A Party With No Trash...Okay Maybe Just a Little!

I woke up this morning feeling like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders.  My biggest commitments for the summer are already over, and it feels wonderful!!!!  My sons graduated on Sunday and boy did we have a humdinger (does anyone still use that word?  And if not, they sure should, it's a good one-ha!) of a party!

We also had a baseball game yesterday that was a big deal as my daughter and the choir that she is in sang the National Anthem for the Colorado Rockies; and they showed the town how that song is sang!  I was so very proud.  The group of fourth and fifth graders walked onto the field with a march in their step, took their  places in the choir and belted out our National tune like any professional group could do....even my Grads were impressed!  And that my friends is pert near impossible to do these days, let me tell you.

But back to the party with no trash; really it can be done; with a bit of preparation (and a bit of yucky digging afterward, I must admit).  Now, if you have been a reader of mine, on either of these blogs, you know that I am not at all familiar with paper products.  I do not buy plastic bags or paper plates or even paper napkins; my one downfall is paper towels and I do buy those very infrequently in bulk.  So the paper product aisle itself was a bit overwhelming to me.

So, I headed straight to the party stuff.  I knew I didn't want any "crap".  You know what I'm talking about the kind of forks that break when you first put them into a bite of potato salad?  Or the plate that dumps everything on the unsuspecting kid?  Yeah, I wasn't having any of that.  Party stuff it was, and blue and black to match the boys' colors, easy enough.  From there, it is simply a case of turning the products over and making sure they are recyclable, if not, put it back.  There are plenty of choices out there people, we do not have to fill up our landfills.

Okay now we are at the party and of course we have not gotten the trash cans and the recycle cans marked like I wanted.  Actually there was a huge misunderstanding and we thought the neighbor was bringing some last minute supplies (like the grill, trash cans and bags) so we didn't have them to mark....but anyway; my point is is that it doesn't even matter if it all gets mixed up.  I was able to nonchalantly grab the plates out of the trash as I was going by and put them into a different bag.

This all may sound a bit yucky, but to me it was well worth it.  I had purchased cans for the kids to drink; we had recyclable cups for the keg (I even grabbed out a lot of the food trash for the chickens-ha!).....So let's run down what all was in my trash can when this party for about 75 people was over.  Bags for ice, bags for buns, plastic silverware (and damn did I try and find some that is recyclable, I will try harder next time!) and napkins; that is about it.  That is one small bag of trash for a very LARGE party.  Now, we have two HUGE bags of recyclabes, but that is okay.

We had a wonderful party to help send the boys off right; we won't be filling up the landfills and polluting my beloved Mother Earth in the process and I am done with my major commitments for the summer.  Now it is time to get to work on those campgrounds....keep those campers from burning down our forests and enjoy the time with my children.  Wow, I truly am a very blessed woman.

The nuts and bolts of Thoracic back surgery (at least mine)

Well, as you The Rebels know, I have been having back issues for years now.  But if you are new to the story, let me give you a quick rundown of the story.  Almost three years ago now, I started having hip pain, yes hip pain.  I am a very active rancher, hiker, kid chaser, etc., so I let it go for a while, then the doctors let it go for a while, until finally late last year it was diagnosed as a herniated/ruptured thoracic disc.

I have said it before, and I'll probably say it again, this is very unusual.  Your thoracic (middle) region of your spine is the least mobile part of your body, so it very rarely gets injured.  Leave it to me to come up with a stumper!  So the first doctors assume it will resolve itself like herniated discs normally do, and since it is so near the spinal cord do not want to mess with it; I agree.

I go through the summer cleaning fire pits, and running my ranch thinking I am being a pansy since this stupid back thing is still bothering me.  I finally get bad enough to go back to the damn doctor, taking my husband in hopes that the doctor will finally tell him how very tough his wife actually is, and do you know what happened?  That doctor told me that my back was perfectly fine, he even bet my husband a nickel that the MRI would show that my disc was back to normal size and that this was all just a "little flare-up".

Well, he was very, very wrong.  Actually, my disc herniation was worse, my spinal cord was pushed so far out of the way, that it actually changed the way they were able to do the surgery on me!  So, in that instance it was good, I guess.  Normally, thoracic surgeries are done through the chest to avoid damage to the all important spinal cord, blessedly, as you can see from the pic they went in through the back on me.

The following is an excerpt from WebMD about the type of surgery that they did on me: 

Discectomy (also called open discectomy) is the surgical removal of herniated disc material that presses on a nerve root or the spinal cord. Before the disc material is removed, a small piece of bone (the lamina) from the affected vertebra may be removed. This is called a laminotomy or laminectomy and allows the surgeon to better see and access the area of disc herniation.

The only problem was that they were hoping to do only the discecotomy with very little laminectomy, and it turned out to be the other way around.  They had to take quite a bit of bone, and some of the disc had calcified, so they left it, but it sounded like he thought it was a great success, so I am quite thankful for that.  I often wonder if they would really tell you that a surgery like this was not a great success, but that is just me being a total cynic, because I do already feel differently than when there was all that pressure on my spinal cord.

So, now it is just a matter of waiting and resting and letting the swelling go down.  And hoping and praying that my spinal cord goes back into its proper position when all the dust settles, so to speak!  I get my staples (actually, now that a few more days have gone by, I think I might only have stitches!) removed at two weeks, with a doctor follow-up at four weeks; that's about all I know for now! (This must have been on Wed., now it is Sunday and my daughter is one year older, boo hoo!  Her 11th birthday was yesterday.)

Well, as you all have probably guessed, this has been sitting in my drafts folder for a while so I will give you some more to chew on before I publish.  I kept trying to figure out why I was being so slow in hitting the publish button when I realized the scar is ugly.  Well, of course it's ugly, I've been through some nasty stuff...even the skin that just had to be bandaged for two days is crying out for my friend Tiffany's cream.  I can't wait until I get the all clear to use it!

But what has really been bothering me I guess is that the Dr. told me that I have degenerative disc disease and that is what caused this problem, not my car accident when I was a teen.  First and foremost, it is not another disease I have to deal with like my epilepsy.  It just means that I have a really crappy spine I guess and I'm just going to have to be careful.  But can you imagine how sick I am of having to be careful of stuff?

So, with that, and the fact that I almost just cried, I would like to leave you all with some things that I know have gotten a lot better since my surgery.  And you know what is really funny?  These are things that the doctors kept telling me couldn't be related to my spinal injury, I think their story is a little different now that they got in there and saw the damage though.  Anywho, back to my improvements...I no longer have a "fog" around my vision, the heaviness and weird stuff going on in my arms is practically gone, my headaches are finito; okay 95%.  So far so good with the bladder issues, but that was with activity, so I am reserving judgment on that til I get back on my feet a little better; this will be the biggy and the one the doctors will tell if they call it a success or not.

The main point I have to keep reminding myself of, and a call from my Aunt who is a nurse was a great reminder, is that it will take six weeks minimum for all of the swelling to go down and that cord to go back into place.  I will learn more in the meantime about degenerative disc disease (notice I won't even capitalize it!), which I really have got to come up with a better name for, and then I'll be ready to hit it head on like I always do.  I've always taken good care of my spine with my Yoga and stuff, now I will just have to be even more vigilant!

A quick note on Karma

To the jerks who left my spectacular campground a mess,

My husband let you stay for free because you said you were Veterans, that alone could get us fired.  You left your campsite dirtier than any site I have ever seen in the five years I have been cleaning sites, I have my doubts you are truly a Veteran.  After you filled the legal fire ring with trash, you built a half assed, illegal fire ring, and almost caught my forest on fire!  Although you stayed at the only campground with a dumpster, you could not get your trash bag over to it, along with the rug that your mutt crapped on.  Thank you for that nice surprise.

I guarantee your move across the state is not going well.

But on the other hand...

To my friend Kristi,

I hardly remembered referring the folks from The Royal Roost to you when they told me they were looking to buy real estate in the Jefferson area.  So it was such a wonderful surprise to receive a $100 gift card right when I was back to school shopping for the kids!!!  You helped us buy The Royal Roost, oh so many years ago, you are a wonderful Real Estate Agent and friend, you go girl!  Thank you and you know that only good things are coming your way.

Now that's what I'm talking about.

Judy on being a Jeute, or is it Judy?

You know it really doesn't matter which way you say it, I was destined to be a double Judy.  In the past few days I have had the most unreal experiences that a person can have, and it feels like it has been an ongoing test of my strength and courage.  I must tell you, I am quite proud of myself, I have passed this battery of tests with flying colors.

Last I left you, "Change" was in the air, if I only knew how true that statement was going to be!  Saturday was Bailey Day, and oh what a glorious day it turned out to be.  As a matter of fact, I reserve the right to come back and write about it again.  But, suffice it to say, that once again, we blended our biker, mountain hillbilly friends with the historical (literally-ha!) park crowd beautifully!  My book signing was a huge success, twenty books sold along with small town folk coming out of the wood work to congratulate me.

Although that should be the highlight of this post it gets crazier from there.  I mentioned that I would be offline for a few days, but I didn't say why.  Well, I read somewhere your not supposed to advertise when your leaving, if only for a short time, so I didn't.  We had a quick family trip planned in Fort Collins, and when I say family, I mean my entire family.  So we were really looking forward to this one. 

As usual, I was as unorganized as can be, but I felt like it was really important to get these two blankets into the camper; a piece of our family, so to speak.  Nathan was already up there with my parents so the four of us headed up the road, and all was going well until we got onto the scariest part of I25, just full of construction, and the motorhome starts to overheat.  We chug, chug along until she just dies, and luckily we coast to just inches off of the busiest Interstate in all of Colorado. 

We look up and the reason we had been stuck in traffic in the first place is because of an accident that had been caused by the construction.  A truck had rolled over and caught on fire, terribly!  So, not only are we front row to watch them put out this fire, and turn the truck back over, etc. Tom has to try and work on the RV on the side of the road.  I am keeping the kids and the dogs out of the back, as I am just praying that we won't get hit, because those assholes passing by sure weren't slowing down any.

As many of you probably know, the engine compartment in many RV's is inside, so Tom got a mug of gas and primed the carburetor and got us on our way.  He had done some testing and knew that we had one fuel pump down, and yes this is important,  with one working.  Now, I have talked about my "trouble bubble" before, but I have never worked so hard on concentrating on getting us safely off of a road in my life!

We made it about a mile off of the exit and she died again, that was it.  Tom was getting really frustrated and the kids were dying to get there, so he got that damned mug back out.  The one that I had kept trying to take from him the first time!  And that was when it happened.  The engine back fired, and there was a fireball two feet wide inside the motorhome with all of us and the dogs!  Tom was on fire, the mug was on fire, the chair, my purse, the engine, My God!!!

Tom ran out with the mug, I screamed at the kids and the dogs to "GET OUT!!!", who immediately froze and sat down because they had never heard that command and didn't want to go out as Tom had started a huge grass fire outside!!!  Yes, a huge grass fire outside with his mug of gas!!!!  I can't use enough exclamation points here, I'm sorry. 

People had immediately stopped and were kicking dirt on the ever growing grass fire while I was inside throwing things out that were on fire, hoping to save the motorhome.  Blessedly, one of the things that I threw out the door was one of those blankets I had insisted on packing that morning, and it was what Tom used to put out the grass fire.

Thomas, my oldest son, had not wanted to come with us in the first place really.  He is seventeen now and getting a little old for family vacations, especially when you add that he missed out on one of the parties of the summer and a day of work!  But, late the night before we left, I had finally given in and told him that he didn't have to go.  He had said that he had gone to bed that night saying he would see how he felt in the morning and then decide, and thank God he felt like coming, because he was the one who had run off with the gas can when the grass fire had started!  The three of us worked together like a well oiled machine to save the motorhome, the dogs and possibly our lives.

To be honest, I can't even really remember how we got the damn motorhome running again, but we made it to the campground where we were to meet up with my family.  The funny part is, is after all of that trouble, my husband being on fire, and almost being a demolition derby vehicle on I25, it was a pulled wire!  And even funnier, I'm afraid that wire might have been karma from when my red heads were younger.  This wire had been pulled when a mysterious little red head came to play on my wonderful day (sorry T, had to out you here, but better to face the horror now than in a decade, like I'm afraid happened with me-ha!). 

So, all is well that ends well, as they say.  I'll go back to an old purse, dang, I really liked that purse, and as for the blanket, well, it's a total loss.  But me, I faced the fire, head on as a matter of fact which is a big accomplishment; we had a fire in our house when I was a kid.  And although the whole way home I didn't think I could face getting straight to work when I got here, I did it.  I had guests to prepare for, who else was going to do it? As a matter of fact the everyday work of cleaning and cooking (last breakfast ever-yeah!) was quite therapeutic.

We are all much stronger than we give ourselves credit for, if we dig deep.  I mentioned that change was coming, and I can feel it in the air.  I have been quoted on another blog (more on that later), I faced the fire and won, had a wonderful book signing and even got a few hours in with family.  Today, I will work on grounding myself, as funny as it sounds, but I need to do it or I will fall apart.  Mother Earth and I will be working in the gardens today, reconnecting and revitalizing.

A work day poem

I didn't want to go to work,

My life was feeling a little too berserk.

Cleaning fire pits and picking up trash,

Can really be a big old pain in my ass.

But I really must go,

they aren't going to clean themselves, you know.

So I will make the best of it,

Because I am a tough little chit.

I grab my shovel and rake,

along with my pail I do take.

And there as I work a Stellar Jay flies by,

While a chipmunk is running up high.

A Gray Squirrel gets mad we are in her space,

And throws pine cones at Isabellas little face.

A chickadee is hopping down a nearby pine,

Gee, I am really glad this job is mine!

We finally met a moose...

 Not my photo, obviously, but too cool not to share!

We did not have the chance to give him a muffin.  Of course I am only joking, you know that I would never feed the wildlife.  It is a series of books that my Mom reads all of her grand kids!  He was just passing through, and did not even stop for a snack, but was here long enough for me to thank him, and wish him luck in his breeding endeavors in our neighborhood!

We had heard of him passing through the campground right before we got there yesterday afternoon to clean the fire pits.  I was broken hearted to hear we had missed him by minutes.  We did our work and headed home, where we got the message that another neighbor had seen him working his way down the valley.  There was still hope!!!

I kept my eye out the rest of the afternoon, but you know how it gets at dinner time and chore time.  I also snuck in a couple of hair cuts during that time too.  Whew, I am one busy gal-ha!  Anyway, after keeping my eye out the window for hours, I'm up finishing the chores and putting Marcel back in after a day of grazing when I hear Tom honking his way home from his turn at the campgrounds.

Isabella is yelling, "there's a moose in our yard", and sure enough, big as day, there he was.  Right in my yard.  Like I said, he just quickly passed right on through, no time to get the camera or we would have missed seeing his big bad self.  He was almost jet black, still had felt on his beautiful antlers and looked as if he knew how spectacular he was.

The great part of the story is that he must have spent the afternoon in the dark timber right near where that neighbor who called lives.  He chose to come out onto the road right in front of Isabella and Tom on their way home and just sort of walked in front of them until he got nervous when another car came by our house and then came here.  That gave them time to come and tell us, so that we could catch a glimpse of him as well.  Man I love living in the mountains!

Holy Holiday!

Wow!  This has been a very busy few days, and yes I know I say that all the time, but I've been on a book buzz!!!  It's been wonderful.  Amongst all of the other busy things that I always brag/complain about like the campgrounds and the critters and the kids and the B&B, we have had a wonderful fourth of July and my books are literally flying off the shelves, okay I don't have time to even get them out of the box onto a shelf.

It has been wonderful to hear from friends and family on Facebook and here on the blog.  We have also had people stopping by, just to pick one up.  The regular flow of traffic yesterday was downright funny.  The kids were laughing because usually the cars stopped on the road are because of Tom, but yesterday they were all stopping for books.  And of course, the one time it was a person I didn't know very well, we had a loose llama.  Oh well, at least she was an animal control officer in some county and was helpful in getting our errant llama back into his pasture.

As for our holiday celebrations, I had to laugh at the men.  I think they were really disappointed that the cops didn't come.  They were like a couple of kids.  They'd blow something off and then throw the evidence in the fire and hide the rest of the fireworks, and then wait a bit.  Darn, no sheriff deputies.  Blow off something a little bigger, follow previous steps, damnit, still no cops!  Good thing it was raining the whole time, or I might've gotten a little bit nervous with these two almost fifty year old kids!  

Poor Isabella had her seat for the fireworks from inside the motorhome where we all spent the night last night!  She thought it was safer to watch from the back window, wrapped up in a blanket with a dog or two in tow.  I say "poor Isabella" quite loosely, because she was in there shouting out which fireworks were to be next, and which fireworks were to be saved for today when her brother Nathan gets home.  She also had a stash of soda (!) and snacks in there, so I don't think she was suffering too much.

Also, I wanted to give you a quick update on my drowned hen; she is doing fantastically.  The morning that I took her back up to the barn, as soon as she got within sight of it, she started squawking.  The minute I got inside the fence I had to open the crate so that she wouldn't injure herself banging around in there and she came flying out and has been acting like a perfectly normal chicken since then.  I am assuming she will steer clear of the water trough from now on, but if not, I'm ready for her!

On Saturday, the adult sheep were shorn and that was a big deal for our little ranch as this is the first time for us with sheep.  I did take pictures, but left my camera case, which has the cord to download said pictures, at the farm that we went to to shear, so I think I will do an entirely separate post about this sheep shearing thing when I get it back.  Let me tell you, it was a learning experience, and it really has me thinking about my sheep breeding program...but more to come on that.

I wasn't exaggerating when I said I've been running, but I couldn't let this holiday weekend pass without popping in to say Happy 4th of July, even if I am a day late.  Actually, this is one of my favorite holidays of all.  There is no gift giving expectations, you can almost always find free things to do, and the patriotic spirit is at it's highest in all Americans-how wonderful!

I'm here, sorta...

I am feeling a tad bit neglectful of you, my dear readers.  Life seems to be going in a crazy circle.  I was hoping that the kids being out of school would calm things down, but not quite yet.  I am off to pick up the last of the recycling at all three schools, visit a sick llama who's owner needs an encouraging hand, and run back home to get to work on those campgrounds!  But, just know, that you have been on my mind, and I thought I'd leave you with a picture and a question.  Is my love of trees contagious or genetic?

A day late and a dollar short

 The Lone Dead Tree

I think that just may be my new motto, a day late and a dollar short.  No, I'm just kidding, but it is definitely true for the past couple of days and this post, sorry GSO readers!  As it is for many of you, it is the last few days of school around here, which means all sorts of picnics and graduations and field days and all kinds of fun stuff when you have three kids in three schools.  It is also the week we are preparing to open our campgrounds for the big Memorial weekend.  So, it was not a good thing when I went out to start my beloved truck yesterday on the way to three of these fun events and it would not start.

Let's say I am very thankful that I know a lot of people in this community and was comfortable just hopping in the truck with the Dad of one of Nate's friends and hoping I could find rides from there on out.  Which I did.  My friend Amanda took me from the middle school up to the elementary, a neighbor took me from there to the food pantry where I was needed to put some extra hours in, and my wonderful seventeen year old sons came and picked me up from there and delivered me back home last evening-WHEW!!!

Now, the trouble of the day really started when we headed off to work at the campgrounds (that's pretty bad after a day like that-ha!).  I have mentioned the forest mitigation project going on around our area before, and I have said that I am pretty much on the fence about it.  Mother Nature is unable to take care of things because we as humans have gotten in her way, so I was hoping that we as humans had gone in and fixed the problem.  Well, I'm pretty much off the fence now.  My campground, er, the campground that the company that I represent that represents the National Forest I mean, looks like s@%t.  Yup, I said it (sorta).

You know, I can get past the loss of the trees, as a matter of fact many of the stumps that we investigated were diseased in the middle.  I am actually surprised by the number of trees that were already dying in that forest, but had shown no outward sign.  A few of the odd things were the fact that they left some really dead trees standing, one that looked as if we could just knock it right over, hence the picture.  They are riddled with beetle holes and both were struck by lightning and have a ring from top to bottom.  We looked for nests or any other obvious reason for them to have been left, but could find none; odd.  Tom joked that it was because they had not been tagged so the workers hadn't taken them, and I'm afraid he's not too far off the mark. 

I must say that my biggest concern is wildfire.  Ironic isn't it?  They come in for fire mitigation and I think Tom and I have one hell of a campground season ahead of us to make sure our campers don't burn down our home.  I am now thinking our new motor-home may come in awful handy as we may have to move into that campground to keep the campers from dragging all of the mess that the fire crew has left just on the outskirts of the grounds, into the grounds to have their fires.  Campers tend to get their fires as big as they can, and as you can see from the pics, the wood crew has left a "tinder box" of  wood debris about a foot thick just to the west of my, I mean your, campgrounds waiting for a spark to escape into.  Directly in the direction of my ranch I might add.

Okay, okay, in about twenty to fifty years, after this mess is all cleaned up by campers and decomposed back into the soil, it will be beautiful.  Nicely thinned, and some wonderful green grassy meadow areas, hopefully the deer and elk will love it.  As we stood there debating this whole mess, and I do mean mess literally, we must have been quite engrossed in our conversation because this moose must have walked right past us.  As we were leaving we saw some cars at the entrance; when we stopped to see what they were doing they pointed her out to us!  Look closely, that is her back side in the trees there, laughing at us as she walks away...

Campground Training 501

I say "Campground Training 501" because this will be our fifth year to do the campgrounds, and the campground training.  The bummer this year, is that I have to go without Tom!  I'm sure I have mentioned our summer jobs of hosting two local National Forest Campgrounds before, (sorry, no time to look for links!), and we do appreciate the jobs and enjoy the campers, but I am not really looking forward to the hour and a half drive and the somewhat boring training session with no one to joke around with!

One of our campgrounds will have seen quite a change this year as it has been the epicenter of the logging efforts that are going on in our area.  Thankfully for me, these logging efforts are not in my view, but they will have affected our campers and I will imagine Tom and I will spend a good portion of our summer "splainin" to our campers what happened to their beloved forests.  It's a very tricky thing, keeping our forests healthy now that humans have gotten so involved and Mother Nature can't take care of them the way she should, like by burning them every now and then.  Now, to protect homes and to keep the forests healthy humans have to go and and clean them out.  Do I agree and enjoy seeing the huge logging trucks leaving my area with thousands of huge live trees on them?  No, not necessarily, but I do understand why they are doing it.

So, not only do I have three hours of drive time ahead of me, but I will be asking for extra hours to prepare our beautiful campground for the influx of campers we will see on opening weekend.  That is when the real fun will begin.  People have camped at these campgrounds for generations and have favorite spots, etc.  The really funny part is to see them interact with my husband, the main dude.  They all absolutely love him, and when they see his truck coming, you can see them start coming out to ask questions or to give him nuggets of information on the other campers-cracks me up every time!  Well, here is to the start of a successful camping season!