Burr!  It is cold!  We have been in a winter storm watch since Saturday.  The wind has been howling and hitting 45 mph.  This morning it is snowing and hailing and the wind has not diminished at all.  The road is a sloppy mess and my car needs a good wash again.  But the weatherperson has promised that the storm will be gone by tomorrow and we will be in the 80s again by midweek.

The vet came out on Tuesday as promised.  The Valley Fever tests came back on Friday, also as promised.  The news was good and bad.  Stewie and Cimarron tested negative, but Prince's test came back positive.  Today I talked to the vet and picked up medication for Prince.  She said he may never get sick, just carry the fever.  It is unpredictable.  I am still working with the lady who showed interest in taking the boys.  She will have to decide about these results.  I'm hoping she will come visit some day this week.

The alpacas really showed their personalities when the vet was out.  There were 3 of us, all women who had to catch them and hold them while the vet took blood.  We caught Cimarron fairly easily and he stood stoically while the vet stuck the needle in his neck and took his blood.  Then we caught Stewie.  Stewie did not want to be caught so he bucked and dodged and squirmed right out of my hold.  The vet stood back and said," If you 2 can't hold them, we'll have to get a man to do this!"  Well, I just looked at her because Steve had taken the whole day off before and she had not shown up!  But we showed her anyway, the vet tech and I.  The second time we caught Stewie , we caught him in the barn and crowded him into a corner so he could not escape.  He still did not cooperate however.  He cushed!  Just laid down and then bounce up whenever the vet tried to stick the needle in him.  So the vet tech pushed down on his hind quarters and I held his head and neck while simultaneously pushing down on his withers with my knee.  I paid for that for several days afterwards with a very sore gluteus maximus!

Then it was time to catch Prince.  He was the hardest to catch but he stood quietly while the vet did her thing without moving or flinching.  He had a good trainer named Liz!

I need to put a beeper on my glasses!  I carry them around with me then leave them when I have to pick something up, go away and WAAAA!!!  I can't find them again til I back track everywhere I went in the last half hour, which could be a lot of places!  Anyway, I found them now.

Some of the seeds I planted last week are coming up already.  I am watering the raised bed outside so it will be ready to plant soon.  Our humidity has raised to a whole 4% and there is no rain in sight, at least not this week.  We are supposed to have sunny, blue skies and temperatures in the 80s.  Wonderful! 

The vet was supposed to come out yesterday morning to draw blood from the alpacas for the valley fever test.  She never showed up.  It turned out that she had an emergency surgery that took an hour and a half and then she had to perform an autopsy on a 3 year old male alpaca that had died suddenly.  Turns out the alpaca belonged to the lady who might take my boys.  She was devastated.  She did not tell me why the alpaca died.  She may not know yet.  She did say it was her favorite male.  I felt really bad for her.


Saturday we celebrated the birth of our first grandson.  He turned 10 years old!  Unbelievable!  That means we have lived on this windy desert hill for 8 years now.  One of my alpacas, Prince (Shoot to you, Liz) is now also 8 years old.  Cimarron, gray with a white face, is 6 and Stewie, beige, is 5.  My little red dog, Penny, a Tibetan Spaniel, is 14 or 15 years old.  I think she tried to kill herself this past week.  She started spewing really dark diarrhea about every hour or so.  She got me up every hour one night, scratching on the door to go outside.  I gave her a single pepto bismal tablet which seemed to slow things down a bit.  She was still eating.  She acted a little sheepish because she didn't get out in time a couple of times.  My bedroom stunk to high heaven!  Ugh!  Anyway, I think I might have figured out what she ate, CHOCOLATE!  The poo was the same color as dark chocolate and I saw her snatch a little piece of chocolate pop tart off the couch this morning before I could grab it.  I hope she doesn't get sick again.  She literally poisoned herself.  Poor baby!  I'll have to be more diligent in picking up after the grandkids or anyone else who happens to leave chocolate around or dropped on the floor.  With Easter coming, it may be a chore.


Back to the grandson's birthday, we went to "Funtastics" which is a fun park in Tucson.  You pay one price for a certain amount of time and get unlimited access to all the rides and miniature golf.  The little kids liked the flying dragons the best.  The big boys and the men liked the go-carts.  It was the perfect day for the outing.  The sun was out, no wind and it was about 70 degrees.  Fabulous!


The vet is supposed to stop by today on her way to Tucson.  I hope she does.  I really want to get this test out of the way and find a new home for the alpacas.

This has been a busy week as usual.  March has come in like a lion, blasting away at us with 30 mph winds.  It has also warmed up some during the day to about 80 degrees.  I also heard that we have a negative reading as far as humidity goes.  If you can believe it our humidity was at -8%.  The sky seems to be white instead of blue.  I started watering the raised garden bed in the back so that there will be some moisture when I get ready to plant my veggies and flowers.

Tuesday I went to Sierra Vista and got a bunch of books for research and reading.  Some of the books I wanted are at the Benson Library so I may have to go there tomorrow after I take my daughter to work.  Most of yesterday was spent reading and brushing up on writing skills and research methods. I spent some time on my new laptop adding to my diary and proofreading the 2 or 3 paragraphs I have written for my book.

A friend recommended a couple of books to help with my writing so I looked them up online today.  One of the authors, Sandra Dallas, writes books about Colorado.  I will probably get a couple of hers to get an idea how to write about Arizona.  The other author she recommended was a little more difficult to find because I was looking up the wrong name.  I was looking for David Merrill when I should have been looking for David Morrell.  I did eventually find the books she was talking about.  They look like good references also.

My grandson climbed up into my raised bed today and helped me fill the seed starter trays with potting mix.  We had to move indoors to plant the seeds because of the wind.  We planted 3 trays with veggies and flowers, watered them and put on the clear plastic lids.  They are like miniature green houses sitting on my book shelves.  The sun shines in that south facing Arizona room so the plants should germinate fairly quickly.  Then when they are big enough I will put them in the outside raised bed to be beat up by the wind and the elements.  I will never be able to skip one day watering if I ever want to get any tomatoes or squash.  The Arizona sun is brutal and takes no prisoners, unless you count those of us who are foolish enough to try to garden.

The last few days around here has felt like spring.  I noticed some of the mountains have a faint tint of green unless they are still covered with snow.  The mountains in Sierra Vista are still covered with snow from the last storm.

I have not heard back from the lady who is interested in adopting the alpacas.  She was attending the Southwest Regional Alpaca Show and said she would get in touch after that.  If I don't hear from her by Monday, I will email her again.  I just ran out of timothy hay for the alpacas.  I am feeding them alfalfa temporarily.  If I end up keeping them I will get more timothy but it is expensive.  I don't want to make the trip all the way to Tucson and pay a small fortune for the timothy and then not use it or have to give it away.  I am already giving away the alpacas.

My two eldest daughters made a trip to Apache Junction to the Renaissance Faire today.  It was "Pirate's Day" so the girls dressed up as Pirate wenches! Ha!  I thought they did a pretty awesome job.

I am still reading and doing research on Arizona's Wild West History and the cities and areas around here.  Today I got 2 books I ordered through Amazon.  One is from the Arizona Highway's collection,  Stalwart Women: Frontier Stories of Indomitable Spirit.  It was an incredibly good deal at $4.37 which included the shipping.  The other one is Death In the Desert: The Fifty Years' War for the Great Southwest. It was a bit more expensive and, I'm sure, it will be more difficult reading as it is about the fight against the native Americans.  It is incredible to me that Arizona just celebrated our 100th anniversary, having become a state on February 14, 1912.  Even more incredible was learning that some Apaches were still riding around on horseback, fighting, killing and barely surviving as late as the 1920's.  From 1872 to 1874, Cochise County was the Chiricahua Apache Reservation.  Cochise Stronghold is only about 30 miles from my house.  In fact, I can see the Texas Canyon, Dragoon Mountains and the rocks of the Stronghold from my front yard.


I also watched a couple of movies in the name of research. Ha!  It is a good break from the reading and a good way to get ideas for writing.  One was "Bad Girls" which I watched because it was the story of western women.  The other was "Rio Bravo" which I found at Walmart for $5.  It starred John Wayne, Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson.  Wow, was Ricky Nelson young!  It was a very slow movie compared to the movies Hollywood is producing today.  It was also uplifting and the good guys won!  Hurrah!

Friends have reminded me that I have been a bit lax in my writing.  I am sorry.  Sometimes in winter I am hard pressed to keep up a cheerful attitude and my writing suffers.  I will try to do better than once a month, I promise!

On Valentine's Day we had an honest to God blizzard here on Saguaro Hill.  Huge snowflakes fell for about 2 hours.  Visibility was down to zero.  Trees, bushes and structures were covered in the white stuff.  The roads got slippery and muddy.  The dogs and grandson had a blast.  I froze my behind off while they played and threw snowballs.  Then at 3:30, the snow stopped, the sun popped out all the snow melted and you'd never know anything even happened!  That is Arizona for you.

I did not win the HGTV dream home although I faithfully entered the contest twice a day.  I have not sold my alpacas yet but there is one lady who may be interested in giving them a good home.  She wants me to get them tested for the Valley Fever  before she agrees to take them.  And she will not take them if they test positive.  We are working on getting all that taken care of.  I am praying that they will test negative for the disease because, truth be told, I have lost interest in being an alpaca farmer since Kardigan died.  I also realize that I will probably never have enough resources to make money in that business.  I am feeling a need to be free and start something new.

I am tired of it being cold and windy, although yesterday was a nearly perfect day.  Steve and a friend had the perfect day to play golf.  It was sunny, about 70 degrees and not windy at all.  My friend and I drove around Sierra Vista and looked at houses while the guys played.  We also went to a book store, where I spent a small fortune on magazines, books and a movie.  I am a hoarder of books.  I just love them.  If it is not a novel to take me away from reality, it is a reference book to use for research and writing in whatever field I am pursuing at the moment.  Today I started and finished one of Louis L'Amours classic works.  I also read through the newest Mary Jane's magazine and a copy of Arizona Highways.  I started a new journal on my new laptop and am studying the history of Tombstone and Arizona in general.  Fascinating stuff.  

We visited Tombstone yesterday as well before the guys golf tee time.  We had lunch in the Crystal Palace Saloon and I wondered how it was 150 years ago when the Earp brothers were there.  I bet a lot more people were toting guns.  We walked by the place where one of the Earp boys was shot in the back and lost his life.  And men walked around wearing the red sashes that were worn by the Cowboy Gang who fought with the Earps.  Today they invited us to the re-creation of a gunfight and tours of the old silver mine.  One of them tried to start a gunfight with Steve, teasing him about the "dumb yellow shirt" he wore.  My husband, knowing that discretion is the better part of valor and not wearing a gun, wisely let the comment slide.  

The waitresses in the saloon wore red and black tightly laced up corsets, their decolletage barely constrained above black lace.  They were friendly and lively but I felt fortunate that we women no longer have to wear such restrictive garments.  Tombstone's buildings and landscape seem much the same today as they were all those years ago. 

No wheat, No white, No meat!  That is my new mantra for 2012.  I have been reading lots of diet and health books over the past few weeks of this new year.  I am studying Eat Right for your Type by Dr. Peter J. D'Adamo and Natural Cures by Kevin Trudeau.  At first I thought I had blood type "O" because I have thyroid problems and some of the other "symptoms" of the type O profile.  But then I actually did a blood test and found out that I have type "A" instead.  So I had to adjust my thinking and eating accordingly.  I actually started feeling better when I was eating like a type "O" but I started losing weight when I started eating like my real type"A".  Of course I have also started exercising again too.  So every little adjustment helps.

The Eat Right...  book is fairly easy and uncomplicated to follow.  Mr. Trudeau's book is much more complicated and has lots more stuff to do.  He is also a whistle-blower and tells all about our corrupted food industry and why Americans are so fat.  It is very interesting and sometimes shocking but also an eye opener.  As with all things one reads, it must be taken with a grain of salt and further research.  I read some of the reviews other readers have given him on Amazon.com.  Some say that he is a charlatan and some say he is right, so there you go. I must also balance what he says with my own experiences and knowledge.  I will use what is best and discard the rest.  My ultimate goal is to lose weight but mostly just to be healthy and not have a lot of problems as I grow older.  I have gotten several other books on natural cures and on eating organically. I will be reading those also.

Over the last couple of weeks I have also been reorganizing and cleaning.  I went through my pantry and got rid of any old or expired foods.  Then I straightened and reorganized that.  I pulled all my old cookware from my kitchen cabinets and replaced all the coated pots and pans with new Martha Stewart stainless steel cookware.  Now there is no danger from peeling or damaged teflon coated pans when anyone cooks.  I got tired of telling people to use plastic coated utensils to cook in those pans so they wouldn't damage the surfaces.  They never listened and now I don't have to worry about it any more.  


I have gotten my sewing room back in working order after the holiday chaos.  I sorted my patterns and arranged them by brand name and number.  I put all the childrens patterns in one box and the adult ones in another.  The craft patterns were separated from the clothes patterns and have their own box too.  All the fabric has found new storage boxes and been stacked on shelves or under tables or wherever I could fit them in an orderly fashion.  I got out one of the aprons I made to sell and am using it myself.  I get tired of getting a wet tummy every time I do the dishes or cook.  All my books have shelf space and the magazines are waiting to be sorted, to keep or not to keep?  That is the question! Ha!


I found a pattern for a sewing machine cover.  I think that will be my next sewing project for my new sewing machine instead of spending $24 for a new plastic container at Walmart.  


As for the animals of my little farm, they are doing fine.  I plan on putting the alpacas up for sale soon and I may do the same with the goats.  Buddy needs a grooming to get rid of all his matted tail hair but I will wait til the weather starts warming up for that.  My Loki cat is also getting his yearly matted hair and I am working on that a little at a time as he will not be still for long.  He looks really funny when the mats are cut out and he has bare spots all over for awhile.  The chickens continue to lay eggs and I plan on switching them to organic feed soon.  That will make the eggs healthier for us.  


I have gotten planting flats and some seeds.  I want to plant more vegetables in our raised bed this year.  So, it is a new year with new potential.  Mostly life continues to be good.  Praise the Lord!

I thought it would be appropriate to write something this last day of 2011.  I looked through all my pictures that I had taken over the year.  I must like storms, I took lots of storm pictures.  I took lots of animal pictures too and the grand kids, of course.

In January I had Steve take some pictures of the fat me.  So that I could compare to when I lost all the weight over the year and could then have a skinny picture taken.  Well, that didn't happen!  Ha!  I am still a fatty!  

I took pictures of the alpacas in the snow and the new goats in February.  One beautiful iris came up in my pathetic garden in May.  Then in June we had big fires all around us.  A gila monster visited in July.  I took some fantastic sunset photos, if I do say so, although, the credit for them should probably go to the maker of the sunsets Himself.

I think the two hardest things to accomplish are losing weight and saving money.  Those will be 2 of my resolutions this year.  I want to keep on taking pictures and helping others when I can.  I want to worry less, enjoy life more and continue in thankfulness for each day.  That is really all we have after all, just today, just now, or so they say.  I feel like I also have the love of my family and friends, the memories of what has been and the blessings of the Almighty.  I pray that you will also enjoy your memories, the love of the people who matter and many blessings from the Lord  now and in the New Year.