Save Our Families

Loved this blog post today:

The Day I Stopped Saying, ‘Hurry Up’ 

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.

Morel Season

Let me just begin by saying that it is not my intention to provoke any feelings of jealousy here, I am only trying to once more offer my services for the betterment of my reader's lives.

On Sunday afternoon I took less than 30 minutes of my valuable time to run down the hill to the old sink hole to find some mushrooms for my breakfast on Monday morning. This sink hole is not located on our farm, so don't get any ideas! As a matter of fact, we have never found even one mushroom here. This is the first farm that I have ever lived on that doesn't have mushrooms.

I have been a avid mushroom hunter all of my life. I spent hours everyday during the season when I was young and I am talking about from Elementary to High School and beyond. I went alone, no one shared my desire to bag the big ones.


Somehow my life has gotten to complicated to have time to hunt for mushrooms. My priorities are really messed up. For the last several years I have promised myself that I will make the time to go but when the next season arrives, there are too many other commitments that demand my attention. Foaling, kidding, Spring halters sales, tomato plants, shoveling manure, fixing fences, laundry, dishes, new websites, etc...

I am sure that I am not alone in this dilemma. So in order to inspire you to forget all of the other demands on your time and hit the woods, I offer you these pictures and the memories of my Monday morning breakfast. I only found 9 but they were of decent size and extremely flavorable. I find it impossible to eat mushrooms without eggs of course.
Please get out of the house, rearrange your busy schedule and go find some Morels. We have always called our edible shrooms; Black, Gray or Yellow Sponge Mushrooms, also we are never disappointed in finding Snake Heads and Elephant Ears, they are just as tasty. The word "Morel" was just a little to sophisticated for us Hill people.

If you don't take the time to go this year, you may not get another chance next year. Things can change, you may be living in the Antarctic, you could be sick or injured next season. It is important to put the best things in life first. Forget about fixing meals, going shopping, doing laundry, mowing the grass or taking a nap.

**Remember to use a very large mesh bag to bring your bushels of Mushrooms home in, so that the little spores will happily fall all over the ground as you walk about to ensure Mushrooms for future generations.

Anxiety

Here it is the end of another day and I still don't have my Christmas shopping done. I received my first Christmas card today and it caused me great anxiety. This year has flown by with each month passing by faster then the previous one.

The days are so short that I barely get my morning feeding done and it is time to do my evening feeding before it gets dark. I am always so rushed that I feel like I have forgotten something important.

We did get some small projects completed today. My DH shoveled out the goat/chicken shed and fixed me an area inside to feed the "stay in the shed" chickens, so the goats can't get to it. My Mille Fleur D'Uccles are the only ones who cannot tolerate the cold weather and spend their winter days on the roosts.

I got six eggs today but only three yesterday, the hens didn't like the rainy, snowy day that we had yesterday. The Sun inspired them today, it inspired me too.

Google Reader

Thank God for Google Reader! There are several blogs that I enjoy reading on a daily basis but because the authors use complicated backgrounds and lots of gadgets, I can no longer go to their actual blogs. I don't blame them, if I had high speed internet I would probably do the same thing but since I am still on a dial-up connection that moves as slow as molasses on a freezing cold day, I cannot wait 20 minutes for a background to load.

Google Reader is just great, all that I get is the text of blogs that I am following alone with whatever pictures that they posted with that blog. All of the latest blogs from my favorite authors are there in one place, no ads and no gadgets in the side bars. Google Reader helps me to find some extra time in my day.

AT&T has finally brought DSL to one of the small towns that I live near, but it does not reach me. The other small town that I live near on the other side has cable internet service but it doesn't reach me either. I get depressed when I think about it, so I won't think about it by using Google Reader.

I do have HOPE for CHANGE in this upcoming year. Once President O gets in office, I will have both cable and DSL to choose from.

Wasted Time

I have spent a whole week working on my computer. It is very disturbing to have so much work to do and not being able to do anything because of having to tinker around with an old clunker.

I tried to weed out the problem by the process of elimination, occasionally finding a fix that worked for one day and then the same problem returned the next day. I was truly beating my head on the desk but that didn't help either.

As of this minute my computer is fixed but it may be a different story tomorrow. The poor thing is a dinosaur and should have been retired a long time ago but I keep putting band-aids and duct tape on it and feeding the squirrel that runs the gears vitamins and power drinks to keep him going but he has developed a bad cough and wheezes a lot.

I don't deal with change very well, I like things to just stay the same. I love new technology and gadgets, if they would just stop being obsolete by the time you figure out how to get them out of the clamshell plastic packaging.

Time

I talked to someone who reads my blog each day and was informed that I need to blog more often, maybe six times per day. I am a pretty decent typist and can usually think of something to say but I don't think that I can come up with six blogs per day because of the constraints of time and my memory. You see, I can think of things to blog about while I am out doing things but somehow I forget what it was by the time I am sitting in front of a computer. Now if I had me one of them there handy, dandy hand held computers I might do better.

Time is in short supply around here anymore. I have heard a man that I greatly respect say that everyone has the same amount of time and while I know that is true, it really isn't a logical conclusion. Everyone is given 24 hours per day but not everyone has the same responsibilities.

Responsibilities are the time thieves that make a difference in the amount of time that a person has. The amount of time that you devote to those responsibilities determine how much free time that you have.

For people who live in a house with a small yard to mow, may find that they have plenty of time to devote to other endeavors, like entertainment or hobbies. I tend to get a little annoyed at people who say they are bored or don't have anything to do. I always seem to find plenty of things to do, there are just somethings that I don't want to do.

We have 30 some odd horses that require care, 7 goats, 13 chickens, 2 dogs and 1 cat. They all have to be fed everyday, one goat has to be milked everyday. We have a yard that needs to be mowed and pasture that has to be mowed. We are fortunate to have both of our children living close by and so we have our children and grandchildren at our house quite often. I have a swimming pool that requires constant care during the summer months. Stalls and buildings have to be kept manure free and hay has to be bought and picked up then stacked in the barn. Fence is always in need of repair.

My husband is working two part time jobs, so he only occasionally gets a day off, he has been working six days per week, he does get Sundays off but we go to Church twice on Sunday. We have four Church services per week that we attend. In addition to that my husband is teaching a Bible Study one night per week.

When the neighbor calls with a problem we always try to be there for them. Just the other night a neighbor called because him lawn mower had quit and he needed to borrow a mower, my husband had tons of stuff to do but he dropped everything and took our mower to him. Then he came back and hauled two loads of manure over to their house for their garden.

I am not complaining and do not want anyone to feel sorry for us because we chose this life and enjoy it but I am venting. Sometimes I feel like my husband is stretched beyond his limits and then gets criticized because he doesn't want to do certain things or go to social functions. The thing that really gets my goat is how other people judge you.

My husband's favorite saying is, "Everyone is right in his own eyes." Everyone thinks that they are busy and I have heard people say, "Well, they think they are busy but they don't know what busy is, they should have to follow me around for a few days."

I personally don't do as much as I used to do because I can't with my back the way it is but even if it weren't for that, I know that growing old tends to slow you down. When we were young we were looking for something to do all of the time, now we are looking to get rid of as many responsibilities as we can. I currently have enough website and halter work, more than I need. I don't feel like I can get anything else done. Which would be great if I were making decent money but I'm not.

Don't judge other's lives. Don't think that you know what others are going through. You aren't them and you have no business making a judgement about someone whose moccasins you have never filled. Vent over and this subject is laid to rest.

Finding Time

It is getting increasing hard to find the time to blog right now. I am up all during the night checking on my due and overdue mares and does. I have to switch the goats around during the day because at this point the buck cannot be with the girls who are getting ready to kid. So I turn the girls out in the warm sunshine during the day and put Cooter in the horse trailer, he hates it!

It is also Spring which makes it really hard for me to stay in the house, plus springtime brings lots of orders for the horse and goat rope halters that I tie. I can usually keep up with my rope halter orders but right before Christmas and in the Spring, I get so many orders that I fall way behind.

We are suppose to have rain for the next few days, so that might help me to find some more time to blog. I know that we need the rain for the grass to grow but I hate to see the mud again. The ground is just getting to the place that I can walk on it without the fear of falling. More mud also means muddy footprints on my clothes, for some reason Angel, Paris and Collette cannot keep their feet off of me.