hqueen's collection of Far From the Usual stuff.

[hqueen13]

I think we've crossed over into prepper realm...

And there were more on the counter....
Lovely haul for only $85.00! Includes more than 16 dozen jars (with at least 2 dozen unopened still in their wrappings!), a water bath canner, food mill, funnel, tongs, and a lot of rings for both wide and regular, plus lids (don't know the age, so I'm not sure that I will keep them)

Now I have to figure out where the heck to store these things?! I don't have that much empty space!!

 

[hqueen13]

Found out yesterday afternoon that for some unknown reason the farm order is not being delivered today. What the heck!? They haven't said why, but they are telling people that they can "carpool" and send someone to pick up multiple orders straight from the farm, which would be great fun except the farm is over an hour away! If we didn't already have to drive 2 hours west on Sunday I'd probably drive up there on Saturday. But that won't work since we are already driving on Sunday. He doesn't like to do too much driving and we've got stuff we have to get done on Saturday so that we can drive on Sunday! Since Sunday is to check out a venue for the wedding it gets top priority right now

 

[hqueen13]

OK, so farm issues resolved, no clue what happened last week, but they issued a statement this week saying that they are now accepting pre-payment. You can either pay by paypal and pay paypal 2.7% to do so or send a check in advance, and then whatever the difference by weight/items in stock you'll have to work out on the next order. I think the other half and I have figured out a system to keep track of writing checks and the changes in amounts, but it is not going to be easy... Oh well. I'm not paying paypal either!

Since today is the holiday and would be the regular pickup day, they needed someone to fill in with a drop location, and I was able to make arrangements to do it. The guy forgot to bring an extra cooler, which stunk, and so we had to use ours, plus he didn't bring any extra ice, either. So we ran up to the store and got some. With the credit we get for hosting, plus the ice, our order was free this week, and we'll have some leftover credit to start off next week.

Sat down to get my jars organized and put away (yeah, its taken me this long... )
I have:

1/2 Pints: 1 doz + 7
Pints (regular mouth): 8 doz + 11
Pint (wide mouth): 1 doz + 5
Tall Skinny 12 oz Jelly jars: 2 doz
Quarts (wide mouth): 1 doz
Quarts (regular mouth): 4 doz

2 large boxes of rings, plus some lids (still haven't decided if I am keeping those or buying new ones to be on the safe side. The girl I bought them from seemed to think they would be ok)
1 water bath canner
1 food mill
funnel & tongs

ALL for $85.00. NICE haul!

Now... where to put it all.....

 

[moolie]

Awesome

If the lids are still in their original boxes and the sealant is still smooth and not gummy or dry/cracked, I'd go for it. I have some older lids that work just fine, probably about 10 years old.

 

[hqueen13]

Thanks, Moolie! I'd rather not waste them if I can help it... one less thing to buy!

 

[hqueen13]

Bah.
So half the jars have been put away. And the stuff I had to move out of the cabinet that needs a home is still sitting on the floor. I only traded one thing for another. :/
The up side is that I got the cleaning and first coat of conditioner on the two saddles that the other half's coworker asked us to sell. They were in terrible condition after having sat for who knows how long. The english saddle isn't worth much, I think I'll ask if the lesson folks here want it for $100.00, both saddles have large seats and would accommodate a man fairly comfortably, which I suspect they would appreciate. The western is in much better condition and much better made. It has beautiful tooling (if you like that sort of thing) all over, a suede seat, and silver accents. The only mark on it says "The American" and under that the number 900 on the latigo keeper on the left side of the saddle. It had some pretty bad mold in spots and I realized after getting into the cleaning that the stirrups had not been pulled all the way to the bars and were set two sets of holes apart. Straightened that out, and got them evened up again, and covered the whole thing with a liberal layer of conditioner. Both saddles sucked it up pretty fast. I'll let them sit and then do it again before I get ready to sell them. I think we can get at least $400.00 for the western which also has a matching breast plate and bridle. Its a nice set, I'll have to do the bridle and breast plate later, but that won't be that difficult. Right now I am tired of having my hands in leather cleaner!

So now there are jars in the living room waiting to find a home, crap on the floor of the kitchen that came out of the cabinets that should find a home, and both saddles in the living room (they were formerly in the spare bedroom). Somehow I am not sure that this is an improvement. At least the other half did get both bathrooms cleaned today (with the exception of the soaking tub, which is a pain in the butt!) which is a great relief since they were GROSS!

I guess I have my work cut out for me when I get home from work tomorrow.

Oh, and on another note - the nasty weed trees had a couple sprouts poking up through the deck, so I grabbed the container of vinegar/salt/soap that we had mixed, and sprayed them. Not 5 minutes later the leaves were VERY wilted, and then basically completely dead looking in about a half hour. Now, this was in FULL sun on the deck, which is HOT, but I was quite pleased. Now, they could revive if we get rain, but at least it works. Have to reapply more frequently than the usual toxic stuff, but I am quite happy with it.

 

[hqueen13]

Exhausted doesn't begin to cover it.
Hot as Hades today. The other half has been dealing with pain from vericose veins for 2 days now, and just couldn't handle coming out and doing the walking up and down the barn to get horses in. I set him up with ice and some remedies before heading out the door into the exterior sauna. Disgusting. Thank GOODNESS JO was there, and already had 4 horses in (her two plus a friend's 2 that she took pity on and had hosed them all down then put them in their stalls with fans, not that it was any better than outside). She was initially going to help me get the mixed herd in so that she could turn out some of the ones that were already in, however the mixed herd had other ideas and took their sweet time coming up from the grass. So she helped me get the geldings in first, and then the other group. She took a bit of pity on me that I was by myself and helped me get everyone in. There was a storm building up and almost on top of us, so I headed up to grab the two school horses that needed to be fed and hung out with them until they finished before putting them back out and checking everyone in the barn once more. I decided to leave everyone in for a bit until it passed over.

It turned out to not be as bad as we feared, and so I sat on my butt for a while before heading back out at 8:00 to turn everyone out again. Thank GOODNESS It was about 10+ degrees cooler, and there was a breeze. Hustled everybody out and cleaned up for the night and by the time I got back in the house and sat down to eat dinner it was 9:15. Thrilling.

Finishing dinner and then getting into the shower and then into bed.

Oh, and I discovered tonight that it is sometimes easier to use google search to find things in the forums here than it is to use the search feature...

 

[Denim Deb]

It never cooled down here at all. It's still too hot out. I hate weather like this.

 

[hqueen13]

Whew. Crazy things have been happening.

So Friday afternoon the other half left work early because his leg was hurting so much. Once I got home I cleaned like crazy and then we headed down to pick up JS, our body worker. She took one look at his leg and told him that she was REALLY concerned. When SHE says she's concerned, I'm freaking out! We grabbed dinner, and came home, and ended up eating. The more she looked at him, the more worried she was. She said she's had several cases of Mersa and even a spider bite recently, and so finally he decided to go to patient first. So he left, and she and I had a long conversation about health in general, his health, and things that need to change. Just before I got up on the table, the other half called to say that patient first took one look at his leg and sent him to the ER because they don't have diagnostic tools to be able to sort out what was wrong, and they were worried that it was a blood clot, and said it wasn't Mersa. Good news/bad news...
She got me on the table and spent a LONG time working on me. It was really intense, and I laid on the table after she finished and we just talked for a while. Eventually I got up (slowly!) and we relaxed for a while more. It was late when we finally headed to bed, and I was still pretty worried about the other half. I texted him, and then was just off to sleep when he called me. He'd been sitting in the ER waiting for that long, and was pretty irritated, plus his phone battery was about to die. He was annoyed, and I told him that he needed to go back and let someone know since blood clots are really risky and all...

I finally fell asleep and then woke up and had to go to the bathroom. I had just gotten back in bed when I saw the lights come up the driveway. I was so relieved, and he came in and said that they told him it wasn't blood clots, it was cellulitus. We snuggled and fell asleep exhausted.

I was hoping to sleep in, but that didn't really happen either. Got up and JS was already up, so we chatted, and I made us some eggs, and we fumbled through the coffee. She and I talked about what the ER told him, and figured out what to do next. H came and we got started for the day. She finished with H, and then headed outside while I got dressed and ready to face the unbearable heat. I managed to get out to the barn about the time she finished up with the first horse and I talked with P for a few minutes to try to decide which horse to do next, hers or Storm. I noticed that his herd was close by so I headed out to get him. I am SO grateful that I did because I found him standing, heaving like he had just run 100 miles, and BONE dry, not a drop a sweat on him. The only moisture was the excessive clover slobbering that he was doing (as most of the rest of them are). I brought him up into the barn and JS was REALLY worried about him. She grabbed her tens unit and set to work trying to stimulate his lymphatic system to get him to sweat. She had me work on the other side with the curry rubbing against the hair. He finally started to sweat a little bit, and once she got him functioning a little bit, she had me take him outside and run the hose with gentle water over his head, his chest and up under his belly. For a long time I ran the water gently over him, and so slowly his breathing slowed. She turned the water up for me and I hosed his entire body off for a while more. Eventually his breathing settled back down again.

For once, the barn was cooler than the pastures, and we put him into a stall under a fan. She had me give him 10 cc's of molasses water and another 10 of Dynapro, then backed up with more molasses again. We left him for a while, and I checked on him later in the afternoon again. He hadn't pooped yet, which had us a little concerned, and so she suggested giving him more molasses and dynapro, as well as rubbing DiGize essential oil blend on his belly. I asked if molasses straight in his water would be fine, and she said if he would drink it. I knew he liked that from our trip to Florida a few years back, so I came back to grab the bottle and meant to grab the DiGize, and forgot it. When I got back to the barn, happily, he had pooped and peed. I came back up and announced the update, and JS was content enough for the moment.

She kept working and finished up the horses and people and we went down to check on him one more time. It was the middle of feeding time, and he had finished his dinner with gusto, and by that time it was thankfully cooler outside than in. JS noted that he was alert, interested in eating, and willing to move around. He looked better, though she was still not satisfied with his digestion point (you can pull on the flap of skin between their belly and their flank on the left side, and the more elastic it is the better their digestion, who knew?!). We turned him out, and he wasted NO time getting out to the grass in the back. She was more content to have him out there where he could move around a lot more and would be eating and walking the whole night.

The next morning we got up and I headed out about 10 to check on him, and found him again, dry, and breathing heavier than he should have been, though no where near as bad as the previous day. I was concerned enough that I brought him in and repeated the previous day's routine. I sent JS an update since she was working down south after we dropped her off last night, and she was encouraging. He calmed down considerably after I hosed him again, and then I gave him more molasses and DynaPro, put him in the stall with the fan on and gave him some hay, and more molasses in his water bucket. It seemed to be cooler in temp, but higher in humidity than it had been the previous day. I didn't think that it felt as cool in the barn compared to outside, but at least I could keep a closer eye on him, and get him some molasses water.

I checked on him in the middle of the day again, and gave him more cc's and rubbed some more DiGize after a short hose off. I was happy to find that he pooped again when I checked on him later. I wasn't pleased that it was only once a day, but to his credit he was just standing in the stall and not walking or moving around as much as he would have been. I left a note on the board to turn him out after he was fed dinner. We had friends over for dinner, and she wanted to take a walk outside, so we wandered down to see the horses. I called to him, and was happy when he came over to the fence. He looked alright, and I noticed that he and Winston had been sticking together like glue. I'm not sure if Winston is supporting Storm, but it seems like something is going on between the two right now. They're close, but not normally this close.

The week started off a bit exhausting, and today the other half was in pain still, and decided that after 4 days of antibiotics and no relief from the pain of his cellulitus he should probably go back to the doc. I told him to go to OUR doc this time, and he was able to get an appointment a bit after noon. He called me when he was finished to say that it IS a blood clot, the doc knew right away from just looking at it. When he arrived, they were trying to get his info from the ER, and at first the ER tried to say he wasn't there at all. They resent the information, and finally got the reports. The doc looked at it and read over the ultrasound report and saw clearly where the info about the clot was on it. He told the other half that the ER doc had simply stopped reading when she saw some of the information and decided it was cellulitus at that point. So he'd been misdiagnosed and prescribed a regime that wasn't appropriate at all. The doc suggested asparin, and to use a little heat, and encouraged him to continue using the oils that promote circulation (yay sort of open minded doc!). So hopefully we can work on this from the correct angle and get him some relief soon.

I was very satisfied that I managed to get the cream cheese made tonight. It is so satisfying to make things like that from scratch. I don't like to cook, but doing things like that and butter are very satisfying to me. It must be that they are things that most people don't make, and I like it!

At this point I'm going to crash. The half power keeps flicking, but thankfully it is NICE outside, so we have the windows open! We had enough rain this evening to make things wet, but it wasn't enough to get really wet under the trees... We could use a WHOLE day or two or three of nice easy gentle rain!

 

[Denim Deb]

Sounds tiring! Any idea why Storm keeps getting like that?