February ramblings

Today is butchering day for the rabbits.  I have learned to deal with butchering chickens, but the rabbits are rally difficult for me.  It’s hard to “get over” their cuteness.  It is even more difficult for Phil because he is much more tender hearted than I am, and he is with them daily.  Thankfully I have done most of the butchering so he doesn’t have to deal with it as much.  It is hard to take the life of such a sweet innocent animal. 

I am still dealing with my foot problems.  The wound from the cellulites has for the most part healed but the foot pain is still there.  It is difficult to walk at times, making me feel quite old and helpless.  I am concerned about this years gardens.  I hope that I will be able to keep up with my work this coming season. 

I am getting a bit of spring fever.  I have already planted peppers and today I plan to plant broccoli, Brussels sprouts etc.  It’s fun to watch the plants pop up and grow.  I started sweet potatoes a while back.  I started saving seeds last year.  My hope is that next year I will no longer have to buy any seeds at all! 

good by 2012

Thank goodness 2012 is almost gone!  This year has been hard on us physically, mentally, and financially.  I have never been this excited for a new year to begin. 

Since May, I haven’t been able to walk very well and it seems to be getting worse.  I think a lot of that has to do with all the weight I have gained since I am so sedentary.  I am going to a new doctor.  He is a holistic healer.  That is something I can believe in.  He is treating me with supplements and homeopathic medications, plus he will use chiropractic and acupuncture as needed.  I need something to believe in, and modern medicine has not done it for me.  Phil seems to have gone downhill this year as well.  He has been wonderful taking care of the critters and filling in for me when I can’t do something.  I see his aches and pains ….. and as much as I want to do more, I just can’t. 

Mentally, a lot of things have gone on that make us sad.  There is nothing we can do about it, but both of us are sad.  Hopefully in 2013 the things we can’t control will take care of themselves.

Financially, the commission plan at work changed and I have not been able to meet my goals many times this year.  I make a good base salary, but our mortgage payment is so high, that I have to dip into savings most months to make the payment.  I try to figure out how to make more money.  I sell the soap I make.  We sell eggs to offset the cost of the chickens and honey to recover the cost of the hives.  I have even sold a few butchered rabbits.  In 2013 I will explore more things to make and sell such as lip balm, body lotions.

2012 has not been a complete bust.  We have started to raise rabbits for meat.  That has been a good and horrible experience.  It is good because those bunnies are so darn cute.  I love the babies.  I love cuddling them and watching them grow.  The horrible part is butchering them.  The first time our friend Doug came to help me.  I have a really hard time with the actual killing.  It is so hard to take the life of cute little animal, one you have seen every day of its life.  The chickens are difficult, the rabbits are down right HARD!  I am hoping I will find an easier way to do it …. I don’t want them to be in pain.

In October we got the news that Shelby is officially in remission.  She has been a poster child since her radiation therapy.  We are so blessed by her.  I hope I will live long enough to see what profession she decides to go into.  She is such a sweet a loving little girl.

My ramblings are over for today.  Tomorrow is the last day of the year.  I pray for a much better 2013. 

Christmas 2012

Merry Christmas.  I didn’t realize how lonely Mom and Dad must have felt after we all grew up and had our own families.  We always went there for Christmas Eve but Christmas day was for our own families. 

Christmas Eve at Mom and Dads was always exciting.  Dad always insisted on lots and lots of candy.  They would go into Omaha to buy candy.  When I was a kid I remember going to P street market for Christmas supplies.  We would always get apples and oranges.  Then we would fill up bags of nuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, brazil nuts, almonds, peanuts.  You get the picture.  There were bins full of candy.  Dad would scoop out chocolate stars, peanut clusters, caramels, on and on into brown bags. 

Christmas Eve would start with a candle light dinner of fish and lentils.  Mom would always tell the story of Jesus birth and growing up a poor son of a carpenter.  Our dinner was to symbolize a poor mans dinner.  As kids we all hated lentils but we ate them because we were told the more lentils you ate on Christmas Eve directly correlated to the wealth you would have the following year.  (When I was a kid Grandma would be with us for Christmas Eve.)  After dinner dad would always say something like …. Did you hear that?   Did you hear those bells?  The kids would throw on coats and run outside to look for Santa.  We would always run all the way back to the apple orchard (I can’t remember why we went that far back) then walk around looking into the sky.  After a bit (it always seemed like an hour but was likely 5 or 10 minutes) we would hear jingle bells and Dad would yell “Did you see him?”  or something like that.  We would run back to the house but Santa was always gone before we got there.  We would go into the house and the dining room table was COVERED with the nuts and chocolates we got in Omaha.  The Christmas tree was piled with presents of every shape and size.  As the family grew and I added two girls then Barb added two kids (Betty and Marg never got home for Christmas) the piles of gifts got larger.  (After Dad died Mom went even crazier with gifts.  As a single parent I always felt inadequate because I was not able to provide for the kids as much as Mom and Dad did.)   The floor was covered with paper.  We were encouraged to rip into gifts with gusto. 

I can only imagine the let down Mom and Dad felt on Christmas day when they were all alone.  I never thought about what they were feeling. 

Phil and I have had a trying year … it has been physically, financially and mentally challenging.  It was no surprise that Christmas seemed to loose its normal excitement.  Marci, Matt and Mike are all far away so there was no way they would be here.  Delana lives 15 minutes away but her schedule is full.  They came out Christmas Eve morning for 3 hours.  The kids had to go so they could spend the rest of their day with their dad.  Phil and I had agreed not to stress about buying each other gifts. We didn’t even get a tree this year.  There was NO Christmas spirit at Pooh Acres this year.

We decided to do nothing today.  We had planned to go to a movie, but that seemed to be too much trouble so we decided to stay home.  Phil did the morning chores, and I did the afternoon chores so almost all day was spend doing nothing.  I don’t think I could do that every day, but it was fun for one day. 

2012 has only a few days left.  For that I am grateful.  I am hopeful that 2013 will be much kinder to the O’Leary’s and Pooh Acres.  

 

My feelings .....

This has been a difficult year.  I sprained my ankle in May, and never really seemed to recover.  I had trouble balancing on the rough gardens.  It seemed I could no longer do the work I knew I needed to do.  The gardens suffered through the summer.  They were full of weeds .. plus I could not keep up with harvesting. 

Through all of this I felt like such a failure.  What was happening to me?  Why could I not keep up?  Why was there such a huge change in me? 

I did a bunch of research and realized I have plantar fasciations and I felt a bit vindicated.  I also knew I needed to get it taken care of.  I decided to go to a podiatrists and get it taken care of.  He agreed that I had diagnosed it correctly and told me I needed a shot of cortisone to make it feel better.   I said NO, I don’t need that … and I really meant it.  He was a sweet talker, and made me think I DID need it.  I felt GREAT the next day and told everyone what a wonder it was!

The following day my foot felt bad again.  It hurt SO bad it was again difficult to walk.  I had an appointment for a massage. She took one look at my foot and refused to touch me.     She said it looked like cellulites and she didn’t want to make it worse. 

I went back to the podiatrists the next day and he confirmed it was cellulites and put me on antibiotics.  It got much worse from there.  I got a “bump” on my ankle that got redder and bigger and hurt so much I could not walk.  I was put on another antibiotic and sent home.  The “bump” on my ankle grew huge … it was about 2 -  3” around and 2” tall.  After a week in bed it festered enough that it was a giant pus pocket.  I went back to the doctor and was told I needed to go to the emergency room.  In the time it took us to go from the doctor to the emergency room the “abscess” had broken and was leaking into my shoe.  I spend 4 or 5 hours in the emergency room … just getting it cleaned up.  I got some good drugs … but it hurt so bad the drugs didn’t begin to touch it.

I was put on another antibiotic and sent home to “rest”.  I followed up with my family doctor 3 days later; she did nothing for me, bandaged it back up and sent me to a surgeon.  He cleaned it up and sent me to a wound clinic a few days later.  By this time I was taking 3 antibiotics and feeling awful from the effect of all of them, but I had to go back to work … I had never been gone from work for this long.  I have been back to the wound clinic at first every week, then every other week, and now finally I am at 3 weeks.  I have been under a doctor’s care for 3 months and the bills are piling up like crazy.  I am feeling much better …. But at times it still hurts to walk, mostly on bumpy ground.  

Phil has been wonderful taking care of me.  He is the kind of person who can’t stand blood or oozing wounds …. (He had to leave the emergency room).  He has really stood beside me.  In the beginning he had to bandage the wound twice a day.  Now it is only once a day.  He makes sure I don’t to “to much” and makes me sit down when he thinks I am getting tired.  He did all of the end of season gardening because I have been banned from the gardens for the rest of the year (apparently that makes staff infections worse). 

I know I am getting better, but the depression from this experience is awful.  I feel bad that I am not able to do my normal “jobs”.  I feel bad that Phil has had to take over so much of what I normally do and it is so difficult for him.  I feel inadequate … as if I am no longer capable of taking care of myself and my family. 

I am hopeful that in time everything will be back to normal. 

 

 

Butchering

Today was very tramatic for me.  We decided to raise rabbits for food.  Up until now it has been all fun and games.  We feed the bunnies, breed them and play with the babies.   Today was the first butchering day.  I am so thankful for our friend Doug.  He walked us through getting up and running with the rabbits.  He even gave me a doe (she died last Sunday along with 8 of her babies) that we totally fell in love with.  Her first litter was ready to be harvested today so Doug came to walk me through it.  I have been dreading this since the day they were born.  As hard as I tried, I fell in love with the big brown eyes and the soft fur. 

I know these animals were raised for food.  I know that this is the way of life we have chosen and there is a circle of life.  That doesn’t make a lot of difference when you are wacking this cute little animal over the head and taking it’s life.  I held each of the 6 bunnies we harvested today.  I gave each of them a hug and said thank you for the life you have given.  Doug and I said a prayer giving thanks. 

I am sure it will get easier (as it did with the chickens) but today was difficult.  Phil normally takes a nap in the afternoon, so I decided to do the same.  I didn’t take a nap as he did, I slept the entire afternoon away.  I didn’t wake until 7 PM.  I guess I needed the healing time …..

Summer Stress

This growing season is so strange for me.  I can’t seem to get myself motivated.  I know that I have taken on more this year than ever before, but I just don’t seem to have the ‘spirit” to do what I normally do.  My gardens are full of weeds.  The main garden has been overtaken with weeds ….. I have very little mulch down. The “fruit” garden is unbelievably overgrown.  The garlic and wheat should have been harvested weeks ago.  The peas strawberries and raspberries didn’t get harvested.  Even my house is overwhelming.  The floors are sticky, dust is deep, the dining room table is stacked high.  I am not sure how to get myself organized enough to get my work done.  The only garden that is under control is by the chickens.  Even that is not mulched!

I still have a lot of summer to get through.  Saturday will tramatic, as I butcher the first of our rabbits.  I am thankful our friend Doug is going to hold my hand and walk me through it all.  I really love these little bunnies so this is going to be hard for me.  Butchering the chickens is hard for me, but the rabbits are so cute and cuddly this is going to be HARD!  

I have at least two more big butchering days coming up soon.  We have 25 broilers that are within a few weeks of butchering … and we are getting 25 more on Thursday.  I will need to take out most of our old hens in the fall after the new chickens start laying.  Phil doesn’t want to go into winter with this many chickens.  The cycle of life is not easy on the farm!

New babies at Pooh Acres

Cinnamon started acting really strange about a week ago. She was agitated in fact throwing her dishes around the cage and really looked distressed. Phil and I built a nesting box for her that night, because non experienced me decided she HAD to be in labor. I filled the box up with straw and put her to bed for the evening. The next morning Phil went to check on her, the stinker took all of the straw out of her box and shoved every piece of it out of the cage. OK, we needed to try hay. She has left the hay in her box and displayed absolutely NO signs of wanting to be a mom. Until yesterday!




Yesterday she pulled lots of her fur out and made a nest in her box. No babies last night. No babies at 6 AM when I went out to check her. Finally late morning I asked Phil to look (I am at work ), he said there was some blood on the box but could not see anything. Then he saw a baby. I don’t know how many she has had, I am very excited to go home and look for myself. This is such an exciting time at Pooh Acres. I love babies, and spring time. I am super excited to get a pig. I hope it actually happens!



How could anyone ask for anything better than living on a little piece of heaven? We have been given the responsibility of caring for these animals. They in turn will feed and care for us.