Tea Shelf

A while back I started a project of building a rack for our massive tea collection we have. I proceeded to get super frustrated and left it alone for probably 3 or 4 months out of sheer aggravation  I have learned that poly shades is NOT for me.
Anyway, it is finally complete! I made it fit along an empty stretch of wall and tried to match the stain as best I could... It's not perfect, but it gets the job done :)

I made dado cuts in the support piece( the left side) and then just used wood glue (and sometimes a hammer) to set the shelves into place. It is attached to the wall with two screws on tiny L brackets at the top an bottom. Each shelf can hold one standard tea box facing at 180deg or two boxes at 90deg (second from the top shelf). Easy access and adds some color to the room!

Final Appointment

In all the excitement about Betty I forgot to mention my last Dr appointment for my ACL! The Dr seemed very happy with my outcome. But even more than that, I am happy with my outcome. There are still a few things I cannot do but I have high hopes that in time I will be able in time. The Dr encouraged me to make an appointment if I ever felt instability, but otherwise I was doing great. The physical therapist told me that swelling would be there for 9 months to a year since I wasn't having the surgery so I still have quite a while till the injury is healed. The more reading I do, the more convinced I am that I made the correct choice. While it may not be the right choice for everyone, I think it will work for me. So many of the reconstruction surgeries fail within ten years anyway, that if I do end up needing surgery down the road, I'm not paying for it twice. There is also a new front of medicine called the regenerative matrix that is making some headway in the nonsurgical repair of torn ACLs that maybe in ten or fifteen years may be a viable option for human patients. Here's to hoping for that!

Betty decorates for Halloween

So I walked out to the garage this morning, a little later than normal and as I approached the interior my initial thought was, "How many of the chickens are dead".

There was blood everywhere.

Blood all over the place in the nest box. 

This is their feeder. There is normally no red on it except for the very bottom.  The rest is blood. 

After a quick head count I discovered all 5 of my chickens were acting completely normal and very alive. Letting my heart rate drop down a little I started looking for what in the world was going on. Grabbing one at a time I checked each chicken over for a wound. Then I found where the blood was coming from. Of course it was Betty. Her white feathers were streaked crimson from a what was to be discover as a small (I mean SMALL) nick in one of the points of her comb. It was still bleeding everywhere. I set Betty down and ran inside to grab cornstarch and put on a darker colored jacket because I knew I was going to get bloody. Betty seemed completely unconcerned with the blood constantly dripping off her face. She would just shake her head flinging blood everywhere and move on. I picked her up and started to attempt to apply corn starch to the wound (which I couldn't find at the moment because her whole head was bleeding it seemed). Betty seemed mostly interested in trying to eat the cornstarch out of my hand and was not real thrilled about me throwing it in her face and eyes, but she was relatively cooperative. One hour, one can of tuna and 6 or 7 corn starch applications later the bleeding finally slowed. Betty was not to pleased with me keeping her separated for a few hours to let the blood dry so the other wouldn't pick at the new scab.

It was a good thing I did't have to work! The whole ordeal took about two hours.

Betty dressed up as Zombie Betty for Halloween.

The worst part was- chicken blood smells EXACTLY like raw chicken..... I take one step closer to never eating chicken again today.

Fall

This weekend was a blessing. My first two days off back to back since I tore my ACL August 30th. Yesterday Dan and I slept in and then went to the Renaissance festival. On our way there we stopped at a tiny antique store called Mary Ann's Antiques in Barn. After the festival we went to Caesars Creek lake and walked around for a bit and then stopped a a farmers stand where we bought our pumpkins, apple cider, and a 1/2 peck of apples. He also sold this stuff he called "slush" which was apple cider in slushie form. It was delicious. I think the name of the market was "Lamb's Appleberry Farms". We came home and had a wonderful fire and relaxed.

Today was just as awesome and a bit more productive. Slept in and then had the amazing beef and rosemary stew Dan made yesterday (stew tips, bacon seasons, potatoes, carrots, onion, cayenne peppers, rosemary, oregano, garlic, curry, salt, pepper, water) . Then we mowed the lawn and did some yard chores that included trimming back a lot of the rose of sharons. I also harvested a good amount of my herbs so I can preserve them for the winter. It's mostly stevia, chives, curry and oregano this year.

The chickens also got to hang out in the lawn all day today which is a treat for them since I've been home so little. Dan lit a fire in the pit and burned a lot of the downed wood that had accumulated over the summer and some of the stuff we had just cut during our yard work. Then we made smores :) We went for a walk back in the nature preserve and I slipped around a bit but my knee seemed to do just fine which is really exciting for me. For right now I think I made the right choice to go non surgical. I just need to keep up with the exercises and keep my strength up to support the knee.

Right now we are working on bottling our Christmas Ale!

A Torn ACL and a New Job

So I saw the orthopedic Dr again today and made clear to him my desire to take a non-surgical approach to my ACL injury. He seems impressed with my range of motion since I can straighten and bend my knee very well now, but he seems unsatisfied with my overall stability. The hard part for me comes with the fact that I am in the middle of a job change. I don't think I've mentioned it yet but I put in my notice at my old job and training for my new job has already begun. Last day at the full time job is Oct 4th!(I'm very excited about this). This makes things a bit more complicated because I lose real insurance on Oct 31st because the new job is only part time. That means I would have to have the surgery done in Early October. I just don't think I want to do that. It's been a rough few weeks since I tore the ACL. Since I am working both jobs now and I'm on my feet a lot. I'm not using the crutches anymore but I still can't lift a whole lot of weight. I feel really good with the progress I've made with my knee. I can't walk normally yet but it is getting closer every day. I can walk up and down steps now without stepping up one at a time. The more I read the more I think it is possible for me to return to a somewhat normal life without having the reconstruction surgery. It is hard to find examples or information on going the non-surgical route though. It seems like Dr tend to just have the surgery done and not really think twice about it. Either way I'm pretty much guaranteed to get osteoarthritis in that knee. Either way I'm in for a long recovery. I will never be able to play soccer again without the ACL. While this is a heart breaker for me, it seems easier than having the surgery at this point in my life. Even with insurance I would probably pay more than $3000 out of pocket. Recovery can take 6 months, and my wedding is in 6 months.

Here's to hoping I don't need the surgery. My next dr appointment isn't till Oct 31st but lots of therapy between now and then. I need to relearn how to walk.

Bad News

I received some devastating news today.

I guess it starts with the fact that I started playing indoor soccer again. Just recreational Thursday nights coed. Thursday a week ago I injured my knee. I thought I had dislocated the knee cap and went to an urgent care. They took an xray and saw no problems so instructed me to see an orthopedic. The orthopedic Dr then told me to go get an MRI (don't even get me started on our healthcare system). Today was the appointment with the orthopedic Dr to look at the MRI. I tore my ACL. Completely tore my ACL. The Dr thinks I'm going to need surgery to repair the damage. I can't even really think about it honestly. I made some appointments for physical therapy.


In other news..... My mom came over to help around the house since I'm on crutches and we used up all the peppers and tomatoes from my garden, her garden, and Dan's mom's garden that I had collected to make some hot salsa! It made 8 -8oz jars so I'm looking forward to trying that.

Also, at work the other day I caught a hummingbird. I caught a humming bird with my bare hand. It got into the shop around 11am and was zooming around in the warehouse. I tried everything I could think of to make it fly out of the building but it just wasn't getting it. (I even set up a light with pink gel in it to try to lure it lower so it would fly out). So around 6 pm it was time to go but we couldn't set the building alarm with it still flying around. I started to watch it, it definitely seemed to be getting tired. It landed on an Ethernet cable strung in the ceiling and just sat there cleaning itself and then was still. I grabbed a ball out of the desk and threw it up there. It hit the wire but the hummingbird didn't move. I found this curious. So I rolled the big ladder over and set my crutches down and climbed up the ladder so I was level with the hummingbird. It didn't move. I reached out and snatched it. It freaked out. It felt like a grasshopper trying to escape a clutching hand, but it made more racket than I thought possible for a bird that small. His face was all puffed up and his beak was open and he was just letting me know he was pissed off. Needless to say I hobbled back down the ladder and over to the open dock door where I let him go. He took right off so I have high hope he found some food and survived the ordeal.

Also tomorrow is one of my best friends wedding. I am super excited to be going. Incidentally she was one of the first people I called after I hurt myself. I wanted to let her know that I was going to be the girl on crutches at her wedding. Not just at the wedding I suppose. In it. The rehearsal was tonight and everyone kept asking what happened.

Lost the Colony

So I guess we didn't have beginners luck on this one. We just went out to our hive and found that the whole thing is basically gone. No brood, no signs of a queen. Lots and lots of wax moth larvae. There are a few bees but we suspect they are only robbers or the remnants of the hive coming back to salvage as much as possible. There is maybe two tablespoons of honey left. 3 weeks ago there were full frames of honey. It is definitely a blow to us. Right now just trying to learn from the mistakes we made and salvage as much equipment as we can for next year.

The chickens seem to be experts on digging out the wax moth larvae from the wax. I'm feeling vindictive and let them just gobble them up.