Rainy Days and Mondays

It has finally stopped raining here, and I can tend to the peanuts.

Turns out that those birds that Hooter brought us had a Coccidia infestation. They looked fine when he arrived with them, but when I found two of my adult birds dead, and then say the diarrhea of one of the surviving Hooter's, I knew what it was. Great! It is being taken care of with my one remaining bird. And the 6 adult birds that where given to us Saturday night by my B-I-L should be ok.

My three boys are indeed still in the public school system. I was going to homeschool, but it just didn't happen, for various reasons, as fast as I wanted it to. Small has a problem. He has had most of his vaccinations. I had waited until he was older to get them, rather getting them in those early early days. I don't have a problem with vaccines. I think they are handy, and I have indeed done all my research, and know all the pro's and cons. This was a personal decision for my family. I had thought he had received all the shots required for the Stat of Kansas for attending school, I was wrong. He is missing 3 shots. Ok, no problem I will get them. I headed over to the Health departments website to see how much they cost. 2 of the shots needed are $20 a piece (a little less actually). That's do-able. However the Chicken Pox vaccine which is now required, and 2 of them to boot, is almost $100. That I can't afford. So as of tomorrow, Small will be suspended from school because of his lack of one (and IMO, ridiculous) shot. I could spout religious reasons for not getting the vaccines, but that would be untrue, not to mention suspicious as he has all his other shots. I don't know yet if he will be allowed to go back to school this term after he gets the shot past the State's deadline. So I will be homeschooling just him. It is only Kindergarten after all. My mother called me and informed me that she found homeschooling books in my price range, a whole bunch cheaper than this one shot. Edit; I just spoke with the school nurse. I so LOVE small towns. She said that if I can't get the Health department to reduce the price, that she would find a way to come up with the money. I know this problem seems like nothing to many f you, but it is a big deal for me and mine.

Speaking of my mother, her husband (my stepfather) has just been diagnosed with something called Drift. (I think that's what she called it) It is super rare. You know those shin splints some people get? My stepfather is getting them, but on his spine. It is degenerative, and he will be in a wheel chair in the future. Don't know yet how soon, and there is nothing they can do about it.

Our propane dealer showed up the other day, and even though we have yet to pay off our bill from the beginning of the year, he went a head and gave us 250 gallons of the stuff. I thanked him and almost cried. We chatted a bit as the tank was filling. I told him that we are bringing in over $1,000 less per month than we were a year ago, and that's why we were having so many problems. For us, this amount of money loss is a huge deal. We have tried to make it up in different ways, but there has been some issues. It's been stressful. We spent our retirement money on the cattle, banking in them to replace some of the money, if not more or all. Now my husband has actually began talking about selling them. This is super hard on him. He has been yelling at me. He has never done that before. The stress of losing everything we have worked so hard for is catching up to him. And I am scared that our relationship won't make it through this. But I am trying. I realize that he is just venting at me, but it still hurts. And without me having an outside job, he finds it easier to jump on me. It isn't like I haven't tried to get an outside job. But they are not out there. Aircraft engineers are taking the fast food jobs, what chance have I with all the requirements a job must have for me to accept it. The biggest one is third shift. Blah! What am I doing? This wasn't what I was going to talk about. Apologise all around.

What I was going to say is, talk to me. Got something you ant to ask, need a recipe? Ask away.