Back To Normal

We are back to almost normal, the girl's Mother picked them up, then brought them back today for me to watch while she took the oldest one back to the Doctor. After several tests they proclaimed that she has a severe UTI with none of the usual symptoms, she is still running a high fever after six days. I am already missing the constant chatter of little girls, and how they can always find something for you to do when you sit down or are on the phone.

We are currently house-sitting for our neighbors which means, for the most part, my DH is at home and I am at the neighbors. I haven't milked but once in the last six days. But I am confident that he is doing a good job. He hand milks much better than I do, but my doe does prefer the spray nozzle milker, the bad part is that the dogs and cat are getting all of the milk.

Those who have followed my blog for a long time will know who Lolita is, she is a Yellow Naped Amazon Parrot who belongs to my neighbors. You can read how she sliced and diced my hand in this post: Back Home.

After she shredded my hand, I did gain some courage back and handled her several times afterward but then on New Year's day while we were at her house for dinner, she got agitated and grabbed her owner's cheek while sitting on her shoulder. She nearly took a chunk of meat out of my friend's face. I lost a ton of courage by witnessing this. After all, this is the lady who handles this bird daily.

So here I am, back to being her caretaker for a few days. She is cooing and flirting with me constantly. It is so hard for me to ignore her advances. She just keeps begging me to take her out of her cage and play with her. I did finally give in while my Husband was here last evening. She sat upon my shoulder and preened my hair, she kissed my face and rubbed her head on me, a perfectly well behaved, affectionate parrot. Who can turn into a man-eating dragon in a flash.

She sounds and acts so sweet with the girls, that I have to constantly warn them of the dangers of sticking their tiny fingers in the cage to pet her. The two year old was nearly beguiled by her sweet cunning ways.

The Flu Bug

We have taken on a few extra responsibilities over the last several days and that has kept us almost totally offline. We had a terrible windstorm that forced me to keep the computer shut down because of the instability of the electricity, it kept flickering but never went completely out.

Then what was suppose to be a sleep-over for our three Granddaughters turned into a round the clock vigil, when two of them came down with the flu. My DH was puked upon twice and I would not even venture to guess how many times we held a bucket for our oldest Granddaughter.

The first night I slept on the floor beside our oldest Granddaughter's bed and tried my best to keep her fever down and the mess to a minimum. My poor Husband slept with the youngest one, and the bed was nearly a total loss. I have done more laundry over the last few days than I even care to think about, even the dog has thrown-up.

Since the girls have a new infant brother we chose to keep them here for a few days away from him, but the oldest girl just was not getting any better so her parents came after her today. The other two are still with us and fully recovered.

I think that I might even be able to sleep in an actual bed tonight for the first time in two days. I was a little surprised at myself because I actually slept well on the floor and woke up when I needed to throughout the night. I was not even that sore the next day.

Angus is doing very well for those who have asked, he is actually outgrowing the calf who his mother tried to steal, and that calf is nursing both Angus' mother and his own mother.

Thank you so much, Rachel, for getting back to me, but his scours had stopped before I received your message and I didn't receive your message until several days after you had left it.

I am hoping that things might return to somewhat normal soon, but cannot guarantee that for a couple of weeks, I will post when I can.

The Girls

Yesterday was just fun, the girls were here. When my oldest Son called and he heard the commotion in the background, he asked, "if the girls were here?". That terminology will have to change when their new brother arrives.

The girl's ate, which is one of their favorite things to do, boys don't seem to really enjoy food like girls do. Then their Papaw took them swimming in what I thought was a really cold pool. Their poor Papaw thought so too, when he got in, but they didn't seem to even notice. Even the youngest one who is a year and a half didn't complain.

After swimming they ate again. Then I took the oldest two girls for a walk to where they plan to build a new house on the back corner of our property. We have to walk through the Enchanted Forest to get there.

The horses have many paths through the Enchanted Forest and the youngest girl who was leading the way kept asking which path to take. I told her that she would have to choose her own path. She had a hard time with that concept, she didn't like making that decision.

The oldest girl was walking behind me on the path, she was talking non-stop. Sometimes it gets a little difficult for these two sisters, because they both love to talk as much as they love to eat.

When we finally made it to our destination, the youngest girl announced that she was itching all over. The oldest girl asked where she was itching and she again said, all over. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that there were some places that she wasn't itching, so she started a running list of all of the places that she wasn't itching, body part by body part.

We started on our journey back home, with the youngest still reciting different names for the same body parts. I told her that we would stop at the first good "sitting" boulder that we came to in the Enchanted Forest and she could scratch the places that itched. The good thing about living in the Limestone Capital of the World is that your Enchanted Forests have good places to sit down.

When we got to the first boulder, it was too big for the girls, ages 4 and 5 to get up on, so I had to lift them. I had a canteen full of sweet tea that I handed to the youngest one, who drank, then shared with her sister. Things were going fine, everyone was sharing and no one had even remembered to scratch.

Then that all changed when the oldest one thought that the youngest one should let her hand the canteen back to me to drink and the youngest one wanted to hand it back to me. So, tempers flared and the oldest one gave the youngest one a slight shove, to which the youngest one answered with a grab and a vicious pinch that resulted in a sharp and loud slap across the cheek. It all happened so fast that I had a hard time separating them.

The peacefulness of the Enchanted Forest was then shattered by the wailing of the youngest Princess. Enchanted Forests tend to lose their charm when the beautiful Princesses are wailing. I finally managed to distract her enough for peace to return. We continued on our journey, talking, listening, choosing paths, picking flowers and picking up rocks.

All in all, it was just a perfect day, they caught some chicks with the help of their Daddy and Papaw. Then of course, they helped me milk.

Exciting News

Yesterday was an exciting day. My expecting Daughter-in-law had her midway ultrasound and was suppose to find out the gender of the baby. They have three daughters ages 5 and under. We have been calling this new baby an "it" which is a little uncomfortable. I waited for her phone call and when it came, she was cruel and told me that the baby wouldn't cooperate and that they couldn't tell what it was. But that she was coming down to show us the 15 minute video.

I told my Husband when I hung up that she said that they couldn't tell, but that she was probably lying to me. He didn't understand why she would lie to me about it until I told him that she was bringing a 15 minute video down.

As soon as they arrived, I started interrogating the girls. They were very convincing and I started thinking that she had told me the truth after all.

So we watched the video and I first thought that I saw boy parts but then I thought I saw girl parts. Finally right before the truth was revealed, my DIL admitted that she knew and wanted to know if we knew, which we didn't.

Then the lady doing the ultrasound, after shaking the baby several times trying to get it to uncross it's legs, circled the area and it was plain to see that it is a boy. I guess the lady knew right from the beginning that it was a boy but she knew that they already had three girls, so she made them wait until she got a really clear picture so they could see for themselves. His big sisters will finally be able to quit fighting over who has to play the roll of the Prince.

Perfect Horses

We currently have a large herd of horses, and have had many horses pass through our gates in the last several years. We have not had very many perfect horses, some have gotten close but just didn't reach the level of what I would consider a perfect horse.

Several years ago we purchased an appaloosa mare and an ugly sorrel gelding along with everything that went with them, even the trailer. The family just didn't have time to mess with them anymore and had lost interest. They did a lot of trail riding and camping with friends but they weren't really horse people.

They told us that the mare was wonderful and that the gelding was good too as long as you didn't separate him from the mare. He would follow her on the trail but that was about all he was capable of. Well, the gelding was just impossible and we were lucky to find him a home but the mare was nice, she just didn't seem to have any flaws. We advertised her as a great trail horse because that is all that these people did with her.

We only had her for about one month. A lady contacted us from a therapy riding facility and we talked about her a few times by phone but she was being careful and we ended up selling her to a young local girl to show in 4-H, just in time for the season to begin. Her 4-H leader was just overwhelmed by this mare and called to tell us so.

The lady from the therapy place called me back when she seen that the mare had been sold to ask me is she was as good as we had said that she was. I told her, "No, she is much better than we thought she was." She asked me how much we sold her for and I told her $1200, which was fairly good at the time for an unregistered horse. She wanted us to call the girl who had purchased her and offer her $2400 for her. We did and she refused.

This girl went on to win every class that the mare was entered in that year and every year after. She was passed down to other girls after her owner was too old for 4-H and got interested in cars and boys. She is an old mare now and is owned by the 4-H leader's timid daughter.

I am going to talk some more about perfect horses that have passed through my life in coming blogs, so stay tuned...