Legalizing Health

The medical profession is old enough to have established protocols for just about everything. When someone wants to think outside of the box - say use alternative medicine - it doesn't just threaten a doctor's sense of control over the practice. It goes against the grain for another reason. The established protocol has been developed over literally hundreds of years, and in some cases, maybe a couple thousand. Another protocol isn't used because it hasn't been shown to be the best one.

It is sort of like a tree identification book my brother had as a kid. Starting at the beginning, it asks simple questions, like does the tree have compound leaves? If yes, go to page _; if no, go to page _. And so on. It makes it easy to identify the tree. Likewise, medicine has diagnosing steps. If a patient asks me what is wrong with them on step one, I'm going to tell them, we're doing THIS to find out. They complain that nobody is TELLING them anything. You can't read page one of a book, and expect to know the whole story.

The point I want to make here though, is that the medical profession and diagnosing is not quite as clear cut in many areas as tree identification. There are some things that are taken for granted as just being the way it is. Sometimes a better way comes up, but a doctor is taught to make sure trials and studies have been done to support the efficacy of the treatment. That doesn't mean a new way is wrong. Medicine is a little more like math than tree identification - there might be several ways to solve the same problem. BUT, some studies have already produced poor results for much of the alternative medicine world, or simply have not been done. But a doctor might have to read every periodical and every study result every day of her life to know new treatments.

Where, though, do you decide that protocol needs to change with the times as opposed to repeating old mistakes? For instance, in the birthing industry (and it IS an industry), what ever happened to Dr. Bradley's method of birth? I personally believe that it got lost in the realm of hyperlitigation. Its being lost has nothing to do with safe birthing practices, and everything to do with why people sue, perceived convenience promoted by drug industries, and doctors protecting themselves. You can sue the medical profession for just about anything and get away with it.

In the raw milk industry, there is an established idea by the government about who can raise milk, and who can sell milk. Contraversy is taking place because many people want to have the right to buy and drink raw milk. The USDA doesn't want people to drink raw milk, and cites disease as the main reason, but the jury isn't out on the real reason according to many people. Because there is 10 times the chance you can get sick from deli meat than you can from raw milk, and you are still aloud to buy deli meat. This is detailed in David Gumpert's blog, "The Complete Patient:"

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While I agree that it would be nice if we could reduce disease, I disagree that we should be litigated into doing so. People should have the ability and the trained assistance to have babies naturally, and even at home, and to drink raw milk. It is a cliche, but both are safer than getting into your car each day. There is an imbalance of what is legal and what is not.

100 years ago, most rural families had their own milk cow and chickens. Prior to that, for 2000 years, most people drank raw milk and had babies at home. Now our government is making it so we are not allowed to, and I have to ask, can this be safe?

Chevre, Paneer and Butter

We have goat milk. My husband is milking 3 goats. This year, we opted to take the boy kids to the sale barn for the Easter sale. In the past, we have wethered them, or kept them until the fall goat sales. Always, a middle man for meat producers buys them all. So I know they get butchered, and most likely end up on a Jewish or Muslim table for some religious feast. I thought it would be harder to take kids, most likely used for Passover, but as it turned out, I think it was easier. On Easter, I thought of them being the center of someone's table. They were treated a little better at the sale. They didn't grow up to inbreed with the rest of the herd.

Anyways, back to the milk part. I figured my husband would want to dry the mothers up, and the milking would only last a short while. He is enjoying milking, and doing it for production, from cross-bred brush goats. The milk is mild-flavored, with high butterfat.

Over a year ago, I ordered a bunch of cheese supplies. I LOVE the expensive Chevre at the store, so Chevre culture was one I ordered. I have made it twice, and it was delectable. Yum, yum! I have one more packet of culture.

The retirement home my folks live at has a director currently from Kashmir, India, with an American wife. They love to make cheese from raw milk. He told me how paneer was made, and I am going to try it. My mother made a lot of cottage cheese when I was growing up, and I have made quite good cottage cheese from goat milk in the past. Paneer actually looks easier. I'm doing it tomorrow.

This morning, I discovered that some milk I overcooked coagulated too much. It is not spoiled, but it did something to the proteins. I had some that I had carefully pasteurized at a lower temperature that the cream had seperated out on. I took the cream off this morning so I could use the milk in my cereal, and put the cream in a clean salsa jar. While I used the breast pump, I shook the jar. I shook it some more after my shower. Finally, I got goat butter!! I rinsed it and salted it, and stuck it in the fridge. It is very mild and tasty.

I am so proud of myself!

There are a few things I have learned about cheesemaking. Pasteurization at the lowest possible temp to kill the bacteria properly creates the best results - overcooking ruins some of the proteins that make a nice cheese.

I am anxious to try the paneer now. I want to try mozzerella or cheddar, but I have to order some lipase for that.

Ashley the April lamb

Tuesday, I had the day off for pulling a double on Monday. In the afternoon, I put baby Eilidh in the backpack, and headed out into the pasture with the loppers for my favorite pastime - cutting brambles the goats have eaten the bottoms off of.

Not far out, under a very old and large Ash tree that is surrounded with slippery elms, box elders, wild cherry, and bittersweet and grapevines, a ewe was standing alone, away from the herd. I looked for and was not suprised to see a lamb wobbling around her. Then, I noticed a splotch of white on the ground next to her. If it was a twin, she was ignoring it. I waited a while, knowing that if I disturbed her, she'd be less likely to clean it and get it on its feet. So I continued with my loppers for a little while. The white splotch stayed there, and the sheep ignored it.

When the standing lamb began nursing, and the ewe licked it and began moving away from the white splotch, I moved closer. It was a lamb, after all. It let out a very weak bleat. It was laying in mud, and was still soaked with afterbirth. The ewe walked around, sniffed it numerous times, left it and licked her standing, dry ram lamb. I picked up the slimy, muddy lamb and carried it back to the house, balancing the baby in the backpack and the loppers under my arm. My 17 y/o son helped me get the baby in the pack off my back. I dried off the lamb, rubbing some circulation into it, and put it in a cardboard box on a heating pad. It was cold, but alive. I warmed up some goat milk (we're milking 3 right now), and it sucked hungrily. Good sign.

Today, the lamb is not only standing, but is trying to nurse off our pantlegs. It has climbed out of the box in the kitchen numerous times. I've named her Ashley.

What is really important

I have been going up and down 5 flights of stairs a couple times per week for 1 1/2 months now, and I've only lost 1 lb.

Yesterday I got recertified in ACLS. That's Advanced Cardiac Life Support. That is what you have to know to run a code in a hospital, and all of us lucky nurses who get to be on the code team have to be certified. It is required of those who work on the more critical cardiac floors. It used to be you went around to stations with a real live person and simulated running a code. Now that we have computers - wonderful things that they are - the people who came up with ACLS have developed a computer simulation instead. You have to click on the buttons of what to do in the correct sequence in order to pass each scenario. There are about 10 scenarios. Joe comes into the ER with dizziness for a week, and he's passed out twice. You put him on the monitor, see that he has bradycardia, take his vitals, put oxygen on, call for help, and then pull down the list of medications you might give him. If you give him the wrong one, the computer kills him. It took me 7 hours.

Today I hung out with the baby and read a book. I didn't feel like doing anything else after yesterday. I nursed the baby for hours and hours. I read Zane Grey's book, "The Last Trail." It is the third of the trilogy about the settlement of Fort Henry and Wheeling, WV. I am really into Ohio River history in this area right now. After I finished the book, I started another, called, "That Dark and Bloody River," by Eckert. Around 4 in the afternoon, I needed to take a walk.

My husband went with me. He helped me put the baby on my back. The farm is in such a state of disrepair with me working full time that I'm not sure what I'm doing here sometimes. But I keep plugging away. He showed me where he dragged my alpha doe a few weeks ago when we found her dead behind the barn. She wasn't there. The coyotes probably drug her off. Someone on a geneology site I belong to posted about cougars being back in the area, and I thought it would be a novel idea if it were really a cougar, but I feel more comfortable with the idea of a coyote.

Then I came in and cleaned the meat off a turkey that has been sitting cooked in the fridge for a week that the kids have been picking the meat off of here and there when they're hungry. I made some broth, and cooked some stewish meat for supper. Then I read some more. It was a lazy thing to do.

I have been working full time since October. I feel as though my body is beginning to shut down at times - pumping, washing pump parts, nursing the baby, running to work, taking care of people with very sick hearts. The snow is melting, and it is almost spring. I wanted to take the loppers with me, but there was a baby on my back. I picked up some old high tensile wire that is all over the pasture and started winding it up. Some past boyfriend of mine had it put up so I could keep some of his horses. Even though I told the guys where to put the fence, they disregarded what I said, and the places that the posts are render their position unuseable. Bruce didn't want to pick up fence tonight. I could have stayed out there and picked it all up, even with a baby on my back. Maybe I should have. The baby didn't mind. She was talking to the goats.

I start another 6 day stretch in the morning - or rather the afternoon. The nurse manager said I could cut down to part time again on the next schedule or the one after. Financially it will hurt. But there is a trade off here. There is a whole lot more to it, but I'm not going into it here. I'm just so glad it is almost spring.

We traded my alpha doe's twin orphans with my brother and his wife for 4 colorful Indian Runner ducks. Yesterday, they and the white pekins finally found a spring in the pasture. Heretofore, they have lived in my garden. I've wondered if was any use starting seeds this year. They really like the pasture, and I'm hoping they spend more and more time there. We have 7 ducks total, and can they ever make a racket!

Baby is asleep on my lap. Is there anything more I really need in life?

You Can't Buy a Cucumber Attack for $2,000

It's true.

I didn't say it. But I thought it. My children are always teasing me when things like this come out of my mouth. Where do they come from?

Well, as I was walking in the door tonight, after a long night's work on a cardiac unit, I was thinking about the trees. The moon shone through the tall hemlock in the back yard that my great grandfather planted there for my great grandmother. The walnut trees have such an allure in the winter moonlight, leaving shadows in the snow. Those same black walnut trees are worth about $2000 apiece, and I was thinking, you can't buy a new walnut tree like that for $2000. Once it is gone, it is gone. If we sell them for timber, we will have money, but no walnut trees, ever again. You can grow more, but I would be 80, or dead before they'd be like that again. Is it worth $2000? I kind of like the trees the way they are. I'd miss them. I'd miss them almost as much as I'd miss a person if they died, and life is supposed to be priceless. Are the walnut trees that priceless?

Anyways, the newspaper on the top of a stack of newspapers on the back porch had a headline on it that caught my eye as I walked in the door. It was about Iraq. It said another attack had happened. Who knows what day or year that newspaper was. It could have been any in the last 3 or 4.

And...on the kitchen table was a new package of seeds that had come in the mail. It was cucumber seeds I had ordered. And the words just went through my head - just like that:

"You can't buy a cucumber attack for $2000."

What does it mean when your mind jumbles a small chain of events like that. About 8 or 9 years ago, I would have joked that I was getting Alzheimers, but it is such an old joke that most seasoned nurses cringe when someone says it. (My ex-husband likes that sort of cringe). Or it would worry me, because once on the series, "Murder She Wrote," Angela Lansbury solves a mystery where a woman leaves out letters in her words that she writes, because the woman has a brain tumor. (My ex-husband used to tease me maliciously when I said something stupid, that it was my brain tumor talking). I leave out letters in words I write all the time - especially the first letter. Should I get a CT scan of the brain?

You know, we have the weirdest dreams. But after reading Freud's biography by Irving Stone, and writing down and thinking through some of my own dreams, I think our brains put things like this together for reasons. It is a puzzle, and if we figure it out, it gives us insight into our subconscious thinking.

Maybe it means that I can't really make money off of this farm. Or maybe it means that ...planting cucumbers is not going to help me save $2000 on my grocery bills. I'll have to think about it a little longer. Maybe I'll ponder it as I drink my Mother's Milk tea, and cuddle my 7 month old baby, and drift blissfully off to sleep, feeling the ache in my legs from walking up 6 flights of stairs at work instead of taking the elevators to the 7th floor, in effort to get back into shape and lose weight. The bed feels so nice when your muscles are sore. Your husband and baby feel so warm when it is snowy and cold outside, and the moon makes shadows under the giant black walnut trees.

Just an update...Pete finally killed too many chickens, and he got shot. I won't go into details. In Sept. when I said the billy goats were stinky, the females were already bred, because most of them had kids this week. That means they were bred in July. We sold 4 boy goats at the sale barn - 2 wethers and 2 bucks. The bucks brought $20 more per goat than the wethers. Since 2 weeks ago, we have 10 baby goats. There are two more pregnant goats. I hope the sheep are pregnant.

The baby is 6 months old now. She's still beautiful. I'm still exclusively breastfeeding her, and pumping at work. She gets constipated sometimes, and I worry wether or not she's getting enough, but she still has never had formula. I've thought about switching, but my husband doesn't want me to. She's never gotten sick yet, even though I've had a very bad cold and given it to the rest of the family and a lot of people at work. She is almost sitting up on her own, and has become very good at grabbing things. Today my 14 y/o taught her how to play with a slinky.

My 17 y/o son has been accepted into 2 of the 3 colleges he applied to. The 3rd one is a state college, so we're not worried. The most expensive college offered him a $12,000/year presidential scholarship up front, which is very, very nice. We only have $19,000 more to figure out on that one. It is in NC, and is the one he's chosen to go to.

Pumping has become so familiar that I am certain now that most of the staff in the hospital have heard through the grapevine what is in my black bag. I wonder if I am an enigma sometimes. But people really do seem to like me, and at my yearly eval, my old unit manager told me that the hospital has invested a lot into training me, and that I am thus a very valueable employee. I hadn't thought of it that way. Since I had a baby, a lot of young nurses have gotten pregnant. They are going to have a lot of nurses off at the same time this spring and summer.

I miss my 19 y/o. I wish he would move back to Ohio. But I suppose he's an adult. It will be a long time before I'm an empty - nester, but I don't like the feeling of it.

I've been asked to possibly be interviewed for someone's article in a local magazine. It is for mothers who were seperated from their babies at birth, but breastfed anyway. I feel honored in a way, but being asked caused me to relive that all again today. It got me thinking about what could be said that would be helpful to others going through the same thing; or who might go through it.

There was an article on one of the forums I belong to about truck gardening. One man makes as much as I do per year, just growing and selling lettuce on a few acres. I want to stay home and farm full time and make what I make now. I bet I can figure out how. My daughter tells me we are out of food, and I know we have food here. I have failed my children, so I am determined to teach our baby (and myself) how to survive. It will especially be important in the dark time to come.

Did you ever get most of the way home from work on a 45 minute commute, and realize you never turned on the radio?

Did you ever read a book that reminded you of another book? Like one that began with chapters where the titles begin, "In Which..." and you know that Milne wrote the Pooh books long before this one was written. I'm talking about "My Side of the Mountain," and "The Other Side of the Mountain."

Did you ever develop the superstition that when you offered to do something nice, that you always paid for offering?

The clouds formed over the half-moon tonight in a manner that gave me a premonition. I don't get such premonitions often, and nobody believes me when I do, so I'm writing this one down in my blog. Unrelated to the premonition, but worth mentioning is that the moon happens to have been sitting sideways tonight, like a bowl or a cup. Anyways, my prediction is that the sky is going to turn black for days on end, and it will make the earth cold and keep the greens from growing and the solar powered cells from being powered. I don't know what will cause it to happen - maybe volcano's like when Mount St. Helen erupted. I'd really like to have a wood stove.

Of Pranks and Holidays

It was the last week of my training on the cardiac special care unit, and I couldn't find my notebook. I had bought it new and compiled all my training materials in it - the cheat sheet on arrhythmias, the laminated guide on preps for heart caths and stress tests, the cardiac drug classes, how many seconds were in mm square on a cardiac strip. My "brain" was gone.

I looked everywhere. I looked on all the counters, in the locker room, in the lounge, in all the filing cabinets. Then I asked every nurse on the floor if they'd seen it..."no," "no," "no." I felt a suspicious air. Surely nobody stole it. Would they hide it from me? I went home last Friday discouraged because Monday I would be on my own, and without my "brain." What if I got a heart cath patient - would I remember everything I had to do to get them ready?

On Monday morning at 6:30 am, I opened my locker to take my white shoes out and put my lunch bag in, and there was my notebook! It had a note on the front, "I found it!" and it was signed by one of my preceptors. Later, she told me that another nurse had hidden it behind the big filing cabinet in the Case management office. She'd thought and thought, and then remembered that a certain nurse had hidden another nurse's notebook there once and had bragged about it. So she looked, and there it was! She assured me that it wasn't malicious; that this same nurse had hidden something of someone else's in a patient's room and left it there for a long time. She wouldn't tell me who had hidden my notebook or who the other victims were.

On Thanksgiving, I was working with the only other nurse I know to keep a notebook. In fact she had inspired me to start mine. I was trying to figure out an arrhythmia. I mentioned that my brain was in my locker. She asked why I didn't have it with me, and I said, "Because I'm afraid I'll forget to put it away, and it might get hidden again." WELL, the questions began, and that started her on a firey war path. I then worried that I had broken trust with my preceptor and wondered what I had started.

But wait a minute...what *I* had started?! No. This person who likes hiding important belongings of other peoples' started it.

This week for 2 days I had a patient who had chest pain continually as an "8" on a 1-10 scale, with "10" being worst. He drank half the soda in the refrigerator. We were out of regular Ginger Ale and Caffeine Free Coke today because of him. Yesterday right after shift change, the aide coming on duty said she'd run into him outside. He wanted a cigarette, so she gave him one of hers, and told him to come back up; that he was not supposed to be outside while he was on a cardiac monitor. He showed up. His pain was still an "8." He wanted morphine, but I told him he had to do the 3 nitro's first. So we did that, and in between nitroglycerine tabets and blood pressures, we talked about his life. He kept asking me personal questions, and I kept redirecting the conversation. Afterwards, he wanted to go out and get some fresh air. His pain went to a "7."He wanted the morphine before he went, and I told him that after 3 nitro's and morphine, he'd need to stay in bed for at least a couple of hours. He asked me if he could have the morphine when he got back then. And could he have another soda?

The day after Thanksgiving, he had a stress test. It was negative, and he went home. I could write a whole lot more about other patients, but this week, he and my notebook took the cake. Or the pie.

And about "F" for France and Franklin

Oh, and one more thing...these REpubicans seem to have forgotton their history!

Don't Vote dot Org

I just took the "Don't Vote" quiz. I intentionally answered the questions wrong and as humorously as I could, and the website gave me an "F," and suggested move to France.

There are two things that bother me about this website. #1 is that a patient I had on the cardiac unit yesterday told me that it was operated by Republicans, and that he knew this because he was a Republican. #2 is that there were no local pictures of politicians on the site, and I consider local politicians by far more important than who is Prime Minister of Great Britian or who Osama bin Laden is.

I would like to know several answers from my local politicians, and I happen to know from past experience that I will not get an answer on any of the following questions:

Where do you stand on gambling in Ohio?
How do you feel about the raw milk bill in Ohio?
Where do you stand on the NAIS and what are you going to do about it?
How do you feel about midwifery in Ohio?
What is your plan regarding the historical and current public records in Belmont County?
What are your plans for the future of Belmont County?
What is Belmont County going to do about consistancy of record keeping in the water departments of its municipalities?
What is your stand on the condemning of properties for the use of imminent domain by private entities?

Now if every politician would answer these questions, I might know how to vote. I don't care about who the hell Michael Moore, wat's his name Rushdie, or Kofi Annan look like. Answer my g-d-'d questions!

Breastfeeding Working Moms

Today I spent a LOT of time surfing. See, I belong to a yahoo group called bfworkingmoms. bf stands for breastfeeding. Someone posted on the group about a pump called "Whisper Wear," that you can use while driving! I thought, COOL. So I googled it, and again, I ended up somehow on the Lactivist blog. I love this blog. I also love Hathor the Cow Goddess. Makes me feel like my blog is BORING. Lactivist has all these neat links to other blogs, and ads from places she likes. I don't know how to do that, and I can't seem to figure it out. Also, I'm not quite the activist, sort of like the difference between Lucretia Mott, the Quaker minister pre-Civil War, and her rebel-rousing activist contemporaries, like Abby Kelly, who unintentionally incited the violent sentiments that led to the war.

And how do I include my favorite yahoo groups on the side?

I have been back to work as a nurse on an orthopedic/neurological unit since mid-July. Our baby girl has never tasted formula, and she just turned 3 months old. That is thanks to an Ameda Purely Yours breast pump. The hospital has a nice lactation room for employees, but our surgical floor is so busy that I often only get one chance in 8 hours to pump. I have a 45 minute drive to and from work. You aren't supposed to go over 4 hours without pumping. So if it's been 5 hours by the time I get off work, I pump rather than add 45 more minutes. Pumping in the car to and from work would be IDEAL.

Breast milk banks also were of interest due to a post about a new bank, Prolacta. Not that I'd ever pump enough to donate. At the end of the day, I practically have plans to open my own retail store. There aren't many places around other than Toys-R-Us who sell breastfeeding supplies. I'm just trying to figure some way to tie in spinning supplies along with it. I've also been keeping up with the raw milk debate in Ohio, and am thinking if I go back to school, of studying microbiology and trying to come up with ways to lobby for safe raw milk. Our U.S. culture is becoming so, so paranoid about disease control, to a point of being rediculous. They are going to regulate us out of being able to feed ourselves and our children for free.

Last night my husband and I strolled around the county fair with the baby in our Kangaroo Korner sling. That sling was expensive, but was one of the best investments I have made. We bought a $4 apple cobbler a la mode to share, and sat at a picnic table between the apple cobbler booth and the very familiar Ruritan building. I was putting dabs of melting ice cream on baby's lip for her to taste, and she was licking and smiling at this new game - which she liked very much. An old sheep farmer who gives shearing demonstrations, and his wife sat down near us and were enjoying the baby's coos and smiles with her first experience with ice cream. My 14 y/o daughter was off with a friend riding rides.

The animal barns are getting emptier. Most of the goats were meat goats - hardly any dairy ones. There were few 4-H sewing projects, and the ones that were displayed were beginning projects. Times change, but I fear the skills I learned are being lost to future generations. No, this babe will be home schooled. I think I can teach her much more that way. And this time I will breast feed as long as possible.

Farming and Calories

How many calories does it take to shear a sheep?

I haven't shorn any sheep lately. My mother invited me to be an excercise partner on the SELF Magazine website. It is a joke. I did inspire me to use the eliptical for 30 minutes tonight, but do they really think I'm going to log on to their website and record my entire day's diet every day? I don't think so!

I'd be better off keeping a food diary and looking up calories myself on paper.

Pete, the dog, killed 2 more chickens last night. I had a taker for him a few months ago, but last minute, my husband decided HE wanted to keep the dog.

I'm thinking of starting another blog keeping track of my health. Just for the fun of it over time. I've had this blog a long time, and nobody reads it. It's boring. IF I'm going to take the time to publish a blog it should be useful to at least me for something other than a rant site.

Today was the high school football game. It is my daughter's second year in marching band. I worked in the concession stand for the band boosters, so I still have not seen her play in a half-time show yet. My husband babysat. Tonight I sat for a long, long time, holding my baby daughter while I watched "The Fellowship of the Ring" one more time with my 14 y/o daughter. The baby is so beautiful.

Something spiritual is closing in on me; expecting something out of me. It feels urgent. I've been getting feelings lately like I had before 9/11 - like something really horrible is either happening or is about to happen. I know the news says an attack was diverted, but I feel something imminent like then. When I feel this way, I want to distract myself. Excercising is good. I will keep my own diary without the aid of a website that doesn't include calories of Hershey's Kisses.

Do You Remember?

A wonder, that last post. I had a baby the next morning. It was an ordeal I'll not go into right now, but I wish I'd had her at home after all was said and done.

What a life it's become...working as a nurse, pumping breast milk for my baby during breaks; a 19 year old in Phoenix going to college, a 16 year old starting his senior year in high school, but going to college in post secondary option and a 14 year old daughter in marching band for a high school whose football team usually goes well into the play-offs. Tomorrow is a game. The leaves are ever so slightly beginning to turn.

The farm is going to pot. Our finances are shot. Chickens pooping on the porch, no chickenhouse yet, matted dogs, and do I care? Yes, I care, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Not today. I keep getting flea bites, but we don't have animals in the house. On my belly, or my back, or groin. Why are there fleas in my clothes? Where are they coming from?

I picked up a paper at a booth at the Ohio State Fair on selling black walnuts. We usually have loads of them. I got home and looked up into the trees, and this year there are hardly any! What goes with the walnuts? No matter what enterprise I take, something happens where it doesn't work for me, somehow. Then, I found a tree that had a lot of walnuts on it. Maybe the trees go through cycles.

Tropical storm Earnesto is coming through the Ohio Valley, making it chilly. So the billy goats have begun to stink and breed. They do that when the temperature first drops in August. We will have to take some to the sale barn. We have too many goats now. We may also take some to the packer.

This sweet little baby girl sitting on my lap, warm and heavy and asleep - she is every bit worth a year of sliding behind all I'd "like" to do. She says, "Eah." That means, "I'm hungry." She has the prettiest, sweetest smile. So worth things going to pot for a little while.

I don't remember the 5th of September. I wasn't born yet. My birthday is in October.

June 6, 2006

This is the birthday of my late maternal grandmother, and also of my mother's oldest sister.

This is also the prescribed date for the New Jeruselem to come to Farmington, Maine, at dawn, according to the prophecy of a Quaker acquaintance, Licia Keunning. If you look in the news, it is a date for a lot of Satanic hanky panky too. Am I concerned? Well, we aren't supposed to know the day or hour...and I don't have much regard for Satan worshippers, so I'm not holding my breath. If it comes, it comes.

I prefer to think of it as a birthday. Without the added "meaningfulness" of the year, it was usually a date of celebration and togetherness for my family.

Today, I am up with terrible indigestion, at 4 a.m.. My first thought...will I have my baby today? Then, that'd be cool if it were on my grandma's and aunt's birthday. Then, is it dawn in Farmington yet?

The past few weeks have been filled with nesting instinct sorts of stuff, and getting the kids off to their dad's in Phoenix stuff, and end-of-the schoolyear nuttiness stuff. Since Saturday, for 2 days it has been quiet. But the number of things to do has not slowed down. I have been off of work for about 2 weeks now due to premature labor. My midwife and my pediatrician are gone this week on vacation, so I'm supposed to try and hold off one more week before having this baby. I'm getting daring though. Yesterday I did more than I've done for some time. It started with a trip to Walmart for baby things we didn't get in the shower; lunch at Eatin' Park with my husband after a blood sugar of 69; shopping at Krogers; and then home to laundry, a walk around the yard to look at all I have not been doing...and prune-lopping some first year blackberry canes, and brushing the dogs. I just can't squat the way I used to. Amazingly, I did not go into labor.

I have been waking up at nights talking to the OB (who would deliver if I went into labor while my midwife is gone) telling him he is going to have a bag of pitocin shoved up you know where; and worrying about the temperature in Phoenix. I have a vague paranoia about my ex-husband's teenage Satan worship combined with the significance of this day, and my children being there, but I'm pretty sure at this late date of his life there is nothing to worry about. Pregnancy hormones....and what they do to one's mind.

Last night I saw my abdomen in the mirror, sideways in the bedroom. I'm used to seeing it from above, or straight on. That particular view was incredibly pendulous, and I fell over in shock (on the bed). My husband is beginning to be shocked also. I'm 41. I can't do this much longer. I'll die. The baby has got to come out soon. I don't know if I can wait another week until the midwife comes back. Tomorrow, I may go on a long walk and see what that gets going. When do the raspberries get ripe anyway? If only I could get back to sleep; if only the acid reflux of a pancake flat stomach pushed up into the esophogus would just subside for a few hours. What gets contractions started best is working on the orthopedic unit lifting confused old women into chairs, and going clothes shopping with my daughter. Sometimes my husband's driving will do the trick.

8th grade graduation is over. The prom is over. The kids actually got their laundry done and suitcases packed, and got off on the plane on time, and arrived safely. Lamaze class is over. I have my suitcase mostly packed, and baby clothes washed and put away, sleeping places organized, changing table put together, car seat nearly ready (waiting for a clean car). I have been sewing projects I cut out 10 years ago, and only have a few left to go. The garden is growing a nice patch of burdock right now, and my tomato starts are still sitting on my picnic table, waterlogged from the recent rains, but still good. The chickens are pooping on the back porch daily for want of a better coop. Maybe working on the chicken coop will get my labor started next week.

It is June 6, 2006, close to dawn. I'm nowhere near Maine. So I suppose I'll have to live with it.

Busy Spring

5 goats had 9 babies by the end of March. That totals 17 mixed breed goats. The sheep were getting out every day, and my husband fixed the fence. We traded 6 good sheep for 2 rolls of woven wire fencing on a barter website. That decreased the shearing load in half, as we have 6 sheep left. 3 of them are still due to lamb.

I just have not felt very passionate about much of anything. This pregnancy is taking its toll on me. I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, and have to take my blood sugars 4 times/day. I've been managing my diet pretty well, but I haven't been gaining much weight. I feel drained all the time. What's more, I am liking my OB less and less, and am now wishing I'd chosen a home birth with a midwife.

I can't complain too much. My life is not bad. I just wish I could DO more. I am not used to getting winded and tired halfway through everything. I will be so glad when the baby gets here. The kids are old enough to help, and they're being helpful. I'm proud of them.

Sleepy

I can't get enough sleep. This is supposed to happen in the first trimester, not the second. We keep finding squash bugs in the house this winter, and I don't know where they are coming from. They are relatively easy to catch. I've been putting them in jars and letting them die. They are scary looking things, but pretty harmless. They look a little like a Mexican bed bug, but without the side wings.

The 16-yr-old son has been unhappy this winter. I am beginning to think he has seasonal depressive disorder, as this happened last year. But then, he has a considerably heavy academic load, with just one less high school class than his classmates, but a full 5-hr college course each quarter at the University branch. All of his high school classes are advanced to boot. He complains he has no social life, but he has enough of one on the weekends to procrastinate doing his homework until about 8:00 Sunday night - things like 3 page research papers, complicated vocab lists to memorize and math problems I've long forgotten how to do. I end up staying up trying to help him get them done. Now he wants to do volunteer work because that was one of the two things that kept him from making the National Honor Society this year. The other thing was the teacher "didn't know his character well enough," since he just transferred. His grades were great. So, today, he is going to help with a Red Cross blood drive for the first time. I don't know for sure what kind of work they put 16-yr-olds to do, but we will find out. When it comes down to it, I'm very proud of him...just frustrated with the day-to-day struggle of procrastination, hour long showers and missing the bus despite getting up 1 1/2 hrs before his younger sister (who has yet to miss the bus this year).

The two kittens born in July are getting fixed today. I have to pick them up after dropping my son off at the blood drive. Then I'm taking my son's computer to the repair shop. Somehow, he smoldered his hard drive. I told him he was working it too hard playing games; but he says, "No, mom. That wouldn't do that." We will see what the repair guy says.

I got my last W-2 form today. I was hoping it would never come. But it did, and now I have to get to work figuring out my taxes. If I quit the investment club and quit the farm, I could do the EZ form maybe. But it is out of the question. It is a yearly necessary evil the government imposes upon me, that I resent immensely. I am all for doing away with income taxes and imposing a flat sales tax. That would clear up our landfills a little, maybe. People would go back to being a little more self sufficient and stop collecting so much junk. Maybe.

There is too much to do. And I am tired.

Swords of Righteousness

This is the name of the group that kidnapped the CPT members. Numerous news sources connect them loosely with the Iraqi Army, but the connection is vague. The only websites that might shed some light on the connection are for some reason not accessible. I can't even get into Eastern Mennonite University's website, not to mention the particular articles on "Swords of Righteousness."
The blogs I can access repeatedly talk as if the CPT members should "expect" such things as kidnapping when they walk in harms way. Duh. Where have these people been the past 200 years??? Do they think peace workers do not know this?

I am sure the U.S. govt. is going to want a rescue, if any, be made by the U.S. government, so they can look good. The so-called bigots will rescue the misled dopes, so to speak. Some of us will have a hard time being convinced the rescuers weren't somehow involved in the kidnapping to begin with, as some of our direct news sources have been shut off, so to speak. But in the end, after the hype, the truth WILL come out. Whether I am right or wrong, it will. And someday, I will find out who the Swords of Truth really are.

On a lighter note, it is raining today, and I need to get ready for work. It is Sunday.

Cleaning Up

It has been a little over a week since my last post. I wish I had included the entity that was holding the CPT members because the name of it has been removed from all the websites that initially had that information, and changed to phrases like, "Those who are holding our loved ones." I can only guess at why this was done. It is certainly convenient for those wanting to distance themselves from the act, but I'm sure there is some reason.

Here at home I have accomplished much. I cleaned 7 medium kitchen garbage bags full of clothes out of my bedroom - clothes I have not worn for at least a year; some for 10-20 years. I gave it all to someone who is involved in a church in the poor part of a nearby small city. Now we almost have room in our bedroom for a crib, with a little rearranging. We need a crib because we are having a baby - at 41 and 53. I have been very, very tired in between working, so cleaning is doubly a process.

And yet, I have a strong desire to rid my house of a lot of clutter. So I joined 3 Freecycle groups. My daughter helped me clean out cupboards last week, but I still haven't gotten the jars into boxes, so the kitchen is rather cluttered. It is a good preoccupation to be getting rid of junk.

We've Only Got These Times

The first time I met someone on a Christian Peacemaker Team was the year after my divorce. I was sent by my Quaker Meeting as a representative to a conference of an organization comprised of the 3 historic peace churches, called New Call to Peacemaking. (The 3 churches being the Brethren, Mennonites and Friends/Quakers) We were discussing "The Jubilee," 40 years since the invention of the atomic bomb, and how it had affected our culture, war and peace.

Sitting crosslegged in a student lounge in the dormitory at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, some of us women were sharing our backgrounds and how we'd gotten involved. It had been after an evening meal. My parents had long been involved in FWCC - Friends World Committee for Consultation. FWCC is an organization of all Quaker groups - they get together and decide issues or parts of issues they agree on as a whole. And they sponsor some activities and events. One such event is the Quaker Youth Pilgrimage - a yearly international trek to Quaker historical sites for highschool aged youth. Another entity they sponser is Christian Peacemaker Teams. I've heard people from CPT's come back with reports on helping clear fields for farming for both Palestinians and Isrealis. I'd thought that someday I'd like to work with the CPT - it was not so contraversial as some other peace organizations.

In 2005, around Thanksgiving, 4 CPT workers in Iraq disappeared. They were doing something contraversial. They were documenting specific cases, and following up on what happened to people being detained in Iraq, whom they had gotten to know by working with them, doing what CPT always do - rebuilding communities with all sides working together. They were detained by the Iraqi government - the current, U.S. backed government. This hits close to home for me, too close to home.

It is widely known that the U.S. has been running secret prisons, and torture and abuse have been discovered in some of them. Now the CIA is being investigated by a European human rights watch group. CPT teams were documenting what was going on in Iraq before it even became public, because they are supposed to keep record of what they do and its outcome. They have people to report back to. When people they knew (who were not terrorists) had their homes raided, family members killed, and some taken away and later released, they wrote that down too. It is often the way atrocities are found out - by chance, not going looking for them. Now 4 CPT members have disappeared. Only this time, it is not terrorists who have them. And it is not terrorists whom are being detained. There is something else going on, and it is very, very dark. It is called suppression of the Truth. It is by a government who have long been believed to be "the Good Guys." Only, that government is quickly changing.

Animal Facts

Reading back through old posts, I realized that there are a couple of things needing updated. Sabrina, the llama was never pregnant. I was very disappointed, but glad I hadn't paid $80 or more to have a test, just to find out she wasn't. She is an excellent guard llama and you aren't supposed to breed guard llama's anyway. But it would've been nice.

Pete, the dog, has long passed his acting-abused stage. He's killed more poultry, and we can't let him run loose now, except on short occaisions where he follows us to the barn to do chores and has eyes-on supervision at all times. He comes when called now, and is a happy, loveable adolescent. He knows several commands thoroughly. He will never make a herding dog, however. I'm trying to find him a new home, but am kind of settled with the fact I probably won't. We may make him a house dog after we get him fixed and he's a year or so old. He's still a little too destructive right now - but is far from the most destructive dog I've ever had. He will make a nice pet when he's a little older.

The 2 kittens are 6 months old, and I have an appointment to have them fixed. At $70/cat, that's $140 just to have 2 fixed cats. But I don't want any more cats. We have 5. Stephanie, the teenage girl 2 of them belong to, as it turns out, is only taking back one, and it isn't Zoe, the female. Good thing I got her spayed. Butterscotch is going to be a huge Tom (albeit a fixed one), and Frosty has lost her frost. She's all black except for her toes. However, the name suits her personality for a female cat quite well. She is not a lap kitty - lets just put it that way. I expect she will be a good huntress though.

So there you have it. Animals are not cheap, and they require a lot of attention. I am sure Pete's neutering and shots will cost a good bit too. I told my husband last night that we are going to keep 10 ewes and a ram, and sell the rest. I don't mind the goats. Shearing sheep is harder than putting up hay. The animals are halfway through the hay, and we don't have room in the barn for much more. My brother plans to build another boat in the other hay loft, and wants that space. So 25 animals will be our limit. They won't clear the pasture overnight like 100 would, but they will still clear it, slowly, over the next 5 or so years.

Unearthed, Debrambled Treasure

Yesterday I went for a walk in the pasture. I took a bucket full of pasture mix grass seed with me to scatter where the goats have eaten down the multiflora roses. WELL, the goats and sheep see a bucket, and they think FOOOD!!! (Well, it would be eventually). So they followed me all the way out into the pasture, 25 animals crowding around me, nipping on my pant legs to give them some. I felt like a real shepherd. I tried showing them it was grass seed - even let them nibble a little of it. They sputtered and looked confused that it wasn't grain. Goats and sheep are really dumb sometimes. Bucket means FOOD, even if it has grass seed. They gave up when I got into the brambles and went back to the barn.

In the brambles, I found some nice 10 ft locust logs someone had cut years ago, buried under multiflora rose bushes that were wasting away from goats eating them. The logs were thus recently exposed again to daylight. There are enough to finish my grape harbor! Now, today, I want to go out and clip a path through the rose bushes that are left, so the tractor can get through to pull the logs out. They are NICE logs, and still in very good shape.

I remember when they were cut. Back when the pasture was still somewhat clear of brambles, my dad was letting one of the neigbor farmers take them out. The neighbor brought his farm hand with him to help cut, stack and split the logs. His helper and I got to know each other a little too well after that...but back to the main topic. The black locust was so tough that they couldn't split the logs for fence posts, and they gave up and left them there. They've been sitting there for about 25 years.

My husband thinks he might have a go at it. He has split a lot of logs, even black locust. Some of them don't even need split. But are they ever heavy.

Now a lot of people would wonder at this being called a "treasure."

But I just spent over $70 on 6 treated posts for a grape harbor. That was $11.60 per post at the farm co-op for a 5" round by 8ft treated pine post. (I wanted 10 ft so the harbor would be a comfortable 8ft off the ground after the posts were set, but they didn't have them.) I need at least 4 more, and there are a good 6-10 right out there in the pasture, and 10 ft long! Pine posts have to be treated, or they will rot in a year or three, and all the work building a grape harbor will have to be redone. Black locust does not have to be treated - it will outlast a treated pine post. There are two grape harbors that need raised up to keep from the goats. And a chicken house to be built. I am very happy.

Late Summer Pasture 

Grape Vine Rescue

5 months gone by without posting... but what a busy 5 months.

Today we went to the feed co-op and got 500 lbs "Saddle-up" horse feed for the goats, sheep and llama. They've been thriving well this past year on it, and it is a lot cheaper than goat, sheep or llama feed.

We have Concord seeded grape vines that are over 100 years old. My g-grandmother used to sell grapes in town from them. Last year the goats almost killed them. The wire harbors are still viable, but I have decided to raise the harbor to a walk-under kind. My husband wanted to cut locust trees to make posts for me, but he was doing that for the chickens too. The chickens will be a year old in April, and we don't have a chicken house started yet. So I decided not to wait for posts for my grape harbors, and purchased 6 treated 5"x8' posts at the co-op when we picked up feed.

We are going to set them, and nail up a ceiling grid for them to climb over, where the goats can't reach them. The goats stay in the pasture most of the time, but they jump out to eat my grape vines.

We also bought syringes to give the baby goats shots. We had a set of triplets and a single just before Christmas from two boer cross does I bought last summer. My Alpine/Toggenburg cross buck bred them both, it appears, as soon as they jumped off the truck. The babies look distinctively Alpine. 2 boys and 2 girls. One of my brother's friends is going to fix one of my cars for me, and he wants to know if he can have 2 goats instead of money. I LIKE that idea.

So much to do...so little time...

I've not posted for a month. Meanwhile I sold all 12 of the sheep fleeces we shore in June online to handspinners. The people who bought them actually seem happy with them! It feels good to finally make a little money back from the farm. There is an awfully long way to go yet to break even though! Now I can't wait to shear the Angora goats and 3 lambs this fall.

New kittens were born in late July to one of the cats I have been fostering for a teenage girl. Zoe, the kitty, was a young mother, and 3 of the 5 in the litter died the day they were born. The two that are left are feisty, playful little creatures. A white one with orange tabby spots is a boy. We have been calling him Butterscotch. The black one is a girl. She has white frosted tipped fuzzy hair and white only on the tips of her paws. I want to call her Frosty, but my daughter feels very strongly that Frosty is a boy's name. Zoe is getting spayed next month, and the other two will get fixed if we still have them at 6 months.

Our new puppie, Pete, has killed 2 chickens and a duck so far. The duck was my favorite, and I'm very sad. I think the neighbors think we are beating Pete. We do yell at him, but he lets out terrible protests and screams if he doesn't get his way, without even being yelled at. It sounds like he's been kicked or hurt in some physical way. One day I was feeding the chickens, and I told him not to follow me, shutting the gate behind me, and he whelped and hollered as if I'd kicked him! I don't know how to get him to stop doing this. Also, he is very intelligent, and he's figured out that sometimes if he's caught, that means he's going to get put on the chain, or go to the basement. So he doesn't want to be even pet unless he thinks we are too busy to restrain him in any way. I give him doggie treats when he comes to me, no matter how mad I am at him, and I carry him to the chain gently and make sure he feels loved when he's on it. But he does NOT like it, and he says so very loudly. I have been through obedience training with a few dogs, and have worked with him a little. He does better than some other dogs I've had, so long as I'm paying attention to him. The first few times on the choke chain, he rolled and hollered, but after he figured out we were playing school, and watched my other two dogs cooperate (my cocker spaniel LOVES school), he decided to try paying attention instead of trying to get free. I have never, ever had a puppy that acted so abused, and it is very unnerving.

I've been working a long stretch of night shifts for the full time night shift nurse's vacation. The stretch is finally finished, and I have a week off next week. My body is still recovering. I think I have developed a mild ulcer from the caffeine and soda. Last night I had to leave Farm Bureau meeting early because I had a wave of nausea that you get like when you have diarrhea; only there was no diarrhea, and I was hard put to even pass any gas. The nausea wouldn't go away, and it didn't feel like anything a Tums would help. And I had a couple of dizzy spells, just sitting there. I lied and told them I felt fine when they asked. I did tell an honest truth - that the kids had started school, and I had a bunch of papers to fill out before going to bed. The nausea was gone by the time I got home. It was the second time it had happened during the day.

There is so much I want to get done this week!

It is hot. Hurricane Dennis was supposed to bring rain. And it did, for a little while. But when my husband went to check the corn he cultivated the last few days, he ran his finger through the dirt, and 1/2 inch down, the soil was DRY.
West of here there has been rain since yesterday. It just doesn't make sense. The last 2 years there was so much rain, you couldn't get the hay cut. This year, even the late farmers got their first cut in by the 4th of July, and now the grass is turning brown. And it is hot. And Hurricane Dennis is swirling out over the midwest, out west of us, north of us.

I tried to sleep tonight, but I woke up and couldn't sleep. Our cat - yes, I'll call her our cat now - is due to have kittens any day. We kept her and a male for a teenage girl. I should have gotten her spayed. I had permission. But I thought, maybe they'll take her back before I need to do that. She was only 9 months old. But if I spend the money, I will keep her. And the llama is due to have her baby too, any time. But her teets have not started filling with milk yet, so it will be another month, maybe.

Today I got a lot done. I dug a yucca out of someone's yard for them, and brought it home and planted it. My mother wanted me to take an ornamental mullen from the retirement home she lives at while I was in digging mode. The director wanted it out. So I brought that home too. Its leaves are like lambs ears. I picked up my drycleaning. I picked up a handwritten geneology I had put onto CD from Staples. I paid a couple of bills. I bought chicken food and goat wormer.

Then my husband and I took a walk looking for locust trees to cut for posts for a chicken house. To buy 4 treated posts will cost $100, and that is just absurd. If the colonists could get by without Lowes, so can we! We found some trees, but then the storm moved in - Dennis - just long enough to take up the rest of the daylight and burst our locust post bubbles.

I was tired, but I answered my emails. I went to bed, and fell asleep, and then became fitful, and then just woke up. I'm still tired. The dishes aren't done, and the blackberries we picked yesterday are still in the fridge. Maybe I'll get up early tomorrow and make cobbler. Maybe.

Deep Aches

I forget. Even though I do it every year, I still forget. I forget what it is like to really ache. We put 250 bales of hay in the barn on Wednesday. It was unusually easy this year - maybe because the weather was a little cooler, in the 70's. I don't know. Last year, after loading one hay wagon, unloading it into the barn was about all I could handle. On Wednesday, we loaded and unloaded 4 wagon loads - just the two of us - just my husband and I. It was TOO easy.
It is Saturday, and my legs, thighs and buttocks still ache. It isn't just sore muscles. They ache deeply, hardly noticeable, but in a way that you can't get rid of, no matter how much I stretch, or how I lay or sit. And sleep....when I lay down, I am instantly ASLEEP.
Most people don't understand this ache. They have no clue what it feels like. After all, I even forget it from one year to the next.

Right now, my son is talking my head off, and I can't concentrate, and every time I hit the apostrophe key, the word search for the web page pops up, and I can't type until I delete it. It must be some kind of virus. So I'm getting frustrated, and I'm going to go. He's still talking.

Money

How many ways can people find to get your money? Must I work all my life, enslaved, to simply exist? There is a certain amount of work involved in existance. Sometimes there is more than work involved. But as I drove down the boulevards in Scottsdale, AZ last week, and saw all the green oasis in the hot, dry desert; as I toured Taliesen West; as I viewed the part of the tour where Phoenix had grown right up to Taliesen's gate...I couldn't help but wonder, "How the hell do so many people have THAT much money!"

I work. I sacrifice. Who is going to work the floor at the hospital on Memorial Day? On Christmas? During graduations and company parties? There is nearly always an unfair trade-off. Who gets to live, and who has to serve? Who gets to be slave?

I have had some wonderful moments these past few weeks - the days during which my oldest son has come of age to leave high school. But they were definitely peppered with the yang in the ying/yang. They were bittersweet.

Letting go of the bitter is so, so hard, because it feels like it belongs there. If I take in only the sweet, the bitter will build up and hide and wham me from behind some unexpected moment. So I must acknowledge it as it exists; try to savour it as part of the flavor.

If those people can be millionaires - hundreds and thousands of people - so can I. If the neighbor can buy up lots of land in the area, so can I. The question becomes, "Should I?" For years I have chosen to exist as a facilitator. To be an ego takes sacrifice of a sort I'm not sure I desire. That sacrifice is being visible; being responsible. If it were my desired path, I'd have taken it a long time ago. It is impossible to consider all factors in any situation, because one doesn't have access to all the factors. One only has one's conscience, and one's subconscious wisdom to follow.

A lot of people in this world who have money, don't have many scruples. Everyone is somehow superior, in their own heads - intellectually, physically, financially - and I get so weary of the "in your face," sit-com style wit so many people exist by. Even psychologists try to psychoanalize themselves into superiority.

God, how many people out there are obsessed with another way to get your MONEY! They are in my email! They are in my Krogers card! I'm about ready to shut it all off. There is a new order arising out of all of this, and it isn't Amish. It is the order of "Get out of my life." It hasn't quite formed cohesive denominations enough to be called a religion yet. Well, it isn't even based on God.

Can I just fly on a fricking airplane somewhere without having to save a bunch of mileage points, and get junk in my email box, and phone calls from credit card companies, PLEASE??? Can't it just be that simple??????? I quit clipping coupons years ago. How many jillions of dollars could be saved if people would stop pandering?

My lawn is too tall. There are dishes in my sink. My bills aren't paid. The dog needs brushed. The sheep need shorn. But everyone else has THEIR days off they want. My children have done what THEY want to do. Okay, I'm overextended, and everyone else gets my money. What do I do now? Shrug like Atlas? I think I'll just be a bitch, and tell everyone to get the hell off of my back.

Coffee, Chickies and Duckies

It has been a cool, sunny week. This morning there is dew on the ground, and green, green everywhere. The black raspberries along the driveway that I was going to trim so my brother could mow the lawn without getting scratched up - they're in bloom. Now I don't want to clip them. I want raspberries! I did about a 5th of the way up the drive, so he can do the corner okay.

The duckies have become more human. They look full-sized, but they won't be old enough to lay eggs until September. (This is May). That's if they're female. We can't tell yet. We have to wait until they form drake feathers if they're male, to see. I tell you, it's worse than waiting until it's time to turn a pancake. Everything I read says that the only other way is by ultrasound. You can injure a duck trying to find out if it's male or female any other way. So we just have to WAIT. We have 3 white pekins, and 1 muskogee (or however you spell it). The pekins quack like a normal duck, and the muskogee looks like a duck, but it cheaps like a bird. (No wonder I could never hear wild ducks at the lake). They're like dogs. We keep them in the kennels during the day, and in a big rabbit hutch at night. We have a kiddie pool in the dog kennels for them. Don't bother trying to keep the water clean!
Did you know that ducks will quack to be let out in the morning as soon as they hear your voice; and quack to be put in at night when it gets dark? Did you know that ducks rinse off their food in water? And then they dig through the dirt in the bottom for bugs they may have lost? They quack when they want their swimming pool filled. They are cool birds. We have to keep them in because ducks, unlike dogs (or like dogs, whichever you prefer), don't come back when called, or until they darned well feel like it - and the fox and coyotes around here, although you can't see them, will take full advantage of that. I have lost every duck I ever tried to raise here. I am not going to lose these guys. They're hanging with the chickens when we get a coop built!

The chicks are now pullets, and they are a little bigger than a clenched fist. They have their red feathers, but the combs and waddles haven't grown on them to be able to tell if they are roosters or hens yet either. The roosters go in the freezer in August or Sept.. I am NOT looking forward to that! But we've done it before. I can't have 10-15 roosters fighting over my hens, and chicken is expensive. We planned this, but the more I think about it, the more I hate thinking about it.

I'm flying to Phoenix in less than a week to watch my son graduate from high school, and bring him back for a month before he begins college. He lives with his dad. He's wanted to be a computer programmer like his dad since he was 2. He hasn't seen Ohio's green since he left last June, and he has missed it terribly. It will be wonderful to have him home!

My husband has got the coffee just about done. He is feeling romantic because I have had some vacation time off for a few days, and started in on cleaning the house. It is far from "clean," but it sure looks a lot better! It is making him feel happy. If only I had more time off like this. I need 4 weeks, not 1 1/2. There is so much to do. Tomorrow we are driving halfway across the state to look at rams. Today, my second son signs up for college in high school, and my daughter has a band concert. I'd rather work outside in the garden, or trim the hedge, or mow lawn, but there is only time for so much.

Death of a Teacher

It is the one week anniversary of the death of a great man. I'm not talking about the pope. I'm talking about a Quaker theologian who was deeply loved by most who knew him. He also happened to be the father of one of my best friends.

In this rush-rush world that thinks normal is the television or radio droning on in the background, this man had a quiet home with a place to pause. He was the "Yoda" of my youth - the wise one. He taught at a Quaker boarding school, where the students affectionately referred to him as "the monk." Indeed, yearly he would retreat to a monestary for at least a week to worship almost as a peer with some monks he knew. I think the monestary was in Pennsylvania. He taught religion and whatever else needed a teacher at the school - English, American Government, and odd classes like "Kinship With All Life." He taught teenagers mostly, but also adults, the Quaker way of being still and waiting on God. And they listened. Most of the people who took classes from him say he was the best teacher they ever had.

Quakers in eastern Ohio have a tradition of asking a rare few of those who have notable gifts of ministry to become recorded ministers in their meeting. It is not something a person can aspire to, and those who aspire to it mostly don't even get asked. There is no formal training. The spiritual community takes ministers under their wing and nurtures their gifts of ministry. My mother was asked to be a minister when I was about 8 years old. She set out to visit every member of our meeting to get a sense of the spirit among us. She visited members and other people in hospitals, nursing homes and psychiatric wards, usually taking me with her. In meeting, she often spoke out of the silence, and spoke to the condition of someone present. That was her gift.
She also began being put on numerous committees, often being made convener of them. Our home was a hubbub of activity. At many of those committee meetings was this great teacher - and his daughters whom I played with.

We grew up under the wings of our elders. We faced the idea of walking in their footsteps. We rebelled like teenagers do, trying to find our own wings, never feeling quite like they'd be anything like those of our elders.

Bill Taber taught people how to listen to God. He didn't tell them what God said. He simply taught them how to be still, in a gentle, nonjudgemental, understanding way. He knew world religions as thoroughly as anyone I've ever met, and he respected them all. He was criticized by some of his peers, and doubted for not proclaiming his own Christianity superior; for not insisting it be adhered to. He simply taught people how to find that on their own, more thoroughly and effectively than any schooled minister I have ever heard of. Teenagers respected him, and thanked him for this gift. He gave it to my own two sons.
And although he was the quietest, meekest teacher I have ever known, living behind his goatee and thick-lensed glasses, he was the most regarded Quaker minister; the most esteemed leader in the religious community I was reared in.

Sunny, Dry Spring

The past 2 springs have been wet. Last fall, hurricane Ivan came so far inland that it flooded the Ohio River worse than it's flooded since 1936, and then the river flooded again in January. I think we've been a whole week without rain now! Amazing! We haven't poured new gravel on the farm's driveway for 2 years, and the dust flies up behind the car. I can't remember the last time that happened.

Yesterday we shore our 2 Angora goats. Since last fall was so wet, and I work, there was never a good day to shear, so they had a useless, matted year's growth of mohair. Maybe I'll make a dog bed out of it. It is so sad, because the buck's mohair is SO nice! Curly, crimpy and fine.

We planted a dogwood tree in front of the house yesterday, and another blueberry plant in the garden. I had one that only grew blueberries the first summer I planted it. Come to find out, you have to have -two- bushes to get blueberries. It was probably bloomed when I bought it, hence the first year's success. I am waiting impatiently for my order of fruit shrubs and paw paw trees.

Today I have an ACLS class, and I should be studying. I let my certification run out last year. But now I need CEU credits to keep my nursing license when it's up for renewal this year, and ACLS provides a bunch of credits. Sigh. I'd better get to work. Advanced Cardiac Life Support = rescusciting people. I've had to try that once or twice the past couple of years. So I suppose it is useful.

Gambling Mindset

I have 2 nice doggies and a very nice husband.

This week, our part of the hospital was surveyed (aka "inspected") by the state. I was the charge nurse for 2 of the 3 days they were there. I don't normally work day shift, but I had the honor of being there this week. The state had one-up on us, as they got to evaluate a nurse inexperienced with the crazy day regimen. The two inspector ladies left me alone, but bothered just about everyone else there. For this I was grateful. The unit secretary told me she thought I did a pretty good job, and the assistant nurse manager told me I did great. (Gee, did I look that insecure???)

Okay, I'm going to complain a minute. It really bothers me when other staff complain about the work they have to do, and it is the charge nurse who generally has to stay over to make sure everything is done. I resent people with positions of less responsibility who have little regard for the commitment expected of those above them. The more they complain about their tremendous responsibilities, the less I feel inclined to relieve them.

But what really, really bothers me is some patients' families. Most of them are wonderful. But about 10-20% are looking for trouble. They expect the hospital staff to make mistakes, and stand in wait to pounce. They take notes. They watch the court T.V. channel. They talk incessantly about their lawyers. They brag about telling this nurse or that doctor off in intentional earshot.
That 10-20% of people, perhaps they have a true beef, but most of them, as I said, are LOOKING for trouble, and they can easily find it. What they don't understand - what they just don't GET - is that in a healthcare setting, finding trouble is not conducive to healing. I personally, as a nurse, feel that that 10-20% can just go home and take care of themselves, and get the hell out of the healthcare system altogether. I have no desire to care for an individual who labels me a failure before I step into their room.

West Virginia is in a healthcare crisis because of idiots like this. Pretty soon, the rest of the country will be. I was there when the doctors began to leave the state. I took care of patients who sued them. Doctors are not gods or money pockets for lump sum lawsuits. Patients are not funding for vacations and new cars. The whole system is very sick. Everyone wants something for nothing - and in our gambling mindset nation - we think we "deserve" it.
And likely, we won't have a healthcare system if it keeps up. West Virginia has to come out of it if we all have much hope.

Patient, heal thyself, and use only the little of what is needed from others to do so. We are all mortal.

Spring Forward

I have so many neat thoughts on my way home from work. But all I want to do right now is read a book and go to bed.

Ducks are cool.

Funerals, Duckies and Blackberries

Today I spent 5 hours going to an Italian Catholic funeral. I went with my husband and inlaws. I really wanted us to drive seperately so we could skip the meal and run some errands, but my husband and his siblings don't like their parents to drive places by themselves, and the brother who normally does that for them didn't want to go. So we did the deed. It was my husband's sister's husband's family. They are good people, and I sort of felt like the kids needed us to be there. I am a Scottish/Irish/English/Welsh Protestant, and I was the tallest woman there. There were about 3 men who were taller than me. I don't do the cross thing during prayers, which was done about 100 times throughout the funeral and dinner. I did finally figure out that you go to the left first when you do that.
When we got home, it was the most beautiful sunny day we've had so far this year. I cleaned out the duckling cage, and put the duckies in a bigger cage outside to enjoy the sunshine and a pie pan full of water. My husband put a bigger dog dish full of water in and took my "little" pie pan out. He discovered that when duckies are startled, they all get into the water. It was so funny, that we startled them several times. But when you put food in the cage, they get back out of the water.
Then I walked up on the hill onto the long ridge of our farm to dig up some cut-leaf (evergreen) blackberries to transplant near the house. I tried doing it last year, but they died. Someone in a forum told me that now was the time of year to do it, and that it was best to dig up cane ends that had tipped into the soil before they leafed. He told me how to tell the different kinds too, but when I got up there, last year's dried leaves were still on the cut-leafs, so it was easier than I had thought. I couldn't find any tipped ends. But I found several plants. I tried digging one of those up, but the tap root was HUGE, and went all over the place, and I ended up breaking it in several places. So I walked down into the woods on the other side of the hill, where coyotes and deer live, and 3 bad bulls roam when they get out. I was looking to see if I could maybe find a small wild dogwood tree to transplant instead. I didn't find one, but I had fun.
I didn't know it, but my husband had come up to join me, had found my bucket with the broken tap root in it, with the briar snippers and shovel beside it, and had gone into the woods looking for me. He never called for me. When I came out of the woods further along the ridge and walked back towards my bucket, I heard a lot of rustling in the woods, and I was sure that it was the big bull coming out to see what was going on. I was trying to devise a good escape plan in case it might chase me, but it usually doesn't chase people. But then I saw the whitish cowboy hat, and my husband emerged with my Newfoundland dog on leash. I asked why he didn't call for me, and he laughed. He thought it was more fun to find me his way.
We went over to the pasture side of the ridge and hunted there, and he found a great big cut-leaf blackberry bush with a bunch of canes tipped into the dirt, with nice, small roots. I snipped them off a few inches up the cane, dug them up and filled up my 5 gallon paint bucket with dirt balls with canes sticking out. Then I had to carry it back. My husband helped by carrying the shovel - he had the dog leash in the other hand.

When we got back to the house, I planted the blackberries in the far end of the garden, and some by the front porch, between the iris'. My husband raked the turned over dirt in the garden, while I dug some beds for the fruit shrubs I ordered. They haven't come yet, but I wanted to mix manure and dirt to get the beds ready. I have ordered paw paw trees, currants, gooseberries, red raspberries and rhubarb. I went to the manure pile in back of the barn and filled a wheelbarrow full of well-composted sheep/goat manure. The goats can never figure out why I'm taking their poop when I do that - they just watch and tilt their heads sideways. My husband had to help me get it up to the garden. After we got all the manure into the beds and the garden, I planted where he had raked. I planted greens (lettuces, mustard and watercress), turnips and radishes from very old seed packets. The mosquitos are very thick this year. I will have to remember to put some insect repellant on next time I work outside!

My daughter fixed kielbasa for supper while we worked. It was very good. Now there is Farm Bureau meeting tonight. My daughter is bringing the duckies back in. I'd better get out of these clothes and into something nice...to go complain about the state of farming in this country with some of the neighbors who still farm. It has been a good day.

Revolutionary War

I just finished reading "The Hornet's Nest," by former president Jimmy Carter. Every American History teacher should read this book. So should anyone fighting a war.

Ate Their Words

Normally this phrase is used to signify revenge at an extreme or an "I told you so," more mildly. I hope that some people in a chat room eat their words about human nature in this war in Iraq that has not ended; and that the peaceful side of human nature does indeed win out.
Using "In God We Trust" as a slogan in any war is profane to someone like me, who does not perceive the god of the New Testament as a war god. Unfortunately, having faith in the side of human nature that desires peace is not a popular view nowadays. It is even asking for trouble in a chat room where military people are recruiting trainees to learn interrogation skills. I keep getting booted out of that "Religion" chat room, and I don't know if it is an entity of Yahoo, or if I am pissing off the administrator. I kind of think it's the latter.
There is a weird mistrust in people who support the war against those who don't support the war, even if those people, like me, come from historical Quaker upbringing. Quaker principals were involved in the founding of our country, yet most Quakers opposed the Revolutionary War. Even if 50% of the American public are descended from Quaker roots, most of them don't know a thing about Quaker principles. People in the military start thinking I'm Muslim, or better yet a terrorist; or even worse, someone "misled" by communist infiltrators twisting my brain and my ideology. If they knew anything about Quaker history or beliefs, they'd understand something about me very basic. I'm just a Quaker. And when it comes to that of God in every person, I'm not a "pie in the sky utopian." I'm just very simply...right. Every human being on this planet has some good in them, and if you affirm the good, it will grow. You may not affirm the good enough to turn them from being a terrorist. But you can instigate change, however small.
On that premise, someday, those military buffs will eat their words - particularly if it truly IS in God that they indeed, do "trust." Because they will lay down those guns.
But if the vengeance and glutton for violence in them has been well fed, and they are closet atheists, they might just shoot me, or incite me to violence to prove their point, and their reality will live on.
But don't anybody to argue with me that this resolution would in any way be "good." May they eat their words, and enjoy doing so, if there is an iota of good left in their souls.

Kidnapped by Indians

It's a beautiful, sunny Tuesday. I just worked 4 days in a row - one afternoon, then 3 nights. I slept well last night. I can't decide what to do first.

I had not read a novel for a long time. A couple of Sundays ago, my daughter talked me into going to the book store at the mall. She takes a long time to pick out books. She bought two, and had one read in a day. I told her I was going to have to take her to the library instead of the bookstore. She claims, "There's nothing to read at the library!" That's 13 for you!

The book store is my favorite shop at the mall. Novels on Scotland and Ireland appealed to me, but in the end, it was Jimmy Carter's "The Hornet's Nest." What sold me was the good bit of attention to the history of Quakers in the south during the Revolutionary War, and the book hasn't disappointed me.

One day, when disillusioned with it being a man's world, I decided to see what was straight back my maternal line - mother to mother to mother, and on. Geneology has long been a hobby, although not a serious one. Quaker geneology is relatively easy, since the Quakers were anal about journaling and writing down their business. What I discovered was a story I'd heard before, but did not realize it pertained to ME. My grandmother's grandmother's grandmother was kidnapped by Indians in Georgia! I think it was the Creeks who kidnapped her. It is a true story not unlike the one in "Dances with Wolves." She lost the memory of her English language, and she married the man who rescued her. I am a direct maternal descendant. I think that is so COOL.

It made sense. My grandmother knew a lot of native plants and their uses. She was educated, and a well-liked nurse; a quiet Quaker, but very socially involved in things like the local quilting group. She was like what a grandaughter's grandaughter of someone like that would be like.

So when I picked up Jimmy Carter's book, and saw that it had extensive information about the relationship between the Creek Indians and the Quakers in the south, I thought, neato. He is a lot better writer than I thought he'd be. I've been working on reading the book in between my daily routine activities. It isn't quite as engaging as was "The Da Vinci Code," so I am able to motivate myself to get work done in between reading. I may read some today, and work outside some also. I need to pay some bills, do some cleaning, water the tomato plants... maybe clean out my gutters or dig a ditch...we shall see.

Spring Work

The sky was so clear on the drive home from work tonight, with the waxing moon high above. The past 2 days have been beautiful! Such an odd change to be at work in a hospital after a few days off.

Yesterday, I cleared raspberry canes from the flower bed beside the house, around outbuildings and under the sweet cherry trees. I made a big burn pile in the garden, where we burned some brush last year. I broke apart a big, old apple tree that had been laying in the brambles under the cherry trees and put it on top of the brambles. Then I took a mattox and dug up a few rotted tree stumps from long-gone fruit trees, to make the lawn easier to mow, and added them to the pile. We are going to have to have a cook-out now. I got the riding mower out, and mowed everywhere I cleared, plus over the asparagus beds. I can't believe how much better it looks! I was so busy the past 2 summers that everything got so overgrown, the place looked almost abandoned.
After that, Bruce and I drug used lumber from the ante-room (milk room) we disassembled with my brother's help from the barn last fall, that has been leaning against the barn and hay bailer all winter, up to the delapidated chicken house, and set up shop to pull nails there. The roof and 2 walls are the only good parts left of the chicken house. I removed the 3 windows that were still intact, and put them in the barn.

We ordered 25 Rhode Island Red chicks that will come in April. If that isn't motivation to fix up the chicken house or rebuild a new one, I don't know what is.

Well, this morning, after all that work, I found I could barely move to get out of bed. But I did, and I even made it through a night of work. I didn't know clearing brambles could cause that much aching, but Bruce reminded me that I had been dragging trees and stumps across the yard.

The problem with doing work like that is that you see how much more there is to do. For instance, I have not cleaned my gutters out for 3 years. There are small trees growing in them. The springhouse needs dug out. I stuck to the brush-clearing, but I did drag a ladder to the porch for the next sunny day. Maybe if those are sugar maples growing in the gutter, I'll transplant them...

Little Black Lamb

The last babe of the year has finally arrived today. Rosie had a little black girl. She is so cute, and so sweet. Rosie is the tamest people sheep we have, so the baby of course thinks people are just fine. It is such a relief to be done with it all!
The other two lambs, Sweetie and Cadbury, seem so huge now, compared to the new little girl. Geez, I don't want to sell any of them!

My big, fluffy, Newfoundland, Morgan, wants attention tonight. She follows me and lays down on the floor next to me no matter where I am. I can see why Sacajawia got so attached to the Newfie on the Lewis and Clark expedition, and took extra care of him over the Rocky Mountains.

There is a more than a dusting of snow tonight, and it is cold again - in the teens. I have to work very early in the morning, and ought to be getting to bed. All the animals are fed and bedded down for the night.

Conspiracies

I am sitting here, eating frozen blueberries out of an autumn leaf jewel tea custard cup trying to remember what it was I wanted to write about on the way home from work tonight. Oh, it just came to me... conspiracies. Our parents instilled in us a healthy Celtic sense of idealizing clairvoyance without calling it that. Combined with Quakerly meditative awareness on a more spiritual plain, the two leave a person in a state of psychic awareness that most in the surrounding environment don't have a perception of.
In a highly intelligent mind, this psychic awareness easily can lead to paranoia, to the extent of suspecting conspiracies in every corner. Conspiracies can be conscious, or subconscious on the part of their makers. They can even be somewhere in between.

I am of the belief that they don't exist on the conscious level as often as we think they do. As a result, the conspiracy can easily be disrupted without much ado. Such "conspiracies" are more properly called by Walter Wink's created entity, "the Powers that Be." If those powers are on a constructive path, there is no need to disrupt them. If those powers are on a corrupted path, they can be fixed, or disassembled and reassembled altogether. If one is going to do such a thing, it is best to bring it all to a conscious level on the part of everyone, and make clear why one thinks it is corrupted, and how one intends to fix it. This alleviates paranoia on everyone's
part.

Back to the psychic awareness/clairvoyance part...some people are of the opinion that this is not "real." I think that is psychic gifts are so abused. If one habitually puts one's self into a transe-like state in which items of importance are permitted to come forth in a safe manner, so that one see's whole pictures and whole Truths more clearly, the person doing so is bound to be aware of Truths that others are not aware of. To live in a responsible manner, a person needs to act on these Truths in a responsible way. One usually finds there are others who have come to discover the same Truths, and it is usually good to affirm them by sharing them.

Going to that plain requires submission of one's spirit. Few people are knowledgeable about how this works. Quakers know, and submit themselves to Christ. That way, it is all "safe." To open one's self to the spirits of their ancestors, all alone, might be quite another matter. Buddhists meditate, and so do yogi's. It is usually in these states when we "see" what is really going on.

So, in a sense, I don't think there is a such thing as a fully conscious conspiracy, usually.What we perceive as conspiracy is usually collective action based on collective fear. In such a corrupt conspiracy - the War on Terror for example - the collective fear needs to be addressed with education. The enemy needs to be redefined for the vague entity it really is - NOT Saddam Hussein, and NOT Osama bin Laden. To confront such a corrupted conspiracy is difficult, however, when it is a self-organized machine, elusive of all who are cogs within it - a machine that propogates its images that keep the machine running with such corrupt things as greed, money, fear and glutton for violence.
A constant, good fresh rain will eventually rust such a machine. It may take a long time. I have hope, and I can provide some of the rain.

Surrounded by Tomato Plants

The weather forecaster was WRONG. It is SNOWING! AGAIN! It is going to snow every day, forever, and it is never going to go away. This morning, he said it would get just a little bit cloudy, but no snow; that the snow would stay to the north of us. But on the map, I saw this big huge front waving down from the Northwest, and his line drawn somewhere south of Cleveland. I told my husband when we had lunch at the local diner today, as the clouds were just coming in, that I bet that line would dip a lot further south. I should have gone into weather forecasting.
My husband told me that if people quit saying the weather man was wrong and giving their own forecast, that maybe he'd be right for a change; that people talking about other things happening might be making them happen. I asked him if that was a nice way of saying, "Shut up," and he grinned at me.
Yesterday I told my mom to tell my sister next time she called that I threw away her address. I said to tell her that if she wants a sister, she is going to have to BE a sister. She has not initiated contact with me for 3 years now, and she just complains when I write to her. So it's up to her now. (I don't think she wants a sister, so I've kind of resigned to forgetting about her). I did, in fact throw away her address so I would not be tempted months down the road to try to make amends without some effort.
I am surrounded by tomato plants. We went to Walmart today and bought more 4-inch pots, and a 50-lb bag of dirt. Last night I had bought more peat pots at Lowes. Today I transplanted over 64, mostly the yellow plum cherry tomatoes. I have no more window space in my living room.
My 15-yr-old son is now enrolled for next year in the local public school, and signed up for post-secondary option, provided he maintains a 3.5 GPA or above for the rest of the year. He will only have 2 1/2 years of college left when he graduates from HS. I got all the papers filled out, and took in the birth certificate, social security card, immunization records and visitation modification today.
My daughter's saxaphone is tuned up. She is going to shadow the director at the Towngate Theater in Wheeling for her Gifted and Talanted class, sometime in the next few weeks. I have been pricing plane tickets for Phoenix the past 2 days. I hope to get my nose into some paperwork tonight.
My parents want me to go to Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship tonight for their dinner meeting, but I'm not going. I don't like getting singled out by his buddies to come up and get "slain in the spirit." Call me wayward. Maybe I'll give the baby goats their second tetanus boosters instead. I have to work the weekend, and this is my last free day for 3 days. So I'm going to enjoy it.