Thanks a bunch, yall. You can tell I've been moving fast cause I haven't been around.
I did manage to recover in time to work the Expo. I clocked 57 hours in 5 days. My friend and I worked together in the barn, and the only downer was the volume of DUST in the barns. It was HORRID. I use a netipot and I was blowing gunk out of my nose that was awful!! Combined with recovering from the cold, it was a really bad thing. But other than that, everything went great. Everybody in the barns were super nice, and we only had a few minor bumps in the road. Also managed to get everyone into the arena that we were next to through the back door at their appropriate times. So it all worked out. I expect I'll be back again next year, we'll see I guess.
I was mostly recovering from that when we got hit with the March snow storm. That just threw my entire schedule off. It was great to spend an extra day with my BF since he stayed home from work that day. We cleared everything out, and got stuff going again. Gratefully the wind wasn't as bad as they were saying it could have been, so we never lost power, either. I guess that's what 100 gallons of water in barrels will do for you
The storm caused the schedule to get nutty. JS was supposed to come into town Tuesday afternoon. Her flight got cancelled, and so she managed to get a new flight coming in on Wed instead. I had to reshuffle her schedule three times before we settled in. That just made my whole week strange since pretty much nothing I planned on happened the way I planned it. I was soooooooo glad to have her body work for me though. I felt SOOOOO much better after she worked on me. I have missed her a lot! We managed to do a little essential oils class, so that was a little more money in my pocket, which was nice.
Other than that, the BF got a fat return, and I netted a whopping $41.00. That's better than taking a loss, at least, so I'll take it. The BF paid off one of his cards (he was hoping for paying off 2 but the silly head went and blew a bunch of money so it's only one. It's his own fault, for real...), and then is able to make a payment on another one, so that's good news. I made a mess of my accounts, completely forgot to pay a couple of my cards, and then paid one of them out of the wrong account (again). See above mentioned confusion regarding snow. It was bad! I straightened everything out and got back on track, so hopefully things will resolve soon. It seems to be going out faster than it is coming in still, but I am determined to turn that tide very very soon. I just won 90 days of coaching with a gal who does awesome work for financial/biz stuff, and I'm so stoked about it!
Not much else to report in the news... Riding lessons happen again this weekend for the first time since winter, and I'm very happy about that. I have had some good reports from JS and the farrier on Storm, so hopefully this will translate into our lessons, too. He did get trimmed this week, and my farrier let me do the nipping. I did a decent job, even if it was really really hard to do. His legs are heavy!! The farrier noticed that we have finally worked him out of a pattern of growing too long on the outside of this front feet, so he is now growing much more level, which is great news. She's been working with him now for about 2 years, that plus the work I've done with him on his balance is a big amount of progress. He's 15 now (just turned 15 on the 18th!), so he should really be in a good place to start showing some of those tiny signs that we're making good progress. He was also a trooper and stood in the cross ties (I never cross tie him, usually), and even behaved with it being somewhat windy. I love my farrier, she has helped me and Storm so much. I'm also super grateful that when I do the work she doesn't charge me as much for trimming him, so I save $$ too!
I'm doing research on broilers, because my friend TW and I are going to go in together to get birds so that we can have them butchered and processed. We will probably pay for it, I'm not really interested in the learning curve of butchering a whole lot of meat birds myself. Maybe someday, but not yet. So now I'm trying to figure out what kind I want, and how much it is going to cost to do this. In the mean time, we have to get the other coop repaired so that we have a place to put said broilers (actually the broilers will go where the layers are now, and the layers will come up the hill next to the house). Hopefully we can get that project done soon.
Speaking of the layers, the darn birds aren't laying in the pretty nesting boxes that the BF made for them.
What the heck!? Can't figure that one out at all. They'd rather lay on the floor in the corners. I am wondering if it doesn't have enough of a lip at the front of the boxes, but I can't imagine that is the only thing holding them back. No idea... I guess we can try adding something to it and see if that helps. Crazy birds. They also still won't let Princess chicken into their midst. I've tried a few times, the first time I let her out in the morning, and that didn't work. The second time I intended to let her out in the dark at night, but the BF didn't listen to what I said, and so he let her out later, but the light was still on in the coop, so they beat her up again. I'm afraid she's going to be doomed to live in a dog crate inside the coop for the rest of her life. My friend has offered to take her and she said if she didn't fit with her flock she'd butcher her. But she's a really good layer and lays BIG eggs (like beyond jumbo size!), so I really don't want to get rid of her. JS pointed out that she lives a way better life than factory birds, and that she technically has enough room inside the crate, so technically she's ok. I just don't like that she gets no sun and can't roam around. JS also thinks that she's an older bird that somehow got into my group, which doesn't match what the woman told TM when she picked them up, but whatever. She's a good layer and I'm ok with that. She hasn't been eating or drinking as much as she was over the winter, but I have no idea what to do about that.
I'm covering in the office this afternoon, which makes up for missing Monday because JS was here. It's not my full hours, but it's still something. I've just decided that the money will cover itself and I can't stress about it. I need to be focusing more on my biz, and so if I don't make my usual hours in the office, then that's that.
This weekend is supposed to be warmer, but cloudy. They're calling for 70 tomorrow.
That will feel good if it makes it there. I'm thinking of all the things I need to do around the farm that haven't been done in a while. Hopefully I can be uber productive! We'll see. Sunday I think we might go to a museum, not sure. It's supposed to rain, but I'd rather go on a rainy day if it means the crowds won't be there, too.
Alright, done blathering. I should lock things up here. Yall have a great weekend!!
At least we can just not go to family functions. The BF's mom has a gift certificate to the yoga studio where I go, and right now I just don't feel like bugging her to go with me. I'm just not interested in spending time with her because I don't want to say anything that will make matters worse. And I have a feeling they probably can't handle the intensity of my emotions all that well, either. I try to keep things dialed down around them, but lord help them if I ever have a reason to get upset or angry. It scares most people because my emotions are strong and most people really feel them. 
Yesterday I thought it was just allergies, which would have been not outside of the realm of possibility since it's been so warm, and it was only one side of my nose/throat that was bothering me. This morning, it has settled in and I have that ick feeling in my throat. 
