JANUARY 2021

California now has the highest death rate due to Covid...............Omg, one every 3 minutes.
I can't even imagine that............We have to obey the rules, which are simple...Mask, scrub our hands and
social distance........And, I have another one, stay home.............

AZ has the least vaccinations given out so far....................

The other thing is schools in AZ................

Honestly, what a mess...........

Prayers for our country..........good grief.

Amen.

Where is everybody?

I think we are the only ones ELLEN..............social media is under attack, perhaps, and others are afraid........
I sure don't know................could that really be?

Graymare, I did think of that. But we don't talk politics here, for which I am grateful.

Hello ELLEN & GrayMaRE!

I have to admit unless I sneak in a peak while at work, I don't even turn on my computer at home. After sitting at a screen all day long, I just don't have the mind set to do it once I get home unless absolutely necessary. I have nothing new to report. I have not yet cleaned up the tree limbs nor fixed the fence from the ice storm. My tractor is setting in the aisle way waiting for me to air up the low tire. Hopefully will get it done tomorrow. It's getting cold (hey, it's January go figure). The horses are all well, fat and fuzzy.

"COLD" is the main word now. There is likely to be snow on Sunday and Monday.

We're headed for rain spell next week, starting Saturday in the night and going to Wednesday.
We'll see.............It's been dark and cloudy this afternoon. It's 66 here but the temp drops at sunset and
falls to 36...............

Hope all goes well for our friends here...........God bless.

Chilly here, too, but mostly super muddy.  Sticky, icky, slicky mucky mud.  We have to time when to take things down to the barn with motorized vehicles to make sure we can get those vehicles back up to the house.  We left the truck in the barnlot for a couple of days when we had to take sawdust down to the barn.  Early morning is prime time to get things out of the barnlot while the ground is mostly frozen.   We could get the truck out, it is 4 wheel drive, but it would tear up the grass.  

I spent all day Wednesday glued to the tube watching all the DC activities.  Then couldn't make myself turn the tv on the next day from tube-overload.  So I am in the middle of a bunch of novels.  The barn gets cleaned, but the house is suffering.... I have read more in the past 8 months than I have in years.  

Our kitten is still creating havoc.  She is a party on four feet.  No furry creature is safe in the house from her zooming leaps over them.  Feather has also turned into a predator, she catches stink bugs... ...Thankfully we don't have as many as we had for several years,  Donnie discovered how they were getting in the house.  But now they are carried in with firewood and Feather loves to torture them.  Then she tortures us with her smell.    

Chilly and damp today and I am prepared for the upcoming rain storms that are to start tonight........
It's still pretty nice outside and the horses are out...........

I've got a friend touring assisted living facilities.  She has no family here and the one place is
very nice.  I am anxious to hear their rules/regulations etc. It has two bedrooms, a living room,
kitchen area & bathroom.  She's unable to drive so they have transportation available and many
friends that can pitch in.  We shall see.  She's very social and will be a good addition.

Nothing else going on here................

I'm anxious for rain................

Sometime tomorrow, we are supposed to get some snow. I don't think it will amount to much, but the media is getting all excited about it. I have plenty of food and gas in the car, so let it snow.

We are getting snow flurries, but it is supposed to rain all day Monday.  More mud in our future.  We hauled some hay into the barn from the hay building and Donnie used his tractor to heap up the manure compost pile, so we are good.  After snowing tonight, Sunday, it is going to be in the low 60s on Tuesday!  

GRAYMARE:
 Did your friend like the looks of the assisted living facility?  Does it have a pool and gathering places?


I signed up today for vaccine shots with the county.  I hope they get it all figured out for everyone soon.  I have no idea when they will have shots available, but they are on the 65 and over group now. Who knew there would be an advantage for being old...except for discounts at the movies....?  Movies....I remember them.....

Today is awful here in AZ..............rainy, damp, and cold.........I just went out to get the trash
cans. Brrrrrrrr

Book day.............

We are supposed to get significant snow starting this evening. I made a quick run to the grocery store to get some Cherry Coke. I just can't run out of that! LOL
At the moment, the sun is trying to shine through spots of blue sky.
Back to knitting.

I was proud of myself on Saturday. I was able to check off a number of things from my "to do" list. First thing I did was tear apart the bathroom sink and clean out all the soap scum clogging the drain. Gross. Bu at least the water goes down the drain quickly now. Then, while I was in the bathroom, replaced the door knob on the closet that broke off a year ago. Obviously that little project was not high on my list of priorities. While I did sweep the bathroom floor, I can't say I cleaned it. LOL.

I then moved to outdoor tasks. I got the tires on the tractor aired up, the one hayloft swept out, and the aisle way swept. The aisle is the worst of the jobs. I have really fine sand both outside and in the stalls and the horses drag a little bit around every time they come in the barn or leave their stalls. Because it is so fine, you don't realize how much is there until you go to sweep it up. And then it just hovers in the air as dust forever. There has to be a way to control it, I just haven't figured it out yet.

Sunday I was a slug.

Indy, have you tried the Sani-sticks for drains? They actually work. When you see a drain running a little slow, just drop one of the sticks down the drain and it will clean it right out. No muss no fuss. When I saw them advertised I didn't think they would work, but they actually do. I try to remember to drop one down the shower drain every month or six weeks, and another down the bathroom sink drain.
Is it snowing up your way yet? So far, it has missed me completely. The radar is showing most of the storm going north of me, which means it should line up on you.

You have to be careful what you pray for.................POURING, POURING, POURING...................

Hey, when is ROSE going to be home with her horse? I can't keep track of when he's supposed to be home........

Indy, did you get lots of snow last night? We didn't get any at all. We just had about 10 minutes of freezing rain that made everything slick.

Thanks for the Sani stix tip, Ellen. I'll give it a try.

We got snow last night but nothing like they were predicting. It's not pretty though. Mixed with the snow was a light freezing rain so there is a crust component to it. Roads are slick but not horrible. In other words, it's January in Northern Indiana. LOL

GM, please don't send your rain this way.

Hello everyone. Just checking in from PA. It's cold and sleeting here today. Staying inside as much as possible. Things are the same here, people are afraid to leave their houses. So sad....I know people who got the shot and got flu like symptoms now they have to get a second and a third shot. It's a personal decision for each of us to make.

ELLEN: We use those little sticks too, they work really well.

Stay safe & healthy....

Will really be glad for tomorrow to arrive.................it will be sunny. Today made me feel like I
was 100 yrs old..................very damp out.

We had friends over today and that made it tolerable.............I'm getting crotchety
with dampness.............

Hope all is well with others..............

This afternoon, I went to a clinic to get "shot". I got there about 40 minutes early since I wasn't sure where I was going and how long it would take me to get there. Within a couple of minutes I was registered, and told to have a seat until I was called. Since others had appointment times before mine, he rightfully said it might be a while. I was barely comfortable in the chair when the gal came to get me. It took all of about a minute to do the deed, then I was taken to a waiting room to sit for 15 minutes to make sure there were no immediately ill effects and to get an appointment date and time for the next one. Then, out the back door. Including the waiting time, I was there for less than 30 minutes. I do appreciate efficiency.
The next appointment is for February 19th. Then, I will have my get-out-of-jail card and I plan to eat out a LOT.

ELLEN:
Wow, that clinic was really efficient! Lucky you to get the shot! I am looking forward to it, too. I miss sitting at a table to eat out and not sit in our truck. Donnie used to say he hated using a drive-thru and would go in at a fast food restaurant. Now he says he sort of likes them. Life has changed.

TRUDY:
I am glad we live on a farm. I would have gone crazy months ago if I had to stay in an apartment all the time. Now I am only slightly insane....

GRAYMARE:
Did you get snow? I saw pix of elephants in AZ playing in the snow. We are getting snow tonight and again on Sunday. Whoopee. Not. I don't like snow for more than a few minutes.

INDYAPP:
I never heard of Sani-stix either, but will try to find them. Sounds much easier than trying to clean drains out the old fashioned, messy way.


I actually rode Ivan yesterday! It was in the low 50s and sunny. Ivan was a sweetheart, I think he misses those snacks he gets when we ride. Anyway, he was very agreeable and I had a fun time in the arena with him. I joined a FaceBook group that is about riding your horse 100 times this year. No prizes, no costs, just ride and post pix. It's just to encourage folks to ride. Yesterday's ride was only my second this year, the weather hasn't exactly been cooperative during January. Only 98 more rides to go to finish! No sweat.....right?

I did finish the two competitions I joined last year, to ride/walk/bike 100 miles. I rode about half of them, walked the other half. Nice medals. It's amazing how fast distance adds up.

Donnie got me a smart watch for Christmas. He had to set it up using his phone because my phone isn't smart enough... ... So yesterday we were down at the barn when suddenly my watch started ringing like a phone! I touched it and said hello and a man answered... ...Apparently my watch is still connected to Donnie's phone and it picked up his phone call down at the barn, 300 feet away from where the phone was. Donnie talked to a co-worker by holding my wrist up and talking into it. I didn't know it would do that. I felt like Dick Tracy. I am going to have to get a smarter phone so I can use my watch for my own phone calls.

Well ARK, you're two rides ahead of me. I haven't ridden any of my horses at all yet this year. I like the idea of being able to take calls on a watch. I think it would be a whole heck of a lot easier to answer my wrist than my phone that is in a pocket when out riding. By the time I get to my phone, the caller has been dumped into voice mail anyway. Bill gets a little upset with me because he imagines that I'm dead or something.

I just got Bill's first shot scheduled. It will be on February 9. Now if he can just find it. We both know vaguely where it is located, but still....

The farm store I go to to buy horse feed is closing. There are a couple of Tractor Supply stores not too far away that I guess I'll have to use. The little mill that I used since I was a kid no longer does custom mixes for less than 1,000 pounds and that is just too much at one time for my little herd. Assuming I could figure out how to store that much at a time, it would either a) mold or b) go stale by the time I got to the last of it. I get that small jobs aren't cost efficient, but my family has used that same mill for more than 50 years. I went to the farm store on my lunch to kill some time and ended up buying a roll of electric fence, some insulators and another tarp. I guess I can never have too much of any of them and they were on sale.

Indy, go to Google maps on your phone and put in the address you want. It will show you exactly where the place is located. That's what I did to find the place in Goshen.

Nobody probably wants to know, but I am having absolutely no effects from the Pfizer vaccine. My arm was very mildly sore for a few hours, but that was all.

Google maps would be great if Bill Googled. Bill does not do computers of any kind. He knows where Simpson street is so he should be able to find it. Me? I'll be at work. He's a big boy, he'll figure it out.

You had to come all the way up to Goshen for the shot? I hope you had other things to do while you were up this way.