I’m back … :)

Actually, I’ve been here (on the homestead) the whole time, but have had a lot going on.

A severely infected abscessed  tooth put me almost out of commission for a month. I’ve had abscesses before, but this was a doozy! Never had almost my entire face swell. A friend of mine commented that I looked like something out of a Twilight Zone episode, and I’m afraid he was right! I took photos just to document it (I don’t think I’m brave enough to post them here!) and I didn’t realize until I studied the photos that my eyelids WERE swelling shut, which with some extensive reading was one of the signs I was going to the emergency room for. I still can’t figure out how I studied my face in the mirror and missed what the photo clearly shows. Then again, my eyes were swelling shut – maybe that’s how I missed it!

I did clear up the infection, though a gum boil persisted for some time. Goldenseal and grapefruit seed extract are my friends! Normally I can clear a tooth abscess in a few days, but … I don’t know. Maybe I was too worn down. Maybe it was an especially severe infection. It seems there have been a lot of trials all of a sudden.

Speaking of which, I lost my buck goat. Frodo went down a few days after I came down with the abscess. I propped him up, wrapped him in a blanket, gave him injections of Pen-G and liquid vitamin B. He rallied for a day and a half, but eventually weakened and died. I did a lot of research on goat polio and listerosis, and I have a draft in here, which I will probably finish editing and go back and publish.

I almost lost the doeling Nikki too. She was the only doe kid born this year, so that would have been devastating. Her mother AND grandmother have been at death’s door too. Basically ALL my breeding goats and hopes for my herd were almost dashed. They are all on the mend though. Today was the first day I saw really good signs of recovery, though they have been steadily improving (except for Sassy, she’s up and down).

Good things have been happening too. We have had an absolute EXPLOSION of chicks and ducklings hatching. Just a couple of geese too. One of them has an interesting story – Peepers had to be pulled from his mother(s) and is being hand-raised. He imprinted strongly on me and just can’t understand why I want him to spend time with those feathered creatures outside when he’s ever bit as human as I am. I’ve written parts of his story and will cobble them together and post them as well.

Have had some wonderful family breakthroughs this week. I found out my father is still alive and received an address for him, and on the same day got a phone call about another family member that has been missing from my life for several years.

The garden has been coming along. I started my new mulch project the day before the tooth abscess hit, so it was stalled for a while, but it has done wonders for my tomatoes now that it’s finished. I started the season with a lot of blossom end rot (never had to deal with much of that before, but it looked like the whole crop would be ruined!) and now I have healthy tomatoes producing about twenty pounds a day and I haven’t even had to water them in over a week, in spite of no rain.

And I tried some new methods of planting seed. I’ll have to do it again, because I didn’t take pictures and between a thunderstorm and a raid by the duck patrol – there is not much left to photograph.

The worm bin hasn’t fared too well. It doesn’t take a lot of upkeep, so I don’t think it was my illness. It may have been the heat.

I even got some pretty flowers put in, which are below everything else on the priority list, so I don’t always get them.

And have a few nice upcycling projects going on – I plan to finish the posts on them too.

So, while I have a lot going on, I’ll try to start working through all of these drafts and play catch-up, and at the same time keep my readers informed of the new events happening.  Just wanted to check in and say — I AM still here, and I’ve missed writing to you all and hearing your comments!

(Speaking of comments, I logged in to a terrible backlog — I’ll be working on getting those moderated and posted as well! If you’ve tried to contact us, rest assured that I will eventually read all comments, but feel free to leave a new one if you like as I’ll be reading newly posted ones each day first.)