Ridgetop - our place and how we muddle along

[Baymule]

Be careful of statin drugs. They have some nasty side effects. BJ was on one and he was literally losing his mind. He had about a 30 minute memory. We had to wean him off slowly and gradually his memory returned. It was not a good experience. Question your doctor and see if perhaps another drug can be used.

Getting a doctor appointment is almost like trying to set a slaughter date. You gotta book it waaaaay it in advance!

 

[Mike CHS]

If you look at the list of side affects for statins, I had just about every one of them.

 

[Ridgetop]

Ugh! I will question the doctors carefully about other ways to reduce my cholesterol, if that is the problem. Too bad they can't just squeeze the cholesterol out of the veins like with a laundry mangle! I would be like "Flat Stanley" in the children's books! LOL Maybe it would work to squeeze out some fat too! Anyway, just have to wait and see what they say. As long as it wont hold up the knee surgery. On the other hand the scheduling nurse at ortho surgery said that they were booked out until October for knee surgeries!!! That is not good since it gives me to much time to reconsider! LOL

DS2 is home today. He told DH and me that he quit his job. We didn't believe that since if you quit the apprentice program they will not take you back and he was just about ready to graduate. Turned out he had taken his test yesterday and got his Journeyman's ticket so had to drag up anyway.

He will take the rest of the month off he says. We have several items of fencing he can help with. DH wants to try T-posts on some fencing lengths to make several new pastures for the sheep. That way we can save some forage for them to eat. The hills are green from the little rain we have gotten and our sheep are enjoying the green stuff in the pasture. With a little more rain California would be a paradise! - except for the politicians.


Lamb prices were excellent and I hope they hold until the end of this month when I send the other 5 ram lambs. With prices like that I will not grow out any ram lambs as breeders. Prices will probably drop after Easter. I need to check all the religious holiday dates for other ethnicities to plan when to send my year round lambs to auction. By sending them a couple weeks before those holidays I might be able to get better off- season prices.

Got my 6th load of laundry into the washer this morning. Have a dental appointment this afternoon. DS1's good friend Leen is coming for a visit tomorrow from Reno. He is the one referred me to the Lab breeder and then went and picked out DD1's Lab pup. He is also the friend that gave us the ducks for DDIL1 up in Reno. I will be doing a corned beef dinner (St. Paddy's Day) and sending him home with a couple pumpkin pies. They have been waiting for him in the freezer since Christmas. He had to keep cancelling his trip.

Taxes tomorrow! I gave all the figures for the properties, sales, purchases, expenses, etc. to DH and he filled in the prep pack with all the figures. DH has everything ready so I just have to bring my receipt box in case I have to look a ng a correction. After the tax appointment DH has an appointment for his hearing test and aids. DH wanted to cancel and reschedule but I pointed out that the tax appointment was at 10:30 and the hearing appointment was at 2:45 so plenty of time to make both. The thought of having to make another appointment gave me cold chills!

Annabel's FIRST birthday is this Saturday! We will be having a small party with family. Next week is Robert's FIRST birthday. His party with JUST FAMILY will be about 30 people! Both parents have a lot of siblings!!! LOL Both parties will be here at our house since Robert lives here and DD2 has a small apartment with no parking.

DS1 said that 7041 has a piece of hay rope twisted around her hoof. She is limping. We will catch her tonight and double check her leg. She is going to the sale yard, but her price will be less if she is limping. She was fine a day ago so hopefully that is what is wrong. I don't like to take lame animals to the auction. Her broken down udder is enough of a drawback to a good sale price.

 

[Baymule]

You will have to pass a stress test before your knee surgery. No clogged arteries on the operating table!

 

[farmerjan]

Not sure what a stress test is.... guess I passed one??? All my blood work was good, BP was okay.... no problems with cholesterol or anything... they did a thing with all the little wire things stuck on me... but nothing that I call a stress test... like on a treadmill or anything... guess I did okay since they did replace the knees.
My biggest thing was that I passed the height/weight BMI... not obese by the "chart" even though I am overweight. That is my biggest aggravation. Working on that a bit... watching what I am eating a bit more and hoping now with the nicer weather will get more exercise in general and as they (knees) allow, more specific exercising...

 

[Ridgetop]

Haven't heard from the doctor about my bloodwork results yet. Maybe the exclamation points mean something else.

DS1's college friend arrived yesterday evening and we had a nice dinner. He is divorcing his wife (no kids). Apparently, they have had an on again-off again marriage for the past 5 years. He is the friend that chose Sirius for DD1's family. He brought his red Lab and you could see the family resemblance between Monty and Sirius. He liked Sirius so much that he has a puppy ordered from Sirius' sire and Monty's sister. Leen does a lot of duck and bird hunting in addition to deer. Told him he could come and shoot all the hogs he wants on our property. LOL He is planning to buy abut 1,000 acres in Montana or Dakota in another 2 years. No buildings on it, just for hunting, and he wants some river frontage. Nice guy, it was enjoyable seeing him again.

Went to the dentist Tuesday. YUCK! Lots of Novocain and a tranquilizer in the morning. Teeth began aching when I got home so took aspirin then Codeine. That put me out for the rest of the day and night. Talked i y sleep all night about putting in the fence in Texas according to DH. Not surprising since Codeine does not knock me out, instead puts me into a talkative half sleep. According to DH I couldn't decide whether we would need 10' T posts or 12' T posts ??? and also H braces. No wonder I woke up in the am and was still tired. Then off to the Tax Preparer, and then home since DH had several hours before his hearing appointment. Turned out the hearing aids that the Westwood VA said were broken were not broken at all, instead the charger was broken. All this time and he could have been hearing fine! Anyway they ordered him new aids and chargers.

The ewes are sorted out and 7 are in the breeding pen waiting for Moyboy to go in tonight. The pregnant ewes are out on the field with the young stock. We will be taking another group to the auction on March 30. DH set himself another hearing appointment on April 6 in spite of me yelling that that day was taken with the auction! Hope he gets his new hearing aids soon! March 30 should still be ok for good prices.

Next lambing group of 11 will lamb between March 26 and June 7. 3 are repeat lambers and the others are all first fresheners. The 7 being bred are experienced ewes. The next groups to be bred will include more first fresheners again. We are almost at the point to need 2 breeding pens since we need to breed these first fresheners to different rams. I think that all lambs born between October and December I might all go to the auction to increase sales money. Ewe lambs born between April and October can be kept for breeders before going to Texas. Then before relocating to Texas, I will go through my flock and cull heavily. No point paying to transport lesser quality breeding stock. I plan to pay the fee and sign up for the flock exam by the Dorper association. The examiners will grade your flock 1 through 5 based on many points. The highest grade is 5. Anything less than 3 for a ewe and 4 for a ram is not recommended as breeding stock so won't be going to Texas.

I have to look up Baymule's fencing thread and print some of it off for DH and DS1. I am pretty sure that we need to put the T-posts into the ground at least 2', then every so many feet one in at least 3-4', then an H brace every so many feet. Need to look up how many feet, etc. DH has decided that we will put in the Texas perimeter fence ourselves to save money. I like the idea of saving money. We can add some wire at the bottom to discourage any digging in or out. The Anatolians don't seem too interested in leaving their premises so unless they decide to chase some very determined predator they will not leave the yard if it is fenced at least 6' high. We could also put in the posts to be 7' high and run a hot wire along the top. I am not sure what size T-posts we will need - at least 8' for a 6' fence. Or 10' and put them in deeper. Got to check it out.

It was supposed to rain yesterday but instead it warmed up and has been nice and sunny. We were hoping for more rain but it looks like our rain is over for the year.

 

[Ridgetop]

You will have to pass a stress test before your knee surgery. No clogged arteries on the operating table!

My life is just one big stress test! Why do I need another?!

 

[Baymule]

My life is just one big stress test! Why do I need another?!

Then you should ace the stress test! You already have lots of practice.

 

[Ridgetop]

 

[Ridgetop]

Up early this morning waiting for the coffee to brew. Everyone was up late last night except me. DH, DS1 and DSIL2 went to help a friend of DSIL's move. She is an older lady whose son died. She had put her house in her daughter's name and the daughter sold the house and moved her mom into an apartment. Then she and her husband split so she moved in with her mm. Then they got back together so the husband moved in and they kicked the mom out to another apartment! So soap opera. Another reason why you should keep everything in your own name! Anyway they went to help DSIL2 - h dosnt have a truck anymore, his died.

Yesterday DH and DS2 also took DSIL2 down to the semi-truck driving school to sign him up for commercial license training. When DS1 took the training it was about $1800, when DS2 took the training it cost $3000, and it is up to $4,000 now. They both paid half of the cost to get him the commercial license training. While there is talk of them paying back the money, it won't matter. Besides he needs to be able to support DD2 and the grandchildren. Since he has no family (as such) to look after him I suppose we now have to step into that position. Family, we look after our own.

Not much happening yet today. We don't have Annabel or Sirius (the Lab) for babysitting today so maybe we can get some fence building done. We need a post driver. We watched a couple U-Tube videos on fence building yesterday. One guy was putting in high tensile fencing on metal posts. He had a big crew of several fence companies there for the Fence Building Day video and was putting in about 1800 feet of fence. They were using a motorized winch to tighten the span of fencing. I wonder if we could rent one. If not DH has always wanted one for the front of Twinkles. Sigh . . . . More toys. Several good lessons about how to splice wire fencing. Also saw a couple of new T-Post clip designs and tools to use on them that looked good. Might get those. First we need to try driving in some T-Posts to finish off the pens we are trying to build on this steep hillside. We don't have a lot of work to do to finish them so if no one decides to work on them I will drive to Lowes, buy the fence post driver, and shame them into doing it by trying to do it myself in full view of them! I am not sure it will work, but I might be able to get the posts in myself which will work just as well. I used to do everything myself until I got several injuries and was laid up. It is hard to get back into doing stuff after that. Then I spent about 6-7 years renovating all the apartments, then moved on to MJ's house, then back to our house and remodeling the garage into a 5th bedroom and laundry room. Got to get off my behind and back to work on pens, shelters, and feeders. Can probably build several wooden feeders much cheaper than it will cost to order the metal ones and go get them in northern California. Eventually I can order more Shaul's equipment when I can deduct it as farm expense.

Speaking of farm taxes, I will make an appointment with a farm tax specialist in Sulphur Springs or Yantis this summer to discuss the issue. I need to know hw to set up my books. Our tax person has no idea and said that she doesn't think we can show the current equipment as farm gear since we did not buy it new after filing the tax return???!!! However, she did admit that she had no idea about farm taxes. I am also going to do some homework online to check out any grants or money that is available for "Women in a Man's Field" type of businesses. I think there are some grants out there and I will apply for some. If I need some sort of degree in animal husbandry, I will check to see if I can study and take a test in lieu of a degree considering the number of years I have been raising livestock. Experience and actually having the working farm premises should count for something.