Facebook and CRS Gold DFM

To all of my Blogger friends and followers, I have taken the plunge.

Alright, I wanted to promote CRS Gold DFM Equine Probiotics on Facebook, so I signed up for a Facebook page. There isn't a way to promote a product page without having a personal account with friends and all of that stuff. So I have given in to temptation and started a personal Facebook page as well.

The good thing is that I can continue to blog here at Spinning Yarns from the Farm and it automatically posts onto my Facebook page. Thanks, Tonya, over at The Simple Life, for that tip.

This means that I won't have to spend all of my time posting on both sites. I also removed email addresses from my blog so you won't be getting my blog emailed to you anymore.

I may eventually add a Rope Halter page but not right now because I have all of the orders that I want to deal with.

Here is the CRS Gold DFM page.

Lemonade Stand Award

For the first time in my life I have won an award!! Well, actually I won a trophy for teaching once, but it was a group award and I never even got to look at it closely or touch it.

Thanks to Shiloh Prairie Farm at Goats in the Garden for this award and the kind things that you said.

Lemonade Stand Award

The Rules:

1. Put the logo on your blog or post
2. Nominate 10 blogs that show gratitude or great attitude or both
3. Be sure to link your nominees within your post
4. Let them know they have received this award by commenting on their blog
5. Share the love and link this post to the person whom you received your award from

My nominations are (not in order of appreciation):

• Everything Old


• Mission-2-Mars Urban Farmstead
  


• Is This Heaven? No, This is Iowa


• All Natural Simple Life


• Enjoy Country Life (Waiting to hear how the incubation is going)


• Far Above Rubies


• * Capriola *


• Hidden Haven Homestead (It's kidding time!)


• Wilmoth Farms Hand Made Soaps


• New To Farm Life

This wasn't easy for me because the blogs that I read mostly had already received this award, so if any of you have already received it, I am sorry, but you still have a great blog and you still get a link.

I am not able to keep up with as many blogs as I would like too. Too busy and connection too slow.

The Faithful

To my faithful blog follower and friend; I am so sorry that you lost your mare to EPM so quickly after you learned what was wrong with her. I know it hurts and I know that it isn't fair, because no one takes better care of their horses than you do. I knew when the phone rang on Sunday morning that it was you and my heart sank.

To my faithful blog follower, cousin and friend; I missed you this weekend, sorry to hear that you were under the weather and I hope you are feeling much better.

To my other faithful blog follower and friend; I owe you an apology, I have new pictures of Buddy, Bullseye and Fancy from this Spring and Summer that I have never taken the time to send to you, maybe after Thanksgiving.

To my other faithful blog follower and friend; I see that you signed up at Goatbeat.net, now introduce yourself and join the conversation.

To my other faithful blog followers, who are also family members; We hope to see you on Wednesday night or Thursday afternoon.

To my other faithful blog followers who don't fit in any of the above categories; Thank you for reading my blog and just in case I forget to tell you, have a wonderful Thankgiving!

30 Hours

Ike was not very nice to us. We got up Sunday morning and went to Church. Then we went to a neighboring town to a Chinese restaurant with our friends, who are also our neighbors. We rode with them in their new SUV. The food was wonderful, as usual, and we stuffed ourselves.

The wind was horrible on our way home and we had not gone very far, when the there was a large jolt and everything got dark inside the SUV. All we could see was leaves through all of our windows. We continued to roll forward and stopped once we could see daylight again and everyone but me jumped out of the car to see what had happened.

I just turned around in my seat and looked at the tree or very large limb from a tree, that had barely missed crushing us. Then being the pessimist that I am, I looked at the other trees nearby that were presently and violently bending over the top of where I sat and I wished everyone else would just come to their senses and get back in the car and drive on down the road.

My strong anxious feelings must have telepathically conveyed themselves to the others because all of the sudden, they all quickly moved back to their former positions and we sped off to the nearest parking lot where there were no trees. A careful inspection of the SUV revealed no damage other than the driver's side mirror had broken loose from it's housing.

We continued on towards home and the wind continued to harass us all of the way. Being the pessimist that I am, I made the statement that I hoped that we could get home once we got back on country roads. Well, the first tree across the road that we came to, once we turned on to the country road that takes us to our houses, was movable by the two men in suits who were my Husband and our friend. The next tree required two chainsaws and a few good neighbors, plus a road crew.

When we were finally almost to the neighbor's driveway, we had to drive across phone lines that were lying across the road. That is when we knew for sure that we were in trouble. We did have a phone when we arrived home, surprisingly enough, but we had no electricity. We are just simple folks, living in the outer rim of civilization, so when we don't have electricity, we also don't have water because we have a well with an electric pump.

We started hearing the rumors that it might be 4 or 5 days before we were back to normal. In the meantime we started adjusting our lives, the swimming pool came in handy for water to wash things in and to flush the stool with. We went to bed last night thinking that it would be back on by morning, but that didn't happen. We suffered with no electricity for 30 hours. It finally came back on late this evening and I had 85 emails waiting for me when I booted up the computer.

Prices

The price of everything is going up. I have a hard time understanding people's motives. Since times are hard right now, they will increase their prices, so that they don't have to lower their standard of living. But if people can't afford to pay the higher prices, what good is it going to do you?

Everyone gripes about the price of gas but they won't stay home, they continue driving because it is what they have always done and they can't discipline themselves enough to stop. It seems to me that if we really wanted gas prices to come down, we would stop driving unless it was absolutely unavoidable.

We have had to stop some things, we don't just run to town because we need one or two things. Sometimes our cupboards are pretty bare. We don't seem to be losing any weight though.

The price of feed is putting small homesteads and the small farmer out of business. Unless you are totally self-sufficient. The equipment that you need to become self-sufficient is high, feed is high, we blamed last year's hay prices on the drought but we don't have a drought now and no one is coming down on their hay prices. So here we are in the first week of August, with 30 some head of horses and 5 head of goats to feed this winter and no hay in the barn.

There is plenty of hay out there but everyone still thinks that it made of gold. I understand that fuel prices make the hay more expensive to produce but there seems to be some greed involved also. The thing is, if people don't have the money to spend and if wages are not increasing, who is going to buy their hay? The animals will have to go, then who will buy your hay next year?

I have always told my husband that I felt sorry for people who have money, then lose it. They are used to having whatever they want. Then when the local factory shuts down, they lose their houses or have to readjust their lifestyle. 

I have never experienced this myself because we have never had any money to start with, but it has to be hard on them. Their stress level at the thought of not being able to pay their bills anymore must be unbearable. I would think that they would also have a lot of regrets for not planning ahead and preparing for an uncertain future.

You can never predict what lies ahead of you, so you need to do the best you can without living foolishly. Constant refinancing of a home to buy more toys, insures constant pressure on the nervous system, anxiety attacks and worry. 

Why not concentrate on paying yourself out of debt while the money is coming in and always make sure that you have the cash in your hand before you buy any toys or take any trips or even eat out? But we are a credit driven society, perhaps what we are going through now will wake some people up.

It is very sad to see many of our local businesses closing their doors and many of our friends and neighbors, some who are close to retirement age, facing unemployment after working for many years at those local businesses. Where do they go to get a new job and start all over again?

Surprise

We keep some of our horses at a friend's house because she has more grass than her horses can handle. She also keeps a large pony for another friend of hers. We stopped by there yesterday to trim one of our yearling's hooves. Our friend was mowing her yard, she and my husband were discussing changing oil on her lawn tractor.

I was listening and looking across the field occasionally at the horses who were at the back of the property. Something seemed strange about what I was seeing, so I tried harder to focus but at that distance and with my elderly eyesight, I couldn't make a certain object out. So, I finally said, "What is that?". My husband and our friend turned around to look. My husband said that it looked like a foal. I asked where our friend's German Shepherd was and my husband said that it's legs looked too long to be a dog, as he sprinted across the yard to the gate.

By the time that we arrived on the scene the "foal" had found it's mother and was nursing. My DH yelled to me that it belonged the pony. When it took it's head out from under it's mother and peeked around at us, we both started laughing and my husband announced that it was a mule.

The man who owns this pony had bought her at an auction last summer and had no idea that she was pregnant. We had been there about a week ago and I had made the comment that she looked pregnant but ponies tend to look that way, so we didn't investigate further.

It took awhile before our friend who owns the property got back to where we were. We didn't say anything about it being a mule to her and she was talking about how surprised her other friend was going to be. When she was finally close enough to see it she had the strangest look on her face. She said something about it having long ears before she realized what it was. I wish that I had had my camera with me, it was so funny!

It is just the cutest thing you ever saw. My husband finally caught it and we all got to pet it. It is a dark bay boy with a dorsal stripe, a curly mane and tail, very long ears and a light tan nose. You can't look at it without laughing. It's mother is a large bay pony with two blue eyes, she is real pretty and seeing her with this ugly little duckling is so sweet. She loves him no matter what he looks like.

Another Review

One of my family members is in Iraq, he had just barely gotten over there, when his house caught fire with his wife and young son asleep inside. His wife woke up and got their son out and the fire department managed to save the structure. They have major damage with tons of clean up work to be done.

They had insurance that was purchased from a company that allowed wood stoves, that is why they had used this particular company. They thought that they had protection for such a time as this. But it doesn't seem to be working that way. The insurance company is not wanting to pay off for this fire that started in the flue.

So, this poor Soldier's wife, who is having to endure the loneliness and worry of having a husband in harm's way and having a child who feels abandoned by the Father whom he adores. Is now having to deal with homelessness, seeing all of their belongings mostly ruined and having to deal with a heartless insurance company.

They have tried to find a Lawyer to represent them in this disaster and have finally found one that will listen to them for $250 per hour, however, he is being retained by the offending insurance company, just like all the other Lawyers are. It would be a conflict of interest for him to go after an insurance company that is paying money to retain him. These insurance companies are pretty slick and sleazy that way.

Sure this mother and child will be taken care of by family and friends. Their Church family is offering to do the repair work but they shouldn't have to do it, that is why this family has been paying premiums to this insurance company.

The Husband/Father/Soldier has been notified about the fire but they are mostly keeping him in the dark about their struggles with the insurance company, because he shouldn't have to be worrying about that right now.

I am just a little surprised that there is no organization out there to help Soldier's wives with problems like this. They have even contacted the insurance commission and while they do sympathize, they haven't done anything about it and no attorneys have offered their services.

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.