Daydreaming while waiting impatiently!

sumi

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Tortoise, it's good to hear you sounding so much better!
 

tortoise

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Thanks all! :love

I ran errands all over creation yesterday. Was a good day! Today I'm home, unpacking, cleaning. My house is SO cluttered. I don't really understand how it happens with how much I'm always hauling off to Goodwill donations.
 

sumi

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Methinks it's stuff following you guys home. It happens ;) Glad to hear you had a good day yesterday and from the sounds of things, today is going well too!
 

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Methinks it's stuff following you guys home. It happens ;) Glad to hear you had a good day yesterday and from the sounds of things, today is going well too!
DH would agree! LOL! I temporarily have the excuses of kids growing out of things and xmas gifts. But, yeah. I'm guilty. :gig
 

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Lamb pool almost snuck up on us! We missed it last month! If we don't make it this time, we'll be feeding lambs hay. The pasture is just about done, has just turned brown in the last couple of days. DH is picking up a stock trailer from his parents tonight - 4 hour trip. I sure hope it's in functional condition! A friend has a trailer we can borrow if necessary, but it's a *nice* trailer and DH doesn't want to worry about keeping it clean. We have 7 lambs and 2 ewes to sell. We'd get a lot more money to sell ewes on Craigslist ($200 each versus expected $40), but we just need to downsize. I want all the flighty, scaredy, fence-jumping animals out of my barn. sooner is better than later!

That would leave me with 2 tame/pet ewes (bred), 3 bottle lambs (not bred), and 4 ewe lambs to see if they're worth keeping (bred). and the 2 rams still. We're keeping dangerous ram to breed to the bottle lambs. He's living with the goats, so at least he's not in my barn or pasture.
 

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Sheep are sorted, and hopefully will all stay put overnight so we can load them in the morning. There are 5 lambs together who could jump fence.

We decided to not hold back any lambs for our freezer. We have 2 deer already in the freezer and a mutton meat wether to butcher.

I caved and decided to keep a ewe and her lamb on my cull list. I keep going back and forth on them.

ewe: Isabella
  • 4 years old, bottle raised, I'm a bit emotionally attached. She was my Mary-had-a-Little-Lamb lamb. Followed me everywhere.
  • Shearer said best wool in flock. (Previous shearer said my ram had best wool in flock soo... IDK)
  • Lambed 3 years independently. twins, triplets, triplets. Rejected at least one lamb first 2 years. Hence being on my cull list
  • Was most difficult to handle out of my "tame" ewes. She was the most wary of the tame ones and while she would eat grain from my hand, she would jump back and get spooky if I touched her. But today she came up to me twice and I was able to grab her by the neck/wool both times without her freaking out. Was able to walk her hands-on-neck to move her. Later was able to halter her without the aid of grain. hmm...
her ewe lamb: #0017 and will get a name now
  • on the day we did fence line weaning, all the other lambs were settled and grazing, but she was still pacing and bleating. I don't like stressy livestock.
  • today wasn't spazzy and tolerated handling

I figure if I regret keeping them, I can sell them at a future sale. We have plenty of hay.
 

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My first baby African Violets popped up today from leaf propagation! :love I set leaves in September. (and November). I have over 100 leaves set for propagation now. I'm hoping for a big crop of spring baby plants for selling and trading. Each leaf should produce 1 - 4 babies, and oftentimes the rooted leaf can be repotted for another batch of babies. :D I would love to sell enough to pay for themselves. I have just shy of $200 into them now for plants, shelf, lights. But I will trade for more varieties before selling. So next year will be even better. I'm getting a particular interest in the miniature and micro sized violets. I can fit more of them onto my plants shelf. :gig

I'm struggling over here with musculoskeletal issues and pain. I started logging symptoms a couple weeks ago. Goodness, if denial isn't a coping mechanism, I don't know what is! Before logging symptoms I would have said that I don't experience pain, pain doesn't keep me from sleeping, I don't wake from pain. and that I'm irritable. Uhm… since logging symptoms, I have not noted a time without pain, and that I usually wake >10 times every night from pain. :facepalm: so now, I would say I do struggle with pain, and my irritability is isolated to when symptoms are more overwhelming. well.. uhm, good to know it's not in my head. I see a pain doctor next week. She is very familiar with hypermobility disorders. All my painful joints are hypermobile. hmmm? and 99% sure I meet the diagnostic criteria for Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, hypermobile type. I might miss it by a hair, and in that case it would be Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder. Either way, my connective tissue is a mess and I've been dealing with chronic pain from it for 20 years. (I'm not *that* old either... :/ )

Silver lining is this has put me over the edge to being willing to accept a Kitchenaid mixer. DH ordered the biggest one today. Biggest one because we will use it as a meat grinder since our meat grinder is literally falling apart. (3rd one in 4 years? IDK, but the $100 cheap grinders sure don't last!) I also order spring-loaded scissors, automatic stapler and finger ring splints. I'm hoping some of this stuff will help me do more, and spend less time with ibuprofen, ice packs, and immobilizing brace on my hand/thumb.
 

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I'm feeling very smug at the moment! :) I succeeded in making splints to stabilize my ring finger MP joints on both hands. I used thermoplastic sheet. DH got me a 4"x8" sheet. :love I had enough for the two braces and leftovers to make key extensions for my flute. The splints will make me able to knit without pain! Wearing the right hand splint while typing feels good. I didn't realize how much that joint pops into hyperextension.
 
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