Tail Gate Party

Below this cute little story are some graphic pictures of tail docking. By all means skip them if you choose.

By the way thanks for the prayers for my fever issue, I awoke this morning completely refreshed. No fever and most of the lymph back to normal, although I am much better today, as you can see I am actually up taking pictures, I will be taking it easier than normal this next week. I'll be picking back up with my fast and cleanse with special attention to the lymph and you can check out the progress over on The Sheet Diet.


On with today's story.

Larry was mortified by the condition of his ears. This was not the proper look for a dignified Suffolk, what with one ear going up high and the other looking like it was broke at the joint, it was positively laughable. He was blue.


"Harry, what are we going to do when it is time to join the herd?"
"Oh, Larry it really isn't that big of a deal."
"Okay, you think it is no big deal that it looks like our mom got crazy with the perm solution? This is no way for a Suffolk ram to begin his life."

"Uh, ya about that whole ram thing, I got news for you Larry, pal...

"We're scheduled for Dirt's tail gate surgery party.

Well that surgery isn't for a couple more days but there was some surgery going on today but it was just tail docking, only girls in today's batch. So hang on the pictures might not go well with your morning coffee and biscuit.

These are Dirt's tail docking tools, this big huge thing in the bucket is called a burdizo, there is a knife on the other end of the clamp and a rag, all soaking in a betadine solution.

The bottles are an antiseptic sulfur dust, and yes that is dental floss in the upholstry needle that he uses to stitch up the tail.

He soaks the whole tail area that he is going to cut. Tails need to come off. (Check it out, it really is a "tailgate" party.) Breeding is easier without long tails and when you have sheep on natural pasture it is easy for them to get into things that causes them to have nasty poo.

And then, when you have a wooly tail behind you, you soon have a nasty tail behind you and soon you have flies growing on you. Not very nice. Docking tails is much nicer. But like everything else there is controversy.

Dirt sets the burdizo so that the pinchers land between vertebrae. The purpose of the burdizo is to crush the cord and vessels.

And it also gives him an edge to slide the blade on and that is what the action is here. But this lamb was a wiggle worm. Usually it only takes one person to hold them but even Bet had to pitch in to hold this one.

Now for the stitching part. Dirt puts a couple of stitches in the tail but leaves a little drain room other wise sanguenous fluid collects in the tail. Doc Tibbits refused to let Dirt ever use bands although sometimes it does seem easier. But he taught Dirt how to do it and we have never lost a lamb because of tail docking.

But this little missy thinks she is going to die, and if those stiches weren't bad enough.

Dirt says in a very stern voice, "Roll over, and next time when I say don't wiggle, I mean don't wiggle."

A couple extra stitches go in to fix the extra nick. So let that be a lesson, when you hear the words "Don't wiggle." Don't wiggle.

If you think that was fun, you oughta see what he does to the boys.

Green Is Such A Nice Color Eh?

Since everyone is hoping I feel better and I wasn't sure I had said anything about not, 'ceptin maybe Kathy let it out of the bag, I'll 'fess up.

Yes, my walnut behind my chin, previously known as a lymph node, which was one encouragement for me to fast, turned ugly. I have had a fever since early Thursday morning, it has come down somewhat only to go up this afternoon again with every gland in my body now a little walnut, okay some are hazelnuts some are almonds, but everyone is distinct and angry.

I have never slept so much, well maybe except for the romantic influenza last spring. Fevers wipe me out like no body's business, I can function with a migraine but not this stinking fever.

I hate being sick it is a stupid waste of time. I could say that I have managed to listen to The Mill on the Floss, David Copperfield and Ralph Moody's second book in his Little Britches series. But really I've just slept while they played on the ipod. And quite frankly I downloaded them to listen to while I finished up the trees.

I am not a sicky!

But it must certainly look as if I am eh?

So thank you for your well wishes, I appreciate them and obviously I need them. I hope that this resolves itself soon because I'm starting to feel queasy and I hate that the absolute most. I promise if I don't feel better I will call for an appointment Monday but I know I won't get to see anybody 'till, oh what, maybe Friday. Okay, I'm done whining. Politics and fevers make me whine, and puts fire in my eyes. Too bad there isn't Current Presidential Nonsense and Liar Package Aspirin to take and make that mess all go away.

This to shall pass, and it sure isn't the worst thing to have to contend with so I am blessed, honest I am.

The lambs are really cute. The farm is doing well, I hear (except the trees are not getting pruned very fast), check out the girls' blogs. Bet should be putting a post up shortly. Gotta love those Vick Chicks, well Dear Reader, you don't gotta I guess. But I do and I'd be dead by now if it weren't for them.

One Of My Favorites Return

A group of redwing black birds were at my feeder to greet me this morning. One of the advantages of having the big beaver ponds right in the backyard has been spending twenty-three years getting to know this marshland bird.


Some may not see them as exceptionally beautiful if they are looking for a brightly or unusually colored bird like the summer tanager or one that has incredible markings like the evening grosbeak. And it is true that I fell in love with them first because of their song that I heard all spring and summer out working in the garden. But once I was already in love, seeing the red winged blackbird close up sunk it for me.


Dark shinny black with the most striking contrast of red and yellow epaulets, it is a truly beautiful bird. But yes. the red winged blackbird calls and songs are what I look forward to the most.

Four year old little Stephanie, now twenty-seven years old, and I dubbed it the coco cleo bird when we first heard his song our first spring here at the farm. His song rings loud and clear across the pond all during spring and summer. Once we finally connected the singer with the song he was not the elusive fellow we first thought him to be.

It was rather unusual in my mind to see such a largish bird perched on grass. Little light weight finches on a dandelion stem is understandable but the redwinged black bird seem rather large to perch on grass blades. Yes, he goes to the trees and he certainly visits up by the house and the bird feeders but his common place is hanging on to the side of a sturdy blade of orchard grass pond side.

Two summers ago the girls and I found a redwinged black bird nest on the edge of one of the ponds out back, it was woven of grass using the upright blades of grass as support. It was fascinating to say the least and it was the one time we were sad to leave for vacation and not stay home and watch the hatch and growth of the baby blackbirds.

Dear Reader I hope you appreciated the colored font as my hint of the colors of the red winged black bird, it was the best I could do in lieu of pictures, have a singing good day, evening, weekend, whatever, stay well and thankful that you are God's, and if you're not maybe this weekend would be a good time to ponder that whole thing and accept who you are and who He is.

BTW About Anna

If I made it seem like she is a typical teenager in the sense that we have a hard time getting along and I am just holding my breath till we get through it, I apologize.

Like Kathy said she is a gem, all my girls were. Dirt and I have not had the experience that most parents have had with teenagers.

When my oldest was pre-teen, people used to tell me that things would change and we would cease to get along. But that never happened. My girls have always been hard workers, pleasant to be with and incredibly respectful of their Dad and Mom. As pure a pleasure to be around as any of my friends are.

We spend nearly every waking moment together, they do not attend school, and I never regret the choice I made either to have children that are a blessing and a gift nor have I ever regretted keeping them at home with me.

So by typical, I really did mean just the phone thing, well, we could throw shopping in there too but she is by no means typical in other manners. Doors are not slammed, rotten words are not spoken under her breath, I have never been yelled at, petulance is not suffered by others. Oh, she has her opinions and knows when she can express them and how, she is not a wall flower nor her father's and my doormat. I know she will have a good long life because she honors her father and mother well.

More Inspiration Came My Way

This time via Ethel, the very same Ethel who tagged me which lead to the three day post on things I love beginning with double u not double ya. Assignments are not inspiration so this is not about that. Go visit her. (She keeps popping in and out so just go ahead and go visit her if she isn't home today she will be soon, just poke around her place and you will find some interesting things.)

But what, pray tell, has she inspired me to, you ask Dear Reader.

To fast.

You may by all means freak out and start quoting verses about not telling people that you're fasting and that's fine, I'm a big girl, I can take criticism, really I can. And you may very well be correct on this, my motives may be to flaunt my fast, but then again I tell you I pray and read scripture, I tell you about the other spiritual disciplines in my life so if I flaunt those I am no worse this week by flaunting my fast.

Richard Foster in his book Celebration of Discipline, talks about how we don't, as a church, fast much anymore, (the book was written over twenty years ago and I would say that that has changed slightly.) He says that that presents problems in that we often do not know what to expect or how to go about it. So I figure I will share with you my experience and perhaps you can gain some insight toward fasting, or toward me, which ever comes first I suppose.

You might say that this fast is not strictly spiritual, although you know how I feel about that Dear Reader, everything I do I do unto the Lord, no secular vs sacred here. But I do need to clean my physical body out as well as a little spring cleaning for my soul.

I can't tell if I am coming down with a cold or struggling with the effects of allergens encountered over the weekend helping our good friend consolidate his two businesses into one. Lots of paint fumes (oil base) and dust and pinesol at a restaurant. Tuesday morning I noticed I had a walnut sized gland just in back of my chin. Crud in my head that the netty pot isn't getting. So a good pitch of the system and hopefully I will be able to tackle all that I want to this spring. I will once again be restored to superhuman levels.

So the fast:
Mine is different from the one Ethel is doing, you may have heard of hers, I believe she is doing the Master Cleanse. I do not know what all is involved in it but I have always drank hot water with lemon juice when I fast. But the Master Cleanse concoction got me to thinking about some things I might like to put in with my hot water and lemon.

Manuka honey, lemon of course, Cayenne powder (in the baggy with the blue clip), and Beet Root powder, which gives my hot water and lemon a lovely magenta color. (Yes, I still have my snowmen things about me, it is not spring yet!)



The Manuka honey is new to me. I read about it on Joel Barker's blog. It is supposed to have terrific antibiotic properties. And my little walnut calls for some antibiotics measures.

Cayenne is a blood purifier and energizer. Cayenne has been a big part of my herbal household but some of those stories are for another post. Trust me it is a life saver literally.

Beetroot Powder is a liver supporter, cleans out the digestive support system, and is good for the head and tinnitus. Among some other groovy properties.

Lemon is terrific, a cleanser and it's own antibiotic properties, kills stuff that shouldn't be growing in your bod.


So that's what is in my nice warm mug.

I'm also taking other supplements and I will discuss them in the days to come over on my other blog, The_Sheet_Diet.

So I'm determined to do a long haul and to not complain while doing so.

But I will say that so far (and it is eleven thirty p.m. the first day) head crud is moving and my head is achey, but I also didn't have my contacts in all day. The gut is definitely growling and everything reminds me of beautiful foods. So at least I'm not thinking about junk food.

On the less pragmatic side of the fast, I came across this passage and it spoke loudly to me, it comes out of Ezra 8:21-23. He is returning to Jerusalem after Babylonian exile:

"There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions. I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from enemies on the road, because we had told the king, 'The gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him.' So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer. "

There is so much for me in that passage, even though I do not feel I am coming out of exile, or a dry period with God, but always there is the ever present desire to be closer to God. There is much to attend to in this passage. No, I am not headed anywhere except to a cleaner heart, a deeper understanding and more dedicated heart to my "job" of burden baring and praying, with no fear of the journey.

Dear Reader I pray that all is well with you today. That you find a deepening in your understanding of who God is. For one thing, He is, after all, unfathmoble and therefore His depths cannot be plumbed by any man, there will always be more for us to learn and see, and always more mystery laid before us. But we are never alone.

Anna, a Typical Teenager?

Anna, she is always on the phone, checking in with this person and that person. If the phone rings so does her voice with, "I'll get it."

"Of course you will," says anyone else who may happen to be home, not wishing to be bruised by making the mistake of reaching for the phone.

See, here is proof how typical she is,



she is on the phone. And what teenager doesn't spend her morning giving a lamb a sitz bath to decrust it's bottom of poo?

Dear Reader, don't you just love these glimpses into my stranger-than-anything-including-fiction life? Don't you feel special now?

Have a great day, evening, middle of the night, whichever applies.

Candlemas

If Candlemas Day be fair and bright
Winter will have another fight.
If Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain,
Winter won't come again.

Well it was not a clear sky, slightly overcast, but no rain for sure, and although it was hazy, it was bright as I had to pull the shades on my south window today. Do you suspect, Dear Reader, that according to the poem it means that we have undefinable weather coming? That is rather typical, so no big news there, eh?

A farmer should, on Candlemas Day,
Have half his corn and half his hay.

On Candlemas Day if the thorns hand adrop,
You can be sure of a good pea crop.

OR

February second, Candlemas day:
half your wood, and half your hay.

Half the winter has passed away,
we'll eat our supper by the light of day!

For sure we have nearly half our hay but our sheep are now in need of alfalfa because they are milking. So we are good on that score. Our wood pile is unending because Dirt makes sure that we have lots of wood. As far as thorns drooping, I wasn't sure which thorns to be checking or what the heck drooping means but I am going with the pea crop being good this year because I want it to.

And I must say it is very groovy that the day is noticably longer, so that when days are like they were today, Dirt can come home and have tons of time to do his other "job" in the daylight.

My dining room is littered with boxes because the other poem I attended to is:

"Down with the rosemary, and so
Down with the bays and mistletoe;
Down with the holly, ivy, all,
Wherewith ye dress'd the Christmas Hall"
— Roberr Herrick (1591–1674),

So the last of the Christmas decorations are being put away today as we come to the close of the season of Epiphany. Except I do like to keep out my snowmen and winter village until after St. Valentines Day, just in case we do have some more winter weather. When I was little there was a poem about Valentines and it was illustrated with a scene of snow and ice skates, that is how I think of St. Valentine's Day. But that, Dear Reader, is for another post.

By the way, February is cake month, according to Anglo-Saxons. Let's eat Cake!