Declaring war against multiflora roses

The lines are drawn. Me on one side, the rosebushes on the other. I am officially declaring war. Starting on Thursday, we were back out in the fields and my worst nightmare came true, 65F plus temperatures. On Thursday I had a sweatshirt and t-shirt underneath and had to choose sweating to death or death by a thousand paper cuts. I took off the sweatshirt. The only thing that made this job tolerable is the fact that I got to use a bad-ass weed whacker with a circular saw at the end.

I would go into the bushes and tear them down with a little too much gusto in my opinion, and retreat with their pricks hooked in my skin. Their last feeble attempt to take me out. At the end of the day I looked like I was a cutter, someone who belonged on one of those A&E shows about harmful addictions.

On Friday I helped Cale extract a dead kid from one of the mama goats. It was pretty sad. The goat went into labor on Wednesday but wasn't dilated enough. We gave her a shot to help with labor. It was taking such a long time we knew that there was a good chance she would give birth to stillborns. By Thursday she passed one and not too long after another. We didn't know a third one remained. Friday the head started to emerge, and I held her up and tried to soothe her while Cale tried to pull the dead kid out. He asked me to go and get some twine. I always have some in pocket for some reason and just gave it to him. I will try to spare you from the gore, but the smell and decay was horrific, and apparently the kid felt like oatmeal on crunchy bones. We are worried that the mother may not survive she is looking very lame and not interested in eating. She is on Penicillin right now and we are going to be checking her frequently.