Struggling To Find Ourselves

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!

It won’t be too long after we get back off of vacation in the middle part of August that I will be hitting the saddle.  Not only will I be working with the two horses we have, I will also be working with someone else’s horse that just doesn’t get ridden enough.  I will very probably be looking into getting some horse riding apparel, in addition to some extra tack.

Vacation time is coming quick!  It has kind of got parts of our family agitated because they have to work right up until we leave, and they aren’t used to being able to rely on someone else enough to trust them to have things ready to go when the time to go actually arrives.  This is one of those built-in learning times between family members.  If the ones being relied upon to have things ready to go can actually pull it off and have things ready to go when it’s time to leave, then it will be a trust-earning situation for all involved.  If they, for whatever reason don’t pull it off and we aren’t packed and ready to leave when the appointed time comes, I am afraid that it will be a difficult start to the vacation.  I have NO doubts, though, that the parties involved that are being relied upon to have things packed and ready to go WILL have things ready to go when the time to leave arrives!  It will be the start of a GREAT vacation and a GREAT learning-to-trust-time that will bring our family even closer together!

Have a BLESSED rest-of-the-week!

…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!

There are SOOOOOOO many things out there that claim to be “the strongest pill” or “the strongest help you can find”.  I agree that in some instances, a pill or other help can be a GREAT asset.  But, on the other hand, if you don’t want to do something in the first place….if you don’t get your mind-set right….then it’s very likely that a pill isn’t going to help you much.  It doesn’t matter, in my mind, if it’s the strongest diet pills or the strongest anti-depressant or the strongest stop-smoking product.  You HAVE to get your mind right, or a product isn’t going to help you much.

Alright, I think I’m done giving my opinion for a bit.  God Bless!

This is the first of these I have done in a while.  Don’t ask me why, other than I just haven’t been checking them.  I am going to do better at following the Sunday Scribblings prompts a bit better in 2011!

I thought that the invisible idea was kind of interesting, given some of the key words that I have for this week and next week.  Have you ever noticed that the television shows, movies and even the media make certain things glamorous, in a way.  They have succeeded, for the most part, in making smoking look “cool” to society.  And, in what seems to be an ever-increasing regularity, they have made needing an acne treatment be “normal”.  I’m not saying it’s not normal, but I think the medical society tends to over-prescribe for ALOT of things these days, and that one is on my list of things that I think that they over-prescribe for.  Pretty soon, they will be making things like acne and ADD and ADHD and even scars “invisible”.

If it’s not the media world making things invisible, it’s the people of society who treat you like you’re invisible if you have noticeable scars or acne or anything like that.  With that in mind, it kind of makes me wonder what kind of society we will be living in in 60 or 75 years.

God Bless!

Why is it that, after awhile, new Doctor’s in a small town get what I call “Small Town Doctor Syndrome” and just hand you a prescription instead of actually trying to find a solution….or at least the cause of the problem?  I have run into this situation MANY times in my life.  One of those times was when I was having migraine headaches ALL the time.  They handed me a prescription, and when that prescription didn’t work very long, they handed me another one.  No tests to find the cause….no suggestions on a more natural migraine relief….nothing except another prescription.

That is my rant for the day, I suppose.  Have a blessed evening!

Just what IS a hydroxycut, anyway? Is that anything like a knife cut?

On a more personal note, I realized that this is entry number 1,003 for this website!!!  My!!!  It doesn’t really seem like I’ve typed that much, but I guess when you spread it out over a couple of years, it tends to accumulate!  Kind of like the material things in our lives sometimes.  One day, some of us just wake up and realize that things we’ve been hanging on to for a couple of years “just in case” can go to the burn barrel or be donated or whatever.  That has been the case with me in the last week or so, with rearranging and changing things in the basement and getting ready to change our heating system this Fall and our laundry system over the Winter or next Spring.  I have been going through a few things, here and there, and decided that a BUNCH of paperwork that I’d been hanging on to wasn’t going to do me any good now.  I mean, at least part of it was 5 years old or better, and work that I had done for someone else on the internet.  I decided that if they came back and wanted receipts and copies of my work now, they were probably out of their minds anyway, so in the burn barrel container it went!  It actually felt kind of good to be rid of old catalogs and such that I’d been saving, and such!  More such sorting is to come!!!

Have a BLESSED weekend!!!

More and more these days, it seems that the job market for those that don’t have a GOOD education is declining drastically.  I have been looking at the job market for the last several years and have noticed that alot of jobs, such as accounting finance jobs and jobs that require a Master’s degree or higher are in MUCH more demand than they were.

And with this in mind, it makes me wonder why some schools are doing away with the “F” as a grade.  That’s right…..some schools are now making it so children can’t fail, no matter HOW bad their grades are.  Ummmmm….can we say “STUPID”, in my opinion?  And people wonder why the trend of homeschooling is becoming more popular?

God Bless!