Living with Meniere's... an on going story.

If you know anyone with Meniere's... this is a good read. Helps people that do not have it...learn about it. 

 I have had my Menieres for 32 year now.. or should say, it was when I had my first violent drop attack. Knowing what I know now... have had Meniere's longer than 32 years... but I figure I would start counting after that first scary, mind numbing attack.
Over the many years, I have been tested by two specialists.

 I have learned how to deal with it. Working outside of the house is impossible.   
It also makes it nearly impossible to make plans... as one never quite knows when a bad attack will come, though I now know the early warning signs. And adjust my day as needed.

Mostly keep mine some what under control with a low salt diet... means making most food, including bread, if I want to eat. And taking Meclizine when needed.
And drinking lots of no salt added water each day. 

It also makes you both deaf and hyper sensitive to noises.  I am totally deaf in my low to mid hearing on my right side.  What high end hearing I have is very distorted.
If someone opens a chip bag next to me,, sounds like a bomb has gone off and very painful.
Sounds people take as normal... can be unbearable for someone with Menieres.
The high and very loud non stop ringing in ones ears.... can be frustrating.

Also have trouble speaking some words.. and stutter now at times. 
It is impossible for me to walk into those big malls, because of the security systems and lighting. I end up with drop attacks.
Good thing I don't like s shopping.
(so far, I am ...for the most part... mostly ok in the small stores)
All part of the problems Meniere's throws at us.
Its not a deadly disease, but it is not an easy one to live with daily.

Am what they call, bi lateral... but it is much worse in my right ear. 
So surgery to take out my inner ear is not recommended. 
 However, those radical surgeries do not always work, then the person is worse off.
There is no cure and no one way to try to keep it mostly under control.

Few years ago, I join a couple of very good, online support groups. As you can imagine.. would be hard for people with Menieres to get together in person.
If someone has or thinks they have Meniere's, I would recommend they join these groups.

It is one of those unseen diseases......

http://vestibular.org/menieres-disease

A New Lamb and Turkeys.....

I decided to sell my Jacob ewes, they were not taming out like I needed, their horns got in the way and they refused to follow the already tame Lead Sheep, out to the big pasture. With my back, I need easy to handle.
Met this wonderful couple that were interested in the Jacobs.  So I brought the Jacob ewes up to them, through some of the most bodacious horse farms I have ever seen. Was incredible... looked like something out of a story book.
And I saw Hills!! I miss seeing hills!! LOL

Anyway... I decided to trade them for this pure bred Finn lamb. She already taming out fast and looks forward to me coming out.  Decided to name her Adda, which is short for Aðalbjörg.  

Think she will fit in well here. Easy to handle and already following the other sheep.

Will see about buying a couple more Finn ewe lambs, in the next couple of years.

Also came home with three young turkeys... they seem sweet and I know Turkeys are good at eating snakes.

Young Turkey's... pretty sure they are girls... but only time will tell.

I did not get the shot of them flying over to me.... that was impressive!
They follow us every where....
Even followed me when I was riding Dyfra this morning.  LOL  Very glad I teach my horses to tolerate weird stuff well.

Granted,,, Dyfra is most likely thinking, her crazy human has brought her some more baby pets for her.

So....
The young turkeys roosted on the hen house yard gate last night.
We decided not to shock the chickens at that time.. 

Earlier this morning, I open the hen house door and tried to get the turkeys to come in. Needless to say the hens are not happy.
One of the Turkeys hopped in....then back out. Figure if one knows.. the others will follow.
One of the hens became brave enough to come off the perch... and the baby turkeys made happy baby sounds and ran towards the hen...
The hen squawked and and ran away, with the giant babies following her... then I hear a commotion and see the babies come back, running around the hen house, with a very pissed off hen totally fluffed up in fighting mode.
Then one of the baby turkeys fluffed up and ran after the hen.... 
But there's more....
The baby turkey was again, running away from "two" fluffed up pissed off hens.
Hackles up, body fully fluffed and wings out and forward...
OM Goosh.... it was sooo funny.... was like some cartoon skit. LOL

Dyfra and Sheep

The Katahdins had to come stand next to me, when I had the crazy horses playing. LOL

Tried to take some action shots of the horse's yesterday. Needless to say it was cloudy and it didn't work out to well. Some day, I will be able to afford a new camera. 

 You can see, Dyfra has a grazing muzzle on. Dfyra tends to eat too much too fast and with all the green grass.....  better safe than sorry.

Other than that, Dyfra really enjoyed playing in the big pasture.

Thunder Clouds~ Man is it ever hot and Sadie up date...

Thunder clouds off the back of the property last night. Pretty, but Thank goodness they did not come any closer.

Weather is already horrible out, too hot and sticky.

 I got the animals fed this morning, Sheep got their Rabies booster, lambs got their first shot. 

To hot to trim feet.  Let them out to the front pasture to eat.

Worked in my Orchard, Antibiotics to the Fireblight trees, pruning and then sharpening my pruners on the sharping stone.

This is my third Orchard I have sent up......Its a challenge growing anything here...  :P 

Too hot to do anything else.

Sadie has become even more over reactive when people move about and the slightest noise, since the surgery.. 

I haven't been able to clean or vacuum for 4 weeks. 
I don't want to freak her out and have her do a blind panic hobble about the house and un-do the surgery or hurt herself again.

Top that off...that Place that fixed Sadie's stiffle... from the looks of it, skinned out the top 1/4 of Sadie's tail on one side.

No way to repair that.  Am seriously not happy about that.

More damage has been done to this poor cat by stupid Vets or the techs that care for them after...... 
No wonder she is so scare of everything now. sigh ~~

In the mean time, have ordered Sadie a Thunder shirt and some new calming spray for around the house.

Reading info on line,, Thunder shirts are kind'a hit and miss.  Keep your fingers crossed it works for Sadie.

Sadie's normal Vet called and will give her some calming meds, which I will pick up tomorrow.
Need her to mellow out before she hurts herself.

Other than fly spraying the horse's every day, been too hot to do anything with them.

Though Maggie and Stjarna have fun blasting around the big front pasture... they are getting used to the heat.

Dyfra, still not doing as well, heat wise, as I was hoping.  She is a real Nordic horse.. loves the cold weather and snow.

Family is doing well, staying busy.

With it so hot out now, should have the time to work on my paintings more.
Have a cat one, the Bell fighter and the Japanese castle DH took a photo of when he was in Japan.

Kitchen Garden, Maggie, Jacob lambs and a Frog.... Oh My....

 Hen's, doing their job, helping to keep the house bug free... or at least tick and snake free as possible.

So this morning, was out feeding the animals... lots of rain yesterday and I go to turn out the water in the feeding pan .....  and I am greeted by... Mr/Mrs Frog... happily floating about.  Didn't have the heart, to tip it out. LOL

Kitchen garden is doing well. So much easier for me to managed raised beds like this.  Not all the beds are capped yet, I still have a place to sit.

 The hair sheep in the front pasture eating.  Fencing in the front pasture was the best thing would could of done. Saving a lot on hay.

Only problem, as some not so smart people have opened up the fence in 3 different places.
One of these days, my animals will end up on the road, or eating someone else's kitchen garden or crops.
To bad, people don't think.... or don't care what they do.

Because of this, we are slowly putting up WiFi game camera's with locks.
Smile pretty Jackasses,, you are on camera!

Pretty Maggie and the two Jacob lambs.
When the lambs are a little bigger, they will go out with the older sheep.
Right now they are in the pasture with Maggie, Dyfra and the goats, learning about hot wire.

Sadie is also doing a lot better.  Tomorrow, we are allowed to let her roam the house again, however, we still need to keep an eye on her. Though it will not be as labor intensive.
She is still limping, but that will go on for awhile.
Keep your fingers crossed, she will now have one normal back leg to walk on.

Family is all doing well, so busy, we need clones.

Super storm in June~~

It was truly the worse storm I had been through.  Even worse than the storm in Oregon, were the wind gusts were upwards of 135mph... and the Clatsop forest was blown down.
 You can see, if you look closely the center of this was trying to spin.
Wish the camera could of also caught the lightening coming out of the storm front.

Change of color when some major lightening hit.

I did not try to take photos, of it raining so hard and the wind so strong, I could not see out of the windows.

There was some minor damage to the Kitchen garden fence, couple of onions up rooted, few fruit trees looked like someone tried to pull them up out of the ground....

But luckily the damage was all minor. 

Humming Birds~~

I don't know why I try to take photos when it is cloudy out... as my camera has a sensor not working....
But I was having fun, with the hummers finally willing to fly all about me this morning. 
So the first shot I take... is a Hummer Mooning me. LOL 

To the right... LOL

The male humming birds have black heads here and not one we would see in the NW. They even sound different when they fly.

Pretty colors on the back of, I think, a female.