nov 30

I was all set up this morning for an intellectual daily doggy On the topic of method versus mission and how very often I have seen the mission take a sideline to the method --- Like a clean floor becomes more important then feeding the dogs..

 

when the topic of food to a dog is extremely important because when you look at it from their standpoint they don't have access to food like who saw a dog with a can opener and they see you as the genius that provides them with their basic necessity ----I had a great long thought on that topic before I got sidetracked With telephone calls and vehicles and newspapers and everything else that I had to do before I got this even started so my morning word of wisdom is carefully consider whether your methods are actually supporting your missions or if they have become a mission unto themselves..

 

Now home nurse is due so I must run... 

 nov 29

I cannot tell a lie.  I was doing the henny penny board for the December 1st drawing ever since Janine told me it was December 1st several other people told me it should have been the last day of the month however this month it's going to be December 1st and we will have a jolly bunch in here hopefully at 3:00 to put the numbers on the squares are all made papers done so umm I'm all set to go but that's why the daily doggy is late I am thrilled with the numbers that are coming in on this handy penny board deal and the hay deal... now if we could just get the hay truck in from Canada we'd be doing really well..

 

Found a great pellet stove well they're really interesting guy retired fireman and his buddy's a retired fireman refurbish these things in Methuen and offer them for sale on Facebook well we we're getting one and we are booked to have it installed on the 21st of December... talk about a being in demand and that's real oh Janine has left.

apparently with four or five horses on board one of the big very small and she has jiminy with her and a big jug of Germany food.... and the car truck and trailer are loaded to the hilt.. What is today Wednesday the tricky part of her trip will be if she just happens to come back through Pennsylvania on a day that they have a oh an auction because at that point she should have an empty trailer and that's always trouble ..   so forgive the late daily doggy

 nov 28

just sit there and heal thyself.... has been said to me several times...  well.... sitting there gives me time to think and that's trouble ---last night's thinking has to do with The various bits and pieces of hardware that I absorbed into normal household living when Tom gave up his medical practice... he basically had three examining rooms all pretty equally equipped   minor surgery pap smears shots so when he closed his practice I gathered up all that stuff and the stainless steel collection alone filled a fair size cardboard box which came home with me..   and then I picked out things that would work very nicely in my toolbox or holding my silverware on the kitchen counter..  there was still a considerable amount left in that box. One other effect of his retiring was that I no longer had to order supplies for his office... but I figured there was no way I was going to give up that privilege so for years after he retired I maintained several accounts at medical supply places... and I know it's possible to order syringes here and there for agricultural purposes without any problem I had absolutely no trouble sending all these things to doctor Thomas White.

The result of those things along with a massive influx of animals and veterinary expenses I eventually had a pretty complete medical supply closet.

from cartons of two by two gauze squares---to  syringes 3cc,10cc,20cc and even 60cc—to  IV setups with nearly expired  drips...to the ubiquitous vet wrap...along with microscopes---- his... mine... and 3 child types...

 

each of these has a verification of  time..... like ... my microscope—which  was attached to my computer which sat in the living room.. when a volunteer came running up from the laundry building screaming “I GOT SOME” as she waved a small sandwich bag over her head... and we all gathered in the living room to verify the fact that we had found a male dog with live sperm..  of course as life went on we realized that sperm was pretty easy to come by live and otherwise... but we were interested in artificial insemination and first had to determine the viability of the sperm which we did with my microscope.

 

Likewise having 60CC syringes was very strange because there are very few uses in the medical world for something that large however I use them and basting turkeys at Thanksgiving or whatever there are lot of uses...  and I know I had them because when Janine bought the five white goats and sent me the e-mail that we were going to practice milking them, I went immediately to my medical supply closet and grabbed a couple 60CC syringes.  which I put together with a food vacuum Packer.... to put together a goat milking machine...  obviously that was before we found out that that thing hanging between the goats back legs was not an udder. And in fact these were boy goats not prone to giving milk..   but it does prove that at the point that Janine bought those goats I still had a supply OF60CC syringes and a lot of other things in my medical supply area

 

Best I remember the medical  collection was on 2 stainless steel Uline storage racks in the corner of the cellar...  and there was a significant first aid Collection of initial supplies in the corner of the kitchen carefully labeled dog bite...  we never knew whether that was the dog biting or getting bitten however there was an initial packet oh stuff...  but the main supply of the medical was in many cartoons in the corner of the cellar.

 

My point of all this is that this is just one more thing that's been stripped out of here..  There really was quite a collection of stuff..   and I think the only thing left.  is his old exam table which is in building 25. And a few bits in my toolbox...  oh and some on the kitchen counter but the bulk of it is gone.

 

Gone  where?

 

Well staying on the topic of stainless steel.   back in 2014 15,16  when I was managing service dog project we had in one of those years 50 puppies.

which meant that on the property were probably 60 to 70 dogs...  now add to that the fact that there's one kind of dog food dish that you really can't or shouldn't put on the ground to feed a dog and that's the normal shaped one narrower at the bottom because if you step on that in your excitement of expecting to get fed dog food it can flip up and literally break a dog's leg...  so I had a collection of wider at the bottom dog dishes particularly for puppies and puppies watering dishes and things like that...  there were two shelves  approximately 3 foot by three foot. in the back feeding room which held this  huge collection of stainless steel feeding bowls.   and here we are. 2023. and at the moment I have four bowls..... with many dozens a bowls just plain gone.  And to make matters worse..... I got fanatical about stainless steel watering pails... and try to make sure that every dog on the property had a stainless steel water pail.  That's when we had 50 to 60 dogs on the property many of these watering pales we're technically approved for for food preparation because it didn't have the overlapping lip.. which made them very expensive.   now we barely have enough watering pails to go around.

 

so in healing myself..   I've been sitting around playing the numbers game...  and believe me that's only the start...  of missing equipment..   of things that I happily would have loaned to anyone to use..   but what's happening is stuff.  is just gone.... And nobody seems to know where.

 

Because of my open door policy with no locks on equipment department..  I expect to lose a certain number of electric drills every year I mean that's just a fact of life and that's expected but to be minus and entire medical  supply collection..  with some of it fairly valuable just needs a little more attention -----somebody.... please???

 nov 27

Today I must prepare. for the upcoming shatupon  episode on December 1^st...  apparently Janine says we will have the chicken perform at 5:00 mail call on December 1st which means that the jolly bunch of number scribers should be here around 3:00 to get all organized I will probably be able to have that whole process be online so you can depreciate what we go through.. it looks terribly difficult except the whole thing is right now geared to having  squares 1 1/2 inches by 2 1/2 inches...   it's because of my vast knowledge of half vast information the lumber world now produces a cheaper version of a 2 by 4 which is in actual fact A 2 by three for people wanting to do sleazy building...  but it makes the two by three readily available. which is exactly what I need to draw all the lines— a 2 x 3 measuring 1.5 x 2.5 as has been discussssed before.

 

Incidental intelligence is so critical- you never know when or how it might make a  lifetime difference – like sp;icing a rope???\

 

I am told that the kennels on the other side of the alleyway have not been torn down and those raised sleeping lofts are still available which are many degrees warmer than the floor and immediately available ..  now thanks to bud He tried to keep the warm air circulating better by putting in three fans to blow the air around where there are no sleeping lofts which will help a small bit but as I said before you can't move heat down with any degree of efficiency.. heat rises..  and you may as well take advantage of the natural tendency when you can do that----- I cannot understand Sharon who sent me an e-mail about thinking through a process...  Sharon let's try it again..  how do you explain what is happening??

 

I do get a lot of work done before 4am--- but then it is napp time—and I must get this in the mail before I am too sleepy to push the correct buttons...

Today is a judy day. so the dogs will be up  loooking  out the window for her car.

And heather... if you are reading this... we should talk.....

nWhoops... I did the news article on Saturday and got sidetracked and forgot the daily doggie---- how could I forget.... it's easy

I was sidetracked by the topic of heat ----some of you may find it interesting what I have gone through over the last 20 years on the topic of trying to keep all the animals under my control as comfortable as I could make them... my perfect example is somewhere. in an old computer there is a photograph of my  Dignified husband. standing in his shorts shaving with 100 baby chickens running around his feet... because our bathroom was the only place I could crank up the heat enough for the required baby chickens...  

Historically there has never been a question in anybody's mind around here---- if it is possible to improve an animal situation I will do it.. at great cost or great inconvenience..   there was a time. About 2015 when I was managing service dog project and we had fifty puppies in one year...   this was probably the year that I ended up with four letters in the house which remained absolutely spotless. and odorless all it took was more people but we managed.

Having the four litters on the House undid the concept of gracious living-- cocktail hours and things like that... we managed the puppies... and we had a good time doing it plus the fact I got a night sleep usually because if there was a disaster I could get up and deal with it and go back to bed without having to go to the barn or somewhere else..

Heat and keeping the puppies warm was one of my major concerns---so even when I did move them down to the kennel 9 and 10 I went through great gyrations to make sure they were comfortable.... namely...

 

During the time when brownie was still around----brownie was a great tall Merle lovely dog---I used him for a model and trying to build what I consider an ideal kennel with an upstairs sleeping loft... it was during the Betty Quadros episode----she was  the first one to sleep on the floor with me tp  baby sit puppies and was around for several years very active volunteer.. we used brownie to determine the height of these sleeping lofts and the size and shape of the doors necessary for the dogs to get out again... and we built the whole thing out of cardboard to get the design right and we have pictures of that somewhere....  these sleeping lofts not only took advantage of the fact that three or four feet off the floor was considerably warmer then the floor itself I believe my numbers were approximately 20° ----heat rises ---- and it is significantly difficult to push heat downwards..  I did have in the back of all these sleeping lofts a six inch pipe to blow the heat all the way down to kennels 9 and 10... and as it passed through the other kettles I drilled  a hole or several holes to tap some of the heat blowing through that pipe so that all the way along the way the dog could lay up against the pipe and have some warm air blowing on them... it worked

in addition to that I wanted to be able the sit at the house and see if the heat was working at all ---so I found a funny little gizmo I believe made by Honeywell.  into which you could plug a light. and cause the thing to turn a light on if the temperature got below a certain degree my choice was 55° so in many places--- the feed room --9 and 10--the deagle house-- the nut house-- laundry building all had a light bulb basically plugged into these units set  to go on if the temperature fell. to 55 degrees.. just to be sure that there was like electricity to begin with I had to put a second light bulb in all these windows to be sure that the electricity was on  at all ---it worked very well..  however in the course of remodeling the kennels and the last six months or whatever they seem to have torn out all of those warning signs....  which mind you were not just for the heat of the puppies or dogs but also the water pipes that go right through the same area//. My sleepy lofts were also arranged so that each dog also had a window to lookout..   But the frozen water dishes remain the number one indicator of the temperature of that floor as winter progresses.. 

because I know full well that the dogs water dishes on the floor we'll have a coating of ice on them most of the winter yet the sleeping lofts will remain above 55°...  that was until they got torn down

 

so I'm terribly concerned about the health and welfare of puppies who are basically caged at 5:00 in the afternoon and forced to live in kennels where I am sure the water will freeze,,, I have seen it.     these puppies are forced to stay on that flooring--- or one very inadequate coranda bed 6 inches off the floor until 7:00 the next morning that's 14 hours,,, 

 

 Since I am no longer allowed to go in the barn to check on anything. I don't know but I'm hoping that the six kennles on the other side of the barn still have their  lofts ----if that is the case these dogs should immediately be changed to the other side and get off this   cement floor.

 

I cannot think of a worse situation for any of my dogs then they are  forced to live 14 hours a day in the dark no window no heat...  someone needs to look into this in great depth...   and it cannot be me but do not be blinded by someone who says oh it's OK.   it is not OK

 nov 24

Elizabeth is one heck of a cook although she says she gave it up years ago she did very well um cooking a whole meal for us over here was wonderful super food and if you strange things that hadn't had before compliments of Scotland. Janine and Olaf joined us.. and Olaf had to admit it was the first time he had eaten Thanksgiving dinner in a dog bed that's just the way it worked out and his dog Carl  oh

was thrilled to have the company/ 

I did get up at midnight and finish off my plate

 

Next to my chair now sits a and extensive list of 10 stand up sit downs or right foot left foot or things like that which the physical therapist said she would come back and check on me.. unfortunately there's no way you can cheat on that stuff because if you don't start in and doing it to himself it's going to be very painful when she decides you ought to do 20 with her standing here she'll know that you haven't been doing the 10 so that is on my schedule mind you haven't done it yet but I'll work it I'm thinking about it

 

I did type in the rest of our visits from January through July so now I'm total January to November and... Our individual count of people seeing by Judy and I is 3461 that's a lot of people smiling What I should do with the numbers yet,,

 

Have a happy Friday shopping

 NOV 23

Food day- I have done pretty well on the food department topic for my whole life----- my mother was a hell of a cook and my father was in the business of providing farm equipment and repair so therefore during the war when I was in the five year old range he was exempt from serving or being drafted because he was part of the food chain.  to this day i totally understand  the importance of farming... which  that criticalness....currently  needs to be  reinforced....

 

I can remember father would often arrive home with a bushel basket of something,  or most often a 50 LB bag of things like onions because we lived in the onion growing district.. AKA black dirt country ---in the Goshen NY area..  so when a bushel basket of peas would arrive even at the age of 5 I would be required to sit on the front porch and Shuck peas.... being careful to get the peas in the pot and the and the shockings on the on the floor..  Then mother would do something like boil them for a very short time--- minute or two ---strain them and then put them in little white bags which had a metal clamp at the top for closing..  we then had to go off to a commercial freezing company in Newburgh NY. where we would put on jackets which everyone would wear ----being five years old mine went about to the floor with loooong arms...  .. I could remember going down between the the bins or frozen food to ours ----I can't remember the number of ours but it was about knee high and tipped out on a pivot so mother would put these little white bags in there all carefully labeled peas with the date..   she would then shuffle around with the bags already there.. and maybe bring home one that said corn  or my favorite Lima beans... which we would eat the next two days.

There were baskets of strawberries that were turned into jam and stored in our preserve closet in the cellar...  occasionally we would get some black raspberries for the black Raspberry jam that I still like...  which would all be carefully labeled into Jelly jars we call them which were basically short drinking glasses about two inches diameter and covered with wax.

There were additional assets to being in the farmers loop...   like there were chickens that came home that were never pets.....  and occasionally a prime rib roast of beef which was basically unheard of.    my mother shopped not only at the A&P but at a funny market off in the countryside maybe 10 miles from home where I distinctly remember she would occasionally get a lump of actual butter...   not the white stuff with the yellow packet but real actual butter...

 

It was the constant bags of 50 LB of onions that became her challenge to somehow use... and she did making relishes which had some vegetable involved like corn with tomatoes. but lots of  onions...... So as the dinner plates were served up there would be a healthy spoonful of relish which I'm sure she had calculated the nutritional value... 

 

So when it came time to break up my families home in Cornwall NY, my oldest daughter,, was quick to claim my mother's recipe box,, which hopefully she still has because every fall when it comes to harvest time I begin to think of those wonderful relishes and at some point I would like to try making some of them there is one particular that I liked.    very unusual spices..... 

The only word of wisdom I can think of passing on is  I at the tender age of five or six watched her make strawberry jam... she told me that a lot of people have trouble making jam because the surface area of their pot is not big enough and she had a jam making pot that was about two feet across but there was only about two inches of strawberries in the bottom and she explained that the surface area was critical to making jam.... and I think my daughter Gwen found that true

 

if I ever get any recipes from Gwen the Internet being the Internet I will pass them on but every Thanksgiving I begin to think of that one relish that I do like...

have a happy-

and  i am most greatful for all the messages i have recieved about "keep on keeping on".   with all your help- I AM ON IT !!

 novv 22

Poor larkey ----- what's a fellow to do to get a night's sleep.  for those of you who have not been here our sleeping arrangement is thus.. I have a recliner chair which reclines enough for me to sleep in it as long as it behaves properly and it usually does ---along the front wall there is a large twin mattress.... A4 by 4 very padded footstool... and in the corner the queen size mattress which was once my bed in the house

Usually laccky gets the twin--- sizzle gets the stool which is very preferred ---and Jimmy gets the queen size mattress and all is very peaceful... except last night we had Wanda---- now when Janine left wanda she organized a somewhat small to medium wire cage on the queen size mattress so that she could give wanda  her supper in that cage without the Danes stealing her dinner... she also put a nice fluffy in there and we left the door open at an angle so Wanda could come and go on her own and get a drink... all was well and good so far and I fell asleep only to wake up with larkey staring at me with this pathetic look.. I asked him if he had to go to the bathroom as I moved toward the door and he turned his head away and looked at his bed...  and there in the middle of his twin size mattress centered very carefully on a lovely fluffy was Wanda.. 

 now any dog with any sense is not going to jump toward a dominant dog---  that starts the fight usually and that's what larkey was faced with---- Wanda was dominant she had claimed the whole mattress and he could sleep on the floor if he wanted to...

 

so I explained to Wanda that no she had to sleep on one end of the mattress and then larkey just jumped up and curled up and went to sleep and I thought we were all set until I hear Wanda snarling and snapping at larkey who just scrambled to get off the bed.... oh this was not going to be---- so I spoke harshly to Wanda who then of her own accord jump down off the bed and up onto the queen size mattress and just walked into her wire crate and lay down on the fluffy there----- she knew damn well she wasn't supposed to do that.---- at any rate at that point larkely jumped back on the bed and so far as of 4:00 in the morning all has been quiet with Wanda asleep in the crate with the door open.... Wanda weighs 17 pounds larkey ways 178 --- what can I say

 

my next problem of the night I don't know how many of you watch the camera that is affixed to the deagle house but I have been watching that now for about an hour and I cannot figure out what all the action is ----I first thought it looked like rain but it's not and then I thought those moths those white moths and then I thought bees and then I thought Wasps I have no idea what all that action is and furthermore I can't tell it looks like the light strikes from top to bottom but that may not be true either it's extremely weird I have no idea what it is so for those of you who like it challenge turn that on in the middle of the night and see if you can figure it out--- there are times when there are a lot of small circles in the field of vision but I cannot I cannot understand what's going on that camera..... I'm sure in the daylight we can't see it but it's very strange

 nov 21

I had a snooze problem... it turns out that I'm working very nicely between four and six in the morning and then I get sleepy and this morning what I did was to start a spreadsheet of all the places we have visited between last July and now and it turns out we have seen 2389 people. The most telling visit was the last one which was one Janine and Judy did alone and they went to an adult care center and the people were very active ----the dogs did take it--- they were good but sizzle ducked under  the nearest table as her solution to the whole problem

 the letter we got from the director begging us to come even on a weekly basis because she saw the effect that the animals had not only her population but her staff ----it really there's a tremendous need and it can't just be anybody's pet dog either I mean even according to Janine larkey who loves people in general he stood he stood his grounds but some of these people are extremely active and inclined to grab and snatch,,, which is why of course we do not leave a collar or a leash on any of our dogs because that would just be an invitation for disaster umm -----they're better off loose and can take can run if they need to some of these places are tough. I do think that we can help that facility,.... but I do think maybe our better animal would be donkeys they are so tolerant that I really would like to go there and see whether the physical plant could cope with getting a donkey up the stairs and into the place um Janine and Judy both thought that if we do go back with dogs that we can't serve the whole population at one time because it's just too much 

but somehow I remember driving the 8 donkeys in Haverhill MA

 

I was to start at the fire station...  where they had given me a police cruiser--- the object was to follow the cruiser with my 8 hitch with the antlers and Santa Claus up to the center of town where Santa Claus would get down and give everybody a candy cane and I would leave.. well it didn't work that way I started up into the center of town everybody got out of the way in the cruiser but they cut in behind it in front of the donkeys and actually made us stop ----we---- I could not move I had children under my cart tangled up in the  wheels in between the donkeys they just were climbing all over everything and those blessed donkeys just stood there and took the whole thing---- a policeman came back out of his cruiser to see how I was surviving but it just was a zoo and the donkeys took it.  mostly because of basic instinct of a donkey if he's frightened it's to stand still and try and figure out how to get out of the problem without moving this is a lot easier to handle in many situations and donkeys are known for being extra so patient that I think I would like to try a donkey in that in that facility

 

here's here's where it's not quite just a tank of gas a week that I need but I need to find a ramp but I need I need to make sure the trailer is working and it now is having had two repairs jobs one an upgrade for $1000 and the other for 375 to put a hitch on the front so there are those kind of expenses that I do have but there are those expenses that make it possible for me to do these difficult jobs even to the point of maybe selecting or training an animal there could cope better with some of these things so actually that's where I was ----that's where I am this morning drinking my second cup of coffee trying to figure out what to do next and that may include asking Bill Cummings to help us he's been very nice in the past but  we did not have enough local contact for him well now we do have local.

i am working in the direction of a complete oganization-  i do not think there are 2 people more equipt than janine and i  with the animal episode background to try and help this situation...

let us pray/

 nov 20

So many of you tell me you start the day with a daily doggy which is very nice ----let me tell you how I start the day--- I rumble through the night with the television on National Geographic wild without the sound so if I do Semi wake I can watch them try and put an elephant's foot on a pedestal so they can trim his toenails... but at 4:00 a commercial comes on ----I can't even tell you what it's for ---however it starts with an absolutely beautiful young girl strapping her foot so she can do some perfectly wonderful. ballet movements in her perfect Tutu. Pure grace and beauty ----before the following commericals on grilling greasy  and then  exercising machines to get rid of  what that grease did to your  body fat index/

 

AND  IT ALSO REMINDS ME--- of the day maybe 40 years ago when a small circus was due to perform at the Cranes Castle estate in Ipswich..  they were parked quite close to us at a local farm and and we went to see them---   we being Janine, Gwen and I.

There was some minor disaster where the little girl who was supposed to lunge a horse while somebody stood on its back was for some reason unable to do that.. (lunging being.  to stand in the middle with about a 20 foot rope and have a horse  trot in a very regular circle so they could perform on his back) I was standing next to the ringmaster of such and said"well Janine can lunge a horse" and he said --- let's try it. OK so Janine got in the middle and very successfully got the horse to go around the circle and the ringmaster was delighted and  said to Janine “that's wonderful can you help us?”   and she said yes and then he said "Do you have a Tutu?"   ... at which point Janine said “ A tutu?  I haven't even got a one one.”.

that whole concept makes me laugh every time.  I don't think she was 10 years old.

 

Moving on to my medical report--- the home visiting physical therapist arrived and assessed my situation---  and confirmed that it was normal for a person To need to have three days recovery for every day in the hospital.. she tells me I was in the hospital for 6 days so she confirmed that I was entitled to be waited upon for aprox 3. Weeks.. And she would arrange for a physical therapist to come two or three times a week to get me up and moving... sounds interesting

 

it also sounds like I will have to forego any ballet movements for the next three weeks anyway.

 

With buds help I was able to get on to my golf cart and be turned loose on the property for about 3 hours... to welcome the latest charity project. with a bunch of veterans..  I was absolutely delighted to be able to slide into place all the pieces they need for their project the most spectacular being my 6th passenger easy go golf cart  on which I had spent considerable money to purchase and then another $3400. to get it serviced and upgraded.. it will be perfect for what they need it is an extremely rugged rough tired 6 passenger vehicle capable of the trails around the pond and into the woods for those people who are too handicapped to get there on their own so I was thrilled to have them use it.

I was also very happy to get off my own golf cart and get back in my chair....

 nov 19 

Nov 19 –

Well I'm certainly better than I was yesterday ...  God bless whoever it was that noticed the bugs in the Petri dish did not grow where it was supposed to grow because of what now has become antibiotics... without antibiotics I would have had a gargantuan  problem today...

however I've survived enough so that I have tackled the next monumental problem around here doesn't sound like much but we don't have   "a jug.."

 

you know---- that jug that I used at mail call in the house,,,, a rather sophisticated banker commented on the fact that that jug was as efficient a system for handling incoming mail as any he had ever seen and furthermore it was usually within view of about 1000 people who certainly would notice if anybody did anything strange to the contents of the jug... and it was big enough the whole paper and envelopes even slightly bigger than normal size -----so in other words I could open the mail and whatever I got I can shove in that jug knowing that eventually somebody would empty it and solve the problems pay the bills whatever------historically I'm talking 20 years --- pretty much previous 20 years I paid someone $100 a week out of my own personal funds to keep my paperwork going straight.  which meant dealing with with anything in that jug. that did not pertain to service dog project. but of  a more personal nature.. ...

 

but since I moved to the cabin it was such a fiasco on every side that the concept our our jug was gone---- this was a bad thing because I did not have specific control over every envelope that came into the operation ----computers are wonderful. except when all else fails you need to be able to identify a source document over which there is no confusion..  in the old house it was "the jug" which was accompanied by. THE BOOK.

The book was simply a loose leaf notebook kept to the center drawer where you wrote down everything that arrived regardless of what was going to happen to it--- whatever..... it was our main source ----handwritten.  where I have to say that Linda K had beautiful handwriting and you can tell as the secretaries change with the handwriting...  that book was and is golden..

so now that I'm in a cabin I don't know what happened to my old book.. and the great turmoil oh the moldy 1040 pounds of crap that ended up at the dump.. we have started our new  THE BOOK  ---- and judy's jug. is a plastic shoe box sort of thing where everything I open should get dumped unless it's bona fide trash to begin with... and then Judy knows hay money goes one place. fun fun goes another  and our very official accountant should be really pleased,,  nothing beats a pure source..

 

I've seen "pure source"  written on Poland springs bottled water,,,,, same idea.

 

so in spite of the fact my doctor told me. I was entitled to to milk this whole thing along for a much longer time I am finding I have a few hours early morning when my head behaves considerably different than it does add 2:00 in the afternoon..

so bear with me.

 nov 18 23 

todays read---- shel silverstein's   "the giving tree" ...  so many of our dogs remind me of this book... like  "george". 

"Once there was a tree...and she loved a little boy."

So begins a story of unforgettable perception, beautifully written and illustrated by the gifted and versatile Shel Silverstein. This moving parable for all ages offers a touching interpretation of the gift of giving and a serene acceptance of another's capacity to love in return.

Every day the boy would come to the tree to eat her apples, swing from her branches, or slide down her trunk...and the tree was happy. But as the boy grew older he began to want more from the tree, and the tree gave and gave and gave. This is a tender story, touched with sadness, aglow with consolation

.ends up sitting  happily by the stump...

i am feeling very stumpish--- but the doctor said i was entitled to feel "washed out" for another week or two,.  i did manage to walk down and back up the ramp to the cabin..... it was a longhoaul but i made it.,  that m eans i can get out...at least til ice and snow..

meanwhile elizabeth is out running all over...since her motor parts are not affected by the lacceration....

we are a sad bunch.

luckily carlie and mike got the hay in teh loft--- i am told.......and some redistributed to meridith--- i woul d feel alot better to get at least one more load in our loft before the shlt hits teh snowplow...  and thanks to you guys i have the money to buy it... so keep those $10 coming...  eliz calculated 13 bales a day between us. -- which is all of ERN..  

cheers !!

17 Nov 2023

 17 Nov 2023Good morning everyone. This is Judy filling in for Carlene. She is having a personal plumbing issue ( not worth talking about).

She has a doctors appointment at 11 and hopefully some relief. She will hopefully feel better by mail call. Anne has offered to take Carlene to the appointment.

 nov 16 

I do not know why it can be so complicated to get the right numbers and the right spot in order to get things done -----ustabeeee--- when I was a kid close enough for government work really was very significant--- nowadays my life is governed by a whole bunch of weird letters numbers over 8 long with capitals and no capitals and justice get one of them wrong and you're useless

I spent a lot of time being useless..  because take a poor memory with a shaky hand and life can disintegrate pretty quickly..

 

so this morning and probably the afternoon I'm supposed to straighten out our books a little bit and get our hay schedule a bit better organized right at the moment we're buying individual bales of hay locally at higher cost because I'm told the hay guy had a truck problem and there's no hay up at the hay dealer...   I think it's time for me to cash a check and go up and talk to him about some special deal where I can get payment to him.... It is complicated by the time you try and unload it and stack it and all that sort of thing um but I'm wondering if I can make a deal with him to get the stuff already stacked we're we're in tough shape on the hay project right now and ****** we do have the money thanks to you guys...****** but I am offended and having to spend when I know darn well with a little more organization////and let's face it a few fewer injuries or hospitalizations or anything else we could spend our money a little more carefully... and I know he's willing it's the kind of conversation I can only have with the owner of the company..

other than that I'm told Elizabeth would like to come and lie on the dog bed and watch television with me which that could be fun um----- Janine has suggested I go with her to help feed over Meredith this morning because I certainly could drive over there how much trouble can I get into??? driving 5 miles an hour pulling the manure wagon I should be capable.

 

plus the car is as heated this cabin ever would be... I could drink my second cup of coffee there.

on we go

 nov 15 

We are getting organized I can tell because the dogs recognize the fact that Judy will be here.. and this morning I think they were reacting to her arrival a good 3--4---5 minutes before she got here because they were all on their feet with tails out straight staring down the driveway.. I've always wondered how far away they can hear or sense  her car but that must have been a good mile or two away...

 

in addition I decided I needed more structured living life was gonna go downhill I needed to set more definite goals like... number one cleanliness I will get up and I will take a shower if I can find a new set of what I wear for a uniform,,,  current problem is if I have to wander around looking for what to wear I'm too tired by the time I find it to do anything about it so hopefully if Judy piles up necessary change of clothing I could go back to cleanliness being next to godliness....

 in the goal setting department I finally. got my zipper puller production company oh attached to that 12 inch stainless steel roll around wonderful thing and without too Much Ado have demonstrated making at least 6 monkey fists a day to be visually verified  that's the zipper pull but I should be making a few of the bigger ones too I'll try and work that into my busy schedule... and you should be able to see it at mail call  hanging in the air....  

 

with Elizabeth wounded Janine will be out straight let's just hope nobody else gets wounded--- look this is the way things are out of farm there is an interdependency.. where to be able to care for all the animals you have to have cooperation and dedication.. Janine started to count the number of animals that we / or she is responsible for I don't think she got to 100 but there are an awful lot and what brings up the numbers all those sheep over it Meredith basically will live on hay and water. their added complication is they somehow have to stay within the boundaries of thu fencing now established there... so there's a lot going on

 a lot to watch so have at it for the day and I'll see you at mail call..,   with hopefully my 6 zipper pulls for the day—

anyone who wanted one of our golden zipper pulles all you have to do is send me a self addressed envelope that will hold it and I will happily send one to you... I can't offer to send one to everybody because the postage would kill me but I'm happy to make them for you all of you goldies warriors who keep us going with your OK and henny and pennies and things like that..-yes

 For lack of anything better I'm spending a great deal of time trying to figure out exactly what this oxygen sensor thing on my finger is trying to tell me as opposed to stuffing these things in my nose which then are supposed to be giving me oxygen which should cause the other things to vary but I'm not totally sure that the whole thing is what it's cracked up to be------I've tried to make the numbers go up or go down or whatever and the deems to be pretty darn random or actually what probably is the trouble is there are too many variables like how still am I sitting.... or did I walk across the floor till the ice box or the bath room and how fast did I go and did I use the Walker -----I mean all of these things probably would have some effect on that funny little thing you put on your finger because it's not straightforward and if you remember when I was in the hospital I really didn't trust the one that was up over my left shoulder and I played with that to try and make it go One Direction or another so that whole thing I'm sorry to say I cannot give any formal report on which I have any enthusiasm..

 

oh Judy has a job today over the very nice place and we have a new person working with us and I'm thinking that she and the new person Alicia should take larkey and sizzle and go play frying pan with Alicia on the frying pan... and then Jimmy and I can stay here and try and figure out who or why or how anyone is supposed to help me from this elder care bit it's right at the moment I'm doing pretty well um lagged lazier by the minute I really didn't wanna go today on that job so the two dogs should be perfectly behaved and they should be on their own..

 

 It kind of seemed to me that elder care was all excited about having another person to wait on and I'm not the best one at trying to follow directions that's for sure and if my backup is Janine that's a little random also but between the hospitals social services ---elder cares ---physical therapy-- and home dinners and things like that so far I've only been told about it and I'm beginning to get hungry so like I could worry about it up to some point it didn't matter any rate hang in there we are working....... see you at mail call

---------

lots of these emails.   

STAY STRONG.

YOUR REPUTATION IS GOOD WITH ME.

 IM GLAD JANINE COMES TO HELP YOU TOO. UNFORTUNATELY,

SENIOR CITIZENS ARE NOT TREATED WITH THE RESPECT THEY DESERVE AND HAVE EARNED

THROUGH MANY LONG YEARS OF HARD WORK. I HELPED MY PARENTS GO THROUGH SOME OF THESE SAME ISSUES. VERY DIFFICULT AND UNFAIR AT TIMES

FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY.

I WILL BE THINKING OF YOU AND

YOUR HAPPINESS GOING FORWARD.

barbara

 11 13 

monday to be sure... i lost a COUPLE DAYS LAST WEEK--- ' I WENT ON HOLIDAY WITH MY GHOSTY FRIENDS AND MISSEED A FEW.

I can't say as it's totally wonderful to be back to the real world OF  bouncing checks-- cold floors --threatening lawyers-- you know there's a lot to be said for ghosts MOST OF  these things are really just temporary that just need sliding around and the fact that I was out of Commission for a couple days I really want to assure everyone spite of the confusion um as soon as I get through with this daily doggy I really want to get to work and straighten out a few of the accounting ---like my Social Security is constantly deposited to the wrong account and I usually just trip it over no problem --JUST LET ME HAVE A FEW DAYS  in the hospital and forget in which case things begin to happen.... however life will go on. - I DON OT HAVE ANY CLUE AS TO THE FLOOR PROBLEM IN TH E  KENNEL.other than to remind everyone,   heat rises..... don't fight it.

 

I don't know what the schedule is this morning except that Meredith out of hay I don't think we have a lot of hay here either but it being Monday I'm not sure the hey guy has Eddie himself so the original plan of going for hay first thing may or may not happen after that Janine is delivering a donkey into to New York somewhere and it occurs to me to ask where because if she's crossing the Hudson River 84 that is within two miles but one of my very best high school friends Steve and wouldn't it be fun to have her drop me at the diner and spend an hour or so talking to him have her pick me up on the way back but I don't know where she's going and I don't know if he's around but it would be interesting concept...  

 

that's the best I can do for today   rest assured I am alive aND FUNCTIONING... WITH HEATING PAD CAREFRULLY STRAPPED TO MY MIDDLE.

 n0v 12

From sudoku puzzles to making monkey fists to writing this daily doggy I'd like to try and keep track of how my mind is functioning .just out of the hospital I thought I was doing very well and I was... but there were several things that just weren't quite right,,  most notably having made thousands of these monkey fists for some unknown reason I just couldn't get a couple of them together--- they just keept getting tangled somehow... and then my book of snoco puzzles which before surgery I was level 4 without any problem all of a sudden level 2 just we're working out right...  So I couple those two things with the fact that I was totally fascinated by the ghostly looking creature standing in my kitchen... I could see through it and the only way I could describe it was if it were a pen and ink done in white instead of black ink everything else was appropriate.

Since we're technically incapable oh predicting or directing the way our minds will function I was concerned Then I might be faced with dealing with ghosts and things like that for an undetermined amount of time in the future however......

 

as of yesterday afternoon I whipped off 4 monkey fists without a flaw.. and did a Level 3 sudoku without an awful lot of difficulty and last night I did not see any more ghosts....  not too sure how I feel about that.. that ghost bit was kind of fun but I can definitely see the fine line  between realism and Alzheimer's.... And how that joy juice they give you to eliminate pain does take a while to get out of your system 100% if it ever does. --  so to be correct I must have a self-imposed driving ban until I'm positive there's no more residual joy juice left.

 

The elder services from Ipswich--- no--- actually they're Gloucester--are coming here today around noon and we'll see what direction anything else goes from there..  I know that physical therapy has been prescribed Which would be interesting---- I never thought it would be necessary but it might be... I feel I've had a pretty good workout every time I have to change my clothes... and furthermore with the bathroom on one side the cabin and the refrigerator on the other I do get some exercise..

  my goal at the moment is to maybe fry an egg. 

Elizabeth------ I lost track of the egg report---  with all these chickens are any of them producing eggs yet???  By the book, I think it is to be 1 egg per chicken every 36 hours...

 nov 11 2023 

i am warm... clean... coffeeed..and a bit confined..... 

And confined????.. make that physically confined which is very dangerous because it allows me to be mentally loose as a goose.  this will be short only because I have three things to write today D being one of them and I am so happy to be back in action and then I have to write something for the newspaper and I'm a little bit short on animal experience and photographs so that's going to be a bit of a chore and the other thing is to respond to an Council on Aging  report so if this is short that's please forgive.

 

Commenting on the things around me as I sit in my chair seeing both ends the driveway thanks to Janine new camera of the driveway um I get to watch time look at think about why things happen et cetera and I have to admit that when it can comes to schlepping animals around with complete accuracy it is possible to pay attention to tiny details a quick path here on the head a pick up a foot there and look at a toenail things of that sort that all go into the great long picture of having handled an animal there is Oh no easy way. one cannot be mentally lazy amidst animals

 

I wish I could answer all the emails I have which is 1.2 K considerably less once I get rid of the politicians but I do recognize everybody's name and appreciate all the good  wishes---- And your attention to detail of feeding and keeping this goldys farm going----

 

I hope it can return to its reputation which once enabled three people at least to get a hold of life again...  there was a policeman who had been involved in a shooting and was having a terrible time with the PTSD related who wanted some strike heavy physical activity which we gave him... then there was a veteran from I think Iraq who was supposed to be put into a hospital and he didn't want to go he had already applied for a dog from us so we ended up here one day in my teepee um and just absolutely pathetic didn't know what he was gonna do and I didn't either but I told him he was certainly welcome to set up housekeeping in the teepee if he could manage which he did for about a week I did manage to call the family and say that I knew where he was but I wasn't going to tell him... and then there was Scott Auburn---who ended up in my living room having just tried to hang himself and the knot had not held...  ultimately he survived got a dog from me he was the only one I ever did a Corey test on because he had a warrant out for his arrest and a whole lot of other things that we're just a little off the book but he's now written

a book called “Knot today”. And works with the New York State suicide prevention or something like that..

 

so I hope we can continue that easing   uncomplicated.  Reputation.

 

it's going to be very complicated to get there but I have great faith in Goldies Warriers

so hang in there/

 

like teh unsinkable molly. Brown “I ain’t down yet .

 

( I am really enjpoying ALEXA”s. broadway music.  )