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.