February 2023

Welcome to February!

It's colder today, but no rain appears on the forecast until Feb. 9th! Our mud may have time to dry up. We have a gazillion projects that need to be done that mud is keeping us from doing. One is piling up Manure Mountain. That one is always fun, but without the use of the tractor, is impossible. We don't want to tear up the fields with the tractor on mud. We also have a fence to install, two gates that need to be hung, some old hay to take out of our garage shed and hauled away, a bunch of downed trees to chop up, a new tractor driven weed whacker is coming that will take care of weeds along all fence lines (so mud needs to be gone), and generally cleaning up and straightening out stuff outside. Once the weeds start growing, we'll never get it done, so some dry weather would be appreciated. (I am tired just typing all those projects.)

Anyway, Happy February!

All those projects would make me tired for sure. Having good versatile tractor is a great thing. Even my little tractor makes some things easier.

I sure understand, ARK...............springtime...............it's lovely but a lot of. hard work...........

I do love to look at my accomplishments tho...............

ARK I can relate to many of your projects, especially the chopping up down trees project. However, the mention of the tractor driven weed whacker made me sit up at take notice. I would be interested in one of those. Tell me about it... please? I call all the projects that we have the joys of home ownership. LOL.

Ark, have you heard anything about chicken feed produced by Purina and other corporate mills causing hens to lay fewer eggs? I saw a news item featuring two different chicken owners, both experienced, saying that their hens weren't laying well at all until they started getting the feed from local feed stores. As soon as they changed the feed the chickens started laying well again.

ELLEN:
No, I hadn't heard that about chicken feed. Interesting, if true. I don't use Purina feed, I get the Dumor feed at Tractor Supply, along with scratch, suet, kitchen scraps and hay. I think my hens were bred to start laying young and constantly until they have worn themselves out by the age of 2 1/2. They are red sex linked hens, also obtained at Tractor Supply. I should probably try to find a heritage breed. I've had some hens that lived to be 12 that were obtained from backyard breeders. These girls I have now will never see 7, I suspect.

INDYAPP:
Donnie has ordered a DR Power 3 point hitch string trimmer. It hasn't arrived yet. For what it cost, it had better be good! We are hoping to keep the fence lines cleaned up and the cocklebur and other sticky plants from developing seeds. I'll take pix when it shows up. I hope Donnie loves it and uses it a lot!


We got about an inch of snow about daybreak this morning, then it melted off almost immediately. Our first snow of the year. I slept thru most of it. Tomorrow we get extreme cold and wind, but only until Saturday. Next week promises to be much better!

Thanks ARK, I'll have to look into it. I have vine-like sticker plants that I would love to get a handle on. Like you, if I don't get them under control first thing in the spring they take over.

Beech, I hope you have plenty of food and heat for the next couple of days. The temperatures and wind chill are going to be brutal in your area.

Whew! We are through the coldest part of this little weather adventure. It was 15 degrees this morning with a nice wind adding to the fun. We put blankets on the horses and donkey yesterday morning and took them off this afternoon when it got up to 40 degrees. And of course, the hay guy decided to deliver the last 77 bales this morning, so Donnie and I were busy loading hay in the hayloft with the fellow. The mud was frozen, so it was as good a time to do it as we have had in awhile. The hay sure is pretty!

Dorian GrayCat, who just had some teeth removed a few weeks ago, has been laying in bed for the past 24 hours. He seems to have hurt his back left leg somehow. Hopefully he will heal up soon. Donnie has been carrying food and water to him and helping him to the litterbox all day. We don't think the leg is broken, but it is sore. Poor kitty has had a hard time lately.

I hope Beech made it through the extreme cold they were having in Maine.
We seem to be on the upswing of weather with temperatures in the 30s and 40s for a while. The lake ice is looking very dark and punky, which means that it will likely thaw in the next day or so. Since it never got very thick, once it starts going it won't take long.

Yesterday my neighbor who is in Florida at a campground called. He said he had been at the campground dog park and started talking to a lady who was there with her dog. Then he asked me if I knew a Lois B. Of course, I did. I grew up with her. He had run into a woman whose family had the lake house next door to ours. We haven't seen each other in a LOT of years. We chatted on the phone for a few minutes and will try to get together when I go to Florida in two weeks.
That stimulated a lot of memories from weekends at the lake when I was a kid. We'll have a lot to talk about.
Such a small world.

Bill's car is possessed. Saturday night around 10:00 I hear someone's car horn. Sounded as if someone was trying to let someone know they were ready to go. Long beep, multiple short beeps. Then it happens again, and again. This is really odd. Not the type of thing done around here. Beeps were never the same pattern. Sometimes with long pauses sometimes not which really made me think a person was doing it. I looked out the windows and didn't see anything at the neighbors. Then decided maybe my tv was flipping out. It does strange things. If the power surges, it won't work for 3 days then it is fine again. So I turned off the tv. No beeps. Turn the tv back on and after a while more beeps. Must be the tv. Turned off the tv and decided to read for a bit. By now it's 10:30. Then the beeping starts again. Can't be the tv. Put on my coat and go outside. Nothing but a very pretty full moon on a crunchy cold night. Decided to check on the horses because I started thinking maybe horses got out and someone is beeping their car horn at the loose horses. I see 3 of the horses. Where is Tiberius? He is my trouble maker, maybe he did get out. Mild panic started to set in. The 3 horses are looking at me like I am nuts for being out there. I'm rattling the chain on the gate to go into the pen when the car honking starts again. At least I'm able to figure out where it is coming from. It is coming from either my brother's truck or Bill's car, both of which have been in accidents are just sitting beside each other in the back yard. Tiberius wanders out from behind the barn so at least I know where he is. I go over to the 2 wrecks and Bill's car honks again so at least I'm able to determine which wrecked car is honking. I have to go back in the house to get the keys and I grab my toolbox while I'm at it. After puttering around with it trying to figure out why it's honking decided to just pull the battery cable and deal with it another day. Not as simple as you would think it should be. Ended up having to go back in the house to get my socket set. The battery is tucked way down at the bottom of the engine compartment. I have no idea how a person is suppose to get at it. Fortunately the bumper of the car is off because of the accident and I'm able to go in from the bottom to disconnect the battery cable. I can't make this stuff up.

ELLEN:
Yep, it is a small world! Nice that you can reconnect with an old friend.

INDYAPP:
Yikes! Spooky . I wonder if some mouse is working on the wiring...or sending messages to its relatives in the afterlife....


Warming up nicely here. Today is sunny, which makes all the difference.

Indy, can the wrecks be repaired?  If not, I'd let the honking happen at the nearest junkyard.  Good for you on getting it resolved.
As for the battery location, they are putting batteries in some really bad spots now. The battery for my car is under the floor behind the front passenger seat.

The wrecks are both repairable, but haven't been repaired yet. Bill and his son are suppose to be working on Bill's car. So far they have parts that are taking up space in my feed shed and the front wheels and front bumper are off. Nothing has happened for a while. Dan's truck is repairable, and I think it just may need a new battery to make it drivable, but I have not been in a hurry to fix it because I don't want my brother driving it. I don't think he has the reflexes needed to be driving, so I've been letting it set. At some point Dan is going to find someone who is willing to come out and work on it and then I'll have to figure out how to keep him from driving. In the mean time I'm letting it set.

The lake ice must have been thicker than I thought it was. We've had several days above freezing, including yesterday at 52° and the lake is still covered with ice. I guess the nighttime temperatures are enough to keep it frozen.

A little over a week ago, my next-door neighbor fell over her shoes in the dark and hurt her back. Turns out that she broke a vertebra and is in the hospital, waiting for her Coumadin levels to get to an appropriate level so they can do surgery. She is a little tiny woman so it's hard to imagine her falling hard enough to do that kind of damage.
She is the one who helped me so much after my last hip surgery. When she gets home, I will do some cooking to try to help them out. Her husband is a good cook and likes to cook, so they won't starve.
I hope they can get her healed up enough to be in the water this summer. She loves to lay on a raft in the water.

INDY, I'm so sorry for your. stress right now............Time to stop for now.

ELLEN, your friend will be healed in time to float on an air mattress in the lake............
Are you still going to FL in a couple of weeks......pray the weather holds ..........

Right now we are taking our friends under our wings as they just moved into assisted living. It's a
very nice new place nearby but a huge change. They are 95 and almost 98. Both have all their
faculties but he has brain cancer and the family wanted to create 24 hr protection for them..............

Thank God for my horses that I can always rely on..............

ELLEN:
Poor friend! I can see doing what she did. Donnie and I are terrible about leaving shoes in places they probably shouldn't be. We are going to have to change our ways. I hope she recovers in time for floating this summer.

INDYAPP:
You are a wonderful sister. Those cars can sit for awhile, won't hurt anything.


GRAYMARE:
Wow. It is wonderful your friends still have all their faculties, but so, so sad about his cancer. I hope they like their new home and his cancer can be controlled.
I am very sure having horses keep me healthier than I would be otherwise. I would be a couch potato without them. They keep me moving. And moving, and moving....


Well, I am officially wearing hearing aids. The over the counter ones I ordered came in a couple of days ago. We are still tweaking the settings on them, but I can hear so much better. I usually have the tv sound at around "40", now I have it on 22. Donnie is happier. Amazing technology. I just have to get used to something in my ears.

It was so nice and warm today, around 65 degrees. Did I ride...no. We went to Floyd, VA to pick up the new string trimmer. It is sitting in the back of our truck, but we'll unload it tomorrow. I hope it works well. Floyd is a strange little town about 35 miles south of us off crookedy little roads. Last time I was there, about 25 years ago, it was basically a crossroads with a couple of stores. Since then they started a week long fiddle/music festival every summer and there are crafty/artsy, weird little businesses all over the place. They have made a tourist destination out of an out of the way run down mountain town.

Ark, congratulations on the hearing aids! I know it will be a big improvement in your life.

Indy, you really are a good sister.

Graymare, I hope your friends will be happy in their new accommodations. It will probably take them about 6 weeks to get used to it, according to my neighbor who used to be a social worker and inspected nursing homes. They will be much safer there.

The latest news on Neighbor Karen is that the MRI showed that L1 AND L2 are crushed and there are bits inside the spinal column putting pressure on the nerves. The surgeon says it will be a complex surgery but he's confident he can fix it.
She wants snacks! So I've made some brownie bites and some banana bread and will pop some corn to send with her husband as a care package. There will be enough to share if she likes.

What a lot of news here!
 
All the tales about farm life stir up memories for me -- cutting storm blowdowns off a fence line, heaving hay up into a hay mow, that horrible horror-in-the-gut you get when you go out to the barn at night and find the horse not there.
 
 Your mention of Tiberius' tricks, INDY, reminded me of the time my horse played one on me several years back. Pitch black and a few inches of snow on the ground but too dark to see where and how he'd gotten out, and too many hoofprints everywhere to see in what direction he might have gone.  My road is a back road but a sometimes busy one because it's a cutoff, so I was worried sick. Didn't have a clue as to where to go to look, knew that I wasn't myself in good enough shape to follow him on foot for any distance anyway. I remember thinking, well, this is probably utterly silly, but I'll try it as a first step anyway -- so I lifted my head and sang out his name. Well, my word, if I wasn't answered by the sound of hooves clattering down the hill along the driveway right across from mine! For a second, then, I was terrified that he and a passing car might reach the road at the same moment. And then I worried that, once he reached the road, he'd go left or right and disappear into the night -- and THEN what would I do??.  But her didn't!  He came right across and into my waiting arms. And we lived happily ever after.
 
 I try to remember that when life looks dark!
 
Thank you, Ellen, for thinking of me in the cold snap. I shut the heat pump off and revved up the woodstove, and oh boy did that feel good.  Temp dropped to 13 below on the coldest night, I think.  But that's actually just normal here once in a while. Maine actually experienced the warmest January on record this year.
 
Obsessing lately about getting a portable O2 concentrator. Too complicated, too expensive, too many conflicting reports, will stick for now with the clutsy canister.


Good for you, ARK, for getting it on with the hearing aids! And good for ELLEN for being such a thoughtful neighbor, and for INDY for being such a devoted sister, and for GM for being such a present friend, and....!  You are all inspirational in your ways.  Thanks!

Beech, I am really glad to hear from you and know that you are okay.

WOW a whole lot of interesting going ons on the forum.  Praying for everyone....it's been wild here in PA too as it always is.  The weather has been so insane with single degree temps up to 50's.  Never know how to dress to leave the farm.  

The last 3 weeks we have been consumed with getting the run room walls scrubbed down and painted and painting the 10 foot high ceilings..  Thanks to our neighbors Bev & Sasha and friend Rick, we are almost finished and ready for the new flooring to be laid (not by us).  Funny how one project (leaking roof after the big snow storm) leads to project after project.  

Last Sunday my phone rings at 3:30 AM and my son is on the other end crying hysterically.  OMG what happened???  He can't get his Grandma Dolly to answer the phone after many phone calls.  She lives way out in CA and is alone since her son and husband passed away.  We have been trying to get her to move back here, but nope she is a stubborn old girl at 93...in the middle of my call to police in Chula Vista, my son calls back.  SHE answered.  Thank God...I sure didn't want to take a cross country trip to CA with a hysterical kid (he is 55 but will always be a kid to me).  

Sunday evening the pain in my tooth that just had a crown put is debilitating...couldn't even touch it with my tongue (of course, my tongue has a mind of its own and keeps touching it to see if it still hurts) Monday morning call my dentist, she is out sick...WHAT???? Her office contacts her and she calls me saying "you need a root canal in that tooth."  Call the Endoodontics office and they give me an appointment for the very next day.  OUCH OUCH OUCH but still Thanking God...for a quick response.

Yesterday I finally managed to get my hair cut after two cancellations.  One snow storm and one tooth storm..Praying the rest of this week is a calmer boring week.  I have my doubts...

Try to stay sane and healthy everyone...

TRUDY:
Please come finish my house for me! You really get things done on it! I am glad Grandma Dolly finally turned up.

BEECH:
Great horsey story! I can totally relate to that, nothing scarier than finding the horse gone from where it should be. Smart horse to go home when called!

A similar story, way back when I raised Angora goats and would take the females to the buck so I didn't keep a stinky intact male. We hauled three of my girls to Tennessee to be bred to a handsome buck who lived in a herd on a mountain side. When we went back to retrieve them after they were bred several weeks later, the guy who owned the farm said he didn't know how we were going to catch my three does in the large herd they were staying with. When we finally got in sight of the herd after trudging up a long hill, I let out a shriek of "Hey Goats", and my three goats let out a yell and came running down the hill to me, leaving the herd behind. The farmer was astounded.... A good memory.

Pretty day here, with no wind like yesterday. We are unloading the string trimmer this afternoon.

Graymare, did you go to the Super Bowl since it's in your "neighborhood"? I saw a little girl from your town taking a ball to the referee.

Yes, I did ELLEN...................on TV in my comfy chair, LOL. It was a good game for sure. I just didn't have
$6000 extra this year.............