Circle Star Farms

Mike D’s wife loved animals.  When she moved here part of her menagerie included a horse, a pig, and chickens.  I had always wanted livestock, and she and I began to talk about me getting some type of livestock.  She had inspired me and Gods’ know we had the room.  After spending a few months with her chickens I decided they were not for me.  They were way too messy and stupid.  I had talked with her about getting goats.  One day as she was sitting in the UU church, and the lady sitting beside her, mentions that she is looking for a home for her goats.  Mike D.’s wife got her number.  She came home and shared this with me.  Jay and I contacted the lady and made plans to go to her house to meet her goats; Star, Pan, and Flora.  When we arrived I instantly fall in love with them.  Although I have never owned a goat or had much interaction with one, I decided that I must have them.

Jay and I spent the next few weeks, preparing part of the lean too attached to our shed/ barn, to become the home for our new set of goats.  We brought them home a few weeks later in January of 2010, in the back of my Buick.  The same Buick I had sold to my mom all those years ago.  I even took them thru the MacDonald’s drive thru to get a rise out of the people at the window, but I got no response.  I guess they must have just thought they were big dogs, as they had their heads down.  I bought Storey’s Guide to Raising Dairy Goats at my local feed store, and it became my bible.  I think I even slept with it for a while.  For the first time our lives had really became tied to the land.  We decided to name the whole endeavor Circle Star Farms after Momma Star the goat. 

Let me jump back here a minute.  By the Spring of 2009 we had received the remainder of Momma Muriel’s estate.  We decided we need to do something great with it in order to honor her.  So in April of 2009 Jay began school to become a medical assistant.  It was an 8 month program.  I never saw my beloved happier.  He graduated in December of 2009.  He began to work for the dialysis center in February of 2010. 

It was a happy time in our lives.  Jay and I decide to finally take our long awaited Honeymoon in April of 2010.  Now because of my IC we could not go too far.  We packed the car and head 5 hours north to Altus, Arkansas, right in the heart of wine country.  Now don’t make that face.  I can see you from behind this screen.  Arkansas has some wonderful wine, and no not the kind that comes in the box!  This little valley was settled by several Swiss families, who began to make wine after finding the microclimate and rocky soil was just right.  They’ve been doing it for over 100 years.  Jay’s family has been coming to this winery called Wiederkehr’s for at least the last 30 years.  They make over 20 different varieties of wines there and have a wonderful little German / Swiss restaurant there.  Don’t believe me?  Check them out here at http://wiederkehrwines.com/

We had found a little cabin, on-line, that allowed pets and was not far from the winery.  So Jay, me, Punka, Precious and Sophia headed up to Arkansas.  Everybody else stayed home.  It was just beautiful.  We had the best time.  We stopped and let the girls swim at the boat launch on Horsehead Lake.  We brought Sophia because we wanted to.  We brought Punka and Precious because we had to.  Why? Oh Crap!  I’m sorry I forgot to tell you a few things. 

Okay on Christmas Eve 2009, right after her first birthday, we almost lost Precious the second.  She had not been feeling herself for a few days. Not wanting to play and being tired. The day before she had stopped eating and that day she had stopped drinking.  She just laid in bed, was too weak to stand, and her gums were white.  I knew something was terribly wrong with my baby.  We immediately rushed her to the ER.  After several anxious hours we were finally told that she had Canine Autoimmune Hematologic Anemia.  Her white blood cells were attacking her red ones.  She needed a blood transfusion, and if she lived thru the night, she would have to be on steroids for the rest of her life.  We were told this would shorten her life span.  Precious the second survived after spending the weekend in the animal hospital.  We are told the first symptom of her disease is often death.  Most owners do not catch it in time, because it is so quick and so subtle.  Another day and she would have been dead for sure.  So Precious came because she had to take medicine every day, and we had to constantly watch her to make sure she was not getting sick again. 

In the Summer of 2007 Pumpkin, aka Punka, injured her back.  Dachshunds are prone to what is called Canine Intervertebral Disk Disease.  Basically over the centuries people have bred their backs to a breaking point, because they made them too long.  Dachshunds are now, not as long as they were 40 years ago, but they still carry the gene for this problem. 

Punka was shaking and not able to jump up on things.  We took her to the vet, who told us to watch her.  She never told me to crate rest her.  To crate rest is the best treatment for a Doxie who, has had a back injury.  We went thru this twice with Precious the first.  You basically lock them up in their crate for 6 weeks.  You only take them out to potty and then that is supervised.  You do heat packs several times a day, and swim therapy in the tub at night. Hopefully by the end of that time they can still walk.  You hope and pray that the body will have healed itself. 

A week after Punka injured her back, she became what we call “downed.”  This means that she could no longer walk.  As soon as Punka became downed we crate rested her.  She was not crate trained.  She screamed for 3 days straight, despite being in our bedroom and with us.  The only way I could get any sleep was to sleep on the floor next to her, and hold her paw thru the crate.  Every Mommy has her breaking point.  We knew after a few days that Punka would never regain her ability to walk.  I still blame myself that I saw the signs and did not immediately crate rest her.  I feel I am the reason Punka became paralyzed.

With her paralyzation also came the inability for her to pee on her on.  We had to extract her bladder for her, so that it would not spill all over everything.  If urine was left in her bladder too long, it could cause an infection.  We have to learn to squeeze her so hard, that you think you will kill her, to make the pee come out.  Punka had to be peed 2 to 4 times a day, depending on what she was doing and how much water she drank.  We tended to pee her more times in the summer, because she consumed more water.  We got so good at it, that we could look at her and tell when she needed to pee.

We bought her an expensive wheelchair, which she hated.  She would get stuck between a tree and wiggle out of the chair.  She never figured out reverse.  We’d turn her lose in the yard in her wheelchair and she’d come back an hour later without it.  Being downed never stopped Punka for a minute!  Why should it, nothing ever stopped her!  She had lost 95% of feeling in her back legs, but she just kept going.  We soon learned she was faster without the chair.  She preferred to drag her legs behind her.  She could still knock over trashcans and kill chickens.  She killed 6 AFTER she was downed!  We changed our lives to accommodate her.  She slept in the bed with us at night, and if she had an accident we just changed the sheets.  We never made her wear a diaper. I was afraid of diaper rash.  We even built her a ramp to come into our house.  People often asked us why we did not put her down.  I would respond, if your child was paralyzed and in a wheelchair, would you shoot her in the head?  Sometimes people just don’t get it.

Her doctors were amazed at her.  We all were.  They had never seen a downed Doxie live so long.  In the end Punka died of congestive heart failure, and nothing related to her downed condition.  When Punka died, in February of 2014, she had been downed for 7 years.  Our vet said that was the longest he had ever seen a paralyzed Doxie live.  He credited it to the good care we gave her.  We credited to her indomitable spirit. 

Punka was my familure.  I don’t know that I will ever have another dog like her.  I still wake up some mornings, and think I have to find Punka so I can pee her.  Jay and I buried her in our little grove, a year later we put her brother Prince beside her. Their graves are the first thing I seen when I wake up in the morning and look out my window.  I want them to always be close to me. We have built a whole sitting area around their graves, so that we might sit and visit with them.  I try to do that every few days. 

Now where was I going with this.  Sorry I’m crying here.  I’m still grieving Punka in a lot of ways.  Oh yes so Jay and I, Punka, Precious the second and Sophia all left to go to Arkansas.  We had only been there for about a day when we got a phone call.  We were pretty amazed, ‘cause we knew we had little or no signal up there.  On the other end was Mike D.’s wife.  She told us Star was in labor, and had been for a few hours. 

Now when we left we knew Star was pregnant by Pan.  We believed her to be close, but we had no idea when she would birth.  That’s why we had felt it was safe to leave.  I listened on the other end of the phone as Ostara was born.  We decided to leave the next day and return home. 

Ilsa