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.