Savingdogs-Saving the chickens

[Denim Deb]

And since the boys are gone,

More goat milk, goat milk for me.
More goat milk cuz she's Sebastian free.

 

[savingdogs]

Very cute, Deb! I dunno if she is happy about being Sebastian free. I am trying to figure out when I should milk again. I think pretty soon.............I'm dying to see how much I get this second time. I am amazed, truly, that one little goat drank so much milk, on both of them. No wonder they will miss their ma! They were the walking milk shake factories on demand.

 

[FarmerJamie]

Hi SD! I enjoyed the goat pix, but what was that white stuff on the ground *shudder*

 

[savingdogs]

Well that photo was from March but we DID have snow yesterday.

This has been the freakiest cold spring. If we get snow in May I'm going to fall over in a faint. I'm getting very discouraged about my garden. My starts are not doing well inside and I can't move them out yet, we are STILL getting hard frosts and big hail. I would have started them later, but I'm wondering now if anything will have time to finish growing outside this season at all? Maybe I ought to plant only short-season crops.

I just got real bad news, it is another whole MONTH before we can even begin to hear word about my SSI, whether it is approved or not. Holy cow, how do they expect disabled people to survive this approval process? It doesn't seem fair that I worked for 30 years contributing to this fund and now it is like the inquisition. I've had TWO doctors giving me a resounding approval in addition to my own doctors over the last 15 years, my records must be a foot high! I'm really disgusted that they make it this hard for disabled people. What if I did not have my husband and mom to help me through? We have now started having to have to borrow from everyone including my 19-year-old SON and my 28-year-old daughter has started to assist us, I may need to ask my brother now since it will be more than another whole month. It doesn't seem fair when I've never been a burden to the system ever in the past.

We have postponed paying for a lot of things, but I sooooooooo miss having a dryer. I know some of you love drying your clothes on the line, but it just rains all the time here, there are not enough dry days for the amount of clothes I have to wash. We constantly have things hanging up all over the house, hanging to dry. Clothes hang from towel racks, shower curtains, window treatments, blankets are draped over furniture to dry. My house has looked freakish for awhile. I do have a drying rack, but it takes about four days for clothes to dry inside my house (cold and drafty) so Trouble has taken to IRONING his clothes dry so he can wear his favorite jeans.

Thank goodness we have all these eggs and all this milk all of a sudden. It ended up being good timing. Also the sale of the dairy kids and next the bunnies could not have come at a better time because the investments all were when I was employed and now the pay-back is coming when we really need it. This was totally not planned that way, but God must have had his eye on us. I can feed the boys nettles and eggs and goat cheese and we have enough sacks of flour to make a lot of bread and wash it down with well water and goat milk, if it comes to that. And I have some old hen out there that needs to go into stew pots.

Last night we even resorted to eating meat from the freezer burnt stuff we picked up for the dogs! It wasn't too bad. But that will probably get those hens culled.....hunger makes a good sauce. lol

But I was thinking that the end of this month would be the last one like this and to hear we have one more (at least) is discouraging. If it goes past one more month or they deny me,I'll have to get a lawyer. If that happens, they take a percentage of the lump sum so while we will take that step, we would rather I be approved on the first try.

There are adopters coming soon for all four foster dogs. Cora, the freaky freakazoid, leaves tomorrow. Oh darn. Murphy the pup will probably leave next week and then Ellie and Hanna will leave mid-May. My coordinator asked if I will have empty nest syndrome. I had to remind her I will still have approx 40 animals here we take care of. There are four of us, but it will be awhile before my nest feels empty. I put all the dogs on an in-and-out routine that isn't really that hard to manage (they are crated quite a bit when inside) but it does get hard when I'm ill.

I think this goat milk makes me feel better though, and my homemade bread and no junk food anymore.

 

[glenolam]

I'm sorry to hear about the long wait. But you guys have learned how to be self sufficient enough that you have a good place to start. And once things start to look up just think of how good you'll be then.

Not to mention that the courage and hard work that you're showing does nothing but good things for your children.

 

[FarmerJamie]

Hope things come through for you soon. It's stories like yours that make me wish I could designate the recipient of the funds I continue to pay into the system (and will never see).

 

[savingdogs]

Wouldn't that be nice, Jamie? I've always tried to look at it this way. My grandmother collected a long time and now so has my mother. The money taken from my paycheck I consider given to them.

However, it is MEANT to be for all of us when we need it. It is rather terrifying to be suddenly feeling dependent on a government that appears to be in so much trouble. Not a good feeling. I know it is a rather political statement, but if Hubby and I could have managed our own retirement affairs and had kept all the money we paid in to SSI and unemployment insurance, we could have easily paid off the house and I'd have "retired" a few years ago already. I'm only 51 so I'm not really retirement age, but my body won't work a full time job anymore.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

Thank goodness we have all these eggs and all this milk all of a sudden.

isnt that right! another fun thing you can do is make savory (or sweet) bread puddings - you have all the ingredients!

hang in there baby!

 

[abifae]

Holy cow, how do they expect disabled people to survive this approval process?

They don't. One of the ways to weed out those who can work is to delay and if they are forced to work, it is proved that they are capable of work and do not need disability.

I've had friends who worked this stuff and they're required to make people appeal at least once to prove it.

Also, enjoying hanging things on the line is different than no choice hahaha. Putting out sheets on a crisp spring day is very different than having to line dry in the rain

 

[savingdogs]

I have read on Meniere's sites that usually people with this are denied the first time. Sigh. I suppose I should expect that.

I found a great website tonight! http://www.everything-goat-milk.com/index.html Pretty useful! I want to make that mexican carmel stuff, that sounds yummy! And I love flan, and it takes mostly just eggs and milk, how convenient!

Cora our foster dog leaves tomorrow for her forever home. Murphy has a person coming too. I'll be back down to just my own dogs soon. I'm sure they will find more ridgebacks that need rescuing soon enough.

I got a bunch of stuff transplanted outside finally today, we had a nice warm day and they are predicting warm weather for awhile. And I got some other stuff planted inside now in the sunny window sill spot. So that feels good to be moving that project along.

And I have the incubator set up with its first eggs! I've got all my fingers and toes crossed! It holds 41 eggs. I have a mix in there, but only 8 of them are PB Buff Orpington. I'm getting away from liking that breed. But they are my purebred eggs so I'm hatching some. Then I have 18 RIR/Buff Orpington cross eggs, the RIR are my really good layers so I'd rather hatch some more of them. I have the one cross like that from last year I hatched on accident and she is real pretty and lays an egg every day. Then the last 15 are EE/Buff Orpington crosses, so hopefully they will look like pretty golden EEs. Actually, I just hope they hatch!

I have no duck eggs whatsoever being layed, I don't know what gives.

And I'm getting almost exactly a gallon of milk a day now from the goaties. I absolutely have to milk twice a day.

And Ginger has wonderful udders to milk, I was so wrong about her being hard to milk. I'm getting much faster and able to really get all the milk out of each udder now. And I have my routine down so I'm getting faster, I just need to get some more glass containers.

This has been physicaly tiring to keep up with, but I'm having a good spell right now, I hope it lasts a few days. I think the goat milk I'm drinking is helpful.

I've been making chocolate milk with honey......man, is that ever the yummiest.