Monday, March 12, 2007

March 12, 2007

Overcast and cool in Cooks Creek this mornin. Was suppose to be warm today, about 8 C or 46 F but by the feel of it out there I don’t think it is goin to make it. Funny how a couple of days of warm weather changes your outlook on what is warm and cold. Three weeks ago I would of thought this was a warm day. That is when we were in our 40 below deal. A couple of days of nice weather and the term warm takes on a new meanin.

Last Friday was an interestin day for the Sinclair family. My youngest daughter got her tonsils out. The day started at 4:30 am. We got up, had breakfast and got ready to head to Winnipeg. We had to leave at 5:30 to be at the hospital for 6:30. We made it to the hospital in time, got her admitted and she was in the operating room by 7:30. At 9:45 I got a call to come to the recovery room and she had already come around and was awake and alert. She laid in bed until she had something to drink and went to the washroom. Once those two things were accomplished she was discharged. We left the hospital at 11:30 and got home about 1:00 (after stoppin and getting a supply of jello, ice cream and puddin). From the time she was finished the operation until the time she left the hospital was about 3 hours. The nurse said she thought that it was a record. She did real well Friday evenin but really started sufferin on Saturday. She is downstairs layin on the couch and is in a lot of pain. Poor kid. She is one tough young un though. Doesn’t complain or whine. Just hunkers down and takes it. I brought her kitten in and gave it to her. Those things are better than any Tylanol or Asperin. She took that kitten and her face brightened up big time. Ever watch a kitten? They should rent kittens out instead of the trash they call movies now. I don’t know what it is about them but I find myself watchin them and loosin all track of time. They sure are cute and funny to watch. Simple pleasures are sometimes the best.

I said it in my last blog and I will say it again. I have got Spring fever bad. Can’t wait for the warm weather to come and the birds to come back. I have already been watchin the sky to get a glimpse of my first goose. We need a good South wind to blow them in. We should be seein the odd flock in the next week or so. Once I spot my first goose. It is official. Spring is here. To make it official I have to actually see them. News reports of sightings don’t count.

I am feelin down right lazy. Haven’t shoveled any snow for almost a week. Could it be we can put the shovels away? Don’t count on it. We will have some winter weather yet. Maybe even one of those spring storms. Hope it is not like the one in 97. That was the worst one I have ever seen. April 7th. I’ll never forget that one. My wife was pregnant with our son and she was due that weekend. Nothin was moving. Crawlers, plows and loaders were stuck on the highways. We were, I’ll just call it, concerned. We were makin plans on how we were goin to deliver a baby at home. Just the two of us. I was goin to be in charge because I had seen it done once on a Little House on the Prairie TV show. Didn’t look too hard. All a fella had to do is stand down at the appropriate end and yell push. Who couldn’t do that. Turns out he was a week late and everything worked out fine but I’ll tell that was one long weekend. That was the only time I ever missed work because of the weather. I didn’t make it into work until Tuesday at noon. Took 2 weeks to clean up that mess then the flooding started. Yes, 97 is a year I won’t soon forget.

Does anyone out in blog land have a recipe for hominy grits? I have the recipe out of the Foxfire books but it is kind of sketchy. I would think there is more to it than what they describe. They talk about part of the process bein poison and ya have to make sure you wash the corn properly. Kind of has me concerned. Don’t want to poison myself or my family.

Havin some chicken problems at the moment. Have lost about 7 or 8 birds in the last week. Research has me thinkin it is coccidiosis. Quite a common dissease and easily treatable with medication (or so they say). In tryin to diagnose the problem I got off in the wrong direction because about the same time I started havin problems I changed my feed supplier. I went from commercial feed to purchasing feed from a local farmer. The first step in troubleshooting a problem is askin yourself what has changed since I started havin problems. The answer was feed. So I was puttin all my thinkin in that direction. Bad feed and stuff like that. I have ruled that out. I talked to the new supplier and no one else he is selling feed to is havin problems. I trust him (he is good people). So it has got to be something else. The symptoms point to coccidiosis. We will treat for that and monitor.

Well that is all there is from here, Take er easy, Till next time.

2 comments:

Lynn Bartlett said...

Sorry, no recipe for hominy grits! I just remember eating them when I lived down in Indiana, and thought they were great -- especially served with fried eggs.

We have had 2 people suggesting our goats were suffering from coccidiosis; the thought is that our buck contracted it from the farm we loaned him to for breeding. He then could have given it to our doe. Our friends have not told us this information, but a mutual friend told us they thought their herd has become infected with it, as they have also lost 2 goats and are losing chickens. I was told tonight to give lots of garlic and get the goats into the sunshine. Another friend gives their chickens raw milk. I hope we can keep our remaining 3 goats healthy. Our oldest has been working on constructing a temporary floor for the goat shed; it's built into the side of a hill, and now that the snow has been melting (we hit about 60 degrees today!) it's running in a river in the shed.

Glad to hear your daughter is on the mend. We've never had tonsils out here, but our oldest has had 5 sets of ear tubes in his short life and other surgeries as well, and it's never any fun.

Thanks for your comments on homeschooling, we need all the advocates we can get!

Goodolboy said...

Hey Lynn, Thanks sfor droppin by. I have a hunch the weather has a lot to do with the animals problems. Huge weather changes for extreme cold to warm then back to cold. Got to stay positive though and learn from what happens either way. Did you get that storm that hit Brandon? Missed us.