Clearing for goats (maybe, someday)

We started clearing some of the woods behind the garage. The plan is to perhaps have a couple of fiber goats and maybe a milking goat next summer. We will see when the time comes; it is all pending our finances. Tony borrowed a chainsaw from work and after only 2 days, we have made good progress.

This is after one day of work.

This is after day 2 of work.

Only one burr bush ( i don't know what they are called) tried to eat me.

On the me front

On the Node Front-
Well today should be the day I get my blood tests back. These are the ones that tested me for cat scratch fever, rabbit fever (nothing having to do with my doggie bunnies so shut up), and toxoplasmosis ghandi ( not the good ghandi either). I starting to bank on all negative results which will leave me even more frustruated. I have been researching fish handlers disease, mycobacterium, and may request a Tuberculosis (and no its not really TB)test to see if that is possible. Then at least I would have a great excuse to get out of the damn fish business world all togther......which speaking of........
On the Store Front-


I sold the contents of my store to Aquatics back in September, so why the f is my store still loaded with shit of theirs. I am poor and have no money to pay rent for you Aquatics, so show me the money on lets get to stepping (eh,,, word yo?). The place is seriously messier and more packed now than when it was a functioning store. Here are some pics of it just before it's final days. I will post some current pics soon, seeing as I have to go there 2-3 times a week still, ugh.

On the Get Your Ass to Work and Go to School and Get a Real Job Front-
I go through the job listings every day at servingschools.com . I print out the ones I want to apply for, most ed tech positions for now. But it all comes down to letters of reference or reccommendation or whatever the hell they are. I need 3 of them and I can't find 3 people to do it. Do i suck that bad that i don't know anyone to write a letter to reccommend me. No one will even lie and just tyoe it up. I have 2 from past teachers, but they are specific to a marine biology position that I had planned on applying for back in August. So someone help me out here. I also need to send my offical transcript and Praxis exam results to the Dept of Ed so that they can tell me what classes I need to take. But I need $150 beans to do it. I am trying my best to scrape up that money this week, cause I fear if i don't do it soon, I won;t get any infor back in time for spring semester. Everything costs money and I have none. My medical bills are creeping up close to $1500 now, I have lawyer bills from my first hellride of a business, school loans for life, credit card debt that makes me angry, and lets not forget parental loans (hi dad, that moneys coming soon). So you see, I just need a job.

I'm No Homemaker-yet.

Bon Appetit!
So our house is messy. Not just right now but most of the time. We don't get visitors out here, so I guess it's not so bad, but often we cannot find things undearneath all of the mess. For example, I was on a bit of a cooking kick for a while. I made this easy recipe which came out really well but it took me a couple minutes of valuable don'tburnthe food time to find the damn pot holder.

See messy pile.



See closer into messy pile,
dirty pot holder.

Mmm, nice dinner touched by dile pot holder ( oh and i had to put it on the dirty floor to take this picture).

Nora

Cute, but Satan.

Mondo Egg

WTF?

Knitting

October 31st-
Don't make fun of me. Yes, I have chickens, and rabbits, and yes i am knitting now, yes I live in Maine. It does not make me a hick, i still have all of my teeth.
Anyways, I knit a scarf for myself and then decided to learn how to make mittens for Tony. First attempt was too small and the seam was off. Second attempt came out pretty good though. Now I just need to make a second one to match it. I also got this purple merino mix but I dont know what to make yet. Maybe a hat but I need to get different needles to do that.

Here's the scarf and it's messy surroundings.

Better mitten, the seam is only a little crooked.

Don't know what to make, this is just practice.

Healing

October 30th-
My arm is healing up nicely. The nodes are still swollen and hard, but no where near what they were. I have been taking daily pics of the wound so that i can make a kind of flipbook slide show type thing showing it healing, like time lapse i guess. Is that normal?

I Don't Like Rabbits

October 28th-
I don't like rabbits, but these are not rabbits, they are little bunnydoggy things. They aren't so manic like those regular old, good for nothing but stew rabbits. No, my bunnydoggies are like little cuddly teddy bears that I will harvest fiber from. I got two angora rabbits from a very friendly and helpful lady name Betty Stover up at Spinnakees Farm. The boy is a little over a year old, pure german angora. He came named Hagrid II. Betty had just sheared him so his coat is short right now. The little girl is about 4 months, has no name yet, and is part german, part french. The french is where the color comes from. She is referred to as a fawn agouti.

chicken pooped a green one

October 28th-
Finally, a second hen has decided to lay. Apparently Jezebel has been laying for a few days, but not in the nest boxes in the coop. She had tucked herself into a corner outside the house and was laying there. Bodhi was outside and decided to pee right next to where she was, I think that is the only reason we saw her there. I actually watched her lay. Her eggs are a pretty sage green color. She is a cross breed referred to as an Easter Egger. It is a mix between Ameraucanas, which lay blue eggs, and a brown egg laying breed. So E.E. eggs can be green or blue.

Warning, Grossness

I'll type later

Node Now

Here is right now, post surgery.

Infected

Here is a better picture showing how infected it was.

Spooning Kitty

the saga continues

October 24th -
Well we are reaching the one month mark of this swollen lymphnode business, so today I went into Maine Medical Hospital to have it cut open and drained. It was actually a lot more painful of a procedure than I think I was expecting. I took a couple codenes prior to it, but didn't think to bring more pills with me. The ride home became very uncomfortable. It was a strong , sharp burning sensation. Guess that could be attributed to the open laceration they left on my arm. It needs to be left open to continue to drain. Anyways, I am all drugged up now and feeling okay. Thought I would put up a few before photos. I will add more later.

There is something wrong with me!

They told me I have mono.

Now they think there is something else wrong with me. All i know is there is an alien pod growing in my elbow and my armpit and if the damn doctors don't fix me soon, I will have a baby alien explode out of my arm.

The girls are now ladies.....or men

Well, we messed up a little I guess. Two of the girls are now roosters.Hey, at least I didn't think my kitten was a boy for 8 months only to find out it was a girl (eehm, Rachel) from the vet. Ambrosia (Tony named her, don't look at me) is still the only one laying, but she does it like clockwork. Buffy and Rose are our roosters, we may need some new names. T wants to kill Rose, but I won't let him. Not yet at least. He thinks we should change his name to Dinner. I stapled up some plastic on the windows and added more shavings to the floor to help keep the coop a little warmer this winter. Next step is creating some type of heater to keep their water dish from freezing. We also need to repair the roof of the coop, as there was some major leakage the other day in a heavy rain storm......thats up to Tony.

Tree meet house, House meet tree

We get some amazing storms and winds out here. I guess it has to do with are location being close to mt washington. Anyways, we had a crazy windstorm take down a large limb of one of the maple trees. it fell onto the back porch, but luckily didn't cause any damage to the house.. only a little damage was caused to Tony in his attempts to cut it down by himself.

Chicken Pooped an Egg!!! September 26th

Finally!!! The damn birds can start earning their keep. We've been waiting weeks. I think Whitey is the one laying, so far one each morning 3 days in a row. Another new development in they roost in the tree at night. We kinda just stopped locking them in the coop, but we need to get them back in before they become a coyote meal. Also we now think Buffy is a rooster. Dammit. If she he starts crowing in the morning I'm not gonna be happy. The eggs are exciting though. They have all looked different but todays was almost the size of a large store bought egg. They are still warm when I find them in the mornings.

Smitten-August 3rd

Thursday morning was rainy and grey. I was about to get in the car to go to work when I heard a meow. A tiny grey kitten was tucked into my front tire well.After about 10 minutes of fighting her to get her out I won. Surprisingly Tony seemed to want to keep her. I was unsure because I didn't want it to affect the boys (a forewarning I should have taken) but we ended up keeping her. Tony named her Nora, but we have many other names for her including snora, smitten, smitty, and scooby.

Nova Scotia-July 24th-Aug 1st

Tony, Mom, and I went up tp Nova Scotia for a week at the end of July. Lots of time in the car........ but all in all a good trip. The cabin certainly wasn't in good shape, but hey, it was still standing. Here are a few pics, I'll have to get some others from mom.
Whats up with the gnome you ask??? I think my mother is going crazy, but it was funny.