I'm not "typical"!

Breaking News!  LOL. 

I had a physical today.  Mostly because I realized it has been so long since the last one that I couldn't remember exactly what year it had occurred in (and usually my memory is pretty good), and I was fairly sure my tetanus booster was either worn off or due to wear off soon.  Never mind all that yearly female stuff you're supposed to get checked, I need my tetanus shot!!  Living on a farm, having horses--which are carriers for tetanus--and preferring bare feet over shoes in all except the coldest weather, keeping current on tetanus boosters is a must.  Give me my tetanus shot!

Anyway, long story short(er), during the course of the exam (which came out A-OK, thanks for asking), the subject of dietary needs of a 'woman of my age' was broached by the doctor.  Huh?  I'm 39 still, thank you.  Really, truly, 39 1/3; I'm a December baby.  I just had kids young, that's all.

Supposedly us 'women of my age' need lots of Calcium and Vitamin D and I should be taking supplements of each multiple times a day.  Which I don't.  I don't take anything.  Unless I get into some poison ivy, then I run for the cupboard and take my little white Rhus tox. pills immediately!  I do a few other homeopathic remedies for other things when needed, but no prescription meds or other daily pills are taken.

It was at this point that I asked the doctor if I, personally, really needed to do that.  Or, in that quantity.  After all, given my lifestyle, I felt I probably wasn't all that deficient in them.  I proceeded to explain I don't drink pop and really haven't on a regular basis in over 18 years (some recent studies are showing that pop drinking can lead to calcium deficiency); that I drink milk (whole milk) and water, and drink them both on a daily basis.  I also eat veggies that are naturally high in calcium.  Therefore, I should be doing fairly well in the calcium department.

As for Vit. D, well, that's added to the milk, and made available free for the taking from the sun.  I explained that I live and work on a farm.  I am outside usually 3+ hours every day, all year long.  So I should be soaking up quite a bit of Vit. D just going about my daily activities.

The doctor looked back at her checklist (the one that said 'women my age' need lots and lots of Calcium and Vit D pills), looked at me, and said:  "You have a good point.  You're not typical."

ROFL--I'm not typical!!  I should have gotten that in writing and signed by her!  It was just so refreshing to have her say that.  You see, for years I've been 'weird', 'strange', 'Amish or something', 'crazy' and 'unusual'.  But I've never had the satisfaction of someone acknowledging that I am, by far, not typical.

I mean, typical people do not:

--decide, at the tender age of 12, that they want to have four children, and have them all before the 'old' age of 30 (I did!  Was all done at 26, rather a bit earlier than I'd planned, but oh well.  It's worked out okay so far.)

--as an honor student, inform their high school counselor that they did not plan to go to college or work in a professional position.  Their plan was to be self-employed, married, have four children and live on a farm (preferably a horse farm).

--breastfeed and cloth diaper their babies, even when working part & full time

--change their entire diet and lifestyle to avoid things they or their child(ren) are allergic/sensitive to rather than just taking a pill that masks the symptoms

--strive to grow/raise as close to all of their food as humanly possible in their climate, including tending a garden that is larger than the average city lot

--dream about being off-grid someday

--feel that raising mature, intelligent, responsible, self-sufficient citizens is more important than any career

--take the education of their children seriously and are actively involved in such education rather than blindly turning their kids over to an institution for 13 years each.  (I don't homeschool, but I afterschool and 'in-addition-to-school' and have been actively involved in both the parochial K-8 school and the public high school my children attend.)

--shoot, then field dress and process deer for their red meat

--raise and butcher the chicken they eat

--happily give up no-work-involved propane fueled heat for cutting, splitting, and stacking wood, then going out twice a day no matter what the weather to stoke the outdoor wood boiler for six months of the year.

--begin a chicken pot pie dinner nearly a year in advance by ordering the chick,  planting the potatoes, peas and carrots, and rendering the lard to make the crust with. . .

--tap maple trees and make syrup just to 'see what it's like' and then decide the syrup is so delicious (and healthy!  lots of minerals in real syrup) that they will never buy hfcs syrup again.  And proceed to collect and boil down 120 gallons of sap the following year just to get less than 3 gallons of syrup at the end.  (I promise to get a making syrup post up soon; I need the pics off the camera first, and the camera is still on Spring Break)

--design and then build their own house (and barn, and chicken coop and. . . )

--brew their own beer and make their own wine

--beg their DH to let them get a milk cow (still not working; I'll keep at it, lol)

So, yeah, I'm definitely not typical.  It's just nice to finally get proper recognition for that fact.

Random photos

"Animal" the head rooster.

A nest of kildeer eggs found in the garden near the pea patch last spring.

One of the baby kildeer that hatched from those eggs (the rest ran away before I could get a picture).

Baby bunny found in with the summer squash a few years ago.

 I was lucky enough to get a picture of this guy on a foxgrape leaf while I was out berry picking.

The 'Old Man' and the 'Mare', two of my three horses.

Pick your steak--Eating Local style!

We have a sliding patio door in our dining room.  It opens out onto the deck that stretches the full length of the back of the house (there is a similar door in the living room wall).  The deck, and the sliding doors, have a wonderful view of the field behind the house. 

Often times, as we are sitting at the table eating meals, we can look out and see wildlife browsing on whatever is currently planted in the field.  Right now, that's winter wheat, which is starting to green up quite nicely. 

We see lots of deer and bachelor flocks of turkey almost daily.  On occassion, we have also spotted a red fox, or a coyote out hunting small critters (as long as they stay away from my chickens, and cut down on the field mouse population, they are welcome to stay).  But normally it's deer and turkey, like these guys:

We've gotten a little possessive of the deer and turkey.  It's kind of like those fancy restaurants where you get to pick the exact steak you want, and then they cook that one, just for you. Nobody else gets to eat it, just you.

We do the same thing: all year we watch the deer. . .

. . . and the closer it gets to fall, the more we start to salivate.  By September we're seeing them as walking dinner platters. 

Mmmm, I'll have a nice slice of hindquarter, please.

 (DH did harvest this one a few weeks after the picture was taken)

By October, DH is camoed up and standing in a tree, bow at his fingertips, waiting for his steak to step out into a clearing.

 Not you, honey.

We only shoot horns until Nov. 15th.

After that, watch out for Mama!

(Yes, I hunt, as do our sons and daughters.)

In mid-November, the rest of the family joins him, firepower held securely on our laps as we watch for just the right one to walk by.  The rule on our property is "6 or better" for bucks (six antler points or larger) and

"full grown with no nursing fawns" for does.

Not these.  They get to grow another year.

So this afternoon, while the deer graze on the wheatgrass in the gentle Spring rain, I'm scoping out my target for November, with anticipation of next winter's venison steak.  Meanwhile, some 2010 harvested steak is thawing on the counter.  I'm going to have it tonight with some mashed potatoes and steamed carrots, I think.

Wish I had a camera. . .

Mine is on Spring Break in Arkansas at the moment.  But, if it were here, I could show you all the things I've been up to lately sans children.  Things like:

--Collecting the last of the sap and pulling taps from the maple trees.  I really, really, wanted to get pictures so I could write a post about making our own syrup.  But, the camera is in Arkansas and the trees are budding, so I had to stop with the sap collecting and hope that the few pics I took earlier in the season will suffice.  If I remember, they came out kinda blurry and I was hoping to get new ones on a day with better lighting.

--Boiling said sap (and still boiling said sap, and probably tomorrow still boiling said sap. *sigh*).  Next year we will be building a proper evaporating set-up instead of using the turkey fryer and it's deep-but-not-enough surface-area-for-quick-evaporation pot.

--Making a trip to Goodwill to browse for treasure.  It was a rewarding trip, spent less than $5, and I came home with a new-in-box set of Easter candy molds (for filled eggs, hollow or solid chocolate bunnies, and Easter-themed candies), a mini-food processor/chopper, three 1000 piece puzzles (I love puzzles, and won't do anything less than 1000 pieces!), a small heart-shaped basket which now resides next to the african violet on my phone table, a medium sized flattish basket with handles on the ends that I haven't decided if I will use it at home or for displaying goods at the farmers' market, a small Christmas tin that will be filled with homemade goodies and given as a holiday gift this year, and the book A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives.

--Putting together 2 of my new puzzles (in 48 hours, lol).

--Playing with some dried cherries and my favorite brownie recipe to see if 'black forest brownies' might be edible and a potential new offering at my farmers' market booth come June when the local farmers' market opens.  I'm undecided. . . maybe if I eat the other half of the pan I will be able to come to a decision.  :0)

--Painting the basement stairwell pink.  It's not actually supposed to be pink, the color I picked out is more of a red wine color, but right now, while it's wet, it looks an awful lot like beet juice.  DH isn't fond of beets.  Good thing he won't be seeing it before it dries!

I've also done some less interesting things, like ALL the laundry in the house.  In January of 2010 I told all the children they would be responsible for their own laundry from here on out.  My main goal was to get DS2 to learn to wash his own clothes before he leaves for college, but I was also tired of seeing things I knew the girls hadn't worn appear back in the laundry baskets still folded but dirty from being on their floor instead of put away in their dressers.  I'm such a mean mom!

While they are away, I decided I would go for the novelty of having a totally empty laundry room, and I washed whatever was down there.  Wow.  Six empty laundry baskets, and a counter that doesn't have anything sitting on it.  Who knew it was possible?  Too bad I can't take a picture!

April snow

Today is damp, cold, gloomy, and it is snowing fat, wet flakes.  Not the kind of weather I had in mind for today.  So I am rebelling and posting a summer time photo to warm things up!

 

Spring Break!!

Today starts Spring Break for my three teens.  As I type, they are currently driving south on some highway somewhere, with plans to be in Memphis around dinner time.  Their final destination is DH's uncle's place on the Mulberry River in Arkansas.  There, they will spend a week enjoying the great outdoors hiking rugged terrain, and canoeing and kayaking on the river.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, lol, I will be enjoying a very rare childless week (perhaps the second or third one in 21 years)!  The biggest thing I'm looking forward to is getting the house cleaned and then watching it stay that way for an entire week.  (Yes, I really do get geeked over simple things like that.  I think other moms will understand, especially 'moms of many' like me.)

I will also be attempting to whittle my way through a long list of my personal proposed Spring Break activities.  A small sampling:

• collect and boil down what looks like the last run of sap for the season
• weed the strawberry and asparagus beds
• plant 24 white spruce seedlings
• fix the drip in the kitchen faucet
• ride one or more of my horses
• tame the mint-gone-wild terraced bed behind the house
• figure out a way to keep the free-ranging chickens out of my flowerbeds for good!!
• work on the rock wall that separates the garden from the yard
• possibly plant some early crops such as greens, peas, and beets

I shall be a busy girl, but enjoy the break from middle school and high school parenting!

OH!  And if anyone wants some peppermint or spearmint starts, I will gladly send you all you want as long as you cover shipping costs!  I might possibly also have lemon balm available too; I'll know for sure in a day or two ;0)

Pride goeth before a fall.

So, we've had a hydraulic leak on our tractor for awhile now.  DH has been busy traveling alot with work, and didn't have time to get to it.  A couple weeks ago, he decreed that no one should use the tractor anymore because the leak had gotten so large.

This past weekend, he finally had time to take off the hydraulic line--a rigid metal one, unfortunately, instead of a nice flexible one.  He said it was a bear to get off and that it obviously was one of the first parts put on during the original tractor assembly:  several other important lines and wires crossed and covered it in various places, and one end fastened under the steel frame that the seat attaches to.

On Monday afternoon, I took the line in to our local farm repair shop to be welded. (Love, love, love the farm repair shop!  They are awesome at welding just about anything under the sun, and creating things with metal.  So glad it hasn't yet become obsolete in my neck of the woods).  They welded it up and I retrieved it on Tuesday.

Then it was up to DH to put the line back on the tractor.  Since I have much skinnier hands and fingers than he does, I was drafted into being his assistant for this particular surgery.  Which took 3.5 hours!!!  To get one stinkin' line fished back over, under, and through all those other pieces, then lined up at exactly the correct angle to be bolted down into place.  It was not a fun 3.5 hours, let me tell you.  I was envisioning divorce papers with "broken tractor" written in the line "Reason For Divorce".

But when it was finally finished, I was so proud to have been a part of the tractor repair.  We'd done it ourselves instead of paying big bucks to have the tractor dealer fix it for us.  Woo hoo!  Add another skill to my resume!

I should know better than to go getting a puffed up head.  Because yesterday my Suburban developed a huge leak in the gas line. And DH has important stuff going on at work today, he can't go in late or take off early.  And he needs the Suburban tomorrow morning for a trip. Pride goeth before a fall.