Duck Doctor

Poor Daisy is limping.

We looked closely at her foot

and don't see anything wrong.

But she won't put any weight on it.

So she got to go to the duck hospital.

She is in her very own little house.

She has a bowl of her own food

(usually she has to fight the chickens for some)

and her own little water pool.

She even managed to get up into

the nest box to lay her egg!

I'm actually thinking about leaving her

in there after she is all better.

She seems pretty happy!

(I'll let her out in the afternoon to go

run around in the pasture - she likes to

play in the grass...)

But I wonder if, like the chickens,

if I leave her in there for a couple of days,

will she see it as "home" and go in

by herself at night?

Cuz catching her and putting her away

every night is a pain in the neck.

LOL

Feel better Daisy Mae!

Documents

Don't you love it when things come together?

Yesterday I walked out to the mailbox

and found a big envelope from Mom.

Inside were some cool old documents!

There is my original baby blessing certificate!

That's so cool!

(Also interesting they put Dad's name backwards...)

And there was also this one...

My baptism and confirmation certificate!

(And this time they spelled Mom's name wrong... lol)

But they got the IMPORTANT stuff right.

(ie: ME and the ordinance dates)

But what is also pretty cool is later I was watching TV

and saw a thing on an app you can put on your phone

that lets you take pictures of pictures and it 

gets rid of the glare if it's a framed picture,

or just takes a really good picture.

It's Photoscan by Google.

It was pretty easy to use!

And now I have not only the original documents

but a quality digital copy of them as well!

Thanks Mom!

Food Coma

You know how you sometimes eat too much?

And then you kind of crash.

The "girls" got a new giant hay roll.

They were in heaven!

They ate and ate and ate,

and then planted themselves strategically

for their food coma. 

LOL

************************************************

In other news,

had a great class this weekend.

Started with 14 students last weekend,

a couple got hit with the flu

and didn't come back

(thankfully)

but a couple more joined us late.

Saturday I had 12,

Sunday I started with 10 but one

got sick at lunch and vanished.

But the 9 I had left were SUCH nice people!

There is ALWAYS one student that is

just eye-roll inducing.

But this class I didn't have any of those.

Everyone was fun and friendly and

supportive of each other.

We play a really fun game called Kahoot.

If you haven't heard of it before, 

you should totally check it out!

It's FREE.

It's online.

And its fun.

The students LOVE it!

The best part is they get to log in (on their phones)

with their own created nickname.

They have a great time AND they 

cement the information we just learned in class.

This time I had a big guy on the back row

named Jeff.  SUPER competitive.

He works on cell phones for a living,

so his nickname was IFixIPhones.

He would lead the game for awhile, but 

inevitably somebody else would come in with

a late run and he would come in 2nd or 3rd.

And then he would "pout" and want to know

who dared take him out.

(Since most of them don't use their real names...)

Clara was a SUPER smart pre-med student.

She kept beating him, (she sat directly in front of him)

so she kept changing her name.

Once she was Carl.

Then she switched to Karl.

Jason, on the front row was Skadooch.

But in the final game he was COLLETTE!

Hahahahahahaha.

"We" came in 2nd.

Meanwhile, Jeff borrowed a phone

from another student who wasn't ever

on the "podium" and then his own phone

and also used his iPad.

He was iFixPhones,

iFixPhonesToo

iFixPhones3

He came in 1st, 3rd and 4th.

Hahahahahahaha.

It was all really good natured fun

but they actually learned a lot and it helped

them retain the information!

And boy  it was close.

I thought I was going to pass the entire class!

Unfortunately the final 2 didn't pass.

One missed by 2 questions

and the other one missed by ONE!

I have never been so temped to

"help". (grin)

It was really hard to tell them they didn't

pass and their scores were SO close.

It's such a disappointment for them.

(Ana got 69.4!!!!  Sheesh!)

Oh well.

I'm done for the month.

Today I'm doing the laundry,

sending in my class paperwork

*using my fancy new printer/scanner

cleaning the kitchen and doing the dishes,

sending emails to all my Visiting Teaching ladies

(I did my VT emails on Friday, but today I have

to send a reminder to the sisters in my district

so I can report their visits at month end)

doing my blog post,

writing in my journal,

and then I'm going to crash on the couch

and watch a Hallmark movie.

Whew!

Counting down to Sondra's visit on Thursday!

Can't wait to see her and the girls!

YEA!!!!!!!!!

Supplements

Rod and I take several supplements daily.

It can be annoying to stand there and

dump out the daily required pills from

of each of the individual bottles.

I thought about getting one of those

little pill thingies with the days of

the week printed on them,

but although we don't take a million pills,

most of them are fairly large in size.

(and I DO take 6 alfalfa each morning...)

So this is what I came up with a couple

of years ago.

As anybody with thyroid disease (or any other condition)

knows, it doesn't take long to accumulate a

gazillion of those little pill bottles.

Once a week I line up 14 of them.

And then I fill them each with the daily

supplements we are supposed to take.

Then see the baskets in the background?

We each have our own little basket

with one in the middle for our empties.

I can tell if either of us forgot,

there should be an equal number of 

bottles in each of our baskets every day.

When they are all gone and the middle

basket is full to overflowing,

I do it all again.

Takes just a few minutes,

I make sure we are each getting what

we need to be getting,

and neither one of us has to use ANY

brain power in the mornings.

Just grab, dump and go.

Sweet!

GLAD

We had our ... Meeting formerly known

as Homemaking the other night.

(I don't think it actually has a name anymore...)

Anyhow.

They had a class on journaling.

I bought a journal many years ago.

2008.

And if you read it, 

I have faithfully written in it,

nearly EVERY New Year's Day.

Yup.

That's it.

Until this year.

I decided that I had time and I 

had things to say

and I wanted to write them down.

*Mostly I was using it as a food journal

but other thoughts snuck in as well.

I was pretty faithful.

Until I went to the meeting.

And then I stopped dead cold.

LOL

So today I dug it out of my drawer

again (it sits in the drawer next to where

I sit on our new couch)

and started writing again.

In the class she suggested focusing on gratitude.

And the acronym she used was GLAD.

Gratitude

Learned

Accomplished

Delighted

I doubt I will follow it strictly.

I prefer to just write.

But it is nice to stop and think of

what I'm grateful for each day.

And what I learned recently.

Especially since I'm not going out

much these days, I can't let my brain

atrophy, I need to keep learning.

And I DO.

But sometimes I forget I learned something!

LOL

Accomplished.

At the end of a day at home,

I sometimes look around and think

what on earth did I do all day???

So writing down those things I've accomplished

for the day (not just a chore chart)

helps me to feel like I'm not just spinning

my wheels all day long.

Delighted.

It seems like the same thing as gratitude.

So I have decided to define delighted

as those little tiny sparks during the day

that just make you laugh or smile.

You know, those tiny things that DELIGHT you.

The problem is,

when I write a lengthy journal post,

I say everything I wanted to say.

And then I have a terrible time thinking of

anything to say on my blog.

And I definitely do NOT want to let my blog

fall by the wayside.

Cake and eat it too.

Royal Flush

I was a member of our Town's

Trails and Greenways committee

for a couple of years.

(3? 4?)

It was a fun run!

We accomplished a LOT of stuff.

Some of it as small and simple

as cutting trees after wind storms,

cutting, marking and maintaining trails,

laying old carpet on some of the more

deteriorated and eroded trails...

There were a couple of larger projects.

Like the storm shelter we did last year.

That was a lot of hands on work.

But in the background,

we have been working on putting in a new

ADA restroom at our main trailhead.

It started years before I even joined 

the committee.

They had submitted FIVE different 

grant applications to the state.

Once I joined, we decided to give it

one more good try.

We did an AMAZING grant submission.

It was turned down.

But we now had a friend "on the inside"

who told us the reason we were rejected

was this was money for trailheads and we

were trying to install a restroom in a park!

Somehow, somewhere, in some of the

boilerplate stuff we used, there was 

the word PARK used to describe the property.

But it is absolutely a trailhead.

So with that word changed,

we were ACCEPTED!

The state kicked in $80,000, the Town

kicked in $10,000 and $10,000 town paid labor.

And that was the easy part.

We figured we would get approved,

order the prefab bathroom,

it would be built, brought in on the back

of a big truck, the crane would lift it 

into place, the plumbers would hook up

a bunch of stuff and we could have our

grand opening in about 3 months.

That was 23 months ago.

We had 2 hurricanes.

Flooding.

Septic that had to be moved TWICE.

More problems getting potable water.

Site planning that had to change

multiple times.

(Since it is ADA compliant we had

to provide 2 ADA paved parking spots

in the middle of a grass pasture...)

The whole process was a royal pain.

Nancy may recognize this place.

When she was in town, we rode

our horses over here and met 

Jim and Kyle for a picnic.

At that time there was a nice 

blue porta-potty.

TODAY we had our official grand opening.

I was joking around at a meeting and

said we should call it the Royal Flush.

They loved it.

The structure you see are four horse stalls.

We get lots of people who trailer in and use

this as their "base camp" for a day's riding.

(We have 10 miles of trails!)

But they have also been used as rescue stalls

for people whose barn burned down,

another farm that flooded out,

and even during the hurricanes!

I was amazed at the number of people who attended!

I expected our little 5 person committee,

some local politicians,

and the photographer.

Nope!

My friend Dorothy - the town secretary and a really sweet lady!

There were representatives from the County,

folks from the neighboring Town (we have

partnered on several trail projects)

LOTS of politicians,

LOTS of biking enthusiasts,

the entire town staff,

even our "insider" friend from Tallahassee!!!

(That's a 5 hour drive!)

And there she is!

We are SUPER proud of her.

(And SUPER glad THAT's over... LOL)

Peaches

You may recall, Rod and Kyle

bought us some fruit trees in the spring.

Two loquats and two peaches.

The two loquats promptly died.

But the peaches looked good.

Until the hurricane.

And then one started looking kind of sad.

But the other one seemed ok.

Naturally they lost all their leaves.

But they were going to anyway.

(hello FALL...)

The other day I noticed THIS!

Is that a peach bud????

It's PRETTY!

There were SEVERAL on the tree.

Hey wait!

That's a PEACH! 

Actually TWO peaches.

And a bright green leaf!

However, Jim the Gardener, already

warned us that you can't let them fruit

for the first two years or it will stunt their growth.

So after I photographed them,

I picked them.

Sad face.

The other tree doesn't seem to have much

activity going on.

But I'm not ready to let them dig it up

quite yet.

Maybe it's just a slow starter....?

Come on little guy!!!!

You can do it!

Freezing!!!

It's COLD in Florida.

All they could talk about on the news

this morning was that it was the

same temp in Orlando FL

as it was in Anchorage, AK.

The difference of course, being that

tomorrow it will be 8 in Anchorage

and it will be 48 in Orlando.

So we have that going for us.

But in the meantime,

it's COLD here.

It was only 34 at 9:24.

It was colder earlier, but nice and

warm in my bed, so, yeah.

Notice, 62 in the HOUSE!

But our waterbed is heated.

And that's where I stayed.

Eventually I had to get up and take

care of the animals.

(Kyle got up earlier and let the dogs out...)

I wore my snuggly warm insulated Ariats.

My feet are toasty warm.

Of course I was also wearing my long johns.

And a sweat shirt.

And a scarf.

And a hat.

And gloves.

And my GIANT marshmallow man coat.

But I'm terrible at taking selfies.

See?

Cold in Florida!

It's warming up.

But still NOT warm.

The high for the day might be 52.

If we are lucky.

I'll be spending the morning in the kitchen.

Because the weather isn't the only crisis.

Need to take care of this horrible issue right away!

(And I'll be tossing some creamy chicken

and wild rice soup in the pressure cooker

a little later so we can have a nice

warm dinner tonight.)

CJ napping in the sun,
trying to stay warm.

Tidy

I read one of those 7 Habits of ___________

This one was on tidy people.

I'm not a tidy person.

When I was a stay at home mom, I tried

to keep the house tidy but never clean clean.

When you live in a small house with 4 little boys

and a dog, keeping the living room free of 

toys and the kitchen sink empty was

about the extent of it.

And when I was working...

well I was busy.

But now, I have no excuse really.

So anyway.

This article said tidy people

took the time to tidy as they went.

Well duh.

But it stuck with me.

So I have been making a conscious effort

to make sure there are never dishes

in the sink or on the counter.

The couch blankets are in their basket.

The counters are cleared off.

(HERCULEAN effort required there...)

The bathroom sinks get rinsed after each use...

that sort of thing.

It's amazing!

Our house is TIDY!

I was trying to set up a daily cleaning schedule.

Mondays - laundry.

Tuesday - bathrooms.

That sort of thing.

But it turns out that on those days there's

really nothing to do!

Which makes it really easy to feel successful.

(And yes, there really IS something to do,

but it doesn't take all day!)

I sweep the floors daily.

We all carry dirt in on our shoes / boots.

And having a rug at the door to wipe

your feet on doesn't work.

I've tried it a bunch of times.

It just gets moldy.

(welcome to the land of 100% humidity)

So I sweep the floors daily.

But on floor day I mop.

Ok, damp Swiffer.

Whatever.  

LOL

And on bathroom day I clean the toilets

and do the floors in there.

I feel soooo accomplished!

hahahahahahaha

This is a picture-less post.

Cuz yesterdays was nuts!

Wood Working 101

I know you all follow Rod on Facebook.

And he already posted a bunch of pictures

about our fun weekend activities.

But I took better pictures.

LOL

It's hard to believe those logs were

out in the yard for 2 years!

Seemed WAAAAAY longer.

Hahahahaha

The whole reason we cut them down

in the first place was that one of them

was dead (or nearly there).

We were worried it would fall

and land on the neighbor's house.

But in order to get to the dead one

we (ok, Kyle) needed to cut down

the live one in front of it.

SAD FACE!

They were HUGE roots.

The hole was DEEP.

 He started it with Doug's tractor

and finished it up by hand.

A LOT of digging by hand.

 My phone says this was April 18, 2016.

So... then the logs were out in the yard.

Eventually they dried enough that we

could peel the bark off.

And then they stayed out there some more.

Until this weekend.

It was windy.

And a little chilly.

But mostly Kyle was wearing his hoody

up over his head to keep the wood chips

out of his hair.

And eyes.

And ears.

But it still went in his boots.

They measured.

And trimmed the branch stubs off.

They started with the tree that was dead.

Lots of rings on that stump!

The wood was still wet.

From sitting out in the rain.

More measuring and then they installed

the frame to make the first cut.

The chain saw is in an Alaskan Wood Mill

holder thingie.

That's the technical name for it.

The frame holds the blade at the right

height and keeps everything safe.

It's quite the contraption.

I took lots of pictures of what it looks like

cuz I thought Dad might be interested.

I also took a bunch of video.
I'll have to upload those to YouTube and

put the link in here.

I'll do it tomorrow.

This is already bordering on War and Peace length.

Hahahahahaha

This is what it looked like after the first cut.

I really liked the way it looked.

Lots of worm holes,

lots of texture,

I loved it!

Isn't it pretty?

They cut a beautiful 3" slab for our mantel

and then Kyle cut a bunch of 1" slabs 

so he could build some furniture.

(He wants to build a TV stand for his room.)

They carried it into the shed

so it could sit and dry out.

And then it started to fall apart.

Which was a bummer!

Meanwhile, Kyle brought over the

other log - the one from the tree that

wasn't dead before they cut it down.

He's pretty handy with that thing!

Went through the whole process again.

Measuring, setting up the frame,

etc etc etc.

Now THAT is some beautiful wood!!!

After the first cut they don't need the frame anymore.

The chain saw and it's frame just sit right on the wood.

This log was so much nicer!

And we have 16 more feet of it!

They cut me another 3" slab for a mantel

and a bunch more 1" slabs for Kyle's projects.

And then it was getting dark so they stopped.

Oh,

and the other wood ended up on the burn pile.

Which was sad.

But honestly, it wasn't good for anything.

Pretty though!

I'm excited for the next step!

(and see the rough top behind it?

I think Rod is going to turn it into

a coat rack or something...)

3 MONTH ANNIVERSARY

Today marks 3 months since I retired.

I'M SOOOO BORED!!!!!

(HAHAHAHA and I have some

Arizona beach-front property

to sell you...)

I am so happy.

I feel REALLY good.

Healthy.

I've lost 10 pounds.

Yesterday I wore size SIX jeans

all day long!

To celebrate I made lunch.

(grin)

The guys are both home today.

What with it being Saturday and all.

(The last Saturday I'll be home for a while...)

(I go back to teaching next weekend.)

(It's been a MONTH.)

(Wonder if I remember what to say???)

Remember

Campbell's Bean with Bacon soup?

Only the BEST canned soup in the world.

Well.

Now I know how to MAKE it!!!!

(page 98 in the cookbook I sent Nanc for Christmas)

It was super easy and a dead ringer!

I chose to make it in my pressure cooker.

But the book also gives directions for

using a crockpot.

If you use a pressure cooker, you don't 

need to soak the beans, but I did anyway.

Mostly because I was going to make it

last night, but we ended up going out instead.

So.

I bought a little 1 pound bag of white navy beans.

And a little bag of already cut up butternut squash.

Because I'm lazy and people say butternut

squash is hard to cut without losing a finger.

I like my fingers.

Soaked the beans.

This morning I put a little butter in a 

little fry pan (the same one I just cooked

my fried egg in - it still had butter in it,

so I just added a little more... lol)

Put 4 cloves of minced garlic

(which I buy already minced because 

I'm lazy and people say... ok people

don't really say anything about garlic.)

Used my kitchen shears and chopped up

6 slices of turkey bacon and added

it to the butter and garlic.

Let that go for a bit while I walked

to the other end of the house to the big 

freezer to get a bag of riced cauliflower.

(Which I buy already riced and frozen

because I'm lazy and ricing cauliflower

is a pain in the neck.)

(And Sam's had it on sale.)

(I bought 6 giant bags.)

(Might last a month.)

(I use a LOT of riced cauliflower.)

Anyhow.

By the time I walked back to the kitchen,

it was time to put the beans, cauliflower,

butternut, garlic, bacon and 1 onion I quartered

into the pressure cooker.

The recipe called for 10 cups of HOT water.

I added 8 cups of HOT water and 2 cups

of some of my beef bone broth I made

last week because... why not?

Salt, pepper, onion powder, liquid smoke,

Braggs aminos (but if you don't have it,

it tastes EXACTLY like soy sauce, just healthier)

put the lid on, set it for 25 minutes on HI

and went out into the yard to "help" the guys.

More on THAT later...

It took a long time to come up to pressure.

That's a lot of liquid.

And the beans and squash were right out

of the fridge, so they kind of cancelled

out the HOT water.

Duh.

Anyhow.

It cooked for 25 minutes and then I let

it naturally pressure release (which means

I did nothing for 45 minutes because I'm lazy

and I was busy outside... lol)

When I remembered I had soup in the cooker,

I came back in the house, let the rest of the

pressure release,

hit the soup with my immersion blender,

added a BUNCH more salt, some more

onion powder, and liquid smoke.

(tasting as I went...)

And then I called the guys in for lunch.

THEY LOVED IT!

I did too.

It made a BIG pot full.

We each had a bowl full

(Kyle added sour cream to his because

he is SKINNY and sour cream makes

"everything better".)

(Since there was already bacon in it.)

(And bacon also makes everything better.)

I still have 3 quarts left.

Is it lunch time tomorrow yet?????

Happy Anniversary to ME!

(You should probably check the recipe though,

I might have forgotten something... I'm doing

this from memory while sitting in my

lovely recliner, feeling guilty because I'm not

a) outside helping

b) driving to the feed store to get hay.

But I DID do the dishes and clean up the kitchen.

So there's that.)

Blessed / Spoiled

It's a constant debate.

Am I blessed?

Or just spoiled?

I'm going with both.

1 part blessed.

2 parts spoiled.

Or is it

1 part spoiled

2 parts blessed.

Sigh.

There's a thing floating around Facebook

that asks:

"What did you thank God for this morning?"

Which I think is an excellent question.

A question to which the answer is

EVERYTHING.

I have so many things to be thankful for,

I pretty much just have a running

list going all day long.

Besides the obvious,

Sunday School answers,

#1 of which is FAMILY.

I can never say thank you enough 

for my loving family.

I'm currently sitting in my beautiful

new, chocolate buttery soft leather

power recliner

*thanks for awesome new furniture!

typing a blog post on my wonderful

new (thank you family!) laptop.

(Now if I could just figure out what I'm

doing that makes my curser jump to

random places at random times 

and I don't notice until I don't see anything

typing even though my fingers are flying...

Rozann????)

Listening to beautiful music

playing on my phone

and piping through

a nifty speaker system Mom & Dad

sent me for Christmas a bunch of years ago.

I still love it and use it daily!

*Thanks!!!

I just got home from the grocery store.

It's a wonderful day here in Florida.

*thanks for the weather AND thanks

for the opportunity to live in Florida!

So when I got in my new little car

*thanks for the car! and the lower payment!

I decided to turn off the A/C

*thanks for A/C!!!!!

and turn a little knob and open the sunroof.

*Thanks!!!!

And if you open the passenger-side window

a couple of inches, you get a lovely breeze

without your hair blowing into your mouth!

NIFTY!

*And thanks!

I opened my fancy new this year, french door fridge

*SO cool, thanks!

and pulled out some frozen chicken

to make for Rod's dinner before he has

to drive south to a meeting.

*thanks for THREE well stocked freezers!

I'm looking out the back doors

at a bunch of beautiful black and white chickens

(black chickens, white chickens and 

black and white striped chickens)

walking around on beautiful green grass.

Now THAT is a pretty picture!

*thanks for the chickens and the fact

that they are healthy! I haven't had to deal

with ANY of the weird chicken things I

hear other people talking about...

And watching a steady stream of cars

driving up and down the neighbors driveway

(it's Thursday - sale day)

to purchase fresh, organic food

including my eggs.

*Thanks for a steady market for my eggs!

Which pay for the feed for my horses,

thanks for HORSES!

and for my cows,

which explain the THREE well stocked freezers.

See what I mean?

I'm blessed beyond measure.

And stinkin' spoiled at the same time.

And I'm SO THANKFUL!

Tuesday

Yesterday was Monday.

Duh.

We had the missionaries over for dinner.

I made a batch of Cowboy Grub

in my pressure cooker using

some of the ground rabbit we have left.

It was pretty yummy!

We have a new Elder serving our ward.

He is from SLC, but his family is

originally from Hawaii.

He and Kyle enjoyed chatting about

the construction projects they had

worked on that intersected (in theory).

They have both laid pipe in some

challenging locations.

It's always fun having the young men

over to visit for the evening.

Today I'm continuing the knitting,

and its bathroom cleaning day.

(SUCH excitement!)

And I'm going to try to make some

jerky with more of the rabbit.

There's a fun recipe (the very last one

in the book I sent Soni & Nanc for Christmas).

It's called quirky jerky because it uses

ingredients you don't normally find in jerky.

I'm making a half recipe.

LOL

I've been using that book for a couple

of months now and have loved almost

everything I have tried!

Rod and I both really liked the 

Whoop Whoop Soup.

It's basically turkey sausage and spinach

in a yummy broth - I loved it, Rod really

likes it, Kyle had leftovers.

LOL
We also really like the deconstructed
stuffed green peppers.
I use cauliflower rice (I buy it in the
freezer section at Walmart) instead
of the THM rice.
Everybody loves it!
All of the flavor.
None of the work!

Just had to run next door to let the
"plant guy" in.  With the terrible weather
(adjusted for Florida definitions of terrible)
Brock needed to replace some of the
plants in his big garden.
(He buys the produce he sells, there are
several really nice small organic farmers
here in the area and he is really good
about supporting the local guys...
but people like to SEE stuff growing.
So this is more of a "show" garden.)
(weird, I know)

Anyhow.
Brock had to run to Ocala to pick up
a load of beef he just had butchered.
It has been very handy for him to
have a retired neighbor.
(grin)
And it's fine with me. I was going over
there today to pick up more empty
egg cartons anyway.
And he is always happy to have me
grab something from the fruit/veggie
fridge whenever I'm over there.
I actually didn't need anything today though.
But he has some nice zucchinis.
I might pick one up later.

Anyhow.
Again.
I'm rambling.
That's what I do.
Sometimes.

The bathroom is cleaned.
The healing trimmy (hot chocolate) mix is made.
(I got 5# of collagen in the mail today,
was waiting for that to make more mix...)
The kitchen is cleaned up.

Time to KNIT!