Behind as usual

Well once again I am behind in my blogging...I apologize for that...

We have tons of things going on. My stepdaughter came down for Christmas. My husband and I drove up to Iowa to get her due to the outrageous price of place tickets and all the extra fees that they tack on. I have seen more places and taken more road trip since I met Harley, than I ever have in my entire life. I enjoy all the trips we take.

I have still not had a cigarette since NOVEMBER! My husband also quit smoking. He had a few here and there for the first month. But he has totally quit smoking now. I am so proud of him. We just celebrated our 3rd anniversary February 23. He has also been drug FREE for 3 years!! That is an awesome accomplishment! Getting him away from that crap was a horribly tedious battle but I never gave up on him. He is so much happier now. If he had not gotten away from it when he did, he would either be dead or in prison today.

Harley will call me up when he is at work with some crazy request for me. He called me up at the beginning of February, for me to come to the rig to rescue 2 little puppies that were found at an abandoned house near the rig. They were starved almost to death, the little girl being literally skin and bones. The rest of the litter perished before they were rescued. I am always leary about taking in stray dogs because of the massacre we had with "Oscar" the stray killing 8 lambs, 3 goats, and 1 turkey at the beginning of 2009. But I drove all the way over there that night to get these little puppies. They were so weak.

Van the company man at the rig has a big heart and just fell for the puppies but he couldnt take them home & he had another week left before he could go home anyways. He paid for the puppies to be taken to the vet and checked, wormed and vaccinated. The first vet visit, both puppies had a fever and the crud from being out in the elements. A round of antibiotics cleared that up. We named the little boy "van" and the girl "missy". We are guessing them to be a lab mix. You wouldnt know they were the same puppies. Today they are growing like weeds and so loving and playful. They have come a long way. They have been vetted and started on heartgard and are ready for new homes. Unfortunately, I can not keep them.

We had twin baby pygmy goats born on February 7th. They are so cute. 1 little girl and 1 little boy. They are named Smokey & Bandit. We also have about 8 more goats that are due anyday now! I am so excited.

Then we got hit with a nasty snowstorm. We lost power for hours and it killed our internet for 2 weeks. Although the aftermath of it was pretty first thing in the morning, it soon turned nasty. With all the rain that we have had, all that snow did was make matters worse by keeping our flooded pastures soggy and gross. Its so bad when we were working on pens ten weekend and setting posts, you could barely dig 2 ft and strike water. The dogs loved the snow, as did the kids. Us on the otherhand, we can do without it!

Now, onto important business...mom has been sick for over a year now. Not knowing what it was. Now being the typical mother she is always on me about going to the doctor. However, I have told her several times to go to the doctor and she wouldnt because she is stubborn. She went in for soem testing and they did blood and found her blood count to be extremely LOW! They had her come back and it was even lower the next time. So they scheduled a endoscopy and a colonoscopy to find out where she was losing so much blood at.

The doctor pulled me aside to tell me that they found a "mass". He then tells me that it is more than likely cancer but that they did a biopsy to make sure. The mass is 3/4 blocking her colon and most definitely what has been causing her to be sick and to be losing so much blood.

She has hardly left the house in the last 2 weeks. Although her symptoms have been noticeable for over a year. This has me stressed out. This is exactly why I wanted her to live next door to me so I could take care of her if something happened to her.

The doctor called yesterday to tell her that they saw something on her xray in her throat so today they had her do a cat scan for that. We wont know for a few days what that is about. They will be doing surgery on March 9th to remove the mass, then she will talk to the oncologist and we will go from there. I dont know much else.

Then a little over a week ago we had 2 baby lambs. They are just so adorable. Growing like weeds. I would love to keep all the babies, but its not possible. Especially now with mom sick. I am selling as much as I can in order to help anyway I can with her medical and anything to help take care of her, like her bills etc.

We also brought home 2 new boer goats. Billy and Lilly. They are over a year old. Very sweet. The people we got them from had to find a new home for them because they lived in the city and the dogs were attacking Lilly. Billy and Lilly were a little nervous at first with all the new animals. When we got home they were greeted by the welcoming committee (calves, pigs, chickens, turkeys, goats, sheep, and more) They didnt know what to think but quickly blended in.

That is business in a nutshell. It has been way more complicated than that, but that is the condensed version as my carpal tunnel has been flaring up nearly ALL day today.