I decorated a tree for the park in Greenville. It was sponsored by the clinic.

Did I mention that for a month I had two little kittens as house guests? I loved them and miss them. They were so much fun!

Blame Canada 2

I sent my horses and cows to Canada finally! But not without drama...

So last week, I got a call that the permit from Canada had come in. I had it faxed to me and to the USDA. I sent the paperwork to the USDA with a note pleading for a fast turn around. And fast it was-I had the papers back by Friday! Four days sooner than expected!! Of course, there were a couple of things that were corrected because it wouldn't be the government without them putting their fingers all over it.

So Friday after work, I rushed out to deliver the paperwork and tattoo the cows. (When I was doing this, one of the two young Amish boys asked if I liked what I did.) Getting that done, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Fast forward to yesterday afternoon, I get a phone call that apparently, Canada isn't going to let the horses into the country. The address on their paperwork was different than that of the cows. (Luckily, this was figured out prior to leaving Ohio.) There was a relay of messages between us, the USDA and the Amish man before it was sorted out. The USDA was as upset as everyone and stated that Canada was just being nit picky and the address difference shouldn't of been an issue.

Fast forward to this morning, the shipment of animals are now sitting at the border not being let in. Why? Because the import permit isn't the original one. I luckily have never had the original permit in my possession. So now it's Canada's problem.

Fall Crafts

I made this fall wreath and despite being relatively cheap to make, it did take lots of time and supplies.

I used two yards of burlap ($6-8) that I split longways into about 5" strips. Other supplies needed include a wire wreath form ($4), ribbon ($4), floral wire ($2), and some flowers and pumpkins. I had the pumpkins. The flowers were probably about $8.

So much like with the snowman wreath, I wired small clumps of the fabric to form little loops. I started on the inside then did the outside. Each loop was about six inches long.
Then I added the ribbon and other decorations. I used a hot glue gun for this.

This project took a long time. I suggest doing it while watching tv.

Joe found himself a new cat friend.

Freshly made Amish donut!!

Blame Canada

OR....F U USDA

So there's a small chance depending on how much the US Government decides to spy on me that this post may land me on a domestic terrorism list. Actually, in previous posts, I've been scared to type the words 'domestic terrorism' for that very fact.

At this point, I'm about three stressful days from perf-ing an ulcer so, what the hell?

It all begins sometime in September when an Amish farmer calls us wanting to know some information and prices on shipping cattle to Canada. I do some basic research from the USDA-APHIS website and make a rough list with rough costs and pass it along to the secretary/receptionist/financial person that routinely does this work. Immediately, she questions the prices I have listed and refers it to TC.
Then it turns out that this Amish guy (AG for short) may also want to take some horses, pigs and dogs.
So we get the information for these and he settles on just the horses-four and two cows.

Its been hard working with AG because well, he's Amish and doesn't have a neighbor/driver that can be reliably reached for phone conversation.

Eventually, he calls in and the receptionist gets it set up for me to go pull Coggins tests on three of the four horses. The fourth horse has one that's in the mail. Unfortunately, this receptionist has not asked when he's moving so when I get out there I find that its not for over a month so the rest of the testing (on the cows) can not be performed...and by the way the USDA office that has to approve all of my health papers is closed because of the government shutdown. Not the easiest concept to explain to someone that has very little use for the government.

After some discussion with CB, its decided that I will just handle the health papers at this point cause it will be easier if I do them. I felt that I would have a better understanding. Better understanding does not translate to actually getting them done better though. BOO.

Now two or three weeks later, AG calls back-the government is open, its within 30 days of his projected move. I go out, I TB test the cows, I draw blood, I give them and the four horses through inspections.

Three days later, I read the TB tests and we discuss the paperwork. I harass him to get the import permit from Canada. I make him promise to treat his cows for ticks. I get back the office and in the afternoon start to write up as much as I can on the health papers for the cows. Instantly, I run into a snag...the permit number needs to be on the health certificate.

Sadly, AG can not be easily reached. So I drive out there, deliver this bit of information to his wife via letter and wait.

I get a call last week with the fact that he has in fact applied for the permit into Canada AND he treated the cows with a certain product (also needed for the certificate). This week, he calls me with the import permit number. Great! I can now submit all of these forms. I finish filling them out and fax them to the USDA office yesterday. I know that its pushing it for his departure date but I am confident that everything will work. Today, I call the USDA office to get some feedback so I can make corrections as needed. On the horse form, there were a handful of date errors which can be lined out and initialed. No big deal. Frustrating for someone that likes to be neat but still okay. (I could rewrite the whole thing but that would take forever. I've already done it like twice.) The cattle form had a couple of date errors which again could be corrected via a line but then there was a statement about what kind of herd this was (established vs assembled). This statement needs to be rewritten. SIGH. Then, I need to submit the TB test form. Shit. I forgot to fill one out. Still not an issue...except it needs the owners signature. Then also I find out that I actually need to submit the Canadian permit...that we're still waiting on. AND finally, that the cows need to be tattooed. UGH. DE even asked if they needed USA tattooed in their ear and I cheerfully, was like nope! They only need a silver USDA tag or an RFID tag and a tattoo because that's how I interpreted the rule (read number 3).

Needless to say, I made another trip out to Ohio. AG wasn't home so I left a note with his wife AGAIN. My tattooer didn't work (it was rusted shut) so I'll have to tattoo them when I deliver the health papers.

Then I start freaking out. What if the horses were going to go at this earlier date? What if they aren't crossing at the same spot as the cows like I assumed?

I can't just call up AG and ask him so I have to hope and pray that he calls me with these answers. Even if I drive out there (FOR THE FIFTH TIME!), I don't know if he is going to be home tomorrow or if his wife even knows.

I contemplated going a head and sending the horse health papers and just eating the shipping because we up charge it enough but then I freaked out over the port thing. Then I realized that there was no way in hell that the papers would even be back at the same time so the horses and the cows would have to go together.

I've royally screwed this guy over, haven't I? I'm really upset. I really wish this was easier and that AG had a phone which would make it worlds better.

Then in the middle of all of this afternoon's discoveries, the office calls. One of the receptionists is like (very slowly-if I could have reached through the phone and strangled her, I would have)-there's a horse, here and this bad thing happened to it and they want someone to come out. Well, I'm no where near there. Did you call the vet on call? 'No.' Maybe you should call him. So she did and he couldn't be out there for twice as long as when I said I could possibly be out there. So she calls me back and tells me this. Then another receptionist calls me about euthanizing a dog, which I agreed to do. So after my debacle in Ohio, I go way over to the far east side of our practice and euthanize a horse in the dark and drizzle before returning to the clinic for the dog. Sad night.


Anyway, I think I found a flea on one of the cats. In the process of looking at him, he scraped the crap out of my leg. I don't use flea control (bad vet mom) and am not even sure if I have some cat stuff or not.

I'm never getting pregnant.

I have to try on bridesmaids dresses at some point but am fat. And I know if I bring Joe, he'll just be super critical cause that's how he is.

The house still has Halloween decorations up.

The house hasn't been vacuumed in at least two weeks. Probably longer.

I have craft projects laying around.

I really miss my little kittens.

Joe has to go to court in December. He had a paper that said tomorrow but apparently, that is wrong.

My mom wants me to float the horse's teeth at Thanksgiving but doesn't want me to sedate them. I'm not sure what I can accomplish then.

Did I mention that Margie (the vet truck) got hit in a parking lot like two weeks ago? Yep, not great times. I was pulling in and someone pulled into my back quarterpanel. Its not a bad dent but looked a lot worse when it happened.

Boo went as a taco to the PetCo costume contest. He won second.
We then bought a cat cardboard condo.

Amazing Weekend

Joe and I had an amazing weekend. There is a little bit left still! A little bit for me to watch the beginning of this season of The Walking Dead.
Yesterday, we went to the fall festival at The Apple Castle in New Castle. It was super crowded which is a vicious cycle of frustration for both of us. We got a big bag of apples, some baby ears of corn and cider. Then we went to Pat Catan's and finally ate some really, really bad Chinese food. Luckily, I didn't get sick. After a nap, we had a bonfire. We ate hot dogs and s'mores. I went to bed.
This morning, I woke up early and went to the store so I could fetch some apple cider vinegar to make apple butter from all of our apples. Of course, when I was unpacking groceries, I found a bottle of apple cider vinegar in the pantry. :(
Anyway, I did some very lazy cleaning and baked these amazingly easy pretzels.
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/hot-buttered-soft-pretzels-recipe
I enjoyed way to many of them while drinking coffee, reading and sitting on the bed with the grown up cats. Mary was on the floor alternating between laying and whimpering at the closed door where the kittens are.
It's been a fantastic weekend.

No Emergency Service

So last Friday, one of my last appointments of the day was a recheck from the emergency clinic. Sometimes these are easy-remove sutures, discuss the vomiting that's been over for a few days-and sometimes its a bit of a mystery even if we have the discharges and the record.

As I've said before, we are not an emergency clinic. We are a clinic that does emergencies. My skill set is not that of an emergency veterinarian. Add in the fact that I don't have the overnight staffing for something super critical. And add in the fact that I work all day and also do large animal calls. Needless to say, it's difficult to see every emergency that there is. Luckily, after 11, we send the small animal emergencies over to Girard in Ohio which is about 45 minutes away.

Back to the recheck appointment on Friday...
One of our nicest and most accommodating techs went in with the recheck. She ended up not being able to finish because the client was being so rude-she first answered her cell Phone while the tech was talking to her and then she's went on a rant about not having emergency hours.
As it turns out, the last time we had seen the dog was three years earlier on emergency. We were not even this woman's regular vet. And subsequently the sheet from the emergency clinic had been faxed to their regular vet. Why wasn't she there? Most likely, because the regular vet clinic could not fit her into their schedule. So I entered the room with no information and the owner wanted all sorts of answers. Answers for questions that I had no answers to since I wasn't even sure what had happened.
Obviously, the dog had some stitches and her eye was stitched partially shut because according to the owner it was 'bulgy'. I'm assuming it was proptosed...i.e. popped out if her head. But I don't really know. I decided she needed to comeback in a week anyway. I think we'll call the regular vet for the records then.

Anyway, since the owner had given the tech some trouble regarding our emergency service, I decided to confront her about it and reiterate our policy. The client starts going off on how all of these clinics are associated and all sending emergencies over to a clinic like an hour away. I was like no, we're not associated with any of those clinics. That we were the only clinic in the county to offer any emergency service. (The clients regular vet doesn't do any emergency work. I know cause I see a lot of things for them.) I explained that I was one of three vets that do emergency service 365 days a year. I explained that I worked all day and was still on call for large animals after 11. I explained that it wasn't fair for me to work that much, that it wasn't fair for the client and pet I saw at 3am after working all day nor was it fair for the client I saw the next morning at 9am after seeing emergencies at all hours of the night.
The owner said she understood but why weren't we open? If you understood, why are you asking me that question? I'm not sure you do understand.
Then she said that if her dog had been any worse then it wouldn't have made it to the emergency clinic. Honestly, I wanted to tell her that if it was that bad, it probably wouldn't have made it to me and even if it did, it probably would have died anyway. Or I would have sent it to the emergency clinic anyhow.

She should be glad she even has the emergency clinic. And that she has us. Maybe she shouldn't of offered one pork chop to four dogs.

Homesteading

So you may very well know that Joe and I have a dream of raising a family on a farm where we would be come somewhat self sustaining. I'm not talking totally hippie. We'll still have TV (probably), eat out (though Joe would like to ban fast food) and drink soda. But there would be no composting toilets. And we probably wouldn't be all doomsday preppers...though we would probably purchase a generator at some point.

Anyway, keeping along this vein, two weeks ago we went to the Mother Earth News Fair held in Seven Springs, PA at a big mountain ski resort. It was nice to get away for a weekend. It was horrible weather though-cold and raining through most of the weekend and I was terribly underdressed. We really should start watching the news.

I didn't have a great time as witnessed by my Twitter feed. There were some good livestock presentations though somewhat basic for me and even for Joe. There was a live chicken slaughter presentation. There were booths upon booths promoting all sorts of weirdness and some not so weird-goat milk soap, composting toilets, clock repair, bee keeping equipment, hemp products, everything organic, farmer-law organizations, anti-circumcision movements, etc...

We didn't really take part in many of the booths. Joe bought some goat soap and I bought a big jug of soap made from recycled vegetable oil because I liked the thin consistency. I think that Joe and I both suffer from awkwardness when it comes to talking to people/taking samples for things we're not really interested in.

My biggest regrets-not riding the ski lift to the top of the mountain. I had another one but have since forgotten it.

Next year, I'm sending Joe and DE. I think DE will appreciate it more than me.

Meatless Tuesday

Tuesday, I left work early enough to run to walmart for a few groceries and some discount mums.
The result was a quick cherry crisp-I had a craving for pie filling!-and the following dinner:
Spinach and Ricotta Stuffed Shells

They were super easy and fairly cheap to make. They freeze will and keep well as leftovers.

Ingredients:
Salt and pepper
Two packages of frozen spinach
One box of large pasta shells
Small container of ricotta
An egg
Two cups mozzarella
A jar of Alfredo sauce

I boiled the shells per the package directions and drained them. I rinsed them only to make them cool enough to work with.
Thaw and drain the spinach. Mix with ricotta, the egg, salt and pepper and some of the mozzarella. (I had some leftover spinach in the freezer that had some goat cheese and red pepper flake in it so I used that. You could always wilt some fresh spinach too. My frozen stuff was bad so I had to use a can instead to add to the leftovers.) You can go crazy in this step with your stuffing-chicken, pine nuts, feta, sun dried tomatoes, etc.
Stuff the shells. (I find that a whole box is too much and either throw out the rest or the dogs eat them. )
Place stuffing side up in a baking pan. Cover with Alfredo sauce and top with mozzarella.
Bake for like 30 minutes at 350. Or until bubbly and 165 internal temperature.

Even with the metallic taste from the canned spinach, it was really good. The Alfredo sauce and cheese covers the taste well and makes it super rich.

Ghetto Motel

Joe and I were coming back to the hotel last night. It's kind of a confusing area with lots of hotels and the turnpike making things a little complicated.
Joe had some difficult and ended up going into the wrong parking lot. This parking lot has a single level hotel building that is partially demolished. No walls, no roof but the mirrored bathroom tile on the wall is still present and there are all sorts of pink insulation strewn about. It's really messy. We go to turn around but the parking lot dead ends on the front side of this building. The rooms still exist but there are no doors, beds have been strewn about and its actually pretty scary. It's the hotel ghetto.
Joe and I are laughing and joking about how scary this place is. This is where underage prostitutes come to die.
Then as we were almost gone, out of two separate rooms two rough looking men step into their respective doorways. I wave to the young one and its weird.
Do you think they live there?, I asked Joe.
They likely do as transients. We were both slightly afraid.

Puppy Mills

Well, before I launch into my 'puppy mill' experience from today, I'll share a little from my weekend on call.

Nothing really happened.
That's a good thing.
I guess. I could of used more emergency bonus.
Friday night-no calls, Saturday-very slow on appointments which normally means a whole bunch of emergencies but I saw one thing. I can't even remember what it was. Oh, a laceration. Sunday, I saw a dog that was ADR in the morning and then a cat in the PM. The cat was found by its owners when they got home from the weekend away. He was an older outdoor cat and hadn't greeted them as usual. Eventually, they grew concerned and brought him in. I was thinking he was probably blocked and his belly pain would have suggested this. I couldn't touch his abdomen without him screaming in pain. I didn't feel a large bladder but was concerned regarding a 'mass'. I took an x-ray and noticed what I suspected to be a pneumothorax (air in the chest outside of the lungs) and an abdominal hernia. I was also suspicious of sepsis due to a fever and the abdominal part of his radiograph being hard to read (possible fluid in his belly). It was decided to hospitalize him for the night on pain meds and fluids then reassess in the AM. Joe came in to play vet tech and the CBC was ran. It was normal. I gave pain meds and the cat started purring but still didn't want his belly touched. I did manage to get a better look and concluded that he had a large bruise on his belly. He was probably hit by a car. I reassessed the rads and called the owners with the poor prognosis. What I had suspected (pneumothorax and hernia) were really there; we should consider euthanasia. With this cat's pain level, I was concerned about the intestines within the hernia strangulating and dying. AND with this cat's chest injury he wasn't a great surgical candidate. We gave him the night and in the morning after some pain meds, he still seemed reasonably happy. We did a different view on radiographs and he appeared to maybe have a diaphragmatic hernia as well (a hole from this abdomen into his chest). Plus his heart was really round. So we elected to euthanize him. It wasn't an easy choice especially since he was happy and purring but his injuries were really severe.

Anyway, that was my excitement from the weekend.

Today, though, I got to experience a 'puppy mill'.
One of our better dog breeders wanted me to come out and vaccinate her breeding dogs. Normally, we only see dogs if they are sick or for puppy wellness visits before the puppies are sold. Understandably, this breeder didn't want to bring in her 20 breeding dogs (including puppies and pets) into the office.
What makes a dog breeder a better dog breeder?
1) bringing dogs in when you have an emergency-once, this lady brought me two of her dogs that were shaking and having seizures. One was almost comatose. Then as they were in the office, two more of the dogs at home started having tremors. I spent several hours working on these dogs. Ultimately, I sent these dogs home to be nursed by the owner. All the dogs recovered. They had gotten into some toxins-moldy corn with tremorgenic aflotoxins.
2) spaying dogs when you suspect there is a problem-we had a litter of pug puppies (the main breed this lady raises) that had a variety of aliments-hernias, prolasped rectums, etc. Of course with that number of problems, you suspect genetics. We recommended spaying the bitch and the breeder did.
3) making it right with your clients-the breeder has sold several puppies that have come down with various aliments-parvo, parasites, etc. After each time it happens and its reported back to her, we give discuss the issue with the breeder and discuss the solutions.
4) she doesn't breed mutts. When she has been phasing out certain breeds, she either spays or neuters the dogs or finds them new homes. She doesn't just let them go breed with whatever.
5) she's happy to bring new puppy owners to her place.
And those are just the examples I can remember.

So today, we (a tech and I) were excited to go to her place despite it just being outside of our practice range and it being unseasonably hot. We wanted to know what her kennels looked like. When we got there, we went to the back of the yard where the kennels were located. The first thing you noticed was 1) there was no dog odor, 2) there was no dog poop in the yard (or not excessive anyway) and 3) there was very little barking.
Now all but one bitch that had a young litter of pups still nursing were outside of the kennel. We went into this building which was probably 20' long by 10' wide. There were multiple 3'x3' pens that were waist high. The walls were easily cleaned laminate sheeting. There was no smell. The only smell was the cedar shavings used to bed the kennel pens. The area was clean. The pen where this momma was was clean. The pups were clean. The pups were rolly polly fat.
Moving back outside, the dogs were tied to trees. While that statement alone sounds bad, here's the situation. The dogs were only tied outside when the kennels were being cleaned (and for our visit). There were no wear marks around the trees; there was not excessive feces. All the dogs were in the shade. All the dogs had water. All the dogs were friendly and happy to see us. All the dogs had names and were cuddled by the breeder while we vaccinated them. All the dogs were well fed and in excellent body condition. All the dogs were clean. We looked at some puppies and noted that one had a very recently developed ulcer. We doctored it and the owner was notably concerned.
We moved back up to the front of the house and vaccinated the three house dogs and a handful of dogs that were in some wire kennels. They were only in there due to the fact that if they were loose as they normally would, they would have licked us to death!

With only three exceptions-one bred bitch, one bitch with her puppies and one dog that we knew had a rabies vaccine, all of the dogs were vaccinated for rabies.

Leaving this place, I knew even more than ever that this woman was an exceptional breeder.

Oh, and did I mention that this breeder is Amish?

I think that the Amish get a bad reputation for their treatment of any of there animals. I think that 'puppy mill' and Amish go hand in hand and I think that this breeder is a great example of the fact that it isn't always what it seems. This woman deeply cares for all of her dogs...all of her animals. She always questions what else can she do? How can I make this animal better?

I work with the Amish and previously the Mennonite communities on their horses and their dairy farms on a fairly regular basis. There is a big difference between Mercer County, PA (and the area) and Cumberland County, PA in terms of how the communities act but the one thing that I can say is that I've never seen an Amish person be cruel to a farm animal any more than I see on 'English' dairies. While these cows and horses are forced (?) to work for their place in life, I've never seen one that I thought would be better off elsewhere. There are always exceptions and we should realize it.

Just because a dog breeder is Amish, doesn't make them a puppy mill. And this client is a shining example of how ANY breeder should act and behave and most importantly, treat their animals.

Frankie

Frankie is the new cat that we have hanging around our house. He showed up probably a month ago and I neutered him after luring him into the cat carrier. He was absent for a few weeks and had been showing up every two or three days after that. This weekend, he hung out the entire weekend if we were careful about letting the dogs out. Tonight, figuring if he's going to be our cat, he'll have to learn about the dogs, I let them out while he was chilling. He hid under the trailer and then was run off by the bad dogs. He hasn't been back. :( I just bought him a new bag of cat food too.
I told Joe that if he hung around consistently for 30 days he was our cat. I've already neutered him, gave him a rabies vaccine and treated him once for fleas. He needs dewormed though.

He's obviously very friendly. Very loud too! He's a talker!

And he likes to eat!

And I found him asleep in the horse trailer once.

Hanging out in the morning after eating breakfast.

Jamestown Fair Winnings

I decided I was going to be pretty ambitious this year for the Jamestown Fair. Not only was I going to enter baked goods but some crafts too. Unfortunately, ambition was greater than time (but less than my ability to procrastinate) and managed to make 8 entries-four baked goods, four crafts. A fifth baked good was made but didn't turn out and wasn't entered.
My peeps on other social media know the score but I'll include recipes now.

Joe asked for molasses cookies once and this was the recipe that I made. They were really good even though I don't really like molasses or spice...this was the only entry I made that didn't place. Got rave reviews at work though.

 Molasses Spice Cookies-makes 24 cookies
1/3 cup granulated sugar plus additional for dipping
2 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp salt
12 tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened but cool
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup molasses-light or dark
Heat oven to 375. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
Whisk flour, spices, baking soda and salt in medium bowl and set aside.
Beat butter and sugars (brown and granulated) at medium-high speed until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes). Decrease speed and add yolk and vanilla. Increase speed and beat until mixed. Add molasses, mix until incorporated scraping sides with spatula.
On low speed, add flour/spice mixture and mix until just incorporated. Make sure no dry flour remains. Dough will be soft.
Roll one tablespoon of dough between palms to form 1 1/2" ball. Roll in additional granulated sugar to coat. Place on baking sheet 2" apart. Bake one sheet at a time until cookies are browned but still puffy; should appear cracked-about 11 minutes. Rotate baking sheet halfway through baking. Do not overbake. Allow to cool slightly on cookie sheet before moving to wire rack.

Now this is the one I'm really proud of. And if I had been more ambitious I would have located the PA Preferred products and entered it in the class with some real (read $25 for first place) money. But I was lazy. This cake is very rich and somewhat intricate to make. Always a winner.

Chocolate Stout Cake
CAKE
4 large eggs
4 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups sugar
2 cups unsalted butter
1 1/3 cups sour cream
2 cups stout-(example-Guinness Stout)
ICING
1 pound bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate-chopped
2 cups whipping cream

Cake Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350. Butter 3 8" round cakepans with 2" sides. Line with parchment paper; butter paper.
Bring stout and butter to simmer in heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until smooth. Allow to cool slightly.
Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Set aside.
Beat eggs and sour cream in a separate bowl. Add stout-chocolate mix to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and mix on low to just combine. Finish mixing by hand.
Divide batter evenly amoung three pans. Bake until tester comes out clean-about 35 minutes.
Allow cakes to cool about 10 minutes then remove from pan onto wire rack. Cool completely.

Icing Instructions:
Bring cream to simmer in heavy medium saucepan. Remove from heat. Add chopped chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Refrigerate until icing is spreadable, stirring frequently-about two hours.
Place first cake on plate and spread 2/3 cups of icing over, repeat with second layer. Place third cake on top and spread remaining icing over top and sides of cake.

Then I made peanut brittle. I've only made it once before and hated making it. I hated it this time too and it didn't get brittle enough.

Peanut Brittle-makes one pound
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup water
1 cup peanuts
2 tbsp softened butter
1 tsp baking soda

Grease large cookie sheet and set aside.
In heavy 2 qt saucepan, over medium heat, bring to boil sugar, corn syrup, water and salt. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Add in peanuts.
Set candy thermometer in place and continue cooking. Stir frequently until temperature reaches 300 degrees or until small amount dropped into very cold water separates into hard, brittle threads.
Remove from heat and immediately stir in butter and baking soda.
Pour at once onto cookie sheet. With two forks, lift and pull peanut mixture into 14x12" rectangle. Cool then snap into pieces.


This was my disappointing recipe. Its normally a huge hit at work and was really good. I think for an 8x8" pan its too much caramel. I won third with this.

Carmelita Bars
32 caramel squares-unwrapped
1/2 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup butter-melted
3/4 cup brown sugar-packed
1 cup flour
1 cup rolled oats
1 tsp baking soda
6 oz semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.
Combine caramels and cream in small sauce pan over low heat. Stir until completely smooth then set aside.
In separate bowl, combine butter, brown sugar, flour, oats and baking soda. Pat half of mixture into bottom of 8x8 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.
Remove from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips over crust. Pour caramel mixture over chocolate chips and crumble remaining oatmeal mixture over top.  Return to oven and back for additional 15-20 minutes or until edges are lightly browned.
Allow to cool completely before cutting.
Double for 9x13". Can substitute 1 1/4 cups caramel sauce in place of caramel squares and cream.


Because I always have too many cakes to bake, I go with cupcakes for this one. I've made it before and its really great. Sadly, due to lack of refrigeration, I went with buttercream frosting (gross) and then used canned cream cheese frosting for the ones that I took to work. I would have preferred to use a refrigeration free cream cheese frosting.

Red Velvet Cake
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 oz red food coloring

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
In medium bowl, mix eggs with wire whisk. Add oil, vinegar, vanilla, buttermilk and food coloring. Set aside.
In large bowl, mix dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients and mix on medium high until combined.
Bake cupcakes for 20-25 minutes. Makes about 36 cupcakes


On the crafting front, I wanted to make one of those tulle wreaths for a long time. And I suppose I should be glad I did, it won first!

But here's a tip-while fairly inexpensive to make (about $15), it is super time consuming. This one took 40 YARDS of tulle and probably 6 hours to complete.

Then I made a centerpiece. We found some old wooden tool boxes in the garage to which I painted 'HARVEST' and some leaves on the neatest one. I sewed small fabric apples (three) and two large pumpkins and one small pumpkin. Add in a little burlap (from a burlap wreath that didn't get made), leaves, ribbon and hot glue and you have yourself a second place winner.

Then I took down a wreath off of my door for the grapevine wreath class. Apparently, it 'needs a bow'. The first place wreath was beautiful though.

And finally, my old work socks made good!

Diabetes

Short of sounding like Wilfred Brimley, everyone's favorite diabetes spokesperson, I'm going to talk about diabetes and two extremes that I saw this week.

So to start off, there are two forms of diabetes in animals: diabetes inspidus and diabetes mellitus. Diabetes inspidus is rare and is caused by the kidneys not responding to a hormone and so water is not concentrated thus the animal pees a lot. Diabetes mellitus is sugar diabetes where the body can not maintain normal blood sugar control. Animals drink and pee a lot because of the change in the osmotic gradient of urine (or something like that). This is the form we'll talk about.

So anyway, in diabetes (from here on diabetes refers to diabetes mellitus only) there is a lack of insulin which is what helps control blood sugar. Blood sugar spikes after eating and then insulin is released to average it out. Insulin is made in some very specific cells in the pancreas which is this funny little organ that lays near the stomach and small intestine. For a variety of reasons, these cells stop producing insulin and animals become diabetic. These days we see diabetes more and more commonly for the same reason it's on the rise in humans-obesity.

Clinical signs of diabetes include drinking and urinating excessively (PU/PD), weight and muscle loss, poor hair coat, lethargy, and urinary tract infections. With these clinical signs some blood and urine tests will be performed. I like looking at organ function to rule out other causes, blood sugar and to see if there is sugar in the urine. A single blood sugar alone won't tell you if an animal is diabetic. Animals can increase their blood sugar in times of stress and so may look diabetic but may not have sugar in their urine.

Treatment consists if weight loss, diet change and most often insulin. Once on insulin. Monitoring must be done to check sugar levels and insulin doses. We use fructosamine levels in our office which looks at the average blood sugar over the past month. Fasting blood glucoses and glucose curves can be used as well. Insulin is fairly cheap in the grand scheme of things but the testing can be more expensive. Diabetes is a commitment and lifestyle change. This can not be reiterated to the client enough. Animals can live good lives with good control.

So now for the cases...

I was finishing appointments the other night when I was alerted that a diabetic dog that we hadn't seen since October of 2012 was lethargic at home. The owners wanted to bring the dog in. The first thing I wanted to know was what was the dog's blood sugar so the techs pulled that and a bunch of other blood samples for potential testing.
The poor dog's blood sugar was like 41! Normal is somewhere around 70-150. In diabetic animals, I'm okay with up to about 300 in the hospital.
My exam wasn't too exciting so I have the dog a bowl of karyo corn syrup and sent some home. I instructed them to give a midday meal until they heard back from me. Today, we got back the fructosamine results. The number was 143!! This means the dog was suffering from prolonged low blood sugar. I cut the insulin dose by 25% and will recheck the fructosamine again in one month. I'm glad it seemed to be a simple problem with hopefully a simple answer.

My next diabetic animal was a cat diagnosed by another vet who was on vacation. The cat was on a type of insulin that I generally use specifically for dogs. The owner wasn't happy and the cat wasn't looking great. His hair coat was rough, he was thin and the owner complained that he wasn't drinking well. I pulled again a ton of blood for a variety of tests. His blood sugar came back in the 300s which wasn't surprising and some of his electrolytes were off. I sent out a fructosamine on him too. It came back at 703!!! I've never seen one this high before! Needless to say, his diabetes is poorly controlled so I changed his insulin type to what I feel is the proper cat insulin and we are starting as if he was just diagnosed. We'll check him out again in a month. Hopefully, that was his only problem.

Harvested my pumpkin today. It weighed 15.8#! And would have weighed more if it wasn't rotting from the inside out. Also suffering from a bad case of vine boring beetles. And there was a hole on the bottom with a hole in the soil beneath.
Needless to say, it's not making it to the fair. :(

Organic Farming is For The Birds

So I've made the attempt to become a gardener. I think I've mentioned it before how I think that most people have the innate desire to grow something. Something primal in us wants to create something and provide for ourselves.
DE gave everyone a bunch of seedlings to plant this spring. I brought home two tomato plants, several collard greens, several brussel sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower. I also sprouted a few pumpkin plants and some beans in pots. The plants less the tomatoes, two collard greens and the aforementioned beans went into my very tiny gardening plot next to the black raspberries that I only just discovered when they were getting ripe.
And as mentioned previously, too, the plants that were in the garden except for the pumpkins were eaten by a rabbit not once but twice! The pumpkins were left with plenty of space to spread out. In the beginning of July, I had a small pumpkin growing and growing and growing. Its nearly ripe now and I estimate it to be about twenty pounds. I'm planning on harvesting it this weekend. Then providing that it doesn't rot before then, I'm going to enter it for better or worse into the Jamestown Community Fair.
Unfortunately, I didn't do much in the way of preventative medicine for my plants. I gave them plenty of Miracle Gro in the early days but now the pumpkins are on their own for watering.

Here's my pumpkin just days till harvesting. 

One of the first problems that I noticed with my pumpkin plants was powdery mildew on the leaves. I did some reading on the subject and found that it was often from high humidity and the leaves not getting sufficiently dry. We had a really humid spell but I think the biggest problem is that my gardening plot stays shady for a prolonged period and allows for the mildew to set up. I did some further reading and read that a mixture of milk and water sprayed on the leaves every three days could treat the mildew once spread. I did not however read the directions well enough and thought that it was sprayed daily for three days and not every three days. That explained why my leaves were getting sort of yellow and trying to die. 

Powdery mildew wasn't the only problem that I had with the pumpkins. I've also had a recent outbreak of squash vine borer bugs. Here they are hanging out on my second pumpkin. And below that are the eggs. 

And finally, what might actually be the most tragic are these giant holes in my beautiful pumpkin. They've been there from the beginning and haven't seemed to affect the pumpkin's growth or health. They are sort of soft but not really rotten. I hope bees don't fly out of them or something equally horrible.

The other plants haven't been free of problems either.

In my awesome wisdom, I decided that the five gallon buckets used for the tomatoes didn't need to be completely full of dirt so I put a gallon milk jug in the bottom to take up some room. While this was a great idea at first, when you have four foot plants loaded with tomatoes, it doesn't hold up. My soil has been leached of nutrients and daily is leached of water. Enter blossom end rot. 

The collard greens in the pot have been attacked not once but twice by very hungry green caterpillars. Yuck.

And even my beautiful impatiens in the front flowerbed have given up. They've gone from full and lush to leggy and translucent. 

Next year...chemical warfare.

The Very Long, No Good Week...

This has been a very long week. And it's about to wrap up and start all over again. With hopefully less exhaustion. I can't think of the phrase I want to describe how busy I was...something about catching up with myself. All I can think of is 'their heads on fire and their asses a catchin' ' from that Charlie Daniels song.

So Monday, there were two horse calls on the book but two more got added on. DE didn't feel that with his bum knee that he would be up for horse calls no matter how simple. So he did my morning appointments and I headed to all the extents of our practice range.
The first call was vaccinations and floating teeth on two nice horses with nice owners. Then I went and revisited the choked horse from the night before. I was there three hours and felt that when I left I had managed to relieve the choke. (Sadly, the horse either wasn't relieved or rechoked by the next day. CB euthanized it.) Then I ran back to the office to change my clothes; I was covered with snot, diet and blood. Then I saw a pony that looked like he had broken his ankle. Unfortunately, they didn't have electricity for X-rays but fortunately I think the pony had a contracted tendon. Then finally to Ohio to check out skin issues on a horse.

Skin Issues on Said Horse

Tuesday...I was super busy with morning appointments and then went and cut a DA.

Wednesday was another long day. I was still dealing with a Basset Hound I had hospitalized. We started a barium study which by the end of the day looked very suspicious. I did surgery in the morning then I randomly broke my tooth on a tootsie roll. It was already chipped but seriously broke in half. It was a baby tooth and I knew it needed to just be pulled out. I called a dentist that was recommended and within an hour was in the chair and got the tooth pulled. $133. Not bad.
Then I pulled health papers on some goats. It was really late when I finally got home.

Thursday, it was decided not to take the Bassett to surgery. He was running around jumping on people. How can you take that to surgery?
I did some appointments and then headed out for more calls. I put in a prolapsed uterus and it was awful. I had to change my clothes in the milk house. Then I checked a pony mare that had a cute little foal. This mare was wonderful and her foal was super cute!! Then I checked on the mare without her mare parts. Then into Ohio for health papers. Another long day.

Friday I did some health papers in the morning before having a pretty slow afternoon. Slow enough to get all my charts written up!!

Here's to a slower week!!

Grandpa

Last week, I was preparing to travel back to Missouri to say goodbye to my grandpa. He had been sick for a decade battling chronic leukemia and then congestive heart failure. His age and diseases were taking a toll on him and when I last saw him (Christmas), he wasn't looking like himself.
The week before last, they found some spots on his liver. The onco nurse didn't think it looked good. My grandpa was dying. I was called home.
Sadly, before I got there, he passed away.

We hung out at my Grandma's house a lot over the weekend. I know that his death was hard on her but I'm pretty sure she had come to terms with it long before it actually happened.
Grandma encouraged us to take whatever we wanted as she knew the house would have to be packed up. Its hard to do that. Its hard to know what means so much to you when put on the spot like that.
I knew more than anything else what I wanted.
A grocery list.

Grandpa was legendary in his grocery shopping ways. As kids, he rarely let us go with him lest we distract him from watching every item being ran up so he could argue the sale price where needed. Grandpa didn't hesitate to go to multiple grocery stores to save some money. (Product of the Depression I guess.)

His sale ads were always circled in red magic marker.

He had his grocery lists for each store. I like the first list because Grandpa made it and Grandma put specifically what she wanted on it. That was actually pretty rare. 

When he could buy things on sale, he would store extra in the basement. 

Other things I remember about my Grandpa-
When I was between my senior and junior years of high school, he took me to Columbia with Grandma for a summer camp type program. He got pulled over for speeding when passing and got a ticket.

He called me by my aunt's name with regular frequency.

When we ate lunch, Grandma would make his salad and hide a single pea at the bottom. Grandpa hated peas. 

When they moved to TDL, Grandpa would wake us up and take us to the beach to swim in one of the lakes. We didn't know how to swim so we could only go in to our waists. 

Losing a grandparent as a kid is sad. Its confusing and abstract. Losing them as an adult is harder I think because you know what a good person they are...

Well, That's Something Different...

[WARNING!!! BELOW CONTAINS GRAPHIC PHOTOS OF MY JOB. YES, SERIOUSLY, I HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS! And honestly, this isn't even the grossest thing I typically see...]

So today, I didn't have any farm calls. I was just hanging out, contemplating if I should look at the two boarding dogs that need to be looked at each time they board (which is often), when we got a phone call for a horse with a laceration. It was like 10:15.
The owner was hesitant to tell the receptionist where this horse had lacerated itself and for good reason. This horse had managed to lacerate its vulva. Well, near its vulva was what I was told. I wasn't doing anything so I packed it up and headed out. Luckily, it was close by.

When I got there the woman assured me that this horse was a recent rescue and that her horses typically didn't look like this. This horse was found tangled in some fencing this morning and was happily eating in a stall since then.
The mare was thin with a rough hair coat. She seemed calm enough as we lifted her tail up so I could get a look and cover the top of the tail with some vetwrap.
Behold what I saw beneath the tail:

On the mare's best day, she had poor vulvar conformation. She probably was a windsucker by way of her age, body condition or just bad luck. Today though, her luck ran out. This mare had literally, tore her entire vulva off! It started about two inches below her rectum. There was just a thin strip hanging on on one side and the other had about half an inch. The clitoris at the bottom was ripped clean off. Surprisingly, she wasn't bleeding much and didn't mind us looking and touching.

After some consultation (always calling CB!), it was decided that this wasn't going to be reattached. The inch long strip holding the vulva on would likely die and take the whole big wad with it. My worry was that she would scar too much and end up having trouble urinating. 

I gave her a mild sedative-it was really not enough to do anything. I should have went way higher! I sprayed some lidocaine onto the area-which she hated! And then in a very quick fashion, cut the sucker off! It bled only a small amount. I tried to clean it the best I could afterwards but the mare was having none of it. She tried to double barrel kick me!

I left the owner with some antibiotics, banamine (an NSAID) and the instructions to keep the tail wrapped, keep it free from flies, and hose the area off a couple of times a day. I'm going to recheck it in a week. If by chance she's having difficulty urinating, I suppose we'll have to catheterize her and hope that we can get it to heal and that we don't give her the worst ascending infection ever.

Short of referral for cosmetic surgery, I'm not sure what I could have done differently. Fingers crossed!

Traveling

I recently had to do some traveling. I will blog about the reasons later this blog is about traveling in general.

I have decided that traveling, especially flying, alone is a double edged sword. For the most part, it has its advantages. The main one being that you can move at your own pace. Meaning that I can stand on the moving sidewalks and don't have to hurriedly run through the airport because my husband can't take five minutes for me to go to the bathroom.
Flying with someone has more advantages that I was prepared to realize. One, you have somebody watch your luggage meaning that you can go to the bathroom whenever you want and come back to a good seat. Two, you have someone to go get you things since you can watch their seat. Three, you have somebody to talk to. Those might be the the main things.

When I was traveling, because it was the summer time, I really was very jealous of people that got to actually take vacations. Joe and I have not had a vacation for two years. It's because is a combination of working too much and lack of fundage. Joe is threatening to put 'vacation' on the list of banned words. I might complain a lot about not getting to vacation.

I really can't remember the remainder of the reasons that travelling sucks. Other than waiting. And its expensive. Seriously, did I just pay almost three dollars for a bottle of water? Yes, yes, I did.

My pumpkin is making good progress. And I have two more little ones coming on.

ADR

Sometimes no matter what you do, you'll have clients that nothing goes right for. You try and try to save an animal and that animal does poorly or worse yet, dies.
Where I used to work, I had an old world Mennonite farmer like that. He had a grazing dairy of Jerseys and a pretty nice set up. I can think of FOUR instances where everything I touched turned to shit.
Instance 1-My boss sent me out to cut an LDA on a little cow that had been seen the day before but had a temperature and thus surgery was not performed. Now unfortunately, while this farmer had a great set up for calving out cows, he did not for cutting a DA. I tied up the cow, gave her a touch of sedation, clipped and prepped and go to work. And as I was sorting things out, the cow tried to lay, then laid down. :( I frantically closed her side up with towel clamps before intestines and the like could spill out. We got her up, resterlized the surgery site, opened another surgery kit and tried again. And she tried to lay down...AGAIN. So I closed her up, forced her to lay down and opened her up on the bottom of her stomach. In between the not standing and the forcible laying down, I called my boss in a panic (actually, I called both bosses for different forms of advice). I was mostly finished with the DA when my boss finally arrived and I wondered why I didn't do cows on their backs in the first place. I'm not sure how the cow did but I'm guessing well.
Instance 2-Thanksgiving Day, near dusk, my turkey is coming out of the oven. I get a call from this guy that his buggy horse had cut its leg but they are at a wedding. I procure directions and when I arrive, the horse has a blood soaked bandage around its leg held on with duct tape. The horse had managed to cut the giant blood vessel on the inside of its leg. (I think its medial saphanous?) Its a huge vessel. I've used it to euthanize horses. Oddly enough, it wasn't bleeding too much any more and the horse with some sedation allowed me to nerve block the area and cut off a chunk of flesh. Then I started stitching. Then all hell broke loose. I gave every bit of sedation I felt comfortable with, plus a twitch, plus a couple Amish guys holding up various legs. I got enough stitches in the upper cut to stop the bleeding and felt okay about it. The lower cut got one on top of the big spurting artery. I bandaged the leg and left.
Instance 3-A few days later after the Thanksgiving fiasco (or maybe the next week), I get called out on a Saturday afternoon, the horse that this guy borrowed had cut his shoulder. It was pretty old so he had an  ugly wound that had to heal by second intention.
Instance 4-This was by far the worst but I learned a valuable lesson. NEVER AMPUTATE A COW'S UTERUS. No matter how much you think its a good idea its not. Especially when you call your boss and he's like, 'I did it once'. Especially if he's been practicing longer than you've been alive. NEVER AMPUTATE A COW'S UTERUS. But if you do, you better have a good, well thought out game plan. The first six inches when really, really well. Then I realized that the uterus is very vascular. I told the farmer that the cow would be dead by the morning. She was. Bleed to death.

Anyway, at this new practice, I have a similar farm. Its not so much that whatever I do is bad but more that I get to give them the bad news. This farm has provided me with some interesting cases though. This farm is also a notorious 'while you're here' client. Which is fine when time allows it. They also have to pay me when I'm there so they want to get their money's worth of the $45 farm call fee. I understand it. I can think of two pretty remarkable things. 1) I finished cutting a DA when they wanted me to look at a cow with pneumonia. The cow had a fever and was open mouth breathing. However, when I listened to her chest, I heard not a sound. With this level of respiratory distress and fever, if it was pneumonia, she should have all sorts of badness to her lungs. After some consultation, my conclusion was a pnumothorax. Air loose in her chest. I actually did a chest tap and got some suspicious air (I can't vouch that I did it right though). My guess is that in the process of calving, she ruptured a bulla (big fat pocket of air) or a lung lobe off of its attachment. She was drowning in oxygen. Unfortunately, being attentive farmers that had noticed her respiratory distress and fever, they had given her penicillin. Needless to say, she wasn't being slaughtered anytime soon. Also, it was Friday. (Of course!)
The next interested things I saw were pretty recently. I went out to see a cow with a swelling under her jaw. The cow was pretty pathetic looking but the swelling was impressive. She also had a fever so I put her on steroids and penicillin. Then I did a couple of other things that were thrown on at the last minute. So today, I get a call from the same farm for a cow with a swollen jaw. I ask if it was the same cow and it wasn't. (Whew.) She thankfully still looked pathetic but the swelling was almost entirely resolved. This cow had saliva and blood hanging out of her mouth. She also had a fever. On my oral examination though, she had quite the different presentation. Attaching to the base of her tongue was a huge mass. It went as far back as I felt I could comfortably put my hand. It looked like a melanoma. While she hadn't been given penicillin, she was still testing positive for it in her milk from her dry treatment so I suggested not shipping her until she was clear. She wasn't doing too great so I suggested to shoot her in a few days if some steroids didn't rally her. I don't hold out much hope because her tongue seemed paralyzed.

So in a fit of 'my doctor told me that I was fat so I better exercise', I walked two nights last week. Nothing far. The first night, Riley and I walked for about half an hour. Riley is the fat old corgi. She needs the exercise too despite having her lady bits removed. Mine work just about as well. :( The next night we walked for only one lap but I gave Riley her vaccines and we sprinted a tiny bit too. I am determining if Riley will make a jogging partner in my upcoming bid for couch to 5K. The answer is probably not. I haven't walked since. Tonight, I was feeling like I needed a pity party so showered when I got home from work and here I am.

Also last week, my shoulder and neck really hurt. Wednesday, I was about paralyzed from the pain. I had one of the techs laser my neck. It helped some. The next day, I had it repeated. I've found that on a regular basis, my shoulder on that side (right) hurts so much it wakes me up at night. Which sucks because I like sleeping on that side. It also hurts to lay on the couch-partly my neck, partly my shoulder. I'm thinking that a doctor might be a good idea-maybe I tore my rotator cuff?- or a chiropractor. But honestly, maybe I should just take more Advil.

Finally, I'm flying home to Missouri this weekend. I really don't want to but I have to. My grandpa isn't doing very well health wise and we think it might be close to his time to pass. Its not something that I want to face. I've been dreading such a phone call for a while now.

So this is a picture of the snapping turtle that I helped across the highway.
I learned that snapping turtles are really assholes. And not just a little. I mean I think everyone knows they they are jerks but seeing as that I had never seen one in person I just wasn't sure of this fact. I now understand why some people might want to run them over on purpose.

Anyway, I pulled the vet truck over, and trotted down to where the turtle was on the side of the highway. I took this pic then I reached to pick him up. I knew that you could grab a turtle by the back of his shell and that he wouldn't be able to reach you with his neck so that's what I tried. But as I reached for him he snapped at me instantly. He wasn't more than about the size of a dinner plate but he meant business.

Still not wanting him to get ran over, I did what any good citizen would do. I kicked him across the highway. He spun and flipped over and every time I reached for him again with my foot he tried to bite at me.

I successfully got him to the other side of the highway, but now I know that I will never stop for a snapping turtle again!

Over three days, I harvested black raspberries and made a crumble. It was really good but my desire to wait for enough berries to ripen to make another one isn't there.

My pumpkin plants have produced one very loved pumpkin!

TMI

This post isn't about veterinary medicine. 

In a few posts, I've mentioned some things about trying to start a family and where that is going. Unfortunately, it still is going no where.

Joe and I have been together for over 7 1/2 years and married for one. We're ready for a family. Add in the fact that I'm 30 and starting to freak out about the fact that I don't have kids. Everything else (almost, I'd still like a house of my own) has come together-husband, career. So yeah, we're ready.

I stopped taking birth control like last August or September and thought that I would just let things happen as they will. Nothing happened. In fact, I didn't even have a period after stopping birth control. I wasn't too worried. For several years prior to starting birth control, I didn't have a period through the fall or winter. It was actually very convenient. In February, I went to the OB/GYN for just a yearly exam and mentioned this fact to her. She wasn't too worried because I told her that normally by the end of February or March, I normally started again. She also assured me not to worry about getting pregnant. That for most people, it took a year of trying and not to be too worried. 

By April, I hadn't started yet. So I called the doctor (actually a nurse practitioner-a google search told me I should just call her by her first name unless they introduced themselves as something else) (On an vaguely related topic, everytime I introduce myself as Dr.Leslie, I die a little inside. But it doesn't stop me from doing it.), and told her. I went back down and had a thyroid level and prolactin level checked, I peed in a cup for a pregnancy test and was put on progestrone (provera) for five days. 

I took the progesterone, blamed it for some weight gain and started a period like a good little normal woman. After about ten days, it was done and I thought/hoped all would be good. Then a month went by, then five weeks, then six weeks and then I went back to the doctor...um...nurse practitioner. 

NOW...I am to take progesterone for 12 days a month for the next five months give or take some. The idea is to hopefully trick my body into cycling normally once I stop the progesterone. I can stop it whenever. If from there I don't get a period, I'm to see an actual gynecologist or go to a fertility specialist. 

So this is my plan: August, September, October, November and December (December being optional)-take progesterone. January and February let my body do its thing. (Hopefully do its thing.) March, April, May, and June try to get pregnant. Have baby following winter-this works best for me (i.e. no farm calls in the icy cold) and for my boss (she told me so...I'm pretty sure she was serious). Of course, if I would get pregnant before that...well, that's fine too. If I don't get pregnant in that time frame, as long as I have my period, that's not great but acceptable. I'll probably start calculating my ovulation and things like that but won't get to excited. If by some stroke of bad luck, I don't have my period in January/February, then I'll go to the doctor. Probably not jumping into the whole fertility specialist thing just yet. 

I'll be honest. I'm not liking where this is going. I'm not liking the idea that my body can't get its shit together long enough to fulfill its one most basic urge. I'm not liking the idea that I might have to do fertility treatments of any kind no matter how basic. I'm not declaring myself infertile just yet. Its probably just some sort of flukey thing and everything will work out. I feel bad for women that really are infertile. I'm not ready to lump myself into that group because I know there are people that are having much more problems than I am having right now. Eventually, I might be there but right now, I just have messed up hormones. And I need to lose some weight. (This came from my nurse practitioner as something that might help.) 

Also, across the street from the doctor's office which is really a doctors' complex in front of the hospital, there are several cemeteries. However, this time some pro-life group chose to put a thousand plus little blue and little pink crosses in the lawn representing a day's worth of aborted babies. I find this in extremely poor taste. While I don't think that this office performs abortions (at least not when they are elective), I still think that its in poor taste...what about all the women that can't have a baby that see that? What about all those women that miscarry that see those crosses? What about all those women that have their babies die and have to continue to carry them for days? Did anyone think about that? I'm normally not a politically correct person, I'm normally all for free speech and think people are too sensitive. But seriously, use your heads sometimes and be sensitive.