Lions and tigers and bears; oh my!

And now I feel a compelling urge to watch The Wizard of Oz! Somehow, I think it might even make me feel better, especially the music. Maybe that's because I'm listening to I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine by Daniel Levitin, a neurologist. I recently finished his audiobook Successful Aging; I'm learning a lot and enjoying the education.

All the scary predators seem to be coming for Rick. He found out this week, now that he has a PCP again and had a fasting blood draw, that he has type 2 diabetes – on top of cardiovascular disease. He blames genetics for one, and the statins he takes for the other, even though he's on a low dose of statin and the Mayo Clinic says the risk is small. He does not want to acknowledge lifestyle at all, even though both diseases are known as lifestyle diseases, and he is not happy about making further changes – or with my efforts to cook in a way that would help him. Sigh.

At least Brian has healed up from his self-inflicted injury and got his cast and pins removed this week. He asked if I would take him, and afterwards offered to treat me at a place of my choice. So I finally got to try Local Flow, which advertises smoothies, crepes, and bowls. Kind of hippy-dippy and our crepes were great; it was a nice mother/son outing!

While much of the continent bakes, floods, or suffocates with wildfire smoke, we have been enjoying 'normal' weather and clean air in our little corner of the country. I remember smoke like that here; it was awful and oppressive and I feel so bad for all the humans and animals currently suffering through it. I feel bad for/about a lot of things right now; I have to fight to stay positive and focus on beauty.

Most of the sky shots in this post were taken from horseback.

The mama who poses a threat to Poppy

We picked berries at Neck Road Produce last Sunday.

The barn swallows appear to be starting another clutch.

My Tour de Fleece project is coming along.

That's all the photos I could transfer for now for . . .

Busy days with lots to write about

I follow Leigh Tate's blogs 5 Acres & A Dream and Leigh's Fiber Journal. Her last update of the first one had lots of updates and no photos. Point taken. One does not have to share photos, as much as one may like to. Since transferring photos still isn't possible, I decided to follow Leigh's lead, as much for my own record-keeping as for you. So here goes.

On May 23 I shared the photos I took on Mother's Day, partly out of frustration that I couldn't share the photos I took on the 23rd of Adelman Peony Gardens. We went with friends on a perfect Sabbath afternoon and it felt like being in the Garden of Eden. 

Rick's sister and younger niece flew in Sunday night, May 24. They stayed with Rick's mom, but we all spent Memorial Day together, first enjoying fresh strawberries over waffles at my MIL's, then going to Schreiner's Iris Gardens. We mentioned needing to get hay in our barn, and bless their horse-lovin' hearts, the visitors offered their help. So the next evening the four of us unloaded two trailers full of hay; Rick and I got a third load of hay in the next evening, and the last half-load in today.

And where was Brian? Taking it easy inside. On the 21st he punched a door and both broke and dislocated bones in his hand/wrist; he had surgery on it last Thursday. 😒

Between Friday, May 22, and today I got our garden in. Rick was going to amend the garden soil with compost but I got tired of waiting. I purchased some starts (six tomatoes, two sweet peppers, two eggplant, two six-packs of assorted salad greens, three basil, two curly parsley), was given some starts (two cape gooseberries, two cherry tomatoes, five assorted cucumbers), purchased some seeds (Detroit Dark Red Beets, Tendergreen Improved Bush Beans), and used seeds from my stash (Scarlet Nantes Carrots, Armenian Pale Green Cucumbers, Long White Zucchini of Palermo, Tricolor Zucchini, Butternut Squash). The salad greens and herbs went into the stock tank on the east side of the house; the rest into our little garden plot on the west side of the house. Oh, and Rick finally planted my poor potted fig tree up in our 'orchard' – and he's even watered it a couple times.

Recently one of our hens died after acting poorly for several days. One of my older ewes has also been ailing; I'm hoping the antibiotics we have her on now will turn her around. In spite of the medical problems the humans have racked up, all has been quiet with the animals' health (other than Lance's asthma flare-ups) for the last year and a half at least. Guess it couldn't last forever.

That's the update, sans photos, from . . .

Foiled

I have lots of photos to share of shearing progress, flowers, and Mothers Day activities, but am at a complete impasse getting them from my iPhone to my (old) laptop. I used to be able to text them, but that no longer works. I should be able to AirDrop them, but they arrive in a format my photo editing program can't open. I should be able to email them, but nothing arrives in either inbox. I am beyond frustrated, even while realizing this is an insignificant problem compared to what has been happening in our country and world, and in our church family the last week.

A week ago two members were in an auto accident; the passenger was killed and the elderly driver is still in hospital. Another member died from cancer early Tuesday morning. Still another member (and a vet client of Rick's) took his own life early yesterday morning, leaving his disabled wife unable to care for herself or their rural acreage. And our retired pastor and his wife who are still involved here flew to Taiwan yesterday to say goodbye to their daughter, who is also dying from cancer. The weight of all the shared sadness is heavy indeed.

Personally we're doing okay. I had an allergic reaction to the contrast agent used in last Friday's CT scan, so have added it to my medical chart's notes. Rick got kicked in the leg by a horse he was x-raying; he's very sore, but nothing is broken. Brian is Brian....

I don't know when I'll post again; I'll keep trying to find a way to download photos. Sharing photos is largely the point for me, and much of the enjoyment for you from your comments. In good news, I've figured out how to comment again on the WordPress blogs I follow!

That's the report from . . .

How it's going

Shearing? No more progress. I'm hoping to harvest two more fleeces this week, probably the rams because the ewes are busy during the day....

Stretching our hay with grazing? Wonderful! Our good neighbors on the north have almost five acres of grass that someone used to harvest for cattle hay but no longer does, and they have made it available to us. We both had some electric netting and we've combined it so the ewes can intensively graze one small section at a time, eliminating their need for hay. To get them out there, I selectively halter five of them each morning and lead them (with the loose three following) through three gates. To get them in each night, I take out a can with some sheep feed to rattle and they follow me back to the fold. We may end up grazing the horses over there part of the time as well, but right now they have good grazing in our upper pasture. As for the middle pasture, at least some of the grass seed has germinated; hurray!

Hopefully the barn swallows can raise a clutch before we fill the barn with hay again.

Agility with Poppy? Slightly better results at our trial yesterday, and no falls. In fact, I felt better physically than I have in a long time, no knee pain or sciatica to impair my movement or make standing uncomfortable.

Agility goals: This woman is 90 years old and is an amazing handler.

"I just exist to look cute."

Gardening? I bought some starts and Rick weeded the strawberries last week, then tilled the garden Sunday. He says he might till it again to work in some compost but I'm not going to wait too long to plant!

Rhubarb at back left, walking onions in the middle, snowpeas on the right.

Sky shows? Still happening; I capture them when I can.

That's it for now from . . .

"No hoof, no horse"

Lance's hooves are only temporarily out of commission

The title is a well-known saying to any horse person. This horse person has been living with "one toe, much woe" – I talked about it in my February 20 post and it continued to be extremely limiting, i.e. excruciating. On March 6 I noticed that my right foot was swelling, and I thought it showed some increased redness as well. Yikes; would I be okay until my Tuesday appointment with a podiatrist?

But on March 7 there was a change. The soft, unstructured shoes I wore to church were intolerable, so I slipped off my right shoe during study class and worship service. Interestingly, when I carefully put my right shoe back on to get out to our vehicle for the trip home, it wasn't as uncomfortable. After lunch when I pulled off my tights I looked at the offending toe and saw that the scab/callous had moved, and indeed was now just a flap. I showed it to Rick, who pulled off the flap to reveal a rather alarming hole.

He got some antibiotic ointment out of his vet truck and I kept that and a bandage on it. By appointment time Tuesday morning it looked markedly better. The podiatrist said it was clear there had indeed been infection, but the improvement was obvious so keep doing what I was doing. Then he addressed the toe itself, which had obviously been broken and healed bent, making re-injury from rubbing likely. The possible interventions aren't convincing, though, so for now I'm holding off. It's healing.

Enough about the toe already!!! There are much prettier things to look at around here, so let's look.

frog dogs

couch potato

chair potato?

Bernadette popped out of her sheep suit so I had to get her a bigger one

on the town with my honey

a rare morning rainbow in the west

Inglenook sticklebatt singles, done

navy singles, ready to ply with sticklebatt singles

starting plying while keeping my son company

Oh yeah, happy St. Patrick's Day from . . .