Various things

Adorable kids! :-)



One of the Blue Jays that was visiting my MIL's feeder yesterday morning.










A Victorian Amulet that I made a year ago. It's not the best, but it was a good practice run.

Flip flop weather

What a change in weather one day can bring eh? The first picture was early morning on the 24th. The second picture early afternoon on the same day.

Clearing land

As this has been such an open winter ........ so far anyway ........... and the man and woman power is available .......... we have been outside clearing the section of our property directly in front of the house. It's being done the silviculture way, as opposed to undesirable clear cutting. When June arrives the cleared area near that clump of maples will be covered in lupins and I will be capturing more digital pictures similar to these .........
Pretty aren't they? I love to take breaks while doing this work and wander off into the deeper woods, or explore a path that a woodland creature has made. Yesterday I trimmed lower branches off some spruces and firs, and also some dead wood off the maples. Our temps have been so balmy, for the most part, this month that the maples were starting to put out tiny suckers on their trunks. I had sap on my hand as I brushed the end of a branch from a fir tree as I toss it away. That means that the sap has started to rise in that tree already. That's not good. New growth will come, and then the cold weather will find us and kill off the new growth. Hopefully, not the tree too, or do damage to it.

"If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen." - Henry David Thoreau

I would have enjoyed meeting Mr. Thoreau.

Looking forward

Lots to blog about but for this time I thought I'd bring everyone up to date on my visit with my neurologist last Thursday. Shel and I had been quite suspicious of my three major 'spells' being an overdose of the Sinemet that I take for my DRD, coupled with the fact that I had just eaten a high protein meal before taking a pill. Protein interfers with Sinemet. To make a long story short, I had begun to decrease my Sinemet after the third spell and by the time I saw my neurologist I had myself down to 1/2 of a pill taken one hour after eating my breakfast each day. Sinemet is a medication that must be started gradually and weaned off of slowly. As I had begun to notice an improvement in how I felt, and had not had any more major spells, he wants me to stop taking the Sinemet completely and come back to see him in two months time to see if he can detect any difference at that time. DRD is an extremely difficult disease to diagnose and treat, and the information on it, though improving, is really minimal. Many, many doctors miss it completely . . . . even specialists. They simply don't understand it; especially if they've never seen it before or studied much about it. I am extremely blessed to have a neurologist that is very keen on movement disorders. If any of you would like to read more about the various types of DRD, or find links to more information on Dystonia in general, check out Dopa Responsive Dystonia Central or
Dystonia Medical Research Foundation . Ironically, my neurologist tells me that it is possible that with my particular type of DRD, which is the Segawa's variant and is hereditary, in my case it may be that I have grown into it over the years, required help rising the dopamine level, and that I am now growing out of it (in a sense), which means that I may no longer require Sinemet to up my level of dopamine. Or, it may be that I require a lower level intake of Sinemet. That remains to be seen. I still have the disease. There is no cure. The Sinemet simply helped to control my symptoms. I have been off Sinemet since Thursday now and so far, so good.

The other symptoms that I had been experiencing which don't really fall under the umbrella of Dystonia, would appear to be stress-related, menopausal, and what one may experience if one tends to live life as a 'worrywart.' I am working on those and with God's help, and that of my DH and children, I will be moving forward one day at a time.

One word of advice that I do have for anyone that doesn't seem to be getting answers from their doctor . . . . find one who will listen to you. I did, and it has made all the difference.

Take care . . . .

Our Morgan mare, Meggie

This was our Morgan mare, Meggie, at 20 months of age, standing in the pasture with a Nova Scotian mist surrounding her. I always thought that the picture was very well done by the photographer as her registered name is Maritime Misty Megan. She was/is so lovely . . . with her gorgeous chestnut coat and kind, twinkling eyes. I don't think there is a mean bone in her body. Her breeder told us stories of how she would romp and play with the other horses . . . . games that looked like 'hide and seek' . . . . and how she would wear out her pasture companions to the point that they would go back and stand at the barn door wanting to go inside for a rest. Meggie would come and peek around the corner of the barn at them and then wheel away to play on her own. Her energy was limitless. When we purchased her, Meggie had a stud foal at her side, sired by Fiddler's Black River, and so we allowed them to keep her there until the foal was weaned so he would not lose his momma too soon. Meggie herself was sired by Candy's Shadow, who was one of the many sons of this well-known Nova Scotian Morgan stallion, Jackson Mandate, who you also see pictured here. Jackson Mandate was the senior stud at Hobby Horse Farm in Coldbrook, NS for many years.

More on the horses later. Duties are calling . . . . .

Looking the other way

Just last month during a snowstorm I was outside wandering around with my camera and for this shot I was standing in the riding area, just off the edge of the driveway. The maple tree is a divider between the driveway and the riding area and during dressage practises years ago it was "A" . . . . and sometimes "snack" . . . . {g} The old horse barn is off to the left in this picture, and the garage is to the right . . . . both are hidden from view. The driveway continues on from where the Jeep is parked there by the house, goes down the hill and circles around to come out and join the main driveway at the foot of hill by the stonewall. The driveway to the garage goes along in front of the stonewall which is in front of the house and continues by the garage on up to the basement door. Needless to say, the driveway is not paved. It would cost far too much money to pave it all.

Picture uploaded

After a complete shutdown and reload Blogger decided to allow this one picture this evening. This was taken almost a year ago and shows the main area directly in front of the house where Shel has been clearing as I mentioned in the previous posting. Not a bad picture considering I took it from inside the house. This is the view from the big window in the sitting area of our combined kitchen, dining and sitting room. As you can see, we are a ways from the road and off to the right of the driveway halfway to the road is our old riding area. We still keep it mowed in the summertime so that it remains 'alder-free.' It took a lot of hard work to put there so we'd like to keep it cleared for a while yet.

Much going on ?

Wasn't there supposed to be less to do when 2006 rolled around?! Who said that anyway?! Not one of you can remember, can you? I knew it had to be just a rumour. {gg} So, what is rolling on around here? . . . .

Well, let me see . . . . I started 'spring cleaning' the master bedroom. Let me tell you, the dustbunnies and spiders were shocked to hear that vacumn cleaner make a noise! I bet they thought it had gone to the 'old vacumn cleaner's home' a long time ago! I think 'spring cleaning' goes much better with a sense of humour . . . . as does so much of life. {g}

Shel has been 'spring cleaning' some of the acerage between the house and road and around the garage and just to the west of the back lawn. What that means is that he has been clearing out the alders ( alders are 'no good for nothing' bushes that thrive in an acidity soil . . . . of which we have plenty in this particular area of Nova Scotia), and also thinning out some of the trees so that the best ones can reach their full growth without being hindered. He has plenty of work yet to do on that, with the house being right in the middle of approximately 11 acres and over 300 feet from the road. Blogger has blocked my attempts to put pictures up this evening so those will have to be done another time. Meanwhile I'm knitting on a pair of socks that I had originally intended to keep for myself but I am reconsidering and they will likely end up in daughter Heather's bureau drawer. After those are done I have a third pair to knit that will be accompanying two other pair on their way to Missouri later this winter. There are also a few crazy quilting UFOs hanging around that I have to get moving on. And in between there is the regular housecleaning, baking, caring for the dogs and the cat, and the Betta fish.

On Thursday Shel and I will be making the trip up to Halifax to my neurologist and after my appointment there we will be visiting with some old and dear friends who have recently returned to NS from Ontario. Unfortuantely there won't be time to look up a Basenji breeder who has a new litter up there near the city. Oh, how I would love to have an hour or two of Basenji puppy time but it just isn't going to happen I'm afraid. There are only just so many hours in a day, and just so much energy to cover it with. So far the weather reports are giving a decent day for travelling on Thursday so I do hope and pray that the good weather that has been down south will drift northward and arrive in time for our day trip.