreading. AND I knew she needed to see a vet and get an antibiotic before I REALLY lost my baby along the "trail." So, since I was not actually able to drive right now, Mom came with and we took off for the farm to get little Josie and her yucky pussy head taken care of.

But before we got very far we saw thick billowing smoke coming from a under the lid of a household dumpster! It was in front of a neighbor's house and we stopped in front looking at it. It was sort of a yellowish color. I pulled over and went to the house to knock on the door and tell the homeowners, but they weren't there. I went to the can and my mom yelled "be careful, what if it explodes?!" but I felt the side of the can and it was hot but not super hat, so I stood BEHIND it so if I lifted the lid nothing would, like, make my head burst into flames. But there was a LOT of smoke coming from a black trash bag and it was very thick and yellow and smelled POISONOUS, so I dropped the lid and headed back to the Jeep to breathe. (I suspect it was something scary and flammable left in too hot of sun that started.) My mom said "what should we do? Should we just check on it when we get back from the farm?" and (this is where I feel quite proud of me) I said, "No, we call the FIRE DEPARTMENT!"
"Like the fire department?"
"Yeah, Mom!"
"Oh, I don't know if we can do that!"
So I picked up my phone and called. I told them the address. They asked the color of the smoke. They asked the distance of the can from the house. And they said that a fire engine was on it's way but that an officer was right by and would come immediately. He arrived and told us "we don't know what is burning in there, so let's have you guys parked further back at a safe distance." Then he talked to us and told us to actually leave the street, so we asked if we could just GO because as curious as we were to see the END of the story, as fire engines were roaring up, the people at the farm who could help Josie were going to LEAVE at 3 and I was really worried about my kid. He said we could and I left unfulfilled. But still... pretty crazy, eh?!

Well, Josie's little check up with WeatheredLeatheredFarmLady was good because she agreed that Josie was very ill and needed further treatment and BAD because she needed to get permission to have a vet see her from our favorite person Sgary.

HATEHIMHATEHIMHATEHIM.

He won't pay for vets or medicine for any but the "profitable" animals and we have "plenty" of goat kids and "if she dies, she dies."

Yes, THOSE WORDS.



However, WLFL said she did have some penicillin left over from another animal and could call up a vet friend for an un-official diagnosis and dosage. We did so and started injections. They hurt her pretty bad and she screamed QUITE loud. Poor little baby.

But after that things got better and she impressed me with 3 HUGE milestones!

When we got home Josie, though still very sick and sleepy, 1. ate (actually ate, swallowed, not just chewed on!) a substantial amount of hay! 2. stole an apricot and ATE IT!!! 3. DRANK WATER FROM A BOWL FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME!!!!

When she drank that water, I started to cry. Because I knew that even if it was going to be very very hard (and it likely was) that the MANY prayers I had said this week had gotten through and that Heavenly Father was telling me that Josie really COULD get through this and be weaned and generally things WOULD be okay.

It's just all really hard. I love this Goat.

Happy [and SAD!] Pioneer Day!