Hope you all had a Happy Easter.  Ours was nice but I was a bit stressed due to alpaca shearing.  We were supposed to have it done on Thursday the 21st but after waiting all day and several phone calls, it did not work out on Thursday.  Friday I watched the grandkids while my daughter took her oldest to a doctor appointment.  We are waiting to hear the diagnosis for our oldest grandson Jake.  He is nine years old and walks on his toes all the time.  The doctor has a few ideas about what is wrong but I will hold off on that story til we know something definite.

I had not heard from the new shearer on Friday so I asked Steve to follow up with him on Saturday morning.  Sometimes men do better dealing with men than women do.  He assured Steve that he really would be here to shear our boys but probably not til about 4pm.  He actually showed up about 5:30 with only about an hour and a half until sunset.  Cody and Mike, his assistant, are both young guys and didn't waste any time getting to their task.  The wind was like a blasted hurricane so we had to find a spot in the pasture that had a little less wind since we don't have a real barn.  We ended up setting up the tarp, pad and restrains just behind the kennel.  I helped Steve capture each of the boys and hold them until Cody was ready for them.  In the process I learned that all my halters are too small.  The alpacas did not like that at all cuz the nose band is not in the right place and cuts off their breathing.  Luckily, Cody did not need the halter on while he was shearing.  Cody is the best and fastest shearer  I have ever had for the alpacas.  He also cut their teeth and toenails quickly and painlessly.  He had done all four boys by 7:15!  Wow! A record if we ever had one!  And they looked gorgeous!  I will definitely have Cody and Mike back again next year if I still have my boys.

Easter was sunny and WINDY again.  Bonnie, the other grand mother to our grandkids, came out.  We had an egg hunt in the yard.  Each child found a basket full of eggs and then blew bubbles with the new Crayola colored bubble stuff.  The patio is now spotted with all the colors of the rainbow from the bubbles.  It will wash off easily according to the bottles!  We'll see!  

I made a ham, baked macaroni and cheese and a spinach salad for our feast.  The girls made bread and cheesecake for dessert.  Plus, we had lots of chocolate bunnies and jelly beans.  Fun, Fun!  It turned out much better than the ill-fated Mr. Washington.  That rooster just had it in for me.  He didn't even make a good dinner.  I must've been too lenient, too long and he just got too tough and too mean in spite of me! Ha!

The deed is done.  I won't say it was easy or done with any finesse but Mr. Washington is ready for the roasting pot.  Steve helped me clean him on Saturday morning and he now sits, "aging" as the books said to do, in the refrigerator.  I plan on roasting him today, something I am better at than butchering.  After the deed was done I vowed I would never do it again but we'll see how Mr. Washington compares with store bought chicken before I swear off butchering for good.  Still it was a gory, messing job and I did not enjoy it in the least.  

I have painted the trim around the closets and doorways in my bedroom white and stripped off the wallpaper on the third wall to be painted.  It must've been the first wall the previous owner wallpapered because it was done the most conscientiously and was the most difficult to remove.  It took several coats of wallpaper remover spray and lots of scraping.  Boy, was my arm tired!  So today I plan on finishing that with 2 coats of the blue paint that I started with.  It should be fairly easy after yesterday's tasks.  My bedroom will be finished in time for Easter!  Hallelujah!  


I am reading several books, trying to get a handle on my physical person.  The one I am working on now is called The Memory Cure.  It is supposed to tell you how to eat and live so that you can prevent getting Alzheimer's Disease.  So I am trying to lose weight, manage my GERD and prevent Alzheimer's!  Fun, fun!  Seems like eating correctly is the main thing for all three problems.  I hope to order a book or two about GERD from Amazon this week.  Friday is weigh-in day for me.  I have not used the diet pills this week so will see how I did without them.


Tomorrow is shearing day for the alpacas.  We will be having a new guy do it this year.  I am hoping that this will be the last year too as I am trying to sell the alpacas.  I will try to get pictures of that to post for you.


I guess I should not complain about the wind here in light of the horrible tornadoes that have taken lives and destroyed property to the east of us.  However, I did take some pictures of the wind handling my laundry on Monday.  Mornings are usually calm and beautiful then about 10 or 11 am the wind starts and blasts everything!  I make sure I water the garden, such as it is, in the mornings because the afternoon wind just sucks the moisture out of everything.  We are almost 3 inches behind in our normal rainfall here.  The weather people are calling it a severe drought in our area.  Meanwhile up in North Dakota they are getting flooded by the Red River.  We all have trials to overcome in this life, don't we?

I felt some pressure across my chest after lunch.  It did not go away.  About 4 pm it got worse and I had a few heart palpations.  Then my left arm and hand started tingling as if my hand had been numb and was waking up from being asleep.  I took an aspirin.  I waited for Steve to get home.  I put dinner on the table and went to take a shower.  I told Steve I thought I'd better go to the emergency room that I might be having a heart attack.  I was not in serious pain but I have read that females' heart attacks are different from men's.  And the arm getting numb and tingly made me decide to get checked out.  

Steve drove me to Benson Hospital where they immediately hooked me up to an EKG machine, took my temperature, took a chest x-ray and blood, of course.  I told them all the medications I was on, thyroid, cholesterol and recently the diet pill.  I told them how miserable my family life was, LOL, not really, but they did ask a lot of questions.  Then after about 30 minutes the doctor came in and said, " You are NOT having a heart attack!"  Thank the Lord!  What a relief!  Turns out it was the Weight Watcher's pizza I had for lunch!  No more pizza for this old lady!  Well, the doctor said I was young.  Said my heart was excellent and working better than his. A nurse gave me some pink minty concoction that relieved the pressure on my chest.  So I have GERD, gastroesophogial reflux disease!  I thought after I had my gallbladder out that I wouldn't have these kinds of food problems any more!  Boy, was I wrong!  The doctor did say that I can control it with what I eat though.  So I'll be doing some research and avoiding some foods especially pizza! Ha!  But I am very relieved that is was not worse. 

The good thing is that the diet pill is working.  As of this morning I have lost 8 pounds in only a month since I started.  It may not be the diet pill though.  I have been using my Mobia treadclimber faithfully in addition to watching what I eat.  I am out of pills now and since they cost a small fortune, I am going to continue using my Mobia and watching what I eat this month.  I will see if I continue to drop pounds without the pill.  If so then I will not buy it any more.  I am not blaming the pill for my food problems but if I can do without it so much the better.  I'll have to spend the money on Zantak instead!

This is supposed to be my farm page so I will put in a little farm news at least.  I captured Mr. Washington last night.  Chickens don't do well in the dark so I waited til dark to ambush him.  I grabbed him after the hens got out of the way and put him in the isolated pen in the barn.  He was not happy this morning.  I tried to put a pan of water in his pen but he flew at me and knocked it out of my hand.  I got soaked in the process and now he doesn't have any water.  Tomorrow will be his last morning, then it's into the roasting pot with him.  My poor hens will have some relief from his constant harassment.  Maybe the feathers on their backs will grow back.   


I got a call from the alpaca shearer yesterday.  He sounds like a really nice guy.  He confirmed our shearing day for the 21st and said he will give me a call next week to get directions etc.  After shearing comes Easter and then grandson Dan's birthday and then I'm off to California for a week.  Always something going on at Saguaro Hill!  I'm thankful that I will be around to enjoy it.

Last night the I-10 Freeway was closed from the SR83 exit to the 297 Exit, which is our exit.  When I got up and went outside this morning it was eerily quite.  I could hear coyotes howling all around and the turkeys were going nuts.  The highway department removed 2 bridges or overpasses last night between 9pm and 7 am this morning.  They removed our damaged bridge and the old Marsh Station bridge west of us a few miles.  We do not know when our bridge will be rebuilt.  The Marsh Station overpass was rebuilt before they took down the old one.  


We had an especially windy day yesterday with rain in the forecast for today.  The clouds do seem to be building up behind and to the west of us but there is also still lots of open sky and sunshine.  I guess we will have to wait and pray for the rain.


The mesquite trees are starting to get leaves again.  They must sense the moisture in the air if not at their roots. 


I graduated to a whole 20 minutes on my Mobia treadclimber machine this week.  I cannot say that any weight loss has kept up.  I have been somewhat lax in sticking to my ALLI diet.  Guess I will have to try harder.


I am out of turkey and chicken feed this morning so will be sending my "donkey", as Steve calls himself, to the feed store this morning.  I do not think my alpacas are ever going to make any money for us so I have put them on Craig's list for re-homing @ $500 each.  I have had 2 calls so far. One guy wanted just one to be a companion to his horse.  I told him I did not think that was a very good idea.  Alpacas are herd animals who need other alpacas.  He heard that they were gentle animals and thought they would be good for him and his horse.  I think the horse would beat up an alpaca and I'm not sure that an alpaca alone would bond with a horse.  I think the alpaca would just be miserable and I told him that.  He was very appreciative of the info and the advice.  I didn't handle the second caller as well I'm afraid.  I could hardly understand his English and that irritated me at first.  Then, when I could understand what he was saying, he said he already had a female alpaca and he just wanted another one.  That was Ok but then he repeatedly asked me "What is the lowest you will take for one of them?"  I repeated $500 several times and he finally said OK and hung up.  I realize now that I should have asked him what was the most he was willing to pay.  Oh well, hind-sight and all that.  I intend to put another ad on Craig's List soon.  I will list the turkey's for sale first and then the alpacas.  If anyone buys an alpaca I will throw in a turkey for free.  Do you think that would be a good incentive?  LOL!

"April showers bring May flowers...." Well I sure hope so at any rate!  We are four inches under our normal rainfall for the year and haven't had any significant rain this year at all.  Feed prices are going up which is bad news for farmers here.  We can't grow our own like farmers in other greener states can.  We have to have everything shipped from afar.  I know they grow alfalfa and other hay in Safford which isn't to far away, but I think most of our hay comes from California.  There are no weeds popping up all over the yard as is normal for this time of year.  No cactus are blooming.  The grass is still brown and trees are just barely starting to sprout little green buds.  I started watering my pots and trees again but nothing much is happening there either.  My gladiolas bulbs are coming up in my raised bed and a few onions.  One good thing though, our swallows have started to come back.  I've seen two so far.  They are so fast and sleek it is hard to tell at first that they are really swallows.  I watched one yesterday.  He was checking out the old nests on the front porch.  Must be one of last year's hatchlings.  


Our big saguaro cactus out front is alive with birds again.  I call it the Saguaro Hotel!  Poor thing!  So many holes!  There is a new one right at the tip top that makes the top sort of bend now instead of standing straight up like before.  I took some pictures and caught one of the inhabitants sticking her nose out.  With beaks like hers, no wonder the saguaro is so full of holes!


I started painting again.  I'm painting the bedroom this time.  I removed wallpaper again yesterday and also got some painting in.  I am changing the color from a dark yukky blue to a light soft blue, lighter than the bathroom.  I love the new color.  I took down the dark thermal curtains to wash while I was painting.  The washer proceeded to chew up the backing on one of the panels and tear holes in one of the lace panels.  So now I have to buy new curtains too.  Not such a hardship, as I was thinking of getting new ones anyway.  I may go with a light blue or even white this time.  I still need to get the black-out thermal drapes because of our big security light outside and to keep the heat out in the summer.


The nights are getting warmer and the cats want to stay out all night.  That makes me a little nervous because then I leave the barn door cracked open for them.  I'm afraid a skunk or something worse will get in after the chickens.  Also, coyotes come closer at night and they love to eat unwary felines.  Loki and Mikie seem to stay pretty close to the house and to Buddy so hopefully they will be OK.  I hate to confine them when they would rather be out.  Loki is always in a big hurry to get back in the house in the morning where he spends the day sleeping in my room.


I am making a big pot roast for our family Sunday dinner today.  I put it in the slow cooker this morning so it can cook all day with no effort on my part.  I'll peel potatoes and figure out a vegetable to have later.  I will have to be careful not to overindulge if I do not want to forfeit all the weight loss I have managed over the last 3 weeks.  I am right on schedule so far, having lost 6 pounds since I started.  I have also managed to stick with my workout schedule.  I could only do about 5 minutes on my new Mobia tread-climber machine when I started.  Now I can do 15 and it is much easier.  I'll try to up the time to 20 minutes this week and keep doing weight training on Tuesday and Thursday.  I feel stronger and have more energy so I am encouraged to keep it up. And I am thankful every day!  I mean since I am working to lose weight, doesn't that mean I have plenty of food and all the necessities of life?  What's not to be thankful for?