Fall Nearly Done

I guess I had better hurry, if I want to blog at least once this month.

The leaves fell from the trees too quickly this year with all of the rain that we had. But I am still enjoying the cooler days. My oldest Granddaughter and I spent nearly a whole day exploring our island and the Indian Creek creek bed.

We had tons of fun opening muscle shells, looking for pearls, watching the fish and a big old crawdad. We gathered odd rocks and looked at tracks in the sand, Indian Creek is a very sandy creek.

While we were on a gravel bar down in the bed of the creek, I pointed out to her how beautiful a creek is when you are on the same level with it. Looking upstream and downstream, as opposed to looking down on it from the bank is a much better view. I wish I had taken my camera but when I asked her, she didn't want to be bothered with posing and asked me not to take it.

Thanksgiving and Christmas are sneaking up on me as usual. Arranging dates to meet everyone's Holiday schedules is the hardest part. Finding money to buy gifts is another challenge this year. I normally have all of my shopping done way before now but couldn't get that accomplished this time.

I Have Returned

It has been nearly a week since my last post, I have gone though a very stressful time, it was called Christmas. We had Christmas early here to give our kids the freedom to keep other family obligations. Christmas should be enjoyable and I did have a good time after everyone arrived, it was the preparation that was stressful.

Having a two year old Granddaughter is just the best, that age is so much fun. The older kids were fun too but after they reach a certain age they tend to be a easily disappointed. Our oldest Grandson wanted expensive gifts this year, Nike Shocks, a Carhartt jacket and a Bible. He really liked them but there were no toys to play with. I remember that age and the disappointment, like something important is missing.

We had our Christmas on Monday evening, then yesterday I just relaxed and didn't spend much time on the computer. We went to town last night after the icy roads cleared up. We ended up at Wal-mart and the famous last words of my DH were; "Just go ahead, look around and I will find you." I wanted to set up a meeting spot but he thought that he wouldn't have a hard time locating me. Needless to say, we both spent hours looking for each other.

We met people that we both knew and they tried to help us out by telling us where they had last seen the other person but that didn't help much. We would run into the same people later and get directions from them again but to no avail. I finally just sat down on a bench in the middle of the store and waited. My feet and back were killing me from the miles that I had walked. He finally wondered by and sat down with me. I suppose if you lived a boring life and liked treasure hunts, you could make it into a healthy pursuit with lots of exercise.

After the 10 mile marathon, we went to McDonald's for an Eggnog Shake, my favorite. Of course, they didn't have them, for the last three weeks every time we have gone there they have told us that their machine was broken. Last night they told us that they had run out and wouldn't be getting anymore in, I was devastated. For the record, the McDonald's in Bedford, Indiana is poorly managed.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, it was very cold here over the weekend and with my Christmas preparations, my dear, sweet Husband took care of all of my animals while I stayed warm and comfortable inside the house.

He fought frozen water tanks and frozen hoses and on Monday morning he brought me a frozen Rooster. Poor Bootstrap was just about dead. He was weak and could hardly support his own head. I sat down and held him for awhile, pried his frozen beak open and rubbed his stiff legs and feet.

Because of his fluffy, new feathers, I couldn't tell that he had lost a lot of weight. He had been acting strange for awhile but he was molting and I thought that was his problem. I wormed and deloused him because he had some leg mites, I also coated his legs with vasoline and made him a straw bed with food and water in our back room. His comb turned blackish purple, but he is eating and drinking and slowly regaining his strength.

My one egg day was just that, one egg for one day. The next day I got five eggs and have gotten 4 to 5 eggs every day since then. The weather has been all over the place, freezing cold, warm and sunny, ice storms, snow flurries, strong winds and right now as I am typing this, I hear thunder and it is suppose to get up to near 60 degrees after an ice covered day yesterday.

Now that my Christmas stress is completely relieved (it feels so good), I will be blogging again. This blog is one year old, I started it on Christmas day last year, it has had over 10,000 views according to my hit counter and those are not page reloads.

I never dreamed that people would find my life interesting in the least, I have never understood this whole social networking business, like My Space or Facebook but I guess it has it's purpose. I know people who have nearly abandoned television altogether for My Space and connecting with their friends. All of their spare time is spent there. I do enjoy reading other people's blogs and finding that there are actually other people out there who live the same sorta life that I live.

** Happy Birthday, Jackie!! **

In a Fog

Not only is this the most stressful time of year but it is also the time of year that I chose to get sick. Stuffy, foggy, watery eyes, runny nose, headache, can't sleep and grumpy. I woke up like this yesterday morning, then was fine during the day but as soon as night approached it all came back. I went to bed at 8:30 after taking two NyQuil Sinus liquicaps, slept well until around 1:00 am, then tossed and turned, couldn't breath. I am hoping it will pass when the sun comes up.

I would like to be down and depressed, everyone I know has high speed internet, they tell me all the things that they can do online. I continue to sit here in this seat, click on a link and wait and wait and wait. I have no control over that though, nothing that we can afford comes to our area, nothing comes to our area period. Our only option is Satellite and it is too pricey and too unreliable.

I also need a new computer, this one is on it's last legs. I need a new camera, we need to sell horses (our constant money drain), my DH needs a permanent job, we need a house. I need some socks.

We were reading a local article online the other night about a 6 yr. old girl who told someone that she didn't believe in Santa Claus because he had never brought her anything for Christmas. Of course, the person that she told this to went out and bought her a bunch of stuff. We laughed about it because my 5 yr. old Granddaughter had recently told me the very same thing. My Son commented that Santa had never brought him anything either. I said that in all of my 50 years, Santa Claus had never brought me anything, people sure are gullible

Then there were my plans of milking Calico all winter and having Paris kid in the spring, then start milking her after her babies are weaned and breed Calico to kid in the fall.

A perfect plan, except that Calico is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and is able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. She got out of her barn stall, somehow got out of the barn and lured Cooter through his electric fence. I found them together happily eating what was left of my little pine tree in the yard.

Like I said, I would like to be down and depressed but I am reading "The Last Full Measure" by Jeff Shaara and reading about what those men went through during the Civil War makes it a little hard to feel sorry for yourself.

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.