Missing my "Beast"

the blessing of a good friend

It's been a rough week; loosing Coreah was by far the hardest part, then not being able to bury her until the following day, my truck breaking down on the way to see a friends newborn baby goats, Ron's computers hard drive crashed, and even saying that makes me feel awful to even think of complaining. I know it could be worse, I could live in Japan, Libya, Afghanistan, etc. my heart goes out to those people, I cannot imagine the heartbreak and devastation they are dealing with. That being said, I still hurt but I still have so much to be thankful for and will be just fine because I know Coreah is in a better place and no longer in pain. We were able to bury her here on the farm and up near the entrance to the farm to greet visitors (in spirit obviously) as they arrive as she would have in real life. The truck was able to be fixed and we had the money. The hard drive was backed up and a new one will be here next week and Ron (thankfully he's a computer whiz!) can install it and all will be well, and we had the money for that as well. I think it was Flylady that said "if money will fix it, it is not a problem." (If it wasn't her then it was at her website that I first read it.) So I'm good! And once again, thank you for all your kind words and support, it really means a lot to me.

Despite the rough week, it ended on a positive note! It was our homeschool co-op day today and as usual we were running a bit behind schedule; but when we arrived, the friend whose goats I was headed over to see when the truck broke had her son outside the building next to their car and he was motioning for us to come over to the car with a big grin on his face. I hurried over to the car and peeked in only to find two of the most adorable goat babies I've seen, well since Katie and Buckley were born! OH! MY! GOODNESS!!! A little black doe, (which is something I've wanted since I first saw one a few years back, as well as a doe with lots of moonspots, but I digress) and a slightly larger silvery-gray buckling! Talk about cute and I was in the midst of adoring them so much I forgot to take a picture or 20! Can you believe it?! Me, the picture taking fool! My friend walked back out to the parking lot to take in another load of stuff and was ready for the babies to be brought in and adored my me, oh I mean all the kids at co-op. She teasingly asked me what I'd found and I hopped up and down with childish delight.

Mind you this friend of mine has to be just about the nicest person I've ever met! A genuine honest to goodness wonderful human being and as thoughtful as the day is long. She even made a raspberry pie to serve while I was getting my baby goat fix on Saturday, which never ended up happening because of the truck. :-( She made it because she knows I love (that's a huge understatement!) raspberry pie! It's that kind of thoughtfulness that makes me adore her.

I offered to help take one of the goats inside and talked with this friend of mine on the way into the building feeling like a small child at Christmas, knowing she'd gone out of her way to make this happen and the work it took to pull it off. I was so touched I nearly cried. She just knew I'd love to see them and that the kids at the co-op would as well, we all very much appreciated her effort and thoughtfulness. I didn't realize when we joined the co-op last year that I would receive such a blessing from it as well. The blessing of a friendship like this.



When we're having a rough go of it lots of us reach out for that food that brings us such comfort, it might be mac 'n cheese, a bowl of cereal, garlic bread, chocolate cake or what have you. For me tonight it was a stir-fry. This is SOOOOOO delicious and soooooooo comforting, you outta try it.

All you do is pour some oil in a skillet or pan and heat it up, toss in some cubed firm tofu and let is cook. I like to let it get a sort of crust-y thing going on on each side, so I cook it until it does this. I just like a little crunch.
Then I toss in some veggies, tonight I used onions and frozen broccoli. You could use; and I have, snap peas, cabbage, diced or julienne carrots, mushrooms, cauliflower, what have you, mix it up and get creative! Let it cook, covered, until the onions are soft and the broccoli is thawed, firm, and not overcooked but is thawed and has a bit of a 'bite' to it.


Stir it up! Let it cook and get happy!
Add some soy sauce and continue to get happy!
Then add the 'quick cook' veggies and seasonings, like garlic and cayenne pepper. Feel free to mix it up, this is what my family likes, so I go with it. This time I had carrots; purple, yellow and white, so I used them. Can you smell this cooking yet?! It's so easy and so yummy! Stir, cover again and cook until the carrots are slightly limp, just a few minutes.
Then open the cover take a deep breath and enjoy. This can be eaten with brown rice, quinoa, or by itself. It's the perfect warm bowl of comfort; a little greasy, a little spicy, a little salty, a little crunchy, a whole lotta YUM!

a new skill...

Since we were in need of his services again and the kids were here to watch him; again, our neighbor with the trusty backhoe asked about the kids not being in school. I told him they were homeschooled. He smiled and said 'well who's going to beat you up then?' I said "Oh, you mean 'socialize' them." He chuckled and said 'yeah, socialize them.' We further discussed it then he got ready to dig a hole to bury Coreah. Then he talked to the kids about the backhoe and showed them some things about how it operated, then he let them try it! Faith was up first and was a but timid, I think she was slightly fearful she'd break it, but enjoyed her time up there.
That's my girl! Way to go Faith!

Then Andrew climbed up and I think he'd have spent the entire day up there. He was not timid at all. Climbing down he said to me "WOW that was fun!"
I was secretly hoping he'd ask if I'd like a go at it but sadly I did not get a chance. Honestly though I don't know if my state of mind was in the right place, it was a really bad day for me.

How many kids do you know that have had their own private lesson on a backhoe? I know only two! Oh the blessings of being able to homeschool!

Never Forgotten

Loyal. Heart of Gold. Protector. Happy. Deeply loved and sadly missed. Rest peacefully sweet Coreah, job well done.

We are deeply grieving the loss of our beloved bulldog Coreah today. It was a rough weekend for her; and in part a rough winter too, so we took her to the vet again this morning and made an unbelievably hard decision to have her put down, it was not easy and not what I expected, but once again it was the right decision. I haven't stopped crying yet. Yet in my grieving I am so thankful for that dog and the additional years she gave us after we moved to the farm. We thought we were going to lose her right before we moved here, but at that time I didn't have the heart to put her down, it was Christmas time and we were moving and I just couldn't do it. I'm glad I didn't too, as once we moved here it was like a switch was flipped and she made an about face and was 'like new,' it was wonderful. We've been here for 4 years and I dare say these were the best 4 years of her life, so much room to run, so many sticks to "Buzz-saw Louie" through and oh the glorious sunshine! How she loved to shred a tree in the sunshine with her 'pack' surrounding her!

She was stubborn and made me work for pack leader position but was content to follow when I assumed that postion, yes she tested me occasionally, making sure I really wanted the position, but I do love a challenge. She was the first dog I've had and because of her I earned my first trophy in an American Bulldog show. I'll also have you know we almost took grand champion at that class but the judge said she was a couple pounds heavier than he'd like to see, but that was how he made the final determination. I was overjoyed and will remember that for the rest of my life.

Once she herded my niece back into our driveway when she wandered into the street, Coreah is not a herder by nature, but she was protective of all who were entrusted to her care and protect them she did. We had a guy walk across our porch and nearly into our home (in a drunken stooper) until Coreah prevented him from taking another step. Thank you for your protection.

Coreah was a sweet and gentle dog and looked like if she was so inclined she could rip into you but that was not the case at all, she considered herself an 85 pound lapdog. Many an evening did she like to sit with Ron in his recliner and have her belly rubbed. She'd climb up into the chair with him flip herself backwards onto his chest and grin from ear to ear while he rubbed her belly even to the discomfort of having an 85 pound dog on his chest.

It wasn't the same while cooking dinner tonight without her feet scuffing like a moody teenager to bring her nose and belly to the kitchen to sit in the exact spot I'd be in next. Harley got to lick the entire dish when Ron put it down for her and didn't have to share. In fact when we returned home with Coreah, I took her out to the car to see Coreah. She jumped into the car and sniffed her face, licked her ears then looked at me with a look I've never seen from her. She stood over her for a long time and kept looking up the driveway as if she was expecting someone to return, she looked at me again, then laid down beside her and sighed. I let her stay there until she was ready to come back inside with me. All afternoon she's paced and looked for Coreah and gone to the door and looked out, I'm not sure what she's feeling, but I know she's joining us in the grieving.

Thank you Coreah for your love, loyalty, protection and your sweet gentle giant spirit. I love you and will miss you forever. Job well done sweet sweet Beast. Rest in peace.

test pictures from the new camera

Alright, I admit, I like to take pictures! The poor little camera was just about worn out from all the pictures I've taken in the nearly 6 years I've used it, having used it nearly every day. This I blame on Ron, as he said to me in conversation a long time ago that "you can never have too many pictures of your kids." I think I took it to an extreme. Oh well, when I am old I can look back and see what a wonderful life we had and I'll get to see my children grow up all over again and it will be wonderful! All that being said it was time for a new camera, this new one has a longer life battery (I assume they mean under normal conditions) and nearly 4 times the mega pixels and a heck of a zoom! It arrived this afternoon and I promptly got the battery charged so tonight I could just goof off with it and took like 79 pictures checking out the different settings, options and lighting, and only slightly blinded the family. Here are just a few I popped off... It's AWESOME!!! And we paid cash for it which makes it even better!

smiles on our faces and peace in our hearts

After dinner last night Ron thought it would be a good idea to have a campfire, he was right! The great thing about our property (they are SO many others as well...) is that it is wooded, thickly wooded. Which means we never have to look too far to find wood for a campfire. Having thickly wooded property is good, cannot see the neighbors and bad because there are lots of blow downs. Coreah loves it, we've no need of a chipper, she's a buzz saw on 4 legs! She'll grab onto an end of a blow down and drag it out of the woods for us, then proceed to chew it up all over the lawn.... until we put it in the campfire. No worries, she'll just go get another one.

It was a long day mentally and just what I needed to get over it, just exactly what is is that when you're around a campfire takes away all stress and anxiety of a bad day? We all sat out there as a family around the fire and occasionally the goats would wander over to see if we'd cracked open the s'mores, vegetarian of course! It was 10:30 before we came in and headed to bed with smiles on our faces and the peacefulness of a campfire in our hearts.

Harley enjoyed it too.

a sick chick

Thursday night we came home went to the barn to chores and were in for a bit of a shock! We been gone for most of the day and wondered how all the chicks made out, but knew that momma was there to defend and protect them so didn't worry too much. Well being away from them nearly all day we wanted to see them when we got back so we lifted momma up and peeked under her and saw only 4 babies. I got an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach and looked around the coop for the other one. Apparently it had fallen out of the nest and had been there for quite a while as it was very cold and stiff when I picked it up. Thinking it was dead Faith started to cry and fret, it was her favorite chick! Now called Lilac. I know that grandmothers aren't supposed to have favorites but clearly some do! When I picked it up it opened it's mouth and nothing came out but I was trying so hard to let me know it was alive but really close to death. I told Faith to put it under her shirt and up next to her body, so that we'd at least give it a fighting chance of survival, but that at this point it was not looking good. I wonder exactly how close to death this poor thing was, it was in bad shape. I sped through the barn chores and we rushed into the house, all the time Faith was crying and so worried about her baby. I was honest with her, I see no point in not, I wanted to prepare her for what I thought was coming, told her that she needed to relax because panicking won't ever help the situation. Relax and breathe is what I tell her, though I really cannot blame her, she gets it from my mother, mom and Faith seems to always go to worst case scenario in panic mode and anything that doesn't end up happening is good! Weird, but it works for them. Anyway, I turned the brooder lamp on, had Andrew get a box lined with newspaper ready and I mixed a batch of sugar, salt, and warm water together and got the eye dropper out.
I knew I had to act quickly and get something warm into this chick Faith was counting on it. She sat by the fire with her baby and we began feeding it with the eye dropper.

She had calmed down after a bit and the chick opened it's eyes, after a few more drops it started trying to peep again, and Faith started crying again only this time tears of joy and relief.

What we were doing seemed to be working, Andrew wanted to help as well.

By this time it was about midnight and we were exhausted! Faith asked if she could sleep downstairs next to the chick and I said ok. She slept on the love seat next to the chick all night. Watching, praying, waiting and hoping.

We got up the next morning and were quite relieved to find the chick had survived (I had an idea that it would be just fine several times during the night when it was peeping loudly enough to wake me up, did I mention several times?) and was peeping loudly until Faith picked it up. Later in the morning Andrew was holding it and it climbed up here.

I trust my dog.

Shortly after we woke and found the chick to be doing well we put it back out with it's mom and went on about our day without incident. Everybody is now doing well.

One Happy Girl!

Coreah LOVES the snow!

Meet the Cast - Coreah

How'd we get here from there? Well, my son Andrew popped the bedroom door open one morning and said, "Mommy I need a puppy!" We got one a few months later. An American Bulldog whom he named Coreah. It was his version of a character of Veggie Tales, but he was only 3 years old at the time. It was hard to say no to those big squishy cheeks at the time, but I digress.

We got Coreah when she was 4 months old, what a tank even at that stage. Here she is in all her glory at almost two. Watching over 'her' kids of whom she is fiercely protective.