I'm over my cold and enjoyed the holidays very much. But I did a thorough system clean yesterday and then a ton of updates and downloads for work. I apparently upgraded to IE 7 and I'm all confused! Nothing's where it normally is and I can't seem to figure a few things out. Don't get me wrong, I love change, but only when I expect it and can plan for it! LOL

So I'm here, just figuring all this out and trying to work early EARLY so I have more time with the kiddos during the day - all 7 of them. My three, Fifteen's two, and Jane unexpectedly had two last week. We are really enjoying them all!

We're out of wood so the weekend will be spent cutting down the last two large dead trees and picking up a load of wood. Note to self: don't listen to Ed next year when he says he *enjoys* cutting wood during blizzards - have enough for the whole winter ready.

Nothing like getting a cold the week before you're hosting a huge holiday dinner. I'm sick, sick, sick and want to crawl into bed but I need to clean, clean, clean.

Kids update

They made it through the night just fine. I went out early this morning allowing extra time for my chores before getting back on the phones and found everyone snug and warm in the barn. The kittens had gotten brave and staked out a corner of Fifteen's stall and were piled in a small hole deep down. Both kids looked very bright and energetic - they even jumped on my legs a little when I went down to check them over. Looks like a boy and a girl. Vincent's named them Sixteen and Seventeen - we're so original with names around here.

I'd let Moo out of her pen for grazing but I think she was upset by my lack of attention. She promtly ran to the big barn, leaned against it, and moooood as loudly as she good - which vibrated the whole barn. Only when I went out and scratched her ears for several minutes and hand fed her a chunk of carrots I'd brought out for the mama did she stroll off to the fields.

Apparently my little chat (i.e. "You'll be in the soup pot soon") with the hens worked because I found two lovely eggs this morning. A still unacceptable rate for over 25 layers, but we'll come to an understanding soon. Our pot will be filled soon as these roosters have GOT to go. I can't believe I paid an extra $2.00 for pullets and ended up with 7 freaking roosters. TSC sure got a piece of my mind over that and I'll be picking up that credit come spring. Anyway, they are all (except our original one) just mean as hell and even though they haven't flogged any of us I hate the way they gang up on the hens and cause such a commotion. Four of them are heavies so they'll be goo eating. :)

The boys have their school program tomorrow and after weeks of assuring me that their kahkis fit I forced them to actually show me last night. Ahem, guess I'll be heading into town this afternoon for a new outfit for each of them.

WE'VE GOT KIDS! WooHOOOOOOO!

I looked out the window an hour ago and saw Fifteen licking something in the dirt, then realized it moved! I ran outside quickly with fresh towels and got the baby moved into the maternity stall where I'd just this morning fluffed the straw and filled the water bucket. Right after getting her into the stall she had another one. They are adorable little things! Both are white with dark brown heads and I think one may be spotted on the back. Other than stumbling onto a litter of kittens this is my first animal birth to attend and I'm nervous as one can be.

This gets graphic....... don't read any further if you're not into details but I've got some questions.

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This is her second or third birth so she's an experienced mama. She's licking them clean but the placenta hasn't come out yet and we're going on two hours soon - the cord is still hanging out. She's got the shakes but she's eaten several bites of grain and drank a LOT of fresh water. She's let them nurse as well. Her stomach is still contracting and she stops to push about every 15 minutes but nothing happens. I'm going to call Phoebe and get some advice from her. I'd like to be prepared in case something goes wrong. When I got her from Chad, he'd just lost a nanny the previous evening who had a third baby inside that never came out. He found her several hours after the other two were born. I really hope that doesn't happen!

Edited:
When I went back out she finished with the afterbirth and all are doing well. :)

Whew! We got the house baled yesterday since Ed got the truck running and was able to pick up 20 bales. We'll still need 15 for next week so we can put more in the cow pen and in the maternity stall. No, Fifteen has not had her kids yet. I can't believe it! This poor goat is definitely in the last stages - waddling like crazy. Poor girl. Hopefull soon.

We chopped down a dead hedge tree and then I helped slip the logs. This one tree will provide us with wood for several weeks and it felt good to work outside. It was wonderful to see Ed working a full day around the farm! I don't remember the last time I saw him do that much physical work.

The goats have decided (well, we've only seen Carmel doing it) to climb on the cars and we're not amused. Twenty acres to roam around, harvest milo, lots of great prairie hay, hedge trees with bark and dead leaves, and they STILL climb on the cars. Ungrateful mongrels. Needless to say, we are not letting them out unless all the vehicles are in garages and since we only allow Moo out when we use the vehicles to block the driveway it's a toss up which animals get to roam. The dang chickens have quit laying altogether and we've got some birds trying to get into the house by flinging themselves against the upstairs windows. I'm telling you, animals on this farm are a brick shy of a load. No doubt.

My Christmas shopping day is next Saturday. My SIL and I are heading into Wichita for a full day of shopping. I hope it snows! Wouldn't that be wonderful?

I hope all of you are having a wonderful season and enjoying your families.

Bad news on the truck

Naturally, as soon as he finished the transmission, the carburator (I know that's spelled wrong) went out, and as soon as he finished that one of the choke lever things got stuck in the "open" position -- this truck is 50 yrs old or more I think. He's just about finished which is good because we NEED straw. We've been lucky the past few days that the wind hasn't been too bad but I noticed the animals digging in their bedding and we need several fresh piles. The two bales we had on hand for Fifteen's maternity stall were used in Moo's pen when she refused to come out during the recent ice storm.

We also need wood. Desparately. I kept telling Ed that my supply wouldn't be enough for the winter and he kept telling me that he'd be feeling well enough to cut down the dead trees out back but..... well you know how that went. What I've got and we received is over 2/3 gone and at this point we won't be able to heat through December. Spending $250/300 each month on propane is simply not an option I'll consider. So as soon as he gets the truck working I plan on locating a wood source to go load it, haul it, and stack it myself. A rick of hardwood (hedge, it sparks HORRIBLY and can only be used in stoves) is going for around $50 and that's a good solid month's worth or more. Just crossing my fingers that he gets it running.

We had a wonderful visit with my in-laws last weekend and are looking forward to spending a day of shopping on 12/16. My SIL and I will head out, childless, to the stores while the menfolk watch the kids at their house. We plan to supplement them well with plenty of crockpots full so they can just snack all day. I'll even pack a couple coolers for us because I figure it will be packed at all the stores and restaurants. I haven't done shopping on a Saturday during the holidays in I can't remember when so I'm actually looking forward to it!

Wow! That's cold!

The storm hit us yesterday and it's really really cold out there. Moo looked out from her pole barn and came running for the grain bucket but went right back in and refused to come out. She didn't even come over an admire my work with a sledge hammer in the biting below freezing temperatures with 200 mph (well it felt like it anyway) winds and take a drink. I'm sure her water's frozen over again so I reminded Ed that I'd bought the tank heater last week and he'll put it out for her this evening.

The goat's refused to go out as well and looked at me like I was crazy when I opened their pen. They ran back inside and batted cute little eyes at me asking for hay and grain. They even resorted to shoving Fifteen up front so I could see a very pregnant goat and feel sorry for them. Yes it worked. I'm a sucker.

The little kittens haven't seen their mama in about three days and we're hoping Precious is still alive. She runs off sometimes and usually comes back pregnant so hopefully we'll see her soon. The little ones are doing fine though and have figured out how to scale the fencing next to the 5 gallon water buckets in the goat stalls to get water. When we noticed the other cats doing this we just never filled the cat water bucket again and I never even thought about the little ones so I was glad to see they are able to get water. They're very warm and toasty in their home which is under the hay pallets. They've got several little burros in there and the hay totally blocks any drafts.

The chickens are fine and still insist on having their time outside. They run out and scratch for a few minutes then run back in. We're getting one lousy egg every other day and I'm just very disappointed in these girls. Come spring, we'll be having serious discussions or a lot of chicken soup.

Jack. Well Jack's decided that he needs to be in the house. Right. Next. To. The. Woodstove. As you walk by he lays as flat as he can so you won't notice him and put him back out.

We're burning hedge and hickory exclusively and I'm stoking every hour at least. Last night we were at 74' at one point in the dining room and probably 20' cooler upstairs. Did I mention it's REALLY cold? And guess what we forgot this fall? Our uptown in-style hillbilly insulation. Yup, we've got snow coming in the original from door which is right at the stairwell. Ed finished the truck and we'll be picking up 20 bales of straw this evening or tomorrow for house baling. Doesn't look purty but we had NO drafts from the north side last year so I'm anxious to get it up.

I'm so happy to say that I caught a glimpse of Ed's back as he was working on the truck and his rash is down to some pinkish-ness, not even as red as a sunburn. His hands and arms are totally 100% cleared and even his knuckles are smooth. In 12 years I've never seen his hands smooth! He tells me his legs still itch and are still raised but they are definitely healing. He sees the doctor tomorrow for a two month visit and I'm anxious to hear her opinion.

But the biggest bestest news is that Vincent turned 5 yesterday! Oh my sweet baby is getting so big! He even pointed out to me that he's *this* close to reaching into the cabinets now. LOL

Me? Well I've been hard at work picking up extra hours for Christmas and working on a couple projects. It's wonderful to be home for the holidays.

The Holidays are upon us

I love the holiday season. It always makes me feel snuggly in my home and thankful for great friends and family. And I love the decorations.

We had Ed's sister and her dh up over the weekend and spent a wonderful day with them. She loves my lasagne and says it's even better than Olive Garden's, so naturally I made a huge batch so she would have take home leftovers. She had hosted Thanksgiving so I think it was a nice for her to comfortably hang out for the day. I love having her over because we are both kitchen-bodies and make ourselves totally at home in the other's kitchen. As soon as we walk in the door of the other's home we are in there washing the working dishes, wiping counters, grabbing table service, and shooing children away from dessert platters. We work very well together.

Even though Christmas will be at Aunt Betty's this year, everyone did agree to come out the Saturday before for an afternoon and dinner here. It's an hour drive out to the farm for some of them, but I do think everyone loves visiting the "farm" during the holidays and seeing the animals. Since Betty's doing a traditional holiday meal, I need to plan something a little different for Saturday's dinner for about 15. I'll need a meal with fantabulous desserts and then snacks for the gaming tables later. You know what this means. You got it, a binder! Lists, tabs, color coding, and all that will be in order.

We put our tree up on Sunday and then after I ran into town for some shopping yesterday I finished the decorations. Well, the figurines and all that, I still need to arrange three full totes of garland and get out the holiday dishes. That's the project for today.

How's your shopping going? Is your list huge or managable? Do you even know what half the things are on your children's list (I don't have a clue)?

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

The rest of my afternoon will be spent baking and tomorrow will be a day spent with the kids cleaning the house so we can put up Christmas decorations over the weekend. I hope everyone enjoys this holiday and time with their family. I know I have so much to be thankful for - just getting to spend the day with my family is top of the list!

See you back here soon.

Ice storm survival

We moved out to the farm in September 2004 and immediately after that I increased my hours at Walmart. Ed was home alone with the boys in the evenings and those evenings were getting dark earlier and earlier. A few months later we endured an ice storm like this part of the country had never seen - entire cities were without electricity. Naturally, one of our trees fell into our electric pole so four days later when the neighbors could once again flip a switch the linemen informed us, "Y'all have a real mess here. It's still be a few days before we can get a new pole out to you." In the end, we were without electricity for nearly nine days and all of those nine days had temps below zero and winds that would cut through the best down coats.

We brought the mattress from out bed downstairs on the only carpeted section of the house and closed off the entire upstairs and downstairs rooms so we were confined to the living room, dining room, and kitchen. I drove around to the neighbors and offered grey water (we have a shallow well with the original 100 year old hand pump) for animals or toilet flushing and compiled lists of things to bring them from work each evening. The two with stoves offered to let us come stay with them but we were actually doing fine with the stove and the propane heater attachment. On day five we were lucky enough to be at Sears when the truck showed up with a deliver of generators. Finally, fresh water from the facet!

Here's what I learned during that storm:

• Great grandma was right, a foil covered brick heated in an oven for an hour can keep you warm through the night. It also brings the satisfaction of having your husband tell you were right after he made fun of you for snuggling with several bricks.
• Always, always, without fail, have 10 gallons of clean water on hand.
• It really *is* the humidity! Boiling water (even grey) on a stove to obtain a humid environment can make 40' seem positively balmy.
• You can never have too many candles and oil lamps.
• Paper plates and plastic service settings kept in a storm survival kit are a Good Thing.
• You can go weeks without speaking to your neighbors but it's a tear inducing experience to know you can depend on them during a crisis.
• Keep 10 gallons of fresh gas on hand.
• Keep enough feed for several days for each animal.

We lost electricity last Thursday for an entire evening and it jump started me into making sure that our storage room held everything we needed should we face it again. Snow and ice are beautiful to behold but can turn mean and frightening if one's not prepared.

An actual conversation with my husband

"Hey Lisa, when you go into town this afternoon can you pick me up another pair of work gloves. The cow ate mine this morning."

"What do you mean the cow ate your gloves? You mean she chewed them up?"

"No. I mean the cow ate my gloves. You know. Ate. As in, she dined on them."

"Right, I get that, but where are they? Are they still out there?"

"Woman, you never listen. I'm telling you she ate them. They are gone. They're in her belly like the big guy on Austin Powers."

"Do you mean to tell me that Moo swallowed them??"

"Exactly. My God this is taking forever."

"But Eddie, they were leather! Isn't that just wrong?"

"Well I really don't think she cares Lisa. Just buy me another pair would you?"

"Well ok, but can she digest them? Won't they........"

"Oh, yeah. If you happen to see them in a cow patty, grab them. They were good gloves."

Not so much.

Farm pics

Here are some more pics of the farm. It was a beautiful afternoon so I decided to let Moo out to enjoy the cut milo field. After convincing her that it was ok to come out of her pen, she took off like lightening just a stomping, bucking, kicking her heels in the air, and smelling everything. She walked around the house a time or two, checking to make sure I was following her, and then headed out into the fields. She's pretty good about staying on the property but to be sure, I quickly installed a hillbilly gate:

She kept mooing at me to walk with her so I headed out myself. Don't you just love that face?

I walked to the barn and threw some milo over the fence for the goats. Look at this angle of poor Fifteen. Doesn't she look uncomfortable?

I stopped by the coop to get a picture of the frizzle rooster. This guy is just the cutest thing but man he is the meanest one to the hens. I'm not sure if he'll make it through the winter.

I noticed a couple of the bearded hens were up in the rafters and the buff has been laying sporadically so I checked the boxes and found a beautiful blue egg.

I have some more pics of the kittens but I think Blogger has a limit on the number you can put in one post and it won't take them. I'll try to post them soon.

"Eddie grab your shotgun!"

What a way to wakeup your husband. Even better, uh, we don't have a shotgun. Well we do somewhere, locked up in a box, but I think it would take an entire afternoon to find it and then there's the matter of not having any shells. I know the question your asking though, did Eddie act like a man who knows his wife is scared out of her wits as she runs headlong out of the house in her nightgown to face untold dangers?

Not so much.

I came back into the house breathless and he was laying on the couch where he responded with, "What in the world are you doing?" Yep, that's my man. LOL

I was washing dishes at the sink when I saw a beautiful silver/gray fox stroll buy heading into the pile of chickens that had just come out of the coop for breakfast. I hollered at Jack (the crackerjack watchdog we have installed here on the farm as I ran through the garage and making as much noise as I could along the way.... you know, expecting to see Eddie running after me at any second carrying the non-existent shotgun. The fox headed around the goat pen towards the pond and then our through our west pasture to who knows where. Jack was on his heels though. I'm he's wondering if the fox would like to play. Jack plays with all the animals here, including baby chicks and kittens. Sigh. I sort of wished for Skittles and M&M at the moment as they were proficient at killing predators and I've seen them tackle a several coyotes several times. Unfortunately they killed everything including kittens and chickens.

It was interesting to me that not a single animal made a sound as I ran out there though. I could hear Jack panting clear on the other side of the barn. All the goats huddled in a tight ball right in the center of their pen and I couldn't find a chicken to save my life. Y'all know that goats go crazy when they see their feeder first thing in the morning and it sounds like a nursery full of screaming babies until they get their grain. The roosters are after the hens for some morning delight (well, except for the gay one) and the cow is moo-ing at me to pet her. Not this morning. It was deadly quiet. I walked quitely around the barns and watched Jack race through the pastures to all edges of our property picking up scent and then losing it. As I was heading back to the house I noticed a few hens fly down from trees and the roosters came out from under the old well house. The goats still never uttered a sound.

And no, Ed never showed up to rescue me from the jaws of danger. LOL


I took some pics yesterday. Can you see Fifteen on the left and that belly of her's? I keep thinking any day now she'll go into labor.












Here's Moo getting her treat of leftover milo brought in from the field. I tried to get her two seconds earlier jumping up and down and shaking her head left to right but couldn't quite capture it.





These are the three separate woodpiles that I've stacked. One is seasoned hedge with kindling, then seasoned other woods, then fresh wood. It doesn't really look like much but you can see through the trees the pile that's ready that I haven't brought over yet. When you add the pile of hedge fenceposts that's dry but only needs sliced with a chop saw, we're in pretty good shape.








And here's me. I'm trying to figure out how to get this up on the sidebar like I've seen other blogs. The most interesting thing about this is the new feature called "cartooning" on my editor. I had no idea what it was so I clicked it and look what happened!







I think I like the cartoon better! LOL

Blogger ate my posts

It never fails, I sit down with a time limit and write out a couple posts only to have them disappear into the blogger wasteland.

Ed continues to improve and has even shaken the mild chest cold he caught. He told me this morning that last night he felt like he did a few days after the dr. had given him the shot of steroids. Basically, awesome. This is wonderful news! His hands and arms are now totally clear with just a handful of little tiny pink spots - like chigger bites, nothing to worry about. his chest is a very mild pink color and the itching is nearly gone. His legs are still healing. As I've said, they were the worst so will probably take the longest to heal. Overall, we are very pleased and excited.

The farmer finally harvested the remaining milo and this means I'm in a time crunch to get the west pasture electrified for the goats. The idea of letting the graze through the winter and cutting the need for hay is very appetizing indeed. It's cold though and very hard work getting those posts in the ground. This is one of those times when we really miss not having a tractor.

Do you believe the weatherman?

Well I normally reserve the right to question him. I normally add about 10 mph to any of his wind gust prediction and add a lot of humidity, if not rain. For some reason we seem to be in a section that doesn't get weather that's expected and it's often completely different than what's happening just 30-40 miles south of us or 10 miles north. I don't take chances in storms, however, and he's predicting one moving in this evening and last until Friday night. If there's one area my anal retentive ultra organizing skills have proven valuable, it's in dealing with weather. I'll spend the day today filling the gas can in case we need the generator, filling the water bottles, loading wood into the garage and the house bucket, and moving the section that's seasoned into the shed out of the rain. We haven't prepared the coop for winter yet (this weekend's project) but to be safe, I'll stack straw bales up around the open chicken wire covered windows for protection and turn their floor in case I can't let them out. This way they can burrow in if they need to. I'll also grab a cabbage or lettuce head at the store today so they have something to play with. We're set for grain and hay right now so I don't need to worry about getting any of it but I will head to the grocery store for the shopping. Low's will be in the 30's - which isn't even cold to some of you, but I'm determined not to turn the house furnace on this winter for more than an hour or so to take the chill off and I'm trying to get practice for the coming season. It's hard for me to remember that when heating a huge old farmhouse with wood only, uh, you need to remember to manage the fire!

I let Spot out yesterday while I was cutting wood, he was a bottle-baby and he's more like a pet dog than goat. He hung around the shed where I was cutting and then got stuck in the fence trying to get back into the goat pen. It was so cute though, to have him just roaming around. I wish they would all stay in the area because I'd love to turn them into the back field even now, before the fence is up. I don't think they would though and I hate to risk the neighboring planted fields by testing it. Wonder if I could just let out Spot and maybe one other? They are herd animals and normally stay right with one another. Hmmm, food for thought.

I got up early today and had homemade whole-grain pancakes ready for everyone when they woke up. What a great way to start the day! I add pecans and blueberries in mine but the kids won't eat them. Well I have a lot of work to do and bill paying this afternoon, so I'm off.

Another day, another dollar

and those dollars just keep adding up. This past week was the first week without Walmart and I was quite nervous if I could discipline myself to working a decent Liveops schedule and making enough money in two weeks to cover the Walmart salary as well as the insurance from Ed's work (which was coming out of my salary). Naturally, I was very nervous Thursday morning waiting for the phone call from Walmart home office, friends were calling to offer encouragement, and I was in the middle of a kitchen remodel (cleaning LOL). I missed the big schedule rollout where you can schedule the weekday hours on Thursday and Friday. The weekends are easy for grabbing "green" (the open slots where agents are needed) but weekdays are tough and you need to be sitting at the computer ready to claim your seat. I had no hours for Thursday and Friday and I was a little worried.

I went ahead and scheduled 7.5 hours each day over the weekend which doesn't sound like much but when you're getting back to back calls and talking the entire time - well this can really wear your voice down, especially since I hadn't done it before. Saturday wasn't bad at all but on Sunday, my voice was full of frogs and I was struggling by the sixth hour. On Monday my talk time was figured along with the bonuses and guess what? I made a two week salary from Walmart in one weekend! Yup, I think this is doable. :)

Ed asked me to post an update on his condition for him. The new medicine is definitely working, albeit slowly. He's discovered a real downfall to the process. What's happened is that it appears to be "pushing out" all the disease to create a really, really bad case of it. All this has come to the surface is bizarre looking raised hard patches - the worst he's ever had. However, it scabs over then falls off and doesn't appear to be returning! The only problem with this is on his hands - the palms. Last week they were in the process of releasing all the skin but underneath is brand new fresh pink healing-over skin, much like you'd have with a burn. The problem is that he's a mechanic! His hands are used all day to wind through car engines and they get covered in engine gunk that requires him to wash with a solvent. Not only that, but they're not calloused and are blistering up from the work. Although painful, he considers it a small price to pay for finding a medicine that will work. We noticed over the weekend they were collousing and toughening up a little and yesterday at work he said it was really improving. He's wearing gloves too, which helps. How this man has continued to work and provide for his family without his commission cut in half is beyond me. My love for him grows each day.

I cut wood over the weekend in the afternoons and should finish up a large pile this afternoon. We've had fires every night and when it's 35' outside the house can be as warm as 80' in the dining room. When you factor in something scrumptious in the crockpot, the kids helping daddy cut milo for the animals, and me padding around in pj's earning a nice sum to help supplement Ed's income - is it any wonder that we look at each other with pride and content? I think Ed went through a fog of sorts because I'll remind him of how bad off he was and he just looks at me with a "really?" sort of expression. The other evening he was staring at me while I was reading the paper and when I looked up he said, very softly, "I am a lucky man to have had you helping me through this. You are learning something new every day about taking care of the farm - and you're happy and so pretty while you do it." My heart just melted. I've got to be just the luckiest woman on the earth.

The first fire of the season

There's something awesome about cleaning out the stove, checking the flue, and bringing in the first batch of firewood isn't there? I realize some parts of the country have been in a cold snap for a few weeks, but it's just now getting to that point here. We've been under a fog and drizzle since Sunday so that's kept the temps down. I noticed the house was chilly around noon today and realized it was reading 62' in here so I began the ritual of starting that first fire. There's a pot of water on the stove, a pile of hedge for the evening, casserole in the oven, a loaf of hard sourdough ready, and the whole house has been cleaned. I may even make a pot of hazelnut coffee for Ed when he gets home.

Vincent and I found the three kittens that Precious had a while back. I hadn't seen them so I figured she'd abandoned them. When I went to make some room in the back of the yellow barn for a load of wood I'm in the process of cutting I heard them. With this group, we got to them just in time - their eyes are open but they aren't able to run yet (still shakey when walking) so even though they hissed like mountain lions we were able to win them over by sitting with them calmly and petting them for about an hour. Precious came in and realized we'd found them and just laid right down next to me. We never found the last little until they were scampering all over and those little guys still won't come to a human, even one sitting next to a plate of tuna!

I found another egg this morning! The buff hen is laying and it's the most beautiful shade of blue/green - much bluer than the other hen's but still in the green range and considerably larger than the other gals. I noticed her in a corner of the coop when I opened it this morning to let them out and then I found her in the garage a while later sitting on the egg. She promptly stood up and began eating Jack's dogfood. Hopefully the remaining hens will start soon!

My name is Lisa and my rooster is gay

Do I need a support group? Is there one? Sigh. Poor little confused rooster. I noticed him doing his little feet stomping side to side dance he does this morning and realized he was fixing to mate with the hen standing nearby. Only it wasn't a hen.

The other roosters are not amused.

I no longer work at Walmart

I finished the website about Walmart and had it up last Monday and then I mailed hard copies to the officers listed on walmart.com on Tuesday. Wednesday I received an email from a reporter with a national newspaper and he conducted a phone interview on Thursday. I'll keep you posted if they decide to run a story.

We have been able to obtain health insurance through Ed's employer and I was able to quit Walmart this morning. It's a wonderful but surreal feeling.

Naturally, life hasn't been uneventful on the farm and I can now focus on updating here regularly since I'll be here anyway answering phones for LiveOps about 30 hours each week. Yay! Fifteen is getting larger by the day and just when I think she can't get any bigger, she does. I keep checking her bag every day and it doesn't appear to be enlarging yet. Hopefully she doesn't have far to go.

We have one, yes ONE, hen who's started laying. Unfortunately she has decided to lay her beautiful greenish/taupe eggs in the goat's hay trough. I've talked to her about this but it didn't do any good so I took drastic measures - I kept the hens locked up until afternoon and then searched the coop for her egg. You guessed it, about 20 minutes after I let them out there was an egg in the trough. For the next two days I kept the hens in the coop and she still wouldn't lay in the coop! I put a few baskets in there, straw rather than shavings in the boxes, raised them, lowered them, you name it - this girl will NOT lay in that coop. I'll keep working on it.

I came home from work Friday evening to find that we had no water. We tried everything Saturday but couldn't get it working so we drove into Lowe's and spent a bloody fortune on a new pump and control box (the old box wouldn't work with the new pump). Just for kicks Ed hooked up the new control box and son-of-a-gun it worked! I was really excited about that because the idea of digging a huge hole in the yard and pulling out 60 feet of galvanized 30 yr. old pipe in the rain.

Ed seems to be healing but it's a very slow process. His ankles are still swollen, as well as his hands. Just like when the doctor gave him the steroid shot and it was clearing, it's all "coming to the surface" now and he looks really bad. Although it looks really terrible, it's in the clearing stage rather than the worsening stage. Hopefully within a month or so he'll be looking back to normal.

It's cold and raining but we have a roast slow-cooking in gravy for mashed potatoes and a loaf of fresh bread. I even have a glass of wine and it's not even 5:00 yet. Doesn't get any better than that.

I created a site telling about my working experiences at Walmart. I detailed all the harassment and discrimination from my store manager and then what happened when I turned him in, uh basically nothing. It was a very purging experience and I feel like a huge weight as been lifted off my shoulders. Not only that but Ed's new insurance policy information arrived and since we're in open enrollment at Walmart I compared the two - Ed's employer's policy is $50.00/month cheaper. Since I am only working at Walmart to maintain the insurance coverage........

The site is www.WalMartAssistantSpeaks.com

Now that this I finished that project I can get back to readying the chicken coop for winter, cutting firewood, cleaning out the old barn, chopping down the trees, oh the list gets longer each day!

Two exciting things have happened and my time is consumed at this point for the next few weeks.

1. Since Ed's feeling much better and has more energy to do projects around the farm we are busy each and every night. My days are filled with "if you'll do this for me today and set it up, I can then take care of this tonight" lists from him. Although exhausting, it is so great to see him feeling better and working as a team with him again. This week alone I doubled my workload from LiveOps, ran the chainsaw for an afternoon cutting logs for winter, picked up two loads of wood from friends and stacked it, and yesterday I learned to run the chop-saw for another project. My arms are sore!

2. I've working on another project online right now and trying to learn html and other things to handle it myself. While I feel proud for learning to do these things it's also a very slow process because, well anyone who knows me knows how much I know about the workings of websites. Basically, nothing.

I'll keep you posted.

We got the office moved! I'm upstairs now and have a window to the west and one to the north. I also have the upstairs balcony to step outside and enjoy fresh air if need be. The original door is still standing and ready to serve but the outside wall has been boarded up. Now that I'm up here I'll begin the slow nagging process to get the blockage down and make the door functional - maybe in the springtime. It would be wonderful to have it open and ready for the spring season. So I'll be spending the day finishing a batch of soap and setting up the new office.

The new medicine is working wonders for Ed - the current outbreak has definitely stopped worsening and will now hopefully begin reversing/clearing up. As bad as this one was, it could takes months before he's 100% clear but that's ok, the fact that it's not getting worse is wonderful news!

Fifteen is starting to look uncomfortable in her pregnancy. I hope for her sake she has that baby soon. Other than kittens, this will be our first birth on the farm and we are all excited. My friend told me that her milk bag will start to get larger before she goes into labor so I'm watching that closely each day but nothing yet.

Mmmmm, I just realized the one disadvantage of being upstairs. We only have one bathroom and it's downstairs on the other end of the house.

Is it wrong to tell Vincent that I need to take a break from hearing the ABC song? I've done my part and heard it at least 20 times today, probably 5 of those times I sang too. So I'm done right? I'm off the hook?

Ed started taking the new medicine last week and we think it's working!!!! He noticed yesterday that it wasn't angry red but just a dark pink, the swelling has gone down in his legs, the rash is drying out, and his pain level has decreased. He also noticed that he felt very angry all day yesterday - which in this case, is good! That's a side effect of the meds and once it levels off he can learn ways to deal with that or some herbal treatments to help. That is WONDERFUL news! Especially since he's on the low side of dosage and if we can find a med. that works for him, keeping low dosages is a good thing.

Last week I went with Ed to the dermotologist who added methatrexate to Ed's Embrel treatment. Neither is working. Last night he came home and could barely walk. Not only is he covered all over his body again, but the swelling has started - his socks were deeply imbedded into his calves. I called the arthritis doctor here in town and got him in this morning so we could get him the shot to clear it up and buy him a couple weeks to try something else. She agreed, the Enbrel isn't working at all. Now, she's questioning the diagnosis. This part confuses me because if Enbrel only works in 54% of the cases, why are they surprised it's not working with him? According to Dr. Ewy and Dr. Hague, they've never seen Enbrel not work. Odd. So she consulted with him and they've decided to put him on soriatane. My concern is that she said steriod use with soriatane is not recommended so she didn't give him the shot today. I've looked up soriatane and it seems people have seen results in less than a week and for some it took about two months. Ed's in a lot of pain so I hope we see some relief very soon. She also took a biopsy of it so they could confirm the diagnosis.

The weather is so gloomy, storming, windy, cold. It's utterly depressing.

The farmer came this morning to harvest the milo, but the moisture content is too high so he's going to let it dry another week or so. Isn't that odd that it can have too high of moisture when we had such a dry summer? He's decided to put beans down next, I'm not sure if he'll do that yet this year or not, I think you can do a late fall bean crop, but he may have meant next spring. I described the new west pasture to him and gave him instructions on what we needed him to do with the 1/2 acre or so we'll be taking out of production. He asked how much hay we were going to need and we worked that out. I think he may even till and plant the brome for us when we get ready to fence off. Honestly, a "labor" exchange for this crop-share is so much better for us. He gets to include this small bit in with his large crops (he farms right next to us so it's not out of his way at all) and we get tractor work and hay. We wouldn't make too much off this 13 acres anyway, by the time we paid a farmer to harvest it so we're both happy I think.

We're planning on going to the fair tomorrow so I didn't schedule any LiveOps time until Sunday. I can't wait! The boys are excited and asking what kind of animals they'll see. I'd love to stay for the auctions and take a pig home but Ed's got this unreasonable discrimination of pigs. Silly man.

I was going to take a picture of the surprise I found in the drawer out in the barn- two small opossums. But they seem to have vacated their little drawer now and haven't been seen since yesterday. They are still stealing the cat food though. I watched the kittens eat this morning during goat breakfast and it was just hysterical to see them scampering around. I've gotten in the habit of separating the goats out since Fifteen is getting larger and meaner in her late pregancy, she will even go after Buck for food! I feel for her, she looks like she's got two basketballs sticking out of the sides of her stomach and you know that just can't be comfortable. But still, it's no reason to be rude to the little ones you know. Hopefully we'll have little kids in a short time. The man I bought her from said she's has 1 single (her first) and then two sets of twins after that so hopefully we'll get two kids.

No word on Moo's pregnancy test yet but I'm happy to report that she's kicking, bucking, and running just like normal. She even chased the farmer this morning when he showed up. :)

My lye arrived late last night. I say late and I do mean late as the FedEx driver called Ed around 7:00 to admit he was lost. Turns out he was across the county looking for the road so Ed gave him directions on getting over to this side. I swear, we could not have possibly picked a more difficult place to live when it comes to giving direction.

So what's for dinner? I've got boneless pork ribs in the crockpot now that I marinated yesterday in worcesterchire and spices. I usually take them out when they get pull-tender and then slather BBQ on them, stick them under the broiler for a few minutes, and add some slaw to the side. Yum!

Moo is home! We have been so busy the past few days that I'm just getting around to posting about the most unusual conversation with the vet, Dr. G. It went something like this:

Dr G: "Hey folks, I've got some news and I'm not sure how to break this to you."

Ed: "Go ahead, we can handle it."

Dr G: "Well, it's like this. I'm afraid your cow doesn't really know she's a cow."

Ed: "Yeah. She thinks she's a dog. We probably should've told you that. How'd you find out?"

Dr G: "Aside from the fact that she went after the mailman each day {note: I think he was joking on this one}. She refused to socialize with the other cows, even my best mothering jersey. She nudged me every time I went to work on her, like she wanted petted. And when the dogs went in to help me herd them, she tried to play with them!"

Ed: "Yup. You're lucky there wasn't any harvesting going on because she chases tractors. And the school bus."

Dr G: "In 35 years as a vet, I've never seen a cow not know she's a cow! We've all gotten the biggest kick out of having her around here. However, she's probably pretty confused now because we, of course, treated her like a cow. I recommend weekly counseling for the little gal."

Overall it went very well and he did answer my biggest question, how do we know if the AI took? Apparently we are to take her back in a month or so and he'll come out to the trailer and do a sonogram.

I worked the rest of the weekend and then washed windows on Monday and Tuesday. Holy toledo there's a lot of dirt that accumulates on farmhouse windows! I have finished all the downstairs windows except the living room two. They'll take longer because they are the storm window kind that come apart in pieces where the other ones just snapped off. It's amazing how cleaner the entire house looks from just washing the windows!

Ed talked to his mother over the weekend and I believe we'll host Thanksgiving dinner here. You know what that means folks..... 25 hungry people needing all manner of desserts and a spread Martha will be proud of! I'll start working on the menu and preparations next week. :)

This morning I went into the doctor with Ed so we could discuss the Enbril as we do not think it's working. He said that Ed's case was so far advanced that it may not be able to get it under control - or at least not for some length of time, rather than the 3-4 weeks advised in the literature. He agreed that we need to get it under control and in check quickly as it's coming back full blast at this point; the pain is settling in as well. He did something he said he wouldn't do - ordered a round of steroids to knock it out and give the Enbril some leverage to work with. I dropped of the rx for methatrexate (sp?) this afternoon and he'll start taking it tonight. We agreed to give it another month before moving on to something else like Humera.

I work the next five evenings at Wal-Mart and then I have Mon-Thu off next week. Four days! I plan on dividing them up into a House Project day, Back Pasture day, Cooking Day, and a Gardening day. It will be wonderful to have so much time away from Wal-Mart. The entire store is up in arms right now after the announcement that layaway is disappearing in January and the new dress code begins about the same time. The more time I'm away from there the better, less I have to be "on guard" if that makes any sense. I get tired of making sure that every action I take while on the clock is within policy. Odd, because they have shown me so many times that they don't follow the dang policy, but I have to be so careful. I know they're watching me. I proved to the co-mgr last week that someone is adjusting my time. Not a big deal, I clocked out about 11:06 pm the other evening and it's been changed to 11:00. It's not the six minutes I'm worried about - it's the fact that I was on the register until 11:03 pm which means I technically worked off the clock. That's immediate termination. This is the third time that's happened. Then next week I asked for 9/18 and 9/21 off which means it shows up as N/A when they do the schedule and on the posted copy. Odd thing is though, it shows N/A on 9/18, 9/21 *and* 9/19 and 9/20 - which I didn't ask for. The associate is the only one who can authorize N/A time in the computer, and I didn't. Again, not that big of a deal but it appears that I'm asking for a lot of days off and that's not good, in Wal-Mart world. Right now, I'm just holding on until the new insurance premiums come down in October. After we compare coverages with Ed's company, I'm hoping we can switch to his and I'm out of there. I still boycott shopping there unless my discount will make a large dent or I have no other option. Went to Target just this morning and bought the bi-weekly stock up.

The soap is listed, with pictures! I cannot believe Jen was able to train me on listing my own catalog products but she is GOOD! LOL I have made soap until my lungs hurt and I flat ran out of lye. Little did I know, during my sabatical, lye was removed from the grocery stores due it's it's meth-making uses. Dang. I've ordered some from an online source and have three batches of oils measured and ready for cooking when it arrives.

Great news! Moo cooperated and is now, hopefully, preggers. She'll be coming home on Saturday morning. I'm sure she'll enjoy how her pasture has greened up in her absence.

I posted a comment on Peggy's blog, but I'm still reeling from the acts of kindness. I cannot believe we will have so many months of medicine paid for by these people, and the winter propane bill as well. THANK YOU!

In our upside-down world weekends are the busiest time for us - I start gearing up on Friday morning for working my two jobs Friday afternoon through Sunday evening, in addition to figuring out which project Ed will need an extra pair of hands to complete. This weekend was no different. Although I only worked five hrs on the phones this weekend, there are another five medium hedge trees felled out back, several trailer loads of branches in the goat pen for snacking, two acres around the house neatly mowed (including the quarter mile driveway and roadside ditch) laundry folded and waiting to be put away, and delicious meals leftover in the fridge. Ed spent his time working on the stalls in the barn and he completed them last night. We now have the smaller stall for the nubians and pygmies then the larger one for the boers. This solves the behavior problems during morning feeding as I can easily separate them and everyone can have their own bucket. The larger stall is made up of the back 2/3 of the barn and can now be quickly divided into smaller stalls for birthing or sick animals. This still leave us space to create two larger stalls that would hold more goats, a horse, or a cow in case we need them in a small confined area for examination or treatment. All this, and we still have room for tools and hay storage in there.

Yesterday was tree-cutting day as I didn't work at Wal-Mart last night and could properly recover. I did an awesome job out there, if I do say so myself. What was once thicket after thicket of hedge growing through the fenceline is now nearly trimmed back the width of the lawnmower and the height of Ed so we can easily work on setting the fence. The goats are happy with their imported thicket of branches they've been munching on (I swear, hedge is like ice cream to them!) and I'm happy with the start of my new firewood pile that we'll age through the year. The next project will be moving the properly aged wood into the old barn for cover and winter use while we stack the new wood in its place. After that we need to get the electric run to the new barn, run the electric fence, and winterize the chicken coop. Shouldn't take long eh? I've still got the garden to prepare and then my fall planting of trees and shrubs will be over the next month. We try to plant as much as we can afford every year because the elms that cover the property are nearly done for and by the time new trees are doing their job (every living thing on a farm has a job to do!) the elms will need to be removed. Ed's of the opinion that all new trees should be planted neatly in rows to facilitate easy mowing. My learned, professional opinion is to scatter them and eventually just cover the acre surrounding the house with them. Since I do most of the mowing, and virtually all of the planting, I have confidence in my ability to win this one. :)

I ran all the errands this morning and then hit the kitchen where I made three batches of soap. They all turned out fabulous! I've got a pale green mango/plumeria, a heather scented red batch, and then a white/pink swirl mulberry spice. They all cooked up fantastically and are cooling on the table now. I'll get them cut tomorrow, pictures taken, and have them up for sale by the weekend or early next week. If I can make two batches a couple of times this week, my stock will increase nicely. I decided to go with my favorite shampoo recipe for everything at this point. It's the nicest recipe I have and foams up so beautifully - just like shampoo. They will be slightly more expensive than other bars as there are no "filler oils" in them at all, but I think the quality will be worth it.

I keep going over to Peggy's site at Hidden Haven Homestead and I want so badly to say *something* to everyone but I'm truly at a loss for words. It's beyond kind what's going on over there and I'm still speechless at the very thought of it. Thank you. I will properly compose something to post over there.

Enough computer playing, all the beds are stripped and need made, dinner needs started, and the kitchen mess needs cleaned.

I did it!! I installed memory in my computer and it actually worked! This is a HUGE deal for me. Yay. :) I spent yesterday cleaning up the hard drive and all that. I cannot believe how much better it's running! Good gravy, it needed a serious tuneup. Seriously.

Today is money day. I need to figure the checkbook, pay bills, run the banking errands and the local bills that don't have online pay - all that kind of stuff. The weather is cool in the mornings and it's getting me energized, ready for fall outdoor activities.

I have the list ready for the Wichita errands tomorrow and it will be nice to stop at Jenn's for a catch up visit. Is that still OK Jenn? Is your number still the same? I'll give you a call when I get near you. I'm starting up north and will work my way down to you. :) The pantry is getting low on staples so I'm going to venture out to Aldi's and see what's up about this place. So many people have told me what great deals they get there and I'm anxious to find out for myself. I know I need a quarter for the cart and my own supply of bags, but does anyone have any other tips for me? Please pass them on!

Withe the cool weather this morning, I couldn't resist it..... I just made the first fall batch of vegetable soup. We usually have this soup twice a month starting in the fall through late spring. It just never tastes as good during the summer. LOL When you add a salad and fresh homemade bread, it's just the best dinner.

We had my chainsaw lesson yesterday - I learned how to attempt avoidance of the 1" long thorns on the branches, how to cut the smaller branches with the tip, how to work through the larger ones with the base of the saw and use my body to help, and the mechanics of fuel, lubrication, and fixing a jumped chain. I was sore just from the end of one small tree and while I wasn't bleeding in five places like Ed was, I was quite nervous about avoiding those thorns. I prepared this morning by loading all sorts of equipment into the mower trailer and layer on clothing to help with thorn sticks. This morning was a beautiful cool one with a nice breeze and with Darren home sick he could keep an eye on Vincent for me. I needed to start taking phone calls in an hour and a half so that's all the time I would have. I set my goal on the largest thicket that had about six trees - four of which needed to come down completely and the others could just be trimmed back from the fenceline. I grabbed necessities (extra coffee, water, coke, gloves, etc.) and off I went. I finished the entire north line! I was so dang proud of myself! Ed sharpened the blade last night for me and it cut so much better than yesterday it was amazing. I organized all the trimmings into piles that we can bring back for the goats to munch on and then a pile of wood that's thick enough to trim for burning in the woodstove this winter. Yay me!

Last night Ed and I talked about the fall chores needing done and how I can work to free him up for the things I'm unable to do. I can do nearly all the work to the chicken coop for winter preparation and I'll get the shop barn cleaned up enough to hold the boat and van for the winter. I can also move the junk that's been sitting around for a couple years (ours and the previous owners) into organized sections in the back half and clean out the tackroom. This yellow shed will be the workshop area and hold all the major project tools. Doing this will help clean out our garage and leave house project tools and car working stuff only. With me completing these tasks Ed is freed up to run electric out to the livestock barn and finish building stalls inside. I think he's also going to show me how to run electric fencing out through the pasture we're clearing now. And we came up with two different proposals for the farmer who maintains the 14 acres in crop. It was a productive evening. :)

I'm learning to appreciate the things I've never paid much attention to. I've learned the value of good leather gloves, good heavy workboots, waterproof knee high boots, flannel shirts, heavy denim jeans, and hats. Having only one pair of jeans suitable for farmwork left me in a quandry last week because I was washing them every day after coming in covered head to toe with dirt, mud, weeds, goat poop, and who knows what else. When I ran to Wichita last week I stopped by a thrift store hoping to get some $6 out-of-style jeans to wear in the fields. Holy great-buys! I was able to get six pairs of jeans, two flannel shirts, three heavy t-shirts, and several flannel baby blankets (another project I've got in mind) for $29! I was so excited about finding these deals! And these are all good quality thick clothing that will be great for field work this fall. I'm set for the winter.

I spent some time this morning organizing the calendar for the week and planning my errands as efficiently as possible. I need to pick up more memory for the computer (hey, if I can run a chainsaw surely I can insert a memory stick) and I would like to do that Tuesday I think to coincide with the Target (I boycott WM as much as possible) and Dillons shopping and the coupon pickup. I need to give Jenn a call and see if that's too short of notice to pop in.

I saw this morning that Peggy at Hidden Haven has put up several auctions for our family. I'm still amazed at this and so very grateful. Thank you to everyone who donates and bids and especially to Peggy. Thank you all so much!

I've been trying to create a post for two days now but blogger has been acting up on me.

I started the west pasture the other day and have made good progress so far. The trees and grass have grown up through the fenceline so I've got to mow and nice working strip around the five acre fenceline, use the trimmer to get under the fence and through to the other side, then go back and begin removing trees. Ed's going to take me out this afternoon and show me the easiest way to get the trees down. Naturally, all the ones growing needing removed are hedge - a solid thorn thicket and tough wood to cut. Oh well, I look at this as a workout and saving the cost of a gym membership. :) At least I'm comfortable starting and operating the chainsaw. Now I just have to learn how to cut the tree down. All the limbs will be tossed in the goat pen and they'll have a nice treat. I learned that last week when I cut the fence out of the treeline next to the new garden space. They loved the limbs!

Moo did not cooperate this week at the vet and didn't come in to heat/season (whatever it is for a cow) this week so he kept her for another week. Is it strange that I miss my cow? I'm just used to seeing her in the front pasture and hearing her moo out a welcome to me whenever I come in the drive. It's odd not having her here.

I made the best dinner yesterday and can't believe how easy it was. I took a smoked sausage, peeled potatoes, onions, and green beans, tossed them in the crockpot and cooked them all day. It was absolutely delicious! We had a fresh salad and homemade bread with it. :)

Sending thanks to Peggy at Hidden Haven Homestead and her friends. I'm humbled and thankful beyond words. The kindess of people amazes me. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I just won the coolest mom award! I mixed up a batch of pantry chocolate shakes, filled two frozen mugs, stuck them in a small cooler, hooked up the trailer to the mower, and met the bus at the end of the driveway. The boys got off the bus and I took them for a leisurely ride through the back pasture while they cooled off with their mugs then dropped them at the door. I love doing stuff like that for them. :)

Ed's had two shots so far of the Enbril and will get his third tonight. Reaction is mixed -- not good and not bad. He was having another outbreak come on and the Enbril appears to have stopped it from getting worse, but it's not going away either. The documentation says it can take up to three weeks to begin working. Let's hope it's not quite that long before we start seeing results.

I forgot to take the camera with me, but Moo did in fact hop right up into the trailer. Well, she did some thorough sniffing, mooing, and stopping on the ground while I was in the trailer with her breakfast. She clearly wanted me to get out and bring it to her. I bent down to pick up a handful for her to get a closer view, and naturally that's the exact moment she chose to hope in with one big thud. So I'm bending over and then... WHAM! There's a 600 lb. cow about 2" from running me over. I hopped out pretty dang quick.

We have the new stall in the barn and set up a wonderful feeding system for the goats. They each have their own bucket tied to the fence and Ed built a great trough that perfectly holds a bale of hay. The first day we opened the new stall they were all on good behavior and filed in to enjoy the new setup. The next morning when I went out every bucket had been pulled off the fence and the two nanny boer goats were laying in the trough lazily eating and allowing no one else a share. Not only are they ungrateful, they appear to be quite spoiled.

I spent yesterday cutting a 50 year old fence out of a treeline that's in the way of my new garden site. After spending about five hours cutting the fence (the trees had literally grown up *through* the fence) on one side of the tree and then the other, I finally finished it. I was able to get all of it out except the top heavy wire and then the barbed wire running across the top length. I was so excited to show Ed when he got home from work. His only question was why did I have the trouble getting the top wire off and I explained that the tin snips I was using were starting to hurt my hand and I was simply out of strength. So he went and got me the wire cutters. Hrmph! Note to self: learn what tools do what job. I finished pulling the wires out this morning and the wire cutters worked a whole lot better that the tin snips.

I had some energy yesterday since I didn't work last night and wanted to see if I could get the chainsaw running since I've conquered the huge weed eater. I got the thing started but didn't make much headway on the dead trees in the line that need to come out. I'm going to have to do that first thing in a cool morning because that is going to be some major work. After mowing, moving a load of rocks from the pasture north of the barn, and then raking out the old stall, I was already beat. But I'll figure it out. I want to spend the cool fall days thinning out the trees around here and getting the firewood ready. Even these cool mornings have made me keenly aware that winter's coming and we're not ready. The chicken coopy needs patched, wood needs cut, garden needs built, and the ever-present fence for the east pasture needs run. I need to learn how to set the electric wire around the two sides that are already there and that would probably save Ed a lot of time when he gets ready. He'll be setting about 40 posts and each one will take about an hour or two by hand without a tractor - that's a lot of time.

I joined TheGroceryGame.com last week and tried it this week. At first I was impressed, but now.... not so much. The "list" supplies you with all the current sales at your local participating grocery store and it's also supposed to include those unadvertised sales as well. It tracks available coupons and then figures out if the sale is "rock bottom" enough to purchase and stock up. The problem is the list didn't match my store. At all. I'm not sure that the list is supplying me with information that I couldn't get on my own, but I'll give it the four weeks since it was just $1.00. I did stock up on coupons and printed tons of them from Target.com then hit my local SuperTarget where I saved $79.00 with them - getting Ragu for $.17/jar and over 25 Goldfish bags for free. Sweet!

I'm mentally preparing the garden bed and envisioning the planting come spring. The bed will be over the old brick patio area that still have a fence around two sides. The other two sides will be fenced in with livestock fencing just to keep the dogs and chickens out. It's 19' x 18' and will make a very nice plot. Ed and I only turned dirt one time in our two years of gardening and that was the worst garden we ever had. We prefer to build up the bed with fresh custom-mixed soil and use the raised bed method. So by the time I get my mixture in the area it will be about 8" deep with the finest of soils. I'll add the ash pit from where we've burned off our fallen limbs that are too small for the stove, the rye I'll plant for the winter cover, the rotted straw and manure from the cow pen, and the shavings from the chicken coop. It will be fantastic!

Random pics of the farm.....



This is a crooked cottonwood on the fenceline between the house and pasture. Last year those branches up top sprouted, but they didn't come back this year. Not sure if they ever will again. That metal building is an old ice cream truck and is shaped really odd inside. It was the cathouse, but they moved into the barn when Jack started taking their food bowls out into the yard. The chicks play in there now.




We need rain! This pond was overflowing the first year we were here but dried up this spring. Oh, there's the outdoor Tonka truck.




This is the east pasture looking out to the road and towards our nearest neighbor. The milo is looking pretty good.




This is the north side of the house that I planted yesterday. You can't really tell there's 5 inches of dressing put in there but there is. This is where I removed all the trailers full of rocks. They were just piled out here willy-nilly.




This is the stone path I kind of discovered as I removed all the other rock. I wasn't going to do anything else but then decided to do this little area next to the "original porch" and that motivated me to continue on around. I figure I'll pick up two or three plants every week and keep adding.




This is the little step that..........



....... this cow is just going to hop right up. Uh huh. We'll see how that goes.

On Making An Ass Of Oneself

I'm not sure oneself is a word, but too bad. The daily adventures of Loopy will amaze and astound you, or at the very least, bore you to tears.

It began innocently enough. Being the super-organized Martha-in-Training Goddess I called the vet in Hillsboro to remind him that Moo will have her season next week and I was planning to head over and borrow his trailer this afternoon. Ed will be taking the little gal over there tomorrow morning. As I'm heading to town I notice that the soybeans in this field have pretty little flowers on the tops. Wow! I've never seen that before so I pull over to get a closer look at this amazing new hybrid. And then I notice it. They were sunflowers. Well they were short and bushy and didn't look like the sunflowers you normally see! It was an easy mistake. I looked around to make sure no one had seen me and continued into town.

We ran in to the health food store and I noticed a new little shop had opened next door called The Breadery. As I was checking out with my package of yeast and bulk oats I mentioned that I was going to go next door and see what kinds of breads were available. Visions of artisan sourdoughs were dancing in my head. I thought the young man looked at me strangely, but I get that sometimes so I ignored it. I wandered in and tried to keep my mouth from watering. I looked around and saw no bread. None! Worse, there were bins and bins and shelves and shelves of ........ beads. I could feel the words bubbling up and nearly exploding from my mouth, "Where's the bread?" But I kept them in. I didn't do it. As I left I noticed the sign was The Beadery. Thankfully, only the young man at the counter witnessed it firsthand.

I finish at the bank and head over to the vet. While I'm giving him my information and questioning him thoroughly about the process and treatment of Moo, my cell phone rings. When I answered I realized it was a telemarketer and I said the first thing that popped in my head, "I'm sorry, I really can't take your call right now because I'm in the middle of choosing sperm for my cow." Well now really, think about it. How many times am I going to be able to use a line like that? If anyone uses it, I expect a residual fee - I could have retired from the income off of "Apples and swingsets" kwim?

The amazing thing is that the vet looked shocked and then cracked up, but the woman on the phone didn't miss a beat and kept asking me if I wanted this insurance protection on my credit card purchases. I implore her, "Do you not understand the importance of choosing the right sperm? I'm sorry but it takes all of my focus and I'm hanging up now." Really. The nerve. The vet said I made a wise choice and I delicately asked about the procedure. I wondered if I was being too forward but when a man's going to impregnate your cow, really, what are the social graces and the extent of the relationship? Semi-formal? Slightly intimate? I don't know and without Martha there to guide me, I was totally winging it. Hopefully I handled it with dignity and charm and all the qualities of a future cow-grandma or stout farmwife, whichever way one sees it. I didn't ask (and I'm sure you're wondering as well - or not) just how are we going to know if this, ummm, takes? If you think I'm taking a little tiny stick out there and trying to convince her to pee on it in a few weeks you are SADLY mistaken! Uh uh. No way. I'm sure there's a way but I managed to hold my tongue and not ask that question. I was trying to maintain, you know, the whole dignity thing.

I mosied out to the field with him to pick up the trailer and realized that a recent rain had flooded it. I graciously offered to let him back the van in, but he confidently said, "Oh hell no, you can handle it!" Obviously the man has never seen me drive. The only accidents I've ever had involved one moving vehicle and one parked vehicle. I was moving, in case you didn't get that. So I floated into the field and began backing over ruts the size of cinder blocks as he's waving me in. "I'm gonna need to back up about one and a half inches hon." Uh, sure. "No go forward about a half inch." Right. Not a problem at all. I did a lot of turning the wheel and gently tapping the pedal - apparently I nailed it dead on. He waved me off and down the road I went. I used hand signals because the trailer lights male/female things were incompatible. I came down the highway to turn in to my little town (we drive through town to get to our road) and there was one-lane construction with one of those lead vehicles you have to follow. The lady that stopped me with her bright yellow airplane-lander thingy tapped on the window and let me know, "When he comes back now, you need to not drive on that fresh tar we just laid." Right. Cause that's just what I planned on doing. Not! Even I could figure that out!

I finally arrived home and pulled the trailer over to Moo's pen. She ran through the field to meet me, probably hoping I had a handsome bull in the back of the trailer. I got out to have a heart to heart discussion with her. Well, really now, I'm sending her off to get pregnant tomorrow, shouldn't she be prepared? Anyway, as I'm describing future events I notice, there's no ramp. This trailer is about a foot and a half off the ground with a sliding door, not a ramp door. When I mentioned this to Ed he just said that Moo will step right up there. Right. I think I'll be taking pictures of this "simple process" tomorrow.

To switch gears, Ed's showing no signs of a reaction at the injection site and noticed a decrease in itching from the amount of break-out that had come up earlier in the week. When he has a flare-up with comes on quickly and covers his body in about 3-4 days so for it to be about the same strength and level it's been all week, I think is a good sign. He's due for another dose on Sunday afternoon. Hopefully by next week we'll have an idea if it's working.

Thank you Peggy and her friends that have come over and commented below. Such kind words from strangers is so wonderful and appreciated!

Ever stuck your husband with a needle? I did it last night and I was so nervous my hands shook.

Ed's been diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis and, if left unchecked, it will kill him within the next 18-24 months. We found this out late last week. No, check that. Ed found out late last week but he finally told me Monday or Tuesday evening. It's not that I didn't *know* it, I did, in the back of my mind. He's been deteriorating since January (we thought he got into the poison ivy near the cow barn) and logically I knew that he was only going to get worse and eventually be crippled. His skin (every single inch of it) was covered with large welt-ish weeping scales/sores and he was literally swollen to twice his size. He couldn't wear socks, damn near couldn't get his shoes on, his wedding ring was cutting his skin, and his shirts were stretched tight. His back was hurting, knees and hips were aching so badly he couldn't lay down. And he was starting to have trouble breathing. I mean, really having trouble. Then finally, his skin starting falling off in chunks. I vacuumed the living room every morning because he was sleeping on the living room floor.

He was diagnosed with rhuematoid arthritis about 15 years ago and then psoriasis about 13 years ago. Both were treated independently of one another. Throw in knee surgeries, back issues, and foot problems, and he's been in significant pain 90% of the time during our span of marriage. He made an appointment with yet another dermatologist and went to work (this was several weeks ago) but one look from his boss during her visit and she sent him home telling him she couldn't bear to watch him try to work on cars while collapsing in chairs and hobbling around dragging the worst foot. She said it looked like shingles. He called me on the way home freaking out because his appointment wasn't for another week - he has no sick leave. I called the local family practice office and looked at pictures of shingles on the 'net. It did look similar to that. The dr. worked him in and told him he had psoriatic arthritis - it's a different form that must be treated specifically. The type of psoriasis he has causes this arthritic reaction and you cannot treat for *just* psoriasis or *just* arthritis, it has to be treated properly - for the disease, not for the two independently. Which is what he's done for over a decade. This type of arthritis attacks the bones, not joints (although they do swell and become painful), and makes the bone "fluffy". It also constricts breathing, that's why he couldn't breathe. His blood pressure is now sky-high and won't come down despite trying several different meds.

She told him this was the worst case she'd ever seen, drew blood to confirm it, and gave him a "super shot" of steroids to get it uncle control pdq then told him to go to the specialist in town who can treat it. That shot was a miracle! Within two days you could see the bones of his ankle again and by the end of the week he could bend over and touch his toes or sit cross-legged on the floor. I've NEVER seen him do either of those things! He went the following week to the specialist and he confirmed that he does have the disease. He explained that long-term steroid use is not advisable and he recommended Enbril, a twice a week injection taken at home. Just one catch - it's $2400.00 each month for 8 shots. Yes, you read that right..... twenty-four hundred dollars every four weeks. Naturally, most insurance companies deny it. My wonderful Wal-Mart insurance approved it because there's no way we could actually *get* it... our deductible at 20% would be nearly $500 each month. So they approved *that* but denied the $250 cream - I'm sure because we'd be able to actually get that one.

But Wal-Mart has yet to fully understand the determination of 'ole Loopy. You'd think they would have learned by now.

I contacted the Pharmacare office and they have a program for people needing access to Enbril who are advanced enough that the disease will kill them if they don't get the opportunity to get it under control. There are 68 people in the country they have allowed to be on this program and, get this, they will eat all but $75 of our deductible and they'll do this for two years - while Wal-Mart picks up nearly $2,000.00 each month. Hopefully that will be enough time to get it under control and perhaps have some other options. They are hoping that will buy him another 10-15 years.

I can't believe I just typed that. We are hoping to prolong my husband's life for 10-15 years. It is devastating to read that and accept it. Yes, I'm crying.

We have talked at length this week and will continue to make plans. How do you plan for this? When do we tell the boys? He's worried about getting the farm in working condition with an income from the animals and boarding so that I can have something to either continue or sell. Naturally, we are ineligible to purchase more life insurance, or it will be priced out of our hands from this point forward. I can feel the urgency in him as he talks of what needs to be done yet this year - the fences he needs to put up, the shelter in the back pasture, the stalls in the barn, the additional pens to separate animals as needed. And then he really laid it on me. "I won't stay around and live like I have the past six months." I know what he means and I understand it. I wouldn't want him to. The pain he's been in the past six months has left him contemplating the unthinkable on many occasions. I do understand choice and I respect that. He'll stay as long as there's hope and as long as it's under control. Once the doctor's tell him it's beyond the point of reversing or managing.... well. And then even more heartwrenching, "You'll still be young enough, you'll find someone else." My heart lurched and jumped in my throat. It's still there. Stuck.

It's like a hallway you walk down and there are doors that are locked and you can't open, doors that open freely, and ones you just know you shouldn't open. I don't want to open the door to really *know* all of this. I don't want to. I've spent the week immersing myself in project after project and exhausting myself physically so that I don't have time to think about it. I can't. I can't open the door. If I open it, I'll break.

I don't know what we'll do. I'm not sure what to do anyway. He seems determined to continue with our farm plans because anything we do here increases the value dollar wise as well as our quality of life. It will keep us busy. And it's always been his desire, to have a working farm. We just need to speed up the process. At the point we're at, all the upcoming major projects will require a tractor so I'm going to re-figure our budget and call the bank to see about a loan. We had not wanted to take on any further debt but our rate of saving and plan was to have a tractor in the next few years and that's too long.

Pharmacare agreed to send an emergency shipment off the normal delivery route and we ordered it Monday. It came last night after the dr. office had closed so I called the 800 number to find out how to inject him. I'd done insulin shots before for a friend but that was years ago and I was holding $400 in my hand so I didn't want to make any mistakes kwim? She talked me through it, there are several things to remember about choosing sites and then.... we did it. I was shaking from nervousness but I did it. I think next time will be easier. We're watching him for reactions and will take note of anything. We're also watching to see if it appears to start helping him. See, that's the rub. It only works in 50% of the patients who've taken it. Another door I can't open.

I bought 40 bags of topsoil, compost, and peat this morning and two flats of plants. A new shade garden has been planted. Another two trailers full of rocks have joined the rock pit. The field north of the barn has been mowed, trimmed, and picked up. I've made a path out to the West pastures to start working out there next week. Tomorrow I'll take calls all day and then again over the weekend, working at Wal-Mart during the evening. Next week, when the boys are at school, I'll need to make soap and come up with other projects. I just can't open the door. I can't let the boys or anyone see what will happen to me if I do. I can't lose him. I can't. I lived for him and he has to live for me.

Just had to come back and post some pics of the hens and chicks. The babies have gotten brave enough to fly up and over two straw bales so we went ahead and let them out of their pen and the coop. We put Jack (the dog) in the house to give them a day or so of getting used to free ranging. You can see them coming to the back door covered with chicken wire to get a look at me.

Then a couple of them were brave enough to venture out of the coop.




I took lots more and then snapped some of the hens resting under a tree while the rooster guarded them but I need to get dinner started and get ready for work. I'll post those tomorrow on the gallery page of the site.

I'm just NEVER happy!

OK, over 100' for weeks on end and we haven't had rain since before I had kids. We *need* rain here. So it rained last night. It wasn't really a rain, it was a torential (yes, I'm quite sure that's spelled wrong and I don't even care) downpour that was so thick you couldn't see the barn and it preceded a day of mid-80' temps. You'd think I'd be happy. You'd think I'd be working on the front of the house project right now wouldn't you? You'd think I'd have moved a veritible (probably another misspelled word) mountain of rock and totally cleaned out the goat pen. Well I haven't. Why? IT'S MUDDY!!!!!! I feel like Rosanne Rosanna Danna you know, "If it's not one thing it's another." I did open the house up in order to allow the cool breeze to waft through. Naturally it brings wet, heavy humidity with it. Argh!

I kept stretching my neck to see if the UPS man is pulling up the road bringing my oils for soapmaking. I have everything laid out and ready to go except the scent. I can't decide. I will only get to make one or two batches a week so I must choose my scents carefully. (Actually it will be determined but the fullest bottle, but I'm trying to build suspense and make it seem like a huge decision. Work with me.) Not lucky enough. I have Tuesday and Wednesday off both jobs and I'm quite confident he will be here Thursday or Friday then. I'm working both jobs Friday so I'm betting he'll be here that day. That's my luck. Oh well, maybe I'll try to make it over the weekend.

Yesterday I taught Kenny to use the tree trimmer thingy and he proceeded to do all my work for me. Sometimes I am so smart! The little guy was thinking this was all so much fun going to the trees around the patio, then the side of the house, then the front of the house, and so on and so on. While he cut off all the bush growth around the bottoms of the trees I picked up three full lawmower trailer loads of rock from around the front porch - and I barely made a dent! Good gravy there's alot of rocks out there! These were, I'm sure, intended to be a rock path or borders at some point but just never evolved and were instead just.. well, a pile of rocks around the front of the house. I worked on that until my back gave out and arms were shaking then Kenny and I relaxed in the shade for a while sipping ice water and admiring our work. He was so good and helped so much! He even helped me unload the branches on the burn pile and the rocks into the rock pit. I think he finally realized it was work when we got inside and for the first time in weeks he napped. Awwwww.

I grabbed paper and pen to head outside again and get a plan together. I think over the next week I can get all the rock moved, the winter insulation moved (read, straw bales) since it's laying willy nilly out there, and get the area cleaned up for fall planting. While this area isn't 100% it's mostly shaded all day and I think I'd like to get some ground cover in there like ivy or something. Grass just doesn't grow out here because we don't water so over-seeding will be done with bermuda, but I think this area is too shady for grass. I also figured out where to plant the 10 or 12 willows we've got started in buckets. There's an area that doesn't get shade in the morning on the east side of the house and they'll be perfect there. I've decided we need shrubs all around the house so I'll be getting that ground ready for the fall as well. I'd like to go with something green like boxwoods but I think they're pretty slow growers. I'll keep checking on this.

Naturally, all this information is in the handy dandy new farm binder. It's a pink and green design with matching tabs. Ahhhhh, life is good. :)

Wow!

Ed and I just went over the bills vs. income and found several things which we weren't even counting related to me working full time. Holy crap, I'm actually making $100 MORE every two weeks by picking up some commits at the telephone center (which I do at home in my pj's LOL). And that's just for starters! I've only scheduled myself for roughly four hours a day on the weekends up to this point but this morning I picked up another hour and a half and made $15. If I do this just twice a week I will make $150 each paycheck more than when I was full time at Wal-Mart. Good gravy, and to think what I've been through the past year for that company and sacrificed. It almost makes me want to cry. Cry all the way to the bank that is! :)

I spent the past couple of days working on the library which has now become my soapmaking supply room. Everything is organized, inventoried, and ready for action. I also created my list of things I need to order to begin soaping and I gotta say.... I'm so ready! I haven't made a batch in sooooo long it will be so much fun. As soon as I get several batches cured I'll be able to list them on the site for sale. I also need to go through some things around here to get onto eBay - although I haven't done that in so longer either that I think I've probably forgotten how, especially when I hear people talk about the continual changes over there.

All in all, I think I'm adjusting nicely to being home again. I still haven't organized the freezer and it's driving me crazy so I'll probably get to it in the next week or so. I went into Wichita yesterday, first time since I left the Wichita store I was in. I forgot Jenn's number because I had some extra time and thought about stopping by, but I didn't want to show up unannounced. Although, knowing Jenn, unless she was involved in something she probably wouldn't have minded. :) I plan to go in every two weeks so I'll remember to set that up for next time.

I also realized this morning that I hadn't enrolled the boys in school. Yes, I know, kind of an important thing eh? I drove by the high school and wondered why all the parents were going in and then it suddenly hit me.... DUH! It's enrollment day! Oh well, got that done.

Today is going to be 103' and it already feels it! OMG you could lose children in the cracks in the ground around here. Luckily we have no neighbors to impress and no fescue growing because I wouldn't want to use water right now, even our well water. Save every bit of electricity for running the a/c! I put a sticky chicken in the crockpot and have a mess of beans cooking along side it for everyone to eat while I'm at work this evening.

Enough playing, I've got a freezer calling me!

What a wonderful weekend!

We went to Marion Lake on Saturday to take the boat out and meet and friend with her daughter. It was a perfect day for boating, if just a tad windy for my taste. The boys are over their fear of swimming in the middle of the lake so several times we just turned the boat off to drift and all jumped in. Darren practiced his diving, well really it's still in the knee first stage but getting better! We tubed for just a little bit and only sat on shore long enough to make some sandwiches. It was just a perfect lazy Saturday.

Ed did manage to get another panel of the large double stall in the barn set. The dirt is so dry and rock-hard that he actually broke a post hole digger! He kept adding water to the hole and letting it soak in, finally getting it soft enough to dig down. I didn't want him out there too much as it was 102'for most of the afternoons and that's really really hot inside of a barn!

I've been trying to get up earlier in order to appreciate doing chores in the 70' weather rather than the 90's as it is around 10:00. I've gotten my duties down as efficiently as possible and can be completely finished within an hour. Naturally, if I didn't spend as much time talking and playing with the animals if would take even less time, but what fun would that be? How often can one enjoy conversing with a crazy cow in the middle of a pasture? Sometimes, she's the best listener around. And I can't forget feeding the goats hedge leaves. They just worship me when I head out the to tree and will knock down any child with feet not firmly planted on the ground as they run out to greet me.

I'm feeling a little girlie today and will either unpack soap-making supplies or paint my nails. It's a toss-up.