Frustratedearthmother's Journaling Journey

[DeniseCharleson]

I wonder if DE in their yard would help?

According to the all-knowing Internet, yes.

http://www.fleascontrol.com/diatomaceous-earth.htm
"If you've got a flea problem in your yard, then one of the best ways to safely get rid of your flea problem is with diatomaceous soil. ...however, if you have some other insect that you want to live in your back yard for some reason, you shouldn't put this out there."

http://www.fleacontrolbook.com/natu...us-earth-the-a-miracle-cure-for-flea-control/
"This is a remarkable substance that is a desiccant it actually dries out the waxy outer layer of fleas so they dehydrate and eventually die. As an added benefit, diatomaceous earth can eliminate other insects."

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Thanks Denise!

The topicals seem to be working on the dogs. They don't have any visible fleas on 'em, but they sure do have lots of bites that are still itchy. Benadry only seems to take the edge off... poor critters.

I milked a couple of does this morning before work. I need to keep it up. Why can't I make myself start milking like I did last year? I milked for 10 months straight and loved every minute of it - but now that I've got so many does in milk I can't make myself commit. These gals are still nursing babies so when I want milk I just separate them. Milking on weekends seems to be enough for our own use right now. HOWEVER, I want to get some more pigs in a couple months, so I need my gals to be producing. Between goat milk and eggs it cuts the feed bill quite a bit.

Maybe when I get the new "barn-port" built I'll be more motivated, lol. That's just gonna bring more work for awhile until I get it all set up the way I want it.

I've got lots of things on my 'to-do' list for the weekend, but I am fairly positive that I won't get them all done. Sigh... DH is going to visit his mom. He's leaving from work Friday and spending the night. I need to go visit my folks on Saturday. A co-worker is having a fund raiser so I need to make an appearance there before I had to my parents house - an hour away. So, my Saturday is pretty well taken care of and there's not much 'me' time in there.

I need to demolish a hoop house in the pasture because that's where the new 'barn-port' is going to go. Also need to pull my trailer out of that area and it's got a flat - ugh. So much to do and so little time.

AND - to top it all off - there's a little summpin-summpin brewing in the Gulf. It's over towards Florida right now but expected to move west - in our direction. Joy! At least we filled up all the gas cans the other day so we can power the generator for awhile if need be. I'll stock u on livestock feed and we oughta be good.

Still keepin' my fingers crossed that it doesn't head this way. While a couple days offa work would be nice - it prolly really isn't worth all the hassle of a storm!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Been a busy weekend. I came home a little early from work Friday and got busy. DH had left from work and went straight to his mom's house about 3.5 hours away so I was allll alone. That's ok - I'm a country girl and I can do most everything I need to if I want to do it badly enough. (famous last words, right?)

First thing on the agenda was to move my trailer. Now, this trailer hasn't been moved in a couple years and yep, the jack had sunk down in the dirt somewhat. Not only the jack sank, but the concrete paver had sank right along with it. It had sank so much that I couldn't get it jacked up enough to reach the ball and be able to hook it up to my SUV. So, I trudge back to the garage to get a bottle jack and head back out to the pasture. I have a piece of 2 x 6 and another concrete paver to set the jack on. I jacked and jacked and jacked and after reconfiguring the piece of board, and moving the paver and readjusting the jack time after time I finally got it high enough to hook it up. I start trying to crank the stand up and it is seriously not wanting to jack up so I get it up as high as I can and think it'll do....(again with the famous last words)

And to make things even better the thingy that is supposed to slip down over the ball won't go all the way down - ARGH! So, since I'm not going more than than about 20yards I decide to pull it only half-way hooked up. Oh, to add icing to the cake there is a huge fire ant mound all built up around the jack and I just THOUGHT I had it high enough to pull out. So, I very gently ease on the accelerator and things start moving, but not very well so I get out and go back there to see what's going on. I didn't have it all the way jacked up after all and I was plowing a furrow with the jack and unfortunately, it was reacting to the stress and just bending back at quite a nasty angle. So, I back up and bend it back the other way, lol.

I finally get it allllllmost where I wanted it which is right next to where the round bales are stored. Wellllll, there's a bit of a hay pile right there and I thought I could just drive right over it....and I could have if it wasn't wet under that pile of hay. I. AM. STUCK. I refuse to give in to my girly side so instead of crying I just started cussing! Nobody is around but me and the goats and they already know I'm a nut case, lol. I unhook the trailer, leave it sitting at a weird angle and am able to get myself unstuck. OH...and I forgot to mention that the trailer had a flat and I practically rolled the tire right off the wheel. I don't even care!

Next step is to start tearing down the old hoop house. You wouldn't think that would be such a big job - but it 'bout near killed me! It was two panels deep so I had to unwire all the places where we had wired it all together.... and there wasn't really a way to cut the wires...or I didn't have the right tool or something...so I very un-patiently untwisted them all. And, I could only do that after I took off the four layers - yes FOUR layers of tarps, lol. Every year we just added new tarps on top of the old ones... figuring it would add more waterproofing - and it did. It was a very tight, very waterproof shelter for them. And now it's gone. That's actually why I was moving the trailer.... we had lots of rain coming in today and I wanted to put the trailer in a place where I could have it set up for their temporary shelter. The things I do for these critters!

THEN, after I had all the tarps off and all the wires un wound, I had to carefully pull up the posts holding it down to the ground and hope that the panels didn't pop up and break both my legs. Well, luckily for my legs there was 4 years of poop and straw and hay and poop built up in there so nothing popped loose at all. In fact, after much pulling, and swearing, and tugging and swearing, and finally getting a pry bar and a brick and swearing some more - I got it up. OMG! Then I had to drag everything out of the way so that my neighbor could come Saturday morning with his tractor and try to pretty everything up and get it level.

That was just Friday. Hot tub and a glass of wine and I slept like a rock!

Neighbor showed up about 11 Saturday morning. I had a smallish pile of dirt in the back yard left over from the septic install so he moved that first. Took about 8 trips with the tractor - it was more dirt than I thought it was. Also, there was the remnants of an old dump load of sand we had put out in the pasture many years ago so that was available for use too. Soooo, after I get the neighbor lined out I came inside to do some laundry. Few minutes later he's walking up to the house...kinda shuffling...head kinda down... oh boy. This can't be good. Only thing he said is "where's your septic line?" Oh nooooooo.... I tell him he must already know where it is or he wouldn't be asking me, huh? Yep.

Luckily, oh so luckily when I had the line installed out through the pasture I had the septic crew sleeve the line. WHEW.... He had scraped down far enough that he'd exposed the line, but luckily hadn't broken it. I'm so glad I paid extra to have that line sleeved for 'just in case' and it was sooo worth it.

Things went pretty well after that, thank goodness.

Later that afternoon I went to see my folks and took them out to dinner. It's an hour each way so by the time I got home I was done. Day over, Hot tub time. Glass of red...good nights sleep.

Today has been recuperation day. Did a little housecleaning cuz my grandbabies are coming Thursday - woohoo! I can't wait!

 

[snapshot]

Yikes that's a busy weekend! I keep trying to get my time off under control enough that I actually take a little time off. A hot tub might help!...

 

[frustratedearthmother]

We've had rain!!

We've had rain....

We needed it, we got it, now it needs to stop. I haven't had to wear boots out to feed in quite some time. I wouldn't mind the mud except the grandbabies are coming this weekend and I want them to be able to play outside. The yard is fine, but back in the barn area it's pretty sloppy. Hopefully we'll get a few days of sunshine and it'll dry right up - especially if I can keep most of the critters off if it so they don't churn it up into mud/poop soup.

Still no word on when my barn-port will be delivered and assembled. Hopefully just a couple more weeks - I'm getting antsy.

Milked Cocoa last night and this morning. I've got a co-worker who's asking for milk (for his puppy of course!) and today I brought some to work (for his puppy of course!). It is actually quite good for dogs - read that somewhere. Mine all love it. The Westies like fresh milk but won't touch Kefir - while the LGD loves it alllllll. She will pretty much eat anything.

I got new office furniture yesterday! I had cleaned out most of my old stuff last week, so I was ready when maintenance called and said it was assembled and ready to be delivered. Yippee - now my office is so much nicer. I got rid of the old 1960's metal furniture and I'm updated with some modern, eye pleasing stuff. Yea!

Waiting on lunchtime so I can do a few errands. DH's b'day is tomorrow. I picked up a couple of shirts for him when we took our students on a field trip to UT. He's a UT alumni and lives and breathes it - so now he's got two new shirts to advertise himself, lol. I still need to grab a card and maybe a couple other things and take him to his choice of restaurants for dinner. He's pretty easy to please so that makes my life a little easier.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Happy Birthday to DH! We just got back from our favorite celebratory type restaurant and I'm stuffed! I had actually started cooking dinner for him before he got home, but he called and wanted to go out - so out we went!

Besides the UT shirts I go thim the best smelling cologne - it's called UOMO - and it's a super sexy scent. I kept grabbing his arm during dinner just so I could smell it again, lol. Im sure the other diners thought I was a loon - but what else is new?

Grandbabies will be here tomorrow - yippee! I can't wait, but I haven't got anything ready... Need to run the vacuum and the mop and clean their bathroom. Not much else, but to tidy up and maybe dust a little. I know better than to do much more, cuz 10 minutes after they get here everything is disorganized and scattered all over the house, lol. I don't even care - it's worth a little disorganization to get to squeeze 'em nonstop for a few days!

 

[Wannabefree]

Yay for dinner out with a good smellin man! And yay for hurricane grandbabies! Sounds you will have a great week my friend

 

[snapshot]

I hope you are having a great weekend with the little ones!!!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

OH my goodness - I'm in grandbaby heaven! We're having a blast.... but of course nothing got done yesterday except squeezing them children, lol. Today that will have to change - grass has GOT to be mosed. The rain we got earlier in the week has brought out the skeeters and the tall grass is skeeter central. I will proceed to go out and scalp the yard after I get some breakfast into the crew.

Oops, they're up! Time to feed da babies!

 

[Wannabefree]

You sure sound like you're having fun! Hope ya got the grass cut