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Moose Manor Farms

3rd Annual Moose Manor February Barn Brunch

2/27/2011

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Picture
Yesterday I hosted my annual February brunch potluck featuring many fine local foods.  This is an extremely simple affair where folks can just hang out and shake off the winter blah's.  35 or so  of my neighbors were in attendance and the weather was lovely!  Special thanks to my friends Jackie and Patrise for taking all these great photos since I was just a little bit busy that morning :)

Some of the local foods featured included an assortment of Moose Manor's own Roasted Muscovy Duck (this 8.5 lb bird was polished off in about 8.5 seconds!), Hickory Smoked Cornish Chicken, and a simple plate of plain but pleasant hard boiled duck eggs. 

Goat Cheese & Potluck
I also put out a medley of wonderful goat cheeses from the local Amish goat dairy, Locust Grove Farm in Mechanicsville, MD. 

The goat mistress there, Katie Byler, makes wonderful cheeses: Regular, Garlic, Hot Pepper, and Colby were the selections of the day.

My guests also brought a scrumptious array of homecooked victuals.  There was just a smorgasbord of casseroles, cookies, cakes, and coffee!  Oh My!

That last ambrosial brew was provided by my friend Elaine who is the proprietor-ess of Wooded Bliss hand roasted coffee.  "Cup of Bliss" is organic, shade grown, and fair trade... and very, very tasty.


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From mercy to mourning...

9/14/2010

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Mercy
Kiss me mother kiss your darlin'
Lay my head upon your breast
Throw your loving arms around me
I am weary let me rest

Everyone I know, including me, imagines living a long, rich life and not one of us ever wants to get to that eventual point, when you're old and your body is failing you, when quality of life diminishes beyond negotiation.  Who wants to become too confused to recognize cherished family members or get to the point that you’re unable to take care of life’s most basic necessities on your own?  I don’t want that for me or for those I love.

Last week I helped my most loyal companion to die with dignity.
.

Cooper 2010
Recently, my American Mastiff, Cooper, was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of lymphoma.   In fact, it was moving so swiftly that by the time she started to look like she wasn’t feeling very well the cancer had already taken over.  Literally, one day she was playing and wrestling with Flynn in the yard and the next she looked really tired.  A few days after that I noticed some odd lumps in her neck and when we went to the doctor to have them checked he told me she had a month to live at most.

Needless to say, I was crushed.

I know that right now I have some family and close friends who are angry that I didn’t call them when I got this diagnosis.  To be perfectly honest, I was selfish and wanted to spend uninterrupted time with her without focusing on her illness. I put her on a high calorie diet in an attempt to keep her from losing weight so rapidly but, otherwise, I tried to keep our normal routine.  

At the risk of sounding unappreciative, I just couldn't take the well meaning phone calls or cards and letters while I was desperately clinging to simply concentrating on her remaining time.  I wanted to just sit with her quietly and keep her as comfortable as I could.  She was aging significantly and losing weight every day so it was clear to anyone who looked at her that she was ill.  I just told those folks that she was getting old and wasn’t feeling well.

Cooper 2007
I grieved for her eventual loss every single day.  When I wasn't with her I would spontaneously break out in sobs at any given moment.  I felt like she was already gone and I would really have to struggle to bring myself back and remember that I still had time with her.  Each time I would renew myself to putting on a happy face so that when I saw her next, Cooper could too.

She seemed truly happy and wagged her tail often.  She didn’t appear to be in any pain but she was clearly very tired so she slept a lot.  A few times I tried to feed her a special diet without also giving the unnecessary calories to Flynn but Cooper refused to eat it unless I put it into a communal bowl where she could share it with her sister.  Maybe it was Flynn's excitement at the "treat" that made her happy. But eventually, she gave up on eating altogether. 

Cooper 2007
I believe it’s important to face death with dignity and grace. Can a body in great pain, suffering, or weakened mentally demonstrate personal poise and self-respect? Probably not.  I didn’t want Cooper to get to the point that she was in pain, could no longer go out into the yard herself, or to become too confused to know where she was.

After the second day that she wouldn’t eat, she was growing weaker so I called this really wonderful mobile veterinarian that a friend of mine uses for house calls.  Dr. Flake and I talked about the options and discussed how I would know it was time.  Refusing food was certainly my first sign.

That evening when I got home from work I saw that Cooper was now blind.  It was a terrible shock to me since I didn’t know that this was common with lymphoma.  She still wanted to go outside on her own so I walked beside her to keep her from running into things.  On top of the blindness I noticed some anxiety and confusion in her.  I told myself that was to be expected under the circumstances.  But I knew it was time, so I scheduled an appointment for Dr. Flake to come the next afternoon.

In the morning Cooper was a bit more energetic and she was much more lucid but as the day wore on she was increasingly frustrated by her blindness and also very weak, wobbly and tired.  I spent the day with her out in the yard, most of that time was spent in her very most favorite sunny spot on the back deck.  That was where I told the doctor that Cooper would be the most comfortable.

Cooper & Flynn 2008
At 4:30 pm on Friday, September 10th Cooper rested her head in my lap, I stroked her soft lambskin ears and she quietly slipped away. 

She lived with dignity and grace and I wanted her to take as much of that with her as possible… she did.

Memory is the one mercy that grief offers us… Flynn and I will miss our most amazing, loving and loyal companion. 

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

November 17, 2004 – September 10, 2010

Have pity on me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my spirit and my body with grief. Psalm 31:9

.


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Oh My! How we've grown...

5/23/2010

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2 Muscovy girls & a Khaki Campbell
The ducklings are very active and getting up to all sorts of hijinx :)  They're keeping me very busy but it's a lot of fun to watch them run around and be silly. 

The Khaki Campbell's are considerably more high strung than the Muscovy.  But that's not a stretch since I think that those Muscovy ducks are just about the calmest baby animal I've ever encountered! 

The different ducks and the baby chicks all live separately since it would be unsafe for 3 little ducklings to live with 15 giant ducklings, and ducks are too wet and sloppy for good chicken health.  But this weekend I put the KC's outside in an enclosure so they could get used to being outdoors and give them some fresh air but they just wouldn't come out of their shelter.  So I picked out my two smallest and sweetest Muscovy girls to school the KC's in the zen of calm.  It worked like a charm!  Soon they were all splashing around and talking to each other, then later I saw they'd all snuggled up together.  A couple of days ago I tried putting all the Muscovy outside together but I had to carry them in batches of 5 and the more of them that disappeared from the others the more terrified the remaining group became.  So I decided that it was just too stressful for them.  Next weekend they should have enough feathers to safely move into their permanent outdoor duck enclosure and maybe a week or so later they can start running free all over the yard.

Moose-dog Cooper must have missed her calling as a mom... she has certainly taken on the responsibility for watching over the ducks and gets very concerned when I do something that gets them all in a peeping panic - like carry them outside.  At night I have the mooses sleep in the barn just to make sure I provide no opportunities to predators and now when I open the barn door in the morning I find the Muscovy out of their brooder and sleeping on the bed with the dogs!  Guess that was a good idea too since it's important that they form a strong relationship :)







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    Dana

    About Farmrgirl

    Small town Calif. farm-girl leaves the ranch behind for many years of adventure at sea, travels the world, then moves to Washington DC in 2007 where she finds the perfect homestead to settle down: acres of secluded Southern Maryland woods where she goes granola by raising her quality of life, Mastiffs, ducks, chickens, and tomatoes {& one Bengal kitty}... sustainably.


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