The Reason For The Small Absence and Puppy Pictures

It's been a little hectic around here.  We've been trying to get the garden done.  We have it planted.  Well, most of it.  There are a few little things I want to plant still.  Some, of course, can be planted in the fall garden. But, the way time has been flying, that will be like, well, tomorrow.

Another reason for my absence is because of stupid Dr appointments.  I had gotten to where I could barely walk from my house to my car, let alone do chores around the house.  My knees and back were hurting sooooo bad.  I finally broke down and went to the Dr.  Have I mentioned I HATE going to the Dr.? I still haven't had the Dr check out my foot where I sprained it.  Anyway,  the Dr told me that I have deformed knees. Who knew? I've had them all my life and as I have gotten older, they are starting to give me problems.  He said I'll probably have to have knee replacements on down the line.  He did give me some anti-inflammatory meds that seem to be working very well.  I can straighten my leg now.  I haven't been able to do that for 4 years.  It's amazing how it feels to do something so simple.  I've even been able to walk around a flee market.  Wooo  Hoooo.  The Dr. told me that the knee replacement can be put off for a while depending on the pain that my knees cause me.  I have a long list of procedures to do before I actually have to get to that point.

As for the back pain? Well, the Dr. told me that I have arthritic in my back and I have also fractured it somehow.  Yay...... can ya hear the sarcasm?  I honestly don't know how I done this.  I just know that it has been hurting for a while.  I just figured it was because I was overweight.  

Doc told me that the weight didn't help any, but it wasn't the reason for the knees, but it could have been the reason for the back.  So some how, some way, I'm gonna have to lose this dad-blame weight. The Dr. has me going to physical therapy so maybe that will help some.

   

Because of news like this, I was kind of slapped me in the face with my own mortality. I'm not going to last forever. lol.  I've been kicking things around in my head.  One of the biggest things that has been teasing me has been this farm.  Do I really want to be self sufficient?  Is it really important for me to eat food that we grow ourselves?  Do I want to keep living this lifestyle?  Sometimes it would be so much easier to just stick my head in the sand and live life like everyone else, not listen to the news, not care about GMO's, and not care about if anything is going to happen to our freedoms.  The people who don't care about these thing seem so carefree and relaxed. Maybe that's the way to go. 

But.....

I have this wonderful friend who, when I get this way, I can call and she will tell me all kinds of horror stories about how it's very important that we keep going.  How it will be worth it in the end. In fact, my little talk with her has kind of kicked my butt in gear to let me realize that I really DO want to live this lifestyle.  I just need to modify it now because of my limitations.  We need to narrow down and specialize in things instead of just throwing things out there willy nilly.  

 I'm going to have to really buckle down and start working on my herbs.  I think this will be an important thing when it comes to our health care now and in the future.  I don't want to depend on just popping a pill all the time. The last few months I had slowly gone to believing in the "normal" western way of medicine.  It's easy to fall back to that when almost everyone around you believes this way.  I have to get back to looking into my herbsd I do have my herb plot picked out and things are slowly getting planted.  I know this will take years to be exactly the way I want it.  The hardest part for me was to find a spot to put the herb garden.  I have that now.

Another thing we are changing here on the farm is we are selling the rabbits.  I'm the only one who really likes eating our rabbits and as much money and time as I'm putting in them, they aren't worth it for us.  I still think rabbits are a great homesteading animal.  But, you have to make sure that the animals will work for you.  

I'm keeping the chickens but I'm going to cut down on the size of the flock.  We don't need to get 18 eggs a day.  I was selling the eggs there for a while and doing really good, but most of the people who were buying my eggs, went and got their own backyard chickens.  I'm happy for them to be able to do this.  I believe it's a great experience for them.  I'll just have less chickens and use less feed.

One of the things that we are going to start focusing on is our cattle.  We really like our cattle.  Even though some are wild,(mainly two of the cows) we are slowly winning the others over to where they aren't afraid of us.  We plan on getting our fence in better shape so that we can buy some more.  By putting money into our cattle, it's like putting money in the bank. Not everyone can put cows in their back yard. Plus, if for some odd reason we would have to go and stay somewhere over night, the cattle can take care of themselves. 

We'll also be raising Australian Shepherd farm dogs.  I'm pretty good with training dogs, but if I can't get them trained to herd the cattle, I'm going to look into getting them an actual herding dog trainer. This is important to me.  I want these pups to be an asset to the farm.  Not just something that's going to eat us out of house and home. lol.   I love these little girls, but they have to pull their weight too.

So without anymore waiting, here are some recent pictures of the pups.  

  

Here they are taking life easy.

They love playing with Jack.  Remember, Jack is a 200 lb St. Bernard, so you can see how big the girls are getting.

                                      They will play, and play with him for long periods of time.

                                                                And, he will play back.

                                                He'll even let them think they are winning.

                                                     It's a tough life working on the farm.

So until next time, (which hopefully won't be so long.)

Small Farm Girl, homesteader.