My new car - and my other new car

I drove my Prius for nearly 200,000 miles, longest I have ever driven any car. It was very useful on the farm. I hauled hay and straw in it, during greenhouse season I could squeeze 17 flats of plants in it. More than one newborn calf took a ride in that car. I got it stuck in fields, had to pull it out of the mud more than once with the tractor. And I hauled milk to the farmers market, where the shareholders picked it up. Occasionally there was a spill. But it soldiered on.

I finally traded it in after moving to town. The guy at the garage told me gently that the car had some odor issues. Oh, really? LOL

I had done my research, and I bought a VW Jetta, diesel, SEL, which was the top of the line. I loved it. On the highway, it got 57 mpg on one trip to Rockford to visit my grandson and his family. It loved to go fast, and the faster I drove, the better the gas mileage!

I had owned it about six weeks when the news hit. VW had deliberately programmed their diesel cars so that they sensed when they were in a testing station, and emissions all met standards. Once the car was on the road, the computer sensed that they were NOT in a test station and reprogrammed the car to run like a deer and get great mileage. They were also producing between 10 and 40 times the allowable amount of nitrogen oxides. That's smog, and that's what irritates lungs.

In Indiana, where we can boast having the worst air in the nation, there are no emission tests for automobiles, of course, so I could have kept driving my car. But being a tree hugging progressive, and remembering a granddaughter with asthma when she was a baby, how could I keep the car, no matter how much I loved it? So I opted to sell my car back to VW.

The local dealer didn't have much choice on the lot for a replacement car, but there was one I fell in love with. I could have waited until I got my refund and bought a different make of car, but I had driven a dog (let's face it, you don't buy a Prius for a power trip) for six years, and my Jetta was fun to drive. So I bought a 2016 Jetta GLI, 2.0 liter engine, drove even better than the 2015 diesel! It sat in my garage, in storage, to keep the insurance down, until the VW dealer pointed out to me that if I wrecked the 2015, which I was continuing to drive, it would no longer be eligible for the buyback program, and even if I was not at fault in the event such an accident should occur, the car would be valued at book, which ain't much, thanks to VW's chicanery. So the diesel went into the garage in storage, and the new 2016 GLI came out. The VW buyback program accounted for the loss in value, and we are being compensated quite well for that difference.

My appointment to return the 2015 diesel Jetta is January 18. I will finally be able to put the new car in the garage. I never dreamed I would own two brand new cars within 15 months of one another. But as of January 18, this single person household will finally be a single car household again.

GLI waiting for its turn in the garage

Rhianna - where oh where did you go?

I got a Roomba 780, named her Rhianna, and happily used her for nearly a month, and just three days before my 30 day return with no questions asked period, she went brain dead.

Oh, how I missed her! But while I waited for my refund (yes,Amazon gave me back every penny, and paid for the return shipping), I did quite a bit of research.

I had a Roomba for years, but she really got to be too expensive to keep going, and I finally sent her to the heap. The 780 was much nicer, bigger bin, could run longer between charges. However, cleaning her up was just as big a pain as it was on my old 500 series. I have the world's hairiest dog, and even with the special tools that came with the newer model, it took a looooooooooooong time to remove hair from dust bin, both rollers, bearing housings and wheels.

I did a lot of research before replacing her, and Monday my new Rhianna, the 880 model arrived. I ran her for the first time yesterday, and I am very pleased. There are no brushes, and I was leery of how well she would take up the dog hairs. She did. No brush to clean. Okay, the jury is still out, but as of today, I am very happy with this newer model. I just came home from a forty-five minute trip to pick up my Mantis roto-tiller (that's another story for another day), and she had cleaned the whole living room floor and was safely back in her docking station.

Looks like perhaps Rhianna II and I are going to become new best friends.

Rhianna II

Bee well . . .

I was cleaning out a flower bed a few years ago when I thought I had gotten into some stinging nettle. Fortunately I was wearing gloves, heavy shoes and socks. When I looked down, my left wrist and hand as well as my left ankle were covered with bees, and they were mad!

I immediately peeled off the gloves, shoes, socks and my jeans. But I was covered with stings, and I don't think I'm exaggerating to say there were 25 to 35 stings. I had been stung many times in the past with no ill effects, but this was pretty dire. I took two Benedryl tablets, put on fresh clothes and headed for the hospital. I didn't feel well, but there was no constriction in my throat, no trouble breathing.

It was Labor Day weekend, so there was no one around to take me to the hospital. I hopped in the car and called my son so that he was on the phone with me while I traveled the 10 miles to the hospital in Plymouth. I felt a bit sick to my stomach, but figured maybe it was just the pain, which was intense! Yes, I was traveling to the same Plymouth, IN that has a blueberry festival on Labor Day. When I got to the emergency room, I went to the desk and told her I had gotten multiple stings and was not feeling well. She told me to have a seat. I was sharing the room with people suffering with heat prostration, sick kids, and a couple of people with wounds of one sort or another.

Rumor has it that as many as 500,000 attend the Blueberry Festival over a four-day period. Do I have to tell you the waiting room at the hospital was packed? I sat there for 15 minutes or so, and went to the desk a couple of times and was told to go back and sit down. I finally asked the woman behind the desk, "If I am allergic to bee stings, wouldn't I be dead by now?"

She answered, "Probably." I went home.

The bees that got me were ground bees, not in a hive. Picture courtesy of Heather Valley Honey.

Not long after the bee incident, I noticed I was having trouble with my homemade skin care products. I went to a dermatologist. I experimented with the ingredients. But still, I could only use my night cream and moisturizer about once a week, or I could literally pull strips of skin off my face! Gee, a chemical peel for free!

Then I started making deodorant, and after using it for about a week, I noticed a ring of fiery red skin under each arm. I checked ingredients. The only ingredient it had in common with my moisturizers was - you guessed it - local beeswax! Being of a scientific bent, I then deliberately used a lotion bar, consisting of beeswax, shea butter and sweet almond oil, on my hands all day. By that evening, I had open cracks in angry red skin between my finger.

I told my dermatologist what I had done, and she suggested I get an Epi-Pen. If I was that allergic to beeswax, odds are that I would be allergic to bee stings as well.

I went years without being stung, and of course my Epi-Pen expired. Then last summer I fell in the yard and had the misfortune to fall on a bee. I had an angry and large red welt on my stomach, but that was all. So I figured I was okay, no anaphylactic shock to worry about. I didn't replace my Epi-Pen.

Two weeks ago, while cleaning up my grill on my newly stained deck, bees were humming around, and I ignored them. Until I got stung right below the eye, that is. I immediately put yarrow on it - which is a mild anesthetic and an anti-inflammatory. All was well.

When I undressed to get ready for bed, my chest was covered in blood blisters. I then got a severe case of intestinal distress, which bothered me for several days. I also developed hives all over my back. I lived on Benedryl for nearly a week! I also ordered a new Epi-Pen. This is not good. I will admit I am a little frightened of bees now, and I hate to mow lawn. No matter how hot it is, I wear a long sleeve shirt, gloves, and shoes and socks. I also carry Benedryl in my pocket while I am waiting for my Epi-Pen to arrive from the UK. $112 there, $700 in US. Medicare covers $250 of it, big deal. I'll wait and hope the bees leave me alone for the time being.

I still have hives on my back, and it was bad enough today that I just took a Benedryl. I really would love to take a nap about now!

Silver lining - I have developed a line of face creams without beeswax. I still carry my old stand-bys, wish I could still use them, mais c'est la vie.

An experiment

Most people who know me know that I am on a ketogenic diet.  In a nutshell, this means that I eat so few carbohydrates that my body uses fat for energy, putting the body in ketosis, at which time the body will throw off ketones (which can be measured).  This is what makes the Atkins diet work - and why I eat an unbelievable amount of fat and remain at a normal weight.  If you are interested in getting to the real nuts and bolts of why it works, try this book.  The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living by Phillips and Volek is thorough and has plenty of footnotes to follow in case you doubt.

This month, I am celebrating six years in ketosis, and five and a half years without the med that prompted me to try a keto diet. While I am very happy not to have to take lamotrigine anymore, the book's in-depth explanations of how our brain functions when in ketosis gave me food for thought. Could there be another added bonus, other than the weight loss that I initially experienced?

I'm doing Pimsleur to learn French, will graduate to level 3 in a couple of days. I do a half hour lesson most days. Some days it comes pretty easily, others I am backing up so often that I spend an hour getting through that 30 minute lesson. After reading the details of our brains on carbs in said book, I decided to start tracking my keto reading (which measures my carb intake from the previous day) against the time it takes me to do a lesson. Obviously there is a lot of backing up and replaying on a bad day, so the time it takes me to complete the lesson is an approximate indication of how easy it was for me. Does my brain work better when the keto stick reads 45 rather than when it reads 5?

Starting today, I am making a chart with my keto reading, and the French lesson start and stop times.  I figured that using the minutes was objective, whereas writing down whether lesson was easy, hard or in-between leaves too much room for subjectivity.  I already know that I feel considerably better (and more focused) on days when the keto reading hits at least 15.  And I know that I feel pretty rotten if I drop totally out of ketosis.  So this is an opportunity to have a fairly objective measure of how my brain is working day today.  How many minutes does it take me to finish my lesson on a 45 day?  a 15 day? a 5 day? 

It will be interesting to see where this goes.  I am already finding it easier to turn away from a carb laden treat when I think that eating it might make that French lesson a real pain the next morning.

Just an aside - I have been trying to learn to speak French since 1984.  I had two years in college, went to Alliance Francaise, took a course at Berlitz, had a private tutor and have many books and CDs on my shelf.  Wouldn't it be something if eating butter, the national food of France, helped me to finally learn this language? 

I may not be crowing tomorrow, but . . .

My trusty Canon MP640 is a real workhorse.  For a little and fairly inexpensive printer, it does a lot a things.  It is a little slow, but it prints on two sides - without having to remove the finished prints and flipping them.  Imagine my consternation when I got my Epson and found out that "prints on two sides" meant that instructions for how to flip the paper popped up when you were done with the first side!

My mighty Canon can be filled with 25 lb. paper, the printing for 30 of my two sided flyers for the Walkerton Dairy Herd Association  (see more here) or my skin care products (more about that here) programmed, and then I really don't care how slow it is, because I can shower, or make a batch of soap, or load the dishwasher while it is doing its thing - it prints two sides without any further input from the operator.  It even senses when you have new ink cartridges and it lets the ink dry a little longer before it does the second side.  Good machine!

Today my color was off -- I use a lot of brown in my printed material, and it was lavender/pink instead of brown -- and even though it hadn't said to clean the print heads, I did it anyway; but the yellow just didn't work.   Then I got a printer error message.  I have already changed the print head once.  They are expensive!  I went out to the internet to see if I could find a good cleaning kit so I could save $75.  One site said to remove the print head and reinstall and sometimes that would clear it.  I did.  Oops!  Now it wouldn't print at all!!  Perfectly blank paper, even after it made all the sounds of printing.  I reinstalled it three times, figured I had damaged something and would have to buy a new one.

I found another site that showed you how to clean the head by putting it under warm running water.  Say what?  Would that really work?  Well, what did I have to lose?  I rinsed it until the water ran clear, dried the contacts thoroughly, reinstalled it, and voila! it printed again.  Yellow still wasn't good, so I ran a cleaning cycle, and all is well!!  Who'd of thunk it?  $75 for a print head, $8 plus shipping for a cleaning kit, and this cost me a couple of paper towels.  :)

Go to this site (video on how to clean a Canon print head) to see it done if you have a Canon with a sticky print head.

I can only hope it is still printing tomorrow morning.  Soon I'll be printing greenhouse labels, can't do without it.

Spring cleaning a little early . . .

It drives me nuts how I can put stuff off.  Yesterday I put together a list of rooms and closets, numbered them, and I am cleaning the junk out of them one at a time.  The deal is that I do it first thing, BEFORE I check email or do yoga or anything else at all.  Well, I do make a pot of coffee!  :0)

I started with my laundry room this morning, threw out dried out shoe polish, poured together two containers of the same cleaner that were both three-quarters gone, found bits of laundry detergent that I stacked by the washer so that I will use them up and can go back to using my homemade laundry soap, gloves and mittens that I only had one of.  (I may be short of cash, but I refuse to wear mismatched gloves!  There are plenty of pairs that I was able to mate when I looked in corners.)  Took me about an hour, and I filled a garbage bag about half full.  Oh, and I found a device I bought for the housekeeper, to clean the blades on my overhead fans.  Only he never uses it.  So I did that this morning.  I still need to get up on the dining room table and do some scrubbing on the tips of the blades, but the fluffy gray dirt is GONE. 

Tomorrow morning is cupboard tops in kitchen.  I will do inside the cupboards another day - they get their own day, small wonder that.

Last thing on the list is the garage.  Ugh.

UPDATE:  It was really kind of fun.  I've decided to do the counter tops  today, especially since I found two different kinds of granite cleaner in the laundry room - but that will not excuse me from moving on to the next thing on the list tomorrow morning!  I have a mission!!!

Now I get to put an "X" in the box behind #1.

Room by room cleanup – Laundry room

X

And #2.

Room by room cleanup – Kitchen counters

X

Then on to yoga, email and income tax.  I am in a good mood already.  

Laundry room after cleaning.

Only working shoe polish left on shelf

 Cleaning supplies organized

Oh, so pretty!  Granite polished and sparkling!

Sourdough bread in the works, on a sparkling counter!

A window seat you can sit down on.  :)

Time Management Part 2

A picture, well, make that two pictures, is worth a thousand words.  Still a lot to do, but everything is sorted, missing paperwork is found, bills are paid.  There is about a half hour of filing here, and then a couple of hours of catching up with justifying credit card bills.

AND I got the lawn mowed last night.  :)

I feel better.

Before

After

Time management

I am still trying to get through the piles of paperwork on my dining room table.  Every day, it is my priority.  Interruptions start early and by late afternoon, my mind is too frazzled to deal with it.  Today, I set alarm for 5:15, planned to shower and get to dining room table by 5:30, well before the doorbell and the cell phone start their daily ringing.

I got to kitchen and took the cheese out of the cheese press.  Then I drained the kefir - Mike wants two quarts every Tuesday - and was short enough milk to refill the jars to start another batch.  I had to make a trip out to the barn for more milk.  I got orders for four loaves of sourdough rye this week, so I ground more rye berries and added the final amount of flour to the bowl where the sourdough has been rising since last night.  I will finish the loaves tonight and get that behind me.  I headed for the dining room table.

The doorbell rang.  Electric fence problems.  Kim wanted me to know his schedule for today.  Huge order for garden produce for the restaurant, and I still haven't heard from Androo or Justin - will they be here today or not?  Androo said yes, Justin said maybe, but cannot get confirmation from either.  I have Clay and Kim on backup, but Kim's back doesn't allow him to do much in the garden.

The doorbell rang again.  It was Clay, bringing me his time card for last week.  I took care of that and sent him out to the chicken yard with some whey from yesterday's cheesemaking.  When he brought back the bucket, he rang the doorbell again.  I handed him his pay.

The doorbell rang again.  Kim found the problem with the electric fence, wanted to let me know and to tell me he was heading home, would be back again later after he got done with canning.

I am finally sitting down at the computer, opened up my MSMoney file, and am heading for the dining room table.  It is 7:30 am.  I do not have high hopes of getting through the mess.  Sigh . . .

Frustrated chickens

I am pretty frustrated, too.  Those darned chickens keep hiding eggs, and this time I can't find them.  So I penned them up, closed up their little door in the big gate.  Some of them have flown the coop (literally), but most are in for the day.  They have a nice big area in which to run, but those Campines long to find new hiding places for eggs.  Look at them standing at the gate.  Do they really think I am going to let them out?

The crew staring out at me.

Goldie & Ricky munching away

Look at all those eggs from captured chickens!

Nine eggs yesterday, and nineteen today.  I only hope I find the latest hiding place soon.  Rotten eggs smell, well, ROTTEN!

Just thought I would add that I decided to dress the tree.  It's full of homemade ornaments, and a few of my store bought ones.  Isn't it pretty?  Got those two holiday cards out to my aunties today.  The rest can wait a day or two.  Well, out to milk, then I can come in and enjoy the evening.  I'm going to start wrapping gifts tonight.  The holiday spirit is upon me!!

Sleep, wonderful sleep

For years, I probably averaged about four hours of sleep a night, and just thought it was my metabolism.  Sometimes I would take long Sunday naps, and I figured that was my "catch-up" time. 

The corporate world is often hard on one's sleep - many things to worry about.  I had rough jobs the last few years I was there.  In the corporate world, you have little or no control over your fate.  You are at the beck and call of the whims of the latest boss, and I watched people scramble to follow the new rules of engagement with every change in leadership.  For me, being something of a control freak, that world did not contribute to restful nights.

When I finally got to do my own thing, when I retired from that world and started my little booth at the farmers market, I thought all would be well.  Although taking two months off after leaving my sales job, I still suffered from insomnia and seldom slept more than five or six hours.

It has been over eight years now that I have been the master of my own world.  Little by little, I managed to burden myself with a second booth at the market, a huge expansion in product line, and then of course, let's bring some cows down here, and get some chickens.  And why not become certified organic?  I saw my time shrink, and I realized that I was lying awake thinking about cows instead of airplane wheels and brakes.  Bottom line, I wasn't sleeping very well again.

Enter Kayla, my assistant.  I am starting to realize just how ridiculous it was to think I could do it all.  Kayla is working only 20 to 30 hours a week right now, because she is also milking for the Milk Association, giving the other milkers a much needed break.  But even 20 hours is a big load off.  My house looks decent, and all of the baskets and boxes on my counter at the market are filled with product. And I have some time off!

Sunday I did nothing except a few chores - maybe an hour's worth - and worked on a small problem with the milking system - another hour.  The rest of the day I was lazy.  A couple of naps, watched Da Bears win, read a little, ate well.  And I slept again that night, all night.  And again last night, a good night's sleep, nearly eight hours!

Being too tired to sleep is no joke.  I should know - I was there for more years than I care to remember.

Well, time to hit that paperwork again.  My next objective is a clean desk.  :)

Deal of the day

Ah!  Mother Overstock offered me 20% off today!  For those of you who are confused by this, read yesterday's blog.

I figure by January 1, she is going to pay me to take a coat.

Musings

I've been contemplating getting a new winter coat for everyday use - not one for barn work, and not a full length coat that I would wear for dress.  Just a nice, warm coat to wear into the market - one without hay in the pockets.  My current only non-hay corrupted coat is a full length 100% cashmere coat that I bought about ten years ago on Overstock.com.  So I have been spending some time out there hoping for another bargain.  It was only $165, and I wish I had bought two of them!  This one is getting a bit threadbare, and I want to save the last bit of goodness in it for dress up days, few though I have anymore.

Needless to say, Overstock knows I have been looking at coats, and so I hear from them frequently.  I am reminded of the mother telling her child, "If you do that one more time, I'm going to send you to your room!"  Ha!  How many times do many children hear that before the action?  I feel like a recalcitrant child whose mother is named Overstock, and she is telling me, if you order NOW, I will give you free shipping and 10% off.  Every day the bait gets a little sweeter, so why should I buy today?  It's another mother losing her credibility with her child.

I have written how, as a new bride, I wanted to impress my farmer husband when he told me not to let Rose back in the barn, as she didn't like to go back to the pasture when we were done milking.  I braced myself in the barn door to prevent her return, and Rose won.  She weighed about 1,000 pounds, and I was no match.  My right shoulder got rammed into the door frame and has given me trouble off and on ever since.  I have been having trouble with it again lately, and have even gone so far as to think I may have a torn rotator cuff.  It is quite painful.

Okay, this is a rather long and convoluted post, but it all links together.  I went to the doctor to get it looked at, and while in the waiting room, I picked up a magazine.  There was an article in there with a picture of a broken and glued together vase.  Curious, I read the accompanying text.  It told about the art of Wabi Sabi - making do with what you have.  You know, getting your priorities straight.  There is beauty in the break as well as in the vase.  The article went on to tell how you might put friends ahead of dusted furniture, that sort of thing.  Well, I learned that one a long time ago.  Before Kayla, my assistant, joined me, my friends could write their names in the dust on my furniture to keep track of when they last visited!

The article went on to talk about clothes.  I am not very fussy about styles.  Goodwill is my friend.  Since I have lost so much weight, I drop off a handful of baggy stuff at the back door and go in the front to find something that fits.  Then I remembered this lovely car coat that I bought a few years ago, on sale, very good price, but it was a little tight.  It has only gotten a little tighter over the last few years.  I would say it is about ten years old now, but looks like new.  I pulled it out of the closet and tried it on.  It fits beautifully!  Wabi Sabi - I have a new coat. 

So Mother Overstock, I will enjoy your mailing tomorrow.  Will it be 15% off?  Will there be another cashmere coat for $165?  Will I be tempted?  Maybe, but probably not.  I am enjoying watching to what lengths you will go to make a sale.  Better luck with other customers who have not learned the art of Wabi Sabi.

May you all find treasures in your own backyards this very night.

This and that . . .

It's cold here this morning.  South Bend has 13º, but just a few miles SSW of there, my thermometer bottomed out at -6.2º - yes NEGATIVE 6.2º.  I was a bit worried about the chickens.  I'm glad there are more of them in there this year than there were last year.  It was quite cozy when I opened it up.  The door didn't go up until about 8:30 - I knew the temp would drop fast once it was open.

They are happily picking at their morning feeding.  They have a heater for their water, and I took out another waterer full to the brim with hot water from the sink.  I'll have to check them a couple of extra times today.  The Campines are very hardy, but the other breeds out there - well, I don't know.  This winter will tell the tale.  Buckeyes were developed for cold weather regions, so I think they will be okay.  But the new girls are a mystery.  I'm not even sure of the breed of a couple of them.  When one takes free chickens, one does not look a gift chicken in the eye.

On a whole other subject, I did a little cleaning this week.  I sell herbs and spices at my booth at the market.  You would think that my herbs and spices would be well organized, wouldn't you?  Ha!  What a mess in there!!  The labels are still on the shelves, but the spice jars are no longer aligned with the carefully thought out labels:  Leaf, Powder, Seed, Gourmet, Rubs, Pickling Spices, and there is even one called Seldom Used.

Night before last, I hauled out every last jar and tin and got going.  My nose was put to good use, and some were far beyond using, even if used at double or TRIPLE the amount called for.  I filled a small bowl three times with unusable seeds, leaves and ground spices.  Then I started consolidating.  Three jars of oregano, four of celery leaves (I always dry the leaves myself and save them, although obviously not in the same place), two of turmeric, and on and on it went.  The emptied tins and plastic containers went into the recycling, and the glass jars were put to soak to get rid of labels.  I just took the last of them out of the dishwasher this morning.  I decided to count the empty containers - over 30 of them!

My spice cupboard is neat and well arranged.  There is space to move things around a bit and hunt for the stuff in back.  Two houses ago, I converted an old ironing board closet in my 1924 house to a spice closet.  It was perfect - in the kitchen, very tall, and very shallow.  I still mourn for that cupboard - no hunting or rearranging in there!  I tried to find room in this house, which I designed and had built, for such a cupboard, but it was a luxury I couldn't afford.  However, there are times when I wish I had taken out a bedroom so that I could have had a "proper" kitchen!

When you clean your fridge, do you find yourself going to it to look at your handiwork again and again?  I do.  And that is what I am doing with my spice cupboard.  It is a sight to behold -- at least to me.

New friends

I've been very busy, picking and preserving last of garden produce before the hard frost.  We got the predicted frost last night, and I was glad that there were baskets of tomatoes, peppers and kaprao holy basil for tulsi tea in the garage.  The greens will do just fine in this weather, and I expect to be picking cabbage, kale and collards for at least another six weeks.

Roy and his son Sean are here visiting from Maine.  Roy wants to help out here on the farm, wants Sean to experience farm life.  They are both enjoying themselves, and Sean is taking to this place like a duck to water.  Yesterday while I was canning tomatoes, Roy built a new gate for the chicken run.  It is a work of art.  I was going to get some lumber to frame the gate, and then Roy said, "You have a lot of saplings around here.  Would you mind if we cut some of them down for the frame?"  Would I mind?  Hardly!  Off we went in search of some long, narrow and straight saplings for the frame.

I was canning tomatoes while they worked on the gate.  Sean came inside to ask if I wanted to go along on a walk to find a final sapling, one with a hitch in it, that could be used for the handle.  I was at a point where I could take a break from the tubs of tomatoes, so off we went for a second walk into the cottonwood stand down by the pond.  We found several candidates for the handle, and Roy cut the two best possibilities.

By suppertime, the gate was complete.  It is a work of art! 

The finished product, handle and all!

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Yesterday I noticed that the overhead lights in my garage were both burned out.  Before getting out the big ladder to replace them, I checked the breaker box.  Lo and behold, #25 had popped.  I thought this would be simple - turn it off, turn it on and all would be well.  But it would make a little buzz and then pop again.  Okay, something was wrong.  I can live without garage lights, so I just put it out of my mind for the time being.  I would deal with it later.

This morning Holly Berry, my cat, was driving me nuts - again!  Last night she pestered me until I checked her food dish and found it empty.  Having filled it to the brim, I was sure that hunger wasn't her problem.  I followed her down to the family room, but instead of going to her dish, she headed for a door begging to be let out.  The animals all wear magnets around their necks, which activate a small sliding door so that they can go in and out at will.  Perhaps she lost her magnet again.  It wouldn't be the first time.  Nope, her magnet was on her collar, so I checked the animal door.  It didn't work.  And both lights were out in the storage room.  I had two areas with no lights.  Still believing the problem was the breaker, tonight when I got home from market, I called Allen and asked if he had ever changed out a breaker.  He said he hadn't (wise move!).  I told him I had looked up instructions on the internet and it didn't seem too hard.  Then he told me about the smoke or dust or some such thing that he saw coming out of the outlet on a post by the water trough in Paddock 9.

Aha!  The breaker was probably good, and doing exactly what it should be doing.  The cows had knocked the cover off the switch within ten minutes of installation - plastic housing, poorly made.  So it was in tough shape.  I was pretty sure I had found the problem, since the outlet by the water tank had been run from my storage room, the storage room with the overhead lights out and the pet door that didn't work.  I called the installer.  Of course, on Friday night, this was going to cost some big money, but the pets needed their door!  He said I could save a trip charge if I waited until he came out on some other business on Friday.  I asked him what I would have to do to make it non-operational so that I could get the breaker to stay on, and he explained that I could remove the outlet and put plastic nuts on the end of each wire.

Okay, I thought, I can do that.  Then I thought, if I'm going to take it apart to disable it, why not just replace it?  I headed out to the local hardware store, and with some excellent advice from the clerk there, including how to make sure I didn't kill myself in the process, I headed home with a bag of tools and parts, costing about $15.

I tested to make sure there was no juice running to the outlet.  A little WD-40 loosened up the old screws, and before I proceeded too far, on the advice of the clerk at the hardware store, I checked the wires at the back to make sure they were dead.  They were, and the old part was out in no time.  Within about 15 minutes, I had the new part in and a new outlet cover installed.  This one fits flush, and hopefully the cows will not knock it off.

Jiffy Pop "helping"

They are so nosy! If they would just leave things alone!!  Sam came over and licked my face while I was working, and of course Jiffy Pop had to get her nose into things.

But at last, everything was put back together and the job was done.

I feel pretty good about doing this. In addition to the money I saved, there was a great deal of satisfaction in hitting the breaker and seeing the overhead lights go on in the garage.  All is well.  The pets can get in and out of their door.  The tools are put away, and all is right with the world.

So the romance between Rosie and Sam and my successful electrical wiring job are my two little tales for today.
 

THE END

I'm back

My computer crashed - a bad one!  The operating system had to be reloaded, and anyone who has gone through that knows what that means.  All of my software had to be reloaded as well, my internet bookmarks are gone, all of my personal settings in programs had to be redone.  Outlook is really a bear to work with, and I estimate that it took about 15 hours in total to get it installed and running correctly.  Fortunately, all of my data was saved onto a different drive, so I was able to recover everything.  I use my email like a humongous filing cabinet, maybe not such a good idea, but very handy.

I am in the process of reloading my camera software as I write this so that I can upload some new pics, including one of our new little bull, Roscoe!

So you will be hearing from me again soon.  Here are a few things that I will be covering in the near future.

Small farmers - you will meet two families who have small spreads and are making the most of them.

Low carbohydrate diets - what has worked for me, and what might work for you.

Update on the raw milk wars in Indiana - I am meeting with several local Amish farmers this morning who are considering giving up their cow share programs due to harassment on the part of government officials who are "protecting" the health of their customers. 

Until next time - which will be soon.

A rainy soggy day

It's Sunday, and it's a day off!  I'm glad for the rain - we really needed it.  Some of the pastures were getting a bit crunchy.  I'm also glad because it is still misting off and on and it is an excuse to stay out of the gardens and flower beds.  There is a stack of books and magazines sitting on the coffee table by my sofa, and I am going to dig in today.

Making hard cheese includes a lot of downtime.  Leifschon is milking for me this morning, so I will bring the fresh milk into the house while it is still warm and get going on another batch of Cheddar.  There will be plenty of time to read between steps in the process.  This will be my third block of it.  I only hope that it tastes as good as it looks.  That three month cure time precludes knowing what I have wrought before making the next batch, but faint hearts never won fair ladies, nor fair gentlemen.  So here I go!

Tiny, the little chick that has spent some quality time in the house, is doing pretty well out in the barn.  She is there 24/7 now.  Each time I go out there, I fear what I will find.  She escaped her pen the other day, was on the outside, a sure recipe for death, but the big chicks had left her alone by some miracle.  I have no idea why.  None of her litter mates bother her either.  This is highly unusual.  The nature of the chicken is to pick on the small and helpless until they are dead.  She is only half the size of the smallest of her litter mates, and a third or a fourth of the largest.  She is pretty good at staying out of their way, and she is always first at the food trough.  I have made sure there is plenty of room at the trough so that she doesn't have to fight for space.  I sure hope she makes it.

The bull calf born to Lucy (we call him Luther) is leaving us today, I think.  A couple from Chesterton are supposed to be here around noon to pick him up.  If they don't show, another farmer is interested in him for breeding stock.  I am glad that he is finding a home.

It looks like Rosy will be freshening soon, and JP may just be with calf.  We thought she was empty and would have to be culled from the herd.  She has been a pet of mine, and I for one would not eat one bite of her.  On the other hand, she has always irritated Kathy, JP being part Normandy and pretty headstrong.  Kathy said that she will enjoy every bite!

Well, I'm heading to the sofa with a cup of coffee, and plan to start on that pile of books.  Hope you are having a satisfying and relaxing day as well.

My free time

What am I doing with the 30 plus hours per week that are freed up since Leifschon is milking in the mornings and Allen is here 20 hours instead of five?

I have a new flower bed planted under the tree by the barn.  The old flower bed was a mess!  There are several new perennials doing their thing, and they'll be back year after year.  I'm going to look for some more annual bedding plants at the market tomorrow to tuck between them, but if I don't find any, I am just happy that the flower bed is no longer a mass of quack grass.

There are petunias in the flower bed in front of the atrium now.  It is overflowing with wild flowers, and some of them are getting out of hand, but they are better than weeds.  The tithonia and zinnias that were planted in early June are blooming, along with purple coneflower and three different kinds of bright yellow flowers - black eyed Susans, coreopsis and a third wild and shaggy one that I'm not sure of.  It really needs to be contained.  I got a couple of new perennials to tuck in that bed as well - low growing Iceplant, that appears to be some kind of succulent and will do well in my sandy, dry soil, and Crocosmia, a taller plant with brilliant red flowers that will enjoy the sun in that flower bed.  I have no idea how fast they will spread, but it is time for something new.

I went to a friend's house to drum last night.  Never did pick up my drum.  Instead a few of us sat outside on the deck and enjoyed the evening, chatting about this and that.  No knot in my stomach worrying about what was left undone in order to steal a couple of hours to be with friends.  I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

The dumpster is finally out of here - filled to overflowing!  Now to get the iron mongers back here to finish picking up pieces of corrugated roofing, a couple of rolls of rusty barbed wire, and to cut apart the old Ford Econo-Line van that is rusting in my woods.  No one sees it but me and the deer hunters, but it will be good to have it gone.

My life is very nearly in order.  Well, sort of.

Daring to plan for pleasure . . .

It has been months of drudgery. I'm sure you are sick of my complaining about how hard I am working.  But at last, the rough season is behind me here on the farm.

With Liefschon, Allen and Androo's help, I find that my days do not consist entirely of what MUST be done.  There is some time each day to pursue tasks that are going to make me feel better.  Like cleaning out the freezer in the garage -- I had no idea that I had so much grass fed beef in there!  Or sweeping all of the floors in the living area of my house.  Usually, the only time I can go barefoot sans grit underfoot, thanks to my sandy soil, is right after Allen has cleaned.  A simple pleasure, but one very much enjoyed.  I took the time to put on a pair of earrings this morning, and I made sure that my shorts and tank top matched.  It has been awhile since I have cared.

My flower beds, oh, my poor flower beds.  Some  never got planted, and aside from some straggly perennials struggling valiantly with the weeds, there was nothing left to save.   I had Allen go through the worst of them with the weed whip. So now I am eying them and thinking, "There are a few remaining bags of potting soil.  I think I will try a recovery program on a few of them.  Flowers would be nice."

"Flowers would be nice" was not in my vocabulary over the past few months, and it is good to hear myself uttering that phrase with pleasure, not frustration or reminding myself it is just wishful thinking.

And perhaps there will be a few more entries here.  And the pictures will get uploaded.  And I will figure out how to upload some movies.

I'm going to take a nap.  :)

Lots of new stuff happening . . .

AIR CONDITIONING THE MILK ROOM. . . We have been experiencing particularly hot weather this year, hot and humid!  The milk room houses a commercial cooler plus two refrigerators.  It is unbearable in there, and on a very hot day, we cannot get the milk cool enough fast enough, IMHO.  I have not noticed any degradation in the milk, and we have not had any complaints from shareholders, but I don't want to wait until the complaints roll in to do something about it.

Moving around a large vent fan and judicious opening and closing of doors has kept the temperature pretty close to where I want it, but we are on the ragged edge some days.  After much investigation of the pros and cons of several options, I bought a portable air conditioner / heater, which is basically a heat pump on wheels.  It's good enough for that size room, and installation is far less costly than putting in a "regular" heat pump.

I just made my first stab at getting it set up, and there are a few small details that will have to be ironed out.  But I turned it on, and it is putting out plenty of cold air!

THE DUMPSTER . . . I have been filling the 8 cu. yd. dumpster to overflowing.  It was supposed to be picked up on Monday.  Here it is Friday, and it is still here.  But that's okay.  I seem to find something or other to throw in there a couple of times a day.  There are still some small corners that aren't totally stuffed.

The place looks so much better.  I can get my car AND the golf cart into the garage now.  All of my canning jars and canning equipment are lined up on shelving that was holding all manner of junk (now in the dumpster).  Garden tools went to the greenhouse or the barn.  Two screen tents went to friends.  Bits and pieces of projects that will never come to fruition are now lying in the dumpster.

It is freeing.  I feel lighter.  And I am reminded of it every time I go out the back door.  :)

PAPERWORK . . . I had not balanced my checkbook or posted the charges from either of my credit card bills since March.  That's right, March!  That is when the greenhouse started cranking up and my life was no longer my own.  In April the calves started arriving, and in May the garden went into overdrive.

Over the last two days, everything is posted and balanced.  One month's bank statement was off by $4, and I just chalked it up as a bank charge and forgot about finding it.  On the other hand, there was an $800 deposit for which I cannot find any paperwork.  I have no idea what it is, and I don't care!  It's just a gift, hey?

I still have to do some filing, but I now know exactly how much money I have (or don't have) and so feel pretty relaxed about that.

BUGS . . . I posted a picture of my potatoes coming up and said soon it would be a sea of green.  But that was not to be.  The bugs ate the leaves, and then most of the stems.  And when the potatoes were gone, they destroyed about half of my 200 heirloom tomato plants, some already heavy with fruit.  It was very depressing.

We hand-picked bugs for days, one of the organic requirements before using certain allowed bug killers.  Neem oil was useless.  The bugs took it in and asked what was for dessert.  So after five days of picking (Androo squished them; I ran them through my garbage disposal), I used the strongest bug killer allowed by the National Organic Standards.  I found one bug a day later, four the following day, and Androo found a few while he was filling in blanks yet again with the few remaining tomato plants from the greenhouse.  Today, I found no bugs.

A friend bought seed potatoes from me, and he didn't have room to plant all of them.  He had started a bunch of plants from the myriad eyes in Peruvian Purple potatoes, and he brought me several plants.  I took them down to the garden and started digging to get them planted.  I found new potatoes!  I can't believe it - underneath those absolutely dead plants, I am finding many, many potatoes!!  I am leaving some that are obviously taking root, because they will grow up again.  So I will be digging "new" potatoes in October!  Or shall I label them "recycled" potatoes?  LOL

Well, I'm going to sit down with the instruction manual now to figure out how to upload the pics from my new camera.  I have some great shots to share with you, including some of the baby swallows in the nest over my front door.  They are flying now, venturing to the garage roof and then back to their nest.  They are so cute!  And the new camera takes videos.  Perhaps you will see them in flight . . .