Sunrise, the Moon and French Flowers....

Not sure I told you, but last month I ran across some Rose bushes that were only $6.00. I bought two of them.
One was a French variety of very hard Tea Rose.  Plant is doing very well and the Roses are beautiful.
Nice to have Roses in the house again.

Not sure how I did it, but I managed to get my not so good camera, to take this photo of a very, very large moon., one night. 
Even caught a star just above the upper right side, though I am not sure you can see it, sized down as the photo is.

A Sunrise, early one morning in Oct..... 

Turkeys...... sigh ~~

Forget Turkey's in the straw, how about Turkey's on the roof.  They love people, and when really happy, bark like puppies. LOL
Right now, we have one female for sure.... one male and can't tell with the other.
And the men of the house... have named them, Patrick, Sponge Bob and Sandy.
(rolling eyes) 

Obama care... not a good thing, not at these prices...

DS needs health insurance.
 So I go onto Healcare.Gov.. and check what the price is.
He makes nothing right now, but has been looking for a job. There is no Medicaid in this State, so that means private.
 Going by their online scale... if DS, makes nothing a year, at the basic health care, he needs to cough up... $197+ a month.
That is crazy. 
He is too old to be on our military insurance. 
This is beyond stupid. 
Thought this was going to help, not make it harder on us. Sigh ~~

We really, really need another small commuter car, but now, that is off the table. 
Letting DS use the Echo, while his father gets another little car, would allow DS to expand his search for a job.
Because here in VA, if you are not related to someone, it is very, very hard to get a job.

Not a happy camper.

Mia and College... Mia and the Turkeys...

Looked into DS's room this morning as he was getting ready for College and saw this.....
Mia laying on his book bag.  She might be thinking if she lays on it he won't go any where or
he might take her with him.
Either way, she is not impressed with him being gone during the day.

Having to feed the turkeys on the front porch for now... they decided to look in and Mia was looking at them, then would look at me and then look at the turkeys again...
Almost feel her asking me....  "What the hell are those?" LOL
And people say Dinosaurs are gone.... ha! 

Spinning Yarn~

Wasn't sure if I should post this here or my Art blog. Decided, I mostly spin yarn for fun, I would place it here.
This is my new giant ply bobbin and flyer.  Have been waiting for years to be able to purchase it.
Will allow me to do full skeins, instead of the two I used to do.

Asked DS to take a photo of me spinning some yarn today, as I haven't done this in a few years. Would of been better if I did my hair up and such... but it is what it is... LOL Am getting old!

My Spinning corner, next to the window. 

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.

Little house finches growing up and first Roses from my garden~~

Wee little house finches are growing up. They have their young'un feathers with little tuff's of down here and there.

These two big and beautiful Rose's came from one of my three Rose bushes... and the Rose plant isn't even knee high yet!
The blurred photo in the background is one I took of Mt St Helens.

Update on Sadie~~~

 Her surgery was on the 23rd and we picked her up on the 24th.
The swelling has gone down, with the collar on, she has stopped pulling at the stitches.

Sadie is home. Sent home with no pain meds... like WTF. 
She was in some serious pain, very swollen. So I called my normal Vet and she gave me a small amount of pain meds for Sadie.
Poor wee thing is crying, barely able to get around at this point. Is heart breaking..
But it needed to be done.
We have to keep an eye on her all the time for 3 to 4 days and then make sure she doesn't jump or do anything silly for 2 to 3 weeks.
DS will take the night watch and wake me up if there is a problem.
Not mind, that is going to be a problem, at this point. 

Monday was a holiday and Sadie was dysentery problems. Which had me a little worried.

Fast forward to Tuesday...

Over 5 hours I have waited for my Vet to tell me she will give Sadie something for the Diarrhea she has been having because of the antibiotics. 
She said she would talk to the surgeon. 
I know they are busy... but it just takes a couple minutes to call. 
I can't do chores(have to be in house to wait for the call) or let the animals out to eat (because the horses are not good about not trying to run through when I am trying to drive through their new pasture.)
Not to mention poor Sadie is feeling off enough she has pretty much stopped eating or drinking.  Plus a limping cat with the runs.... not a good combo.
Sigh ~~  Am beyond frustrated at this point, and can not understand why we had to wait all day to get her help?!
However, after calling a couple more times, (of course at that time, I have to do animal chores) my Vet gives me the ok to pick up meds..
I run off to my Vet's to finally be able to get Sadie something to help with the current issues she is having. 

Please keep your fingers crossed this is the last of the issues poor wee Sadie will have.... and she will heal quickly and walk normally!

House Finches and Kitchen Garden~~

The House finches decided within a day of me putting up the hanging Fuchsia, to move in, build a nest and raise 4 babies in it.
Mama Finch doesn't mind me watering the Fuchsia. Am very careful to water around them...and the nest is high enough they don't get wet.

 Kitchen garden as finished as it is going to be for now.  Still need stone caps on some of the Beds.

Super heavy rain storm caused some issues with the stone dust... but a ditch dug along the front should keep that from happening again.

Needed to put some bird netting up around the Kitchen garden.. and added a cheap little gate. Keeps the Chickens and Nari out.

Have ...
Asparagus
3 types of Heirloom tomatoes
2 bell peppers, different colors
2 Thai Dragon peppers... for Asian dishes (Since this state doesn't seem to do Asian)
4 Artichokes
4 cucumber plants
Some WallaWalla Onion starts... though heaven knows if they are the real thing.
Basil, Rosemary, thyme.... plus a couple of flowers to help keep the bugs away.
Not a big garden this year but it is a start.

Mother's Day May 12th ~

Had a very nice Mother's Day. 

Started out with DH making a nice breakfast and then onto Williamsburg. The first time I have seen Williamsburg with leaves on the trees and flowers all about.

I just loved all the beautiful gardens, simple but well maintain and incredibly done.

Above is DS, in one of the unique gardens at the Governors mansion.

First time I went around those gardens.
It had garden's within gardens....... was magical. 

One of the many walled Gardens, have many more photos to sort thought, so these are just some of the first.

A Beautiful Cottage garden and little house below.

What do I spy with my little eye, but a Minion in the sky. 
LOL... wasn't expecting to see that.  And who ever was flying that thing... was throwing it around like a race car!

A Secret garden path.... we went down a lot of those. Where most people do not bother to go. We had the place pretty much to ourselves back there.
Did I say I loved it?  ;O)

Plan on posting a few more of the photos in the next few days, as I get time.

Sadie needs Surgery........

Bad news on Sadie... our little orange cat.  Both Stifles keep going out and with one side, she is popping her leg out of the joint socket.
She needs Surgery, in tune of $1,000+ dollars.... is either that or put her down.
Surgery needs to be done very soon, she can't keep going like she has.

So.....
Make an offer on any of my original paintings... some will come with frames, some without.
Need to sell some Art to pay for this...   So make an offer.. please pass the info around.

Visitors ~

We had some visitors move across the Farm yesterday.  Was kind'a surprised because they are pretty far from water.
Not sure where they came from, but I haven't seen any geese nesting in the area.... they would of let me know.
Going to assume they are heading for the pond at the back of the property.

Jacob ewes ~

The Jacob ewe lambs are settling in. Have them in my tack room, needed a place small enough to gentle and halter train them.

The smaller one with the uneven horns is taming out the quickest.  

She also loves to jump... thinking of calling her either "Dragonfly" or "sparrow"  .... what do you think?

The one with the Face shot, she is going to be a little harder to tame, she is acting like she comes from the Alpha ewe.  

Her name just popped into my head... Abigail.  LOL  

Japanese Maple~

When I moved from Oregon to VA, I had to leave all the beautiful Japanese maple trees my DH bought me, with a good friend.
Just no way to take them with me.

We went to a local nursery yesterday to look for some garden stakes. Something VA people know nothing about,,, any way..... found some there, bought what they had.
Couldn't help it, haven't been to a good nursery since we left Oregon, so I just had to look around.
Love trees, so went to look at those.  And would you believe it, they had a couple varieties of JM's... on sale. 
DH must of saw the look on my face, so he said, "Pick one out", Happy Mother's day.
Think my smile could of lit up the dark side of the moon!  LOL

Looked at the pots next, do you know, the cost 4 times the amount here in VA, compared with Oregon!  Flabbergasting to say the least. Refused to buy one.

A couple of weeks ago I bought a half whisky barrel on sale, to put my wee Rosemary plant in.
So I decided to just use that as the planter.

With the families help, I potted up the Lace leaf Japanese maple. To make sure the chickens do not dig all of the soil out, DS found some stones for me and I put them on top.
Is quite pretty.

This is not the best picture, because it started to rain..... but more to come soon. LOL

The Kitchen~

Bought some pan wall racks, so I have easy access to them.  Am extremely pleased that the make the kitchen look more complete or larger if you will.
Would be a lot easier to show you in person.....   but a picture will do for now.

Mia ~

Mia was posing for me,,, sweet cat she is. 

To bad my camera is shite inside.

But I can see a future painting in one of these. 
Granted I need to start painting again.