Floaters

Unless you have floaters yourself, you won't be able to appreciate this post. I have had floaters for many, many years. They are a great part of my life. I would be lost without them. I have seen people get a floater for the first time, it is comical to see them try to grab or swat at something that is flying around their head that isn't really there.

I don't remember having a first floater, my floaters came on as many floating cobwebs all over the surface of both of my eyes. They can be quite entertaining, when I get bored, I can always look up at the sky and study the shape and sizes of my floaters. I can also do that while blogging because of the white screen background. Mine come in many shapes and sizes, some are just dark spots, but most are like spider webs, threads or hairs.

Floaters can also be beneficial, they have completely cured me of my fear of wasps, hornets, yellow jackets and other flying insects. I no longer run away or swat at any flying insect because if I hear something buzzing around, I can't tell which darting black spot is the actually bug.

The reason that I decided to blog about my floaters today was because I had a very persistent floater that kept getting in my way while I was trying to type a blog about a different subject that I will finish and post later. This little floater just kept blocking my view and was being annoying. I finally realized that it was not a floater at all but a little bug crawling around on the lens of my glasses.

A Day Off

My DH had a rare day off today, so the neighbor and I put him to work. We were barely out of bed this morning when the neighbor called for some help with a large dead tree that was threatening his barn. They managed to get it down without damaging anything but one top strand of a barb wire fence.

I got my DH to move one of the roosts in the goat/chicken shed and to build a bridge for the hens to walk comfortably to all three nesting boxes. We also ran to town to get ten bags of BOSS (black oil sunflower seeds) that we had ordered a few months ago.

The goats and chickens have been without BOSS for over a week and I can tell a difference in egg and milk production. I know that the colder weather will affect egg production but I am anxious to see if the BOSS makes any difference. I am only getting four eggs a day now and some of the shells have been very thin.

Tomorrow is Veteran's Day, so my Husband doesn't have to work tomorrow either. I need to make a list of things for him to do, but I guess I'll give him the day off since he is a Veteran.

Cold Hands

My poor milk goat is being milked for the first time in cold weather. As you can imagine she is quite shocked by my cold hands. I have had to rethink things a little bit.

During the summer months the most important thing about milking is getting the milk into the refrigerator as quickly as possible, this greatly affects the taste of the milk. With the cooler weather, that is no longer my top priority. My main concern now is keeping my hands warm and keeping my doe from going through the roof of the barn.

Gloves are helpful to a point, but not the entire solution. I can't milk with gloves on. They do keep my hands warm while I am preparing to milk. I am still using my spray nozzle hand milker that I blogged about before, but I still have to strip the teats out by hand. The problem is that I have to take my gloves off to use the milker and by the time I am done and ready to do the stripping my hands are cold.

I also have to use a wet cloth to wash the udder and teats before I start and that cloth can get cold pretty quickly too. So, what I have been doing with gloved hands is getting everything ready, including putting all of my milking equipment beside the milk stand and getting Calico on the stand and already eating, then I run back into the house, take off the gloves and get the warm wet cloth.

This has been working out fairly well but my hands still get cold by the time I am ready to strip her out. Another thing that I have had to change is bringing the Bag Balm into the house. I have been applying it to her teats after each milking, so I always leave the can outside on the milk stand. That first cold evening that we had, I couldn't understand why she didn't want me putting it on her anymore, she kicked and squirmed. I am a little slow at understanding things sometimes.

Back to eBay

I have been wanting to start listing some of my junk on eBay for a long time but I just haven't done it because I have had so much other stuff that took priority. I still have things that have to come first but I did list a 1996 "Songs of Christmas" Waterford Crystal Music Box for my Son on eBay last night, it is very pretty, has a Nativity Scene on it and plays "Silent Night".

It wasn't all that painful to list it, that was one of the reasons that I haven't been using eBay because they have changed so much stuff and I didn't want to take the time to learn anything new. It wasn't hard and it didn't take me that much time. So I may go ahead and start listing a few things again.

If you would like to see my Son's music box, you can visit the auction here: Crystal Music Box

The last time I checked it didn't have any bids and it is only a 3 day auction, so it will end late Sunday evening. I don't think things sell as well on eBay as they used to but we will see.

Other good news for today is that I found my black light insect zapper. We went to Wal-Mart the other day to get a few things and I looked for a bug zapper there for my Ladybug problem. But all of the lawn and garden section of Walmart has been magically converted into a Christmas section. They didn't have anything for bugs.

So, this morning I looked around here for the black light bug zapper that I knew we used to have but I couldn't remember if it got broken and tossed or not, it has been years since I saw it. I found it and it actually still works, I put it in a dark room and it is busy zapping Ladybugs and whatever other bugs find it attractive. I smile every time I hear it pop.

Thumped

Why is it that it always takes you so long to get used to things when they change. My dear Husband built a large, heavy, sturdy nesting box for our hens. It actually contains three nice big nests. But it didn't take long before we realized that we had hung it in the wrong place, that wrong place being right amongst the chicken roosts. The nests became really nasty very quickly.

So, my DH finally got around to moving the thing. He moved it to another wall inside the goat/chicken shed. It is now right inside the door and hung a little bit higher than it was. That little bit higher is right above eye level.

I knew that it was now in a dangerous place if I wasn't really paying attention when I came through the door. I had several close calls where I glanced up right before I walked into it.

But my luck finally ran out and the corner of the thing smacked me right in the hairline of my forehead. I bounced back a couple of steps then staggered to the window and grabbed a handful of window sill to steady myself.

I moved my other hand away from my forehead where it had landed instinctively and I felt something wet. I was just certain that I had busted my head wide open and was bleeding profusely but it turned out just to be dog slobbers from where Angel had licked my hand when I walked into the shed.

I survived somehow with just a small dent in my skull and it still hurts when I move my eyebrows. I have refused to go back into the shed since then. There are just too many unpleasant memories for me there now.

I have always loved my goat/chicken shed but now it scares me. You would think that once you banged your head into something like that, you would never forget it and it would never happen again. But I know myself better than that. It takes more than a dented skull to make me remember anything, it takes time and lots of it. Once that nest box has hung there for 3 or 4 years, I will never run into it again.