Sunday, June 28 – Friday July 3

It’s been quite the week since my last blog post. I mean, quite.the.week. So much so that I did not have the time nor the mental capacity to sit down and write. That happens every now and then but FIVE days going on SIX that I couldn’t muster up the motivation to write? That’s a little much but I was simply wore out mentally and so worried about a couple of our animals. I made myself sit down this fine Friday evening to recap the week.

For starters, I am, once again, tethered to my desk. The replacement battery I just got a few weeks ago went kaput. My laptop doesn’t even recognize that there is a battery in it. I contacted the seller and they are sending a replacement battery at no charge. It should arrive Monday. Speaking of arriving on Monday, the missing piece to my bookshelf also arrives Monday. Yay, for both! But, I digress.

The week started out with a very sick cat. Creamsicle, our big puffy orange cat…

was lethargic and had no interest in eating or drinking. This is how all the cats we have lost since moving here have started out. I was determined NOT to lose Cream. I prayed for wisdom on what to do for him. For two days, I continued to give him dropperfuls of colloidal silver and water throughout the day. I also rubbed some ‘Breathe Again’ essential oil blend under his nose, on his chest and between his shoulder blades. He would occasionally eat a bite or two but I was more concerned about keeping him hydrated. After two days I picked him up and put him down in the grass. He stood there for a bit, then took a couple steps and stopped to urinate. I put him back on the porch and he walked over to the food bowl and began to eat a little bit. The next morning he was not in his ‘spot’ on the front porch and I was immediately concerned. I started hollerin’ for him and CountryBoy said he was over here (by the driveway) getting some rubbings from him as he was on his way to the barn to let the chickens and turkeys out and to feed Mabel. He was back to his ol’ self again. whew! I told Creamsicle not to do that to Mommy again. He just looked at me and meowed, ha!

During all that I made a vet appointment for LizzieBelle Monday morning and Tuesday evening we took her to the vet. Thursday morning I took her in bright and early for surgery. She had an abscess tooth that had caused a lot of swelling under and around her right eye. The vet removed the abscess tooth as well as one of her lower canines and discovered that she had a mandibular fracture (lower jaw). We have no idea how that happened. The vet prescribed soft food so that the fracture wouldn’t be further aggravated. She did well during surgery and you would never know that she had any kind of dental work done except for the fact that she, once again, looks forward to her breakfast and supper. Such a relief to her and to us!

On Wednesday I chronologically turned a year older but, thankfully, I don’t feel any older! I worked a rather long day at the B&B, then we greeted our guests that were checking in, then we met my niece and her husband at one of our favorite pizza joints in Berea for supper. We enjoyed a good meal and had a great visit.

Before we headed to town on Tuesday for LizzieBelle’s vet appointment we backtracked a bit to our neighbor’s at Tater Knob Pottery. I had mentioned to my B&B boss that I wanted to get one of Tater Knob’s pencil holder/flower frogs to hold my crochet hooks and before I left work Sunday afternoon she handed me some money to get one and said Happy Birthday! Can you believe it? I picked one that had nice large holes so that several hooks could fit in one hole (since I have so many hooks!).

Thursday was a particularly hectic day at work. I went in early after dropping Belle off at the vet’s and got the billing done before the boss came in. Once 9 o’clock rolled around it became very hectic until 2:30 or so. Luckily I left at 3:30 to pick up a few things in town before picking LizzieBelle up and left the work week behind.

Our guest left early this morning so we cleaned it then headed to town to pick up some straps to hang our Honduran hammock up at the cabin. We managed to get it strung up but it’s definitely an ‘enter at your own risk’ setup as we both had problems getting in it, ha! Maybe the younger generation won’t have a problem. At any rate, we may need to pick up a different type hammock.

Our lopsided pond filled up quickly after only a couple of rains and was about to overflow at the one end…

That’s how much water comes off the mountain and was causing such drainage problems. The other end? soggy but not filled with water. The feller came by the other day and said he would make it right and he’s going to alter the shape a bit which is what we wanted in the first place. He’s on another job right now so we don’t know when he’ll be able to come back to work on it.

This afternoon I spent some time in my Dremel shop upcyclying a bottle from a favorite beverage…

These dandelions are etched into the glass and wrap around two sides of the bottle then I duplicated it on the other two sides. I think it turned out super cute!

Missy loves to assist in whatever you are doing so she insisted on modeling the flower arrangement…

I’m going to etch some more and try to design and make a carrier that would hold six etched bottles for cut flowers. Time to buy some more iced coffee!

.

On another note: I believe I left Facebook at just the right time. A friend had called Tuesday evening to wish me an early happy birthday and we were talking about the hate and negativity that comes across one’s newsfeed. More so than the number of positive posts from your friends and family on Facebook. I just don’t want to see it anymore nor did she. She wanted to stay in her own little world and I am happy living in my own bubble. I learn what I need to know about current events but I’m content, and quite possibly much better off mentally by not being constantly bombarded with such negativity and conflict. I do, however, miss the interaction with our friends and followers on the farm page. I like Instagram but I don’t get a lot of comments or interaction on there and very few, if any, comments through the blog. I’m not sure what the solution is but right now, I like the Instagram platform for staying in touch. Are you on Instagram? If so, find us under Dream Valley Farmstead!

.

Farm news: eggs, eggs and more eggs

I discovered one day this week, that Mabel is a Vietnamese Pot Bellied Pig. Yep. If you google it you will see spittin’ images of our Mabel. Now you know!