Life Transplanet

Our dog Schnoodle loves to nose around in the snow. She has kind of clumpy hair and so she always brings in lots of snow which in short order turns to water. The weather in Colorado changed yesterday from warm to rainy, to windy and now, to being snowy. Really snowy. I’m glad I don’t have to drive far today. Maybe we’ll even get a snow day tomorrow! Here’s hoping!

Schnoodle in the Snow

This video looks kind of old with all the specks (snow) in the “reel”; the chickens are somewhat visible in the greenhouse

Afterward in the kitchen

No, I’m not actually ill from H1N1 -AKA Swine Flu, but I am figuratively sick and tired of it. Ever since my normal job in health education was cut due to statewide budget cuts, I have been working in Emergency Preparedness, specifically in H1N1. At first I didn’t mind too much, and actually I find the whole process kind of interesting, but lately I feel like I am going to burst with so much work! I am in charge of supplies (both vaccine and ancillary supplies -from consent forms to cotton balls), I have to write a situation report daily, I still try to squeeze in a few translations, and I am the volunteer coordinator. Not only that but I am trying to figure out this whole incident command structure. Agh!

I am sure after this initial push, things will calm down and it will run much more smoothly. I just hope things simmer down sooner than later. All these meetings, missing lunch (yesterday all I had for lunch was a cookie!) and putting out “fires” may very well make me literally sick and tired.

On the plus side, I thought of another use for eggs: vaccine!

Now that we are getting about 4 eggs a day from our four hens, we have had to get extra creative with how we use eggs. When I talk about our eggs, I feel like the scene in Forrest Gump talking about shrimp. Here are a few of the foods we have tried to make (some more successfully than others):

Fried Eggs
-Over-easy, scrambled, sunny side up
Hard Boiled Eggs
Soft Boiled Eggs
Poached Eggs
Egg Drop Soup
Souffles
Meringue
Frittata
Denver (and other types) Omelet

Huevos Rancheros
Breakfast Burritos
Egg Sandwich
Raw Eggs (Britton, not me)
Egg Salad
Use in breads and cakes
Fried egg and Spaghetti (haven’t tried it, but found it in a recipe)

And of course deviled eggs, Britton’s  specialty.

We often bring deviled eggs to parties and they are usually the first things to go, but we never had an egg plate to put them on. So…we stopped by the thrift store the other day, picked up some clothes and I found an old 70′s egg platter, perfect for deviled eggs. Score! It’s kinda cool I think. After finding a mark on the back, we looked it up online and apparently the creator of the china, George Lefton company, is semi-famous. I love thrift stores!

Pretty cool for a dollar!

Can you think of any other meals we can make with eggs? We need all the ideas you can send us! Seriously.

Britton and I took a few days off work and today we decided to take a bike ride through Greeley. We thought about taking the Poudre Trail, but had a few errands to run, like picking up fresh tortillas at the tortilleria and stopping by the library for some movies I had on hold.  So, instead we ended up touring Greeley. First we stopped at Houston Gardens on the corner of 4th Street and 23rd Avenues.

While this is a pretty busy intersection, you would never guess that there is this beautiful garden and natural habitat hidden right there in town. It is open to the public most days of the week except Sunday and Monday and was an original homestead in the area. It was really cool. My dad said that when he owned his lawn business he used to mow there. I thought it was pretty neat and had wanted to visit there for some time, but their hours were always the same as our work time and Saturdays are usually so filled with chores that we never thought to stop. When you travel by bike and don’t have to work, life is much slower and detours like this are welcome (so are more bike lanes!).

Side note: Because we weren’t expecting to “tour” Greeley, these pics were taken with Britton’s cell phone and not our usual camera, so they might not be as clear.

Houston Gardens in Greeley

On my bike in Houston Gardens

Our second stop was to visit with my parents. They seemed to be doing pretty good although I still worry about my dad’s health. Mom was working on painting the house and Justin (my brother) was looking for a job in addition to his landscaping business since winter is coming upon us.

Next up on the tour was a short ride over to the tortilleria Los Comales for some freshly made tortillas and some hot sauce. I always try to get Britton to go inside to practice his Spanish and he had fun with it today. Then about 4 blocks down we rode through Lincoln Park and went to the library to pick up some movies I had on hold.

I thought we would just ride home from there, but hey, we had TIME and the day was unusually warm (high 60s) after the snow. So Britton wanted to ride over to Glenmere Park. Glenmere is a really nice old area in Greeley with some homes that have a lot of history to them and is located pretty close to the University’s campus. It is also quite the ride by bike from our house, but hey ok.

The lake at Glenmere

We rode around through the fallen leaves admiring the houses, gazebo, pond and trees and decided to go to the bird sanctuary there. Britton and his friends used to ride their bikes there all the time when he was young and I remember going along with my dad when he took care of some lawns near there.

Britton with his bike in Glenmere

We then rode past my grandma’s old house and what Britton called “Witches Alley”. My brother Justin and I used to dare each other to run up this dark scary alley when we would stay with my grandma, and usually we could only make it half-way, even in the daytime, let alone at night. It’s funny that Britton thought it was a haunted alley as well and we didn’t meet until much later.

We passed the hospital and rode past a house that we are hoping will be our final rental and first paid for house. It is our final step to Puerto Rico.

Finally we rode home and whistled at my mom as she was priming the house and fought a head wind all the way back. I held on to Britton’s backpack filled with tortillas, movies and memories. It is nice to have a day to live instead of making a “living”.

This morning Kitty was fine. Then this afternoon we came home and he has an open gash in his foot. We have no idea how or why this happened.

Kitty’s wounded right back paw

Close up

So I used my basic first aid skills and put together a few items to help him:

Alcohol, neosporin, cotton balls, bandage, tape

Kitty’s Bandage -He really wants to chew it off

I hope he’s ok and doesn’t get infected or something. We rarely take our animals to the vet because we do a pretty good job of treating things at home. When Schnoodle had liver problems – her eyes were turning yellow from jaundice, she was moping around and drooling- and she almost died, we took her in, but the steroids didn’t work. Our last option was to use herbal remedies;  we found out that milk thistle helps livers, and ever since then we just give her a little bit of that in some “treats” and she has lived another 4 years or so since then! So now we take milk thistle too, as a preventive medicine.

When Kitty had a blocked urethra and was trying to pee everywhere in the house, we called a veterinarian friend of ours (who lives in another state) and she told us to take him to the vet immediately because he could turn toxic and die. Well, it was a Sunday night about 9:30pm and when we called the on-call emergency vet office they said it would be about $200 just to see him, let alone what it would cost to “fix” the problem. So we took a risk and looked up alternative medicine regarding that and found that male cats often don’t drink enough water and get clogged up down there. We fed him canned tuna in water with concentrated cranberry  juice and he was fine by the next day. He also has ever since lived outside.

We were not so lucky with the black chicken, but overall, our rate of home remedy success for our pets has been pretty high! And that’s true even for our own personal health as well.