Life on the High Plains

My sweet hubby takes such good care of me and my critters.  Can you believe he went and got a couple hundred bales of hay by himself and then stacked them up in the barn all the way to the rafters by himself? I don't know how he does it. I'm really happy to have a whole year's worth of hay stacked in the barn.  (my critters are happy too) Kidney stone update:  Dr. M sent me for a CT Scan today before doing kidney stone surgery.  Guess what?  No stone, but the pain persists.  He sent me back to my primary care doctor to find out what's going on.  I'm back to square one after almost seven of constant pain.

We finally made it to a Skysox game tonight. They are our local minor league baseball team. Ryan Spilborghs from the Rockies is playing with them tonight. Right now the Skysox are beating the Tacoma Raniers 8-4 in the sixth inning. It's a beautiful evening to be hanging out with the family.

Mr. Beans had such a horrible football experience last year that he decided to play fall soccer instead of football. I don't blame him a bit.

It has been almost 10 days since I was diagnosed with a kidney stone.  The first 7 of those days weren't so bad; the last 3 days have been horrendous.  Unless you've had a kidney stone you can't understand what it feels like.  I feel as though I've been kicked in the side by one of our horses.  Percoset doesn't even help anymore and sleep is almost impossible.  I'm sure everyone, especially my precious husband, is really tired of me feeling bad.  I'm tired of me feeling bad too.  I can't believe I've gone to work the whole time, I even traveled to one of our branch offices a couple days ago and worked a 12 hour day.  On Tuesday at 9:00 a.m. I get to go back to my urologist and he'll schedule surgery to remove it.  I wish I could call him right now and see if he'd meet me at the hospital.  The bad part about that is that I may not be able to travel to Wisconsin next Friday for Jillian and Brian's wedding celebration.  I'm not going t...

We took the horses out for a ride today. I was hoping to shake my kidney stone loose.  It didn't work...at least not yet. I did get this great shot of Doc's ears. Mr. Beans got a great shot of Cody's tongue. Irv didn't get bucked off his horse. So all-in-all, it was a great day.

Our neighbor just got two miniature donkeys.  This one likes to come through the fence to our side.  I'm pretty sure he heard we serve breakfast and dinner on a regular schedule. To get to our side, he lays down by the fence and rolls under it.  (Really--I'm not kidding!)  It's one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.  I'm hoping to catch it on video. His pasture mate isn't nearly as smart or as friendly. He snorts at me when I get too close. They really are very cute, but I can't see a reason for having them. I need to come up with names.  Any suggestions?

renal colic n : sharp pain in the lower back that radiates into the groin; associated with the passage of a renal calculus through the ureter In other words...kidney stone. About a month ago I started having a dull ache in my right side.  Kidney stone?  Not possible, it wasn't that long ago that I had a rather large stone removed or blasted from each kidney (actually it was a year and a half) I'm not going down that path again. One trip to the urgent care--diagnosis: kidney infection.  One round of antibiotics completed...still have that nagging pain. One trip to my primary care physician--no diagnosis yet, but we're still running tests. Friday night--doubled over in pain, glad I have some Vicadin left over, sick to my stomach. OMG...I have a kidney stone, no doubt, but there's no way in heck I'm going to the ER.  Last time I went there they made me stay for two days.  I will however, take my temperature every couple of hours to make sure I'm no...

Yesterday afternoon I met some friends at the Glen Eyrie castle for high tea.  Glen Eyrie was the estate of General William Jackson Palmer, railroad man and founder of Colorado Springs.  It is now owned by The Navigators, a ministry headquartered in Colorado Springs. The grounds of Glen Eyrie are absolutely magnificent.  It had been several years since I had been there and I had forgotten just how awe inspiring it is there. The rock formations, the trees, the grass, the flowers, the hills and valleys.  It is so peaceful. What I love the most is the castle.  It is incredible!  On the weekends they offer high tea in the afternoons.  It's also a bed and breakfast so you can spend the night in the castle.  Maybe this fall Irv and I can go spend a night out there.  In the summer it's a little over run with tourists. I stopped by the bookstore while I was there and purchased a book about the General's wife, Queen.  I'...

There's a new blogger in the family!  Jillian has finally taken the plunge and joined her mom, sister, and uncle in the blogging world.  Jillian is a fabulous writer so I may have to shut my blog down so that I'm not put to shame by my youngest baby girl. Check out her blog-- http://meetthemooses.blogspot.com/ Why "Meet the Mooses" you ask?  Well, hopefully she will explain that in new post very soon. Welcome to the blogging family, Jillian!  Mary, you're the only daughter who is missing.

To all the warriors who serve and protect our country, I say thank you.  Our country suffered a devastating loss on Sunday.  We need to remember, however, that young men and women die every day in Iraq and Afghanistan--6 died today.  As of today 6,178 total.  You can go to http://militarytimes.com/valor/  to learn a little more about each of them. We live our day-to-day lives while these brave young warriors are giving their all.  The evening news showed the names, ages, and home towns of all those who were killed on Sunday.  They were so young.  It is so sad. It breaks my heart to know what their families are going through. Today I choose to honor one of those killed on Sunday, an army warrant officer, aviator, and Coloradan, Chief Warrant Officer David Carter.  To his family, all I can say is Thank You and please know that you are in the thoughts and prayers of strangers all across this country. So also you have sorrow ...

One of co-workers needed a couple new players for her volleyball team. She's in a Tuesday night league at the Sand Pit. Well, I wasn't interested, but Mary and Jillian were. Then Mary decided maybe she wasn't very good so Brian stepped in to fill her spot. Their first game was Tuesday night. It started out good--they won the first game. The opposing team only had four players so guess who they recruited from the crowd to play on their team? IRV! What a traitor. The second and third games didn't go so well for Some Spike it Hot. Irv's team won the match. For some reason we didn't hear too much gloating from IRV even though his serving scored the majority of points in the last game. Way to go IRV! This is Jillian's first try at volleyball since her eighth grade volleyball team. She did really good and of course Brian is so tall he can just catch the ball as it sails over the net. Fun times!

I recently saw Rocco Dispirito on the Rachael Ray show. (Yes, Racheal Ray is on in the middle of the day--I wasn't skipping work, I was home sick.) Rocco was talking about his new book, Now Eat This! Diet.  It sounded very intriguing.  Lose 10 pounds during the first 14 days eating six meals per day.  Six meals per day?  Now, that's my kind of diet.  About the same time I learned that Borders was going out of business.  That's not good--I have a Borders gift card in my wallet that I need to use.  I got online and discovered that Borders still had their website so I ordered Rocco's book. The next step was to break the news to Irv.  "Honey, we're going on a diet for 14 days, no eating out and you have to follow a strict food plan that doesn't include a big bowl of frozen yogurt every night."  Much to my surprise, Irv said he thought that was great.  Irv really slimmed down for Jillian's wedding, but he has gained some of that...

No, you're not seeing double.  We have a new goose--Yoder (named after the town he came from).  Yoder and Lucy are living in the backyard right now.  We got him about two weeks ago.  The day after we got him, I put the two of them in the goose pen for the night and a little while later I couldn't see Yoder.  Lucy had been chasing him around all day so I was a little worried.  Did we lose another goose after only one day? I found him wedged between the back of the goose house and the fence and it wasn't good.  He couldn't move.  I managed to get him un-stuck, but it looked like his leg was broken.  What do you do with a broken-legged goose?  I decided to call Irv at work--I was sure he would know what to do.  Well, he offered to come home and wring Yoder's neck.  OMG!  I declined his offer. The next morning things didn't look any better.  I was really relieved when Irv asked if I wanted to take him to the vet....

What a cutie! 24 years ago on a very hot Sunday afternoon, my third baby girl was born.  It almost seems like it was just yesterday.  Hope you have a great day!

Since I put the counter on my blog page there have been 7,259 hits.  Below are the stats since I started the blog a little over a year ago.  Over 10 thousand hits!  I expect to see hits from the U.S. and Australia, but not Germany, Russia, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, etc.  Who the heck is reading my blog?  Leave me a comment, I'd like to know more about you.