Turmeric

I'm all about alternatives. If something doesn't work, there has to be another way. Plan "B" is always waiting in the wings where I'm concerned, as are C, D, E, F, and G. This is what is called, by some, "unrealistic optimism". If at first you don't succeed, try try again. While some people are tempted to quit after the first failure, I usually see it as a lesson in what not to do. Life is one big learning experience, if you let it.

I have moments of defeat. I get tired and weary. Sometimes things feel hopeless. But usually it doesn't last long and then I'm back up and trying my best to conquer the obstacles in my path.

One of my most recent obstacles is pain. Pain in my joints. My family, on my moms side, is riddled with terrible arthritis. Now that I'm bumping 40 and have been working on a farm for over a decade, my body is beginning to feel the sting of it. I've been taking NSAID's for a couple years now and really haven't been amazed at the results. I guess I thought I was going to take a little pill and immediately be pain-free. So, my plan "B" mentality has been kicking in.

Recently on the Martha Stewart Show (I must blog soon about why Martha is a necessary staple in my life), the theme was India. They spoke of Indian cuisine and culture and I was quite intrigued. Martha's niece, Sophie, had recently been to India and brought back a drink recipe that she shared. She explained that her mother had been drinking it for several months and that her arthritic joint pain had been greatly diminished.

So, yesterday, I got the very simple ingredients and have now begun a new ritual to be added to my arthritis management. This is not just for arthritis pain but is supposed to be soothing for many ailments and even help you sleep better.

Here is the recipe.

1 1/2 cups milk, almond milk, soy milk, hemp milk, or rice milk

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

Dash of nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom, ground or freshly grated ginger, or saffron

2 teaspoons raw honey

This recipe serves two.

Place the honey in a cup (a pretty one that is heat resistant)

I found the turmeric and ginger at a health-food store in Texarkana where I bumped into one of my favorite earth travelers. Hi Sherri!! I almost bought organic cinnamon there as well but knew I had an almost full-bottle at home that I needed to use first.

Heat the milk (not surprisingly, I used goats milk) over medium heat and add your spices.

The turmeric is an amazing color.

Preferably, stir with a whisk to incorporate the spices well into the milk. I just happen to have the perfect little whisk given to me by my dear friend, Rosemary Payne. I think she thought she was being funny because it has a chicken on it but it has proven to be quite the handy kitchen utensil.

When the milk is warmed, poor it in the cup over the honey and stir.

Then you have a lovely cup of soothing, magical milk. I like the taste of it quite a bit. It is definitely different but I enjoy different.

The thing is, it can take months of consumption before you begin to see the benefits of it.

You can read here for a little more info on the benefits of turmeric.

This is just one little element in the regimen I have prescribed myself in managing my pain. The other paradox of this dreadful affliction is that you must move. The pain causes your brain to say, "well that really hurts to move so lets sink down into the big leather chair and be still ok?" But then the pain only gets worse. When you exercise the pain is greatly diminished. It is a mind-over-matter thing. So, now I've got to pick my aching body up off this big leather chair and move. And move. And then move some more. And then pray that the promise of relief from this new therapy actually helps.

The Thing

So, this is the thing.

Here's the thing.

The thing is this.

then, then...the thing is...

I've been busy and not blogging.

Whew, glad I got that off my chest.

Seriously, life has just been consuming, but who's isn't, right? I really didn't even know whether or not to blog here or on the Freedom Journey page, but I've got other things to write about there. Sometimes I think that nobody even misses my silly little ramblings, then when I see people in town (when I actually step off the farm) they ask, "what happened to your blog? Why haven't you been writing?" and so on. Then I almost feel like I NEED to do it out of my uncontrollable desire to please people and then I forget why the heck I started blogging in the first place.

Spring time has come to the farm. Oh how it gives me joy in the depths of my soul. Winter, even with all its majesty and glory, hurts me. The cold hurts, the blah hurts, the cabin fever hurts, my knees hurt and, well, you get it. The last really cold day was just a few weeks ago and I thought it was going to kill me. Just the trip to the goat pen and back in the blustery, cold, damp wind was almost enough to make me break down into a tearful fit. But I didn't, not really. Then, in a heartbeat, spring.

It happens every year and I still can hardly take it all in. A miracle. I've never denied my ability to be easily mesmerized by the tiniest things, but spring, the whole earth is one big distraction of amusement. The big thing is that baby goats have been springing forth like rabbits. Five were born within 48 hours of each other, then two more a week later, and we are waiting on the final doe to kid anytime now. Seven babies in all and only two of them are girls. Oh well, its two more than I had last year. We are hoping that the babies yet to be born will be girls but I really don't have any control over it. Every other goat person I've talked to says that they are having mainly boys as well. Curious.

I've dealt with my first case of mastitis this year. This is when the mother goat gets lumps in her udder, clumps in the milk and other not-nice things. If left untreated, it can quickly escalate into an infection that can cause the udder to get gangrene and they can even rot right off. I've spoken with vets, friends, other farmers (the best source of information) and am very happy to say that she is quickly getting better. Although, since I had to give her 5 days worth of penicillin injections and vigorous udder massages, she now hauls ass when she sees me coming. I must admit, this hurts my feelings a bit. She and I used to have such a glorious relationship. I explained that it was for her own good. She listened and considered the facts but refuses to forgive me just yet.

Spring has also brought with it a million projects. All of them are about 1/3 of the way started and nothing even close to being finished. My attention deficit brain is in complete turmoil. Since I'm supposed to attempt to have an organized schedule, a hundred unfinished projects is a battle, a big one. One thing that I've adapted into my life now is timing myself. It works, by Joe, it really works. I downloaded a "timer" app for my iPhone and have been giving myself a time limit to do certain tasks. Clean the kitchen, 15 minutes. Scrub the toilets, 10 minutes...and so on. It becomes a sort-of game and keeps me on task.

Usually, things go like this. Begin loading the dishwasher, look outside and think, "oh I need to go water those plants". Go outside and start watering plants. Boots get muddy so I rinse them off. Start to roll up the water hose and it gets stuck out in the yard on a rock. Go move the rock. Come in the house, load a couple more dishes. Dryer goes off, go fold clothes. Begin to put clothes away. Go in the bedroom to put clothes up. Emma comes in, jumps on the bed...play with Emma. Go to the bathroom, gather up some more dirty clothes. Walk through the kitchen with dirty clothes in hand, see that I've not made a dent in the dishes. Throw the clothes in the utility room floor, begin loading dishes again. It's exhausting just thinking about it. BUT....giving myself a time limit somehow becomes a game. The alarm is going to go off any minute...hurry hurry get the kitchen clean. That way, all the other distractions suddenly become a hinderance to me beating the clock and I stay on-task. It's a bit insane but it seems to work.

I haven't yet given myself a time limit for blogging or set aside a time to do so. And I sit here with a million things to do and am not accomplishing a darn thing. It does feel good to sit and write. I've missed it and shall henceforth attempt to be somewhat more diligent in doing so.

Being Oblivious

There are so many things I could say about this picture.

For a few weeks now, I've been bottle feeding a little orphan calf. His name is Damit. I have bottle fed many an orphan in my life and he is, by far, the most irritating but also the most hilarious and fun. He doesn't seem to mind the fact that he gets on everybody's nerves. Even the goats have taken to sleeping right outside the pen, while Damit has run of the whole thing. When the weather dipped down in the teens, they were all forced to bunk together. The goats didn't like it. Damit did.

Until this morning, Damit would stay behind as the goats headed out to graze. He decided to go along today and I really don't think I could have been more amused by the whole thing. He scampers and kicks almost like a baby goat would. This causes the goats to dart away from him and act as if they are far superior beings. They turn up their noses and prance off. In my head they have british accents and say things like, "how rude" and "well, I never". Poor Damit doesn't even know he is being snubbed, he just follows along enthusiastically. Being oblivious has it's good points. When you're oblivious, you can be in the middle of the ugliest of situations and wear a smile. Ignorance is bliss, yes indeed.

You can also see the third species in the herd, the cat. There are two of these calico girls and, most of the time, they hang with the goats. For whatever reason, they've been accepted into the herd and are tolerated well by those silly old goats.

The dynamic between multiple species in a group is not only amusing, but inspiring. If the beasts of the field can live together in harmony, even when they don't like each other much...it amazes me that well-educated, civilized human beings are still fighting with each other over silly things like the color of our skin. I hear the voice of Rodney King in my head at times, "can we all just get along?" It's such a simple question with such a simple, yet complex answer. Let's all be nice, shall we? Let's think of the needs of others before we consider our own selves. Why don't we all become a little more oblivious and childlike and quit trying to always be RIGHT. Can't we stop and help a neighbor, give somebody a ride, say a prayer for an enemy. I used to call myself "color blind" when it came to racism. People are people and we are all God's children. But then I decided that I didn't want to be color blind, I want to be "color BLESSED". I'm thankful that God made a variety of people. We are all so diverse and there is a reason for that. Thank goodness we aren't all red-headed, freckled faced farmers.

I read something in my new study bible. It was a list of the people that Jesus touched, talked to or interacted with...and here it is.

A despised tax collector

An insane hermit

The Roman governor

A young boy

A prominent religious leader

A homemaker

An expert in the law

A criminal

A synagogue ruler

Fisherman

A king

A poor widow

A Roman centurion

A group of children

A prophet

An adulterous woman

The Jewish High council

A sick woman

A rich man

A blind beggar

Jewish political leaders

A group of women

The high priest

An outcast with leprosy

A royal official

A young girl

A traitor

A helpless and paralyzed man

An angry mob of soldiers and police

A woman from a foreign land

A doubting follower

An enemy who hated him

A Samaritan woman

We are supposed to, as Christians imitate Christ. No person was is off limits to the love of Christ. So, we too, should love without boundaries.

Faith's rescue

I posted this on my Freedom blog but thought I'd post it here too.

I have never been superstitious about the number 13. Its a number. Today, however, I think I'll associate it with good luck, not bad.

We started off the day fairly normal. The kids left for school, Rodney and I had our coffee and breakfast together, the dogs went outside, and we started getting ourselves ready for the day. It was only 14 degrees when we woke up so we were bundling up extra tight before we headed out.

I went out to feed the little orphan calf, who, by the way, I've decided to name Damit. (I know I spelled it wrong but this way it isn't actually cursing). The reason I've named him this is because I was constantly going, "Damit, stop it! Get your head out of my butt, Damit. Damit, that hurt!" and so on.

So, back to my story. I was doing my chores... emptying the huge block of ice from the goat water bucket so that I could fill it with fresh, unfrozen water, giving the bunny feed and water, trying to make Damit eat some sweet feed instead of just milk by shoving it in his mouth, "Here Damit, eat this".

I noticed only Sophie and Charlotte were with me so I started calling Emma. It was only a couple minutes and she came bounding through the yard. It occurred to me that Faith was not with her but this isn't too unusual, it generally takes her a few more minutes to get home from wherever the heck they go, so I just kept right on about my business.

Since I was already bundled up, I decided to make the most of the morning and take my camera out to shoot some pictures. This is when the plot thickens.

I was going to go out in the woods. My mind had been made up that I wanted to hike through the trees before all the snow was gone. But, a little voice said, "you'll have to go through the goat pen to get out there and Damit will follow you the whole way and it's not going to be fun. So I made the very conscious choice to walk across the pond dam.

Sophie, Charlotte, Emma and I headed out. They are always so excited to go anywhere, even if it's just to the mailbox.

The pond was frozen over. I thought maybe I'd see some ducks to take pictures of but there were none. I threw some rocks out onto the ice, it makes the coolest sound when it hits and I wanted to see just how thick the ice was. Emma started eyeballing the rocks I was throwing as if she might be contemplating fetching them so I figured I'd better stop or she might just go out there.

We walked a little further, my mind on a million things when I spotted Emma out on the ice. "Emma, come back! Don't go out there!" I started to freak a little because Emma is not one for listening. "Momma has a cookie Emma!"

This is how well she listens.

Then it dawned on me she was headed towards something. I couldn't make it out. At first I thought, "oh no, a duck is frozen to the water or something". So I used the lens on my camera to zoom in and see what it was.

The picture is blurred because as soon as I realized what it was, I went into rescue mode. Faith had fallen through the ice. She was barely above the water could not get a grasp on anything to get herself out.

I don't know if I've ever blogged about my inability to handle emergency situations or not but, I'm telling you right now...it hasn't gotten any better with age. My brain went to another place and my body went with it. I started running, no particular direction, just running. I started to rationalize that I was panicking and trying to calm myself so I could think of what to do.

Call Rodney, Call Rodney. It took me what seemed like an eternity to figure out how to even make a call but I finally got him on the phone. "Faith, gasp gasp, is in the pond!!" He said, "I'm coming!"

He was just down the road in the tractor so I knew he would be there quickly. Then I thought, "Call 911, Call 911". I really had no idea at this point how we were going to get her out. The 911 operator took my frantic call and said somebody was on their way.

Then it dawned on me, finally, "we need the boat, we need the boat!"

I called Mom and Dad and took a few years off of their lives. My voice in a frenzied pitch, "Faith fell through the ice! We need the boat we need the boat!!"

She was barely hanging on. I kept saying her name, screaming her name, telling her not to give up. At one point I contemplated going in after her but that same little voice that sent me to the pond, said "don't you dare!"

Mom and Dad showed up in the Yukon and Rodney showed up with the boat on the tractor (he handles these things much better than me). He and Dad put the boat in the pond and then Dad pushed Rodney out onto the ice. We had no ore, so Rodney used a piece of metal that he plunged in the ice and dragged himself and the boat to where she was and pulled her out.

Once he had her in the boat, he couldn't pull himself the rest of the way to shore because of the thickness of the ice. By this time the rescue workers had arrived and had a rope that they used to pull to boat to shore.

We wrapped her in my coat, loaded her in the Yukon and brought her home. I called my vet to find out the best way to warm her. They told me to put her in a luke warm bath then get her dry and gradually warm her up. At first it seemed perilous. She was ridged and shivering, unable to even keep her head out of the bath water. I had to make smart decisions to keep her from going into shock (although she might already have been) and get her body temperature back up.

Once I got her somewhat dry, I wrapped her in a towel and blanket and sat and held her closely. We rocked in the rocking chair and I assured her that everything would be fine. She shivered for a very long time but I had learned from searching google that this was actually a good thing. When the shivering quieted a bit, I laid her on the couch with a heating pad. This is when I took her temperature. It was only 93〫. I got a little more aggressive with the warming until she was back up to normal temp.

Once she was warm through and through, I gave her a little something to eat and let her have a nice long nap in front of the fireplace.

I'm gonna start listening a whole lot more closely to that little voice. For some reason it seems for me to want to keep Faith around, that's for sure. I've always said that things happen in threes. This should be number three. I rescued her from being abandoned. I rescued her from the well. Now, I've rescued her from the frozen pond.

Thank you to my husband and my parents that jumped to her aid. And thanks to the rescue workers for their efficiency and speed in getting here... all for the life of a little, blind dog.

Happy Ending

I have been hesitant to post anything about this, but it has turned out happily, so I'll share. There have been too many sad posts about my doggies. Seems like I ran into a string of bad luck or something when it came to my canine companions.

Faith went missing on New years eve. She and Emma went on one of their little adventures, Faith did not return. For days we've been looking. Last night we were discussing the whole thing and decided she probably wasn't coming back. She looks an awful lot like a coyote from far off (that is what I thought she was the first time I saw her on the road) and we thought maybe somebody may have shot her. I couldn't bear to think of what might have happened. It kept occurring to me that she very well could have fallen into something. Since she can barely see, she is so vulnerable to falling off things or into things.

So, this evening, for some reason (uh...fate!) I decided to go for a little walk. As I was passing by the barn I heard a faint whimper. I stopped and listened and heard it more clearly. My heart about beat right out of my chest and I RAN towards the barn. Emma and I were bounding through that messy old barn looking, stopping, listening and then searching more. Then, a lightbulb came on in my head. "I bet she's in the old well!!" There is a fairly shallow (about 5 feet deep) old rock well behind the barn. It is at ground level and drops off. I ran as fast as I could over to where the hole is and ... there she was. I've never been so happy to see a dog in my life!

I reached down and lifted her out and carried her all the way home. She was practically clinging on to me like a monkey. She was thirsty and hungry but seemed no worse for the wear. Her little tail was wagging as she filled her belly and she went right about her favorite game of cat chasing. I'll have to blog about the game she plays with the kitty.

So, one less thing to be anxious about. Faith is home and home is a good place to be.

Dog Rescue

Yesterday, I got a phone call from Taylor as she was headed out. "Mom, there is a little dog down by the creek. I couldn't stop to get it, but can you go see if you can find it...He's really scared." I asked Kyle if he wanted to run down there with me to rescue the poor thing. "You're gonna have to stop being so nice." he replied to me. I always thought being "nice" was a good thing??

We looked for about an hour and didn't see anything.

This morning as Rodney and I were on our way back home I saw her. Rodney reluctantly stopped and let me gather her up. I figured I could at least find out who she belongs to by her tag. She was wearing only a rabies tag. I called the vet's number on the tag and the serial number led us nowhere. It was loosely connected to a cat? I figured somebody just threw a tag on her so she wouldn't look like a stray.

There is something wrong with her eyes. She seems to be able to see, but not well. I will be taking her to see Dr. Devlin in the morning, who is the Sevier County Humane societies president. We will assess the situation and go from there. I've offered her a foster home until we can find a forever family for her.

She is just as sweet as she can be. Scared, but sweet. She does NOT like Emma's shenanigans which is quite confusing to poor Emma. Typically, Emma's over exuberance is tolerated quite well by her peers (and her humans).

If you know anybody looking for a dog and would be willing to adopt one with a slight malady, please let me know. You know, it is the dogs who are broken and in need of rescue that make the best pets. I'll be posting pictures of her via Facebook and the Sevier County Humane Society tomorrow.

Catching Leaves

I posted this on my freedom blog but decided to share it here as well.

So far this year, the leaves on the big oak in the back yard have been clinging pretty tightly to their branches. Over the past couple of days, they have finally decided to let go. This morning those leaves put on quite a spellbinding waltz as they twirled and perfectly pirouetted to the dance floor beneath them. Rodney piped up once and said "they sure do fly a long ways don't they?" which started me counting seconds. Yep, sipping coffee and seeing just how long any particular leaf could stay in flight.

I told Rodney it was like watching an aquarium. There really is no explaining why it was quite so fascinating but, for some reason, we sat there in a trance. I counted one leaf that floated downward for a full 7 seconds...he was the winner this morning, according to my data.

I couldn't quite capture the thrill of it all with my lens, partly because the wind wasn't blowing when I decided to grab my camera, and partly because I didn't feel like waiting till the wind decided to blow again.

I headed out into the mystical morning dawning my big ol rubber boots but decided to leave the umbrella behind. No, I wanted to be in it, to absorb the moist autumn air, and even let it mess up my hair. After I fed the goats and bunnies, I started back to the house but thought I'd try to see if I could catch one of those falling leaves first.

I stood staring up at the tree, waiting. My glasses became foggy and covered with drops of rain but, here came a leaf! I ran towards it but it escaped my fingers with ease. Now this was a challenge between me and the tree (and the wind, and the rain, and my own skill and balance). I found myself laughing out loud as I missed one after the other. They would seemingly head strait for me and then, as if tied to an invisible string, would dart away. Emma became very excited by what I was doing and wanted to play too, she just wasn't sure exactly what her part in it was. Finally, I caught one. It was a great victory.

My trophy (along with the pear I intend to eat later today). I momentarily thought "what a waste of time, counting seconds of leaves falling and running around like an idiot in the rain". Then I went back to that idea of being authentic. I feel better this morning than I've felt in a while. Perhaps there is healing and a connection with God in the moments we "waste". If God puts on a show of waltzing leaves, it might just behoove us to take a second to watch it. And if you feel the need to play a game with a tree, there is probably not a more constructive use of your time.