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.

The Day After

We had our Thanksgiving Dinner yesterday evening. I made the Turkey, Dressing, Sweet Potato Casserole, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy and 5 Pies. It was the pies that done me in. By the time I got all of the dough rolled out and apples peeled, my lower back was screaming, Enough already!

So, today my DH had to go to his family's Thanksgiving Dinner alone and I am barely walking with a cane. As I type this, I am enjoying a heated, message cushion. I still don't have all of the dishes cleaned up from last night and that will have to be done today.

I regret having to miss seeing my Husband's family and all of the wonderful desserts. What I will miss the most is my Sister-in-law's Oyster Dressing. I asked my DH to bring me a plate or at least some of the dressing.

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!

Purses

I bought myself a Christmas present Thursday night but I can't tell you what it is, it's a secret. I really shouldn't have, I rarely spend this much money for myself but if I don't do it, no one will.

I was recently shocked by what some of the women that I know spend on purses. I have a hard time understanding spending $400 for a purse that looks just like everyone else's purse.

When we go to Church everyone there is carrying a Coach purse. Unless I ask, I can not tell who has real ones and who has fake ones. So, what's the point?

Are you suppose to go up to women and ask if their purse is a real Coach? Or are you just suppose to think that it is a knock-off and they are just trying to impress everyone. You could also assume that they are all real Coach purses and that they all have more money than sense.

I don't know why you would want to carry a $400 purse anyway, isn't that just inviting thievery? A crook will figure that if you have enough money to spend that much for a purse, then you've probably got some big bucks in that purse and as an added bonus they can also sell the purse.

Most of my purses are hand-me-downs or straight from a yard sale table. I can only remember buying two new purses in my whole life. If my ship ever comes in, I don't think that I will buy a popular, stylish purse like everyone else. I will buy a custom made, one of a kind expensive purse and no one will know how much I spent but me.

Crispy Morning

It was pretty chilly out there this morning. All of the waterers had two inches of ice on them. So I got to use my little red wagon in earnest this morning. Since this was my first icy morning, I didn't have everything that I needed in my wagon on the first trip. It will take some planning and organization to be really efficient with my feeding schedule.

Let's see, I need a bucket of Chicken feed, a bucket of goat grain, two scoops of dog food, two flakes of hay and two buckets of warm water. I don't think that it will all fit, I will have to make two trips. I want to take the hay at the same time that I take the grain, so that I can fill the hay feeder without any assistance from the goats, they will be distracted by the grain.

I will have to come back for the water, that way I can take more than two buckets, I carried about five buckets this morning but they are small, it is the number of trips that wear you out.

This sounds like a good plan but it will change from time to time with the weather. If it is sunny then I will be taking Calico outside for the day and she will have to be fed and watered out there.

If it is raining, all of the feeding has to be done inside the goat/chicken shed and that is a mess. Just getting into the shed through the slick mud with buckets and hay in your hands with the starving, welcoming committee in the doorway is always a treat, if I can even make it without falling before I get there.

The ice in the water offers another challenge. I wouldn't have to haul as much water if I could effectively remove the ice from the water buckets and troughs without using my hands. I take a small hatchet or splitting maul (whatever is handy) to break the ice, then if I could pick out all of the ice chunks most of the water could be preserved, recycled, it would be the green thing to do, I could save the planet! Usually I just go ahead and grab the ice with my fingers and pitch it out but this is not the wise thing to do on a crispy morning. I need some type of small crooked pitchfork device or a small holey shovel for ice removal.

For those of you playing the home game, I have only smacked my head one more time on the nesting boxes and my DH ate a Wheat Thin last night, just one with no problems, he will probably insist on eating two or three tonight.

Stubborn Man

Yes, he is a stubborn man that must be why I married him. My DH loves Tomato and Basil Wheat Thins, it is really more of an addiction than a love affair. I can't even stand the smell of them. He usually eats them everyday but we hadn't been to town and he hadn't bought any for about two weeks.

On Monday we went to town and he bought some. That evening he started eating them and all of the sudden he started itching all over and I am not talking about a little itch, the poor man was going crazy and scratching all over. I tried to get him to sit down and try to calm himself but he said that he couldn't.

Before long, he started wheezing and could hardly breath. I gave him two antihistamine capsules that I keep on hand for bee stings and suggested that we go to the ER but he wouldn't. He broke out with little bumps all over his stomach and he was bloated. I prayed for him and then called my friend who has had three episodes just like this and asked her opinion.

She said to get him to the Hospital, I reminded her who we were talking about and she told me what they did for her, which was nothing that I could do at home. He was mainly focused on his hands that he has so much trouble with anyway. He was rubbing and scratching the skin off of them. He finally started settling down and put his hands in some goat's milk and he started improving.

When the medicine kicked in he started getting sleepy. I checked his stomach and the bumps were gone. He stopped itching and was ready to go to bed. His poor hands were a mess, very swollen.

I woke him up during the night to give him another dose of the antihistamine and he was fine the next morning. His hands were still a little swollen but that was all.

The Wheat Thins are still on the table, I tried to throw them out and he wouldn't let me. I am afraid that he is going to try them again when I am not looking. My friend's allergic reaction was to something that she had eaten lots of times before as well. The Doctors told her that it was probably a preservative that she had a reaction to.

My DH admits that it had to be a severe allergic reaction to the Wheat Thins but he is having a struggle with having to live his life without them.

The Lord just has to take care of people like him, I guess. I asked him during the middle of the crisis, what he would do if it were me, there was a long pause before he said that he would take me to the Hospital, but only if I wanted to go. He covered all of his bases there.

The Truth

I hope that I don't offend anyone with my blog this morning. It is not my intention to alienate anyone who doesn't hold my same opinions. I would be devastated if anyone stopped following my blog because of this post. That said, I must unburden myself and reveal the long hidden truth that has remained concealed for much too long.

I have not kept this secret from everyone, my closest and dearest friends know this awful truth. Most of my family members know it as well. Although some of my friends and most of my family openly criticize me and try to get me to change. I do have some friends who share my feelings and opinions in this matter. I ask you to please open your hearts and accept me the way I am.

I love Winter, I love snow, I love the cold, all of it, the frozen ground, the frozen waters, being able to see my breath. I love the way the snow crunches under my feet, the way the snowflakes softly and gently float through the air. I love the quiet of a snow covered landscape. I love the feel of heat hitting my face when I come inside after being out in the freezing cold. I love being snowbound. I love the anticipation of a coming Winter storm. I love burrowing under a pile of blankets on a cold Winter's night.

I don't know how I got this way, I don't know how it happened, but I ask for tolerance and acceptance. I have already heard all of the arguments that there are in the world against my feelings and views. Those arguments have never been able to sway me or change me from what I am.

Sure, I don't like everything about Winter. I don't like for my family and friends to have to be out on the roads when they are slick, I don't like to be out on the roads when they are slick. I feel for the road crews and law enforcement officers. I worry about the elderly and the sick. I worry about the animals when it is real cold, windy and/or freezing rain.

Maybe I am immature and this all stems from getting snow days off of school. As a teacher, I got just as excited as the kids at the prospect. But I don't have to go to school anymore as a student or a teacher and I still love Winter.

There, I have said it, I have confessed my faults. I feel much better now that I can openly say that we had snow flurries yesterday and I was just thrilled to see them.

We Caved

I had already decided that we would not buy Elmo Live for our almost two year old Granddaughter for Christmas. But we took her and her older sister to Walmart today while their oldest sister went to the Doctor. The youngest really loves Elmo but we were going to be a little bit more practical than that.

But there he was on the bottom shelf and fully accessible to toddlers. She was so thrilled with him, kept kissing him and looking up at us laughing. What were we suppose to do?? We were snared, caught in a trap, forced to do something against our will.

I've got to give credit to those who come up with these marketing techniques. He is right there in his packaging completely exposed to little hands and in working order. Placing him on the lower two shelves was just a stroke of genius. His cute little voice inviting a kiss was just too much for anyone to resist.

So, we ended up coming home completely defeated and are mustering all of our remaining resources together in a vain effort not to give him to her before Christmas. But wait, I nearly forgot, maybe all is not lost. She has a birthday before Christmas, so we can give him to her early after all.

Scams and Spams

Someone on a forum that I frequent posted the link below to the Washington Post website and noted that they were already seeing a difference in their e-mail inboxes and spam folders.

Major Source of Online Scams and Spams Knocked Offline - Security Fix

I read the article yesterday and noticed a big difference in my spam levels as well. This morning was the icing on the cake, only eight spam messages awaited me upon my awakening. There are normally around forty the first thing in the morning.

I haven't visited my gmail or yahoo email accounts yet but I am going there now to empty my spam folders then see how they look in a day or two. The sad part of this story is that we were led to believe that most of our spam and scams come from other counties, but now we see that it is mostly home grown.

First Day

Today is the first day of gun season and I am usually awakened by the sounds of a military invasion in our valley. There are woods all around us on the hillsides and even shots from the tops of neighboring hills reverberate through our valley.

I have often wondered if there are really that many deer that are shot at on opening day and if the people shooting are really that bad or if they get buck fever and are shaking so bad that they just can't hit anything. Because it is never just a shot or two from one direction but a volley of shots coming from first one location then a volley of shots from another location.

This morning was different, I only heard a couple of shots and they were far away. Either no one chose to hunt around here this morning or the deer have all moved away. It was raining and cold but I have never known a true deer hunter that was scared off a first day hunt by a little cold and rain. I guess it could be that hunters are getting soft. I don't know what this world is coming to.

Culture

I know that you who know me well would never guess that I am actually a cultured person. You think that I never leave the farm and that my best friend is a billy goat.

While I may be a little eccentric and prefer the outdoors, horses, dogs, goats and chickens to crowds of people and parties. I do have a artistic side. I can be thoughtful and philosophical. I love a challenging exchange of ideas and debate.

Why, just tonight I changed my clothes, washed my face, brushed my teeth, combed my hair, polished my Crocs, then went out to dinner and to the Theatre. It wasn't one of them movin' picture shows either, this was honest to goodness Theater, with a stage, curtains, actors and padded theater seats.

It weren't no Church or School program with little kids dressed up like pumpkins, snowflakes or shepherds. It was real live Theater and it was opening night and I had a front row seat in a nearly full house.

I can offer witnesses, if you don't believe me, my daughter-in-law and some other people from our Church went with us. My daughter-in-law and I left our uncultured husbands at home. She did take the time to call her uncultured husband to check on him and all he could do was gripe about the pizza that she had ordered him not arriving.

He gave her a lecture about having her cell phone shut off in an emergency situation like this. She called the offending pizza place who had written down the wrong address, they made him a new pizza and delivered it at no charge, so I don't know why he was so grumpy. It must come from his Dad's side of the family.

Milk Soak

My DH has had a problem with his hands for quite some time now. He is a part time mailman and handling paper all day is very drying to his hands. They started itching, peeling, cracking and even bleeding. He was having a real hard time sleeping and nothing that he was doing as far as creams and lotions was helping him.

I decided to take the bull by the horn and try to do a few things to help him out. I made him start using used coffee grounds when washing his hands at the end of the day. I started using the coffee grounds with soap to get the billy goat smell off of my hands, it works and after a few times of using it, your hands get soft and smooth.

I told him to avoid washing his hands during the rest of the day. This is hard for him because his hands get so dirty. I found him a bar of Ivory soap and that is all I am letting him use. No more anti-bacterial stuff.

After he washes his hands at night, I make him soak his hands in goat's milk for 10 minutes. I told him to use bag balm on his hands after that but he only did that one night. It made his hands too messy. So far so good, he is really noticing a difference. He thinks that the goat's milk is the key. So chalk up another good use for goat's milk.

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.

Proper?

I finally got my Lifetime Handgun Permit in the mail. I got it laminated and put in my wallet. Now I am wondering how long my lifetime will be. The paperwork that came with it says that it can be revoked at anytime if I do not remain a Proper Person. Now, I am not sure if I am even a proper person on a good day. It could be that I am more of a proper person than most people are.

I am not sure what the word "proper" even means. I suppose that it all depends on who you talk to. I know a lot of people who are not proper but that doesn't mean that they are law breakers or even bad people. I think this word pretty much leaves the door open for my lifetime to be cut short at anytime.

Back to the election, all is not lost, even though my State (Indiana) has changed from red to make me blue, California did shock me by taking a stand against gay marriage. I am considering moving to Kentucky, Texas or Alaska because they are all red States.

The Lord's Will

The world is still turning this morning, even though I didn't get my way. It all has to be the Lord's will, He is still in control and each day brings us closer to His return. That is something to look forward to. Keep your eyes on Israel.

I look forward to next year, we will all be wealthy, we will all have health care, all of our Soldiers will come home, there will be no more wars, there will be peace on earth and a chicken in every pot. Well maybe not a chicken in every pot, maybe brussel sprouts.

Since Democrats finally have complete control there will be no more excuses for them not to get this world straightened up and there should be no more Americans complaining about anything. I just wonder how long it will take the news media to start turning on our new President?

Tracfone Reborn

I think that I posted about my Tracfone no longer ringing awhile ago and about talking to someone in India who didn't have a clue. I was finally told that I would just have to order a new phone, which I didn't want to do because this phone had hardly been used and I had just put more time and minutes on it. It made me just a little suspicious that the ringtones would no longer work when the beeping of the keypad continued.

I never did order a new phone because I felt like they were just messing with me. Low and behold, yesterday our phone started ringing again out of the clear blue sky. Hmmm? I am not accusing them of anything but this all seems a little strange to me.

Other exciting news for today is that I talked to someone this morning who gave me a hard time about not blogging every day. He told me that he enjoys reading my blog and is disappointed when I haven't blogged. He almost made me feel good about myself until he continued with the point that it is good to know that someone else has a more boring life than he does.

It's Almost Over

All of the campaigning is nearly over, no more campaign mail in my mailbox, no more news reports about how many points Obama is leading McCain by. No more telephone surveys wanting to know who I would be more likely to vote for if the election were held today. It was really overdone this year, we got way too many calls and way too much junk mail.

I have a friend who is on a cruise, I told her that she might want to consider staying out of the country depending on who gets elected. She thought that it might be an interesting few days, watching people throw themselves overboard when they get the election results.

Back to the real world, I had so much fun today that I can hardly contain myself. I went to Wal-Mart, purchased a face mask, the kind that covers your mouth and nose. Then I came home and attacked the goat/chicken shed with a broom and a shovel.

There were times that I couldn't see my hand in front of my face because the dust was so thick or my glasses were so dusty, I'm not sure which. My eyes got full of chicken poo dust and they still feel like they have sand in them several hours later.

Chickens sure do make a mess, it really didn't smell that bad and it cleans up pretty easy but it creates a lot of dust and I wouldn't recommend tackling it without a mask to protect your lungs. Safety goggles might not be a bad idea either.

If you don't have your own chicken house to clean, you might consider finding someone who does and volunteering for the job. It might help you clear all of this year's election drama out of your mind, like tonight's news of Palin being cleared of any wrongdoing in the State Trooper scandal. They cleared her just in the nick of time, on election eve. They didn't dare clear her after the election that would have been to obvious.

Ladybugs

Today is the day! Usually the day comes around the 12th of October but since our weather has been so quirky lately they didn't come back until today on the 1st day of November. I am talking about the return of the Asian Ladybugs. Someone should make a horror film about this phenomenon. But if they did no one would come to see it because it is just too tragic.

This is a plague of Biblical proportions. The problem is that these sweet little creatures like our house because others of their species have liked our house in the past. They are just looking for a nice place to camp for the winter. So they come by the thousands to use our campground.

Ladybugs bleed a little bit to ward off predators, their blood is yellow and stinks. If you have ever smashed one of them you know what I am talking about. But you don't have to smash them to smell their blood, they can release it at will to make you leave them alone. I hate that smell, it is worse than my billy goat.

The real problem with Ladybugs is that they swarm in on you and you are completely outnumbered. They are all over our barn/house right now, looking for cracks that they can crawl in through. The sad part is that our house will be full of them tonight, I will have them crawling on me in my bed. I know this because it happens every year.

I have closed the barn up, so that they can't get in as easily, but resistance is futile. Every time I have gone outside today, I have had to go stand in front of a mirror to pick all of them off of my clothes. I have not come in with less than eight all day. They always find their way under my clothes and crawl around on my skin, that is the part that I really hate, bugs crawling up my back.

This day brings me closer to insanity than any other day that I know of. I actually did grab one with my hand while I was outside today and it released it's stench on me. They are the skunk of the insect world. I went over and rubbed my stinky hand on Cooter, he was repulsed. But the billy goat smell did get the Ladybug smell off of my hand.