Friday, May 23, 2008 | Day 20

I don't know if I'm just too impatient or if the worry is just making me again question myself. Though I'm not looking forward to the sloughing process to begin, I know that the sooner it happens, the sooner this will all be over. And the swelling has me very concerned. I can't help but think that once the sloughing begins, the drainage will begin. And then the swelling will go down. And I just don't know how long this process should take - and if I should have a vet remove the dead tissue.

Nancy said that with her experience it took over 45 days from the the first symptom to when they felt it had healed over enough not to worry about it anymore. But she had her doe's teat surgically removed - so this will take much longer waiting for it to slough off naturally.

All out war with Andi on the milk stand. After our struggle, I was letting her out of her pen and as I was opening the cattle panel gate, she was pulling on it to open it and the thing beaned me right in the eye. Got a nice swelling starting to form.

My latest and greatest way to hold her still is not working - and I am out of solutions...

Oh - and while this may be good, there was a 5' long snake slithering along in the rafters above us.

Not so sure about this 'country life'.