It's not ALL Sunshine and Roses...

By nature, I am a very positive person. I tend to see the best in things and believe that life will be good. Of course, that is when I'm not in the midst of a clinical depression episode. Which, fortunately, medication can help prevent. (knock on wood!) I am blessed to have a remarkable life, here in the Bluff Country. I love my home and I have the most awesome collection of beautiful, loving animals that anyone could ask for. I frequently post about the joy that this brings to me.

Today, I thought it might be worthwhile to briefly mention the 'flip' side. For I do believe that there is always a flip side. Sometimes, if we're very lucky, it doesn't come up very often. But it's there and the odds are it will turn up eventually. It doesn't have to be something catastrophic ~ sometimes just little things gone awry can make one wish that she'd stayed in bed that morning. Other times, it's little, nagging aches and pains that can get us down. Life in the Bluff Country is not immune to any of these things...

My 'tennis elbow' recently flared up to the point that I could not use my left arm for anything. It's a fortunate thing that I am right handed. However, the pain was significant enough that I was unable to type (not to mention many normal daily chores ~ like putting on socks or pulling up my pants!). Hence, the long spell with no posts. I finally admitted defeat and went to the Doctor. He gave me some wonderful pain pills and sent me to a Physical Therapist. Between the pain meds, the compression wrap, the wrist splint and the "Iontophoretic Patch", I'm feeling much better. I still have a couple of weeks of therapy but I'm well on the road to recovery.

When I AM recovered, I may just have to KILL me some sheep! Rams that is. The other day, when I got home from work and was feeding the flock, I left the gate open to the area where the workers are finishing up my new barn. The rams are penned on the far side of that pasture. I figured that the ewes would stay in their own paddock, since I was bringing them hay. Wrong. They had to go explore the new barn. Which prompted two of my rams (Idol and Moon) to go right through their fence and commence chasing my not-yet-to-be-bred-ewes all about the pasture. I chased those SOB's for an hour before I caught both of the boys and drug them back to their own pasture. To say I was angry and wanted to kill the rams (totally managing to ignore that it was MY fault for leaving the gate open and the GIRLS who went too close for the boys to be able to ignore....) is putting it mildly. Not what I needed with an arm that was already throbbing. We made it through that episode. I kept everyone running until I caught the boys ~ no chance for anyone to stand long enough to be mounted! And the boys were too busy trying to avoid me catching them to really make any amorous moves. Thank God!

Yesterday, I came home from work to find the rams in with the construction workers! Who were not too thrilled with the company. Apparently 3 strands of electric fence wire is not enough to contain 4 rambunctious ram lambs. Thankfully, I have two more fences and gates separating the boys from the ewes! So, before I could even change clothes (or unpack my groceries ~ including a frozen pizza! ~ I had to fix the fence. A couple of hours later and four more strands of wire and the boys are now staying where they belong! NOW I'm remembering when it was nice to have a man around! It's OK....I did just fine and felt pretty good about myself when I finally finished up with the fence, got the animals fed and watered and came into the house to change clothes and relax. THEN I remembered my frozen pizza. Still sitting in the car...

BELLA says: "I still love you Mom!"

MEREDITH says: "Silly Sheep!"

DREAM says... ..."Don't worry, Mom told me that she still feels like the luckiest woman alive and wouldn't trade our life for Anything!