In Theaters This December

  Excuse me while I squeal, fangirl, and jump up and down in excitement. BUT THE NEXT EPISODE OF 'THE HOBBIT' IS ABOUT TO BE RELEASED!!!!! Aaaaaah!!! I'm a Lord Of The Rings nerd. A total nerd. I love the books, the movies, the special effects, the graphics, the actors, the trailers... I'm a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien and that there's a fact, folks.

  And in case you hadn't guessed by now, I'm a *tiny* bit excited about this newest film. Just a tiny bit. ;)

Pinterest Link Up! Week #4!

 Well the "Ask It" post might have been late, but this one isn't! So there. I feel slightly better about myself. ;)

  And what did I find this week on the grand auld website known as Pinterest? Take a looksee' and find out! (yes, it's huge. I'm still mentally arguing over whether or not I should upgrade on PicMonkey to get their super nice collages... So for now we get to deal with awkward sized collages that are free at least.)

1. The Cost of Producing Raw Milk. {Courtesy of The Well Fed Homestead}

2. Homemade Chicken Feed Recipes: Soy free, Corn free, Fermented, Sprouted. {Courtesy of Whistle Pig Hollow}

3. DIY Anti-Pick, Antibacterial, Blu-Kote Spray. {Courtesy of Fresh Eggs Daily}

4. In Defense of REAL Milk. {Courtesy of Body Unburdened}

5. A Simple Guide to Raising & Milking Goats. {Courtesy of Weed 'Em & Reap}

6. 12 Questions to Ask Before You Buy A Homestead Property. {Courtesy of The Prairie Homestead}

7. How to Raise Grass Fed Lamb Like A Boss. {Courtesy of Weed 'Em & Reap}

I Forgot Again!!! Sorry!!!

  Gaah! My bad, guys. I forgot to post the "Ask it" post today. Sigh... I told myself to do it at 8:30am today; I was feeling all smug 'cause I was gonna' get this post done ever so early and it would be just grand. A blog post before lunch time... How fancy shmancy of me. Huh. You can see how that ended up going. No idea how I forgot... I won't even make excuses, except for saying that I was picking apples over at the neighbor's place this morning, and then I wrote a post during lunch time, and then I had to go to town in the afternoon, and I bought a really nice new military cap at Wilco today *totally* on an impulse (gray herringbone pattern! Eek!), and then I had to eat dinner, and then eat snack because I like to eat food, and then I wasted who knows how much time on Pinterest, aaaand wait. These count as excuses, don't they? My bad.

We shall now pretend that this post was published right on time. *prim and proper look* 

(same as ever, just leave your random or not-so-random question in da' comments below)

P.S. I even took off the horrid letter/number coding that proves that you're not a robot. So now commenting should be a deelightful breeze for you! 

Keep Praying for South Dakota

  My heart aches every time I think about South Dakota and what those folks are going through right now... Half of me feels sick and nauseous, and the other half wants to simply sit down and have a good cry. It's moments like this where I mentally scream, "Why!? Why!? Why!?" It's not fair. I know, life's not fair. But this is like, unfairest of unfairs right about now (and yes, I just created those two words right here and now).

  Are you wondering what I'm blabbering about? I wouldn't be surprised if you don't know. You probably won't see this on the news, because the media doesn't want to cover it (grumble, mutter, darkly threaten). Last week, South Dakota got a freak blizzard. In October. The storm went for a solid 48 hours, dumping 5 feet of snow, and spreading it all over the place with 60mph winds. It was totally unexpected, and lethal in its coming. You see, it's only October... The cattle were all still out on summer pasture, and were still slick coated with their warm weather coats. No fuzzy, insulated cows to be seen. The storm was too harsh and too cold for the cattle (and I've heard a lot of horses were lost too), and many of them perished.

  As the days fall away, the head count of dead and dying is creeping up. When the storm first ended, there was a head count of over 20,000 cattle lost. A few days later the count went up to 60,000... Then 75,000... This morning it looks like we've finally hit the 100,000 mark. These cows froze to death, died from exhaustion trying to walk to shelter, Got buried by snow because they took shelter in gullies and creeks, got hung up in barbed wire fencing that they unwittingly walked into and then either bled to death or died from freezing temps while trying to get untangled from the dangerous, metal barbs... 100,000 cows. Even if we didn't hit that number; what if it had stopped at only 60,000 cattle lost? Try to imagine that many cows, folks. Imagine that was your livelihood. Your business. And it's gone. These people can't even file any sort or report or claim to the government because not only is there NOT a farm bill that will helps these ranchers out financially during this natural disaster, but even if there was, it would have been shut down during this odd moment with part of our government not being in working order.

  There's a count of 6 people missing so far... I have yet to hear if this count is final or not; I pray it is.

 Apparently round #2 of this storm is brewing as I type this; but no one knows yet how mild or fierce this one will blow through. A friend on the Keeping A Family Cow forum lives in SD and is trying to keep all of us forum members updated on what's going on over there.

 If you want to read up more about South Dakota and this storm, I've got some links for y'all...

This one has pictures, to which I will warn that they are NOT pretty. So if you've got little kids, you might want to skim through first: October 2013 Snowstorm.

An article from The Blaze written yesterday.

More images, taken by the public and shared online (I haven't seen all the images yet, so I don't know if any are disturbing).

And lastly, a blog post from The South Dakota Cowgirl, which explains how devastating this storm has been for these people and their ranches.

  Keep prayin' folks... Keep prayin'.

That's a Tractor

  The neighbor's down the road from me farm over one thousand acres; they own some of it, and rent the rest. All the work is done by family; the father who's in his nineties, his three or four sons, and his one grandson. They're nice folks, and I even asked for a job on their place once (to which they said betwixt the 5-6 of them, they didn't need another person. Sigh.). I always enjoy going past their farm since they often have their heavy equipment outside, either being tinkered on, washed (they keep everything *impeccably* clean), or being fired up for work. I like seeing their tractors and combines. Makes me smile every time, it does. ^_^

  Last week while driving past, I accidentally swerved just a little bit. I didn't mean to, but they had something new sitting on their front lawn, and I couldn't help but stare (thus not looking at the road for two seconds).

  Sitting right there on the newly greened grass was one of the purtiest thing I've ever seen... A brand new John Deere 9630. (click highlighted words to see what this gorgeous beast looks like!)

   Goodness and glory... That's a tractor. o_O

Can't Wait To Wear It This Winter

  Hanging up in my closet is a homemade scarf. I made it all by myself in a manner of days. It's made of Texel sheep wool that I spun on my own spinning wheel; turning it into a chunky thick-and-thin single ply (meaning only one strand). I took that freshly spun yarn and washed it, then wound it into a ball and then knitted it up with size 15 needles (yep, huge). All. By. Myself.

  To many people, this is  a perfectly normal thing to do; barely worth mentioning. But to me it is an extraordinary accomplishment at this stage of life. Not because I made the yarn. Not because the wool is from my favorite breed of sheep. Not even because I knit it  by myself.

  It is extraordinary to me because creating this scarf means that I have usage of my left hand once again. I have my life back. It's a special scarf because it shows that the problems of my past are just that: Things of the past. They're gone.

  About a year ago I started having problems with my left hand. After milking the goats or doing anything strenuous, it would either flare up with a fiery pain, or go completely numb. The situation slowly got worse and worse... So slowly that I didn't even realize what was happening until June 2013. The simple act of bending my arm hurt like the dickens and my hand would go uselessly numb at the drop of a hat. I couldn't hold pens or pencils. Couldn't write. Couldn't hold tiny objects because I no longer had the dexterity to do so. Couldn't spin yarn anymore. Couldn't hold knitting needles. Definitely couldn't hand milk animals anymore. Shucks, I couldn't even hold my baby brother for longer than five minutes. It was bad.

  So we did what any logical person would do: We went and saw doctors and specialists about the problem. The diagnosis was never 100% positive, but everyone agreed that all the symptoms were fitting for a combination of carpal and cubital tunnel. Double whammy. The carpal tunnel was in my hand, and the cubital tunnel was in my elbow; both problems were stemming from nerves being trapped in the wrong spots. Cause that triggered all this? Hand milking goats for too many years. Whoop de doo. *note sarcasm*

  The specialists recommended surgery and then warned that I may be on steroids afterwards; and neither one of those were guaranteed to work. To be honest, I was ready and willing to try surgery. I was taking pain killer every day to make things bearable, and I sorely missed doing normal human things that involve two hands. I just wanted the pain to stop...

  Before seriously considering surgery, my parents decided we should try the gentler method of seeing a chiropractor for a few weeks. I had never been to one before and quite frankly, I was suspicious and skeptical. All I had ever heard were stories from folks who said they felt worse instead of better after going. And I had no desire to make matters worse. But I agreed to try it out anyway. Better than surgery, which would have involved needles and an IV (I can do many things in life. Handling needles in a sane and calm manner is not one of them. Seriously, I wake up from nightmares about blood draws more times than I care to admit.). So to the chiropractor I went.

  Weeks and countless appointments later, I find myself at today. I'm typing this post with two hands. And you want to know something? I have no more pain. :) Bless that chiropractor's heart, he knew what he was doing. He was confident that he could resolve my carpal/cubital tunnel problems permanently, and he did just that. It wasn't easy or pain free, but we did it. That kind man even fixed the residual problem in my wrist/hand that happened from a horse accident four years ago. I used to never be able to bend my hand backwards very far, so things like push-ups, or playing volleyball, or even giving someone a high-five was out of the question. But now not only do I no longer have pain or numbness, I can even play volleyball!! Whoohoo! No more sidelines for this girl!!! I'm back to knitting, spinning, hand writing, and I can finally hold my baby brother happily.

  Further more, my chiropractor has given me a project: He wants me to go back to hand milking! He feels that he's fixed what needs to be fixed, and has told me to resume hand milking again. I am so excited about this news that you just can't know. ^_^ You see, the farm that I'm going to in Missouri hand milks their cows. I had told them at the beginning that I would be unable to help them with that chore, which was fine with them. I was secretly dissapointed with myself that I would be missing out on  the day-to-day milking though... But now it turns out that I get to milk those cows after all!!! Yahoo!!!

  As a small, personal celebration that I could finally do all the things I thought I was doomed to never do again, I sat down and knit myself a scarf. Something fast and easy, but still showed that this girl is back 100%.

  I can't wait to wear it this winter.

Those Knitted Goats

 I have been asked to share the deep dark secret of where I got my pattern for my knitted goats. And after I was asked I had the "duh" moment. WHY didn't I share it sooner!? Oh well, better late than never... Christmas is coming my friends, and since I'm not offering these fun little knitted animals anymore, you'd better get cracking at them! Hehehe. Think of it this way, if you've always wanted to learn how to knit, then here's your chance. You're welcome. ;)

 The pattern is from a seller on Etsy, and you can find it by clicking HERE!