Persistence

How many times can you blue screen a PC trying to connect online and still keep trying? :D

I have my wheels situation taken care of: in three years I ought to be able to afford to address the PC issue. ;)

I am actually the proud owner and insured of two vehicles at the moment. In my true pessimistic fashion, I kept the old beater registered and insured just in case. Good thing, since I lost the only set of keys to the "new" one in the grass plugging in the electric fence and had to dash to the farm, saplings in tow, in the, currently known as, "the Death Trap."

And she was old faithful-plugging down the dirt roads in forward and reverse (doing fence work up a narrow road). Until we pulled in the end of the drive, and she became once again, "Bessie" when she coughed and stalled just as we returned home.

I glanced at the saplings, wondering if the three of us would be able to push it out of the way, before she fired up in a belch of running-too-rich fumes and made it safely back to her spot out back.

Gawd, how can you send that to the crusher?

196,000 and the body has rotted out around the frame, gotta love Maine winters...

****

The Firebird is kicking some serious summer soccer butt. Now an incoming Freshman, summer soccer is a take all comers game with a range of 13-17 year olds. And only the hard cores, of course.

A couple of the incoming Freshman were star players at schools he was playing against last year in middle school. Now they are his teamates, the cream of the crop. The varsity players are something to watch,strong young men that have years of soccer under their belts.

But the Firebird is tall for his age, and fearless, running right up to steal the ball or fall flat on his face trying, and not afraid to head bump or body block. He's getting some valuable experience playing with and against varsity players. And I have to admit, I love hearing other Moms cheering him on for a move well played.

Yeah, we get serious in High School :D



One of the few blue players with white socks, I call him white legs. :D

Online for the moment

Another call to Dell, another temporary reprieve from internet banishment?

"Homer's Last Hurrah" BLF Lois and two of her three, hours-old triplets out of Homer. Two bucks and a doe. Homer never fully recovered from injuries, and although obviously still able to breed, was unable to re-join the buck herd and recently went to slaughter. Willow showed him to Grand Champion last year, and he was sire to my Badgee.



Update on my own goats: Jenny the goat, several minutes after my last update about her weeks ago, hopped her dividing fence and worked it out with everyone and is back with the herd.

Willow showed Uther for BLF in the yearling buck division @ the Fiber Frolic. He won Grand Champion cashmere goat. He is half brother to my Badgee. Willow won Grand Champion in Showmanship.



The Firebird graduated 8th grade fifth in his class, top ranked boy. He received several prestigious awards, even though his mother can't fashion a tie, lol.





Beautiful weather, not getting anything done with lots of things dividing my attention.

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Summer Solstice

Well, I have been offline for about three weeks! The dreaded blue screen error which came every time I connected to the internet. Except, of course, after being on the phone twice to tech support! Each time I tried to replicate the error to tell them it didn't happen! Just like your car won't make that weird noise for the mechanic!

I did some stuff myself after troubleshooting online with the Firebird's laptop. Then the laptop had to be returned to the school for the summer. Here in Maine we have a school laptop program, "a laptop in the hands of every eight grader." (during the school year)

And of course I have been busy busy busy running circles and never a three hour time slot to devote to Dell tech support. Well, bright and early this morning seemed a good time, for me anyhow. I can't say for sure what time the tech had over there in Bombay, since he had to ask me am or pm when he asked the local time. He did seem to know Maine was located around New Hampshire and Vermont, which impressed me since I am sure I could't tell you the states or whatever divisions there are outside of his location.

I was repeatedly called, "Sir", despite my declarations of "I am a girl, " and "I am not a Sir" and "I am a woman with a deep voice, common mistake on the phone."

I finally decided that perhaps everyone over there is addressed as "Sir" despite their gender. Or perhaps it is so uncommon to address a strange (pun intended) woman that no formal title exists to address a woman. LOL

"We" ( the tech and I) uninstalled and reinstalled the modem (much to my delight I did have the CD for the driver), and then I had to disconnect with the tech to try to connect- with the advice that if it reoccurred to call my ISP provider. Which it did, and I did, and the ISP tech support told me they don't do anything about blue screen issues, to call Dell back, which I did.

And I actually spoke with another tech that I could actually understand, who sounded like he absolutely knew what he was talking about. Then he wanted the error number on the blue screen, and of course my paper with my notes had vanished, so I had to disconnect from him and attempt to connect so I would get the crash again.

Then the crash didn't happen. Furious, I disconnected and reconnected three or four times since I actually had someone that knew how to fix it and he was calling back in less than a minute. Nope, no crash, I am online after three weeks...for the moment, at least. Once or twice I have been able to get online, and the last time I immediately went to update MS and it crashed updating. So we'll see how long the old Dell desktop can keep going...

Solstice Blessings,
Tree

Long weekend in Paradise

I am finally getting around to posting the rest of the pics from a couple weeks ago.
But first a quick update on my own goats:

I thought it was time to put Jenny's Mom in with Jenny. They immediately got into a knock down, drag-out head-banger. Daphne is half Jenny's size, but she has been herd queen for years and she kept taking the high ground. Jenny wouldn't give up even though she fell down. I broke them up and took Daph out where she stood breathing hard for some minutes.

That means I probably will have to put one of the lesser does in with Jenny, but there is only one house and I don't think Jenny ever bunks with either one of the lesser does. And any of the wethers will most likely be able to beat Jenny up.

My other option is to start taking them on walks and letting her mix with everyone and see how that goes. She is not 100 percent yet as I could see in her bout with Daphne, but I don't like having to keep a goat separate.

Here are some more pics of Willow at the farm:

Willow and little Lori, her momma Lois behind, Maya mare in back.


Willow with Lori's "big Legs"


Willow and Jackson, the biggest goat at the farm.

Goodbye Thyroid

I had my blood drawn this week for follow up on Radioactive I131 treatment for Grave's Disease(hyperactive thyroid). I am 10 weeks after treatment.

My free T4 levels have dropped below normal. I went from 2.58 at treatment to 1.91 six weeks later to .79 this week. Normal range, according to my doc, is 0.91-1.71. I was immediately put on 75 mg Levoxyl once a day with more blood work in another four weeks.

Yeah, I've been feeling pretty lousy the last week. I think there were about 10 days in the last month I thought, "hey, I'm feeling good!" and my muscle tone started to recover a little.

Then I started freezing all the time (all this cold and damp, I thought) and the blues like no tomorrow (ditto weather) and tired tired tired (who isn't this time of year?)

Now I get to look forward to medication daily for the rest of my life. But I do get to phase off the propanolol, oops are you still on that? three days of a gradually reducing dose and that will be ended...three times a day was a nightmare, especially the afternoon one and sometimes the night one too! So yay to that, right?

well, considering I had free T4 of 5.7+ from October through January, I guess I deserve a little crash. I sort of wish the crash was in the winter, but sometimes things are outside of our control...

Friday

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Jenny the goat is much improved and the wayward hen has been staying put.

The ten days of gray wet weather caused a good slug crop, and they in turn have decimated many of my tender seedlings, including two rows of lettuce mix.

We had two glorious days of sun which was a cue for the mosquitoes hordes to come forth.

Now we're back to slug weather, fogged in since sundown last night.

Ah paradise!

gotta love May Showers

But heating all month, too? We have had a very cool wet grey month of May! The slugs are loving it. The sun came out for about 5 minutes yesterday and the temps skyrocketed and the moisture filled the air from the saturated ground. I felt like a mole coming out of hibernation. Then the clouds returned.

The sun did come out for about 10 seconds this morning.

One of my goats ran into some trouble this weekend. She was a bit stiff in the rear on Thursday evening, but I had visitors at feeding time and didn't pay much attention. I was rushed Friday morning and didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. Friday night I had an unexpected guest right at grain time and Jenny was hiding in a house sitting on her rear like a dog. Her hind end buckled under her when I pulled her out of the house. I finally realized there was a problem.

I got rid of the visitor, secured and fed the rest of the herd, and made Jenny as comfortable as I could, and then ran an emergency divider between the house she was in and the rest of the paddock. My three children helped. One sat with Jenny's head in her lap, one ran insulators under my direction, and one stood ready to chase the other goats off when they came back from their hay.

Jenny seemed very disoriented and weak, and we ran watches on her falling down and getting stuck for two days. A goat friend was sure it was trouble with the hind leg. I thought perhaps a bigger goat had cornered her in the house and beat her up. Or rabies. Or brainworm. Or selenium deficiency. Or CAE.

She seemed slightly improved the second day, and finally I located some nutridrench for goats this morning and gave her 30cc orally. This afternoon she seemed much more aware of her surroundings and even managed to squat to urinate without falling down. She picked at her grain tonight and also her hay, and then I drenched her again. I also bought enough wormer for the whole herd and two selenium mineral blocks.

I'll check on her a few more times before bed tonight to make sure she hasn't fallen and hung up awkwardly against some of the big rocks in the pen. That was a real concern the first night as once I found her laying head downhill and unable to rise on her own.

She was obviously in pain the first 24 hours, so a goat may have been beating on her if she wasn't feeling well. Or just the stress of perhaps getting a leg hung up and then someone beating on her. Not really sure, and I don't feel out of the woods with her yet.

Her mother, Daphne, has seemed a bit upset and Jenny has seemed down. They usually bed down together and I had some thoughts tonight about putting her mom in with her. Jenny is still with the herd, just sectioned off alone. I think I will wait until Jenny is getting around pretty well and then put her mom in with her.

All this talking has made me want to go out and check on her. Prayers welcomed!