Early this morning Valerie and I gave wormer to the two mother ewes, Emma and Dorothy, and to 1070 & Blondie. In addition, we gave the three lambs their second CDNT shot against tetanus and over eating disease. When we returned this early evening from the Brattleboro Food CoOp, Valerie went out to check on the sheep and to make sure that they had enough water and were all o.k. Unfortunately Blondie had died, probably around mid afternoon. The temperature was 98 deg. F. in Brattleboro at 6 PM. Apparently the wormer and the awful heat was just too much for our sweet ol' girl to bear. I certainly will miss her. I still have her wool from her shearing a month ago and will definitely have it turned into yarn. Valerie's friend Lorna made us both a hat out of her fur a year ago.

This evening I started building a 6' long x 4' wide x 2' high cage, out of some rough, scrap lumber, in which Blondie will be naturally composted. We have already done this once with Fifi about seven years ago during the mid of winter and it worked very well. It is a clean, natural and odorless way of disposing a body. One starts by cleaning out the barn stall and taking the hay/manure mix to where you wish to place the composting cage. There, you create with the mix a bed of about six inches deep and of course as wide and long as the cage. You then place the dead animal onto the bed you had just made and build the cage around the animal. You then fill the cage with the rest of the hay/manure mix until the cage is completely filled, which naturally means that the animal is completely covered. Lastly, you add the cover to the cage. Make sure the boards have a one inch space between them so that air and water can enter the cage and help those microbes/bacteria do their job. The main reason for the cage is to keep animals away from the dead animal body. A secondary reason is to hold the hay, manure mix in place. I believe it takes less than a year for the dead animal to totally decompose.

By the way, the x-rays looked great, my foot is healing well and the doctor told me that I don't have to wear the portable cast any more. I now have to exercise my foot and learn how to properly walk again. Valerie joined me today and had her annual physical which determined that she's in great shape.