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.