It's Really Happening!

Well, Tuesday is the big day.  Finally, after weeks of unexpected delays, actually months now, the big moving day is Tuesday.  I keep trying to be happy about it but there is this big part of me that is incredibly stressed out about all the delays and not having my animals around me and feeling helpless about fixing the problems, which makes me just want to say "It's about _______ time!!!" (insert your favourite word in the blank) instead of "Gee, how lovely."

I am very anxious to get going with things.  There is so very much to be done.  Not least of these things is the emptying of two 10 x 20 foot storage units that are costing me an arm and a leg each month.  One will be emptied on Tuesday, and the second one probably the next week.  As long as both are empty by June 13, it won't go into a 3rd month of payments.

The farmhouse, as I believe I have explained before, is going to be left with much of the existing furniture and other belongings in place.  This is theoretically helpful in some ways, except that it also presents the following issues:
1.  The house is in complete disarray after the owner having been ill for so long and having started a myriad of construction or renovation projects that were never finished.
2.  Due to the aforementioned disarray, there is virtually nowhere to set down large stacks of boxes, let alone furniture.
3.  Much of the belongings that will be left simply need to be disposed of in one way or another.  If I'm lucky, I might be able to sell a few items.
4.  The previous owner would definitely qualify as a pack-rat....perhaps even a hoarder.
5.  In order to make space, many of these left-behind items will need to be moved and/or sorted.
6.  Due to the owner's health problems, the upstairs part of the house is mostly just cluttered with building materials and boxes of things like electrical sockets and switch plates, whereas the downstairs part of the house is far more cluttered with a wider variety of "stuff" than upstairs.
So it's really like 2 moves in 1, because I'm going to be moving much of the stuff that's already there, probably compressing it into several rooms for later sorting, and then bringing my things in.

In addition to this, there are some projects that had been started by the previous owner that have not yet been completed.  One of these...perhaps the most critical one...is the stairs to the upstairs level.  There are no treads.  Just risers.  One cannot lift heavy boxes and carry them up stairs that are just risers.  So, as soon as we arrive, Richard will be tasked with installing temporary stair treads simply so things can be taken upstairs.  I will be trying to make as much room as possible in the upstairs so that things can be taken up there easily.  Since it is the less cluttered area, it is the easier place to put things, once one can actually get up there without breaking one's neck.

Another problem.  Kitchen - avocado green fridge and countertops at the ideal height for individuals in the "3 foot 2" to perhaps "4 foot 6" range.  I am 5 foot 10.  Need I say more?  Oh, I didn't mention the non functioning dishwasher and stove, did I?  Ah....minor details.

Of course, everybody's favourite goat needs to be collected from her temporary farm home as soon as possible, which means that a small amount of fencing needs to be put in initially, and a secure night-time sleeping place must be arranged.  This comes right after the fixing of the aforementioned stairs.

To add to the conundrums (conundra?), the internet is in question.  The previous owner had dial-up.  I will have to probably use that for a time.  We are looking into other options but I'm not sure how quickly we can have installation done.  This means I'll be shutting down the Etsy shops until I've got reliable internet service.  It also means that blog posts won't be immediately forthcoming.  Rest assured...there WILL be pictures.  Lots of pictures and chaos for your viewing pleasure, as soon as I can get them loaded.

Until next time then, wish me luck, and hope for no broken limbs or other injuries.  I could do without that!

Hooray for Kezia

Just a quick note to follow up on our last blog.  Lucky Nickel and I are so pleased to let everybody know that Kezia has had a successful operation and she is now home with her lady.  She has a long road ahead of daily physical therapy and a lot of healing to do, but she's such a young dog, she will certainly pass through it with her incomparable charm and determination.

Here she is!  Looking a little the worse for wear, but she'll come through.  At least she gets to see the sunshine, unlike us here in Nova Scotia, where grey skies and some form of precipitation have been essentially the only thing I've seen for weeks.

You can see a couple of other pictures here on her lady's blog.  Welcome home Kezia!

Thanks so very much to everyone who purchased bracelets and yarn in my fund raiser for her big operation.  Remember you can still purchase yarn until the end of the month with the proceeds to support her veterinary costs!

Lending a Helping Hoof

Sometimes, we need to be kind goats and people, and lend a helping hoof to someone who needs it.  We should always be kind goats and people, of course, but there are times that we need to go that extra mile, or kilometre, depending on where you live.  Sometimes we need to eat that extra blade of grass, or demolish that extra rose bush.  It all depends on your perspective.

For example, the other day when my lady was shopping, I channeled thoughts to her that we should help others. She received my message loud and clear, and now this nice pink decoration is stuck on a wall at the shop with lots of other nice pink decorations.  We are helpful, my lady and I.  This was to help other ladies who are being hurt by people.  That's not very nice.  I think I should butt those nasty people.

Sometimes, we need to help somebody we know personally.  That's what we're writing about today.  You might remember on my grand cross-country journey, I visited our friend in New York, Isobelle Golightly the Beautiful Goat!  Well, Isobelle's lady has a sweet wee pup who has a bad thing in her hip.  It's going to need an operation called....oh dear, I'm not very good with long words....it's...a female oh-stick-to-me.  I think her bone is stuck.

Ohhhh Lucky Nickel, I have to interrupt your post here.  We have to tell everybody properly what the problem is.  Kezia the puppy has femoral deterioration.  That means her femur bone in her leg is sort of crumbling away.  How very sad for such a young pup.  She needs a very expensive operation called a femoral ostectomy.  It's going to cost over $3000 for her lady to have this operation done!  Okay, you can keep telling the people now what we are doing for sweet little Kezia.

Right.  I shall just say she needs an operation.  Like my operation, when I got spayed, but it's much more complicated.  The good thing is, once she has her operation, she will be able to run and jump like other puppies and goat kids, and she has a very good chance at a normal life, because she is so young and her body will more easily recover.  Isn't that good news?!  We are very happy about Kezia having such a lovely lady to take care of her.  Here is my lady playing with Kezia on her lap!

My lady said, when she met Kezia, that she was a very special dog.  My lady can tell these things.  She said that Kezia has a special role to play in this life.  She knew it was very important to help Kezia.

So, here is what we are doing!  This is so exciting!  My lady has two online shops.  One is her former online shop for Whispering Acres in Iowa, and one is her new shop for Scotia Spinner in Nova Scotia!  Both of her shops have lots of lovely handspun yarns and also some fibre if you want to spin your own!  If you read this blog post and put in the 'message to seller' that this is a Kezia purchase, my lady is donating ALL the funds from the sale to Kezia.  She will do this for the rest of May.  You have two whole weeks to go and purchase anything from either of her shops and all the funds will go to Kezia's operation, AND my lady will cover the shipping costs herself.  Here are the addresses for her two shops (she will slowly be closing out the Iowa one over time):

http://www.etsy.com/shop/whisperingacres  (this is the Iowa shop)
http://www.etsy.com/shop/ScotiaSpinner (this is the Nova Scotia shop)

Also, if you don't need yarn but you do need goat coats or wonderful goat soap, go see these other two wonderful blogs who are also helping Kezia!
http://pricillaspeaks.blogspot.com/  (10% of goat soap proceeds to Kezia for May!  Hooray!)
http://texan.blogspot.com/2011/05/okay-here-they-are.html (wonderful goatie coats for kid goats!!  I want one but I'm too big now!)
(and keep reading on for another way to help!)

Remember to put in the "message to seller" that it's for Kezia.  That way my lady will know.

BUT WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!  That's not all!!!

My lady has been learning a new art form.  She is doing some jewelry work.  She has always wanted to do that, but she was much too busy before.  Now she is having fun with it, and she has done quite well with making bracelets so far.  My lady hasn't got any of her bracelets listed in her shop yet, so she is offering them here, first!  You are getting the first view!  Aren't you lucky?!  Anyway, my lady is offering the bracelets for the Kezia fund raising too!  If you buy any of these bracelets in the next two weeks, she will give all the funds to Kezia, and again my lady will cover the shipping.

The single strand bracelets and memory wire bracelets are $15, the 3 strand bracelets (and the green single with all the dangly bits) are $18, and the 5 strand bracelets are $22.  If you would like to buy one to help Kezia, please send my lady an email or post in the comments.  Our email address is ScotiaSpinner at gmail dot com.  We know that you all know how to change the "at" and the "dot" into the proper bits.  We don't want our email address picked up by web bots.

Here are my lady's lovely bracelets.  Please buy one to help little Kezia!  My lady is sorry about the pictures being not very bright.  The weather here is dismal for photography.  We will try to mark them off as they sell.

SOLD!! This one is 5 strands, with beads made of glass, shell, and dyed Jasper.

SOLD!! This one is 3 strands, with beads made from Amazonite, Aventurine, shell, glass, and metal.

SOLD!!  This is a memory wire bracelet with beads made of glass, along with garnet chips and Russian jade cubes, as well as snow obsidian chips.

SOLD!! This is another memory wire bracelet with beads made from glass, along with aventurine chips, Jasper and Carnelian beads.

This is a 5 stranded bracelet with beads made from glass, shell, yellow tiger-eye, and Jasper.

SOLD!! This is a single strand bracelet of glass nuggets and Jasper.

This one is a 3-strand bracelet with glass beads and jade cubes.

 This is another 3 strand bracelet with rose quartz, glass and metal beads, as well as green Aventurine beads.

 Here's a fun bracelet with lots of dangles on it!  This one has glass beads, wire wrapping, and Australian Jasper beads too!

 This is a 3 strand bracelet with glass beads and yellow tiger-eye chips.

 SOLD!! This is the last one - 5 strands with glass beads, Carnelian, Russian Jade cubes and Mookiate chips.

We do hope you'll like one enough to help out our favourite little pup!  Goatie kisses from Isobelle!

Mainely Maine, and then Can of Duck

Ok, finally, my lady is letting me finish the journey blog, because there are lots of other blogs she needs to do (so she says, although I don't see how anyone could possibly be interested in her stuff because my stuff is infinitely more amusing).  In fact, this last bit occurred on April 12, but she has been so ridiculously busy since arriving in Can of Duck that I am only getting to do this now.  Anyway, last I wrote to you, we had just entered our 9th of 9 states on our journey, which was our last state, and which was Maine.  I don't know where the "e" comes from but that's how my lady said they spell it.  Why isn't it just Main?  Maybe they thought that would be too short.  I think my name would be pretty silly if I was Luckye Nickele.

I liked it there because there are a lot of yummy pine trees.  I think that's why they call it vacationland, because you can go on a vacation there to eat the pine trees, since they have so many.  In fact, my lady began to complain about the scenery a wee bit, because she said it was getting boring...all those trees.  She was just anxious to be back in Can of Duck Canada and was tired after 4 days of driving.

Due to the boredom of my lady, and her friendly helper man, there were a couple of rest stops in Maine.  Her man was feeling a bit stiff and sore after driving that U-Haul all that long way from Iowa, so he tried doing the exercises in the rest stop area.  I thought he looked like a donkey rubbing its bum on the fence, except there was no fence.  Don't tell him I said that. I'm supposed to be nice to him.

We kept on driving, and while in Maine, we got to see very pretty views of Mount Katahdin.  My lady couldn't get good pictures because she was driving and couldn't look at what her cell phone was pointed at.  This is the best one, and the mountain is hidden behind the trees.  I wanted to climb the mountain because that is what goats do, but she said not this time.  You might like to know that Katahdin sheep are named after it though - they were developed by a man from Maine who imported wool-less sheep from the Caribbean.  I'm not sure why there aren't any Katahdin goats.  Anybody knows goats are better than sheep.

On the day of our border crossing, we stayed at a hotel called the "White House" and my lady had a discussion with her favorite President before we got on the road.  She was quite excited to have her picture taken with him.  He didn't say much though!

When we finally got to the border between the USA and Can-of-Duck, that is when I really showed my skills.  My lady had to get a lot of stuff she called "paperwork" completed before she could take me across the border.  I think I could have just walked across and nobody would have noticed, but because I was in her car, I had to have "paperwork" with me.  One day soon, my lady will write a post about how to take a goat or sheep across the border.  It might help somebody else.

My personal feeling is that you just have to be your charming self, and try to eat the paperwork, because it makes the inspection vet laugh.  Shows you how important that "paperwork" really is!  The vet wanted to look at the scar I had from when I was spayed, and also looked at my teeth.  I think he was worried that I might bite him, but I have never bitten anybody, at least not intentionally.  It doesn't help with making fans happy when you bite people.  After the border inspection vet and his assistant looked at my paperwork, petted me, laughed at how charming I was, and signed some VIG documents (very important goat), they had their picture taken with me, because of course I am famous.

After this experience, my lady was finally back in her home country, and I saw her wiping away a few little tears.  I'm not sure if she was excited or even more bored with all those pine trees.  Anyway, our first Canadian province was New Buns-Wick.  I was extremely disappointed that there were no buns to eat when we arrived.  I think maybe they put wicks into buns and use them as candles there?  I really have no clue.  Seems like a pretty weird name to me.  I could have done better than that.  For example, New Goatswick would have been a better choice.

Now, all through Maine, and then again in New Buns-Wick, we had to worry about large mice.  My lady showed me the sign.  It looks like this:

As you can see, the mice in this part of the world are very large, with enormous antennae on their head, and they are very tall as well.  If you hit one with your car by mistake, the mouse will win.  It is dreadfully dangerous to hit a mouse while driving.  The mouse is a timid animal and mostly stays in the woods, but in mating season, sometimes the male mouse is seen on the side of the road, snorting and breathing fire.  Well, I heard that from another goat, so it's obviously true.  I didn't see it happen though.

After a lot of pine trees and not a single mouse sighting, we finally managed to drive all the way through New Buns-Wick and we arrived in our final destination province, Nova Squasha, which made my lady cry a lot and she nearly had to pull over because she was all atwitter.  Now, you might be asking yourself, will I be squashed in Nova Squasha?  No, of course not, silly!  It's an ancient Gaelic term meaning goats.  Nova means new.  So "New Goats" is where we are living.  You can take my word for it.  

We drove past the area where my lady is going to have her new home, but right now she can't quite move into it yet.  There have been all sorts of delays with the new farm because the seller is not very well and has been in hospital, and there were some misunderstandings with the lawyers, and it has all made her very frustrated, but we won't dwell on that.  Here is a picture of the area she will be living on her new farm, with me of course, her first and foremost spokesgoat.

It is very pretty, and it has a lot of pine trees.  I shall enjoy eating them.  As you can see, I will not run out of pine trees for a very long time.  For now, though, I am staying at another farm near my lady's parents home, so that my lady can visit me.  It makes my lady very sad that she can't have me there all the time, but she has to be patient, and so do I.  For now, everything my lady owns (except me and the cat) is in one of two enormous storage units.  It's a little bit upsetting for her and she's not in a very writing sort of mood lately, but she'll be alright soon, and you'll get to hear all her boring human news sooner or later.  

In the meantime, you can rest assured that I am a very happy new Canadian goat, and I shall be monitoring the situation here so that you can learn all the news as soon as I can write about it.  Goatie kisses to all my fans in the US, Can of Duck Canada, and anywhere else in the world!