My brother reads the Farmers’ Almanac and he likes to keep us informed, last night he told us that we can expect 40 more inches of snow in March, tell me it ain’t so. The girl that lives behind us already has our garage all blocked in with at least 6 feet of snow now and if we get more snow we may never be able to get the bikes out till August. I don’t know why some people are so inconsiderate.

Update: I checked the Almanac and couldn’t find a thing apparently he’s been listening to rumors which were started by the prediction of an amateur Exeter Township weather forecaster and it was Moyer’s Almanac. Apparently the rumor is being spread like wildfire and being attributed to the Farmers’ Almanac by many.

Last year she kept bringing her dog over to poop in the back lot behind our garage and Bill would have to clean it up before we were able to get the trike out. He finally got to the point that he would simply move it in front of her garage so they could clean it up. Plus she was mowing it when I didn’t want her to. I told Bill that I bet she thought that was her property and he said no one could be that stupid.

She must have got tired of removing all the poop from in front of her garage that she finally had a surveyor come an check her property line. She found out that she only has a very small strip and doesn’t own the lot behind our garage so now when they mow there is a very straight line. They now let their dog poop on the small strip which connects to ours so we still have to be careful not to get the tires in it.

Since that small part is hers we leave her  poop alone, but at least it’s not covering every inch of our property, but now all of her snow is. Understandably we are not going to be riding the trike right now, but we still like to be able to get out of the back of the garage. Bill was so worried about the garage roof collapsing and there was no way to remove the snow, but it’s now braced so that’s a worry off his mind. With all that snow blocking us in we wouldn’t be able to remove anything in an emergency.

Bill has been trying his best to remove the snow from around my shrubs, they look horrible right now, but everyone elses does also so we’re all in the same boat. I love my shrubs and planted them myself and have been watching them grow for the past 6 years so it’s like seeing my children hurt, thankfully my Blue Atlas doesn’t look like it’s been injured so I’m grateful for that. Parts of the yard we removed snow from for the dogs is a muddy mess, I want Spring.

I need to go see if I can loosen a few more shrub branches from the frozen ground so take care all.

This poem has  helped me tremendously in dealing with a lot of my grief over the past couple of years.

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep
‘words are attributed to Mary E Frye, 1932′

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

When we got Obie last month there was pink around both eyes and the hair grew in around one eye, but the other one kept losing hair. When Doctor Dan gave him shots and checked him the first time it really wasn’t that noticeable. When we took him back for his second round of shots this past week  his vet then got a little concerned so we have him on an antibiotic called Cephalexin.

When I checked out the Cephalexin I found that it is FDA approved for humans, but not animals however it is widely used by all vets for bacterial infections.  He has been on it for 2 days and he does fine with the first dose because I give it to him soon after he eats, but the second dose he has been rejecting. These are in capsule form and at first it was hard to get him to swallow it even though I put it as far back as possible and kept his mouth shut and massaged his throat.

The easy way is to put it in a spoon full of applesauce, tilt his head back and it slides nicely down his throat. Applesauce is not harmful to dogs like chocolate and some other fruits for those that are wondering. The applesauce or jello technique also works well for you humans that have a hard time swallowing pills. I had to look up the side effects and the most common is of course vomiting shortly after giving it to them .

It’s usually not a sign of any serious disease, but it does indicate that your pet is sensitive to Cephalexin so since Obie doesn’t throw up the first dose with food in his belly I’ll just have to change his feeding times for the next 5 days and give him 3 meals a day and see if that works for us. If this doesn’t help his poor little eye then the next step is to take a scraping and see if it’s a mite. He hasn’t rubbed or scratched his eye at all since we got him so I really don’t think it will be  mites.

Cephalexin isn’t effective against infections caused by mites, viruses, fungi, or parasites (intestinal worms). Mites cause mange which makes the hairloss, but there are no sores, he doesn’t itch and there’s no ozzing of any sort. All we can do is wait for now and see if the Cephalexin kicks in. March 15th the poor little guy is going to be chipped and clipped (neutered) he’ll be 6 months old then, he’s really such a nice little guy and the vet is very impressed with him and so are we.

We’re very happy he’s sharing our home. If anyone has been through something like this with their pet I would love to hear your input.

Orgreenic Ceramic Cookware

As you can see we got our Orgreenic cookware yesterday and I was so excited because we ordered it online from the Orgreenic website on Feb. 11th and received it on the 18th, we were expecting it in 2 to 6 weeks, now that’s fast service. Originally we were only planning on getting the TV special the 9 inch pan with the free gifts thrown in which was advertised for 19.99 or something like that and with shipping it came to 29.99 or somewhere around those prices.

After looking at the ridiculous high prices for just 1 pan way over one hundred dollars and close to 200 for the grill, Bill decided to buy the whole 16 piece set for 300 dollars. He had 2 options, the easy pay where they spread out the payments or pay the whole thing and get free shipping and handling which he chose and there were no taxes unless they were built in. All of our pots and pans are Teflon and all are in bad shape so we needed new ones anyhow and the ceramic cookware is healthier.

Unwrapping My Orgreenic Ceramic Cookware

Obie and I tore into the box, but it was packed so well that it took me awhile to get all the pieces out which were also wrapped with tons of tissue paper which I had to dispose of promptly because he wanted to shred it for me. After I got everything unwrapped the first thing I was suppose to do was to season my new Orgreenic ceramic cookware. So I rubbed the green part down with a light coating of vegetable oil and set the pieces on top of the stove on medium heat and watched and waited for them to lightly smoke, which they never did even after 40 minutes.

Sometimes I’m not very bright, but I always try to follow directions because I figure they know more than me about their product and I certainly didn’t want to mess them up on the first day. I saw the oil was turning brown, but they still weren’t smoking so I said that’s enough and removed them from the stove top. You were suppose to wait till they were completely cool and then wipe out the excess vegetable oil. Well, guess what? the oil wouldn’t wipe out it was stuck on.

I worked and worked to remove those little beads of oil, I knew they would come out eventually and I felt like an idiot explaining all of this to Bill when he came home and started helping me unscrew-up his brand new healthier eating  ceramic cookware. We were both impressed with the quality, they’re very sturdy and I kept my eye on that grill because I had my plans for it later. The first thing Bill did was to test and see if  it would fry an egg with no grease, it didn’t it got stuck.

The stuck on egg came out so easy that we were totally happy anyhow and I’m sure with more practice using the Orgreenic we’ll find easier ways to cook and figure out exactly what it can do. It’s suppose to have a lifetime guarantee so I’m quite sure we will be keeping it, that’s why I gleefully started pulling out all the old Teflon and stainless steel including lids and throwing them away. Of course we couldn’t part with our cast iron skillets because they’re great for baking cornbread.

Grilling Steaks

I couldn’t wait to try out the grill and I totally loved it and since I love steak that’s what I chose to try first. They grilled exactly the way I wanted them, but after looking at that grill I thought that is going to be a mess to clean so I decided to tackle it after we ate. The steaks were delicious by the way and there was very little smoke, I was happy not to hear smoke alarms which usually happens when I heat up other skillets.

Messy Grill

I grabbed a paper towel to remove the excess grease and debris from the grill thinking I would probably have to soak it over night, but to my amazement it wiped right off and I only needed to wipe one more time to remove the remaining oil that you can see below. So far I’m loving this Orgreenic ceramic cookware. I tried to find reviews about this product before we ordered and found one site that had some mixed reviews, but we decided to take a chance anyhow and I’m really glad we did. I’ll update this post after we use it for awhile.