This eventuality is now a reality - Hooray!!

Depending on your profession, this month may (ha, couldn't resist) or may not be a really hectic one. To be honest, the older I get the crazier all the months seem to become; do yours? May is when educational employees spend the majority of their time peeling children off the ceiling and wearing out their knees over same (lotta prayer going on there ;o) For those of you who think it "must be nice" to have your summers off, I will say that I can remember having that very same covetous thought. Prior to the diagnosis of DD's hearing loss and my career change, I was a *cough* civilian. I can remember thinking how very lucky teachers were to have all that wonderful time off. Well ahahaha, now I get it (boy do I).  People in the educational field often question their own sanity (present company included) at least twelve times a day. Look where I was with my student this week [photo inset]. Now picture a gymnasium full of fifth graders all learning to shoot a bow and arrow. Yep, gotta be a real nut case to do this job. Summer breaks. Are you kidding? We need all that off time to fit in all those therapy sessions with our shrinks...

Not only is this the last month of school, but it is also time for my very last oncology appointment (I hope). This July, I will be five years out from my cancer. I think that the first and the last appointments have to be the scariest. The first simply because you cannot get your brain around the fact that YOU actually have cancer. The excellent health you thought you had has poofed and you find yourself suddenly facing multiple surgeries, chemotherapy and all kinds of other horrible and heinous things that you must do if you want to live for any length of time. Wondering why I'd worry about the last? Because I am almost there; so close to the big anniversary it's scary. There's also the happy thought that since I was "young" (40), the chances of a recurrence are much higher than if I had been 60 or 70. Rather like giving up your security blanket, I guess (although I'm sure Shadow would let me borrow his ;o)

The further out you get from the initial diagnosis without a recurrence [and the first five years are the diciest] the better your long-term chances of survival. That is provided something else doesn't get you first. The oft-touted percentage of survivors in the high 90s sounds awesome, except that it's only good for five years AND only counts those patients whose death was direct result of their cancer. In other words, if you died during reconstructive surgery, got pneumonia or had a heart attack because of the damage to your system from the chemo, or died at five years and one week, it doesn't count (can you say majorly manipulated statistics?? *rolls eyes*).  I can't help but remember that Elizabeth Edwards [whose husband is a PUTZ] was originally diagnosed with her cancer in 2004 which returned with a vengeance in 2009 just shy of that five year anniversary. I'm praying hard that God will not ask me to walk that particular path again but His will not mine, right? Between the residual fallout from the medications like arthritis, a defective Vegas nerve (digestion), heart blips, etc. and the ongoing aftermath from the muscle disease, plus Fibromyalgia and Raynauds Phenomenon, I'd really like to think I have the medical bases pretty well covered, don't you think? Yeesh ;o)

Things aren't always what they seem, as I'm sure you already know. With that in mind, [and a bit of irony I found funny] I just had to add this little clip I shot of the Girls while we were working on the patio roof. There's nothing so peaceful as a herd of horses grazing on a nice sunny day. A gentle breeze upon the air, tails swishing lazily to and fro...

Appearances Can Be Deceiving from Jen on Vimeo.

Temperatures included, we are definitely getting warmer around here. The almost patio still gets a cheesy grin each time I walk out the door (last post). It will be curing for the next couple of weeks before we can give it a nice rustic finish (and I'm SO ready *bounce*bounce*bounce*)

Before I forget, thanks again to Ann of Anns Snap Edit Scrap, not only for accepting the request to be Epic Farms' very own Digital Diva (didn't know it came with a title, did you girl? *grin*), but also for her help with our fundraiser and mentioning us today on her beautimous blog. We would also like to say thank you to Duke for letting us borrow his mom's creative genius from time to time, so -

Many, many thanks to you both!!

Well, I'm sure that's more than enough of me for another week. Hope yours is wonderfully blessed (even though sometimes those blessings come disguised as character building lessons ;o) Take care!

Sometimes I am easily confused...Are you?

It has definitely been a character building week, have you ever had one of those? Betcha have. The classroom teacher was out Thursday and Friday which meant two things: substitute and HEADACHE (ugh). Things were really looking brighter though, by the time I arrived home Friday afternoon. Why? Because we finally (finally, Finally, FINALLY! *and insert off-key aria of LAAAAA right about here*) have concrete, and wonders never cease. Ha. I would offer bets on whether or not Jen crashes and burns either going out or coming in with that step [photo inset] however, I'm not into gambling and that is what's known as a sucker bet anyway (it's definitely not if, it's when and will there be a trip to the ER?). 

There's also the possibility that DD and I split the difference with one wipe out each; you just never know when both of us were born without the Grace Gene *grin*. We're counting on DH to take care of things topside (he's 6'1" without his boots). Lifting the door may take a little bit more doing than originally thought, though, as they concreted the threshold... Ooops. 
The green uprights [photo below] were for the screen on our old patio long since converted to a tack and feed room (kinda messy in there *wince*). Actually, we were halfway finished with it when we got the horses so I never even painted the rest of the ceiling, just slapped some paneling up on the walls. Guess I'm going to have to add that to my project list now, as this will become an indoor Epic Farms area. Room? Office? Whatever ;o)

We did, however, encounter one large and one small problem. The large problem was that there was not enough dirt to build up one end to the height they needed (just one of those things that wasn't discernible until they started working). They ended up using considerably more concrete than originally planned; that's for sure. Our house is on a downward slope, so the patio had to be up high enough to keep the water from running into the house if we have heavy rains (that would be bad ;o) and also allow enough height to ensure patio sloping for water runoff (basically into the hill). Thankfully, DH was there to make that decision. That sure is an awful lot of concrete though (yikes). So much for the money we had set aside to do the rest of it right away. POOF! History. Toast. Gone. *sniffle*.

The small problem - thankfully - only affected the bottom part of the wheelchair ramp, although it took some doing to correct as the concrete had already begun to set. Seems the concrete truck (or the workers) knocked down our little "no dogs allowed" fence, and our neighbor's ankle biter popped over to investigate. Naughty girl!

Now we just have to let it cure for a minimum of 28 days before we can stain it. Oh goody, more waiting. So what do you think? Turned out pretty well, didn't it? The area that juts off on the right way in the back will be the tack and feed room. (and Boo-Yeah to that! ;o) It's longer than it appears in the photo. The patio itself is 16' by 40' not including the feed room. Sure doesn't look that big in the photo though, does it? The pipes sticking up on the right in the foreground will be a bathroom.  

You know, I wonder if I took my hairdryer on the high heat setting and...well, never mind. Guess I'll just wait. *tapping foot*. Is it ready yet? No. How about now? No. Ready? Not yet. Okay. Tap-Tap-Tap-Tap...*heavy sigh*...Tap-Tap-Tap. What about if I...

Have a wonderful and blessed week everyone!

   

ALLright. Whodunnit doggone it?!?!

Now I'm not the brightest bulb on the porch (a fact I've readily admitted on more than one occasion) but these days I feel like I'm spending inordinate amounts of time just scratching my head in puzzlement. Do you ever feel that way? Friday morning, I received an email from a local scrapbook store inviting me to a "Midnight Craft n' Crop" at 10:00a.m. (and silly me, as I always thought that was mid morning). Apparently I don't have the whole concept of time mastered nearly as well as I thought I did. 
I made the simple dessert in the above photo last Sunday for dinner at my parent's house (it's sinfully delicious and very easy to make, by the way, by layering ice cream sandwiches, cool whip, and chocolate syrup as many times as you feel like it...yum! ;o) Anyway, I found myself pondering the label on the syrup bottle:

Is anyone besides me confused by the phrase, "Genuine Chocolate Flavor"? As opposed to what? Fake chocolate flavor? How can you fake a flavor? Wouldn't that be some kind of oxymoron? I dunno, maybe I'm just losing it...if I ever had it in the first place, that is).

Of course when I got to my parent's house, I realized I wasn't the only one who was sometimes confused. My Dad expressed similar sentiments over the reasoning skills (or maybe it's just reading skills) of a local home improvement store's employees following a delivery of roofing materials. Duuuuudes, seriously?

On another note, I guess I won't be doing any gardening for awhile (we are, of course, pretending I had big plans to do so soon - Ha - not). I walked out the door the other day to find it occupied by four very hungry little birdies peeping and cheeping away. I believe they are Wrens. Can you see the dried grass just barely poking out from underneath my hand rake and pruning loppers? Although I have to admit I don't appreciate the bird poop in the garage, I just haven't got the heart to disturb them, so I decided to try to take pictures of them every day (or as often as I can remember to ;o) It's fairly difficult to get good photos, as it's dark underneath there and the zoom is having trouble focusing. I managed to get this one, which I thought turned out rather well (another happy accident!)

I am absolutely delighted to announce the addition of two more victims [so sorry] er, volunteers at Epic Farms. The first is Ann from over at Scrap, Edit, Snap. This photo is of Duke, her Westie, and the apple of her eye - isn't he cute? (I'm sure he's probably looking over her shoulder as she works; he keeps a pretty watchful eye on things over there). Ann has graciously agreed to loan us her assistance with any digital dilemmas we may be facing: she has some bodacious skills with Photoshop :o) She's what I've dubbed a virtual volunteer, as she lives hundreds of miles away. I have to tell you, though, her help is extremely important to us no matter where she is geographically. In fact, she is this very minute helping us with a supersecret fund raising idea. Thank you Ann!
The next is slightly shorter and definitely closer. Her name is Abby and she came out and worked for a few hours Saturday morning helping us get the meeting area ready for the concrete man (who is coming next week - Woo!)

To be honest, the "before" photo is probably closer to a "during" photo (but who says that?) The Jasmines - Confederate and Asian - were running completely amok and the back side of the house had almost disappeared under some serious jungle growth. Word to the wise: should you ever decide to plant a species of Jasmine, figure on some major excavating equipment should you ever have the need to remove it. Even Tilly couldn't get it all out (OY!).

Of course all work and no play makes volunteers just run away, sooooo....

We played around with the horses a bit (and maybe got just a little silly in the process ;o) Thank you for your help Abby!

 Have a wonderful week everyone, and don't forget to have some FUN!

Jen goes wireless and the almost patio

I suppose you could say that we had a triple homicide here at the farm this week. I arrived home from work to find a shallow river of water trickling past the Girls' stalls. At first I thought the hose going to the pasture had ruptured, so with an eyeroll worthy of any teenager, I walked through the gate and into the yard to see how bad the damage was. As I rounded the corner of the stalls, however, I noticed that the water was actually coming down the hill from well above the place where the hose lay. Hmmmm, that's odd. With a slight shrug, I made my way up the hill to discover an overflowing water trough and three little bodies floating on their sides atop the water. ACK! MY FISH!! Baffled, I stared slack jawed at the lifeless bodies and struggled to digest the fact that Larry, Moe and Curly were no more. But what the heck happened? Cat? Bird? That didn't make sense at all. Surely if it had been either one, they would have eaten the fish (or at least left some kind of physical evidence behind <-- and who watches too many forensic shows on TV here? Guilty.) Moe was even eating out of my hand, darn it...I liked those fish!!

As I turned to go back down to the house to shut off the water, the hairs on the back of my neck began to prickle. I looked back to see Max standing by the water trough peering at me through the fence with an inscrutable expression on his face. Oh no, surely not. "WHY", I asked him with a baleful stare, "do I feel like you had something to do with this???" At this, Max turned away and stuck his head in the corner, refusing to meet my gaze. It wasn't until the fish had been given a decent burial and I headed back up the hill to try to figure out what was causing the tank to overflow that I got my answer. As I opened the gate, I looked up just in time to see Max lift his foot up and slam it down with great gusto into the water trough sending a huge fountain of water cascading in all directions. In less than three seconds I went from a self satisfied Ohhhhh at finding the answer to this puzzling conundrum to...
ARRRGH!! YOU KILLED MY FISH YOU PINHEAD!!  Ugh. UGH! Putz. Cretin. Dolt. Bockhead. You-you-you-you Heinous heathen horse, you! (hey, nice alliteration Jen ;o) 

I continued muttering under my breath as I stomped my way back up the hill glaring at Max the whole way.
"Well. You'd just better watch yourself young man," I muttered angrily, "lest you wind up in a small white squeeze bottle with an orange twisty cap on it in a Kindergarten classroom 

somewhere." *SNARL*. After several minutes of intense thought and the slow dawning that perhaps I might not be quite as excited about his clever solution to the heat as he was, (and I had the key to the feed room), Max decided to assume a slightly woebegone expression and then offer up an apology. Geeez whatta face. What do you think? Pitiful, isn't he?

As upset as I was about the fish, I just couldn't stay mad. I ended up playing with the horses and the water hose helping them to cool off. It was awfully hot that day (90 - blech!) and as we've not had much rain, the little pond they use to cool off had pretty much dried up. I suppose that's what ultimately led to Max's sudden inspiration. DD snuck into the house and grabbed my camera too...

And just in case you're wondering, the placement of the words on that photograph is absolutely positively 100% on purpose (it would have been nice if DD had taken her photos from *cough* OUR other side, which is slightly less mortifying than this one). Wouldn't you have put them there?? On second thought, I probably should have made them just a teensy bit larger. Yeesh :oP

After the hosing, comes the rolling:

Then the shaking (and WOW look at all that sand!)

And FINALLY [as promised] here is the short video clip of Bella and I practicing with the pedestal. She was most unsure initially, as it was quite a bit different than the much larger and lower version she had learned on (and has not seen for about a year). What cracked me up was her second time; she decided it was pretty awesome up there and used her shoulder to carefully prevent me from getting up there with her *laugh*. It's seems there's only one star of this show (and it definitely isn't me ;o)

Beginning Pedestal (Work?) from Jen on Vimeo.

See you next week and have a wonderful and blessed Resurrection Sunday! [Easter].

A Parody Post

I'm free, I'm free, I'm freeeeeeeeee!

Thirty days may not seem like a long time [if you say it fast], but when you are stuck with something seriously annoying it can feel like FOREVER. I said goodbye (and good riddance) to my little sidekick this week, and have developed a deep appreciation in my new found ease of just changing clothes (among other things ;o) Thankfully, nothing major showed up so that - I hope - will be the end of that.
Look who was hanging out by the back door at feeding time yesterday? I wonder if I need to start leaving a bowl of bunny chow out there for him (and Harvey too) *laugh*. Elwood was nice enough to pause and sit up by the lumber so I could get a good photo; actually, I managed to shoot more than one but I liked the little patch of clover he was sitting in. Hopefully, it will not be there long, as we are almost ready for concrete at long last - WOO!!
My rosebush in the front has gone bloomingly ballistic - I wish I had thought to snap a picture for you the other day (at the height of it). It still looks pretty though, even if some of the blooms are seriously wilted. I'll post another closer shot at the bottom to share with you and for Brenda's Photo Challenge (which I almost never think to do ;o)
I am SO happy to report that the roof is now UP.  I've dubbed it "the almost patio" *grin*. Hopefully, roughing in the plumbing will be on the agenda next weekend, so we can call in someone to do the concrete before too much longer. I have a friend that foolishly graciously volunteered to help me acid wash it so we can give it a nice rustic finish (and after all this time, I can hardly wait to get it done!!! *bounce*bounce*bounce*:o)
Here are some photos of our progress...

We ran out of daylight again, but he did make it to the end of the roof - the last piece is up... hooray! I must say I was pretty impressed that DH was still able to cut out a square in the dark so it would fit over the end post (wow).
While we're on the subject of updates...do you remember how very small Faith and Hope were in comparison to Charity when we got them? They were about 1/4 her size (that post is here) Well I think it's safe to say they have grown a bit. Here's an updated photo, what do you think? It's a little grainy due to the water, but check out Faith's tubby little tummy *laugh*. I'm thinking she needs to cut back on munches and start doing some crunches). Charity looks like she's going to go KABOOM at any moment, but Hope just looks longer (must be that black stripe; stripes are supposed to be slimming, right? *giggle*).
I think that's probably enough of me for now. I've been outside spraying weeds in the pasture for half the day, so I'm pretty much ready for a nap (not that I'm actually going to get one, mind you). Have a fabulous week everyone, and here is that pretty spring bloom I photographed just for you...Enjoy!

Oh, and I am still working on that little video clip (it requires sitting still for large quantities of time and saying many repentable words. I'm a turtle of an editor, and the learning curve is more of a hairpin turn so you see where the holdup is, right? ;o)

Tilly Comes Home and Jen Gets Wired

Ya gotta love groups (and this is eerily accurate ;o)
If you have ever belonged to a discussion group (Yahoo or otherwise) you'll get a kick out of the following post. Actually, if you've ever even worked with a group of folks at all this is a good one. 
I don't usually repost things, but this came through the [Yahoo] BC support group I belong to this morning and totally cracked me up, so I had to share. You have probably seen it already, but just in case you missed it....

The Question: How many group members does it take to change a light bulb?
   
1 to change the light bulb;
  
1 to post that the light bulb has been changed;
   
14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently; 

7 to point out spelling and/or grammatical errors in posts about changing light bulbs;
   
18 to flame the spell checkers;
   
2 industry professionals to inform the group that the proper term for "light bulb" is "lamp"; 

15 know-it-alls who claim they were in the industry and that "light bulb" is perfectly correct; 

5 to email others that the light bulb posters are in violation of the list etiquette;

10 to post that this list is not about light bulbs and to please take this discussion to a light bulb list;
 
12 to demand that cross posting to the hardware list, off-topic list, and light bulb list about changing light bulbs be stopped;
   
17 to defend the posting to this list saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts are relevant to this list;
 
25 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique, which brands are faulty, and URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs;
 
14 to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly and then post the corrected URLs;
 
33 to link all posts to date, quote them in their entirety including all headers and signatures, and add "Me too";
 
4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQs;
 
13 to ask what is an "FAQ"?
 
19 to say "do a search on 'light bulbs' before posting questions about light bulbs";
 
27 to complain that "we've already discussed light bulbs."
 
42 to post "if you don't want to read it, skip it."
 
12 to post to the group that they will no longer post because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy; 
 
1 new list member to respond to the original post 6 months from now so it will start all over again.

Truer words, right? **giggle** (and several of the reasons I so rarely post in any of the group discussions I read ;o)

Hooray for hubby...

and the planets, which must have mysteriously gone into alignment (it only took four little ol' months to make it happen too... isn't that amazing? *rolls eyes*). We FINALLY got DH's work schedule, the neighbors schedule, and the weather to all match up so we could go get Tilly [the tractor]. Because it was right around the corner from us, and we don't have a trailer, DH was going to just drive it down the street, around the corner and down the road to the house (and that sounded SO simple when we said it, too ;o) This is the main reason it took so long; their house is situated on a curve in the road and when you are putt-putting along at 2mph it's always a good idea to have clear weather (you know, so you don't get squashed flat by a ginormous SUV careening around the curve at 40mph).
The girls were more interested in the implements that came with it (and you just know that little Miss Taya made a beeline for the front yard when she heard that tractor motor sputtering up the driveway *laugh*).

DH got some work done on the patio too, and the first piece of metal is up - yipee!! He had to cut a small section out to go around the post on the end; it was getting dark outside so he only did one, but I'll bet you can guess exactly what I did when those sparks started flying...dove for the [Canon] camera, of course! What else? Woo! :o) Is that wild or what?

Like my new sidekick? I don't. It's driving me absolutely dotty (can't wait to mail it back in another week). This is an event monitor and I've been sentenced Er, instructed to wear it for 30 days. It monitors your heart rhythm and records any irregularities. Do not be fooled by the picture that shows only two small wires to be attached (photos can be tricky). There are at least 59 separate wires growing out of that evil little box, and every last one of them has attempted to strangle me at least once (and we're not going to talk about the ones that have been zipped and buttoned into my clothes, either). It's been a royal pain staying wired up 24/7, and I only thought dropping the cell phone in the *ahem* pot-tay was a worry (can you imagine dropping some little $30,000 piece of medial equipment in there? eek!) Hopefully it will explain what's up with the heartbeat hiccups, gallops, thumps and thuds going on in there. We'll see. It is definitely a nifty little piece of technology though. When the alarm goes off, I just call the (800) number on the front, give them my ID number, hold it up to the phone and press "send event". Goes right through the phone lines and pops up on the other end. Then they send it to the doctor's office. Pretty cool, eh?

A baby shower for a friend from church and 5th grade's turn to bring food x2 pretty much annihilated my [post bills] checking account for the month. Sometimes it's awfully handy to be able to make your own gifts; had I not been able to, she might have ended up with a small bag of M&M's (but hey, chocolate, right? Ha). Anyway, I made her a mommy's memory box with a poem I composed last year on the top. There was a cute little coordinated strip wrapped around the divider cards that came in the box and I used it to make a matching tag to put on the bag. I don't think I'll type the whole poem on here, 'cause you just know some rude person is going to steal it and I haven't yet decided whether I'm going to put them in my Etsy shop (I'll share the box with you though ;o)

I'm pretty sure she liked it (hope so, anyway!) Guess that's enough for now. I'm trying to put together a short video clip of what Bella and I did this week (we've been playing *cough* working really hard...honest! ;o) Here's a hint for you...

Just so you don't hurt yourself squinting, the jar says "horse treats" on it. As for the square thing behind it? Well. If you're not sure, I suppose you will just have to wait and see, 'cause we're not talkin' ;o) Have a great week everyone!