Summer Returns

The cooler weather didn’t last long, the heat has returned today with a vengeance. I remember a few years ago when I first got my first swimming pool that the water was cold all summer. I had to get a solar blanket for it, I didn’t think that having a pool was worth the cost of the chemicals because it wasn’t used that much. Some friends that I know got rid of their pools after that season because it was never warm enough to swim comfortably.

I got the pool for my Grandkids because I wanted them to learn to swim. It worked well, my oldest Grandson can swim well and my two oldest Granddaughters are floating, dog paddling, and swimming expertly underwater.

This year has been the best year ever for owning a swimming pool in southern Indiana. The girls have lived in the water this Summer. They are dark brown from the sun and their hair is a couple of shades lighter. But today the water was cold after a couple of cool nights. They were shocked in more ways than one when they jumped in because they are used to nice warm water. They keep getting out to warm up in the sun.

It’s hard to believe that it is almost September, this Summer has been just one long, super hot, steamy blur. It started out stormy with lots of rain and is ending up dry and dusty. We have gone from grass that wouldn’t quit growing to grass that is drying up and not growing at all. I wonder what this Winter will be like.

Windows Live Writer

Finally got a new computer and am in the process of setting it up. It had this blogging program on it, so I thought that I would give it a try. Since I am still on a dial-up out here in the wilderness of southern Indiana, I thought it would be a great idea to be able to blog when I am offline. It seems to have lots of bells and whistles, so far I am impressed.

The unrelenting Summer heat has relented today and it was just in time for us to get our first load of hay in the loft. I didn’t think that we would be putting any square bales in the loft this year because reasonably priced, good quality square baled hay is a thing of the past. I thought that we were going to try to get by with just big round bales but we fell for it again and this hay is another disappointment. These bales are half the size of the hay that we got a few years ago for half the price. It is so light and loose that it won’t stay on the elevator.

In this tough economy everyone is trying to get rich by ripping off their neighbor. Small farmers or hobby farmers have to have their own hay equipment and their own hayfield in order to survive anymore. We can sit and reminisce with the Grandkids this winter about how you used to be able to buy good clean hay without weeds in heavy, long, tight bales for $2.00 per bale.

Now let’s see how Windows Live Writer publishes to blogger.

Poison Mushrooms

Yesterday I posted about hunting fall mushrooms, the reason that we got interested in hunting them was because of a mushroom incident that happened to our Pastor.

He recently took his little dog out for her morning walk in the yard when she grabbed up something white in her mouth in a playful way. He realized that it was a mushroom and yelled at her to drop it, she did drop it but I guess she didn't drop it quick enough, the damage was already done.

Within 15 minutes she was vomiting and then the bloody diarrhea began. He rushed her to the Vet. They immediately started an IV when he walked through the door with her, she was obviously dying.

They managed to save her life but she certainly would have died if he had not seen her pick the mushroom up and realized how serious the situation was. They later identified the mushroom on the Vet's computer. She was at the Vet's office for a week and doesn't seem to have any long term affects from her experience at this time.

The Vet was concerned that with the rainy weather that we have had this year, these mushrooms are in everyone's yard. He said that it is rare that pet owners actually see their pets eat or play with the mushroom or toadstool. Most of the time people don't know what makes their dogs sick or why they just get sick and die suddenly.

I am not a mushroom expert, so I won't try to educate anyone here on my blog but it would probably be a good idea to do a little mushroom research to familiarize yourself with some of the things that you commonly see in your area. There are some mushrooms that are only mildly toxic and others that are deadly.

As a matter of fact, one of the spring mushrooms that I have enjoyed from the time I was a child is mildly toxic. You would have to eat a lot of them to make you sick. But some of the summer and fall mushrooms that I have never thought about eating are said to be safe and delicious. I have tried eating giant puffballs that grow like pumpkins here in the fall but didn't think that they tasted all that great.

Exotic Feline Rescue

Our old mare with Cushings never got any better even with the Chaste Tree Berries. My DH spent many days cutting her long hair so that the hot days weren't so hard on her. But even with her hair cut she suffered in the heat. So we finally donated her to the Exotic Feline Rescue Center, who provide a home for nearly 200 big cats. They were thrilled to get her at the time because they were having a drought in meat donations. They said that they would be here in a couple of hours.

When he came to get her, he said that after my Husband had called they had gotten some other calls. They feed 3000 lbs. of meat per day. Unfortunately we have several horses who are at the age that they will probably end up in the same place in the next few months or years. It isn't as bad as it sounds, the man was very skilled in putting our mare down and he did it on our own property, so the horse does not have the stress of being loaded and hauled to a strange place. We feel like this is the right answer for all involved.

August Already?

Where did the summer go? Where did the year go?? I can't believe that I have only blogged one time this month. I can't believe that it is already the 14th of August. Christmas is just around the corner. I am trying not to panic...

If you are young, enjoy your youth while you still have time because as you get older the faster time goes by. I was young once and it wasn't that long ago. Days used to have so much time in them. Weeks took forever to go by. A month was nearly an eternity. Not anymore, years are more like weeks used to be.

This summer has just flown by. School has already started or is getting ready to start. I have been spending some quality time with the Grandchildren and they are about to kill me. Seriously, swimming with Grandkids can be hazardous to your health when you are an old Granny. I am so sore tonight as I type this that I can barely move my head and the calf of my left leg is swollen and tender from horrible leg cramps.

The problem is when your oldest Grandson says that you can't dunk him, well, then you just have to prove to him that you are still in control and he isn't as big and tough as he thinks he is at 10 years old. He is big enough and tough enough for me to lean on while trying to walk to the house after I had dunked him several times and my leg cramped up when I tried to go up the ladder to get out of the pool.

I got the pool because I wanted my Grandkids to learn to swim, which is something that I never got to do when I was a kid. They are all doing pretty well, the oldest can swim like a fish and the next to the oldest is diving and swimming with her face under the water with water wings on.

The others still have a ways to go but the trick is to keep them in the water as much as possible. Our two year old Granddaughter is just sure that she can swim. She has no fear and tries to break free of your grasp. Her Mother, Papaw and I just do not have the courage to let her try it.

Steady Rain

The rain started last night, slow and gentle. The perfect rain is not a downpour or a thunderstorm, it is a steady, gentle rain that last for hours. I had not watered my plants last night so the rain was very welcome.

This type of rain slowly soaks the ground with moisture and nourishment. It doesn't wash away loose seeds, plants, dirt or gravel, it doesn't cut ditches. This is the kind of rain that we cherish.

I woke up all through the night to hear the gentle rain and it made me happy. It means more grass for the thirty some odd horses that we have, not all are odd just most of them.

It also means more grass for my DH to mow. Mowing gives him something to do in his spare time. I would venture a guess of 47 acres of mowing in his down time, when he isn't working six days a week. Some of that mowing is with a push mower to keep himself healthy.

When I arose from my slumber this morning, I found that it was still raining. I waited for awhile before going out to bring the goats to the barn for milking. After looking at the radar on the internet, I decided that this sweet rain wasn't going to stop anytime soon and that my feet were wet from where the lovely rain was coming through the wall under my computer desk.

Upon venturing outside, I discovered that there was barely a dry spot inside the barn. My milkstand is standing in about two inches of beautiful rain water. Angus' stall is now a marsh area but he isn't there, he is outside enjoying the steady rain.

I have tried to stay positive throughout this post but after just hearing the weather forecast on the radio, I am beginning to have negative thoughts. There is more rain in our immediate future and the possibility of thunderstorms tonight. How could such a lovely summer rain become so annoying?

Two for One

Two blogs in one day, can you beat that? Who knows I might make it three. I am sitting here feeling terrible. I have a sore throat, headache and cough. Whoever heard of a sore throat and cough in the middle of the hottest days of Summer.

If this happened during the winter months it wouldn't bother me so much but when it is 94 degrees in the shade, it isn't too fun. All I want is Banana Popsicles and I have totally run out.

Oh well, I guess I had better stop complaining, cowgirl up, get outside to clean up the milk stand, spray down the area for flies, milk the goat, prepare and give bottles to the bucklings, put Cooter up, feed and water.

Then I need to check and water my tomatoes, strawberries, cilantro, one little volunteer watermelon plant and three little flowers that are being taken over by weeds. We did have several sunflowers coming up that the Granddaughters planted but Angus took care of those, he ate them all.

Diarrhea in Goat Kids

OK, I am just going to have to admit it, Spring and Summer are just too busy for me to have the time to blog. I know that I blogged last Summer but this year has been crazy. I have too many irons in the fire.

After the worming, all of my goats have picked up weight and are looking good. I will be worming them all again tomorrow at 10 days after the first worming. I will not be tripling the dosage this time, just slightly over the regular horse dosage.

I had quite a time with my two little spotted Nubian bucklings, they were just weaned when I traded for them. Weaning should be a gradual thing. Kids shouldn't just be pulled off of the doe. They should be separated in gradually increasing time periods.

If they are just all of the sudden taken away from their mothers they don't get enough fluids to sustain them well, because they haven't learned to drink an adequate amount of water. So these two bucklings got diarrhea and started loosing weight, they got lethargic and didn't want to eat or drink.

I started drenching them with Nutri-Drench (For Beef Cattle because it is cheaper), Pepto-Bismol and Pedialyte. The drenching wasn't going too well because they fought me like wild cats. So I decided to teach them to take a bottle. This is very hard, if an animal has never seen a bottle before.

One of them finally decided that the Pedialyte was pretty good stuff so he started sucking it down. The other one would only chew on the nipple and wouldn't suck. It took him forever to empty the bottle by chewing. It has been so hot here and sitting out there for 30 minutes in the sun while he chewed, got old for both of us. Then yesterday after about 5 days of this, he started sucking and downed his bottle in no time.

I switched from the Pepto-Bismol to Slippery Elm Bark Powder after the first bottle of Pepto was gone in the first day and a half, they were getting a bottle every 3 - 4 hours. Their diarrhea was completely gone after the second day of the Slippery Elm Bark mixed with goat's milk, Pedialyte and a squirt of Nutri-Drench. I am down to just one bottle per day now that they are over the diarrhea. It is so hot that I think they still need the extra boost.

Sludge

Our barn is just full of it, last night it was rain water, today it is sludge. It has been years since we have seen this much rain. Indian Creek has rerouted itself into our lower pasture and is still rising. The roaring sound of the creek, that is temporarily a river, is filling this valley.

Poor Calico and kids are on the only high spot in the stall. She isn't even wading the waters to go to her hay feeder. I was awake all night, it started with a glance at the weather radar when I knew something bad was going to hit us, there was no escape.

By the time that I got the computer shut down because I was starting to hear the thunder, it was here. There was no sleep after that. The lightening, thunder, hail and wind were really scary. I was just sure that we were going to get hit by a tornado any second. My DH just kept snoring, I talked to him anyway, he even answered.

I was expecting to find things blown all over the yard this morning and trees down but nothing seems out of place but our spring creek and Indian Creek. However, it does look like a jungle out there, the grass and weeds all grew several inches over night. The horses will have plenty to eat, they will all start getting obese again.

Poor Angus was outside in all of that mess, I don't know where he was but he didn't come into the barn before I had to close up everything. I had just closed the big sliding door to the barn, locked it and gone back to bed when I heard the cat hollering to be let in. So I went back out to let him in and he had already found another way. He looked like something that the cat had drug home. There was a lot of hail so I wasn't surprised to see him looking quite confused.

Make Your Own Deodorant

Along with my recently acquired weird green thinking comes the worry that my antiperspirant may increase my risk of Alzheimers or Breast Cancer. If you read on the label of your antiperspirant you will see that the active ingredient is aluminum (insert really long word here). Which blocks your pores from doing their normal job of allowing you to perspire.

Now, I do not know why the good Lord gave us armpits but he did, so they must serve some vital function. I would think that stopping them from doing their job might not be a great idea anyway, but stopping them with Aluminum just does not sound good at all.

The common consensus is that Aluminum can be a cause of Alzheimers. Since they think that eating out of Aluminum cookware may be one of the causes of this disease, what about rubbing it under your armpits everyday? With my family history of Alzheimers, seeing it up close and personal, I do not want to get this disease.

So how do I eliminate antiperspirant from my life now that I have eliminated shampoo (see previous post)?

I could just use deodorant instead of antiperspirant. Deodorants just mask or kill the bacteria that cause odors while allowing you to sweat. But then I read where something in deodorants can cause breast cancer.

I am not being paranoid here, but this line of thinking makes me wonder if I could just make my own and save some money as well as my life. So it is off to Google I go. I found some recipes, tried one and found that it didn't last until evening. So I tried another recipe and it seems to be working for me.

Here is the recipe:
Equal parts of Baking Soda and Cornstarch.

A few drops of an essential oil of your choice.
(Tea Tree Oil is best but do not use Tea Tree Oil or Lavender Oil if you are a man or a man will be using it.)

If you don't have essential oils lying around the house, you can also add a little bath powder for scent or you don't need any scent at all.

Mix in as much Coconut Oil as it takes for the powders to dissolve but for the mixture to be firm and spreadable. Coconut Oil for those who do not use it, is a dietary supplement that can be found at Wal-Mart and is a sweet smelling lard like substance.

You can pack this mixture into an empty stick deodorant container but leave the lid off, so that it will continue to harden. You will have to apply gently and carefully because it will not be as firm as regular deodorants. I haven't tried this yet, I have just been applying it out of a bowl with my fingers tips. You do have to be careful to apply only a thin layer because it will cake up and fall off it you apply it too heavily.

I have not tested this deodorant in a hot summer hayfield yet, but will let you know how it holds up under these extreme farm conditions as soon as hay season begins.

94 Degrees

I hope everyone had a nice Labor Day weekend. We spent Labor Day doing just that, laboring. We were in the hay fields on both Monday and Tuesday. Yesterday we got the full experience of hefting hay bales at 94º with no one to help us.

I drove and my Husband loaded and stacked the hay. He complains a lot more than he did when he was young but he still does an awesome job. I don't think there would be many young men who could have kept up with him over the last two days.

I did help him unload the trailers when we got back to the barn but he did all of the stacking in a tin barn with no shade over it and no air circulation, the dust was unbearable and the sunny 94º temperature outside felt cool compared to the temperature inside. He stacked all the way to the roof and does it so tightly that it is hard to get out to feed during the winter.

He has put up hay all of his life, when we were first married, we had our own hay crew and put up hay for all of the neighboring farms before the big round balers were invented. He has little patience with sloppy stacked hay. We who have helped him in the barn, have always said that when he gets done stacking hay, you can roller skate on top of it.

The hay is finished for the year and boy am I happy about that. We may pick up a few more bales throughout the fall and winter but there will be no more hot fields and hot barns to deal with. Maybe life will return to a more normal pace and I can get some things done and blog more.

Calico Watch

The watch has begun for Calico, she is one of my young pregnant does. I am not sure when she will kid because I just turned the buck in with my yearling does in December and didn't actually see him breed any of them. She should be due sometime in May but she doesn't look like she will even wait until the middle of the month. She is very big, so I am sure that she will have multiples.

The other two yearling does are hardly even showing yet, so they may not have been bred at the same time that Calico was. I am afraid that they will wait until the hottest part of the Summer.