Well I'm at it again and being destructive...but this time it's my phone!! There's a reason I had a go phone all through college. I don't know about you guys but I can't seem to handle nice phones, especially this iphone. They either magically disappear, break, or I drop them in something. I will say my iphones been a trooper and has survived A LOT living the farm life. However it's hit a new low. A couple weeks ago I've lost all function in the round button on the bottom which if you know about iphones controls pretty much everything allowing you to go in and out of apps and calls and messages. Yup....this means I have to turn my phone on and off to do anything different. Thank god I've learned my way around Maui and don't rely on maps like I used to. How did this button break? I dropped it in POG!!! You know, the passion fruit, orange, guava drink we interns drink by the gallon. I was making a big move on words with friends and PLOP! right in my rum and pog it went. Ok so I can deal with this. My phone clearly wasn't too happy about this but that isn't the worst of it. Yesterday morning I experienced my dream and goal of being an intern at surfing goat dairy. I helped Scout (remember the beautiful pregnant goat in my last blog?) deliver her first of triplets who was a breech birth. In case you don't know much about the birthing process or forgot a breech birth is when the baby comes out backwards or butt first instead of the normal position with the two front hooves and head. I was training Teo in Fed-ex (reason why to follow) and I heard the familiar grunts of a mama pushing and having contractions. I knew Scout was put in the birthing stall not too long before we started and went to check on her and sure enough she was pushing her first one out. But when I looked I didn't see hooves...I saw...well....wait...is that a....yup! There's the tail haha that's definitely backwards. There were no back legs visible so I sort of pushed the baby back in and had Erin get Eva for guidance. Number one reason why I love Eva besides the fact that she's one of the most bad ass (excuse my language) women I've ever had the pleasure of meeting...she LOVES to teach. And not only does she love to teach (being a teacher in her past profession) but she's great at it and does it in a way where you will learn by experience and being hands on. She talked me through it outside the stall and had my reach in and feel for the two legs then one at a time pull each forward so they came out before the butt. I'm starting to get much better at feeling whats what in there haha the first time can be kind of scary and confusing. Eva said I was lucky because it's not always so easy to tell its the butt and I was able to see the tail. So once I got the legs positioned I waited for Scout to give another push and pulled the little guy right out. After getting the fluid off his nose and out of his mouth and having Scout lick him I rubbed him down with hay. He was so little and looked like he was having trouble breathing. I've noticed a lot of times once you get them out and clear off their faces they're pretty alert and let out some sneezes. It totally reminded me of the t.v. shows where doctors are saying "come on baby, cry" after suctioning. I was just waiting for the baby's little sneezes. He had some small ones but he still seemed stuffed up. So Eva came in and showed me a couple tricks to get them going. She pat his belly and he sneezed some more and tried to clear his mouth and nose out more then (my favorite part) she picked him up and sort of swung him in his arms back and forth gently but enough to help open up his airway. And sure enough more goop came out haha. After that she put him down by mom and said to continue doing just that and rubbing him down. I was nervous for him but he started perking up and picked his head up to mom. Later in the day when I came back from deliveries he was out with the other babies and looked so fluffy and great! It's hard to describe the feeling of seeing something like that through and seeing them transform from coming out of mom's womb to being a more active fluffy healthy looking baby. I gave him lots of snuggles after work : ) Like I said he was one of triplets so after him came the other two both with one arm stretched out and one back. In this case you can just grab behind their little head and pull them out that way while mom pushes. Scout did such a great job!! And I really don't know how she did it, she's so small! Back to my cell phone story...what the heck does this have to do with it? Whelp, after Scout's delivery I had to finish up Fed-ex with Teo and then we had a staff sanitation meeting which I had to leave early from to rush off to do deliveries. And I just couldn't find my phone ANYWHERE. The last I remember having it was right before Scout. I had Alicia call it and was praying it didn't fall out of my pocket in my baby rush and I could've sworn I heard it ring but just couldn't spot it. I had no choice but to go do my deliveries and hope it pops up while I'm gone. It popped up alright. Kelly found it after cleaning the birthing stall. Not only did she find it after cleaning the stall but she found it as she was dumping the muck bucket. Yup...after getting a nice POG bath my phone also got a lovely afterbirth bath. Covered. The good news is it didn't break anymore than it was already broken but I have to say this was the worst I've ever put a phone through haha. You know what's amazing about the birthing process besides the new babies? Birth fluid cleans jewelry better than anything! Ok..I know that sounds so weird but I kid you not every time I end up covered in the stuff my ring looks spectacular. Like brand new! Who knows...maybe I'm on to a new type of jewelry cleaning product. Only kidding ; )
The little weak guy!! Look how good he looks : )
So I probably don't need to spell this out but obviously the second round of kidding season has begun!! The most wonderful time of the year. I'd give you a count since I've last blogged but I honestly have already lost track. 25-30 maybe?? Oddly enough Teo and I have both agreed it's much easier with 18 or so born in a day. Easier to keep track of! At this point I'm not sure who gets fed what and is where. Then again it's harder for me to keep up when I'm doing side jobs like deliveries and Fed-ex and milking rather than feeding in the morning. Which I'm definitely not complaining about because I LOVE milking! I just noticed the other day how much I've gotten to know the does because of milking and clearly remember thinking how the heck am I gonna learn the goats names and such as I watched Dan milk during training.
Watch out Oliver! Erin's found a new favorite ; )
I mentioned earlier I'm training Teo in Fed-ex. She'll also be taking over deliveries in a couple of weeks when the baby craziness slows down. I've decided to leave Hawaii earlier than planned to go back to the Alaska Wildlife Center for the summer. It'll be really hard to say goodbye to everyone here and the goats but as my wise advisor once told me "recognize forks in the road, you can always go back to your original plan". I love Maui and my adventure here and I know it won't really be a goodbye but a see you later. That being said I still have two more months here of goatie blogs : )
What's been going on since I've last blogged?? Not a whole lot but kids and more kids. The good and sometimes feels like bad part about apprenticing here is that I'm always learning. It only feels bad when I feel like I'm never gonna get it haha. But hey life would be pretty dang boring if you knew it all in 6 months since you started a job right? I can say in the last month or so I've noticed a boost in confidence in myself. Maybe I'm growing up more? Physically I turned 23 since I last blogged. Yep...another year further from the age people guess that I am haha. But it was a different birthday being surrounded by my Maui family instead of my loved ones at home. Nalani had the great idea of having a pizza party for me which was both delicious and fun. My coworkers and Thomas and Eva gathered at the pavillion where we enjoyed a pot luck dinner. High lights of the night were Eva's caesar salad cooking lesson and the song Daniel wrote for the occasion. My favorite caesar salad EVER is Eva's. It's so fresh and after I told her I loved it so much she showed me how to make it in cooking show fashion at the party. It was pretty funny. And Daniel, who's learned guitar while here, wrote a song which had a verse for each of us and played it after the party for us interns and Cody and Monique. It was hilarious.
Hmmm what else have I done in the last couple of weeks?? Kelly, Daniel, and I finally went to the little sugar museum they have here. It was really interesting!! I had no idea how the process worked from cane to sugar. I can't believe the hard work that people did back in the day before we became more developed. And holy hot, the outfits they wore to avoid GIANT THOUSAND LEGGERS! (like the ones Chels and I got in our basement room of the oakhill mansions....jk...WORSE) and getting cut up and burned were unreal. I would sweat my tush off.
Mmmmmm sugar!
I also had another visitor. Jeremy came to vacation in Maui and I was able to spend some time with him. We went to Ho'okipa one windy day to avoid getting sand blasted and I took him to my favorite shaved ice place. Daniel, him, and I also went on a whale watching tour...something I've been dying to do! It was sooooo windy the day we went so it was harder to see their spouts and such but we saw a lot of flutes and even saw a whale half breach really close to the boat. It was awesome and I feel like it didn't even happen it was so quick. I've always wanted to see that! Now I just need to have a whale get as close to me as the one in Life of Pi and my life will be complete ; )
Teo and I also had to say goodbye to our Little Bit and Piccola. It was SO hard!! But at least we know they're in good hands in Molokai. I gave her a nice makeover to get ready for her new owners and proceeded to take way too many pictures. By the way if your wondering what the dirt smudge is on my forehead it was Ash Wednesday.
*All these pics below were taken by Christi....LOVE
Trying to catch my baby
Got her!
So a lot of times as you guys know I let time get away from me and by time I get to blogging I forget all the day to day stories from working on the farm. Hence a blog I don't particularly find interesting...or at least doesn't quite reach it's potential I think. For my readers out there is there anything in particular you want to hear about when it comes to my life on the dairy and Maui? If so let me know!! I'd love to fill ya in and any suggestions on blog topics would be great.
So a lot of times as you guys know I let time get away from me and by time I get to blogging I forget all the day to day stories from working on the farm. Hence a blog I don't particularly find interesting...or at least doesn't quite reach it's potential I think. For my readers out there is there anything in particular you want to hear about when it comes to my life on the dairy and Maui? If so let me know!! I'd love to fill ya in and any suggestions on blog topics would be great.
No comments:
Post a Comment