Battling Breast Cancer

 I know I have been absent awhile.  I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer November 17th 2022.  I just didn’t feel up to writing.  I have had a lot of testing, chemotherapy, 2 surgeries, radiation, way too many blood tests, went bald…grew hair back that is silver and curly, have lymphedema now and doing physical therapy.  I have had lots of scans and tried several drugs that had bad side effects too.  I am tired, but I am surviving stage four breast cancer…so far anyway.

I had to reduce my flock, haven’t had a garden in two years and have been concentrating on getting better, trying to get some strength back.  I just have flowers and a few tomato and pepper plants in pots.  All the things I was doing on the farm, pretty much stopped.  So, I didn’t really have anything to write about.

It has been a tough journey.  It is very hard to make decisions about treatment, especially when things like chemotherapy haven’t worked on relatives like my brother and grandfather.  I have a CHEK2 mutation, not the traditional BRAC1 or BRAC2.  I believe the mutation comes from my Mom’s side of the family, it is more common in people with Polish Ancestry.  From what I read, CHEK2 is the gene that fights cancer, mine doesn’t do a good job.  I had ovarian cancer before and there are several others that people with the mutation are more susceptible to.  My brother had brain cancer which is one, my grandfather had kidney cancer, which is another, colon cancer and prostate cancer too.  I tried Chemotherapy and it didn’t work on me, but it didn’t work on my brother and grandfather either.  

I am still standing, just painfully so.  I am doing my best to figure all this out, they really need to come up with better treatments that aren’t so damaging to your body.  I guess if I wasn’t built like a “brick shithouse” like my Dad use to say, I may not have done as well as I did.  You would not believe all the supplements and concoctions I have taken.  In spite of going through chemotherapy and it not shrinking the tumors, I am still walking around all be it slowly because of neuropathy at times.  Hormone blockers are the devil too, so is Verzenio…my body doesn’t like them and I quit taking them.  I am hoping my body will heal from the damage from those, I don’t like taking drugs that make me feel awful.  At times I cannot use my hands, my tendons hurt and my knees and hips aren’t operating like they should and the sharp pains hit and I have to sit down.  I get out of breath easily too, that is not normal and I started coughing the last week of radiation and drugs made that worsen.

I had after treatment scans, they don’t show any Metastic disease (cancer), but a few other things have popped up, not sure what will happen next.  Wish me luck, I need all I can get.

Angel Baby

It was a long weekend of canning and attempting to get things put up.  I have learned how to can meat and beans lately.  When I am busy all day in the orchard or garden, cleaning chicken coops, tending bees or doing general yard work and daily chores, it comes in very handy.  Pressure canning is time consuming, but spending a day or two doing it, I can have home cooked meals for a few weeks when I don’t feel like cooking after a long day.  Canned brisket is really good for street tacos or burritos, and slapping some on a bun with pickles onions and BBQ sauce is great!

We have had the white dog Angel in the house for about a week now, she is pretty good at going into her kennel with a treat prompt, but she is food aggressive with my dogs.  She is a counter surfer, which I need to remember it is not good to leave anything out she might like.  She needs to learn the house rules.  I guess she decided she needed some cheese shreds last night because I left them on the island…she ate what was left in the bag then my dog Gretchen brought the empty bag into the living room.  I cannot see into the kitchen from the living room…but, since my dogs have never done anything like that…I know it was Angel.  

Angel was taken to the mobile vet today for Spaying and shots.  She was let into the house so that she could get use to being in a kennel.  It is very hot out, the anesthesia makes it hard on them for regulating body temperature…so she gets to be in the house.  It has been hard with the food aggression.  My dogs are use to sharing.  Angel has started a few fights and I am hoping spaying helps calm down the fighting.  My dogs have some battle scars now.  Poor Sophie didn’t do anything but try and eat and now the bridge of her nose has a couple of wounds and swelling, her eye keeps getting gooey too.  You would think a 100+ pound dog would put a 45 to 50 pound dog down…but she came out the looser in that fight.

Angel Baby is a protective dog and she will put other dogs down that try to get to me, Roxy and Warren have both just wanted attention and she will take them down too.  These are the dogs the neighbor left to starve.  We want to keep Angel, but not at the expense of our dogs happiness or health.  So I am hoping the lady helping me with them is right and the spay will help.  Otherwise she will have to go.  

We had an unfortunate event yesterday too.  We let the dogs stay inside while my husband mowed and I picked fruit.  I normally put my dogs in their kennels if I am going to be outside awhile, but, I didn’t yesterday.  I was just picking blueberries so I figured I wouldn’t be outside that long.  I came in and after washing the berries, went into the living room.  At first I thought the dogs tore up one of their beds…until I picked up a piece of what I thought was foam rubber…it was not!  It took me a minute to realize what it actually was…it felt slightly sticky, it had a mild scent…it was everywhere, all over the floor, the rug, several of the dog beds.  I noticed one of my candles was missing and put two and two together.  Yep, they chewed up a 3 inch thick pillar candle that was about 8 inches tall.  It was tiny bits and pieces, with a few bigger pieces maybe an inch or so…but the floor and surfaces were covered in wax.

Oh well, live and learn!  I am hoping that Warren, the last male has a home soon.  He is a good boy and I like him, but I can not have 8 dogs much longer.  I spend too much time cleaning up messes like the wax, or cleaning up things they chew up outside, or filling holes so I don’t break an ankle.  My patience isn’t what it use to be and I have enough to do already!

Dogs everywhere!

 When we named our place it kind of happened because we had three dogs, but my Dad use to always talk about a Three Dog Night, it is kind of named for both.  My Dad loved the Piney Woods of East Texas, he never made it out here, he never saw any of my dreams coming true…he died at the age of 49.  

Why did I bring that up?  Well, I have always liked big dogs…having acreage is kind of nice when you have big dogs.  I no longer have just three dogs anymore though, it seems like I have collected a few more.  We found Ciara on the side of the house as a very young, sickly puppy.  I can’t basically nurse a dog back to health from the brink of death and not have an emotional attachment.  I got Gretchen and Schotzie from my local feed store, they had been dropped off on a highway and Gretchen followed me all over the store, Jackie was trying to find homes for the puppies and it was the last two.  She already had 7 dogs at home…she couldn’t take them home and was worried about leaving them at the store…lol, I love puppies!  Yep I took them home.  We had lost one of our original three, so now we have five big dogs.

Well…we did have five, but then my husband saw how skinny the neighbors dogs were.  Noticed that it didn’t look like they were still there.  The dogs were chasing cars, and getting thinner.  He took food to them.  The next morning he asked me to take more food to them and water.  I did…and it appeared that one of them was nursing puppies.  She was very food aggressive.  I spread food out so the five of them could all eat…but, she stood on top of the food and if any of them got close, she barked and snapped at them.  I told them tho follow me, we could get some more food at my house.  I could easily count their ribs, their hip bones were poking out and the spine was clearly visible.  I knew we needed to help them, if we didn’t they would die.

The first few days they would go back to their house after I fed them.  I saw the Momma dogs face in the window of one of the abandoned houses next door.  I had not seen her puppies, but thought they might be in that house.  My husband forbid me to search the houses for the puppies.  But, after reaching out on social media a lady who helps rescue dogs came out and found them.  Trouble is, we didn’t have a place for 5 adults and 5 puppies at my house!  Yes, ten dogs!  Remember, I already have five big dogs.  Well, the Momma dog decided to move her puppies under my shed, the adults took up residence on my porch.

At least they had food and water, some kind of shelter too…my porch and under my shed.  I tried to find a rescue, they were all full.  So, I asked for help and I have gotten help.  Food and donations.  Good news is, I was able to keep the puppies until they were weaned, then a foster was found and now the five puppies have all found homes.  The three adult males were all health checked and neutered, two have found homes.  The Momma dog has dried up now and will be scheduled for spay soon, if she is ready.  The white female gets spayed Monday, it has been postponed a few times.  I have one male left to find a home for too.  But all in all, the dogs are healthy getting spayed and neutered and their shots.  At the moment, I still have 8 dogs, not the original 3, but at least these extra ten won’t be a statistic out here and I won’t find their bones and fur in my woods.

Good Productive Day

I am always grateful for each morning I wake up and can walk upright without too much pain.  I just turned 63 so I have the usual problems that come with age, arthritis, back pain, stiffness, you get it if you are over fifty.  I didn’t really want to go out and muck chicken coops today, but we have storms coming and a blast of winter temperatures hitting tonight and several days of cold.  My body does not like temperatures below about 45, I have screws and wire in both feet too and I can feel exactly where they are and it hurts.  So, I decided today would be a great day to muck out coops!  I would much rather work outside when it is in the 60’s than in the 30’s or low 40’s…especially if it is damp outside.

I have never seen any kind of tool that was specifically for mucking out chicken coops.  However, I really like using a digging fork and a commercial roof scraper.  I use the roof scraper on the wooden floors or to scrape a layer of muck off of the sandy soil we have.  It has a long handle and a slightly bent shovel like blade almost a foot wide.  I also use metal putty knifes and taping blades for flat roosts and some walls, plastic putty knives for some plastic nest boxes.  I am pretty good at figuring out good tools to use for the particular dirty jobs.  Long handle stiff brushes for dish type waterers and long handled car wash brushes for plastic 3 to 5 gallon waterers…the soft brushes get in the grooves a bit better.

Today my tools of choice were varied, I had a muck bucket, a big garden cart, my brushes and net covered sponge, my wide blade putty knife, my scraper, my digging fork and my rubber coated gloves…I started with the duck house.  The duck coop has a dirt bottom, if there is enough straw or wood shavings, it usually is not too awful to remove all of the spent bedding…it is dryer under the top layer, so it basically scoops up fairly easy.  If it hasn’t rained a lot, it usually doesn’t smell bad either.  It was unusual today, I didn’t have chicken and turkey helpers…but that may be because I let the dogs run the yard and they would periodically come check on me.  I did have to holler at the youngest several times, she likes to chase chickens and jump in the duck pools.  I like them running around the large open area, it wears them out and they will nap when we go inside.  I dug down to fresh dirt in the duck coop, then spread a bundle of pine shavings on it.  Normally I use straw, I had straw…but the chickens will go in and scratch around in there so much, the kick a good part of it out…not so much with pine shavings.  The straw has some wheat left in it, the pine doesn’t have that.  I felt pretty good after getting that one mucked out, went and dumped the garden cart and went to the breeding pens next.

The coop section in the breeding pens is pressure treated plywood, I don’t normally put straw in it unless it rains a lot or it stays cold for longer than a couple of days.  The chickens just sleep on roosts above the floor…it gets nasty quick sometimes.  The commercial roof scraper works well in this area, I have to use the muck bucket in this coop…and then carry it to dump. There are actually four sections, four feet by four feet square…but all connected, if that makes since?  I did divide the coops intending to divide the run, but never have completed it.  The run is divided into two sections though, so I could separate two breeds in it.  The plan was to make 8 sections total for breeding purposes, but things changed and I had to use materials differently than originally planned.  There were going to be 8 doors too…but the structure is half the size originally planned.  The run has a metal roof, all of my coops runs are covered in metal now…I had polycarbonate on them, but after some huge hail punching holes in it, a change had to be made.

I don’t know why I am telling you this, I guess because things evolved and mistakes had to be fixed over the years. If you get into chickens maybe, it will help you decide how to build things or something.

I just really got in my groove today and got a lot done in the cleaning department.  We call our coops different names, so we know the locations and what coop it is.  My chicken yard is divided up by different fenced areas too.  I try and clean three coops in a day when I clean, I don’t always get all three, because some days things don’t go as planned.  Today I did four and moved dirt too!  I know I will probably feel it tomorrow.  But today was a good day.  

I still have repairs to make, but that will have to wait a bit longer.

Last Bathroom Floor is Done!

I think we did pretty well getting the bathrooms in this house fixed up.  They aren’t perfect, but we learned and did them all ourselves, with the exception of having some help in the beginning.  We had to fix several plumbing issues that he did, pipes started leaking in the wall, so with the help of push to fit connectors my husband got the plumbing repaired.  It was left to me for the most part, to do the sheetrock and repairs, he textured some then I finished texturing and painted.  I am not really familiar with plumbing other than faucet change outs and my husband did that for me this time.  We managed to remodel two bathrooms in one year!  Lol, eventually we will need a new vanity and tub in the guest bath, but it isn’t used that much so it may be awhile for that much of a renovation.  I ripped up the stained vinyl flooring, scraped and cleaned the floor, patched the walls and did fresh paint and then laid tile, oh and painted baseboards and put them back on.  It looks much better than it did.  I bought a plug-in light for over the sink so you could see to shave or put on makeup, but we put up a new overhead light when we first moved in, the fixture was awful and only had a single light and it was rather dark.  One of these days I might hire an electrician to actually wire for a light over the sink.  Maybe when we replace the bathtub and vanity…or I will learn how to run electrical wires and add a switch.  My husband can do it, he just doesn’t like going into the attic, especially when it is hot out.  We renovated the office bathroom about this time last year and the master bath about a year before that (I need to fix the shower floor still though…maybe I will do that soon.

This time of year is the best for me to do outside projects, but I have been working inside mostly.  Put different shelving in my small pantry and decided to start the changeover from what we previously used as “the kitty room” to a walk-in pantry.  I cleared it out, moved the cats to the non-carpeted guest room and got to work.  I am not completely done, but all four walls have shelving now.  I took a bunch of small appliances off my counters and put them in the “new” pantry, and actually have all my canning jars, implements and canners in one spot…I think?  I am just finally trying to get better organized.  I took some shelves out of that room and actually added them to my closet.  So I have several projects going at once really.  I need to get things done before spring and gardening season.

I want to get started on my kitchen island build and greenhouse too.  But, I need to do some chicken coop repairs too.  I need to prioritize things and some things just have to be pushed to the back burner at times, so other things can be done that are more important.  Housing animals verses building an island?  Well, animals are first on that one.  I keep swearing I will get the greenhouse built…who knows when it will really happen?

Lol…guess what?  After being here in the country for 9 years, we finally invited someone to dinner!  I would have preferred to have everything neat and orderly before we did it.  But the sky didn’t fall and at least when they used the guest bath, it didn’t look like someone peed on the floor anymore!  

Getting Things Done

It was tough going for awhile with a new puppy, but she is doing great.  Ciara is getting close to fifty pounds now, she is almost as tall as Gretchen my smallest dog who we rescued a bit over two years ago.  Ciara is close to six months old now, so not done growing yet.  She is however potty trained…so I can leave her unattended for a few hours to work on the house, on nice days the dogs go outside while I have loud tools going in the house…otherwise they go into their kennels.

We had a strange thing happen.  We haven’t had company since the pandemic lockdowns, so about two years.  We don’t normally use the quest bathroom, but…do you know if you don’t use a bathroom the water in the toilet dries up and sewer gases escape?  It happened and did not smell great.  So, we have been trying to remember to go flush that toilet at least once a week.  Well, sometime between the last time we flushed it and my trip in there to clean it for company coming…small piles of what looked like sawdust or sandy dirt appeared behind the toilet.  We were afraid of maybe termites in the wall, or carpenter ants.  I talked my husband into removing the toilet so we could cut and look into the wall to see what was happening.  I got the bright idea of repainting and tiling the floor since the toilet was out of the bathroom, and had him remove the vanity too.  There were no ants or termites in the wall that I could see, I cut a good sized section open too.  I drilled holes in the bottom of the wall in several spots too, no bugs or sawdust/sand came out.  I did put some powdered termite and carpenter ant killer in the wall, I sprayed a foam termite and ant killer in the holes I drilled, just in case.

Anyway, after I repaired the sheetrock and textured it… I pulled up the nasty vinyl that has been bugging me for over 8 years.  It didn’t matter how much I scrubbed it, or bleached it…it would not come clean.  Lol…I had also splashed bleach on the wall and it ruined the paint, several years ago.  White spots on Amethyst Smoke (purplish gray) paint is not attractive.  It took me a few weeks because of other chores and having to get some materials, but I got the bathroom painted, tiled baseboards painted and installed, then my husband got the toilet installed and plumbing all hooked back up in time for company.  I am still working on decorating it, but it looks tons better.  No more nicotine stained floor!  No more white splotched too dark of paint.  We will probably do a more extensive renovation one of these days and replace the bathtub and surround, and the vanity…but with a new faucet and cleaned up well, it will do for awhile longer.  I kind of like the Industrial Farmhouse look, so eventually I would like that look in the guest bath.  We did what we use as our office bathroom during the lockdowns, it looks pretty nice too…I still need to do the backsplash on that one…but not bad doing two bathrooms in about a years time.

I am working on my pantry too, and what was once used as an office because it is only a 9’x9’ room…it is going to be a walk in pantry eventually.  I just have to learn a bit more carpentry, I want to move the door from the living room to the kitchen though…so framing and sheetrock will have to happen as will floor repair.  I may decide to tile the room…if I can still do it when I am ready.  For now, I am adding shelving…since I can fruits and veggies, I need storage.  My garden was pretty much a bust last year, so I have a bunch of empty jars from using what I canned the year before.

My husband and I cut the plywood for a kitchen island today.  It is my next project.  I need to figure out the size of shelves I need for the pantry room and order them.  I am so far behind on normal chores too.  I don’t think I have completely cleaned my back porch for two years with all the projects, then my brothers illness and death…and my injuries and sicknesses too.  But, still getting things done…it is just taking longer than I like.

Cooler Weather at Last!

This past year has been rather hot.  Me being 62 and on blood pressure medication has made it seem worse, I sweat every time I exert myself…even cooking.  I have been so far behind on my chores because of this and from jumping off a ladder that was breaking and hurting my shoulder…I feel overwhelmed at times, trying to get things accomplished.  I kept trying to do heavy manual labor and my shoulder didn’t get much better, so I quit for about six weeks.  My shoulder is much better now and I am trying to get things done now, in the mornings when it is in the 70’s.  

I purchased six 8’x4’x12” metal raised bed planters that I am slowly trying to get put together…so far four are assembled.  We have a lot of rain during the first part of spring when planting normally occurs.  If I don’t till early, I can’t till during that time.  I just use a gas powered tiller that I have to manually control, it is getting harder and harder to do.  I didn’t have much of a garden this year, cucumbers and some green beans, I have yet to get a tomato out of it!   I am hoping these beds will help some, since I won’t have to till them. I am putting down a weed block, then cardboard,  before filling with soil.  The paths between them will also have weed block and wood chips so weeds should be controlled around them too…hopefully!

We also found an abandoned puppy in our side yard.  It was pretty bad off when we found it.  It was dehydrated, starving, tons of fleas covered it, so many that her skin was crusty and after washing her you could see sores and bald patches that seeped for the first two weeks we had her.  She also had a horrible case of round worms, her poor belly was huge…after the first worming, she pooped out large quantities of worms for days.  She was barely able to walk and her eyes seemed cloudy, but now I think it was because of the dehydration.  A friend brought goats milk to me, the puppy existed on goats milk the first week.  I started soaking food in goats milk and she didn’t seem too interested in it in the beginning, but slowly she started eating it.  I kept her in a laundry basket in the beginning, but the stronger she got the more I would take her outside to interact with the other dogs.  I cleaned her poop up every time and checked for worms. After she was worm free, she could roam the house with the other dogs and play.  We have now had her about 35 days, she is fully healed up, has doubled in size, weighs about 25 pounds now, her coat is sleek and shiny, she is crate trained, but potty training has not been great. I need to work on potty training  more…I wait and watch her go when I take her outside, but many times she will run in the house and go again!  She does spend a lot of time outside because of this, I do a lot of work outside and encourage her to go again before we go inside.  She does good during the day, when I am paying attention and taking her out regularly…but, not so much at night before bed.  It is making my husband mad…she pooped or peed in the house at least five times in a three hour window.  Hey, I gotta cook after spending all day doing things outside…so I am not paying attention to her, not much anyway.  I named her Ciara.  She is smart, she will learn, she already sits for treats and knows no biting and no.

Too Much To Handle

 I don’t like death.  With the pandemic it just made things so much more depressing.  My brother passed away in October.  He tried an immunotherapy drug as a last ditch effort when chemotherapy stopped working and he went down hill fast after that.  He was in and out of the hospital several times prior to that.  I spent several weeks with him during his end days.  He was younger than me by five years.  Watching your baby brother die from brain cancer is tough.  It was the hardest thing I ever did.  I went to help him and to give his wife a break.  They care for their great-grandson Moe too, so I learned how to help Moe too.  Moe is severely disabled, but his smile brought me joy.  I haven’t had any more contact with Moe or my brothers wife.  I will just say things did not add up and I questioned them and ended up being deleted, it is alright, I just worry about Moe.  

I was trying to make another big batch of food for Moe, but things keep happening and I only have four cases made, and I am not sure that those jars are sealed well.  Canning lids are scarce, they have been since the pandemic really took hold.  I purchased reusable lids and have had issues with them sealing.  Between those lids and my freezer going out and both mini fridges now.  I have had a tough time keeping the food to make the jars of food for Moe.  I had planted a fall garden, but I spent so much time away from home, I wasn’t home to take care of it and got very little out of it.  I didn’t plant a garden in the spring this year either.  Between trying to get caught up, injuries and lots of rain, I never could till it.  Even now trying to get a fall garden going it has been hard.  I did finally get maybe a third of my garden tilled, but all I have planted so far is cucumbers and green beans.  I have tomato plants in pots on my porch I need to get into the ground, but while pounding t-posts I had a bit of an accident and hurt my right arm and shoulder.  

I forgot snowmageddon too.  Yep, we had a late deep freeze and 14-1/2 inches of snow here...temperatures got down to -4 degrees too.  I still have not figured out what is really dead out in my orchard.  It hit as my blueberries, peaches, pears, plums and apples were in full bloom.  I lost some young trees and it through the growing season off big time.  The only good crop I have had is plums from my oldest plum tree.  Only a handful of blueberries came on the bushes too.  I do have two trees with a decent amount of apples, but even the pear trees only have a few pears on them and one peach tree has two peaches.  I lost an Almond and at least two peach trees.  Lost all but two Chickasaw Plums that I transplanted, and one of them is half dead.  Grapes too...I only have two grapevines left out of 8.  Some fruit trees have growth coming up from the bottom, but since they were grafted, I don’t know what they might produce...if anything.  One good thing, my pecan trees look really good this year...lol, maybe they will start producing in the next year or two?

This past year was tough, but we got through it.

Bad Year 2020 - Covid-19 Pandemic

You would think I would record my thoughts more often in a pandemic, what can I say?  Nothing for 7 or 8 months?  I stay busy and this year with my husband home, it seems more so sometimes.  I have to take it easy here and there though and he picks up my slack.  

Just so you know, my brother Eric is hanging in there.  He is not doing well, but most people with Glioblastoma brain tumors don’t do well.  I went and visited again after I made something like 20 cases of food for my Great-Grand-Nephew, he is disabled and my Sister-in-law has two to do total care for, she is one strong lady.  Anyway Moe has a hard time swallowing and has to eat fine purées, so I spent some time cooking up low salt, low sugar, puréed food, canned it in my pressure canner and took it and visited a few days.  I wish I lived closer, so that I could help Sheila more often and see my brother Eric more.  Eric and Moe are both immune compromised though, and since then...well, they declared a Pandemic on Covid-19.  I think my husband and I may have gotten it, but we didn’t get tested or anything, we both were sick for a few weeks and the cough lasted more like a month.  I haven’t gone to see my brother since then.

With my husband home, I have been able to do more with the garden this year.  I have done a lot of freezing and canning and I am not done yet.  I actually made Ketchup this year and canning more tomato sauce and pickles than ever.  My corn did fairly well this year and I tried asparagus beans which are still growing, but I have been pulling up the wilted and dead plants and need to till and get some new stuff planted.  It is hot though, and it is hard for me to stay out long.  I need to finish pulling weeds today and get back to work out there.  I always need to do more than there are hours in the day to do it!  My kitchen is a disaster too, buckets of eggs and canning paraphernalia, jars, pressure cooker and pans are everywhere, along with bins of things waiting for processing.  I really need to go pick my Elderberries if the birds didn’t eat them all...and pears, and apples.  I need to do a run-through of my orchard period.  

I have a bunch of chicks I am raising right now too.  One of my 8 foot brooders is full, my two porch brooders and I have three in the house too.  Yesterday one of my turkey hens hatched 3 poults out and we need to keep an eye out for more babies.  She was not happy when we took them away either.  Once she finishes hatching, we may move her to a private coop and let her raise them...I haven’t decided yet.  There is danger in letting her raise them as we do have large chicken snakes that get into the coops.  I have not done a total head count of chicks, but I will estimate about 40 older chicks and about 50 less than two weeks old.  I am about to clean my incubators and set more eggs too, my flock has been reduced more by predators this year...and my chickens are getting to old to produce near as many eggs.  I have a lot of hens that go broody, and I let them sit on eggs for two weeks, then took all of them away and candled them.  I put all of the ones that looked viable in the incubators, that is where some of the chicks came from.  I got chicks locally too, but quite a few died and I still haven’t figured out why, but I am speculating the heat. After loosing a lot, we noticed when looking at trail camera footage temperatures got up to 111/112 degrees, I had the chicks on my covered back porch and had fans going, I have thermometers out there but never saw over 95 degrees.  That is why I now have three brooders of chicks in my house too, I can control their environment a bit better.  I think I have lost five so far, any that hatched and got stuck on their back for no telling how long seemed to die, I don’t get up in the middle of the night to check my incubators though.  I did start checking more often during the day.  There is a greater risk when you take eggs broody hens have been sitting on, they don’t all hatch at once.  I have given the eggs 2 weeks to hatch, none hatched yesterday...so today I am cleaning out the incubators and starting a new batch.  By the time these hatch, the oldest chicks which are 9 weeks old now can go to a grow out coop on the yard.  My current house chicks can go out to the porch brooder or the ones in the yard depending on the temperatures.

Oh yeah!  I got bees!  We have been wanting bees for awhile.  I bought a hive for my husband’s birthday a couple of years ago.  A neighbor (well sort of) keeps bees and asked if I wanted a swarm, we had to put the hive together quickly but we have had them about five weeks or so now.  We couldn’t see a queen but they did stay in the hive and built comb and were hoping they would create a Queen.  No such luck...but, Steven brought me some capped brood and then I aquired a wild Queen from a swarm.  The existing bees seemed to take to her quickly, and in a few days we will see if she has been laying eggs.  I have to try and get there numbers up, if they don’t increase in numbers they may not make it through the winter...it is late in the year to get started, but I can feed them through the winter if needed and insulate the hive if I need to.  My husband is excited too.  He cleared trees up on the shooting range and we got fencing put up with a string of electric fencing on top to keep critters from climbing over it.  We haven’t moved the hive up there yet, but after we get some more work done and make sure the hive will survive we have enough .room for at least five hives fenced.  It will take time to get several hives established, but I am hopeful...and the bonus will be honey...and my orchard and garden will have plenty of pollinators!

Hard Times

I am grateful.  Grateful I still have a roof over my head, grateful to see another sunrise, grateful for many other things.  Last year was rough though and I am hoping this year will be better.

We ended up closing down my husband’s computer shop, there was just not enough business to keep it open anymore.  We closed it down before Christmas.  It was the first year we did not even exchange gifts to each other at all.  The previous two years weren’t much better, gifts that were more necessities were given.  The little town my husband had his shop in had another fire and it pretty much destroyed or heavily damaged three buildings.  After that business was even worse.

My husband is applying for jobs, but has only had one pre-interview, I would call it...with a recruiter.  I went for an Interview at a Walmart, but it was over the state line in Louisiana and to get there was very winding roads and it was 23 miles...and they require you to work nights.  I have an issue seeing on these dark roads with no street lights at night, headlights are like laser beams in my eyes and it really makes it hard for me to see. I told them I would have to pass if I had to work nights.  So I applied for more jobs, but so far only have had an interview at McDonalds.  I figured before I started a job there I would get my yearly health exams taken care of, went to the doctor and my blood pressure was high, had a UTI too which surprised me, I didn’t have symptoms really.  Anyway, doc put me on high blood pressure medication and something for the infection and next thing you know I was having horrible pain, especially in my knee.  Back to the doctor I go, two days before I am to start at McDonalds.  My doctor was afraid I had developed a blood clot, so he sent me to the hospital across the way for a Doppler sonogram on my leg.  No blood clot, thank goodness, but a Baker’s Cyst was found behind  my left knee.  It hurt something awful when the technician ran that Doppler doohickey across it and pressed down on it.  My knee is still having pain after almost two months of what I call rest.  I called McDonalds and told them I couldn’t come in.  I am afraid since it still hurts and is still swollen, I am going to have to go see an Orthopedic doctor.  So no real job for me right now.

I have been resting my knee, sitting on my butt the majority of the day.  I wouldn’t be able to do it if my husband wasn’t home.  He has been taking care of the poultry...what is left of them.  We have been having pretty bad predator issues this year.  This year we have a bobcat or two, raccoons, possums and possibly an owl or eagle and hawks.  We have been losing several poultry a week.  Some just disappear without a trace, others we find half eaten out in the yard in the middle of the day.
We walked out onto the back porch and saw a huge bird drop out of the sky and swoop down into the chicken yard.  The chickens were under the bushes screaming, geese honking, turkeys gobbling, ducks making a racket...I don’t blame them, whatever came at them was huge.  It looked to have a six foot wingspan.  I was thinking it was an eagle, I am still not sure what it was, through the wings looked a red-orange and the primary flight feathers were white.  I didn’t see any barring or black on the underside of it, and it had a white or cream colored belly.  Anyway, after catching numerous critters in the trap, and one of my neighbors dogs...we are still having 2 to 4 deaths a week.

Now for news on my brother with Glioblastoma.  He got through his radiation and first round of chemotherapy, and things looked pretty good.  They started him on another stronger chemotherapy and he ended up in the hospital.  In a months time, the tumor they had removed grew back and has spread to the other side of his brain.  I have been doing research and it looks like he has a Butterfly Glioblastoma, one of the rarest types.  The chemotherapy has been stopped since it is not working.  They are suppose to start another type of treatment soon, I hope it works.  I was able to go see him for a couple of days.  I have not seen much of my family since we moved to the country, it is what I miss the most since we moved out here.  It is tough with a farm, when you have animals depending on you and no one to care for them while you are gone.  My husband took care of them so I could go.  I am just hoping it isn’t the last time I see my brother.

Not good, not good at all!

Update on my baby brother...he has Glioblastoma Type 4, a very aggressive cancer of the brain.  He has gone through 30 rounds of radiation and done chemotherapy at the same time.  He can no longer work due to seizures, not being able to drive and is very fatigued.  A man he works with set up a GoFundMe for him, well for expenses for my brother and his wife, they take care of their grandson too.  They have no insurance so this is going to be a hard journey for them.  There is no known cure for Glioblastoma.  It is the type of cancer that Senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy died from.

I pretty much started doing research and didn’t take care of my garden like I should have so not much canning this year.  It didn’t do much of anything in the way of production anyway, I didn’t amend the soil with anything, no chicken poop compost or ground eggshells, no Epsom salt either.  I just was busy doing my bathroom remodel and took a chance, it didn’t pay off.  I got very little fruit this year too.  I did can some peaches maybe 6 pints?  Only one jar of pear butter too.  The late freeze pretty much ruined crops for everyone around here.  I must do better next year, I didn’t even spray dormant oil!  Blueberries did pretty well and that is about it.  I have been attempting to make bread again, it has turned out decent, but I don’t have it down pat yet.  I have made hamburger buns and hoagie rolls so far.  I have also been baking cakes from scratch too, and a pie here and there.  My latest cake was for my surrogate grandsons birthday, lol...he wanted a cake with Spider-Man riding a T-Rex and being chased by puppies!  I did get it accomplished, I made figures out of sugar cookies and cut them out with a scalpel...note to self...use shortbread dough next time!  They expanded quite a bit.

Business at the computer shop has been really bad, my husband showed me the chart of yearly sales totals...it is awful when you hardly have enough money to pay the shops bills at the end of the month...and time and time again, you cannot pay yourself.  Not good for being in business for six years.  If we want to stay here, something will have to change.  We need a steady income of some sort, he has been applying for jobs elsewhere, but no one has called him for an interview or anything. I am going to have to see what may be out there for me.  If we cannot find something around here, we will have to move back to the city.  I need to get rid of the majority of my poultry, that should help somewhat...but, I know it won’t be enough.  I have been looking at smaller houses with less land on line, my husband wants to move to Florida or Arizona.  I guess we will see how everything shakes out...

Surprise!

Yep, I am finally writing!  So much has gone on the past few months I pretty much put myself on lockdown to get some things done.  The puppies are grown now, Shotzie is actually experiencing her first heat.  She remains slightly larger than Gretchen but, they are crate trained and potty trained, they do well on walks through the woods too, and they will both sit for treats.  They are little chow hounds and love scrambled eggs.  I did get a good portion of my garden planted and am starting to see small tomatoes, green beans and peppers.  It is not as much as I would like to have planted but, when you have as many chores as I do and you are doing a bathroom remodel virtually by yourself, I think I did pretty well.  My husband has been mowing more this year, so that helps a lot.

There have been a lot of firsts for me, with the bathroom remodel.  We, yes I am including my husband because he did do the ripping out part, some repairs to walls, and got the frame set for the cement shower base, and we got the new thicker cement board up, poured or smashed the concrete to create the base.  He plumbed and wired too.  We put up the vapor barrier and taped it together before the cement board went up.  He put up a piece of insulation that was missing and redid part of the plumbing that had sprung a leak too.  We did a lot together over the last year and a half.  It is not perfect, but it is a lot better than a broken 6’x4’ broken whirlpool tub with deteriorating Masonite board surrounding it.  I did all the tile work by myself, cut and placed new sheet rock, taped, mudded and textured the wall that needed it, painted, built the console for the sink base and put the sink and faucet on.  My husband got the toilet with a flange in and finished up hooking up the drain and water on the faucet.

It feels good to be able to use that bathroom again!  I did white subway tile on both ends of the shower all the way to the ceiling and a wood look tile in a herringbone pattern on the back wall, the bathroom floor is also the wood look herringbone tile.  I still need to work on the threshold or talk my husband in to it...the carpet to tile transition should be fairly easy.  I tiled out to the edge of the door frame, but still don’t have the barn door built, so no use rushing it.  Anyway, the tile was a bit tough on me, laying tile was not too bad, I am not fond of grouting and cleaning up a wet saw.  I still need to come up with storage solutions too.  I just have a metal basket stand, a few plastic drawers and I think it is a silverware caddy for storage at the moment.  The bathroom is not very big.

I have a lot of catching up to do now.  But, things are starting to get ripe, like Dewberries and Blueberries, I will have green beans shortly too.  I need to do spring cleaning and yard work. I haven’t finished outside tasks like drainage in the backyard or putting a roof on the run to my breeding pens either.  I will have to wait on any major brush removal, although my husband has taken down a few dead trees.  I really don’t want to get poison ivy again this year and much of the brush has it entwined through it.

Now on a more somber note.  My baby brother was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor, he went in to have a biopsy and they did full on brain surgery instead of just the biopsy.  He is not feeling well at all.  They removed a section of his skull to get to the tumors and he has a metal plate in his head now.  It has affected his vision, he gets dizzy and nauseous, and has areas on his face that he cannot feel anything where they cut nerves and muscle.  He has a bunch of staples in a semicircle from the center of his forehead, down to in front of his right ear.  It reminds me of Frankenstein...it looks like it hurts and he assures me it does...a lot!  I am glad that he is still able to walk this earth with us though and hope that the pain gets better soon.  We are waiting for his biopsy results, today is Day 12 after surgery...post-op?  I live far away from him now, but have been texting him every few days and have spoken with him on the phone.  I need to call and actually talk to him today.  I dislike talking on the phone, but need to hear his voice.  They believe he has cancer, but that it is a less aggressive form of cancer...we will know more fairly soon, I hope.  I want my baby brother to be good for at least another fifty years!  He told me they are planning on doing radiation on him after he gets his staples out.  I wish he didn’t have to go through all of this.  They took their sweet time setting up the biopsy in the first place.  But, when you don’t have insurance I guess everything moves at a snails pace.

Whittling Down

I got a bit crazy with my poultry raising, I just have too many and at the ripe old age of 60 I am learning the hard way, I need to cut back...a lot.  I would love to think that my body will last and be more like the age of a thirty something girl...but it isn’t.  I got sick in December, it lasted for several weeks, I got better...then got sick again right after Christmas.  The first time, I think was just a bad cold, but it lingered...probably because I spent so much time outside tending to my multitude of poultry.  I didn’t feel too awful, but it just took forever to go away, well...being out in the cold, wind and rain is not exactly good for a cold...especially not for the length of time it takes me to feed, water, muck out coops and spread fresh straw or pine shavings.  When I got sick the second time it was awful, if I sat still it was not too bad, but...you cannot do that when you have a farm.  Feeling weak and dizzy, chilled to my core, coughing, aching...well you get the picture and it didn’t want to go away.  Most of the time I can power through my chores.  At least if I put the major stuff off, like mucking large coops...not this time.  I actually asked my husband to help, or he volunteered and did it all.  But, during that time I realized...I need to downsize majorly.

I have been advertising here and there, trying to reduce the male population first and get rid of the adults that I raised...because everyone wants to know they are getting a male and female on poultry like geese and turkeys.  My feed bill has been awful for years and I don’t sell enough eggs, chicks or other poultry to pay for my flock, which was the goal to begin with.  I have been donating eggs to the local food pantry, so they wouldn’t go to waste.  I cannot keep being in the red every year.  So I didn’t have to keep feeding them, last year I gave away 62 roosters and two or three male turkeys.  I didn’t hatch as many last year, but yesterday, I gave away 20 adult roosters and a male turkey that decided to try and get me every time I fed the poultry in his area.  He did a surprise attack on me when I wasn’t looking and hit me hard in the knee...it was time, before I stabbed him with a pitchfork or something.  I still have several more males to get rid of too.  I had a guy who said he wanted my male turkeys...but, he never showed up and stopped communication, so I am thinking maybe he just said that so maybe he could get rid of some or something...who knows?  Yes, we could eat them...but, I don’t really have time to process them and my husband doesn’t really want to.  The plucking would be the worst part.  I may end up doing it anyway.  I have five extra males...I could probably fill the freezer up with ground turkey meat since the weigh about 35 pounds each.

I have just barely gotten my garden plants started in pots, I still need to do more and till again.  But it has been raining too much and Mother Nature has been a bit crazy lately.  One day it is almost 80 and the next it drops down in the 20’s!  My fruit trees have been trying to bloom since December, but a week ago a few were in full bloom when another freeze hit and it was in the 20’s at night for a few nights in a row....my daffodils croaked, but it appears that maybe all but one peach tree kept their blooms.  I guess we will see if they actually produce any fruits.  My Almond trees, apples, plums, peaches, pears and blueberries have blooms now...not all of them but the ones big enough to actually produce fruit are blooming pretty profusely now.  I am going to have to start mowing already too.

The puppies are growing like weeds, my Labrador retriever Kensie  is happy that they are willing to play with her, my Catahoula Bailee thinks she gets to rough and they had a fight, but the Catahoula that outweighs her got the short end of the stick...she got a pretty bad gash on her leg.  My Lab likes to try and pull the other dogs legs out from under them and Bailee wasn’t having any of that...so instead of falling over, Bailee stood her ground...and Kensie’s long teeth did a number on her.  When Bailee got hurt she gave Kensie a warning bark to leave her alone, but Kensie thought she was playing...next thing I know Bailee has Kensie down on the ground by the neck.  Kensie ended up with a puncture wound under her eye.  Did I really need five dogs?  Not really, but life is better with animals...except when they wake up up at 3:30am...then it is debatable.

Life With Puppies

I am glad I am an early riser, it has made it a bit easier having the puppies and trying to get them potty trained.  They are smart and learn fairly quickly.  The first two weeks were a bit tough on me, remembering to take them out every 30 minutes or so, there were a lot of accidents.  They are doing well now, it is only an occasional accident when we are trying to get the door open now, and sometimes they go on the back porch first thing in the morning.  They are practically inseparable, always playing together, sleeping together, eating together and even a lot of the time they will be side by side peeing together!  Lol, they are bonded.  When I have Gretchen in my lap and my husband will get Schotzie up in his...Gretchen will jump down and go jump in his lap to be with her.

My husband took them on their first walks with the big dogs and said they stayed up with them pretty well, he took them as far as the shooting range.  A few days ago I was trying to get my tiller cleaned up and ready to use, it wouldn’t start and after multiple attempts I got frustrated and decided to take all the dogs for a walk to see for myself.  I had only planned to walk them up to the shooting range, it is about a quarter of a mile up there...we ended up going to the back property line.  All the dogs would be running and disappear from my sight, I could hear the big dogs crashing through the woods...then they would come running and get back on the trail ahead of me.  I would call Gretchen and Schotzie and first one would come running...meet up with me and then run after the big dogs then the other, it was a repeated pattern.  The big dogs leading the way and the little dogs hot on their trail, vearing off the trail after the big dogs and all of them would run back periodically to see what was taking me so long.

My dogs are protective of me, especially in the woods.  If anything out of the ordinary happens, they will run to me and surround me, hair bristled up and growling at something I cannot see.  They are all hunting breeds, and have excellent tracking ability.  The puppies are too, I am not sure what they are...probably a mix, maybe Black Mouthed Cur and Plott Hound.  They may not be huge dogs when fully grown, but they will be strong powerful dogs.  At the moment they are a bit bigger than my Bengal cat and they don’t appear to be as heavy as they actually are.  I am sure they have put on several pounds since we took them in.  Plott Hounds were originally bred to hunt bear and hogs so with my Catahoula Cur being a hog dog, my Weimaraner and Lab more bird dogs, I think we have the spectrum covered for whatever may come into our woods.  My Catahoula is a good tracker to begin with, when my neighbors lost their cow she was able to find her on our 20 acres of timber and heavy vines in very short order.  She was a young dog that someone dropped off in the woods that we adopted, she had been hunting her food...I learned you don’t try and take her kills away early on.  She  is better now, but will still kill and gobble down a rabbit or squirrel pretty quickly.  She drug a quarter of a rotting deer up to the house once, I am guessing someone shot it and it got away...it smelled awful and she was eating it fur and all, I didn’t want her to get sick and I walked up to her and told her no...tried to grab a leg to get it away from her.  She didn’t bite me or anything, but she snarled and showed her teeth and gave me a warning bark.  I left her alone with that nasty thing for awhile, when she finally decided to come in, she had to have a bath...and I made her stay outside awhile.

The puppies are learning to sit with treats, they know their names now too.  Someone suggested putting a bell on the door for them to learn to ring it to go outside.  They are still learning on that, but they will strike it on occasion when I take them out.  I love having little puppies, they are such sweet loving animals.  Puppy breath, puppy kisses, puppy hugs and sleeping puppies in your lap...soft puppy fur and those wiggles with excitement when they see you...I know they won’t stay small for long, so I will enjoy it while it lasts.

Then There were Five!

I have been sick forever it seems, some kind of nasty virus this last time and a cough that is still lingering.  I am behind worse than usual because of it, my normal schedule is off.  My husband had to help big time with the care of the animals, the first few days I felt like someone had hit me with a spiked baseball bat or something. My legs were cramping so bad it was difficult to walk, all my joints and muscles ached, my guts hurt, I started on Elderberry and Zicam, even took Oil of Oregano...and the traditional NyQuil Severe Cold and Flu medicine.  If I kept my butt medicated and sitting still it was not to bad, but getting up to get a cup of hot tea or go to the bathroom made me break out in a sweat.  I would wake up cold and clammy too...my hair wet, my PJs wet with sweat, my bed damp where my head and shoulders had been.  I am almost well now, except for the coughing,still trying to take it somewhat easy, I don’t have all of my strength back, but I am getting there.

Anyway, my schedule has been off, my husband actually picked up feed and grocery shopped while I was feeling the worst.  I tried to avoid people too.  I went to the feed store last week on Saturday, I guess I was in the right place at the right time.  I have gone to this feed store for a number of years now, I chat with the owners frequently...when I walked in to place my order someone was petting puppies, I thought maybe they belonged to the customer petting them.  But the customer left without them.  I pet the puppies while I waited in line, and I fell in love.  I asked the owner about them...she said they were found on the highway and someone stopped to get them so they wouldn’t get hit by a car...she didn’t know what she was going to do with them over the weekend, she didn’t want to leave them in the feed store and she already had six dogs at her house.  I told her my husband would kill me if I brought puppies home, but...I would call him and see what he thought.

Well...he left it up to me.  When I went outside to call him, the puppies tried to follow me and cried at the door while I was outside making the call.  It tugged at my heart, puppies were not something I planned on.  I told the owner if she just wanted a home for them, I would take them home with me.  She thanked me, and said hang on...she handed me puppy wormer and pills to help with fleas and ticks.  They already had collars on.  Both puppies are little girls and will fit in nicely with my three dogs.  So, now I have five dogs!  They helped take the dogs to my truck, the puppies did really well on the ride home.  I had groceries in the truck and they didn’t bother them, they just laid on the seat next to me and were so good!

I had to unload groceries and put them away and the feed.  I put the puppies in the back yard while I did that.  I cleaned up a wire dog kennel to put them in while I let the other dogs out and so I could see how they would react to the puppies.  They sniffed them, but showed no aggression, thank goodness!  I let them outside and while the older dogs were out, I fed my poultry.  I checked on the puppies and called the big dogs in and kenneled them again.  I went and got my husband from work...and he got to meet them when we got back.  I think he fell in love with them quickly too.  We have to work on the whole potty training thing, they are definitely not potty trained, but they are learning.  They whined a little the first night, but quieted down pretty quickly.  Things are going pretty well so far, we have had them a week.  We have named them and gotten some items for them.  The big dogs are playing with them now and helping with behavior correction.  My Lab has pretty much taken over the role of Momma.  I went to the feed store and the owner said she was glad I took them, she wanted them to stay together.

They are little hound dogs, I started researching and I think maybe they are Plott Hounds.  They are smart, doing pretty good with potty training as long as they are taken out often.  They have also gone to the door a few times when the needed out.  They are close, they are like twins and are in unison walking together, sleeping together, eating out of the same bowl, even wagging their tails to the same beat.  This will take time, but even the cats are starting to come out and interact now too.  I am not planning on changing my farm name, the 3 dogs has meaning beyond just the three original dogs.  I will tell you I have missed having a puppy around, not so much the pooping and peeing in the house, but the energy they have and the unconditional love...puppy hugs and kisses are the best!  I enjoy having puppies around, I have always loved dogs too.  Time will tell how it goes, but the two girls have found a home.

My Stubborn Streak

I will admit it, I have a stubborn streak a mile wide.  When I really want to do something, I usually end up doing it.  I learn how, I innovate, I tough it out, I get things done that others don’t think I can do.  I usually don’t take on something that I believe is beyond my ability...or dangerous.  But, I also believe that, if there is a will...there IS a way.  I just try and figure out the way.

I have been using our two guest rooms as storage for my pantries.  My kitchen has what I consider a small pantry, but when you can things from your garden and orchard you tend to need more space for everything to do it and storage for the canned goods.  I had large wire shelving units full of stuff in both rooms.  When we found out about all the company we would be having, I decided to do some major cleaning and rearranging.  We had already rearranged the kitchen when the freezer broke and we got a new one, then got the old one repaired...why not continue the trend?  I think I mentioned that I wanted to convert a small nine by nine foot room into a pantry at some point, in an earlier post?  Well, I moved all of the racks into that room, along with a few other cooking and canning supplies.  I rearranged the furniture in one room to allow them more room for a Pack N Play for the baby.  I moved out the TV stand too and flipped the bed to another wall.  I took other things like my extra egg cartons and a huge ice chest and rack out of the other one too, although I did set up my inversion rack in there yesterday and moved a dresser to a different wall so the TV could sit on it...I still need to hook that up though.  I got my son to move a huge old fashion style TV to a cabinet in the office so I could have my rolling cart freed up too...lol, why not use his muscle while I have it?  The flatscreen TV was moved to the guest bedroom from that cabinet...but I can move that TV!  

The guest rooms actually look pretty good now, not so crowded.  I still need to clean the closets up though.  One is full of luggage and incubators...and a few canning supplies.  The other closet has brewing supplies and extra bedding, and some Christmas stuff in it.  I may have to move some things out to the storage shed, but with all the bugs and dust out here, I hate doing it.  Yes, this almost 60 year old moved everything but the big TV by myself, like I said...where there is a will there is a way!  That and a piano dolly and a handtruck help!

Things happened prior to Thanksgiving and my son from California didn’t spend as much time out here as I would have liked.  My son in Dallas had his apartment get flooded by his water heater rusting out and the visit was shorter because he was his ride.  Why bad things happen like that around holidays in my family is weird.  Every year around Thanksgiving here, well the pipes clog and I normally am down to the wire for Thanksgiving getting it taken care of.  It has been every year we lived here.  Our plumbing is a bit, how would you say it...not right?  I am thankful that it didn’t back up into the house and flood the floor while we had company.  It has done that a couple of times.  It is also not tied in to the back half of the house.  But the kitchen and office bathroom are affected by the clogged line.   We think that there is a section of pipe that catches things and our water is a co-op community well water that is treated, but it builds yucky stuff up in the pipes that calcifies and becomes like a hard shell?  Anyway, after spending several hundred dollars over the years, my husband found a gadget that he can use to break up the calcified section and get water flowing again.  Between that and remembering to dump bleach into a little pipe on the inside HVAC unit...maybe we won’t have to call them out every year and save ourselves a bit of money in the long run.

Oh...back to my company...well, my husbands daughter and her family decided not to come out for Thanksgiving.  They will be out soon, but she really wanted the cousins to get to see each other.  But, my son got a call after they left his apartment that the maintenance people broke the key off in the lock and they would have to change the lock to his apartment while he was gone.  My son had to go back before said daughter would be able to come out here...so, in about two weeks she and her family will come out for an early Christmas.  I am wise to her now too...I am attempting to get Christmas shopping done before they arrive!  I usually don’t Christmas Shop early, I don’t have a vehicle that I can go running around in every day.  I still haven’t decorated for Christmas either, when you have cats and dogs in the house, who like to run around being rambunctious and cats that like to play with ornaments on the tree, you usually don’t put it up until maybe two weeks prior to Christmas.

Thanksgiving Surprise And Grateful

Every morning I wake up is a good morning...I am greatful every day.  I have bad days, but I am grateful for every day I have on God’s green earth.  Even though we struggle at times out here, we love it in this peaceful place.  I have learned so much these past few years, not enough...but, I am willing and able to learn more.  I just hope my body holds out for me, it seems to take longer and longer to recover from injuries, but the nice thing is...I am not on a deadline and I have learned to pace myself a bit better over the years.

I am going to have a houseful this year for Thanksgiving,..and I am grateful for it.  The surprise is my son is coming to visit from California, I have not seen him in almost six years!  I can’t really afford to fly to California and I don’t think my body could handle being shoehorned into an airplane seat anymore and still be able to walk when I got there.  It is tough leaving home, for both of us...we both have a lot of animals to take care of and his wife is not coming with him, she will be taking care of them.  I was hoping she could, I would love them to move out here one of these days.  I will have both my sons here, my surrogate son, my stepdaughter most of the spouses and the young ones!  They won’t be here for a few days, but I look forward to seeing them all.

My surrogate son and his wife invited me to go with them running around Shreveport and then to Jefferson yesterday, one of my favorite things to do is shopping...lol, there is not too many places I actually go around here, but yesterday it was nice to get out and see places I had not seen.  We went to a place in Shreveport that had a variety of different things, it was kind of a home improvement store/furniture store/interesting stuff store...I would like to go back some day.  Jefferson is only about 20 miles from us and yesterday, I finally got to visit the little town I keep hearing about.  We had lunch at a neat little hamburger joint and then went and perused a few Antique stores...lol, I love doing stuff like that...I would have loved to forget about the animals needing to be fed and watered, but I was afraid that my husband might be upset with me if I didn’t make it in time to perform my task...he took care of them!  Something else to be thankful for!  My husband loves me, and I never go do anything but errands anymore,so he wasn’t to unhappy with me getting home later than expected...my surrogate son even came in with me and offered to help feed the critters, but my husband had already done it.

I loved a cabinet at the home improvement store, it reminded me of a barristers book case, kind of...it was very tall, probably 7 feet, it had a lot of shelves and glass doors on it.  It is crazy, but I loved the latch on it, it went all the way from the top to the bottom...and was kind of ornate iron.  I think it would make a nice linen cabinet.  There were several things in that store I really liked, some of the dining room tables were gorgeous, as were some of the rugs we looked at, some of the large mirrors...and they had barn doors and ship lap too!  Lots of good stuff and the prices were good too.  They had some patio furniture and kitchen and bathroom cabinetry, and faucets and sinks too.  I am sure I didn’t see it all...but I really enjoyed looking at what I did see.

I look forward to getting to see some of my grandchildren soon, and my kiddos...the worst part of moving out here is not being to see my family very often.  I will take what I can get though, and since I can’t really travel very far anymore without pain I am grateful they are willing to come visit me.

Duck, Duck Away...

The time has changed...Fall Back an hour, but my body clock will not adjust for awhile...so I am up very early.  I am not fond of the time change this time of year.  It gets dark too early.  It seems like there are far less hours in the day for me to jam pack everything I need to get done into what daylight hours I have...and it will get worse and worse.  But, I can only work outside until dark and I am able to get all my poultry put up before My husband gets home from work, so he doesn’t have to go out there.

Yesterday was rather busy.  It is suppose to get down in the thirties later this week...it may be our first freeze of the Fall.  The leaves have just started changing really, I wanted to get some good pictures this year.  Our place has changed so much since we bought it that I would like to document it a bit.  I have the majority of my fruit orchard in...although a few trees have died and I will replace them.  It is tough getting them established in the sandy loam unless they have a really good root structure.  If we have a drought year, I have to water every three days or they will die.  Two of my Elderberries didn’t make it, that I planted this year. I never could get the Native Cherry tree going well, but the roots pretty much broke off in the box they shipped it in.  I had one of my pear trees that we planted the first year break off about a foot above the ground.  One of my peach trees I planted two years ago died too.  I have a second year Golden Delicious apple tree that was attacked by Carpenter Ants and almost killed too, half of it appeared to die...I finally broke down and started using ant granules on it when the Organicide and Neem Oil didn’t kill them.  I cut a lot of that tree back, it has some new shoots and is starting to come back, the peach tree also had shoots come up and after they got about five feet tall, I picked one and cut the rest off, the Asian pear I did the same...but at the moment it has about six shoots, I will pick the straightest soon and cut the rest off.  I moved a couple of blueberry bushes to hopefully better locations...maybe they will start growing and produce better in the next year or two.  We shall see, I am hoping I get better at maintaining the trees and all of them produce soon.  I would like to sell the fruit eventually.

I worked out in the garden a little and on my front porch.  I had started a bunch of plants and didn’t get them all planted because I got a little carried away.  I had a bunch of starter pots with dirt and dead plants in them, so I broke up the dirt and put it in five gallon buckets for next springs plant starts.  I want to build a greenhouse, but have not done it yet.  I need to build some raised beds too.  The moles and voles wiped out my garlic plants last year, I didn’t get any...so, I will have to do raised beds with maybe wire bottoms so they can’t get to the bulbs.  I need them for strawberries and asparagus too...if I am ever going to have any.  Anyway, since battling poison ivy, I haven’t worked outside as much as usual, but I did get some flower bulbs planted.  I am hoping to make this place beautiful one of these days...I have a long way to go, but I will get there...eventually.

Yesterday, I had my neighbor stop by with a friend of his.  He wanted ducks, I have a lot of males...He wanted 15.  I should have captured them the night before, but a lot of people say they want critters and then don’t show up when I catch them...so I didn’t.  He showed up!  The younger males were easy to catch, but the ones out in the big yard...not so much.  My neighbor, the man wanting the ducks and I finally caught five more to add to the ones I had caught...he took ten home.   Which was good for me...I needed the money to help pay for getting my freezer repaired.  The repairman showed up to take a look at the freezer, not two minutes after my neighbor and his friend.  So, between running around the yard trying to catch ducks...when bribery didn’t work and the repair guy...I felt a little like a ping pong ball, running back and forth getting nets, talking to the repairman, trying to get the money together to pay the repairman, catching a duck or two, going and talking with the repairman again...he had to order a part.  He will be back today to install it.  He wanted all the money up front, I said I don’t like paying for something I haven’t received yet...he accepted the service call money and with the money from the sale of the ducks I will be able to pay him in cash today after the repair is made.  I guess I need to measure a few things too...right now, that freezer is out on the porch.  We had to take the broken freezer out of the house to make room for the new freezer.  I have to figure out where we will put the old freezer.  I have a room that is only 9’x9’ that I want to create a large walk-in pantry in...we may put it in there...but, I don’t know if it will fit through the door, if it won’t...then we may have to move my egg fridge and the beverage fridge into the room...and put the freezers side by side in the laundry room....if they will both fit.

I need to do a duck inventory too.  I probably have more male ducks that I could get rid of...my females will appreciate my getting rid of ten males.  Poor things get overwhelmed by their amorous behavior and many of my females have been injured from the males grabbing their heads.  The skin around their eyes especially.  The few females in my recovery area would have been hurt again come spring, if those male ducks had not gone away.  We had been talking about butchering some...that is why we need another freezer.  But, it is not something we really wanted to do.

Poison Ivy and Miserable

I have been grooming fruit trees.  Mowed the front section of the acreage we use and cleaned up the flowerbed in the middle of the driveway.  I knew it would probably happen, it has been a couple of years since I cleaned up the flowerbed, I got a bad case of poison ivy on my arms...I was very careful too!  I knew there was poison ivy in the flowerbed, I thought about just mowing everything in the flowerbed down.  I didn’t, but I had to cut down several trees that had gotten about five feet tall that were growing in it, lots of dewberry vines too...there wasn’t even much poison ivy in there.  I had big loppers, little loppers and a machete and would cut the longest parts and pull things out by the roots as much as possible...and lift them with the tools to put them in piles.  The flowerbed is pretty large, probably about 15 feet wide and 30 feet long.  It was planted with bulbs before we bought the house, but I think a lot had been removed.  The first couple of years jonquils, daffodils and bell flowers bloomed and that was pretty much it.  Last Spring, more flowers popped up...Irises that actually bloomed, Spider And Easter Lillie’s.  They were sparse, except a clump here and there.

I want pretty things to look at.  Here everything is green, there aren’t much in the way of contrasting colors popping out...unless it is the birds or goldenrod, this time of year.  We have Cardinals and Bluebirds in abundance, and humming birds, but since this part up around the house is a few acres, and there were not many trees, there was not many places for them to nest or perch really, up by the house.  I concentrated on planting fruit and nut trees the first five years.  I want to start planting perennials now.  We have wild flowers all around the perimeter, and I let them grow in spots around the house...but, because I did that...dewberries grew too.  I have to cut dewberries away from the house several times a year, otherwise they grow all over the front porch, and strangle out what flowers there were left.  I had planted flowers around the patio area in the back of the house...but my poultry pretty much dug them up and destroyed all of the grass too.  I was able to move some things to the front yard and tried to fill in large gaps that were empty of anything growing.  I even transplanted monkey grass from one half of the porch to the other...trying to balance out the greenery that was left.  I still have a long way to go in my beautification of the land around the house.  I have to mark areas so my husband doesn’t mow down, weedeat or spray things with weed killer.  I planted some Climatis vines that didn’t make it...and some wildflowers around a tree that are trying to come back...

Anyway, I have had the poison ivy rash for over a month now.  It was the worst case I ever had.  Normally I just get a spot or two around my wrists, just above my gloves.  I got it all over my arms, got some around my ankles, on my legs, my neck, chest and stomach too...even in my hair although just a light sprinkling everywhere but my arms.  I went to the doctor and got a shot, but even two weeks afterward...I am still itching.  Most of my wounds have healed now, some of the blisters were awful and I still have a few scabbed spots.  I still get intense itching too.  Usually at night, an extremely hot shower helps, but...I have bruised myself a few times scratching the itch.  I know that you shouldn’t scratch like that, but it feels almost like something is in my skin crawling around!  I will go scrub with jewelweed soap and hot water and it helps, or put Biofreeze on...but it has been driving me crazy.

We have had a lot of problems with things breaking down on us the past few years too, our latest issue was our freezer.  I freeze a lot.  I freeze my garden vegetables like broccoli and green beans, I chop and freeze bell peppers and onions too, and blueberries and peaches.  Our freezer went out last week...it was not good, we lost a lot of the fruit and vegetables and about a fifth of the meat...maybe more.  The fall and winter months are lean months for us.  My husbands shop doesn’t get as much business, so I try and make sure the freezer stays stocked up with meat enough to get us through to spring.  I probably should have thrown out more of the meat, a few things I have fixed lately tasted freezer burned and went to the dogs after I cooked it.  This winter may be a bit tough.  We had to purchase a new freezer.  We have a repairman coming today to see if the old one can be fixed.  It would be nice to have two freezers, we had talked about getting another freezer the past couple of years and going in halves on a cow or pig for meat, things just didn’t happen.  If we can fix the old freezer it will be great!

A Day of Rest...Nope!

One thing I can say about living in the country and having almost twenty acres, and a bunch of poultry...you really don’t get days off!  I may not do as much some days, or maybe not as hard of physical labor, but it seems I always have plenty to get done even on my “rest day”.  Today I started with laundry, let the dogs out, then gave the three food and water, made some pumpkin bread, cleaned up the kitchen then made breakfast.  While my husband went out and fed the poultry and let them out.
Put laundry in the dryer and started another load.  I did sit and drink a cup of coffee.  I am not complaining mind you, it was a slower day than most.  I also made Chicken Cordon Bleu from scratch...I wanted it ready to stick into the oven after the evening feeding and watering of the critters, we actually ate at 7:30 tonight!  Here lately it has been more like 8:30 or 9:00.

A few days ago I was out putting up roof rafters in what I call my breeding pens, I just did half so far, but I needed a place off of my porch to move juvenile chickens and there are so many, I needed more of a roofed area for them.  It took me several days, and I had to use a variety of roofing screws...lol, I usually have plenty of one size...not this time, I even had to drill pilot holes through some of the metal because I couldn’t get the screws to start and the drill would slip, the screw would go flying and I would say a curse word or two.  Apparently my turkey hen “Bronze Hen” was worried about me, she flew up and landed on the rafters while I was working.  I got lucky though, normally she tries to be very helpful and get screws out of the box for me (usually dumping the box).  She didn’t stay long, just checked on me and then flew back down, thank goodness!  I think more might have joined her if she had have stayed much longer.  Anyway, I got metal put up on the rafters, but the metal is recycled and 2 feet shorter than was advertised!  So ten feet instead of the twelve I really needed.  I made an offer on it that I was surprised was accepted, I got it for half the asking price and then they delivered it.  I have been lucky like that when buying used materials.  I don’t have a trailer and I don’t normally keep the truck but one day a week to run errands.  I have gotten cinderblocks and wood the same way.  I will admit, I had some issues with the rafters, the frame has shifted on the run and I had to add some blocks of wood to make the 8 foot lengths work, hey...it is just for chickens, it doesn’t have to be perfect!  At least that is what I keep telling myself.  Anyway, it is crooked.  Then my husband said it was too flat for water to run off, so I had to take the metal off and add a furring strip on the rafters closest to the coop part...otherwise water might have run into the coop when it rained.  It won’t now, but because of the extra wood, I had to slide the metal back about three inches when I reattached it, so...it is going to leak until I put some silicone caulk in all the holes!  The metal is not perfect by any means, it had screw holes in it already, and a bit of rust...and it isn’t exactly straight either.  Because it isn’t straight it didn’t exactly meet up with the wood the end of the rafters are attached to.  When I have more time, I might try and fix it.

I had put a big shade tarp over the pens and I needed to restring it across the run that still didn’t have a roof.  I had to switch the traps direction because I no longer had the wood frame to attach it to on one side.  I am doing this with roosters running around and a big Tom turkey in the pen, trying not to freak them out too much.  The tarp is way to big now so I had to drape it down the front of the pen about four feet...the corner Post is 10 feet tall on this side as the ground the pen sits on is flat we’re the coop sits but the run is angled so any time it rains the water runs down hill.  Here I am on this tall ladder, trying to get the bungee ball tie downs put back through the grommets and standing on a ladder that is unstable, sitting on a hill...chickens and turkeys trying to check everything out, sweat pouring down my face and my clothes soaking wet from sweating, stringing a shade tarp, tired...I get done, start going down the ladder take a step and end up missing the bottom rung or possibly two of the ladder.  I am not a spring chicken anymore, I didn’t want to fall and I was able to maintain my balance, but hurt my right knee, felt something pop, I still had one foot on the rung of the ladder too...I pulled every muscle I had in both legs practically doing the splits.  I never was good at the splits...and it isn’t something us 59 year olds normally do when we get older either.  Needless to say, I have been a bit sore ever since it happened.  Didn’t sleep well the first few days, although that could have been from the chafing I experienced on my legs from my jeans being wet from the sweat too.

After I moved something like 40 chickens off the porch, I had to clean up all the brooders.  I did my errands, grocery shopping, going and getting the proper screws, getting a feeder, picking up feed for the week...then got home and unloaded and put everything away.  For a normal person, that might not sound like much...but, I get a week or twos worth of groceries and this time 850 pounds of feed.  It takes me awhile, then I cleaned up the brooders the chickens were in.  They were nasty, I had skipped a cleaning day and when the flies are bad that is a very bad thing.  I took time to finish creating the artwork for a book cover, for a book my husband wrote...instead.  Yep, around here...sometimes one chore is sacrificed to get something else done.  He published the book on Amazon, we are hoping it sells well, the money will come in handy.  Anyway, after scrubbing everything down and spraying a ton of bug spray the fly situation is almost under control.  I still have cleaning to do on the porch, need to power wash the cages, poop trays and wash waterers and feed dishes.  Now that the critters are off the porch maybe I can get the house power washed too...time will tell.  I need to work in the garden, mow, trim some trees, do coop cleaning and power washing soon.  I want to get back to work on my bathroom remodel soon too.  Oh well, it is about 10:30 now..I need to go put up leftovers and throw laundry in the dryer before I get ready for bed.  It may be awhile before I write again.  Goodnight!