Entry for February 05, 2009 Talk about a miserable week!!!

Wow!! We had a major ice storm and the trees and power lines went down big time all over this area. We lost our electricity January 27 at about 1 AM and it came on for about 2 hours that afternoon and went off again. That time it stayed off for a whole week and about 14 hours. What a time we had trying to keep warm. We have a fireplace but of course the blower didn’t work with no power so we only got the radiated heat. That was pretty good but we live in a double wide mobile home and it’s about 1765 square feet of floor space and heat just can’t radiate that far. Plus, we added a two story garage to the end of the house and the upper floor is 24 X 28 feet and that got very little heat. It’s a good thing I insulated the heck out of it when we built it or the pipes would have frozen for sure. Our house has 6 inch walls with R-19 insulation and there is R-30 insulation in the attic and also the windows are double pane so this is a really tight and snug home. It was a good thing we hve several kerosene lamps for just this kind of power loss. Stores sold out of kerosene and lamp wicks in short order.

The temperature got down to 14º on at least two nights and we added lots more cover to the bed and Glenda slept on a patio recliner in front of the fireplace so she could add logs to the fire all night as needed. The temp never dropped below 58º in the house but that’s nippy if you aren’t used to it. What a great wife I have and I love and appreciate her more than I can say!

There are still several thousand people without power here in Northwest Arkansas and they say it may be another week or ten days before it’s all restored. The temps are gradually warming up and it will be in the 60s this weekend and that’s a blessing for those poor folks who are still suffering.

We finally found a 5000 watt generator Monday and bought it. The power came back on the next day, Tuesday the 3rd of Feburary. Not complaining at all because we need a generator. The one I bought will be Aaron’s because he ordered us a 10,ooo watt generator that will run on propane. It will power the whole house and he only needs a small one. I hope it’s a long time before we need to use the one he ordered for us because even burning propane it will cost an arm and leg to run it. That will at least save the food in the refrigerators (2) and the chest type freezer. We will find out how much we lost soon . Our neighbor brought his Hobart 8000 watt welder up and ran it a few hours to cool them this time and we sure appreciated that. Good neighbors are a blessing to have and we appreciate them.

I hope everyone else is doing OK through all this bad weather. I heard from Connie in Michigan snd she said they have frost 4 feet deep up there and it will take a long time for their snow to melt. She is seriously considering moving south. I told her we have a couple of extra rooms. They are afraid Dan might not find work he can do, he works at a truss factory. She manages a senior center up there but she is so capable at so many things she would have no problem finding work. She knows I’m serious about having room for them but I doubt that they will ever leave there.

Entry for December 11, 2008 The dogs are over their sickness

I wish I could report what the dogs had but neither I or the vet knows. They ran a bunch of tests but never could find the problem and when I called and told them Rusty had the bloody diarrhea they prescribed an antibiotic because they said it had to be bacterial in nature. Obviously it was because as soon as Glenda got home with the meds we gave Nick and Rusty each a pill and VOILA!– no more bloody diarrhea after that.

They are still on the pills and seem to be almost back to normal except for their appetite. Rusty in particular is eating very little but in a way that’s a good thing . She is over weight thanks to me!! This is really yanking the weight off her and that won’t hurt a thing. I’ll not let her get overweight again because it was going to cause her to have a heart attack and I could only blame myself.

Rusty is my baby and I love her dearly. If I had caused her to die from my own weakness in feeding her too much I couldn’t live with myself so I’ll be much more alert and not let that happen again.

Entry for December 08, 2008 ‘Tis the season…..

It must be the season for sick dogs I guess. The Ronmower man wrote about losing his new dog, Buddy about a week ago I think.

Now we have two sick dogs. First, Nick the Snauser started throwing up but we didn’t think a whole lot about it. Dogs do that pretty regularly anyway and the only thing different about it was that he did it for two days. Then to make matters worse on day two he started having bloody diarhea as well. That’s when we realized something serious was going on so I took him to the vet last Friday and they did a complete blood workup on him and took stool samples and did everything they needed to do to find the problem. This was to the tune of $254.62. They gave him an injection and some meds to bring home and said that would stop the nausea and hopefully help the bloody diarhea. It stopped the throwing up but he still has bloody diarhea. Other wise he acts completely normal except he eats very little.

This morning Rusty has bloody diarhea too but isn’t throwing up. I called the vet and asked if I could give Rusty some of Nick’s medicine. I talked to a technician and she will talk to Linda Ford, the vet when she gets to the office and call me back.

Rusty is my best friend and I love her to death. I don’t think I can stand losing her so I hope the vet can figure out what’s wrong.

More later if I hear something soon.

I’m back… Poor little Rusty pooped a pool pf pure blood a couple of hours ago. It was about 6 inches across and appeared to be just blood with possibly some pieces of her intestines that may have sloughed off. There was nothing solid at all and she can’t live long like that. I would be scared if I bled that much blood. It would be panic time for me.

I called the vet and they sent some antibiotics home by Glenda when she came through. They said to get them in both her and Nick immediately and that should start killing the bug they both have. They don’t know what it is but I can say that it’s definitely powerful and I hope the meds work soon or Rusty won’t make it I’m afraid. She only weighs 11.8 pounds and that much blood loss has to weaken her.

Nick seems to be back to his normal rambunctious self like nothing ever happened but he still passes blood and eats very little.

The vet said if Rusty is still passing that much blood in the morning to bring her in right away and I said I would.

We have two other dogs plus we are dog sitting Ella, a Golden Retriever, for some friends of ours while they are on vacation in Colorado. Glenda is going to call Jan after while and let her know what’s going on. Ella was eating grass today and that tells me she may be coming down with the same bug.

I’ll let everyone know as soon as I know how the dogs are…..

Entry for October 23, 2008 Last week

Last week Jerry and his wife Jeri came for a visit on their vacation. Glenda took a week of her vacation so she could spend it with them. What a great time we had!!

We ate out a lot and went shopping at their favorite places a lot and visited a lot. LOLOL Well you get the picture.

My oldest son and his wife Susan came down and we had another feast here at home and everyone tried to get caught up on the latest family stuff. Another time, John and Susan went with us to ‘The Backwoods Barn’ which is another great place to eat.

Jerry saw one of my walking sticks and decided to make one for himself. He went up the hill and picked out one or two and took them home so he can finish them later. In the picture above you can see that he ran across one of our slithering residents, a very long snake. He said he thought it was about 5 or 6 feet long and was a black snake.

There are thousands of them (walking sticks, not that many snakes, thank goodness) growing all over our land and now he has a stick or two to be proud of after he finishes them just because they came from here. It gives him a connection to Glenda and me as well as the land even though he never lived here. It’s still a connection to Arkansas and I know he will treasure them.

The goats are doing fine and they love to just be turned out to graze whereever they want to go. Goats, being the herd animals they are, won’t stray away as long as there is one still in the pen or on a leash. They are so funny to watch when they have one of their running spells. They jump and twist and are natural comics and very enjoyable to have around. Not only that but they will, over time, keep a lot of briars and weeds under control. That saves a lot of weed eating on our part. Glenda has to do most of the weed eating these days as I just seem to be going downhill at a faster pace all the time. .

We have to keep a close eye on Sir X because he is ready and anxious to breed and the nannies are much too young to allow them to get bred. They need to be a minimum of 1 year old before breeding so they are fully developed and that makes for easier kidding. Yep, that’s what they call it — kidding. Look it up.

Entry for August 30, 2008 Our New Baby Goat

The picture is of Suzie, our newest baby goat. She was born about June 19Th I think. She is bigger than any of the others and they are older. She is a people goat for sure. I had some chips and she was right up in my lap to get her share.

In another week we will wether Bandit. We were going to do it today but he seems a little lethargic today so we gave him a week’s reprieve.Today we worked on putting up the rafters on our sun/bird room. We at least got the support wall (about 8 inches high) built at the midway point of the rafters on top of the Mobile Home roof. I started cutting the pattern for the rafters and got one just about done and it got so hot we gave it up until late this afternoon. It’s kind of a ‘cut and fit’ proposition and it’s slow but I don’t want to mess it up and lose the rafter. Just about everything we do is done by custom fitting everything. I don’t have a clue how to figure the dimensions out beforehand

The Razorback football season starts today and I want to watch that because we have a new coach, Bobbie Petrino, and I think he is a good one. It’s time we had a really great year and who knows, maybe a national championship! I’m going to be thinking positive…

Entry for August 12, 2008 It’s a Jungle I Tell Ya.

You would think we live in a jungle from all the wildlife we have!! A friend of Glenda’s (and mine) that she works with has a wildlife camera set up on our place and he has gotten some great shots of deer and bear, both grown and cubs, and he is just amazed that we have so many varieties living here. LOL

He has seen numerous coyotes, bobcats and even a snow white fox. We’ve seen the fox also and it is gorgeous. He killed a bear last year and is having the pelt made into a rug. He got a deer also and you can see why he loves to hunt here. Oh yeah, there are turkeys too. LOL

A few days ago I saw a beautiful buck deer out my front door browsing along in the edge of the front yard. A doe was about 100 feet ahead of him grazing on the dam of the pond. I didn’t have my binoculars handy but I guessed the buck to have at least 6 points and his rack was beautifully proportioned.

I just love it where we are and sure don’t plan on going anywhere else. As rough and rocky as these hills are, it’s still paradise to me.

Entry for August 08, 2008 It has cooled off a little

It has been a little cooler the last couple of days, thank God! The high temps plus high humidity just about shut me down completely. I’ve never been able to tolerate hot weather and it doesn’t change with old age. I thought maybe it would but it hasn’t for me anyway. I haven’t hit a lick on the sun room in a week or more. I have got to work a little on the fence for the goats at least. With Glenda’s help we can knock it out in a few hours. We both came down with some kind of crud a week ago and naturally it started for Glenda on the very first day of her vacation. I got it about the middle of the week then, so we were both pretty miserable the whole week. She went back to work last Monday and has made it pretty well although she came home nauseated last night. It seems like that stuff hangs on a long time.

She found another baby goat to buy and she hopes to go see it on the way home tonight.. It’s ready to go to a new home right away and the other three are too so we have to get the fence built quick now. I hope we can get them all this weekend. They are so cute and we can’t wait to get them.

We had a nice shower yesterday and I hope we get a lot more. Some places around here got up to two inches but we only had a shower and I doubt it amounted to more than a tenth of an inch.