Ground zero

Well, it's been 2 weeks since our garage was burned down. Things have calmed down a little but dealing with the after math is not any less overwhelming. I know we've dealt with similar situation a few years ago when we flooded, but it doesn't make it less stressful second time around. I want to think that I usually deal with stress pretty good for the most part, but it doesn't mean the stress isn't there, it doesn't mean it's fun to have to deal with situation. If I have to be honest with myself right now I'm actually feeling pretty overwhelmed! On top of having to deal with insurance (which to me hasn't been too terribly horrifying but it is nonetheless a hassle), we have been trying to get the garage rebuilt (getting estimate from people and talking to insurance etc), shopping for not one but two vehicles (we were not ready to go shop for new cars, I really loved my Ford Flex, and hubby loved his F150), family obligations (kids), and church obligations, and just life in general. I feel like my plate is so full I don't think I'll be needing seconds!  Last weekend we did go on a family camping trip some place nearby, which turned out to be a good stress relief.  At first I wanted to be selfish and just cancel the trip because we had so much going on but I quickly realized that I couldn't be so selfish and the kids needed it.  I'm so glad we went, but when we came home reality was waiting at the door *sigh.  I always try to stay positive, but it doesn't take the stress away, but it sure helps me get through difficult situations a little bit better. Dealing with insurance, rebuilding, and replacing all the equipment and tools will take awhile, but it will eventually happen. I will post pictures when we have our new garage done and we might even have a party to celebrate!

 

This is our "ground zero"

This is what our garage looks like now, pretty much just the cement slab

And still need to have the debris removed.

                                

I guess we made it on the headline news again

 Without trying to call the attention to ourselves, we somehow made it on the "headline news" again...

We feel so lucky to have so many friends, family, and church friends/family check on us and offering to help!  The outpouring of love is so overwhelming and I just don't know how to express my gratitude to all of y'all!  And a big shout out/thank you to the already exhausted fire fighters (we were told they already put out 6 fires prior to ours earlier throughout the day) who came to help put out the fire!

So last night around 10pm we got done playing some family games, and just got done saying family prayer and about to go get ready for bed.  Then all of a sudden we heard a roaring sound, like the sound that the furnace makes when it kicks on.  But it was 10 times louder and it appeared to be coming from outside.  Then all of a sudden we heard a big boom.  So immediately we went outside to look and see what happened.  When the hubby went outside he saw our detached garage engulfed in flames.  He immediately told me to call 911 while he went to grab the couple of propane cans away from in front of the garage so those wouldn't explode.  And then hubby quickly moved my in-laws (they're here to visit)

This is what we saw when we went outside to checkout what was happening last night.

There must have been like 5 fire engines here last night

 

 

So thankful for the firefighters!

 

motor home and car away from the garage so their motor home wouldn't be destroyed.  It was a really scary scene... I was kind of scared and panicked just a little (ok it was maybe more than just a little) but I had to try my best to stay calm because the kids were freaking out and crying.  We were super duper worried because we had 2 large propane tanks outside right next to the garage.  I'm talking like well over 100 gallons of propane.  We were so worried that the fire will get to those propane tanks and then they would explode and blow everything up.  But we kept praying and praying so hard for God to help protect those propane tanks.  I called 911 and luckily help was here very quickly.  We must have had like 5 fire engines came and a few ambulances here on stand-by and ready to rescue us, once again.  It took them awhile to put out all the fire but the firefighters got the job done!  We are so appreciative of our firefighters!  

 

 

 

These are our vehicles

That's what was left in our garage.

This is what's left of the 4-wheeler

      

Everything inside the garage and in the overhang area behind the garage are all gone, nothing is salvageable.  All of our tools, food in the freezers and fridge, all gone!  Both vehicles, gone!  We just recently butchered our cows too so all of that meat is gone!!!  

But we are grateful that no one was hurt and our cows were safe too!

We are counting our blessings, and witnessed so many miracles during this crazy incident.  First of all, the hubby was supposed to go back to work this past Wednesday but for some unforeseen reason he had to stay home for an extra few days.  So he was home to help when this all happened and I don't know how he can stay so calm and collected during all of it.  Kudos to him!

First little miracle was that the hubby was home when it all happened so he could be here to help.   And then looking at the aftermath, the corner of the garage where the large propane tanks are sitting right outside of the garage was untouched!  And inside that corner of the garage is where we store our gas cans!  Gas cans were untouched!  That's the hugest miracle, I think.  If those gas cans were to catch on fire it would burn through that corner of the garage quick and the large propane tanks would be a goner, and very possibly we would be goners too! 

We are so grateful our lives were spared once again, and our home didn't get destroyed.  Our water well didn't get destroyed (it sits next to the large propane tanks) and we still have running water (some minor damages to plumbing was sustained and will need repairs but at least we still have running water inside the house)

This corner of the garage was untouched.

 

 

Such a miracle that these propane tanks didn't blow up

Gas cans didn't blow up either.  Prayers answered!

Despite of all of this we are counting blessings, as always.  And so grateful for everyone who reached out and expressed their love and concerns!

Bad farmers

So a few weeks ago our cute little calf, Chocolate Milk died.  He had a bad case of parasites.  As soon as we found out that Chocolate Milk was gonna die we scheduled for all of our cows to go in and get de-worm shots the next week.

The day we took our cows in to get their de-worm stuff and shots it was actually relatively easy to put all of them on the trailer and take them to the vet.  We got them their shots from the vet and we were loading all the cows up in the trailer.  Black Pearl was the last one to get on the trailer and when she was getting on the trailer she slipped and fell and she refused to get back up.  At first we thought maybe she was just mad and so she was throwing a fit and didn't want to get up.  We didn't think much of it at the time.  When we got home and trying to unload all the cows Black Pearl was still in the sitting position and she did not want to get up or get out of the trailer.  After a lot of pushing and dragging her we finally were able to get her off the trailer.  But at that point we were starting to think that she had the same thing that Chooclate Milk had, but still not 100% sure.  For the next week or so, Black Pearl stayed in the same spot where we left her even though she tried to move or get up she couldn't.  At that point we were convinced that she would have the same fate as Chooclate Milk.  We tried to care for Black Pearl and tried to give her the best chance to get better and she was doing fine for almost a whole week but then the next morning I went out to feed her she did not want to eat.  She refused to eat and drink.  At that moment I knew she wouldn't make it.  The morning before Chocolate Milk died he did not want to eat...

That afternoon I tried to get some friends/neighbors to come over to help me sit her back up because she was laying down on her side, but she kept flopping back down.  At that moment, I knew she wouldn't last too much longer but I was hoping she would at least make it through the night.  Well she died quicker than I thought.  She died that evening and I was actually there to witness her take her last breath.  It was hard to watch her die.  As much as I don't attach to animals we've had her for the past like 4 years.  She might have been a diva at times but nonetheless she was a really good mother to her calves.  So I didn't think I would feel sad but I did.  So the next day we hired an excavator guy to come out and dig a hole and bury Black Pearl for us.  This time the hole is much bigger so we decided it wouldn't be wise to dig it by hand ourselves so we sucked it up and paid for someone else to do it.

Now looking back, we know why both Chocolate Milk and Black Pearl started being a little "distant" from the rest of the herd the last little while.  It's not because they didn't want to be around the rest of the herd, but because the parasites invaded their bodies and using up all the protein and fat reserve in their bodies that they were slowly dying and they didn't have the strength to keep up with the herd.

Moral of the story is, if you live in a humid place make sure you de-worm your cows at least 2 times a year!  Don't skim on de-worming them!!!  And if it's winter time, also make sure you put out some protein for them too.  Had we known that our cows wouldn't have died.  But the good news is, from what we can tell, the rest of the cows are doing fine and they don't display the same "symptoms" as Chocolate Milk and Black Pearl did. 

R.I.P. Black Pearl

R.I.P. Chocolate Milk

Since my last post, things took a turn this morning...for the worse... Chocolate Milk didn't look too good.  Our friend checked on him for us early this morning and said Chocolate Milk didn't look too good.  So I went to check on him a little bit later after I took the kids to school and he didn't look good.  His head was floppy he didn't want to sit up at all, and he didn't want anything no water, didn't want any grass or hay, and he refused to open his mouth so I could give him milk.  So I waited another hour or so to check on him again and when I opened the door to the shed he let out a moo and it seemed to me that he used the last little bit of air that was left in him to let out that moo.  I picked his head up to see if I could try giving him some more food at the last attempt to save him.  His head flopped right back down.  He wouldn't take the milk.  I tried putting a piece of grass in his mouth in hopes he would start chewing on it but he just laid there lifelessly and did not want to eat at all.  At that point I knew that was it, that was pretty much the end of his life right there.  I petted him for a little bit then left him alone and came back a few hours later, he was gone.  Just like that he was gone.  We did pray for Chocolate Milk.  We did pray for a miracle...I guess the miracle was not what we expected.  We expected he would miraculously get better.  Though not what we wanted the miracle is that he was gone so quickly, he didn't dread this out and he no longer suffers.

Goodbye, Chocolate Milk :(

I never get attached to animals, but when I discovered that Chocolate Milk was dead I was really sad.  He's the cutest calf we have thus far and EVERYONE just loves him!  He really was a sweet calf.

I spent just about the whole afternoon digging a hole to bury Chocolate Milk.  Hubby was at work, but thankfully for friends who came to help!  We dug a 2 X 4 feet and 4 feet deep hole so it was a lot of work.  2x4x4 might not sound like a lot but when you have to dig it, it is a lot of work!

Nasty parasites

Last Friday morning on our way out to run errands, we noticed our cute little calf, Chocolate Milk was lying down in the pasture as if he was dead.  At first we thought he was dead but as we looked closer we saw him move a little bit so we just kind of thought maybe he was just tired so he was taking a nap or something.  Hours later we came home, and he was still lying down in the same position and same spot.  At that point we figured something was probably wrong.  We went and checked on him but he couldn't even stand up and walk for more than a few minutes at a time.  So we decided we should take him to the vet to get checked out.

He looked like he was dead when we took him to the vet.

Looking back we now think Chocolate Milk probably had the parasite problem for

 awhile and that's why he's been so little

We got to the vet and after fecal test and blood test, the vet confirmed Chocolate Milk has a very bad case of parasites.  Chocolate Milk was pretty low on his blood cell count, and the parasite count was super high as well.  Prognosis was not very good at all, the vet gave him a 20% chance of making it... Chocolate Milk's body was so deprived from nutrients and blood, there's no telling even after the doctor gave him a de-worm shot, B12 vitamin shot, and a shot that is supposed to help his bone marrow to produce more blood cell, that he will make it.  The vet told us to keep him under cover if possible so he is out of the crazy, ever-changing winter weather in Texas so he doesn't develop pneumonia, and also continue to make sure he has clean water, and plenty of food and protein to eat, so we can give him the best chance of making it.  He also suggested that we contact the local Ag extension center to get advice on what kind of protein feed would be best for Chocolate Milk (the call to the Ag extension has proven to be very helpful).
That afternoon after we took him to the vet Chocolate Milk looked like he was feeling better, he needed help standing up but once we helped him stand up he was fine and he was grazing, though slowly, he was up and eating.

He was doing relatively better after our visit to the vet.

We have been giving the best care we can give to Chocolate Milk the past few days, but we haven't seen any signs of improvement yet.  He can't even stand up on his own right now so we have to carry him out of the shed every morning so he can get some sun and in the evening take him back in the shed.

We had all of our cows de-wormed almost a year ago, and Chocolate Milk was born after we took the cows in for de-worm shots...so Chocolate Milk never got de-wormed...and with wet winter here right now and currently having a smaller pasture he was more susceptible to getting parasites.  After hubby talked to the Ag extension agent, we learned that in humid and wet places, it is important to de-worm your cows at least 2 times a year.

We will continue to care for Chocolate Milk and see if he will make it through.  Prayers are needed.

A whole lot of manual labor

We have been super busy building fences for awhile.  The way the hubby wanted it done the fences should not be going anywhere for decades...unless a semi or something plows into it or something then it's a complete different story...
We bought a bunch of 4x4x8s, field fencing, and A LOT of quikcrete.  The wood posts go about 30 inches deep, then we put the posts in then pour concrete in to secure the posts.  That's a lot of work!  Originally we got an auger from Harbor Freight, which for a little over $200 worked pretty work.  But after digging about 30 of those holes you get pretty tired...so we finally broke down and bought a post hole digger that you attach to the back of the tractor from Tractor Supply.  Man, why didn't we just get this post hole digger sooner?  This thing worked soooo well and cut our digging time probably by like 80%!  No kidding!  We just wished we would have just gotten it sooner.  But oh well, this beast is worth every penny!

Now we have probably 70% of the fencing done around our property and the cows have more pasture area to graze and roam around.  We might not have done a professional job on the fence, but it looks good enough and we saved a bunch of money.  And now I have a new found respect and appreciation for manual laborers!

This is the County Line post hole digger I mentioned.

It works so well we are pretty pleased with it.  It made digging holes so much easier!

See our fence doesn't look too bad.  And we can see our cows when we look out our front window.  

Congratulations!!!

Yay!  Yesterday Miracle Baby got promoted from heifer to cow, she gave birth to her calf!  So far this first-time mom is doing a great job protecting her calf and did a good job hiding her calf!   

And we were actually able to get close enough to pet this little calf.  All the mama cows are soooo extremely protective of their calves that we were never ever able to get close enough to touch the babies.  But this time we were lucky and Miracle Baby actually let us pet her precious little baby.

This calf I must say is the cutest calf we've had thus far.  The calf has a very very unique color, not like any color calves or cows we've ever had before.  The color is almost like chocolate milk color.  So this time I will be naming this calf and I shall name "it" chocolate milk.  Gender to be determined (and no, I will not be allowing the calf to determine what gender it wants to be identified as)...I have yet to see where pee is coming out from to see what gender it is.

Meet the newest member of our herd.

Isn't Chocolate Milk just the cutest?!

So lucky we got to pet it!

Look at that color, so unique, so cute!  Doesn't
that look like chocolate milk color?

A lot of happenings part 2

This is Nutella's baby, also Jr.'s offspring.
She's so cute and I just LOVE her color.
It's like chocolate color.  Maybe she will
produce chocolate milk when she gets
older.  hahaha

The last post was getting a little too long so I decided to just start a new post.

With at least one section in the back all fenced,
we were able to bring all of our cows to our
property.  It was so nice to finally be able to
have the cows here with us!  But because right
now we don't have enough grass for them to graze
we have to supplement with hay.

Now that we had the back section of our property fenced and
our cows here with us we decided to work on a different project
and finish the rest of the fencing later.

We purchased this Lifetime Adventure playset online recently.
We are thoroughly happy with it so far, and so are the kids.
The playset is made of metal and hard plastic, very study and
heavy duty.  We didn't want to have the ones made with wood
because we feel like the wood kind is more high maintenance. 
The wood rots and deteriorates and the colors fade and you have
 to re-treat the wood every couple
of years.  

I don't get paid to "review" this but we are so happy with it I
just want to share my 2 cents with everyone.  This playset took
hubby and I about 8-10 hours total to assemble.  But it's so
worth it!  The kids LOVE this thing they play on it all the time!
It's rated for up to 8 kids playing on it at a time and up to 1200
lbs.  The swings are rated for up to 135 lbs.  This is a playset
I would highly recommend!

Recently there's a bird who actually built a nest
and laid eggs in the middle of our gravel driveway.
Out of all the places she could have built her
nest she picked our driveway... so for weeks
we had been trying very hard to not run her and her eggs
over when drove on the driveway.

Here's mama bird trying to protect her eggs.
We would go out there everyday to check on
the eggs and it's been kind of cool.

But....sadly...after about 2 weeks or so...all the
eggs started disappearing...we believe they were
eaten by snakes.  So sad.

So excited we finally got to harvest our grapes!

We have a decent amount of grapes we were
able to harvest.  We also harvested a few blueberries
a few weeks ago.  And our lime tree is flourishing!

While they might not be super big, they were
actually pretty sweet!

Though the baby birds didn't survive or even got
the chance to hatch, we discovered other surprises
on our property.  A family of ducks were at our pond.
We are pretty sure all 11 ducklings were all born
probably around our pond somewhere.

Here you can see the daddy and momma

ducks walking around with their little

ducklings in tow.  So cute!

A lot of happenings

So it has been a few months since I last posted anything on this blog.  A lot had happened in just a few months and we had been so busy I just didn't have the time to blog.  I will attempt to keep this as brief as possible so it won't turn into a super duper long post.

I mentioned in my earlier post that we sold our flooded property.
We had 30 days to move our cattle out of our old property.  Originally,
we were gonna hire someone to do the fencing around our new property.

But to make the long story short things
 didn't work  out with the fence guy so
we decided to do all the fencing ourselves. 
But before we could start working on the
fencing we needed to get the other half
of our current property cleared.

There were a lot of trees cut down and mulched down.

And we now have a very big burn pile waiting to be burned

But it looks really nice now that the land is cleared.

This boy was admiring this dozer and probably
wishing he could get a ride on this beast from the
land clearing guy.

Because it took a little bit longer to clear the land
than anticipated we were left with only 2 weeks
to do at least a section of the fence so we could
bring our cows to current property before the
deadline.

So we did a mix of t-posts and wood posts.  Around
the house and along the driveway we want to do
all wood posts just so it looks prettier.
We want the fence to last a long time so we did
extra work to make sure they would last.
We used 8x4s treated wood posts.  Dug the hole
around 2-2.5 feet deep, then cemented each wood
post in.  It was a lot of work and manual labor!

I think our hard work paid off.  I think we did a really good job
and the fencing is looking great!

We did a good job making sure all the wood posts
are straight and all lined up.  But we worked our butts
off!  We worked from 8am to 8pm for days in the 90
degree weather!  The heat and humidity were brutal! 

While we were busy getting the fencing down,
Black Pearl decided to get Mastitis (ok, I don't
believe anyone would actually decide that they want
Mastitis).  Her udder was engorged for a few weeks
but first we thought the engorgement would go away
because she was about to calf and that's what usually
happens to her udder.  But this time it was different...
it was engorged for a long time and it just got worse
and worse.  So we decided maybe we should do something
about it.  The day we decided to go help her treat the mastitis
we showed up to the old property and noticed her udder was
deflated.  At first we were happy that maybe her mastitis somehow
just disappeared.  But when we got closer we noticed
a big gash on her udder.  We think it got so engorged that
it finally burst!

That poor girl!  She had a 3 inch rip on her udder and
we saw liquid draining out of it.  We didn't want
her to get infection or anything so we thought
we would take her to the local vet.  Our local
vet told us that they might not be equipped for an
emergency such as this so they referred us to a vet
hospital about an hour away.  We took her in and put
her in the squeeze chute...and boy, was she mad!  She
mooing and everything and she was so mad she wouldn't
even look at me!

The vet told us that there are several kinds of
mastitis.  One of them is dangerous and life-
threatening.  And Black Pearl had the bad life-
threatening one.  Had we waited longer we could
have lost her.  The vet gave her a shot of anti-
biotic and squeezed all the "cottage cheese" out
of her udder and sent us on our way. 

                                                                                             

The vet told us that her udder would most likely
fill up again since she's nursing her calf.  He told
us calves usually could tell and know if the milk
is bad and wouldn't drink from that quarter if it's
bad.  But he told us to still try to make sure the
calf doesn't  feed from the "bad teat" just to be
safe.  If the bad quarter fills up we should try
to empty it.

We had never milked a cow before.  So this is
hubby attempting to milk it...let's just say it
ain't easy!  After about 5-10 minutes of attempting
we got only a little bit of milk out...hubby threw
in the towel.