Thursday, July 3, 2014

7 Months in a Black Hole and BACK!!!

YES!  I realize the website has some, just a tad, of tech problems.  Seven long months I was sucked into a black hole of life stuff. Of course I admire consistent bloggers who provide their readers with timely updates of fascinating current events, not so much me.


There were lots of doc appointments, mammos, ultrasounds, knee injections, meetings, online classes, incubating turkey eggs, brooding baby poults, taking in two alpacas, my oven died, shearing the goats, seeding and transplanting, trying to tame the front and back with a dead mower, started painting the bathroom, and on and on it went. These are not overwhelming or unique situations, well maybe the dead oven and mower caused trouble, but they become difficult when concurrently fighting fibromyalgia coupled with severe fatigue.  It takes much longer to accomplish any task. It makes it near impossible to work outside at a "real" job. It is annoying to not be able to crush an 18 hour day. I used to routinely do it.


Unemployed is not cool. It means there is no money coming into my sphere.  I thoughtfully probed scenarios for generating income within my limitations. A natural obsession with heritage poultry seemed logical. It certainly would not beat up my body like produce farming. The Sustainable Poultry Network had an excellent mentoring program for heritage turkey breeding. I started incubating the eggs my turkeys were laying. No sooner had the eggs hatched I had a disappointment.  Due to a biosecurity conflict with a CAFO poultry house near me I am no longer going to have poultry of any kind. My birds were very vigorous and healthy, confinement birds unfortunately do not have good immunity to viruses.  Thankfully my fiber animals did not pose a risk and I am keeping them, truly they are my other obsession. I firmly believe when the Lord closes a door he will open another.


This venue was one I had gotten my feet wet, with an Etsy shop and our previous farmer's market. How to process the fleeces efficiently would require several big ticket items.  It has been a long time frustration to only process an ounce or so at a time.  The feedback from Etsy customers is excellent. The more I considered how this might be a good fit for getting me back on my feet, the pieces started to come together and I made a plan.  To have wisdom, to be able to discern a matter, that is what I have been seeking in my talks with the Lord.  I hope this path is the right one, only time will tell.


Oh, and I do hope to the tech stuff taken care of so you can see the pictures, after all they are worth many words.