Recent falls, Rosa Lee, health, selling goats

Although Grandma has fallen several times over the past months, we had not had the same issue with Grandpa. However, yesterday evening, Grandpa fell in their bedroom. He, unlike Grandma, is able to pick himself off the floor when he recovers his balance and senses. We only discovered his falling episode when he came into the kitchen with both of his arms severely skinned and profusely bleeding along the forearms. He had, by that time, washed the wounds as best he could and allowed me and Mama to apply gauze over the wounds and wind the arms with elastic bandages to keep the wounds from bleeding onto furniture and bedding. It will take some time for the wounds to full heal and we will have to change the dressings at least daily, but Grandpa is not one to complain even though I know the deep scrapes have to be painful.

Not to be outdone by Grandpa, Grandma fell once again this morning. At 6 am to be exact. Mama and I did not find out about the fall until after we talked to Norman who Grandpa had waked to help get Grandma off the floor. Grandma always requires assistance to get up from a fall. She cannot even pull herself up if she has something to grab hold of because even that would require her to be able to use her knees in support at some point. My difficulty in helping Grandma is that she has to be literally dragged onto a couch or bed or stood up on her feet to regain mobility and my back keeps me from lifting her over 200 pounds of helpless weight from the flood. So, it was very fortunate that Norman was here to help her get sufficiently upright this morning.

Rosa Lee helped Mama do the watering and feeding morning and evening for several day. If you can imagine the help a 3-year-old provides when that extra distraction is inserted into Mama’s routine. Nevertheless, Mama loves having a little one around her in spite of the distraction. Only two eggs were busted in the several collections made from the coop and only a few chickens got out the gate opened longer and less carefully than normal. The broken eggs were cooked and fed to the dogs. The escaped chickens were replaced into the proper coop after dark. It was pleasant overall to have the little one with us – especially for her Paw Paw, Norman. I have trouble referring to Rosa Lee by her given first name, Astrid, so I am pleased that we can refer to her in her secondary name.

Lately, my health has been questionable. I have had some pretty extreme elevations in my blood pressure. That without any reasonable explanation. I have been careful in my diet, faithful to the medications I have been prescribed and yet still, my blood pressure has been out of control. In my visit with my doctor Tuesday afternoon, he agreed that something was not right. However, the remedy he leaned toward was to add a third blood pressure medication to my regimen. As much as I want to get this in control, I did not want to add a medication to my list of drugs to be taken. Perhaps, there is an underlying condition that has not been diagnosed yet, but high blood pressure is not an indicator of any specific deleterious condition. Time will tell.

On the bright side, Mama sold two of our mature nanny goats yesterday. That will bring some money to the farm – after Mama repays Victoria the $500 we owe her for her loss on the scam Mama fell for. If I am able to sell a few of our very adorable little buck at Trade Days Saturday, not only will we have some income to declare, but we will have far less goats to feed. A win-win. Of course, we can hope and wish to make those sales, but until the buyers show up, we can only try to sell the little goats. At least, at Trade Days there is a concentrated grouping of buyers available. Maybe some of those buyers will want to take a baby goat home with them – for the right price.  

Not only did Mama make the sales of the two nanny goats but the buyer also toured the farm and spent a good deal of time with Mama teaching her about what to look for in our goats. Leoni, the buyer, shows her goats and is a consistent winner in those shows. What Leoni, did say was that we have an exceptional crop of bucklings and does. That will give Mama a lot of confidence in selling our goats at a fair market price. Those potential buyers who truly know what they are looking for will not be overly alarmed at the price we will need to ask for these little ones. Those who are alarmed at the price will pass us up without comment because they do not know the quality of the goats we are offering. Mama was encouraged by the complements and the instruction.

I am encouraged as well.