Farewell 2015, and hel-l-lo 2016!

All things considered 2015 was a pretty awesome year. You may think that coming on the heels of 2014 and 2013, the worst years of my life, it wouldn't take much to make me happy, and you'd be right. But even if it hadn't followed 2014, I'd still say that 2015 was a good year.

First and foremost, my health is improving by leaps and bounds. I've put my Hashimoto's disease into remission, which most doctors would say is impossible. But lab tests don't lie, and my TPO antibody levels are continuing to fall. Depending on who you ask, some people would not even diagnose me with Hashimoto's now because my antibody level is down to 47. Some health professionals draw the line at 60, some at 30, and some at 6, so the lower it falls, the better!

However, as I said, 2015 would have been a good year even if I had never been diagnosed with Hashimoto's. Why? Because I lost 38 pounds without even trying, and many little health annoyances have disappeared or are improving. For example, I used to wake up in the middle of the night feeling nauseous, and that no longer happens. After 30 years of migraines, I no longer have them either. After a lifetime of constipation, that rarely happens now. My arthritic knees are also much happier, which is no doubt a direct result of giving them 38 fewer pounds to carry. I have actually never weighed less than 150 pounds since I was 14 years old (other than when I was breastfeeding), and now I've been at 132 pounds for more than six months. But if I'm honest with myself, I never would have made so many positive and healthy changes in my life if I had not been diagnosed with Hashimoto's, so it appears to have been a blessing in disguise.

As a result of my health challenges, I became certified as a health coach, and I've decided to start a new blog, which will be launched very soon. I've been working on it for a couple of months. So many people have asked me how I put my autoimmune disease into remission -- and accidentally lost 38 pounds -- and there is no short answer to that question. What worked for me may not work for anyone else, but the path I followed, which was long and winding, will lead many people to a healthier life, so the new blog will be called Healthier Paths. I'm hoping that by sharing what I've learned, others will be able to find their own healthier paths.

In addition to my personal goals for 2016, I have also been working towards my goal to turn Antiquity Oaks into a teaching farm, as well as a truly productive farm. This year we will be partnering with one of our former interns to create a market garden and sell produce at farmer's markets in the Chicago area. You might remember Sarah from three years ago, as she wrote some wonderful blog posts on here, such as this one about Gerti the blind goat. After leaving here in 2013, she went to the west coast and interned on several farms there before coming back to the Chicago area to work on some farms in this area. We are really excited about her coming here as our garden partner this year.

We are also partnering with the wonderful people at Nature's Farm Camp to have an overnight camp here on the farm for five weeks in the summer. Each camp runs from Monday through Friday. Four weeks will be for kids 8 to 12 and one week will be for young teens. I can hardly begin to explain how excited I am about this! It's going to be so wonderful teaching children where their food comes from and how to prepare it, and I'm so happy and honored that the wonderful people at Nature's Farm Camp found us and decided to have us host the 2016 camps.

I'm also increasing my online teaching load for the University of Massachusetts in their sustainable food and farm program. For three years now, I've taught a class in raising dairy goats sustainably, and this spring, I'll be teaching a class in pastured poultry. Their sustainable agriculture program is growing by leaps and bounds, and US News and World Reports ranked them as the 8th best agricultural university in the world with only two other US universities listed higher.

Thursday marked 11 years in our house, and it's still not finished. When you live on a farm, there are always more important things to do than put trim around your windows or baseboard on the walls. Mike did finally put tile around the master bathtub this year, and I was planning to do a blog post as soon as he gets the grout on, but it's been five months without grout now. I should probably go ahead and show you how great it looks, even without the grout. Then I can celebrate again when he gets the grout on.

Later this month, this blog will turn 10 years old, which is hard to believe. One of my goals for this year is to get better about posting on here.

So, that's where I find myself at the end of 2015 and heading into 2016.

Who's my daddy?

It's Sunday, which has become my day for genealogy research. Anyone who has ever delved into their genealogy knows that you could spend all day, every day working on your family tree, so I quickly decided that I should isolate my efforts to Sundays.

I originally got interested in learning more about my genes a few months ago as I started dealing with my health problems. They say that about a third of autoimmune disease comes from your genes and the other two-thirds comes from environmental triggers and lifestyle choices, so I thought it might be helpful if I knew exactly how much the cards were stacked against me. Someone told me about 23andme.com, so I went online to find out how it works.

One of the first things I discovered is that lots of people use the service to find birth parents. Although I was adopted at birth, my parents kept in touch with my mother. However, she had no idea who my father was, and I had always accepted the fact that I would never know ... until now!

The only thing I've ever known about my father is that he was in the Navy and in Washington DC in May 1962. He was probably 18 or 19 years old, meaning that he would now be in his early 70s, assuming he is still alive.

So, a few months ago, I spit into a test tube and sent it off for analysis, and a few weeks later, I discovered I had 935 cousins! Wow! Unfortunately almost all of them are third cousins or even more distantly related, but to go from having almost no relatives in the world to 935 was an amazing discovery! Via email, I met one particularly knowledgeable and helpful cousin in England who told me that if I could get my mum to do the test, I'd be able to split my list of cousins into maternal and paternal side, so I contacted her, and she agreed. I was thinking that the 935 would be cut in half, but it hasn't been quite that helpful.

As it turns out, only 125 of those cousins are related to me through her. The rest are related to me through my father! Holy smokes! That would explain why almost all of the surnames listed by my DNA relatives are English -- Smith, Jones, Lewis, Parker, Wells, and so on. I'm assuming this is because her family came here from Norway and Sweden at the end of the 19th century, whereas my father's family is almost entirely British and obviously came to the US in the 1700s and earlier, so there are simply a lot more of them in this country to get tested. Although testing is available in northern European countries, this is a pretty popular American thing to do. (Plus, there are a lot more people in this country.)

I even have some African DNA in me, which probably means that a couple hundred years ago I had a great, great, great, great ... great grandmother and grandfather who were slave and slave owner. I think I remember reading somewhere that one of Thomas Jefferson's children with slave Sally Hemming had skin that was pale enough that he was able to live his life as a white person, which obviously would have been the case with my ancestor.

Some of my cousins go back to British royalty and one to Pocahontas. That doesn't mean that I do, because it could be a different branch of their family tree than the one we share in common, but I am even more excited than ever to figure out where I fit in the world.

The funniest thing about all of this is that I've been a huge anglophile my entire life. I've visited England twice, and the only TV show I've watched in the last 15 years is Downton Abbey. I've been drinking hot tea since I was a teenager in Texas, and I was drinking it with milk it, which is a very British thing to do. I didn't even know anyone who drank hot tea, much less tea with milk in it back then! I don't even know where I got the idea.

Years ago, I said that since I had no idea who my father was, I was going to make one up. He was British, and his ancestor came to this country because he was the second or third son of an aristocrat, and since he would not be inheriting his father's land and title, he decided to come to America to find his fortune. I needed an excuse for my expensive taste, and royal blood seemed like the most obvious explanation. It's pretty funny that even part of it has been proven true -- his family did come from England! I'm really looking forward to finding out about the rest of it!

The next chapter

This blog post has been percolating in my head for months. It's a blog post I never wanted to write. It includes facts I don't want to be true. Many of you know I grew up as a "sickly" child, according to my mother and doctor. There was "nothing" that could be done to keep me healthy, again according to them. But in my 20s, I discovered that by adopting a diet rich in real foods, I no longer suffered from the all-too-common colds and flus and other ills that had plagued me for the first two decades of my life. I would go as long as five years without a cold and ten years without the flu.

For the past year and a half, I've become the sickly child again. At least that's how I feel as I've dealt with one health issue after another, some of which I've written about here. All along in the back of my head, I had a nagging feeling that I might have a problem with food sensitivities.  But my brain would quickly respond that's not possible! But then the other side of my brain would say, "remember back when you were a vegan, your problems with constipation went away, and every time you'd have a little piece of cheese or other dairy product, it'd come back." But the rest of my brain would just ignore that. It could NOT be true! I LOVE cheese! I write about cheesemaking. I talk about cheesemaking. I TEACH cheesemaking!

Last year when I got diagnosed with Hashimoto's, I read that the majority of people with thyroid disease have a sensitivity to wheat and gluten, and that some people have actually reversed the disease by removing gluten from their diet. I was sick and tired and desperate, so I quit eating wheat, which meant no more bread baking, which we had been doing for the past 26 years, almost daily for more than a decade. (See that pic on the right.) I LOVED bread! There are bread recipes in my books. I've taught bread baking from Washington State to Pennsylvania and Virginia, and I always felt bad when someone would ask me if I had any tips for gluten-free bread. I even said, "I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't eat bread!" It seemed a horrible fate. But after eliminating wheat from my diet, it became obvious that my body didn't like it. I'd occasionally wind up eating something with wheat in it when traveling, and the only thing that happened is that my digestive system would just shut down. Not pooping when you're traveling is not such a bad thing ... until you've gone five days!

Many aspects of my health have improved since eliminating wheat. I haven't had a cold or flu in more than a year now, I no longer have migraines, my asthma is gone, and my Hashimoto's is in remission. My antibodies were cut in half, and my hormones have remained at an ideal level. I no longer take any prescription meds. My vitamin D and vitamin B12 deficiencies have been completely corrected, and those levels are now optimal. But things weren't perfect. I still had nagging digestive issues, including constipation, motion sickness, and random nausea in the middle of the night. After seeing how my body reacted to wheat, I knew that I probably had other food sensitivities, which were wreaking havoc on my digestive system. But what?

The gold standard for figuring out food allergies is an elimination diet. I started talking about it last year and said that after the holidays I'd start. The holidays came and went, and it didn't happen. I gave a half-hearted shot at it in January, but I had one excuse after another why it wasn't a good time. Finally, in March after reading yet another book about auto-immune diseases and how food sensitivities play a major role, I started one day cold turkey. I eliminated corn, soy, dairy, eggs, peanuts, and tree nuts. After three weeks of not having any of those foods, I started to add them back into diet one by one with several days in between so that there would be no confusing which food was causing a reaction.

Of all the foods I eliminated, the only one that I've been able to add back into my diet with no problems has been peanuts. Everything else caused a reaction of some sort. Eggs was one of the worst as it caused chaos in my digestive tract, starting with nausea. I was also sleepy and dizzy and generally feeling like I'd come down with a stomach bug. It occurred to me that my motion sickness and random nausea had probably been caused by eggs all along. In fact, as I was flying into Denver last month in a rather bumpy flight, it suddenly occurred to me that I was feeling absolutely no motion sickness at all!

I could write pages and pages about this, but since March I've been keeping a food journal and writing down everything I eat and everything that happens to my body. I've tried to re-introduce most foods more than once because honestly, there isn't anything that I want to give up. Above all else, the number one thing I did NOT want to give up was dairy products. I've only tried cow milk once, and it was in the form of yogurt. It was our wonderful grassfed Jersey's milk made into yogurt, which is supposed to be easier to digest because of the probiotics, and yet it was not good. I had a smoothie made with the yogurt and didn't poop for three days. Not fun!

The goat milk did slow down my digestive system some, but not nearly as bad as the cow. This has made me very unhappy. It's not like I can just stop buying this stuff at the store! I have 14 goats out there making milk as I type. So far, this spring, all of the milk has been used to feed kids, but at some point, the kids won't need the milk any longer, and how am I going to feel about continuing to go out there and milk them every day? At the moment, my husband is actually doing almost all of the milking, but when he starts teaching again in the fall, the job will be mine again. I love my goats, but I originally got them because I loved their milk and cheese and yogurt. What will I do if those reasons no longer exist? I honestly don't know.

At this point, I've told myself that I should just continue for the next year before making any decisions. I've spent the last 13 years building a wonderful herd of milkers, and it would be tough to give that up. I am hopeful that as my body continues to heal, I will once again be able to consume their milk. Many people have been able to do that, but not everyone. I am not a patient person. I wish I knew what the future would hold for me, but I must learn patience.

That leads me to the next thing that causes health problems -- stress! Stress plays a major role in almost every disease. And we are all under stress. I constantly hear people say that they can't do anything about the stress in their lives. And I've said the same thing myself. But I've spent a good chunk of the past year reading books to help me regain my health, and it has finally sunk in ... we will all have stressful situations come into our lives every day, and we can't help that. We can, however, control how we respond to those situations. And it isn't just a matter of saying that you won't get upset when something negative happens. That just does not work.

I've learned that we have to make a conscious effort to regularly force our minds into a state of relaxation. Okay, "force" is not the right word, but it feels like that in the beginning. I've starting practicing yoga and meditation on a regular basis. I'd love to say daily, and that's the goal, but I'm not there yet. I have noticed that when I meditate daily, my response to stressful situations is much more calm -- and that's exciting!

I've also learned to take time every day to be grateful for the beauty in my life. Even when things are not going well, there are things to be grateful for. When I had car trouble last month, I sat there and thought of all the things for which to be grateful -- a tow truck was coming, I had peanuts in my purse, and so on.

I knew I'd be entering a new chapter in my life when my children left home. I also knew menopause would create some changes. But I always thought they'd be outward things, such as a new career. I never anticipated the changes within my body and mind that would have to happen. Yes, I have had my pity party, as I did not want any of these changes to happen. I thought life was perfectly wonderful over the past decade. But we have to play the hand we're dealt, and I intend to figure out how to make this next chapter the best yet.

The recliner -- and why you should live your dream NOW!

I haven't written a decent blog post in almost two months -- and that one was entitled "Catching Up," because I hadn't posted in a couple of weeks, during which time I had severely injured my back. And my back has now been re-injured so many times that I've lost count. It's somewhere around seven or eight. Each time I hurt it, I wind up back in the recliner because it is the only position in which I am not crying in pain.

We bought the recliner when I was pregnant with Katherine 22 years ago, and it used to hold such fond memories of nursing her as a baby and cuddling and reading to my children. Now, however, I am starting to refer to it as "that stupid recliner" and say things like, "I hate that chair!" Thankfully, my stints in the recliner are getting shorter. This last time it was only a day. Apparently I have a bulging disc in my back, and it takes the tiniest wrong movement to cause it to flare up again -- things like standing too long at a sink washing dishes. It isn't a big sudden, "Ouch!" kind of pain. It's a slow-building pain, which obviously gets worse as the disc swells more. I've discovered that icing my back after anything that could remotely cause a problem is a good idea, and I've probably avoided a few stints in the recliner by doing that. But sometimes I don't realize something is problematic until it's too late. Spending two hours sitting on the ground trying to get newborn kids to nurse proved to be a definite no-no.

Speaking of kids ... we've had five goats give birth since April 27, and three more are due within the next month. Aurora gave birth to quads the morning of April 27, and by that afternoon, I was in the recliner, which is where I stayed for almost a full two days. Since then, Mike has handled most of the birthing while I stand around taking pictures, trying to keep my back as straight as possible, not because it hurts to bend it, but because it will cause excruciating pain later, if I bend it the wrong way for too long. And that's the problem. It would be easy to not move the wrong way, if my body gave me some indication at the moment that I was doing something wrong. But it doesn't work like that. Nerve pain is quite different from muscle pain. It kind of feels like my body is giving me a pop quiz 24/7 on how to stand erect.

Part of the reason I haven't been blogging is because I haven't been able to sit in front of the computer for so many days. And when I am able to sit here, I spend hours catching up on things like email. I just updated the kidding schedule on our website so that people can see which kids are still available for sale. That was also about two months out of date.

The other reason I haven't been blogging is because I don't want to sound like I'm complaining. So, for the record, this is not a big long complaining rant. This is just the story of my life for the past two months. And there is some usable information in here. I hear a lot of people say that they are going to move to the country and start living this life when they retire. Now that I'm "older," I can say that that is really not the best plan. Two years ago, I had no idea that my body was going to have all of the problems that it has started to have. I am so glad that we moved out here 13 years ago. I had a lot of great years doing things that I loved. I don't want it to end, and I'm doing everything I can do to figure out how to continue living this life. But had we only moved out here a couple of years ago, there would probably be a "for sale" sign out front by now. If I think of all the challenges we had the first few years simply because we were new to this life -- and if you added all of my current challenges to that -- it would have been a recipe for utter failure.

I don't usually give advice on this blog, but I'm getting older, so I figure I can throw out a little advice every now and then. So, my advice is that if you are still young and healthy, and if you read this blog wishing you were living this life, don't wait. Figure out how to do it now.

Pigs and cows and sciatica, oh my!

There are 365 days in a year and 24 hours in every day, so why did a 150-pound pig decide that NOW was the time to get itself completely tangled up in Electronet? After yesterday's 7-hour barn cleaning marathon, I can now say I truly feel your pain if you've ever suffered from sciatica. The last time I was walking, holding my back, moaning, groaning, and breathing like this was 21 years ago when I was giving birth to my last child! I was simultaneously crying in pain and laughing at the complete absurdity of the situation! Getting a pig out of Electronet in my condition was quite a challenge, but it is free -- and I bet it will never go near Electronet again.

my Facebook status yesterday

I have no doubt this would all be quite hilarious if I were watching it in a movie. But I'm not. I'm living it. But let's start at the beginning ... (It's okay if you laugh. I promise I won't get mad.)

I've had sciatic pain off and on for the past year. When I was mistakenly diagnosed with reflux earlier this year, I started sleeping on a wedge, which did nothing for my digestive problems but after the first night of sleeping on the wedge, I realized that my low back pain was gone! So, I thought I had learned how to deal with it. On Monday someone came out to help clean up the kidding barn and get it ready for kidding season, which will start in December. Because my back has been bothering me a little, I made a point of not doing any heavy lifting. I did all of the gross little things ... like cleaning off the shelves behind the kidding stalls, cleaning the store room, removing fly strips, and other tedious but important jobs. (Now I really wish I had taken a picture! It looks great!) Other than my knee feeling a little more swollen than normal, I was feeling fine. We worked from noon to seven, then I came inside and cooked dinner. By 9 p.m., I knew I had a problem, but I figured a good night's rest would take care of it.

Not even close! I woke up yesterday morning wincing in pain every time I moved. I was moving slowly and taking tiny steps. When I came downstairs, the first thing I did was an online search for sciatica. I didn't learn anything terribly helpful, although I found it curious that most of the articles said it is made worse by sitting. Hmm ... mine was always worse from laying down flat, either on my back or stomach. Sitting never seemed to bother it as much. So I figured I'd spend the day sitting in front of the computer, icing my back off and on all day. It was going pretty well until around 2:45 when I suddenly heard a pig squealing non-stop! I limped to the window as quickly as I could manage, as the squealing continued. The pigs are in the front yard cleaning up the acorns and hickory nuts. When I looked to where the squeal was coming from, I saw a pig tangled in the Electronet that was keeping the goats in their area.

"Oh! Good grief! Seriously? Seriously? Today?" I hobbled to the front door and headed outside without even changing my slippers to farm shoes. Having been shocked a couple of times by an electric fence, I knew the pig was truly in distress. And just in case I had any doubts, it was continuing to squeal non-stop. I made my way to the barn as quickly as I could and unplugged the fence charger. The squealing stopped immediately. As I then headed towards the pig, I saw absolutely zero movement. Oh no, it's dead. No, it wouldn't have died at exactly the same second you unplugged the charger. But it's not moving. Why isn't it moving? And so my thoughts spun out of control until I was close enough to see that the pig was blinking its eyes. The whole time I was moving from one end of the front yard to the other, I was also holding my back, taking deep breaths, blowing them out with a loud moan, and occasionally throwing out a swear word for pain control.

When I finally reached the pig, I realized that it had pulled up five of the stakes that held the fence in place. Although I was able to remove one strand of fencing from across the bridge of its snout, I couldn't figure out how exactly it had put itself at the center of this gordian knot. A strand of fencing ran so tightly across its back that I couldn't even slip a finger under it. In my pain-induced fuzzy brain, I had the brilliant idea to pull the pig backwards. Keep in mind that I can't squat because of the arthritis in my knees, and now I can hardly bend my back, so I am bending my knees as far as I can, and I'm trying to bend my body forward at my hips. I foolishly thought that I could simply use my arms to pull the pig backwards. Hey, at least I knew that I wouldn't be able to use my back to pull on it. Of course, the pig wanted nothing to do with me pulling on it -- as if I could actually have moved a 150-pound pig with only my arms!

First I hobbled to the house for a pair of scissors so that I could cut the strand of fencing. Even though we probably own seven pairs, there was not a single pair that I could easily find. Thanks to the fact that, more than once, I've caught my husband using goat hoof trimmers to cut and strip electrical wire, I realized that they were probably an even better idea than scissors, which probably would not have worked anyway. So, off I hobbled towards the barn, huffing and puffing, moaning and groaning, and holding my back the whole way. We always keep an old pair of hoof trimmers in the side of a hay stack to use for cutting baling twine, so they were easy to find. And then I made the same arduous journey back across the yard, looking like a woman in hard labor, minus the obligatory baby bump out front.

I finally reached the pig, who now had enough strength to squeal in anticipation of the fact that it knew I was going to touch it again. This was not one of the friendlier pigs who actually enjoys getting a scratch behind the ears and a back massage -- and even if it was, it probably would not have been after being tangled in an electric fence and being shocked for a couple of minutes. I slowly began my descent into the semi-squat, hinged bending at the hips until I could reach the wire across the pig's back. Because I couldn't even get my finger under it, I pushed the tip of hoof trimmers under it as gently and slowly as I could so as not to accidentally stab the pig. The moment I heard the snap of the hoof trimmers cutting through the fence strand, the pig bolted, running as fast a pig could possible run, across the yard, throwing a quick glance over her shoulder without slowing down.

When I finally went back inside, I complained on Facebook. I knew I would still need to do evening chores a couple hours later, but that seemed like nothing after dealing with the pig fiasco. Mike had done double-duty on a lot of things that morning because he knew I was having trouble, so I only needed to provide hay for a few animals and bring the goats and cows into the barn. Simple enough, right?

I'd love to say that I had nothing but positive thoughts throughout evening chores, but that wouldn't be true. I had all sorts of visions of goats running amok, dancing on hay stacks, and gorging themselves on the pig grain. You see, I had to move them from their pasture, across the front yard, and through the whole barn to get to their stalls. I also had to move the milk cow and her calf into the barn. Milk cow? What milk cow? Oh, right, I haven't told you about Beauty and her calf Beau yet. They've been here for almost two weeks now. I promise I'll tell you about them in the next couple of days!

When I went outside to do chores, Beauty mooed at me from the back door of the barn, so I thought I should take advantage of the fact that she was already at the door and let her in as soon as I had hay and water in all of the stalls. It took me awhile because I couldn't lift the five-gallon buckets, so had to use the two-gallon. She was standing a little too close to the door for me to open it enough for her to walk right in, so I took a couple of steps out of the door and pulled on her halter to get her to walk around the door and come inside. It was the first time I'd ever tried that. We've always hooked a lead rope to her halter before, but I'd forgotten to grab one and was budgeting my steps. She actually cooperated quite nicely and was heading into the barn. I had not thought to close the door to the goat stall, so of course, that's where she went. Part of me wanted to just leave her in there, but the thought of a goat laying in a cow pie changed my mind. Once again, I pulled on her halter and she followed me into the aisle and then into her stall. I closed the door and breathed a sigh of relief.

Beau, however, was a different story. He was running back and forth through the barn. At only four weeks, he is a sweet little thing, but he is rapidly approaching the size of a Great Dane. We've started putting him in a separate stall overnight so that we can milk Beauty in the morning. Porter the English shepherd helps me move the goats into and out of the barn, and he knew I was trying to get Beau to go towards his stall. He was trying to help me by nipping at (but never actually biting) Beau's hind legs. Beau seemed to know that Porter wasn't going to actually bite him, and was completely ignoring him! It was actually rather humorous seeing Porter's reaction. He would nip at Beau's heels, and then he would look at me with what I swear was a confused look on his face! Porter seemed to be saying to me, I'm telling him to move, but he won't move! Why won't he move? Beau's back reaches to the middle of my thighs, so I got behind him and started to push my thighs against his back end. If he went to turn one way or the other, I'd just push on his ribs with my hand (doing the odd semi-squatting, hinged hip bending) to make him go straight. Finally we made our way to his stall, and after staring at it for a few seconds -- just long enough to make me worry -- he ran inside.

And then there were the goats, which actually went extremely well, thanks to Porter's help. Even though he and I have taken only one herding class -- not a series of classes, but one, three-hour intro class -- we've learned to muddle through and work together on moving the goats from the barn to the pasture in the morning and back into the barn at night. Since we use rotational grazing, the pasture does not always abut the barn, so there is an almost infinite number of challenges that could occur daily. However, I also think that the goats have been trained as much as the dog.

If a movie were ever made about Porter, he would be voiced by Eddie Murphy. His personality is so much like a lot of the Eddie Murphy characters who think that all of the women love them and that they are oh-so-tough with their adversaries. And he's a little too quick to declare success and start to celebrate. Moving the goats into the barn was flawless, but then Porter came running back out, jumping jubilantly into the air, as I slowly hobbled towards the barn so that I could close the stall door. I could see that some of the goats were coming back out of their stall and into the main part of the barn. I yelled, "No! Porter, go get the goats!" As soon as I screamed the words, the goats all turned on their heels and headed back into their stall. Then Porter turned away from me and ran to the door of their stall, tail wagging wildly, looking up at me and saying in that Eddie Murphy voice, "Hey! What you worried about? I got it under control! See!"

I closed the stall door as Porter again began jumping into the air declaring success at once again putting the goats in their place. As I continued my labored breathing and walking slowly towards the house, he would run ahead, then turn and run back to ask me what's taking so long. But we eventually made it back to the house, and I was very happy to call it a day.

Many thanks to PR intern Brooke Poling who took the pig pictures when she was here on Sunday.

My gall bladder and other news

Tomorrow I'll be having gall bladder surgery. Believe it or not, I'm actually feeling rather numb about the whole thing. I had a gall bladder attack last Monday when coming home from Bloomington. I suppose I was rather lucky to have the attack while my son was driving, and we were only a few miles from the hospital. Had it happened at home, I never would have gone to the hospital. The pain was excruciating, but thankfully it only lasted about 30 or 40 minutes, which is why I never would have gone to the hospital had I been at home. Because the pain was radiating into my chest and jaw, the first thing they did was to determine that I was not having a heart attack. So, the good news is that I have a very strong and healthy heart.

I did a ton of reading and opted for the surgery because my gall bladder has too many small stones to count, and I have at least one stone that is too large to pass. A few friends suggested doing a cleanse, but doing a gall bladder cleanse would be a very bad idea in my case because it would likely end with me having a very bad attack when the bile duct got blocked by a big stone.

People with Hashimoto's have a higher incidence of gall bladder problems, so I am really unhappy with my thyroid right now. To add insult to injury, my TPO antibodies have gone up. I had made dietary changes and started on a supplement program to reduce my anti-thyroid antibodies caused by the Hashimoto's disease, and I got blood work done last week also. I was really disappointed that my antibodies had gone up from 120 to 139. Anything more than 30 means you have Hashimoto's. It had been three months since my last blood test, so I was really hoping to see a reduction. There was a study done in the Netherlands that showed antibodies going down every three months for a year (the length of the study) when people took 200 mg of selenium every day, which I have been doing.

My knee is still terribly swollen, and I'm still limping around like a 70-year-old cowboy that was thrown off his horse one too many times. I also saw the ortho doc last week, and he said that at this point I'm basically having an arthritis flare-up in my knee. He wanted to give me a cortisone shot, but I wasn't sure that was a good idea just before having gall bladder surgery. I'm hoping that being laid up with surgery, my knee will get enough of a break to make some progress.

In other news ... Things on the farm are way behind. We only have about 25 percent of the garden planted, and the weeds keep getting ahead of us. Mike has been working diligently to get fencing fixed in the east pasture so that we can move the sheep over there. My youngest daughter Katherine is home after graduating from the University of Illinois, and in the fall she's heading to Colorado State to get her Ph.D. in chemistry.

I've heard from a lot of friends living happily without their gall bladders, who say that their surgery was pretty uneventful, which I am hoping will be the case for me.

20 things that make me happy

Inspired by Caitlin Kelly's blog post of almost the same name ... and typed out in less than 10 minutes!

1. baby goats

2. lambs

3. goat cheese

4. homemade goat milk soap

5. writing

6. helping people with their goats

7. eggs from my backyard hens

8. talking about goats

9. blooming daffodils in my yard

10. the feel of the sun on my face!

11. getting an email from someone who found one of my books helpful

12. thinking about writing another book

13. seeing my children succeed in their chosen path

14. homegrown, homemade ice cream with our eggs, our goat milk, and our maple syrup -- and nothing else

15. homemade pudding made with our homegrown ingredients

16. blue jeans

17. working with young people who want to become farmers

18. taking pictures of my farm

19. a good glass of wine with dinner

20. anything chocolate

Falling apart -- and lessons from a goat from years past

The first three months of 2014 have flown past, and I don't mean that they have flown past in the usual way. It seems that all of us constantly talk about how time flies, but the last three months have been a blur of one doctor's office after another, one test after another, and an emotional roller coaster. I've been diagnosed with five different conditions and told that I might have cancer (twice now), and I flip flop back and forth between wanting to throw in the towel and move to the burbs and then gathering up the strength to keep pushing myself forward -- because seriously, what would I do in a condo in the burbs?

I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last post. We have a lot of catching up to do! Two Sundays ago I was in San Francisco at a publishing conference and I had a few hours before my plane would be leaving, so I decided to take a walk around Fisherman's Wharf. After a delicious breakfast at an organic cafe, I was two blocks into my walk, and for some crazy reason I decided to run across the street, didn't look down, and tripped over the curb. I hit my head and shoulder on a brick wall, skinned the palm of my right hand and my right forearm, sprained the thumb on my left hand, and really smashed my knee. Having far too many problems with my knees in my life, I knew I needed to head back to the hotel and spend the next two hours with ice, which I did. I also bandaged up the skinned areas. Twelve days later (ER, primary care doc, ortho doc + x-ray, ultrasound, and MRI), my knee is still swollen and painful, but I only have a massive hematoma in the bursa. The bad news is that I also have grade four arthritis in the knee. Who knew they grade arthritis? And four is the worst grade. (I've never received the worst grade on anything in my life!) A quick online search tells you that grade four is when they start talking about knee replacement.

The latest cancer scare came when they x-rayed my knee. The morning after I was in the ER, I got a phone call from the hospital, and the woman said that a radiologist had looked at my x-rays, and although he did not see any breaks, he did see a "lesion" on my tibia. He said that I needed to have an MRI to rule out bone cancer. I had a good cry after I hung up the phone. Seriously, how many people are told they might have cancer twice in two months. The thyroid biopsy came back benign in February, and thankfully the knee MRI did not reveal a cancerous lesion. They concluded that it was either a benign fibroma or an old injury. And after the ortho doctor saw me, he said that it was caused by the knee surgery I had as a teen.

But wait, that's not all! The day before I left for San Francisco, I visited my primary care doc, because the gastroenterologist said he didn't think my swollen throat, cough, and hoarseness were caused by gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), although he was willing to do an endoscopy to rule it out. Rather than wanting to wait for those results, I took my little self right back to my primary care doc's office the next day.

While I was there, I had a coughing fit, which she said sounded like a bronchospasm. She had me blow into a peak flow meter, and 300 was the best I could do, which is low for someone of my age and height. So, I did a breathing treatment with a nebulizer and my peak flow went up to 350, which is still low but improved, so she said I probably have asthma. She gave me a prescription for an inhaler, as well as another prescription for an oral asthma med. I quickly discovered that the pain in my chest was from my bronchial tubes getting inflamed and that using the inhaler helped tremendously. Initially I was using it about four times a day, but now that I've been taking the oral meds, I've only had that tightening in my chest about every other day. I've also purchased an air purifier for our bedroom. It stinks to know that I have asthma, but it is far less severe than some of the stories I've heard, so I'm grateful for that and for knowing what causes the pain in my chest.

So, between January and today, I've been diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease, GERD, asthma, a mold allergy, and grade four arthritis in my knee. In addition to my primary care doc, I've also seen an endocrinologist, a general surgeon, an orthopedic surgeon, a gastroenterologist, and I've been referred to an ENT and an allergist but have not seen them yet. I've had a thyroid biopsy, a leg ultrasound, x-rays, an MRI, and more blood tests than I can remember. I have an endoscopy scheduled for the end of April but may skip it if this swollen feeling in my throat goes away.

So! What next?

As you might imagine, I have had a lot going through my head in the last three months and especially in the past twelve days as I've been laid up in bed! I've had way too much time to think, and I've had tons of time to research these various ailments, as well as hang out on Facebook. I saw someone complaining on a goat group about buying goats from an older man who was selling off his herd because he could no longer care for them, and the person who posted was not very charitable in her assessment of the living condition of the goats. All I could think was that I never want to be the crazy old goat lady who held on to her goats longer than they could be properly cared for, but I seriously expected that time would come when I was 70-something, not 51!

In January, we incorporated the farm as Antiquity Oaks LLC because I wanted to focus on our goal of creating a learning farm for future homesteaders and farmers. I was going to formalize and expand our classes and internship program. We had so many plans -- more than I want to share at this point -- because it has all come to a screeching halt for the past three months. My goals and enthusiasm waver from day to day and sometimes moment to moment, depending upon what is happening. Sometimes I feel like this is the end! I'm washed up and done and should just move to a condo in south Texas. Other days I'm positive I can still make my dreams come true -- helping to educate people about growing, preparing, and eating good food. I am still as passionate as ever when it comes to my desire to help people live better lives. Besides that, I was just about ready to lose my mind after a few days in bed!

It was much easier, however, to talk about healthy living when I had not had a cold in five years. It has been hard for me to accept myself now that I'm not the perfect picture of health. I can't help but feel like I have failed in some way, even though none of my ailments are specifically related to food or diet. Having been adopted, I don't know my complete family medical history, so the cards could really be stacked against me genetically. One reason I have tried to maintain such a healthy lifestyle is because I could not look at my ancestors and see that they lived long, happy lives.

Even though I have had some days when I thought about calling it quits, I do still find myself thinking about this year's doelings growing up and becoming productive milkers. I consider including meat and eggs in our new CSA instead of only providing vegetables to members. I ponder the effectiveness of adding ducks to our garden for insect and weed control and then selling their eggs. I search online for pond plants that might help to naturally control algae. I think about building a cabin where interns can live. Whenever I think about the future, I am here. Antiquity Oaks seems to have become a part of my identity and my very being. Although I might be able to leave for a short vacation, I don't think I could really give up this lifestyle.

Years ago we had a doe named Rosewood that was suddenly paralyzed from a spinal cord injury. For the first half hour or so, she was furious. She was screaming and struggling wildly to stand. And then she calmed down and accepted her new reality. I knew she had taught me a priceless lesson. I could not imagine any human being so quickly accepting such a fate. Rosewood eventually learned to walk on her front legs alone, balancing her body and her limp hind legs in the air. I have been thinking of her lately and am thankful that I do not have anything nearly as devastating to deal with. If she could learn to walk on her front legs, then surely I can deal with the challenges that have come my way.

Health challenges

The last time I mentioned my health, I had an appointment on February 11 for a biopsy of my thyroid nodule, but things have changed a lot in the last few weeks. Within the week after that January 13 doctor appointment, it felt like the nodule was growing bigger. It was certainly becoming more uncomfortable and problematic. My voice was getting more hoarse. My cough became more frequent. Swallowing was becoming more challenging. Talking was becoming difficult.

I called the doctor's office on Monday, a week after that appointment, desperately seeking some type of comfort -- a biopsy sooner than February 11 or even surgery to remove the nodule. As it turned out, the doctor was out of town for the week, and the nurse made the mistake of telling me that I wasn't going through anything that any other thyroid patient doesn't go through. I knew for a fact that she was dead wrong about that. I've recently had lots of people share their thyroid stories with me, and the vast majority never have nodules that make them miserable. I also knew that I had all of the symptoms for thyroid cancer.

I complained on Facebook, and amazingly enough, a friend saw my rant while sitting in her endocrinologist's office. She showed it to him during her appointment, and he said that there was no reason I needed to wait so long for a biopsy appointment. He does them every week. So, I made an appointment to see him on January 21, but we had a snow storm overnight, and I got stuck in the snow right outside my driveway because the plows hadn't been by our house yet. I rescheduled for Thursday the 23rd and learned that the nodule had grown from 1.9 to 2.15 cm in the past month, which did not surprise me at all. He also noted that the stabbing pain was actually coming from a 0.5 cm nodule on the other side of my thyroid, but it looked like a normal cyst and did not need to be biopsied. I had the biopsy one week later on the 30th. I just got results this past Thursday and learned that the larger nodule was benign. It's a pretty exciting day when you hear that word -- benign -- as it relates to your body, especially when you have every single symptom of cancer.

And as it turns out, I am grateful that my original doctor's office botched the human relations part of their job so badly because it meant that I got to see an endocrinologist, which is the type of doctor I should have been referred to as soon as the nodules were discovered in 2008. I had been referred to a surgeon. The logic of the first doctor was that if I had a nodule, I needed surgery if it's cancer. The really frustrating thing is that I was in his office repeatedly over the last few months with back pain that was not helped by muscle relaxers or physical therapy. I do remember him asking me if I had any problems with hair loss or dry skin, and apparently when I said no, he assumed my thyroid was perfectly healthy. Wrong!

The endocrinologist ran a full thyroid panel, and I learned that I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which is an autoimmune disease. Basically my immune system is attacking my thyroid. Now, in spite of the constant pain and feeling of being choked, I remind myself that my nodule is a blessing. It's what got me to the endocrinologist in a timely manner so that I could learn about my Hashimoto's. So many people do not get diagnosed until they are clinically hypothyroid and very sick. Although I am not clinically hypothyroid yet -- meaning my thyroid hormone levels are actually decent -- I am having symptoms of thyroid problems, such as unexplained body pain.

Intolerance to cold is another symptom of Hashimoto's, and if someone had asked me a month ago if I had that problem, I would have said no because we keep our house at 65 to 68 degrees, and that feels fine to me. However, whenever I have to do chores outside in this freezing weather, I wind up with muscle spasms in my back that wake me up at night and sometimes keep me awake for hours. After vacationing in Spain and the Canary Islands for two weeks a month ago, and never being awakened by a muscle spasm at night, I knew that the weather was playing a role in my pain at home, but I didn't know why. Now I do.

Unfortunately, the endocrinologist that diagnosed the Hashimoto's said that there was absolutely nothing I could do to help myself. I asked about food sensitivities, and he said quickly, "This is nothing you did. It's all in your genes. You inherited this from your parents." Although I know there is a strong genetic link with thyroid issues, there are definitely things that I can do to help myself, and I've been giving myself a crash course is thyroid health and Hashimoto's over the past two weeks. Many people are under the impression that Hashimoto's is synonymous with hypothyroidism, and although a person will eventually wind up hypothyroid after many years with Hashimoto's because it will eventually destroy the thyroid, it is possible to slow down, stop, or even reverse its progression. It's an autoimmune disease, but it hasn't destroyed my thyroid yet.

I've already changed my diet because many people with Hashimoto's find they do better on a gluten-free diet, and I figure I have nothing to lose by trying it. I've also started taking some supplements that are supposed to help, and I've found a doctor who believes that there are lifestyle changes that can improve the health of those with Hashimoto's. Unfortunately it will be a couple of weeks before I can see him.

What about the nodule? The options for getting rid of a non-cancerous nodule seem to be non-existent. There is hormonal treatment, which various sources describe as experimental, controversial, and successful less than half the time. The endocrinologist asked if I'd like to try it without telling me about any of the controversy about it. He also didn't even tell me how long it took (4-6 months) until I asked. I'm really not willing to try something that has never been proven to work and has been shown to have a nasty list of side effects. I'm already sick enough.

Although a couple of people have told me they've had nodules removed, I've not been able to find much written about that option, and it's never been mentioned to me by a medical professional. I haven't yet canceled my appointment with the surgeon on February 17, so might still go see him and get his opinion on the whole situation.

Because the size of the nodule seems to vary from hour to hour, and the doctor said, "it's just inflammation," I'm convinced there is something that is making it get larger and shrink throughout the day. Unfortunately I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly what it is!

Other than the fact that I have constant pressure on my throat from the nodule, I am actually feeling a little better. The coughing has decreased, and the hoarseness is coming and going, rather than being constant. A couple of weeks ago I sounded like I had bronchitis all the time, and I canceled a sold-out cheese class at a college because I was afraid that the students would not want a class taught by a coughing, raspy instructor even if I was not contagious. I also figured I'd be completely hoarse before the three-hour class was over because I was having a hard time talking all the way through a one-hour Skype meeting.

About three weeks ago, I also started to have problems with severe reflux, which I didn't even recognize initially. I haven't had heartburn in more than 20 years -- not since I was pregnant! I mentioned my symptoms on a thyroid group online, and a woman said that it sounded like GERD. After searching for GERD online, I realized I had every single symptom mentioned by the Mayo Clinic website, some of which overlapped with the symptoms for thyroid cancer, such as a cough and hoarseness. As much as I love wheat -- and remember, I teach bread making classes -- eliminating gluten from my diet may be helping with that, as those symptoms are improving.

To deal with my intolerance to the cold, Mike has been doing all of the outside chores whenever he is home, and I've learned that if I get my body into a tub of hot water after being outside, it decreases the possibility of being awakened by muscle spasms during the night. I told him that if we didn't have goats due to kid, I'd be heading south to stay with our daughter in Dallas for awhile. Depending upon how well I get my condition under control, I might be scheduling much later kiddings next year so that I can leave Illinois if I can't handle the cold weather.

In the meantime, I am stuck here! We had six goats due this weekend, and as I write this, Scarlet and Sadie have already kidded, so I'll be telling you their birth stories in the next few days. And between the time that I started this post and the time that I finished it, Nina gave birth to triplets.

Mother Earth News Fair

In case you are anywhere near Pennsylvania towards the end of September, I'll be speaking at the Mother Earth News Fair in Seven Springs. There will be all sorts of speakers talking about sustainable energy, homesteading, and a lot of the things I write about here on my blog. I've been asked to present sessions on bread baking Saturday and Sunday. To learn more about the fair, click here.  If you really want to see the page about me, click here. And if you're there, be sure to say, "Hi!" I'd love to meet you!

The next goal

I've been dreaming and setting goals for as long as I can remember. When I was in high school, I set a goal of visiting all 50 states by the time I was 25. I almost made it. I was missing only four by the time I turned 25, but I didn't see that as a failure. After all, I had visited 46 states. I jumped at every opportunity to go anywhere. When I was 22, a friend needed to go home for Christmas, and the airport in his hometown was closed due to fog. No problem, I said, I'd drive him, if he paid for the gas. I was in Rhode Island at the time, and his home was in Oregon. My home was in Texas. Most of my friends thought I was crazy, and my mother was unhappy that I would miss Christmas at home, but I was focused on my goal, and I checked off about a dozen new states within a week.

I recently found a list of goals I set five years ago. Among other things, I had written down "get a master's degree" and "teach college." Done! Done! The "beautiful flower gardens" and "productive vegetable garden" will always be a work in progress. "Write memoir" was also on the list, and that has not been done. In fact, it was the only thing on the list that I have not accomplished.

As I looked at the list, I thought about my goals for the future, and then I realized that I am living my dream. Early in our marriage -- 20-something years ago -- Mike and I talked about moving to the country and building our own home. And the dream grew over the years. We decided that we wanted to have a garden and grow our own food. In the 90s, I decided I wanted goats and chickens. We talked and planned for nine years after Mike got out of the Navy, and then we finally did it eight years ago. We moved out here and started to turn those dreams into our reality.

So, what's left? The book. I need to write the book. I've been writing this blog for four and a half years, and if you think it's been an adventure, you should have been around for the first four years when we really were clueless city slickers. We'd drive goats to the University of Illinois vet hospital at the drop of a milk bucket. My husband nearly blew himself up. My son was dragged across the pasture by a cow -- and, I thought, killed. My then-9-year-old daughter told me that one of our goats was "trying to poop, but can't" when the goat was actually in labor. The water system was something from a high school science fair, which caused one flood after another in the barns. I had more than one meltdown, but who wouldn't when you're soaking wet with manure in your hair and it's 20 degrees outside? And does anyone really want to know how we were failed by four real estate agents, a lawyer, and an appraiser, and unknowingly bought a mobile home that was supposed to be gone four months after closing?

My next goal is to get all of those crazy stories into a manuscript by the end of 2010.

Post #600

And now we take a break from our regularly scheduled programming . . .

Here I am at 600 posts and still writing after four years and four months. I suppose it is some sort of landmark, but for me, being on Antiquity Oaks for eight years is more of an accomplishment. I've always been a writer. Friends from high school and college who have reconnected with  me on Facebook are seldom surprised that I became a journalist. Like many writers, I've been writing my entire life. I can't stop writing any easier than Lance Armstrong could stop cycling or Madonna could stop singing. I won't bore you by reciting my whole resume, but if you really want to know more, I have a website for my writing.

When I was a newspaper reporter, I wrote about all sorts of things. I once covered a murder-for-hire trial, which was fascinating, and I covered the home office of Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, which was always interesting. I did a lot of health stories for magazines and newspapers, which took me into operating rooms, so maybe that's why it isn't too difficult to deal with the veterinary challenges on the farm. But of all the things I've written, I love writing about Antiquity Oaks the most. It was fun to sit on the sidelines and talk to people doing things, but it is even more fun to find yourself in the middle of the action.

It has been a shock for old friends to discover my new lifestyle. It's 180 degrees from what I did 20 or 30 years ago. Back then, I would max out credit cards buying clothes. Today -- if I were still so irresponsible -- I'd max out a credit card at Tractor Supply. Although a lot about me has changed, one thing has not. I still love to write. So, while a lot of people start blogs and forget to post and eventually forgot about the blog entirely, this blog has become as much a part of me as my house and my animals. I hope you enjoy reading my stories as much as I enjoy writing them, because I will be sticking around for a long time.

Today's photo was taken by Katherine with her new camera. I was giving Eleanor her bottle when she jerked her head down and popped her mouth off the nipple, and the milk went splattering. Katherine had her finger on the trigger and snapped the picture just at that moment.

Tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that, I'll be back giving you updates on everything happening around here: Sherri's new triplets, the green zebra tomatoes growing in my dining room, Linguine's progress, and more. If there is ever anything you want to hear about, don't be shy about leaving a comment.

A little southern girl in the 1960s

Whenever people ask if I grew up on a farm, I always say no. Well, that's not 100% true, but I really don't think it counts for much that I lived on a farm until I was only three years old. I have exactly two memories of that place, and since one involves coming face to face with a snake, it's a miracle I ever considered leaving the relative safety of the burbs. So, here's a little treat -- pictures of me with my father when I was a toddler on our south Texas farm outside of Refugio. When I told him we were moving out to the country in 2002, he looked at me as if I'd told him we were moving to Mars, and he said, "What do you want to do that for?" Unfortunately, I couldn't explain my reasons very well, and he died a few months later. There have been a lot of days when I wished I could ask him a question out here. Although he only had a sixth grade education, he had a wealth of agricultural knowledge prior to industrialization.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming -- If you missed yesterday's post, be sure to page down and sign up for the give-away! The deadline is Monday night.

What's important?

As I was checking Facebook this morning, I saw a link to a blog post and clicked on it, thinking it was about how to increase readership on your blog. Author Jonathan Fields began,

There’s been a lot of focus on follower counts, friend counts, subscriber counts, viewer counts and readers as of late. And, those are important metrics from the standpoint of expanding your impact on the world…and potentially, your income.

But, sometimes I wonder if we’re spending too much time on the wrong metric…

Then he proceeded to talk about the things that really matter to him. The writing is absolutely beautiful and I don't want to paraphrase it for you, so check it out for yourself.

His post really got me thinking about how blessed I am and what's important to me, so here's my list:

I love beautiful flowers, simply because they make me smile.

I love food that makes me close my eyes and sigh, food that begs to be eaten slowly, savored, and enjoyed; food that comes from soil that has been treated with respect; food that comes from animals that have been treated with love.

I love newborn baby animals. I don't think I will ever cease to smile and squeal with joy as a new baby animal is born, or as it takes its first wobbly steps, or as it figures out where to find its first meal. I love their motivation to live, to walk, to bounce, and to simply be themselves.

I love the soft wool that comes from my flock of Shetland sheep and llamas, not only because it feels heavenly, but also because I know where my scarf or hat or afghan has spent its entire life. I am working on an afghan from wool that was grown by Teddy and Latte, washed by Mike, carded by Jamie, spun by Katherine, and knitted by me. As it keeps me warm on these cold Illinois nights, I'll have no worries about what animals were mistreated for the wool or what workers were exploited in its spinning or knitting.

I love my house because it was built with love and care. Every bit of flooring, paint, and wallpaper, every bathroom fixture, door and window, everything was chosen by me. Every nail was pounded into the two-by-sixes and two-by-fours by Mike. Walls were lifted into place by all of us. Margaret screwed the drywall into place. It's more than just a shelter for our family. It represents the ultimate family project.

I love my children for making me the person that I am today; for teaching me patience; for making me smile and laugh; for being thoughtful; for being supportive.

And I love my husband for being the ultimate partner; for being an attentive father; for attempting to do all the crazy things I ask; for making the world's best homemade croissants; for bringing me coffee in bed every morning; for providing our family with the most wonderful home anyone could ever want.

When I see this list and know that it does not even represent half of my blessings in life, I ask how I could want anything more. But I do. I want to empower people to create their own little Eden, to help them learn to be self-sufficient, and to experience the joy that can be found in nature. I want everyone to have access to fresh food and to have the knowledge to prepare it. That's why I blog. I want to share my enthusiasm for all the things I love, and I don't mind sharing my mistakes if it will give people a little more courage to risk success!

It's vital to know what's important in your life so you can make sure you're heading in the right direction. For example, I know a woman who bought four sheep and got rid of them a year later when she realized she didn't want their wool. If you look at my list, you might come to the conclusion that while I love flowers, they're not the most important thing in my life, and I act accordingly. They are the last living things on this farm to get my attention ... after my animals and the herb and vegetable gardens and my family ... and my blog ... and I guess I'm just lucky that daylilies are so hardy.

So, what's important to you? What do you love?

We and us for 23 years

So, who is this "we" that I write about all the time? We built our own house. We put up a new fence. We built chicken tractors. It's time for true confessions -- if "we" ever do anything that involves power tools or large amounts of physical strength, it generally means that I came up with the idea and my husband Mike did all the hard work.

But if you've been married for a while, you can understand the fine line between me and we. Today is our 23rd anniversary, and there doesn't seem to be much difference between me and we sometimes. (I know psychologists have a word for that.) On one hand, we are total opposites. On the other hand, we compliment each other perfectly. On our wedding day 23 years ago, people thought I was being mean to Mike when I scooped all the frosting off my piece of cake and put it in his mouth. On the contrary, frosting is his favorite part, and I don't like it. He's an engineer; I have degrees in English and communication. He likes making things; I like reading and researching.

So, when I say "we" built the house, it means that I looked at house plan books for years, finally bought a plan, then made a number of changes in the floor plan and roof elevation, handed it to Mike, who then built it with an old-fashioned hammer and other tools. When he needed extra hands to lift a wall into place or something like that, the kids and I helped. I also cooked three exquisite meals a day, so he'd have enough strength to work like Paul Bunyan 14 to 18 hours a day.

And I also dragged him out of the master bedroom closet one night to save him from his perfectionism. When I woke up at 1 a.m. alone, I immediately thought he'd fallen off a ladder and knocked himself into a coma, so I went running to the new house. I found him standing in the closet staring at the top of a wall. "It's not straight!" he said, clearly disgusted.

I looked up at the two-by-fours. "It's in our closet. No one will ever see it." I took his hand and tried to pull him toward the door. "It's time for bed."

"But it's not straight. It's going to mess up everything in here."

I finally convinced him that he needed some sleep and that it would look better in the morning. Of course, being an engineer, he doesn't think about the way things look! The measurements don't lie! He did finally agree, however, that it was not worth the time to tear down that wall and redo it for 1/4 inch of perfection inside a closet. (Now when he reads this, he will no doubt tell me that it was 1/8 inch or 3/4 inch, as if my blogpals need to know the exact fraction of error.)

When "we" built the chicken house and the chicken tractors, I did hours and hours of research, then sat down with him to develop a plan that would work for our site, and he put it all together. I do the research on how to care for the animals, and when I need his physical strength, he helps. Right now, we're working on a new fencing plan. So, you can see how we work together towards a common goal, each contributing our own unique gifts and strengths.

It might seem implausible that two such different people could ever be happy together for 23 years, but our goals keep us headed in the same direction. We both value healthy lifestyles and organic food. And we push each other towards our own personal goals. I keep nudging Mike towards his goal of creating a car that can operate without ever visiting a gas station. He is always asking me about my latest writing project, and if you enjoy reading my blog, you can thank him for reminding me to post often.

Dealing with homestead clutter

After living here for about a year, I said to a friend one day that trying to keep a farm clean and organized was like trying to keep several houses clean and organized. She said she'd never thought of that -- and neither had I until I'd lived out here for long enough for "stuff" to catch up with us.

Time for brutal honesty here -- I've never been the neatest person in the world. I try though! I used to read every book I could get my hands on -- Clutter's Last Stand, Confessions of an Organized Housewife, that one by the Slob Sisters (can't remember the title) whose system is used by Flylady. Yeah, I've done Flylady, too. Flylady provided us with some interesting experiences. When I realized that our coffee table was a hot spot, my answer was to donate the coffee table to our church garage sale. Bad idea! The couch then became the hot spot!

I'm thinking about this now because school starts in just over a week, and of course, my big goal was to get organized this summer. Never happened! The library still has piles of mail, books, magazines, etc. Of course, I have those handy little magazine holders, but they're all full, so do I buy more; or do I take the time to go through the magazines to rip out the articles I want to keep, and then do what with them? I know Clutter's Last Stand would say to just throw away all the magazines, but really?

Then there are the organizational challenges unique to a shepherdess -- what does one do with all those bags of roving? Currently they're in the guest room and the library. I've contacted a fiber co-op to become a member and put some of my roving with them, but I will still have a lot left.

Then there are two barns -- they are huge hot spots! They're 30 X 100 feet and 36 X 60 feet, and they just fill up from wall to wall. They are gigantic clutter magnets! How do you keep that from happening? You don't want to throw stuff out because you're pretty sure you'll need it someday, but how do you organize all that stuff? When it comes to storing stuff in a barn, we're not talking about essentially worthless items like old magazines; we're talking about old doors, windows, lumber, hardware, and things that add up to a lot of money. And yes, we will use them when we make more chicken tractors, goat pens, and other animal enclosures. (And hopefully a potting shed someday!)

With only a week left before school starts, I really want to get 'er done! I decided to teach only one class this fall, so I will have five days every week to devote to the homestead, but I'd like everything organized before the semester starts. The days will soon be filled with harvesting tomatoes, making and canning salsa, and freezing tomatoes. In addition to the stuff around the homestead, I still need to finish my syllabus and lesson plans for the class I'm teaching.

So, what have you found effective and really helpful in dealing with clutter in your house, your yard, or your barn? I'm really looking forward to reading your suggestions!

My history with organics

After reading Carolina Trekker's comment on yesterday's post, I thought some of you might like to know a little more about my history with organics. It starts a long time ago, when I was just a young 'un. My mother had grown up during the Great Depression (she was 40 when I was born), and she was a big proponent for the newest "food" in the grocery store. Didn't matter what it was, she'd say, "Eat that. It's good for you." Seriously, she'd say that about potato chips, frozen pizza, and canned Spaghetti-Os!

It should come as no surprise that I was sick -- a lot! By the time my first child was born when I was 24, I had started to think that maybe I was sick so much as a child because my diet was not particularly nutritious. But in my mother's defense, let me take a step back. When she grew up, you could say, "It's good for you," about everything that was edible. It was before the days of 8-syllable ingredients on food labels that were six inches long. People only ate food. There was no high-fructose corn syrup, margarine, or hydrogenated vegetable oil. And my mother had grown up on a farm, so she ate a lot of fresh, organic food.

The big buzz words after World War II became modern and scientific. And like almost all Americans, she jumped on the bandwagon and started buying margarine and using chemical pesticides in her garden. But with people like Eleanor Roosevelt trumpeting the superiority of margarine, it should be no surprise that most Americans switched to the artificial "food."

When I was pregnant with my first child, I honestly thought I was having a nutritious meal when I ate a cheeseburger and fries. I had my meat, my dairy, my starch, and my vegetables (pickles, lettuce, and potatoes). Yes, I seriously thought potato chips were a vegetable. I had the four food groups covered! What more did I need?

Luckily, after my baby was born, I went to a La Leche League meeting, and they were talking about nutrition. Someone had created a nutrition game, and the only thing I remember 21 years later was one of the questions. "Is a cheese sandwich a nutritious lunch?" Good thing I didn't get that question! A woman responded that it would be nutritious if you were talking about cheddar and whole wheat bread, but not so nutritious if it was white bread and American processed cheese. Was she speaking English? There's a difference between breads and cheeses. And that's where my nutrition education began. I started reading everything I could find on nutrition. I didn't want my children to grow up sick all the time like I had.

So, in the late 1980s, I began feeding my family homemade whole wheat bread, buying organic food, reading labels, and cooking a lot from scratch. A year later, we became vegetarians, and all three of my children were raised as vegetarians. For years, I rolled my eyes as people told me that my children were going to be anemic, weak, and sick -- as they were taking their own children to the pediatrician, getting tubes in their ears, and giving them antibiotics on a fairly regular basis. My children were never sick.

To this day, my 16-year-old has never taken antibiotics. My 18-year-old son was on antibiotics when he had an abscessed tooth, and my now 21-year-old daughter took them when she had Lyme disease at age 3. If they get a virus, they go to bed for a few hours, sometimes a day, and they're fine. My youngest had an earache once, but it was gone by morning.

If you've read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, it should not be a big surprise that we're so healthy. We "eat food, mostly plants, not too much."

Tomorrow, you'll get to peak inside my pantry.