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 |  A Journal of our Adventures in Country Living.... |
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"Home is where the heart is" and this is the continuing story of our life on the farm....where our heart is and where we make our home. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** I want to thank janieruthryals for this wonderful Merit Badge: ![Merit Badge in Nature
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For the wonderful visit to your farm, all through the words in your blog.](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/genre-Nature-1125.gif) |
| I just want to say Thank You to the person who extended my membership. With everything that has been happening lately, I just didn't know if I would have the time to write or not. Plus we just didn't have the extra funds to put out for a renewal. I really appreciate the extension and will make a conscientious effort to get in here and write. I will also take the time to leave comments also. Thank you again, whoever you are for the renewal of my membership !! Melinda |
| LORD DELIVER ME! If Tor doesn't get better soon I am either going to shoot him or buy him a carton of cigarettes....then make him sleep with the goats!!! |
| As most of you know, David and I had the great opportunity to visit with Erik and Debi last week. Oh what a wonderful visit it was. Erik and Debi are two of the most beautiful, gracious people I have met. Not only did they open their home to us, they opened their hearts also. Even thought we were only there for two and a half days, they were packed full of southern hospitality and fun. Since our plane was leaving out of Memphis at 6:30 in the morning, on our day of departure to Philadelphia, we drove down the day before and spent the night at a motel near the airport. There was a Catfish restaurant across the street from the motel, so we headed over there to eat. The catfish was pretty good, but the hush puppies were to die for. I am not a big fan of hush puppies, but these were delectable with just the right touch of sweetness, and real crunchy on the outside and tender and moist on the inside. We were up bright and early to catch the shuttle ride to the airport and had a wonderful flight to Atlanta. We had about a 55 minute layover in Atlanta, plenty of time to catch out next flight out to Philadelphia... right? NOT ! When we landed, we were told that there was no gate available for us and we had to wait for one to open... and we waited and waited and waited. Finally, after 30 minutes, the plane started rolling across the airport to an available gate, a full concourse away from the plane we had to catch ! Of course, we were at the end of the concourse and had to walk/run down the whole length of it to the escalator that led us downstairs to the train that would take us to the concourse we needed to be at. Off the train we jump and back up the escalator to find out that our plane was at the end of this concourse. We run/gallop full speed to our plane as they were just starting to close the doors.... WHEW, we made it. We departed and had a wonderful flight to Philly and found Debi waiting for us down by the baggage department. We had a delightful ride home, stopping on the way to pick up Erik who had put in a few hours at work that morning. That evening was full of conversations as we caught up on everything and everyone !! The four of us went out to eat, then stopped by the local market to pick up a brisket. David promised everyone that he would cook a brisket for them. In Texas, briskets run around .89 to $1.20 a pound, so a large 16 pound brisket is only $18 or so. Not in Pennsylvania... briskets were $4.89 a pound, so a small 8 pound brisket cost over $32.... WOWSERS !!!!! After a night of much needed rest, Debi and I fixed a breakfast of bacon, pancakes and eggs. Debi's son Skyler and his girlfriend, Sarah were there and we all ate until we couldn't eat anymore. Right after we got breakfast dishes cleared and cleaned, John (CC) drove up. The rest of the day was spent talking and laughing and having a great old time. David had put the brisket on to cook that morning around 8am. You could smell it's wonderful aroma drifting throughout the house all day long. Finally around 3pm, David pulled the brisket out of the oven and put it on the open fire in the grill. Debi and I made some beans and corn to go with it. What a great time we had sitting around the table sharing this meal together. Erik said grace and brisket was passed from one to the other as we gabbed and laughed. After dinner was done, David, myself, Skyler and Sarah played a game of bowling of the Wii. Us gals skunked the guys big time. They had all kinds of excuses as to why they couldn't score as well as we did. Sarah and I just looked at each other and grinned as we threw strike after strike, spare after spare while they made splints and gutter balls. After a while, we all had to say goodbye to CC. It was so good to see him again. He is another beautiful, down to earth guy who would just do anything for you. We sat around and watched a few movies and then headed for bed. The next day was our trip to Gettysburg. On our way to Gettysburg, we passed through Lancaster, home of the Amish. They were out in force driving their horse drawn buggies down the road, clip-clopping right along with traffic. Even the local WalMart has a covered area to hitch horses to. We passed several farms where you could see someone out plowing their field with a hitch of 4 or 6 horses. It's beautiful land, gently rolling, laced with fences and large white homes and barnyards. The Amish are such a simple people, and so kind and forgiving. The young men are clean shaven, but once they marry, they must grow a beard. The women, in their plain and simple gray and black dresses are shy and quiet. Gettysburg was wonderful. To look upon the fields were thousands of men died defending their beliefs is just sobering. I am so glad that Erik and Debi made this trip possible for us, and for David to make a long time dream come true. Thank you Erik and Debi, for what you have done. It is a trip that will never be forgotten. I will continue on with our trip home on another day..... I FORGOT MY DANG CAMERA, OTHERWISE I WOULD HAVE PICTURES FOR YOU ! |
| ccstring ....... do you have an alibi? Where were you towards the end of October, early November? You didn't make a secret trip to Missouri did you? The only reason I know it was you, is because you left your mark. I know of know one else who has a C in their initials, and this is what I found one day in February when I went to check on the goats. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Now tell me that CC didn't have something to do with this !! Of course we named this little girl CeeCee, and she is the cutest thing. She has a sister who is all black with the same white marking on her face and two white ears. Baby goats are just darling. Since these are Pygmy goats, they are only about 7 or 8 inches tall when they are born. At maturity, they usually reach around 20 to 26 inches tall. CeeCee in this picture is about 3 weeks old. They are great for keeping the brush down around the farm. My sister has three more chemo sessions left. She is handling them pretty well. I think that since they are 3 weeks apart, it allows her to recover before her next session. The only thing that hits her are bouts of diarrhea and some tiredness. My son wasn't so lucky. He had an infusion of chemo on his first day and then wore a pump the rest of the week that pumped chemo into him at a constant rate. On top of that he had radiation every day. Lindsey said that he got really sick by the third day and was just exhausted. By Friday, they had to give him a transfusion because he had become dangerously anemic. But the good news is that on Friday, they also removed the pump. He goes three weeks with no chemo now, so will get some relief there. He has to continue on with his radiation every day though. Then after 3 weeks, he goes through the whole week long chemo process again, along with the continued radiation. Then 3 weeks after the end of that session, he will be operated on. They told him that by that time, his throat will be pretty raw from the radiation and it may be hard to eat. If he has problems keeping his weight up, they might have to put a feeding tube in. To say that I am scared is putting it mildly. For those that didn't know, he has Esophageal Cancer. He had no symptoms, just felt nauseous one day and threw up blood. Here is a picture of Richard, Lindsey and Aric at Christmas. Aric was about 6 months old here. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** We've had beautiful weather here in southeast Missouri. David got the chainsaw started up and we cut some of the limbs and branches up that had fallen during the ice storm. What a mess. Next Monday we will be on our way to visit some very special friends. I promise to take lots of pictures !! That's about it here on the Almosta Ranch. Take care, Melinda |
| Well, it looks like we may be back online soon. My sister got a new 'used' computer from her son and is giving us her old one. It is up at the computer hospital now being cleaned and all our documents and pictures transferred over to it. Hopefully, we will have it in the next day or two. Two of our nannies gave birth during the ice storm. Maggie had triplets and they were all doing great that evening, but when I checked on them the next morning, the little buff colored buck was dead. Apparently, Maggie only bonded with the one little black doe and rejected the buck and the other little black and white doe. The black and white girl, which we named baby Oreo, was thin but still hanging in there. I put Maggie in a head lock and forced her to let Oreo nurse. Then I brought Oreo into the house and put her on a bottle. She is now 3 weeks old and a confused little goat. She doesn't know if she is a human or a dog. She plays with Booker and Sherman, chasing them through the house and climbing on top of them when they lay down. They take their toys up to her and wonder why she won't play tug-a-war with them. Lately I have been putting her outside in the pen with Dolly (our fainting goat) and Addy for a few hours a day, hoping that she will finally figure out that she is really a goat. I bring her back inside to her kennel at night. She is really a cute little thing and it is fun to watch her bounce around the house chasing after the cats and dogs. When we get a computer home and set up, I will upload some pictures of her and David. It is taking forever to clean up the mess left over after the ice storm. We went 9 days without electricity. Now I know why, back in the old days, the farmers went to bed early and got up early. There's not much to do when all you have are a few oil lanterns to live by. Once it gets dark, you just go to bed and wait for the sun to come up the next morning. It was a bit scary when we not only had no electricity, but all the roads were blocked by fallen trees and limbs, our phone went out and then we lost heat. No communication at all with the outside world - we were on our own. We were able to fix the heating problem quick, but it was a day or two before our phones came back on and the roads cleared. Cooking outside on an open fire wasn't bad, and heating water to wash up in was ok, it was not being able to do a laundry that was a bummer. I was just about ready to hand wash our clothes and hang them up all over the house when power was finally restored. We were lucky in that we still had water. We are on county water and they assured us that we would have water. My sister has a well and with no electricity, had no way to pump water. We had to fill up barrels and tubs and haul it over for the horses. We still have limbs and branches all over the place. We were able to fix fences so the animals wouldn't get out and hauled all the manageable limbs over into a pile. There are still a lot of large limbs laying about and quite a few still hanging from trees where they didn't quite break off all the way. The next time David has two days off in a row, we will get the chain saw out and clear what we can. The locals are saying that this was the worst ice storm they can ever remember. There are still people down in the flat, expansive farmlands, in the bootheel of Missouri that are still without electricity. They are hoping to have them back online by the first of April. My sister is doing fine. She is on her third Chemo treatment and seems to be tolerating it pretty well with just a few problems. She has three more to go and will be done. She only goes once every three weeks, so it allows her body to recover before she has the next treatment. My son will start his chemo in the next week or so. The doctor classified his cancer at stage 2. They are going to hit his esophageal cancer real aggressively with Chemo and Radiation for 5 or 6 weeks, then will operate. His doctor, who specializes in this type of cancer, says that because he is young and healty, they want to use the strongest Chemo his body will stand. His will be weekly or maybe twice a week on top of everyday radiation. He will be one sick puppy for a while. Then they will operate, remove his esophagus and replace it with a part of his stomach. Then, depending on what the doctor finds, he may have to endure more Chemo. The doctor is amazed that he has never suffered any symptoms such as heartburn, difficulty swallowing, acid reflux or soreness upon swallowing. He was just at work one day and felt nausaus and vomited up nothing but blood. That was his first indication that something was wrong. Please keep him and his family in your prayers. If needed, I will fly out there to help Lindsey with Aric, who is just 8 months old and crawling all over the place, keeping her on her toes. He is pulling himself up on anything that he can and getting into everything. His favorite thing to do is to play in the dog's water dish. She will have her hands full watching Aric and taking care of Richard. So if I can help, I will be there. David has Friday off, and I am hoping that we will have our own computer up and running by then. He has a lot of catch up to do regarding his activities during the ice storm. He and the neighbors Red Bone hound dog got to know each other pretty well ! He also flew to Houston (all by himself) for 4 days to give a deposition. He will have to tell you all about it. Y'all take care, |
| My son called me last night and it is cancer. He has an appointment at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle for February 16 through the 18 for test. They have a doctor there that specializes in Esophageal Cancer and has the best survival rate in his patients in the Nation. We will know more after all the test have come back as to what type of treatment they will do. Other than that, things go on here at the farm. Maggie's 3 babies are doing great. There is a buff colored buck, a black doe and a black and white doe. They are so tiny and cute. I will take pictures but won't be able to post them until we get a computer. David and I will be online as time permits as we have to come over here to my sister's house and use hers. Everyone take care. |
| Yeah... We Have Seen The Light and it is GOOD !!! We finally got our power back yesterday after 9 days without. Life is good !! It came on around 2pm and I jumped with joy and started plugging everything back in. Then after about 10 minutes it went back out. You have never heard such a loud groan as the one I made when the power went out. I went around and unplugged everything again and sat down and waited. Then about a half hour later the lights came back on. I just sat there and waited. After a hour of waiting, I finally got excited. I went back to plugging things back in. The power stayed on and I finally felt joy !! During the ice storm, one of my nannies gave birth to a little black baby. It's a girl !! Her name will either be popsicle or stormy. Her ear was a bit touched by frostbite, but it healed up fine. She is now jumping and leaping around having a ball. I have two more nannies ready to give birth at any time now. Thank goodness, we have at least a week of nice weather ahead of us with temps up in the 50 and 60's. I received a call from the computer hospital and the news is not good. The power supply is bad as is the motherboard. The doctor said that he could heal it for around $150 but didn't think we should put that kind of money into such an old machine. My nephew and his wife both teach computer classes at a local college up in Michigan. He said that every quarter they sell off some of the computers and they sell pretty cheap; around $75 or $100. That is for the tower and a monitor. So he is going to try to get us one of those and ship it down. It may be a month or so before we finally get one, maybe even a bit longer. It depends on when they have the next sale. My sister is up in St Louis having another chemo treatment. This is her second one. She didn't have hardly any after effects from the first treatment, so is hoping that she won't suffer any with this one. I don't know if they get worse the more treatments you have or not. Her treatments are 3 weeks apart. More bad news: My son was rushed to the hospital the other day. He was on duty when all of a sudden he started throwing up blood. After several test, they found what seems to be a ulcer right where the esophegus (sp?) goes into the stomach. They ask him if he had been experiencing any pain or reflux and he said no, none at all. They did a biopsy and will let him know in the next day or two what they found. They are sort of leaning towards a leison, maybe cancerous. He has an appointment to go to Seattle for further testing and will likely have to go through an operation whether it is cancerous or not. My father had a bleeding ulcer and when they operated on him, found that he had stomach cancer. So we are all praying that it is not and can be cured easily. David just called me from home.... we have 3 new goat babies on the ground. He is coming to get me. I am still over my sisters to watch my mom while my sister is gone and he went home to feed. I thought she was getting close as I saw some signs this morning. He will be here in a minute, so I've got to run. Please pray for my son and his family that the ulcer is just a virus or fungal infection and not cancer. Take care and God Bless... |
| Well, after 8 days of being without electricity, my sister got her power back up today. I am over her house now helping her move some limbs out of the barnyard. We still don't have electricity at our house. Hopefully it will be back on soon.... I hope. Cooking on a open fire pit outside every morning and evening, in below freezing weather gets a bit old after a while. I can tell you though, that a sirloin steak cooked over a wood fire sure taste great !!! But we are fine and will continue to hang on until they get power back to us. Thank goodness we have a propane heating furnace that doesn't need electricity to work, so we were warm.... well most of the time. I will wait and let David tell you of our great adventures during this ice storm of '09. Our computer got sick and is in the computer hospital as we speak. I hope they can make it well so David can fill you in ... and oh does he have the stories to tell. I've got to get back over to my house. I just wanted to thank everyone for their well wishes and prayers during this rather trying time. Hopefully we will be up and running soon and back online if our computer gets well. Take care and God Bless... |
| Everything is cold and crispy today. Our temps never got over 20 here at home with a brisk 15-20mph wind making the wind chill down right cold. Our one saving grace is that it never stays bitter cold for more than a few days. This coming week it is suppose to get back up in the 50's which will feel delicious after today. I had to carry hot water out to the goats several times today as their water would freeze soon after I put fresh water in. The hot water melted the ice and offered warm drinking water for them for a few minutes. They were usually ready for the treat and would run to the water trough when they saw me coming. I have one nannie that is starting to bag up. Maggie is the one goat that lost her baby last winter. The baby's presentation was all wrong and she died before I could get her turned and in the right position to be born. She was also a big baby and that didn't help. I am hoping that Maggie is carrying two kids, as two kids will be smaller than one big kid. Most of the time, Pygmy goats will have twins or even triplets. I think I will have my buck neutered. I am just not set up to handle crazy, hormone struck billy goats and a bunch of horny nannies. I have tried to separate them, even built a separate pen with a comfortable shelter for Addivilicus to get into, but he will have nothing to do with it. He has torn down my fences to get back to his girls. This is why I have babies being born in the middle of winter !!! Pygmy goats are not as popular around here like they were back in Texas, and I don't need anymore mouths to feed at the moment. If I ever decide to breed, I know of a few people who have nice bucks that I can use. My sister is doing ok. She had a cancer operation back during the first week of December and they ended up having to remove part of her small intestine due to being strangulated by the tumor. I drove her up to St Louis last week for a check up and they want to start her on chemo. She has had this rare cancer now for 13 years. This is the third time she has had to go in and have it excavated from her abdominal cavity. Now the doctor wants to put her through a regiment of chemo to see if they can prevent the tumor from redeveloping. She is taking the news pretty good, but I have noticed she is rather quiet and not eating well. She sleeps a lot and has no energy. I don't know if this is still from being in the recovery stage of her surgery, or if it is depression setting in. She was joking today as we went to town together, about losing her hair. Well, she was trying to joke, but I could hear the deep down concern and fear in her voice. The chemo treatments start around January 9th, and she will need 6 treatments spaced 3 weeks apart. The treatments have to take place at the hospital in St Louis and will take 3 to 5 hours to complete. It's a 3 1/2 hour drive up there, so she will end up spending the night in the hospitals hospice and then will drive home the next day. I am concerned as to whether she will be able to make the drive by herself. David is worn to a frazzle by the holiday shopping. He said he has never been so overwhelmed before as he has been this season. The WalMart store in the Bluff is one of the super big WalMarts and it gets bombarded with shoppers. I felt so sorry for him last night when he came dragging himself through the front door. He looked exhausted. Well, that about it in this neighborhood. You all have a safe and blessed Christmas Holiday, and a wonderful New Year !!!!!! ps: It is now 9:45 at night, temperature outside is 8, David should be home in about 45 minutes and MY FREAKING FURNACE JUST WENT OUT !! I check my tank, and I have propane - down to 15% (they were suppose to fill it this week but haven't stopped by yet). Can propane lines freeze up from condensation? I have tried to relight the pilot, but it's hard to do by myself... have to wait for David to come home.... to a cold house !!!! |
| I thought that in the next week and a half, I would post a few Christmas memories that I have.... One Christmas memory I have is of my then 6 year old son, Richard (he's now 29 years old), requesting "Stone Soup" for dinner on Christmas Eve. His teacher at school had read them a book by that name right before Christmas vacation started. He pleaded with me that he really wanted 'Stone Soup' for Christmas Eve. Finally I gave in and told him that he would have to be the hunter and go out and find me the fattest, smoothest stone that he could find. He looked all morning and finally came in with a nice, round, smooth stone about the size of my fist. I boiled the stone to clean it and then soaked it in a bit of bleach water and then rinsed it real good. Then I told him we were ready to make 'Stone Soup'. He was so excited he could hardly contain himself. He got up on his stool and watched as I put a pot of water on to boil. In that pot we put the stone. Then he got the carrots for me and I diced them up and put them in the pot with the stone. He brought me a few potatoes and I added them also. Next came celery, tomato, green beans, and whatever else he could find in the cabinets and fridge that would go good in 'Stone Soup'. I added some beef bouillon and pepper and let it all boil for an hour or so. When it was done, we took the stone out to save for another day and another pot of stone soup. He thought that was the best 'Stone Soup' he had ever had. What's funny is that he never like vegetable soup before, but he ate on this soup for several days until we finally finished it up. From then on, when I wanted to make a pot of vegetable soup, we always made 'Stone Soup' instead and he loved it. My mom made a pot of vegetable soup and he wouldn't eat it as he told my mom he didn't really care for vegetable soup !!! I was a bit worried about germs on the stone, but between the boiling to clean it and soaking it in bleach water, we didn't have any problems. Just thought I would share this Christmas memory, and you never know when you might want to make your child "Stone Soup"! |
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