A Day At Our Home
NOTE: Photos at the bottom!
Wednesday, Sept. 11, 1996
5:45am. It’s the dawning of a new day!....
8:30am. After writing the above
statement early this morning, I quickly headed downstairs to see to the
breakfast table. Thankfully (for we were running a bit late), Mom had something
easy to fix, planned -rice cakes spread with peanut butter and canned pineapple
slices... Some of you are probably thinking, “What?!” :-) Well, I know
that rice cakes spread with peanut butter isn’t traditional breakfast food,
but it still tastes pretty good for all that... at least to me!
After breakfast, Melody and I hurried upstairs to feed “our” dying
baby goat, Sheila. With beating hearts, we approached the box she was lying
in.. Had the baby goat drawn her last breath while we were downstairs eating,
thus ending our rather traumatic ordeal?
Perhaps you wouldn’t think that nursing a sick newborn goat for 4 days
would be all that traumatic, but if you’d spent hours of time and effort
nursing a poor, sick.. (gulp) cute little thing... hoping one minute for
it’s life; despairing the next, (and so on, back and forth), it would be
at least stressful! Not only that, but what about forcing the weak little
thing to drink her bottle, calling vet after vet, trying to discover her
problem, trying to feed her medicine, giving her shots and then having
to endure with and comfort her through numerous convulsions...?
Last night before we went to bed, we felt almost certain she
would die before morning. So it was a surprise to find her still breathing
when we awoke. - However, she was still weak - very weak. Anyway,
as Melody and I peered into the box for the second time this morning, and
saw that Sheila was still breathing, Melody proceeded to lift her out of
her box and lay her gently on the floor for her bottle feeding and penicillin
shot. Sheila drank her bottle weakly, but a few minutes after the feeding,
I noticed that some of the liquid was spilling back out of her mouth. She
seemed to be, then, on the very verge of death...and still is! Oh, why
won’t she just go ahead and die?! We don’t feel free to “put her out of
her misery” as she doesn’t even belong to us (we’re caring for another
man’s goats as well as our own), and there’s no way to get hold of her
owner today that I know of. :-(
At the moment I’m sitting on our living room couch, writing.
I think I’ll run upstairs to check on the baby goat.. Be back in a minute!
* * *
I’m back. Sheila is still breathing - rather laboriously, at that.
When will she ever draw her last breath?
At the moment, Charity is sitting at her school desk in my parent’s
bedroom, working away at her books. I’m glad she seems to enjoy learning,
because I didn’t enjoy studying very well when I was her age! Hmm... I
wonder if a lot of it has to do with Mom’s changed views? I was her first
child, (and therefore, her “guinea pig” :-) :-| ), and she discovered that
pressuring a 3 year old to learn, soon backfired. :-( So, when Charity
came along, she didn't pressure her as much. As a result, Charity would
come up to Mom some days, and ‘beg’ Mom to teach her to read! :-) (Which
Mom usually did then!) However, Charity basically learned to read many
words on her own. She would take her storybooks and try to figure out the
hard words by herself. In fact, she learned to read before Mom had even
taught her all of her phonics rules!
* * *
Well, it’s thundering and raining outside at the moment. I thought
it just might rain this morning when I glanced at the skies, and sure enough,
the rain just started up! I rather enjoy the cozy feeling that gathers
inside when the weather gets like this. :-)
Well, I guess I’d better go now. There are things to be done, of which
I’ll relate to you in writing later on today...
11:55pm! Whew! Look at that huge space between 8:30am.
and 11:55pm.! (Don’t gasp, sisters. This isn’t my normal bedtime.
:-) )
“Then what in the world happened, and why are you going to bed so
late, Summer?!” You may be greatly wondering.....
Well, to be honest,.. to relate this whole day to you would be one
big long story. I hope I can manage to condense it some in writing,
but I don’t know how well I’ll succeed! First of all, soon after I wrote
this morning that it had just started raining and thundering, several streaks
of lightning hit outside, (one after the other) fairly close to the house.
The result of this was.. 16 Meg of RAM blown out on our best computer!
(Now, I’m definitely not skilled with computers, and I don’t even know
exactly what 16 Meg of RAM is, but it must be pretty bad, judging what
Dad and Tommy have said about it. - Now don't chuckle, computer experts!
:-) ) Thankfully though, we have 8 Meg of RAM left, so it still works!
At first, after the lightning struck, Tommy had trouble trying to turn
on any of our computer programs. However, after taking the computer apart,
and working on it, he was finally able to fix the problem. Whew!
After all this, lunch was ready, so we ate, and then?.. you guessed
it! We went upstairs to feed little Sheila her bottle. But, tell me...
How can you feed a goat that’s nearly dead? Well, we ended up giving her
only about 1/2 of her feeding, and then put her back in her box after she
"relieved herself". (Please forgive me!... I have to relate this
fact because it has to do with what I’ve been doing tonight!) all over
our wooden bedroom floor. So, we left her in her box again, more dead than
alive. Melody then went downstairs and made a desperate attempt to phone
Sheila’s owner. And amazingly, he was in his office! (Wow, it’s a rare
occurrence when we’re able to reach him!)
He gave us permission to put Sheila “out of her misery”, but as we’ve
never tried to do something like this before, we all agreed to wait until
Dad got home.
Most of this afternoon I spent studying on my “schoolbooks”. (Actually,
at the moment, my main schoolbook is the GED study book, as I’m trying
to prepare for the GED test.) I'm also looking forward to working on a
research paper in the next few weeks. My other two subjects at the moment
are "Bible study" and "reading and writing reports on original
writings, biographies, and other profitable books".
Oh well, enough on that... It’s getting later, and I’m getting sleepier
by the second, but I still have a bit to write! (Write faster, pen!
:-) )
This afternoon, Charity came running in from the barn with some news
that one of our other four, living, baby goats was nowhere to be found
(She wasn’t with her mother.), and two others were hidden back underneath
the raised room in the middle of the barn, and they just would not come
out. Horrors! (There’s a rat’s nest underneath there!) Melody quickly went
out, searched around for the lost baby goat, and tried to coax the other
two out from underneath the room, but to no avail... She eventually just
had to leave in hopes that the lost kid would show up, and that the other
two would come out before the mother rat decided to play any tricks.
So, to say the least, our hearts were rather heavy this afternoon.
I mean, would all of the baby goats eventually find some way to die, or
what? (By the way, I failed to mention that a just few days ago, Sheila’s
newborn brother died! :-( ) After supper, Melody and I scooted back out
to the barn to search for the little lost goat. First, we discovered that
the two baby goats underneath the room, had moved so close to one of the
“low openings”, that we could almost reach back and touch them! ALMOST!...
not quite. I had to run back to the house and fetch Charity. Thankfully,
she was able to scoot under a little and drag them out. Finally!
Then we three, along with Samuel, set out to search for the little
lost goat. We searched the barn and a good bit of the pasture, but again...
to no avail. By this time we were really discouraged, and almost ready
to give up. However, we decided to search at least one more time in the
barnyard. As we rounded the corner of the barn, there..... SHE WAS!!! Our
prayers were answered! Greatly relieved, we caught the babies’ wayward
mothers and locked them together (with their babies) in a stall for the
night. We then headed back to the house to face our ordeal with Sheila.
Was she dead yet? No, but almost... We left her alone for the time being,
for Dad was ready to hold family devotions...
Sometime afterwards, Melody checked Sheila and reported that she was
not breathing anymore. You can’t possibly imagine the relief I felt with
that announcement, for it had not been easy to watch her suffer!
.....And THEN I set to work mopping our bedroom floor! :-) Afterwards,
I thoroughly swept and rinse mopped it. AHH! It looks so much better
and smells so much better now, that perhaps I can sleep in peace
tonight... the first night in several!
Please, I’m terribly sorry if all of this "goat stuff" seems
boring to some of you. I certainly hadn’t planned for all
of this to happen when I chose today to write these diary pages for “YWSH”.
:-) If I had known, I, well.... ! God knows best, and He let all
of this happen today. Obviously, this is exactly what He wanted me to write
about!
So let me quickly share with you, what He’s been impressing upon me
lately. The chapter I read in devotions this morning, was Ecclesiastes
12...
Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil
days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no
pleasure in them; While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars,
be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: In the day when
the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves,
and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of
the windows be darkened, And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when
the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of
the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low; Also when
they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way,
and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden,
and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners
go about the streets: Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden
bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel
broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was:
and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, saith
the preacher; all is vanity. And moreover, because the preacher was wise,
he still taught the people knowledge; yea, he gave good heed, and sought
out, and set in order many proverbs. The preacher sought to find out acceptable
words: and that which was written was upright, even words of truth. The
words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of
assemblies, which are given from one shepherd. And further, by these, my
son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study
is a weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:
Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing,
whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
We are called to remember our Creator in the days of our youth, for
life soon passes away. Yes, it will someday pass from every single one
of us; it could pass from you tonight while you are sleeping, or it may
pass from you when you are old and decrepit. But either way, let’s face
it. - Life is short; extremely short, and none of us has a minute
to waste on frivolous pleasures. Every minute of our lives must count...
For HIM. For we will someday be brought into the judgement. Every work
we’ve done, whether good or evil, will be judged.
People remind me of goats in that they die easily. :-| But there’s
still a large difference between goats and humans, because for humans,
there is an eternal "life" after death! But not everyone’s "life
after death" will be pleasant! :-( What about yours?
With much love in Christ,
Summer Joy Chapin
Far Left- Tommy (13) fixing computer after lightning strike
/ Middle left- Charity(8), Harmony(3) and Samuel (6) holding
baby goats in barnyard / Middle right- Melody (15) and Summer
(17) feeding baby Sheila / Far Right- Autumn (1) peeking
out of the window