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.