Struggling To Find Ourselves

Yep, that’s what it’s turning out to be….another LONG night.

As I sit here and listen to the wind blow outside, I think of all of the things I could be doing….maybe SHOULD be doing….and find myself not doing any of them at the moment.  Hubby is working….Son is gone for the weekend….so it’s just me and the dogs at the moment.

We have had our first kids hit the ground for this year!  The day before yesterday in the afternoon, one of our newer does that we got about Christmas-time dropped her’s….one girl and one boy.  Then this morning, her daughter, which we also got at Christmas-time time dropped her twins….both boys!  Looks like it’s going to be a money year if that ratio continues!  But, a money year would be GOOD, because we got mostly girls last Spring, so it was a growing year for us.  My only concern is that it was cold yesterday and it was definitely cold this morning.  The ones born this morning weren’t even completely dry when we went out to feed and check on yesterday’s babies.  I’m not too sure, but it’s possible that the tips of their ears frozen slightly.  That will be something I keep an eye on in the next couple of weeks.  We’ve got two other does that I don’t think will be too far behind….and at least three after that.  And, come May, June and July, we SHOULD have one deliver in May sometime (our newest doe), and then we’ve got 6 doelings that are in with the buck right now that should deliver in early July.  Needless to say, I will not be milking all of the does all at once.  When some of them start drying up because they aren’t milk goats and their babies are two or three months old, then I will stop milking them and continue milking our dairy/milk goats.  I can’t say I’m sorry to see the kids hit the ground.  We’ve got 2.5 gallons of milk from the store in the last month or so….and I have to say….store milk SUCKS!!  I will be glad to have my goat’s milk back!!!  Goat’s milk ice cream anyone?

Well, I will sign off for now!  You all take care and stay blessed!

As I sit here tonight, with the ventless fireplace heating the diningroom at this moment, I realize that the wind must still be blowing outside.  It had started to blow earlier this afternoon when the temperatures had started cooling off, and we are currently having a short blast of Winter here in Kansas.  This is basically the first Winter we have seen in several weeks, and we have only had a few days of cold-ish weather and one rain/turns-to-ice-when-it-hits-something storm a few weeks before Christmas.  I keep telling people Spring on the way, but I’m not sure anyone much believes me at the moment.  It IS January and we have yet to get any REAL Winter weather, but the geese started flying North a week or so ago, some of my trees are starting to show budding of leaves, and my irises have started coming up already.  Besides that, our male goat is showing interest in the girls.  Now, contrary to what the majority of the population believes, I don’t really believe the girls will breed (if given the choice) when they would be delivering their babies in the cold.  The wild animals avoid babies in the middle of Winter.  Why wouldn’t goats and horses and cats and dogs and everything else, IF Man would stay out of their breeding cycles and quit trying to rush things?

No baby goats yet…or there wasn’t as of about 4 hours ago when I braved the cold and wind and snow to plug in the heat light…just in case…..

Blessings!

Seems like everyone is in a hectic sort of mind with Christmas next week.  We haven’t seen enough snow to say we have yet, and they don’t really expect us to get any between now and Christmas, so it kind of is hard to believe that Christmas really IS that close.

Lots going on here, in some ways, as we try to prepare for the Winter weather that everyone seems to think is going to have us snowed in for weeks….or at least, that’s the way they make it sound.

Some of our does look like they are getting pretty close to kidding.  There are at least 4 that I am confident enough that they are pregnant that I MIGHT lay bets on it, if the odds were good enough.  There are a couple of others that aren’t quite as obvious, but they are obvious enough for me to be keeping a closer eye on them, in hopes that I can figure out if they ARE pregnant or not BEFORE they surprise us with babies.  We have tapered almost completely off on our milking because of the impending kids in the next 2 or 3 weeks.  I imagine that our last milking for the year will probably be towards the middle of this next week.  I personally don’t really like the idea of not having kids on the ground already and KNOWING, without a doubt, that we will have another doe producing enough to milk before we stop milking altogether, but that’s what my intuition tells me we need to do this time.  If we run out of milk before we have kids and can start milking again, I guess we’ll just have to go to the store and buy some until we can start milking again.  I DON’T like that idea, but that might be the way it has to be for this year.  With this next year, we are going to try to have one group of our does kid in January/February and then we will be bringing a different buck back from Colorado this next week, and we will let him breed our doelings and whatever does haven’t kidded.  By doing that, we SHOULD have two different sets of kidding times, so we SHOULD have does that have had their kids and we are milking them.  By the time the doelings and other non-bred does have their kids in May/June/July and have them up to the age of weaning, so that we can start milking them more, the first batch that had kids in January/February will be ready to breed again.  By having two sets of does dropping at two different times, there should never be any reason for us to have to stop milking and risk having to buy milk from somewhere else.

Well, time to run, so I will let you go for now.  Have a BLESSED week and thanks for reading!

I found this prompt an interesting prompt, especially considering that I normally don’t think much about fairy tales AND the fact that I haven’t been over to check out the prompts on Sunday Scribblings in AGES!

I guess I could say that I am living part of my fairy tale dreams at the moment, with more parts of them coming true each and every day.  I have a wonderful son who, even though we are having some challenges over the last couple of years, is a GOOD boy and he WILL learn to speak his mind here before too long, and then there are going to be a LOT of people that might not like what he has to say, but they will really have very little choice about submitting to his wishes.  I have a husband who is beyond words.  There just aren’t enough descriptive words for me to use that REALLY describe him.  I have a loving, caring, considerate, respectful, passionate husband who REALLY loves me and my son, and will do anything for us.  I have a husband who has been completely out of debt before, and is on a mission to do that again, including paying off the current mortgage on the house we now live in within the next 10 years or so.  Each new year brings us that much closer to being completely debt free, as we work on paying off the bills and getting them out of the way.  And my husband has bought us a piece of property that is part of my fairy tale dream life.  It’s a small property, but if it is managed correctly, we can do ALOT with it and have it start generating more income, in order that we could move our operation to anywhere else in the world that we wanted to and still make the operation work.  I know what you’re probably thinking….you’re probably thinking that a piece of property is work, and you are right!  It IS work!  But it is work that my husband and I BOTH enjoy, and if/when we can make this small property pay for itself every year, then we will have the operation necessary to move somewhere else to a bigger, better property and have the operation pay for the property there too!

Fairy tales come in all shapes and sizes.  What is yours?

God Bless!

This prompt brought one thing to mind when I saw it this morning…..all of the things that we have  in our “backyard”.

We have a few acres for our backyard right now, and we are using it to support itself, so we have all kinds of different things in our backyard.  We have goats which are multiplying again soon!  We have chickens, who help feed the family.  We have a couple of horses and a mini donkey that will be getting “Christmas Presents” this year, more than likely.  We have a few ducks for the bugs and a goose to help protect the ducks.  We have a couple of guineas to help with the ticks in the Summer months.  We have a couple of dogs to protect the family and “flock”.  And we have a cat that helps take care of the mice.  We have visitors to our backyard, not limited too, but including coyotes, possums, raccoons, skunks, and any number of other visitors.  We have even had a “big cat” of some type visit our North pasture at least once.  We have only seen the tracks…not him.

Our backyard is a magical place sometimes, when you stop to think about the miracle of life that we have a chance to see when eggs hatch or when the goats give birth.  But it can also seem like a place where death/Satan lurks when our visitors get into the chicken pen or when other animals get sick or die…or just come up missing.

Hope you enjoyed the post!  I have enjoyed writing it!
God Bless!

As I sit here and watch the much needed cold rain fall on our pastures, I sit here and realize that sometimes it is easy for us to take things for granted in our every day lives.  Today, I would like to bring to light how easy it is to take living without pain for granted.  I know people that have some sort of real pain EVERY day of EVERY week of EVERY month…and they have been dealing with this pain for literally MONTHS.  I can only imagine that it would be very difficult to imagine a day without pain if you are dealing with it on an all-day-every-day basis.  Would YOU be able to remember days without pain if you had to deal with pain EVERY day?  How would YOU keep your sanity?  One thing I would like to know the answer to is this:  Why do the modern “Doctors” insist on treating the symptom instead of finding the root of the problem?  Is it because they are at such a loss to explain that they REALLY don’t know what the problem is?  Is it because Doctors really don’t have ANY clue sometimes?  Or is it because the rumors are true and the Doctors do REALLY get a kick-back off of the prescriptions that they prescribe?

Just the ramblings of a Kansan on a rainy afternoon!

God Bless!

That’s what it’s turning in to here in Kansas.  The wind has been howling since before dark, which hasn’t helped the restfulness that we all hope to acquire in the quiet of the evening hours.

Not alot going on here, in some ways.  My days are about the same, day after day.  I DO live on a working farm, so ALOT of my time is spent taking care of the farm, after I have successfully taken care of my husband and son.

Cooler weather has come to Kansas.  The temperatures have been Fall-like, but they also remind us that snow could be coming at ANY time now.  We have about half of the hay that we wanted to have.  We will be getting more hay next week at some point, or the week after.  The grain for the rest of the animals will do us until towards the end of November or into December, so we will be okay there for a bit.  We will probably need one more order of grain to get us through the Winter, if I keep feeding at the same rate I have been.  We will be laying in lay mash for the chickens in the next two weeks, as well, which means the rest of the grain should last us even longer.

I AM kind of concerned, though.  One of our goats that we hadn’t meant to breed until next year appears to be pregnant with her first babies.  Goats are breedable at 4 months old or so, from what we’ve read, but we had basically decided to not breed our younger doelings until NEXT year….to give them a little time to grow some more.  So, now, after having done all the calculations as to when she MIGHT have been been bred, we wait….and count the days….and see if she really IS pregnant….or whether she is just a bigger pig than we figured.

The horses are doing good.  I was able to get up on Alice here a few days ago!  It seems like a LONG time in coming, since that has been one of the goals on my to-do list since we moved in here two years ago.  She was calm and collected.  I had my husband out with me, to make sure that, IF anything happened when I got on her, I would have someone there to pick up the pieces.  And I put a lead rope on Alice and he led her with me on her without ANY trouble!  That is a BIG step for her!!  I need to change the bit on the bridle that I was using.  I don’t think she likes my mechanical hackamore that I had on her.  It has been apparent that she is used to having an actual bit in her mouth.  So, I will be taking the curb bit off of one of my other headstalls and cleaning it up (it was doused in Neatsfoot Oil the last time the bridle was oiled) and trying it the next time I ride her.  She might respond a little better.

On another horse note….or two…..we acquired another horse when we went on vacation.  His name is Rusty and he is completely broke to ride already, so I have been able to ride him several times since we got back from vacation.  I have taken him out and up the road twice without too much trouble.  I have figured out that he hasn’t seen a culvert before, so the next time I take him up the road, I will probably have to take the time to let him investigate the 4 or 5 culverts on my riding route.  He rides nice, though.  I even had him into a canter for a short distance a few days ago when I rode him.  That was a BIG step for us, as I had shied away from letting him canter because, when he tries to play that he is spooked, he will try to run.

We will probably be getting rid of Pheline…probably at one of the livestock sales before long.  I have been having some challenges, and just don’t have the inclination or patience to try to train her to ride at this point, and, at this point, I’m not even sure she could handle being ridden.  She has VERY poor confirmation, as well as a bad hoof or two, and she’s not all that healthy.  I am not even sure that the sale is the best way to get rid of her, if she’s not going to be of any use to anyone.  We will have to see, though.  We have put the word out that we are trying to get rid of her, so we will see if anyone wants her in the next week or two.  By getting rid of her, that means we have one less productive mouth to feed through the Winter.  The direction that we are taking the farm in the coming months will be even more towards the producing-side of things, so if it’s not producing something for the farm, then it won’t be here very long.  There will be an exception or two….but not too many.

Well, I think it’s time to see about doing something else….now that I’ve rambled for a bit on one of the longest entries that I have done in a long time.

Have a BLESSED weekend!

Yep, I think that pretty well describes things, at least before a drink or two and a shower.  The contrast thing on this screen is FUBARRED and therefore is not showing the proper colors and such, or all of the typing boxes.  4 out of 6 of my goats kicked the bucket over when I was milking tonight.  I have had a feeling for what seems like YEARS that just keeps getting worse, and I have NO idea how to get rid of it……and, to top it all off, it was 102 degrees again today.  The heat has been awful this year.  I had to fill the horse bucket and the chicken buckets 4 times with water today…..I guess it’s a good thing I was home so I COULD fill them 4 times!  How do I get rid of this feeling that I’ve had for an immeasureable amount of time?  How do I change the way I’m feeling?  I pray and pray and pray and pray…..and never seem to get much in response lately.  But then again, that’s nothing new either.  I have had that same feeling for what seems like years too!  How do I CHANGE that, though?  I spent about an hour sitting in silent prayer in the church today, and still don’t feel any better.  I guess it’s time to do some soul searching….some DEEP soul searching…..Maybe it’s time to hit the saddle 7 days a week and see if I can find ME again?  We’ve got a horse that we KNOW is rideable now that we brought back my husband’s Dad’s horse.  We also have Alice, who I suspect is rideable……an hour session will tell me ALOT with saddle blankets and such where she is concerned…..and Pheline NEEDS to be rideable, as she is supposedly 3 in October.  But we have a horse we KNOW is rideable….that will be here….every day…..for the unforeseeable future……Maybe it’s time to hit the saddle and see if I can find me?  I rode Rusty for about an hour here on……Saturday…and MAN, it felt GOOD to be in the saddle again, even on a horse I haven’t ever ridden before!!!!  I can only imagine that it will get better as we get used to each other!!  Time to hit the saddle and do some soul searching and see if I can find ME again, I think……

Blessings in abundance!

…of alot of things…but I actually have a direction I want to take this tonight.

It is HARD to think….that I might ACTUALLY be looking at another 8 or 9 days/nights with little to no sleep.

After spending the last two and a half days or so (as of this morning) fighting a battle to save a new born goat, she finally died this morning.  My husband and I had spent the last two and a half days or so feeding her and giving her fluids and such every two to four hours.  And yes, that even included during the night.  As many hours as my husband works, ALOT of that responsibility fell to me.  I was glad to do it, though, if there was even a SHRED of chance of saving Loopie (the new born goat).  This morning after I got back from delivering the boy to the bus for school, I went out to get Loopie to bring her in the house to feed her, and KNEW she wasn’t right….KNEW we had lost ground over the night, for whatever reason.  But, we fed her and gave her some fluids and put her under a heat lamp to warm up, and I selfishly went to lay down with my husband for a couple of hours before having to get up and feed her again and give her more fluids before I headed for the Dr.’s office.  My ONLY regret of the last two and a half days and all of the hours lost sleep is that Loopie died….ALONE.  I felt in my heart this morning that she wasn’t going to make it.  She was having something going on, neurologically.  I KNEW this…..and still I opted to lay down instead of sitting with her for the last little bit of her life.  I have buried ALOT of animals in my lifetime, but I can honestly say that MOST of them died while I was there, so they didn’t have to die alone.  This is the second major one that has died alone….and I regret that.

Now, our focus turns more to her Mama, who has not been “right” since Loopie and her twin Sisters were born on Monday afternoon.  There for a couple of days, we thought for SURE we were going to lose Mama and be able to save Loopie.  Now, even though she’s still not completely 100% herself, Mama IS eating a bit today….and got her tongue wet in the water while I was out there….and is actually showing an interest in what is going on around her!  I THINK, with God’s help, she will be back to herself in a few days.  I don’t know exactly what it was, but I think part of it might have been kind of like a post partum depression….after having two of her three babies still-born.  Then again, having triplets would HAVE to take it’s toll on the body, also.

With my attentions focused on Mama for the most part, I headed to town to see the Dr. because I saw a different Dr. last week, and he prescribed an antibiotic which did absolutely NOTHING for my persistent, bronchitis-type cough.  When I called his nurse the day before yesterday to get something else, they called in the same exact thing.  Therefore, a call to my regular Dr. this morning got me an appointment for this afternoon.  After running up some more bill at the Doctor’s Office and the hospital, he prescribed something different….something that I’ve been on several times before throughout the years…..something that the ONLY side effect I have ever gotten from it is the….can you believe this?….the inability to sleep….*tired sighs*  It’s a 7 day course of treatment, and, when I’ve been on this prescription before, I have been unable to sleep for the better part of those 7 days…AND a couple or three or four days AFTER I am done with the treatment as it leaves my system.  I am going to try something a bit different after dropping the boy at the bus in the morning when I get home, in an attempt to get some rest with my husband, but I’m NOT going to hold my breath on it working.  If it doesn’t work, it looks like I will be “Sleepless In Kansas” until about the end of the month…give or take a day or two.  COULD make for some VERY long days, which are long anyway!  I guess the blessing to the curse of not being able to sleep while I’m on this prescription is the fact that I don’t feel the tiredness NEAR as much….and sleepliness is NON-existent, so I actually get ALOT accomplished some days, even after dark when I should be sleeping but can’t do anything outside!

Have a BLESSED weekend!

….how a long time resident of a neighborhood could be found dead in her house…..

AFTER…….

She had been dead for at least a YEAR?

This is a current news story from California.  An 80-something year old woman was found dead in her house, after neighbors (and this is what gets me!) called the police to check on her because her “mail was piling up and there were cobwebs in the mailbox”.  Now, if someone could explain to me WHY it took neighbors of an elderly woman A YEAR to realize her mail was piling up and that they hadn’t seen her lately, I would be REALLY grateful!  It is hard to believe that we actually live in a society that is so full of themselves, and so worried about what THEY are doing that they don’t keep track of things like that…even just a tad!  Now, I’m not the nosey sort where my neighbors are concerned, but I have been known to know their best known patterns like when they go and come home from work, etc.  And I have been known to either do a welfare check on them or HAVE one done by law enforcement if I haven’t seen them around lately.  I’m not too sure, but I would have to say that I would feel PRETTY embarrassed, as well as a TAD guilty, if my neighbor hadn’t been seen in better than a year…their mail was OBVIOUSLY piling up…and then I called to get a welfare check done and they were found dead.  I’m not too sure I would be able to cope with that one very easily.  And you know what?  I KIND of would like to have neighbors that would at least come check on ME if I hadn’t been seen much lately…or if my mail was piling up.  I always kind of thought that was what neighbors were for….keeping an eye on each other and helping each other.  I guess I might just be living in a dream world these days….at least according to the news reports.

In closing, I urge you to check on your neighbors, even if you don’t like them.  It doesn’t take much to go over and knock on their door and say “Hello….Do you need anything?”

God Bless!