Day 53: Recovery and Recharging

Well, I have to say, my timing is certainly terrible.  I managed to keep my posts going all through the run up to the goat homecoming, and then I let them drop right as the goats get here.  So I wasn’t able to share in all of the fun with you guys out there.  Now the situation has changed, and I have lots of pictures.

For some reason on Thursday morning something inside my soul let loose with an almost audible snap.  I don’t think I have ever had a panic attack before in my life, but I sure as hell did that morning.  I could barely function for close to an hour.  If you have ever had someone say the walls are closing in, and you have never had a panic attack, you have no idea what they are talking about.  That is the single most humbling, embarrassing, powerful burst of emotion you can feel in your life.  I have no idea if I was just pushing myself too hard or what, but I was not in a happy place.  So I decided to slack off and take it easy for a couple of days and allow myself a chance to recover.  I am hoping to be able to dive into my blog again, as I do enjoy writing it, but I never want to be in that emotional state again, so we will see.

Pepperoncini and Verbena:

These were our two cute little Nigerian Dwarf Goats and Jenn (Hi Jenn).  The all black one standing up was the girl, Verbena, and the white frosted one laying down is Pepperoncini.  Having never had goats before, I would describe goats as cats, but with enough brains to get into real trouble.  They know how to listen, they just choose not to.  These damn goats would actually climb up into your lap to sit there and get petted.  They were absolutely adorable.

Here is little Peppers engaged in his absolute favorite activity, getting curry combed by Jenn.

This is Peppers all tired out from his second favorite activity, eating twigs off of my wood pile.  Damn goats.  Also, watching goats lay down is absolutely adorable.  They just hunker down on their front knees and its really cute.

I would say my goat feeder worked out just fine.  They both enjoyed the crud out of their alfalfa.

Here is little Peppers with my dog Sasha.  Not exactly best friends yet, but at least they accepted each other.  I don’t have one of Beans with the dogs, and thats crucial to the story.

Note all through this post I have referred to goats in the past tense.  Unfortunately, we had to take little Pepperoncini and Verbena back to the farm where we got them.  They were absolutely adorable to have around, and I loved their cuteness and their antics.  Unfortunately, sometimes you have to do whats best for all of the animals, and not you.  Our dogs have to come first, and Verbena just could not accept them.  She was unable to bond with them, and was terrible afraid.  She actually head-butted Sasha on the shoulder one night, so of course my coward was now terrified as well.  We was constantly tense and on watch with them.  Since we refused to restrict our dogs, and having a terrified goat is cruel, we took them home.

Verbena was just way too bonded to her herd, Peppers would have loved to stay with us.  Taking them back home was very sad.  Beans ran off with the other goats and didn’t look back, she was happier there.  Peppers just stayed by the fence waiting for us to come in and play with him. He was happier with us.  So its sad, but it was best for everyone.

We are not giving up on the Nigerian Dwarf Goats though.  The farm has two little baby goats for us, also a boy and a girl.  We are going to pick them up soon, after I finish goat proofing the yard.  Since they are smaller, we think they will have an easier time with the dogs.  Also, since they are young, the haven’t been part of the big herd yet, so they shouldn’t miss them when they come here.  We are pretty sure they will think my dog Maggie is their new goat mommy, which will thrill Maggie to no end.  I will post pics as soon as I have some.

Having two full size Nigerian Dwarf Goats was helpful though.  I know what I have to do to proof the yard for them.  Ask my poor little Trovita Orange Tree how good I am at building goat fences.  Lets just say version 2.o will be better.  I will outline my improvements tomorrow.

Paleo Portion:

I made the mistake of falling off my paleo wagon for a few days, and boy am I paying for it.  I think the gluten was giving me a pain in my stomach, but its hard to separate the food from my stress level.  Jenn made tasty rosemary chicken and yellow rice last night.  It was really good.  We got more awesome food from the market yesterday too.  So hopefully I will stay on track, and feel better with a reduced stress load for a few days.

Day 48: Goat Feeders and Garages

Yesterday was every bit as exhausting and at some points frustrating as I had been afraid it would be.  I did get some forward progress on my To-Do lists, but not as much as I had hoped.  Even with a major setback, I would still say my project turned out really well.  We also got a chance to check out an awesome local business for the first time.  Its one that we have been saying we need to go see for years, and we finally did it.

So yesterday morning, eventually, we headed out to run our errands.  I dropped off two more boxes of books at goodwill, trimming my remainder pile down even further.  We picked up some puppy pads for the bottom of the chick cage, as well as some new chick food.  We also got a goat water dish for our Nigerian Dwarf Goats.  Its made from recycled tired, which means it should be able to stand up to goat abuse.

Then on the way home, we stopped off at Old Town Feed and Supply.  Its a cute little feed store just off of the road on my commute every day.  They have little bunnies and chickens every spring, and we have been saying we should go for literally the entire time we have lived here in Tucson.  Yesterday, we finally did.  This place was awesome.  Anything you needed for horses, chickens, wild birds or pet dogs, they had there.  On top of that, I now get to kick myself for not stopping sooner, since their prices were amazing.  They had some little baby turkeys in a bin up front, man they are adorable.  We got some chewies for the dogs, a quail block, and a nice bail of alfalfa for the goats.

It would be at this point that the day turned south a little.  Our Envoy has a tailgate that likes to not work ever since the thumb-fingered baboons at Tucson Dodge decided that it didn’t really need to do a function it was supposed to do.  So they took it apart, “repaired it”, charged us lots of money, and it hasn’t worked right since.  So next time you need a car, trust a homeless guy with an AK before you trust these idiots.  So on the way home, with a bale of alfalfa in the back, our tailgate decides it doesn’t want to close.  So we ride the last few miles home with a swinging gate.  We finally patched it closed, and now I get to spend a large part of my day in the waiting area at a car dealership.  I look forward to that joy.  Here is a shot of the ghetto work, just for kicks.

Once I got home though, I was able to build an awesome goat feeder for our Nigerian Dwarf Goats.  Now there is nothing to stop us from bringing them home on Wednesday, assuming we get the tailgate fixed.

This little guy is about 5 feet high, and holds a standard bale of alfalfa hay nicely.  I made it entirely from reclaimed wood from our old garden.  It holds the food up off the ground so it stays dry, also it healthy for the little goats to reach up for their food.  It helps keep them from getting gas, and also from wasting their hay all over the ground.  I can’t wait to see them get into feeder related shenanigans.

Paleo portion:
I really didn’t eat much yesterday, so I won’t waste time on it. I have noticed on days that I do lots of work, I just don’t feel like eating. I did have half of a killer watermelon though. It was tasty.

Day 46: Recharging and Refilling

Well, today was my first full day home from Florida, where I ran smack dab into the downside of your body acclimating really well to a new time zone.  Combining that with the effects of gluten toxicity purging from my body, and I just felt crappy.  It was amazing to me on one level how quickly all of my efforts were undone.  I hope that it won’t take me as long this time to purge the residue this time, but at least in the short run, its not less violent.  Also, amazing was how quickly I regained a soda addiction.  For the most part, I never really had one, certainly compared to a lot of people.  Yet when you think you don’t have one, go drink pop for a week and tell me how it works out when it comes time to stop.  I barely drank pop before, and I would love to have one now.  So yeah, its addictive.

So although I didn’t get the large number of things done that I wanted to, in fact I spent most of the day watching “Food Network Star” and playing Max Payne 3, I did get to see how far everything has come since I left.  Our little Trovita Orange Tree is coming along nicely.  I am not 100% sure he has put on any new leaves, but he for sure has stretched up to the sun.  The mesquite tree I planted has most certainly sprouted some new leaves, about 10 if we counted correct.  You think of trees taking forever to grow, and sometimes its till amazing that it doesn’t take really that long.  Lastly, my little chickens are much less little now.  They are growing like gangbusters.  I really hope I feel better on Monday, as I will have to build them a coop whether I feel well or not.

Here are the little ladies all playing around in their cage, first thing in the morning.

Here is a baby Welsummer artfully posing for us.  As you can see, they have about tripled in size in the last week or so.

Refilling the Kitchen:

The house was starting to look a little bare, so we went to Market on the Move to refill on veggies, and Sam’s Club for some dairy needs.  The haul from Market was tremendous.  Normally I list off what we got just for reference purposes, but this week I can’t, I am not sure I can count that high.  I know we got some tasty pablano peppers, some yellow banana peppers, tons of green peppers, tons of yellow squash, piles of tomatoes and 4 honeydew.  Essentially, way more product than we can use in a week.  Jenn had the awesome idea to store the peppers.  This will give us some peppers to use in the summer months when there is a market only every two weeks.  We might even end canning some of the small peppers and tomato sauce.

Went to Sam’s club as well for our dairy needs, and got some tasty stuff there.  I bring this up only because, it was the first trip where the only thing we impulsed was a watermelon.  Nuts to you brightly colored displays of useless crap.  We also might have hit on an idea for our chicken coop.  We might be able to use a big 150 gallon deck container instead of building the actual coop.  Will have to see how much the cost is versus the labor involved.

Paleo Portion:

Breakfast

Skipped due to market on the move.  Had some coffee when we got back

Lunch:

We reheated some leftover burgers from the night before.  Very good curry burgers.  If you mix some curry paste in your ground beef with some cumin, its amazing.

Dinner:

For dinner we made some super tasty veggie egg scramble with bacon.  Just cut up 4 strips of bacon and brown with onions.  Cut up 4 tomatoes and 2 pablano peppers, throw those in to cook once onions are brown.  Once those are cooked, mix in about 12 eggs.  The bacon fat keeps it from sticking, and gives it great flavor.  Was very tasty.  Honeydew for dessert.

Weight: 240

I gained 5 pounds in five days.  Damn you Florida.  Two years in a row you make me fat.  At least this year I can fix it.