A Simple Prairie Life

I Had a Life But My Job Ate It!

March 10, 2010March 10, 2010 Gretchen

I Had a Life But My Job Ate It!

I saw this on a bumper sticker (online) the other day. That is how I feel right now. Randy and I are both worn out from lambing and working and in need of a serious vacation with an ocean involved or at least water and warmth of some sort. We will see if this happens in 2010 or not.

Here is a glance at my day and why I am screaming for life to slow down and allow me some downtime.

3:30 wake up to make bottles and head outside to feed bottle lambs and let the sheep out of the building

4:15 return inside to wash bottles, shower, and get ready for work

4:45 pack both our lunches and layout our morning and noon supplements

5:00 head out the door to work

5:45 arrive at work

6:00-4:30 work at a computer

5:15 arrive home, change, make bottles to feed bottle lambs

5:45 return inside to wash bottles, cook dinner (generally from scratch), and wash dishes (by hand) from breakfast and lunch

6:30 eat

7:00 clean up after dinner, wash dishes (by hand), make coffee for the next morning, and dish up our lunches for the next day, and make bottles to feed bottle lambs

7:30 head out to lock up the sheep in their building and feed bottle lambs, this also includes any doctoring that needs done

8:00-8:30 return inside to wash bottles and get ready for bed

8:30 Bedtime

8:30-Midnight Sleep

Midnight one of us heads out to check on our ewes to make sure no one is lambing or more specifically, having trouble lambing

Midnight-3:30 am Sleep

Then I get back up and do it all over again. This has been going on sine the last week in January and needless to say we are both exhausted and a little burned out. There is a little dim light at the end of the tunnel. It’s quite a ways away, but we will get there.

Spring is in the air and the warmer weather is already lifting our spirits. The thought of a garden right now is a little daunting, but hopefully I will get in the mood as the days continue to get longer and the weather continues to warm up.

I’m not whining! It may sound like I’m whining, but I truly love our life and our animals. That’s the part of our lives we do enjoy. It just tends to feel like we live at our jobs and have no time for our lives. We work twelve hours (including the commute), sleep 8 hours (if we’re lucky), and spend the other 20 preparing to leave our house and animals for the day and making up for the time we were away from our house and animals all day.

It may not seem like we are in self-sufficiency, environmental awareness, downshifting, or any of the things I’ve mention on the sidebar. However, this is all part of our attempt to become debt free and HUGE step toward all of these things. As soon as the debt is gone we hope to take our home off-grid or build an off-grid home. We will still have the expense of maintaining the equipment, but this will eliminate those electric and propane bills we despise so much.

We will get there. I have my moments where it seems impossible, too far away, and out of sight. Then I have days where it is just around the corner, and I can’t wait for it to all come together.

Here are a few things I think would help us cut costs in the meantime and free up even more money to put toward debt:

• Budget, I have set up a strict budget we HAVE to stick to in order to make this work. We will be allotted only so much cash money (credit cards for fuel only) for groceries, auto repairs and maintenance, vet and pet expenses, our farm expenses, and any other miscellaneous expenses. We will also set back money every month for those bills that come due once or twice a year; propane, auto insurance, and car tags and taxes.

• Dinners: one night a week will include eggs. These come from our chickens and are usually in great supply. We will also do one night a week soup or bean dish with salad. These are both not only easy meals, but also frugal meals.

• We are selling all the lambs born on our farm this spring and hopefully some of our yearling ewes. This will help our sheep pay for themselves throughout the rest of the year (hay, grain, protein tubs, and any other supplies needed).

• Cats: As of right now all eleven little darlings are in our pool house 4 days a week. As soon as Randy gets the cat door installed (hopefully this weekend) they will be outside kitties except at night. They can mouse instead of relying on cat food $$$.

• TV: We (as in I) watch very little TV. Once the season finales are over and summer is here, I want to get that whole setup unplugged to decrease the phantom load it is pulling 24/7.

• Utilities: I would like to unplug everything not in use, power down more, and possibly get a wood burning stove in our house to help our heating/propane expenses.

• Cook outside: in the summer this will be a lot easier. I have a solar oven I need to utilize, especially for bread baking. We will be grilling and cooking over our fire pit a lot more and eating cold foods (salad sandwiches, salads, cold rice and pasta dishes, etc.).

• Retirement: we’ve never been fully comfortable with the 401K/IRA retirement plan. We may decrease our input into these for the time being and use that money to pay off current debt.

• Land: we are still in hopes of owning land someday. We were convinced we needed 80 acres because that is the legal requirement to hunt your own land. We are now thinking we would do less than this and raise our own food and barter what we can’t raise instead of hunting.

• Pool: no idea if this is a possibility, but I would like to convert our pool pump to run off solar energy. This would be a good first step to converting our home.

• Well/Pump: second solar conversion possibility

•Limit our Kinesiology/Chiropractor visits: take a multi-vitamin, CLO, exercise and stretch (yoga), and make improvements to our diet

These are just some ideas of ways we can trim down our monthly expenses and work toward our goal of becoming debt free. We are estimating it will take us under 5 years to become completely debt free including our home. If we buy land it will take longer, but that may never happen. We have the usual bills: mortgage, student loans, home equity loan, etc. We have managed to pay off all our cars and intend to keep enough money in savings so we can pay cash the next time the need for one comes up.

I sometimes think of all the things I would have time to learn and do if I wasn’t at work all day long. I would spend more time with my animals for sure, but I would also love to learn better photography skills, learn to crochet, knit, sew, play the piano, and possibly learn a second language. These desires give me the drive I need to forge ahead and do without now so we can hopefully enjoy all of these things in the near future.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful day. I hope this encourages you to strive for simplicity and to become debt free. We will work very hard for the next few years and at times I may chime in here with less than encouraging words when the going gets tough, but I know it will be worth it for both Randy and I.

*Randy just called to say, “how about we ask if your mom will watch our animals and drive to the Grand Canyon for a few days. We can rent a cabin, hike, and just hang out there the whole time.” I’m there…just pick a date!

Animals

Unfair Bed Assignments…

March 3, 2010March 2, 2010 Gretchen

Our second born is holding his position as Vice Alpha. Over his dead body will the new guy surpass him.

He may be bigger, but size doesn’t matter. The little guy still gets the big bed.

Fortunately, Thai is good-natured and lets the little guy push him around. Koal isn’t letting go of his position as second in command anytime soon.

Who is Alph? Who is first in command you ask.

That would be this big mess of a dog who by the way isn’t allowed on the bed.

That would be my spot she’s wallowing all over. Love it!

Ash got the biggest bed of all!

Uncategorized

Our Dinner Last Night…

March 2, 2010January 17, 2020 Gretchen

We have a wonderful little seafood market a little over an hour from our home. Every once in awhile we make it over there and buy some fresh seafood. Last night we got to indulge in some of that seafood.

We had Kusshi oysters, crab cakes, and broccoli for dinner. It was so good. Randy and I are missing the plethora of seafood we had at our fingertips in Myrtle Beach, but are lucky enough to have found a fresh seafood market smack dab in the middle of Kansas. The owner is wonderful and so knowledgeable. We also bought some crab and lobster stuffed mushrooms to have later this week. She wrote down exactly how to prepare them which was great to know so I don’t mess them up.

It’s expensive, but so worth the money every once in awhile. She knows where the seafood comes from, for example, the oysters are from either the east or west coast depending on which variety you choose.

Tonight is Taco Soup from the freezer and Cornbread…yummy and easy…my favorite!

We are still bottle feeding baby lambs twice when we get home 5:30 and 8:30, and then again at midnight (usually). This makes for short evenings and the need for quick and easy dinners.

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Animals

Baby Llama…

February 25, 2010March 2, 2010 Gretchen

Mom and Dad have a new baby llama. It is up with the sheep at Grandma’s and is cute as she can be.

A family photo…mom, dad, and baby!

Randy and I have dibs on her, but I don’t think Dad is going to part with her. We were in hopes of handling her a lot to get her to be very friendly and tame. We will see if we can make it up to Grandma’s enough to make that happen or not.

Around the Homestead, Nutrition

Family Illness Update…

February 23, 2010February 23, 2010 Gretchen

Things are not-so-good here. Grandma is still in the hospital with pneumonia and has now been exposed to another patient (multiple times) with MRSA.

Dad is still very sick and had to have IV fluids yesterday. His test results won’t be back for 2-3 days and for now he is on a broad spectrum antibiotic. We’re still not sure if it’s helping or not.

Mom is off today and dealing with chores so unless there are problems Randy and I may have an evening “off.” I say off in quotes because we are still lambing at our house, bottle feeding lambs, and caring for the 100+ animals on our farm plus trying to keep ourselves as healthy and rested and possible.

Craig is coming back out this afternoon to help mom, so that is a HUGE relief. It is physically too much for her to do on her own let alone the fact she is emotionally drained. Between Grandma going to the hospital Thursday and Dad getting sick Friday she is a bit frazzled.

Over my lunch break I am headed to our kinesiologist to stock up on our nutritional supplements and to the grocery store to stock up on some good, organic fruits and vegetables. I have plenty of meat thawed and enough home-grown eggs to make for some fairly quick and easy dinners. Luckily, Randy is so very undemanding as far as dinner is concerned. When time is a problem egg sandwiches are always my saving grace.

I had been relying on the two meatloaves I made Sunday from local beef and venison, but after lunch today those will be gone. I had to get a plan together for some easy meals.

Tonight we will be having sausage, eggs, and potatoes. I plan to throw a roast in the slow cooker with some organic carrots and potatoes for dinner tomorrow.

I also have a big bowl of chicken stock that just needs to have the fat skimmed off the top, and we will be adding a cup of it to our dinners each night. I love to make the coconut chicken soup in NT, but just plain ol’ stock will have to do for now.

We are also on various supplements from our kinesiologist and everyone, dogs included, is receiving CLO each evening. We are trying very hard to stay healthy, so hopefully our efforts prove successful.

When things are stressful for me I just want my husband by my side. For now we are 50 miles away from each other and hours away from being home together. Thank goodness for cell phones and possibly an evening at home together.

Please say a prayer Dad, Grandma, and the woman battling MRSA all make a full recovery soon.

Hope everyone has a wonderful day and is staying warm!

Around the Homestead

Our Weekend….

February 22, 2010February 22, 2010 Gretchen

My list of things I wanted to get accomplished wasn’t my finest effort to be posting about, but I have a good excuse. Grandma was put in the hospital Thursday with pneumonia, so we ran in to visit her Thursday evening. Friday I did get a few things done such as tagging a few of our newest lambs, laundry, filling our bird feeders, some kitchen/food catching up, and just checking in on and tending to the sheep. We did have a nice, healthy set of twin ram lambs mid-morning on Friday. Yea….twins!

Saturday was nonstop, mass confusion. I was up at 5:30 to do our morning bottles. We had twins on the ground, no lambing pens ready, and I had to call for backup. Randy came out to help me get things in order, filled salt and mineral feeders in all the sheep pens, and finish up our morning chores. Once those were done we got cleaned up and headed to town. We stopped at the hospital to see Grandma and visit with her for a little bit. She wasn’t feeling the greatest at that point so we headed on to mom’s store to pick up a protein tub for the sheep. By then the bank was open so we went there to have our adoption papers notarized. At the bank we realized our papers were dated wrong, so we had to run home, update the dossier papers, save them to my jump drive, and head to town to print them off at mom’s store. Her computer didn’t have Word, so I called a friend to see if I could use her computer and printer. She was on her way to the city to go shopping, so we tracked down some other friends of ours and used their computer and printer to print out the nine papers needed. Thank you Ryan and Beth!

We were back to the bank well before their noon closing time. We got all our papers notarized and had a nice visit with the notary who is also in the adoption process. We headed to Subway where Randy bought us lunch then hurried home to eat and do noon bottles.

We did some running around for Grandma, loaded corn for the coming week, and just did the usual catching up around the farm we normally do on the weekend. Saturday evening we managed to work in a movie, The Other Boleyn Girl. It’s loosely based on Henry VIII, so of course it is pretty scandalous.

Sunday we got up early to do our chores and head to mom and dad’s to help mom with their chores. Dad was sick, and it was so icy mom had no business doing all those chores on her own, let alone on the ice and out in the freezing cold.

I think we got there around 7:30-8:00 am and didn’t end up home until 1:00 pm. We did threw 8 5-gallon buckets of corn at their house, fed bottle lambs, and loaded more corn to take to the sheep at Grandma’s. Mom stayed home to water while Randy and I headed to Grandma’s. We threw 4 5-gallon buckets of corn and started assessing the damage from another freezing, icy night. There were four new babies and one without a mama. They were all cold, but doing okay for the most part. Then we noticed a ewe in trouble. She had obviously been in labor for sometime and needed assistance. Long story short, it was a situation where didn’t know if we would save the ewe. We new we had already lost the baby, but needed to get the baby out to save the ewe. Randy and I worked and worked and managed to deliver the baby (it was not alive). Mom brought us medicine to doctor that ewe and another ewe. We built make-shift pens for all the new mamas and babies. Randy and I ran home to make a bottle for a baby at Grandma’s we had noticed wasn’t getting enough to eat.

We checked in on our sheep, grabbed a warm bottle, and headed back to Grandma’s to check on everyone, and feed the hungry baby. Mom had headed home to make us lunch, so after all was in order at Grandma’s we headed to Mom and Dad’s for a quick bite to eat.

After lunch we headed back home. We still had to feed our bottle lambs and milk out a ewe who had lost her baby. Once all of that was taken care of we headed inside to relax. I fell asleep nearly as soon as I hit the sofa.

When I woke up I made Randy and I snacks, made up two meat loaves to throw in the oven, and warmed up bottles for the lambs. We headed out to do our evening chores while dinner baked. We called mom to see if she needed help. There was a ewe at their house with an empty 5-gallon bucket with the handle stuck around her neck. So we headed down there to try to catch her and get the bucket off. Thankfully she had gotten herself into a small catch pen and was easy to catch, bucket removed, and we were headed home shortly afterwards.

We went inside to eat dinner, clean up, do bedtime bottles, and eventually went to bed. I did get to read the first few pages of Rick Warren’s book God’s Power to Change your Life. I’m not sure I’ll get it done before I have to return it to the library, but thought I would get in what I could. I was up at 11:15 pm to check on everyone, and back up at 3:30 am to do bottles and get ready for work.

That was our weekend….the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Dad is still really sick and headed to the doctor this afternoon. We will hurry home to do our chores then up to Grandma’s to do chores up there and help mom and their house if she needs us to. We are praying Dad is healed quickly and back on his feet soon. Craig has stepped in to help today while Mom, Randy, and I are at work, but even the four of us cannot manage his livestock as well as he can. We need him healthy as soon as possible.

Happy Monday!

Around the Homestead

Weekend Agenda…

February 18, 2010March 4, 2010 Gretchen

Here is what is on my agenda for the weekend. This is assuming we don’t have a truck load of lambs that keep me preoccupied.

Laundry

Dusting and Vacuuming the house

Menu Planning

Cooking ahead for the week to come

Bake Bread

Make Soup

Water house plants

If there is extra time I hope to:

Make cheese

Make laundry soap

Farm Related:

Clean out Lambing Pens

Prepare tags for tagging new lambs

Tag new lambs

Prepare Grain Bins and Cart for grain order delivery

Milk out #87 and Move to dry-off pen

Fill in holes around pool deck (hiding place for kitties and other critters) Randy actually did this. I got the wheelbarrow and shovel out….does that count?

Personal:

Take an Epsom Salt/ACV bath

I am fighting sickness and need some toxin cleansing and joint healing. I honestly have to put this on my list so I will take a few minutes for myself to soak and relax.

I’m a list maker and make a list at the beginning of every weekend of all the things I hope to get accomplished while I’m home. I will add things as I go and mark them off as I complete them. It gives me a feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Animals, Around the Homestead

Lambing Troubles…

February 11, 2010February 17, 2010 Gretchen

Last night we had a fairly easy evening, fed our two bottle lambs at 7:30 pm, and headed to bed early. We were both up at 11:30 pm to do bottles again and check on a couple ewes we thought were close to lambing. One ewe (0344) had lambed and had a baby girl all on her own and the other was still showing no signs. I got up again at 3:30 am to do bottles again and check on everyone. The second ewe (5028) was in labor and seemed to be making a lot of noise and things didn’t seem to be moving along as smoothly as usual for her in particular. I got a lambing pen set up for her and got all the other lambing pens tended to (alfalfa, water, etc.). I decided to give her a little time and leave her alone. I went inside to wake up Randy, let him know what was going on, and jump in the shower. When I got out of the shower he said she hadn’t made any progress and was obviously uncomfortable. I headed out to check her and what turned into pulling her lamb that was coming hind feet first (should be front feet and head first). It was a big ewe lamb. She pulled hard, and I didn’t get her pulled fast enough. Her little heart was beat hard and strong, but her little mouth gaped open with her tongue hanging out. She wasn’t breathing. I ran into the house to warm up a shot of dextrose in hopes of giving her a jolt and getting her going again. In the meantime Randy tried to resuscitate her by blowing in her mouth and nose. By the time I got back it was too late. I gave her the dextrose anyway which usually causes them to kick around a bit, but there was no movement and no longer a heart beat.

The umbilical cord had broken before I could get her head out. She had gulped in fluids in attempt to breathe one the cord had severed. The fluid had filled her lungs and nothing we did could have changed her fate.

The mama was so upset. It broke my heart. We put her in a lambing pen where she searched and cried for her baby. She circled and circled and may still be circling right now in hopes of finding her baby. I checked her again to make sure there wasn’t another baby on the way. I couldn’t feel anything, but she usually has twins so we were a little nervous leaving her this morning. I was late for work and Randy had to get on the road. I called my brother to check in on her a little later and make sure everything is okay. Dad stopped in to make sure she was okay and make sure she cleaned.

Life on the farm isn’t always easy. Life on the farm isn’t always pretty. We lost our favorite ewe, Ma, last weekend to an illness we never identified. This morning we lost a sweet little full-blooded Dorper ewe lamb and now have a mama with tons of milk to milk out and dry off.

I felt defeated, but you learn fast that life on the farm does go on. We saved the mama and in the grand scheme of things that is the important thing. We could have left before she went into labor, leaving her to struggle and suffer all day. We are grateful we were there to help her even if the ending was still a sad one for all. Tomorrow I am off work and will be home all day to care for them and watch over them.

There is still snow on the ground from Sunday. Hopefully today and tomorrow the warmer weather will melt it away so the dogs can get outside to run and maybe even play a little ball. Our dogs are starving for attention and wondering why on earth we are getting up at all hours of the night. They need some attention and a chance to stretch their legs.

Praying things will go better from here on out. A little sunshine to melt the snow away and dry things up is sure to help. Have a great day!

In The Kitchen

Making Herbal Tea…

January 30, 2010January 28, 2010 Gretchen

We are on a tight budget and one of our “budget busters” is tea (and coffee). In hopes of saving money in this department I decided to mix up my own herbal tea with herbs from our herb garden. This was so easy it’s a shame I didn’t do it sooner.

All I did was take a quart of dried spearmint and a quart of dried lemon balm from the pantry.

Put them in my food processor.

And voila….

Herbal Tea. Please excuse my sloppy, smeared label.

This is really good to sip on these cold winter evenings.

Animals

Growing Like Weeds…

January 29, 2010January 28, 2010 Gretchen

He’s are playful little cutie.

His motor is always rumbling.

Bandit is our sweetheart. He is always at your feet tugging on your pant leg with his front paws.

Roxie is our tubby girl. She has a crush on Cooter and is constantly at the food bowl trying to keep up with him.

Murphy was the first kitten we brought home. He likes to be loved on, but doesn’t like to be held.

One board on our pool deck is warped allowing them entrance under the deck. This is where Pudgy found himself for two days when he refused to come out when we locked everyone up. Foxie is in the blackberry brambles looking startled, and Pudgy and Max are taking off toward the road. Max got in trouble for getting in the road on more than one occasion.