Flight of the Bumblebee

Actually only a few make it to flight, most of them end up lying in wait on my bedroom floor.

In case you are a new reader I will recap our living arrangements. We are living in our barn until our ship comes in, at which time we hope to build a house.

We can't see the ocean, a river or a lake from here, so I don't know how the ship will get to us. I have a suspicion that the ship is not even coming but we still keep waiting for it.

We don't have drywall or any kind of ceiling in most of our humble home, it was suppose to come on that ship as well. But we do have insulation in the ceilings. For some reason, the bumblebees chose our bedroom ceiling insulation as a good, safe, nesting area.

We had a good working relationship with the bumblebees to start out with, we didn't bother them and they didn't bother us. It wasn't until the new babies started hatching out that the problems began. Newborn baby bumblebees are not that frightening, and can in fact be considered cute like most babies.

I discovered that little baby bumblebees can and will sting if you get under the covers and try to share a sleeping space with them. That sting is just a little annoying and the pain doesn't last all that long.

As time has gone on we have found that baby bumblebees grow into children then into teenagers rather quickly. In each stage of their lives we have also found that they struggle to survive in the frigid temperatures of our bedroom.

With our little window air conditioner cranked up to its highest or should I say, lowest setting, only the very strong and healthy young bumblebees can actually find and use their wings successfully.

The rest of them end up scattered around on the bedroom floor on their sides trying to right themselves. They do occasionally make it to the side of the bed and manage to crawl up onto the bed or at least under the covers. It is really nice, if when they make it under the covers that they then find and figure out how to use their wings. That way, the noise will alert you to their presence.

I would venture to guess that we have killed approximately 14 flying bumblebees recently inside our house. I would not even try to guess how many we have picked up and disposed of that were on the floor and bed. We are starting to see a decrease in numbers, so I would say that we are about to be done with it all.

I had considered us pretty fortunate that we had only had one stinging incident and when I went into the bedroom to turn the air conditioner up a little because the weather outside had cooled down so much. I felt a little foolhardy to be in that room with no shoes on. While I thought on these things a sharp pain shot through my big toe.

My DH and I spent some time discussing which was worse; a bumblebee sting or a hornet sting. He assured me that a hornet was much worse. He gave me no sympathy whatsoever. As if I should just forget it ever happened.

Then last night he got up several times after we had gone to bed. I warned him each time. Finally, this morning, I heard him say, "ouch!" and I knew what had happened. I was ready for him too. I told him it was nothing and that a hornet sting was much worse.

This has all brought about a scientific study. I was telling a neighbor about my Husband getting stung by the hornet the other day and she told me that she got stung once in her arthritic, swollen finger.

After the sting her finger never bothered her again and all of the swelling in it went away. Now my DH's toe that he just got stung on has given him fits throughout the years, we'll have to wait and see what happens.

I'm Back

I have finally caught up on most all of my rope halter orders. I currently only have two small orders to fill. This spring has been horribly busy for us and I hope things will slow down enough for us to catch our breath.

My fingers are really sore from working on the halters and the pinky on my left hand and the middle, ring and pinky on my right hand are all starting to curl under with arthritis. Keyboarding is getting difficult for me. I can't imagine not being able to blog anymore. Getting old just stinks and I would advise you younger folks out there not to try it.

Out of 18 eggs my hen managed to hatch nine chicks. All of the hatchlings were banties, most of them have feathered feet. When we broke open the unhatched eggs, the three other banty eggs had dead chicks in them but the six standard eggs were still yolks. None of the standards had been fertilized as I had suspected. I am going to have to get a different rooster if I ever hope to raise some standard chickens.

One of the chicks got smashed by its oversized Mother. The other eight are doing well. Mom steps on their little feet sometimes and they cry and pull but can't get away until she takes another step then the poor things go tumbling. They are great fun to watch, my DH says that in her exuberance to scratch up a meal that she inadvertently buries a few of them but they always manage to dig their way out.

I was tempted to take them away from their Mother, put them in a safe place and raise them myself. But after all of the work that she did and with her knowing how to take better care of chicks than I could ever know, I decided to let her do it herself. Even with these chicks being half the size of what her biological children would be, I still think she knows best.

I am going to do my best to get back to work and blog every day. This is the best way that I have found to keep a daily journal that I can refer back to when I fail to write important dates on my calendar.

Amber Back Relief

I am participating in a test of a new product, if you follow my blog you know that I love Baltic Amber for pain relief. I wear an amber necklace for my disk problems and arthritis in my neck. I also wear amber bracelets on my wrists when tying horse and goat rope halters.

I was recently contacted by the lady at www.forfinn.com, who I purchase my amber from about testing a new product, an amber belt for lower back pain. Since I have four herniated disks, degenerate disk disease, spinal stenosis and arthritis in my lumbar spine, I was thrilled to help out.

These amber pieces are about the size of a dime and are slightly flattened. So far so good, I am finding it hard to deal with the string but within 20 minutes of putting this on, I noticed a reduction of my back pain. Amber is anti-inflammatory and since I am allergic to NSAIDs like Ibuprofen or Alieve, this is a blessing for me.

My Big Toe

My big toe on my right foot feels as if it has a needle stuck under the it's nail. Now that is just irritating. I keep looking at my toe nail and there is nothing wrong with it. I guess I shouldn't complain at least I am back in a sitting position.

I was hardly able to walk on Sunday evening but on Monday I was flat in the bed not able to even sit up. I couldn't get on the computer or walk or even read a book. The last time that I had an MRI it showed four bulging discs with impingement, spinal stenosis and a lot of arthritis in both my cervical and lumbar spine. As a side note they tell me that I also have arthritis in my tail bone. Which makes it very difficult to sit for very long.

I haven't had much pain in my legs but now my right leg is starting to bother me and this thing with my toe. At first I thought that I had been stung by a bee or something. This was all brought about by an automobile accident several years ago. I thought that I was getting better but then this hit me and I have been a little down in more ways than one for the last few days. That is my excuse for not blogging much recently. But I shall pick myself up and soldier on.

Rested

I slept through the night for the first time in ages. I feel much better this morning. Although my back didn't like it much. I found that my back doesn't hurt as badly when I get up several times during the night. Just like my back doesn't like to sit in a chair for more than 10 minutes or stand on my feet for more than 5 minutes. I guess maybe I should set my alarm and continue to get up during the night.

I want to thank all of my friends who called, left comments here on my blog and sent me e-mails of encouragement through the last two weeks.

I have had people ask, why we just didn't put her down in the first place. Well, if we could have seen the future and had known that her kidneys were defective, we would have. But we have pulled high risk foals back from the brink before and so we couldn't let her go without exhausting every avenue of treatment. As long as there is hope, I find it hard to give up on them.

We had a foal years ago that was born to a mother with no milk, she was a fescue baby. This was back before the fescue problem had even been identified. We had just bought the mare and didn't know she was bred. The baby got no colostrum, it was also back before any of our local stores carried mare milk replacer, I don't even know if there was such a thing at that time anyway. I am really telling my age here. But anyway, we put her on Carnation calf milk replacer.

We didn't have the internet then and we didn't know anything about raising a foal on a bottle but we did know how to raise calves that way, so that is how we raised Bambi. She was just a little, half pony, half horse, sorrel filly.

She got septic, navel ill and her all of her joints swelled up. All of this happened during the coldest part of winter. I remember crawling to the barn on the ice to give her bottles. She got to the point that she couldn't stand or get to her feet.

She got scours, got dehydrated and even got pneumonia at one point. We just pumped her full of antibiotics and somehow pulled her through it all. Looking back on it now, I cannot believe that she survived but she did and went on to become a riding horse and the people that bought her from us even raised foals with her. She lived to be an old horse but did get arthritis when she got older.