Why I'm Not Here

Because if you don't have something good to say, supposedly you're better off keeping the trap shut.

So maybe I'll keep this short and cryptic. Which means the post will probably end up being long and nonsensical...ha :)

This is not the first time we have been at the Doh end of the learning curve, namely when it involves money, land interests, and high hopes...oh, and attorneys. I will not go into the specifics, but I have been feeling sucker-punched at a recent development...or lack of development, in which an attorney simply did not advocate with the facts she was given at the outset of our situation, and then tried to play it off later with a slant that was irrelevant...because she simply took our money and never HEARD and READ the details at the outset. And of course we have no recourse because we're tired of attorneys, it's a small town thereabouts and we don't want to burn any bridges...and blah blah blah. Oh, brother. Legal stuff, land stuff, blah blah blah. See? Not very specific, am I?

I keep many details out of this blog for privacy's sake, which makes it kind of hard sometimes since the blog's about our life and many of its ups and downs on this journey. The journey turns on our having useful land. I know we can do the urban thing right where we are, but there are still doors open that need to be fully explored with acquiring land, and we need to do so in a timely way. So we keep plugging along...and providing cryptic nonsensical updates here to that effect. But there are tangible things to do, some of which if successful will allow us to HAVE USEFUL LAND. Meaning animals and fewer restrictions than where we are. Etc, etc.

And now for the gripe summary...

I have a steady husband who is very optimistic. (No gripe about that!) I myself am pretty resiliant and CALM in a variety of situations and circumstances. However, when it comes to incompetence involving taking large amounts of my money and seriously setting back our getting land SOON, when the expectation and all the conversation seemed we were on the brink, well...for some reason this time it felt like it took all the air out of me.

The other thing is that I've been feeling lousy, quasi-lousy, or slightly-less-than-bad...depends on the day which label to apply...for MONTHS now. In June it started, I don't know why. I got a stubborn respiratory infection that almost would go away and then would come back with a vengeance, and I'm not the kind of gal who goes to the doctor. I cleanse, do soup, do over-the-counter if necessary, do herbs. When my knuckles start dragging the floor and I can't speak in coherent sentences and my ear feels like it's inhabited by an expanding golf ball, then I go to the doc. I succumb to prescription meds. I feel the antibiotics wiping out any and all good bacteria in my body along with the bad and I ramp up the probiotics and vitamin C.

Blah blah blah...this is starting to sound like a litany of The Geezer List....corns, bunions, sciatica...I'll try to keep it shorter :)

Anyway, last week's newsworthy (NOT) sucker punch was accompanied by a sprained wrist and the next stage of this confounded respiratory infection that won't go away...going on 4 months now, all told. I've begun feeling sorry for myself. The house needs a deep clean, I need to be industrious, I need to keep walking daily, and I need to feel WELL. So yesterday at the most recent checkup, the doc tells me I'm not responding to any of the antibiotics, and my eardrums and canal look horrible, and she prescribes me what she refers to as The Big Guns, which amounts to the highest concentration of Augmentin I've ever been prescribed and an antifungal, which together cost three figures...good golly :(

This, and I'm the sort of person that avoids antibiotics like the plague (haha little pandemic phraseology fun there) ;-)

The weather is simply beautiful.
I'm grumpy.
My husband is simply wonderful.
I'm grumpy.
I have nothing to feel bad about.
I'm still grumpy.

So I haven't been even coming to the computer.

Oh yeah, and another thing I'm grumpy about (as long as I'm on a whinge binge), is that I have friends who live elsewhere, and family who sporadically get in touch with me via snail mail, but never email or read the blog...and they want to be updated in detail about what's going on with us, but don't have phone time because their lives are too busy. And they have email. But the only emails I get from them are the spams I hate, with silly "forwards" and my email address included on the huge laundry list of group emails they're sending to people I 've never heard of. Ugh.

See? Told you I'm grumpy :)

Let's see...anything else on the grump list, hmmm...

Oh yes.

I'm homesick. This will undoubtedly put me on the Most Thankless Person In The Western Hemisphere category immediately, but I'm a-sayin' it right here..

I MISS THE UPPER 47...namely Tennessee, but you can fill it in with anywhere that has some hardwoods, rolling hills or an occasional small mountain, streams and rivers, pastures and woodlands and four seasons, and wildlife not abundant with alligators/pythons/carnivorous insects/creeping tropical amphibians.
I miss trees turning colors.
I miss being able to SIT ON THE GROUND without being digested by stinging/biting/gnawing/viperous/poisonous/disfiguring things.
I miss laying out on a crooked lawnchair without becoming a fire ant buffet.

And I miss the sound of creeks, streams, and rivers and the cool of the night coming in through the windows... and bundling up and smelling woodsmoke and earth smells ...and having a fireplace or woodburning stove.

I miss really big trees, especially oaks. And dogwoods. And fruit trees like apples.


And the very worst admission....

I'm not a beach person. I can be awed by the sunsets, the wonderful romance of wading at the water's edge, absolutely! Shells, sand between the toes, my sweetheart holding my hand and walking together along the shore...the birds, the salty smells, yes. BUT...

I don't long for that. I long for the creeks, springs, pools, shallow rivers, the talking stones in a trouth stream. Cold mist hanging low in the mornings and deer browsing like ghosts. Flannel shirts.

OK...yes, I'm now officially an ingrate!

Just a homesick one.

Oh, and I miss red clay...can you believe I'd EVER say that? But it grows the best tasting tomatoes I've ever had, and sand doesn't impart that same liveliness to a tomato as that red clay.

Well, now that's off my chest for now.....I'm off to begin re-counting all my blessings and getting over myself...which will be easier if I can just get feeling better. When I'm sick for more than a couple days, guilt sets in and I feel like I'm being useless (well, basically I AM) :) and I feel uninspired. I need a good cry. I've had a few moments like that, but there's just so much to be grateful for, it's impossible to wallow....I'm so thankful to God for SO much.

I'm trying so hard not to be jealous of others right now. I'm just not the jealous sort. But I've actually wrestled with some of those feelings, too...not coveting, but just feelings of sadness like I'm being left behind. Some of this has to do with the fact we're wrestling with restrictions, restrictions, restrictions here in Florida that simply are a non-issue (and cost a HECK of a lot less in all the particulars) in about any other state. But they are entrenched here.

OK, whine over!

Blogger wouldn't let me post pics tonight, or I'd just have put up some update pics of the great growth we've seen in many of the plants Jack transplanted. Hopefully, I'll be able to post them soon :)

And I'll have spent a bit more time reflecting on all the benefits there are to our situation, and being grateful. For SO MANY blessings! And the fact that in fact I'd live among cannibals, leech-infested swamps, and torpedo-sized mosquitos to be with my beloved husband.

But I might still be a tad grumpy ;-)

Morning Blues

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While most of the rest of the country are enjoying milder temps, for some reason we're having record highs for this time of year. The normal morning dew, when combined with already-percolating mercury climbs, becomes a thick shroud of steam in and around everything outdoors.

This morning, I had the blues...

these blues. I love wild morning glories!

Yes, I know they're a pest.

But pestilence never looked so beautiful...

I won't confess just which pots and plants lie buried beneath our lush impromptu morning-glory topiary, but instead I'll just enjoy the daily morning show of blooms...lovely! Soon enough it will be time to clean things up (again), but till then let's see just how high it'll go :)

One Month Later

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Two days from now will mark Month One since we adopted Kaleb. I'll return to blogging more about our plants and plans, but just wanted to get a few more shots (twist my arm!) to chart our constant canine companion's entry into our household.

We hoped for a companion dog that would be bonded to us. I can say, gladly, that one month later our fellow seems to have settled in well.


Because he is a dog formerly owned by others, he came to us understanding simple commands (sit, stay, down, outside, go home) and is not destructive to furniture and furnishings inside when we leave. It is also obvious that he has never been struck/hit, so he is not afraid of hands petting him or signaling him, and we only use positive training ourselves...treats and praise and "uh-oh" instead of a lot of "no" responses. Very happily, he also came to us fully potty trained. The only accidents he's had were unavoidable...parents away too long from home. (Can I just sing the praises of tile floors? :)) He also is very used to being brushed and lying on his side for grooming. Wow, are we thankful!

I think he had a big shedding just prior to our knowing him. Add to that a homemade haircut of most of his fringes and skirt, and we haven't been too sure how they'll grow out. It's looking a little less choppy now. He's had a couple of baths since first arriving, but doesn't seem to need them since. His smell is more "doggy" rather than sour and dirty-smelling...boy did he smell at first.

His "puffs" (rear leg skirts) are fluffing out...maybe they're growing out...let's see how long they get.

Some unpleasant discoveries at the first vet visit (besides the bill, ha) were some broken teeth and too high a parasite load of worms. The good news was that he was heartworm negative and the bloodwork they ran was clear in all other areas. He has the MDR1 genetic mutation that makes him vulnerable to certain common heartworm and worming meds, not to mention other things taken internally, and had had a near-death reaction to one prior to our ever knowing him. One third of all Australian Shepherds and certain other breeds carry the MDR1, and the kindest thing to do is to have yours tested if there's a chance he/she is one of the at-risk breeds. A reaction can kill or permanently damage the dog (it affects the brain), and isn't worth the gamble of taking chances with.

The left side of Kaleb's muzzle/eye area is the "scar side"...he came with a healing bite mark and soon after scratched a gouge under that eye that took a couple weeks to heal. The gouge is now fully healed and returning to its normal hair color and pattern, but the bite can still be seen somewhat.

I'm not sure about coat quality, but the noticeable thing so far is that it's seeming softer.

His feed is now 1 cup AvoDerm kibble + 1 cup cooked mash (my own ingredients) + either 1 cup raw or cooked veg...or a good drizzle of active culture plain yogurt. Twice a day.

Of course there are toys in the equation. I've been educated to the fact that there are few, if any, guarantees when it comes to rawhide chews due to the chemical nature of their processing. A bone-shaped Kong chew with hollow ends is fun for Kaleb when the cavities are filled with a dab of peanut butter and a couple of training treats. I'd forgotten just how inflated pet store prices are on just about everything, and when we needed a leash, we just found a 20' training lead at a discount store, and initially used a choke chain for walking him. But I prefer a regular collar, and after a nasty spill involving my own carelessness and the longer lead wrapped around my ankle (last memory...throwing the tennis ball...then staring at concrete up close and personal, ouch!), we needed a short lead. I found a matching collar and lead online on a military supply site (who knew?) for less than what the pet store prices were, and liked the aesthetics a lot better...here's the lead...

So far, Kaleb will bark when someone enters the house, but won't bark at anyone outside...we're actually hoping he'll bark more. So Jack wants us to give him treats whenever he barks. I'm of the "hmmmm" opinion on that, but it's quite entertaining watching Jack tryinig to talk "dog" and encouraging him by going "woof WOOF" anytime he sees something he wants Kaleb to bark at. I told Jack I think the dog is training him...ha.

Ok, am I just weird or what, but I've always been attracted to beautiful natural fibers. There are so many variations of color and texture on my dog, he's a four-legged Fiber Art.

I don't intend for the blog to become an unending series of doggy portraits while I drone on and on about My Baby. I'm just SO excited that this part of our homestead happened...finally, after so long a wait! Paired with the relief of having paid down a considerable chunk of our debt, it may be boring to others but it's huge for us.

Upcoming posts will be updates, with pics, of some of the plants we planted earlier in the year. We're pleasantly surprised at how they've survived periods of extreme heat, drought, monsoon, and....um....benign neglect :)

If you have updates of your furry (or other animal) homestead residents, feel free to post links in comments...I'd love to see them!

These bones were all that was left after making my second batch of homemade dog food... baking a turkey, saving the breast portions for the humans of the household, and boiling all the rest (including fat, bones, juices, all the bits and pieces) and simmering for half a day.

It's not every day we cook a whole turkey for a pet, but last year at Thanksgiving, we stocked our deep freeze with meat on sale, and turkey was between 59 and 69 cents a pound...that equates to 6 or 7 dollars for a ten pound bird. We've been very happily eating....and eating...and eating our way through those turkeys from last year, and are about to hit the one year mark and there are still some to go.

With our recent adoption of Kaleb, our beloved Australian Shepherd (yayyy!!!dream come true), we found that kibble prices for the healthier mixes are quite pricey. My parents always fed the lowest grade kibble to our family dogs growing up, and I guess I just thought most of them are created equal. Kaleb wasn't picky, and we started out feeding him just that...low-end kibble. Then I read the ingredients list more carefully and did some reading on the internet, as well as consulting with my esteemed Aussie Mentor, and decided that was probably going to cause more problems than it solved. So those extra turkeys languishing in the deep freeze have found further purpose.

If we had a pressure canner, I'd have turned them all slowly into canned turkey stock by now, but since that hasn't transpired yet, they are the base I use to add to a small bit of quality kibble and healthy leftovers Du Jour. As a result, Kaleb is pretty enthusiastic about mealtime, and will nudge and nudge me at the same two feedings times a day and literally give me The Meaningful Stare while he licks his chops...too cute! If it's a day I work nights and sleep days, I get hijacked from Dreamland by a slight whining sound beside the bed, and here is what I see when I roll over and look beyond the covers...

If that doesn't work, this wet nose gives me Morse Code alerts....Food, Lady! SOS...

The cooked portion of the mix is all the meat, juices, "bone dust" (whatever part of the bones that will crumble in my hand to powder after cooking so long..and it's amazing how many will)and so one from the actual turkey. Then I add in any leftover bread, some rice and oats and garlic powder, and any green veggies or squashes that are leftover from the fridge...bits of meat or fat from other leftovers, and that's it.

That gets frozen into smaller portions, a few days' worth at a time, and I thaw them in the fridge as he eats his way through them daily. We're still working with his portion size, but it works out to about 1/3 quality kibble plus 1/3 turkey mixture plus 1/3 raw shredded leaf lettuce or cabbage or cooked squash, etc. Just NO onions..they're harmful to dogs.



I haven't done the price estimate, but I know each serving of the turkey mixture comes to pennies because the quantity off of just one sale-priced ten pound turkey is huge...two stockpots full when I made some more today. And I'm talking large stockpots. I add water as it all cooks and dont add the final ingredients till just at the very end. I only have a handful of turkey bones left when all is said and done, and I freeze them to stew in the next batch...minerals! I have at least 5 or 6 gallons of great food to supplement our furry fellow, and I don't have to worry that he's getting sub-par by-products below consumption-grade.

The results may take some time, but I'm shooting for a healthy weight for him, improvement to his coat condition, and less shedding. And a happy dog, of course!

I've never thought of myself as an "Animal Chef" type of person, so this started off more as a practical way of getting some high quality for low cost. Normally I'm entirely stingy about freezing all our poultry and beef stock to use for soups. I have so much frozen just now though, it's not an issue. It's nice to know that for 6 or 7 dollars plus some excess pantry item contributions we have at least a couple months of dog food it would have cost us MUCH more to get at the store.

Yay!!

Kiss the Cook, But Don't Look in the Fridge

Just a reminder that for every kitchen success around here, there are usually a few or more disasters.

The Doorstops of Breadmaking Past.

The crunchy rice.

The curdled custard bases.

And so on...

For a senseless diatribe delving into the endless possibilities of future disasters, and the details of my most recent one...using only three ingredients!...it's today's post over at NotDabblingInNormal if you care to drop in.

Inspiration for the determined masses who continue to burn water, but keep the dream alive ;-)

Update Riddled With Gratuitous Dog Photos

Farm dog, sans farm...must make do with rawhide till there are more interesting things to chew.

Update: We were just made aware that rawhide chews can contain carcinogens and other toxins. Nylabones and other safer alternatives have been recommended to us. Bye-bye, rawhides...

First it must pass the sniff test. From the looks of this rawhide, it made the grade in prior sniff tests.

Speaking of tests, I've been catching up on my health stuff that was neglected while we didn't have insurance, and of course "they" have been running tests. Some tests came back good but my sugars didn't...ugh. Must. Keep. Daily. Journal. Yeahyeahyeah... Roger.

Mmmm...Kaleb goes for the prolonged back teeth gnaw.

And I went for my first mammogram, ever. Which meant girlish things were subjected to what I suspect the above-pictured rawhide experienced, for the sake of Health. Ow.

I've been making homemade dog food to supplement Kaleb's kibble. I can already notice a bit of a difference in Kaleb's coat, but I'll give it time.

Meanwhile, I continue to subject the very Aussie-and-all-other-farmrelatedsubjects-savvy (and patient) blog friend at Trapper Creek to questions, and have been given great feedback as we navigate new dog ownership of this particular fellow...and breed. I can say I'll probably never go back to any other breed. Smitten, I am.


Had lunch with my daughter today, and I'm SO enjoying being the mom of an adult daughter. Plus I can count on uncensored candor, if I ask for it, on about any subject, so when I asked her if my silver/gray hairs that seem to be overtaking my formerly-brown hair need to be colored, she said "YES, mom, YES." When I reminded her it was SHE herself who initially dared me to allow it to go au naturale in the first place, she said "well, yes, it was pretty cool when a few silver ones were there, but I mean this is a little out of hand!" I love my daughter.

And to think I used to anticipate the days when she'd learn to talk...ha :) Anyway, silver/gray hairs notwithstanding, we had a great lunch together between my doc-visits-ugh.


We have some bleeps on the radar as go our efforts lumped under the general category termed Land Things, but we curb the enthusiasm till there's some finality. One thing we've learned is that "it's not over till it's over"...I really can't wait to write about some of the specific details we've gone through the past three years with all this, and some of the knocks that have come either just because life's that way sometimes, or sometimes from our own mistakes/lack of experience. But like I said, it's for another day.


I don't feel like I have my (rapidly-graying) head on straight right now in comparison with other years in which I had constant projects going and could post interesting (to me, at least) things here for fun. I'm feeling slowed down in general, though we are in a productive period if you look at things from a distance. For the past five years I've enjoyed good health overall, but this off again on again stuff since June of this year has kept me Sub-par. Today's news from the doc as to why my ears still hurt? They are still infected. I'm taking antibiotics again, which goes against my grain, and still haven't regained all of my energy back.

But having Kaleb means going for walks are fun (truly!) and even if that's all the exercise I get right now, it's incentive enough.


I'm trying to get a handle on my eating. During the summer flu/ear stuff/lung stuff, I had little appetite, which is uncommon for me, and so it trimmed some weight off. That's the good news. The bad news is that my practice of being involved in trimming the budget by cooking everything optimally (using the turkey for different dishes, freezing the leftovers, using the brother for soups , TYPO: I meant BROTH for soups...i have no brother but it's not due to anyone being made into broth... boiling the bones for stock, etc etc) had to be streamlined...I simply didn't feel good enough to spend as much time in the kitchen, and lacked inspiration (and appetite) the short times I was. I also haven't felt like experimenting or fixing many fun treats. We have been eating homemade, but I didn't stretch everything to the Nth degree like I usually do. That to me means much of what I could have stretched was not, which makes me feel wasteful. At least being able to incorporate some of these things into the dog's diet helps utilize them, but I'd rather be at peak creativity for the people of the house first.

Now I'm feeling better by comparison, but still have a ways to go to get back to being with it that way again. I haven't felt like doing craft or art projects, writing projects, or continuing to further research the alternate-use plants we have growing outside. I have a good many calabazas to bake and freeze, and some other foodie things pending. I have a backlog of things in the fridge that are cooked but need to be at least frozen for later. (true confession...I have been reading books and watching prodigious numbers of PBS mini-series and assorted collections of DVDs when my energy levels peak at the Potato level. I can quote you Jane Austen and Dickens lines. And Andy Griffith. And Chef. And Good Neighbors. And so on...)


I keep telling Jack the paid help never showed up ;-)

But on better news, I've started buying better quality meat, but less of it, each week. (Because Steak goes SO well with Couch Potato...) For some reason we both noticed the ground beef we were buying just wasn't sitting well with us the same way a bit of roast or steak would. I've got plenty of salad fixings and have taken one nice jar of bleu cheese dressing and extended it with active culture plain yogurt...and it tastes fantastic. Just a small drizzle of that over a salad chock full of finely-chopped veggies and herbs has been hitting the spot, alongside small portions of meat to go with it. It's my quickie cheat version of dinner while still feeling at 50%.


Also on the health front, we're trying Resveratrol. The claims seem inflated, but undeniably many people claim to have seen instant benefits. We need a good cleansing and boost to our immune systems, so went for the "free trial bottle" of one of the companies. Let's see how that plays out. I've only ordered one bottle, and had to get tenacious saying NO in a hundred different ways to the company's attempts to call me and upsell me other "youthful" products. The representative just didnt want to take No for an answer, and so when he asked me (in a somewhat astonished voice) WHY I didn't want the So-and-So Youth Formula that makes me LOOK YOUNGER...."You mean you don't WANT to look younger??"...I replied "NO. NO, I do not want to look younger"

He said "You must look very young, then. Nearly everyone wants to look younger." (THIS. On the day of The Conversation With My Daughter About How Ancient The Grays Make Me Look)

I replied "I DO look young. I don't want to look younger. (repetition, repetition, repetition??)" (Ok, so I'm not lying. I DO look young. When compared to someone ten years older than I am. I don't want to look younger, or Jack will look like he's perpetually accompanied by his grown daughter...ick) :)

He gave up and said "Well you do SOUND like you look young."

hahahahahahaha!

I'm going to remind my daughter from now on that I SOUND like I LOOK young...heeheehee

Then I called their customer service department to cancel further orders of the product. I got what sounded like somebody's teenage son. Confused, illiterate, and bored teenage son. I waited a total of three minutes while he sat there saying nothing and never was able to pull up my name on his computer. (I'm sure he was thrown off by how YOUNG I sounded, haha) But we finally got to the gist of the thing after a comedy of errors in which he kept re-entering eleven digits for my phone number instead of ten...asking me if the eleven were correct, I said no and repeated....and repeat. Then when he said "ok" I said "does ok mean you've canceled any further shipments?" and he said Yes and waited for about 30 seconds and then hung up. Weird. I'm chuckling!

All a nice diversion, in a slightly annoying way...


I don't know why, but I keep being afraid of one of us getting cancer, especially since the event of the skin cancer spot Jack had removed from his forehead earlier in the year. That's one reason I'm getting all my "yearlies" caught up. We REALLY need to be healthy.

I want this upcoming year to be the one in which we both lose most of our weight for good...the right way. I love this man so much and want us to have many years together. I remember the older women of my family on my grandma's side talking in a gaggle about their "old folk complaints," which totally repelled us younger ones back then...a laundry list of corns, bunions, the removal of this and that, repetition of the word "hemorrhoids," other terms like gout, hernia, high blood pressure, cataracts. Well, I'm on the Forties slide toward Laundry List Land, but am fighting it hard now. Jack's in the Fifties version of that and thankfully has been blessed with a strong constitution in most areas. It's funny but keeping all our components running well figures in largely to whatever definition we now have of Homesteading. It's funny how health is central to all other concerns.

Enough of creaks and squeaks..there'll be "funner" updates to come. I'm just feeling a little reflective after The First Mammogram. And sympathy for anything unmercifully flattened between two unyielding surfaces. And definately wincing at any sandwich referred to as a Hot Pressed Cuban.

It's time to end the post when you begin empathizing with fast food ;-)


Something hopefully more coherent to come, in future. I go now for my daily Aussie Walk Therapy...

Shana Tovah!

Shana Tovah for all who are celebrating Yom Teruah and Rosh Hashanah. Sound the shofars!

Eat sweet things to commemorate the goodness of the Almighty!

We blow our shofar in anticipation of the upcoming days of Yom Kippur and the Sukkot holiday...days of reflection, thanks, sobriety, gratefulness, repentance, and joy!

Here's a video that made us smile :)

Shabbat shalom :)