Incompetance

Do you ever go somewhere for an appointment or to get something done and wonder how the hell they get anything accomplished?

I do. I have run into two situations where everything would have been so much better if the people who worked there just did their jobs and used a little of their brain power.

The first has been going on for a few years. I needed to change family doctors and gave the cardiologists office the information. Well, for some reason the staff there don't like to send anything like reports to my family doctor. He has treated me for more than three years now and still only receives information if the report is sent to another doctor who very kindly forwards the information on. I have even this mentioned to my cardiologist and he says he'll tell the girls to send it. But nothing happens.

I have since started shopping around for another heart doctor.

*****

Now my family doctor is really nice and has always made sure my prescriptions are up to date. When I call the drug store and one of them has no repeats, he has been very good about refilling them when the drug store faxes them.

Then, about three months ago, something changed. A prescription wasn't filled. I called the drug store on it and they had faxed the request three times by then. I called the doctor's office and they said they never received it. This boggles the mind as they filled the other script that was faxed the same day. When I pointed that out they said it was never received.

Now this week, I needed my blood pressure medication and another med refilled. I called the drug store with one week to spare. Went to pick it up yesterday as I was out and it wasn't ready. The drug store only heard back about one script again. So they re-faxed and I called the doctor's office and was put through to the lady that handles that stuff. She told me that they only received the one request. I said I didn't understand that when the drug store had record of them both being sent. She just said again, we DIDN'T receive that one, only this one that was faxed right now. She also said the doctor isn't in on Friday and they don't refill prescriptions on Fridays, anyway, so I would have to wait until Monday and CALL BACK!!!!

This is blood pressure medication!!!! WTF.

Anyway the druggist was kind enough to advance three tablets to get me through till Monday.

There is something wrong with the staff there. This is not the first time we have had issues such as this. Another time, my husband had a specialist appointment that needed to be changed. The receptionist told him it was his job to call them and change it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???????????

My hubby is not a doctor-going kind of person, so for me to get him there was a feat in itself. Then to have this idiot give him the wrong info. He didn't know that the patient can't call a SPECIALIST and have the appointment changed. Otherwise everybody and their brother would be calling them. It has to come from the doctor's office.

Anyway that's enough for today. My blood pressure is going up.

What's new with me you ask?

WELL, I now have Ruth Buzzi socks.

Anyone who remembers the sixties would remember Laugh In and Ruth Buzzi was a comedian who did a little old lady with her knee-high stockings pooled around her ankles. This is her as Gladys and she was hysterical in the role. She always protected her virtue.

Anyway, I have been retaining fluids like crazy and it all collects in my legs especially the right one. My doctor told me I should have these special stockings and even though I had a fitting done, I put off getting them for a long time. Finally I couldn't take it any more. When I took my shoes off at night I would have normal feel and elephant legs. My right leg was not looking good and as I also have an eczema of sorts on the back of that leg the swelling is very bad for it.

So I picked up the stockings before work the other day and wore them for my shift. They were uncomfortable because they are so tight and I don't like wearing any thing on my legs and feet in the summer anyway.

Well . . . . when I got home that night my legs weren't as tired as they normally are. So I tried them the next day too. Same results only better as I put them on first thing in the morning. That seems to help a lot. I wore them the next day and again it felt good. I decided to go a day without them to see if if it was all in my mind or if they really do help. Yeah, I know . . .stupid, but as I said, I don't like having my legs and feet covered in the summer. I get too warm.

Well, by last evening I had elephant legs again and they were sore and tired. So I am sitting here typing right now with my Buzzi's on and they will stay on until I am home for the evening. I probably should keep them on until bed time but it feels good to take them off a little early.

- - - - - - - - - -

What else?

Oh yeah! When I was about twelve years old, I think, I fell and broke my two front teeth. I had to have root canal done and then crowns put on. So that's like, FORTY SIX years ago!
How can the tooth be hurting? It has no nerves in it! It has a fake tooth on it!

At the beginning on the month it started to hurt and got to the point where if I even had my lip touching the tooth it was excruciating. When I accidentally hit it while eating or something I thought I'd go through the roof it hurt so bad. Okay that was on a weekend.

I ask, on Monday, to see the dentist and get an appt for first thing Tuesday. Of course the tooth has quieted down now but he takes xrays anyway. There MAY be a small bit of infection at the root tip, so I get a prescription for these antibiotics that smell like dead socks and leave a taste in your mouth like something has died.

Sorry, but they do!!!

Oh and they make an appt. with a specialist. Saw him yesterday and he says he would prefer to root canal it again but feels I would probably loose the tooth. NOT AN OPTION, as I smile a lot and I can NOT stand having a hole in that smile. So he is going to do surgery on the tooth. (its the one on the top, just left of centre in my photo)

Merely freeze the area, (feels like needles in the eyes) lift the gum up, go through the bone to get to the root tip and do some work there.

September first is only 41 days away! ! ! ! ! !

Can't wait!!!

Surprise ! ! ! !

(pictures are NOT mine)
Got the idea I wanted some sheep. For meat and maybe for wool, but meat first. We had, as I said a little over 2.5 acres and it was all fenced so I thought they would work out pretty good.

Anyway, I did some research (this was before the internet, BTW) and found a local farmer that would sell me a couple of sheep. The first ones I got were two Dorset ewes and a ram.(picture 1) I used to have them out in the 'yard' when I was out there. They did their thing, I did mine. All in all it worked pretty good. Since they were working so well, I made some more calls and found a place that would sell me two Suffolk ewes. (picture 3) They were both in lamb so we loaded them up and brought them home.

Got them off the truck and put in the barn and IMMEDIATELY one of them starts to crouch. Now, I have never had sheep before, but I HAVE delivered puppies and I recognize an impending birth when I see it. This poor ewe has just met me, sheep are skittish anyway, and she is a first time Mom. So needless to say I didn't expect it to be easy. Turned out she not only knew what to do (Mother Nature and all) but that she seemed to know immediately that I was no threat and didn't mind me helping her and touching her lambs. Yup, you read it right. She had twins, a boy and a girl. I was SO thrilled it was beyond imagining. To see these little things come out and be standing within minutes and then nursing almost right away.

I would love to experience farm life every single day to just have that happen once a year. Just amazing. The other ewe had her single lamb the following week. She had a female as well. Farm wise, the females of anything are the valuable ones as they are where the next generations come from. You only need one male for every 20 to 30 ewes, so most of the males are castrated and grown for meat. I also had one Dorset male lamb born, (picture 4) about three weeks later. Now I had the Suffolks castrated but the Dorset male wasn't around at the time of the 'visit' so he didn't get done. The guy that did the job for me said that I didn't have to worry as he would be gone before he was old enough to breed. We got the tails done as well, they can get very dirty under there especially the lambs, and it is a safer practice with the way farm life is.


Now, you remember my friend from up the road that brought me Daisy, the goat? Well, I'd had the sheep for a few weeks he shows up one day and says he got me a birthday present. He opens the back of his truck and there stands this rather homely looking, old Suffolk ewe. Well, I didn't need another pet, but he knew I was a sucker for these animals that needed a nice home to live in. That's how I got Dolly. I put her in with my other sheep and she fit in but was always a little fonder of me than she was of the other sheep.

Circumstances changed over the summer and I had to get rid of my sheep. The ram went first, then the ewes and lambs a few months or so later. I hated it and knew I couldn't sell Dolly as she was not really good for meat or wool or anything and I didn't want to part with ALL my herd. (I had 5 adults and four lambs, plus Dolly). So I kept her and used the little a-frame shed that I had used to house the turkeys in for her house for the winter. She would stay in there and when the nights got colder I'd close the door up to keep her safe. She was fine through the winter and I started talking to her everyday as I did with all my animals. It relaxes them and it gives you someone to bounce ideas off of.


Anyway, this one morning I go out to open her door and let her out to graze. She didn't come out right away, and the first thought was that she had maybe died or was sick. Then she showed herself, made this different kind of sound that they make in their throats and a little female lamb followed her out. I was never so happy as when I saw that. She was so proud of herself. I counted back and it turned out the father of her lamb was my little five month old Dorset male that I had never had castrated. We know it was him as the ram had been gone too long to be the father. I enjoyed having the two of them follow me around the rest of that year.

By the way, Dolly and her baby ended up going to a petting zoo. As I said, something came up that I got rid of a lot of my farm animals. Never again will I do that for ANYbody.

I loved most of my time on that farm. And I miss it terribly.

Other Pets

Again, when I was living in the country, I had this friend up the road who used to like to go to the livestock auctions. You can usually get young pigs or lambs or chickens to grow up to butcher weight.

Well, one day he comes down to my house and says "I've got something for you." Knowing him the way I did, I wasn't sure what to expect. He opens the back of his truck and he has a Saanen goat. A female, full grown. I didn't know what I was going to do with her, but she bleeted at me and it was love.

So we off load her and she immediately starts to follow me around. I can see she can't walk well, (I suspected arthritis) but I don't care. She was quite tall, enough so, that I could pet her without having to even bend down. Well, she adopted me. I called her Daisy and I really enjoyed knowing her. I used to give her a quarter of an aspirin with her food every day to help her joints and she would get up on the back porch and wait in the sun for me to come outside. If I went anywhere during the day she would be so glad to see me when I came home. She'd come hobbling over as fast as she could and softly butt me with her head.

Saanens are the white goats with a beard, and yes even the females have a small one. I had her for probably three more years but in the end I had to take her to be butchered as she was in such pain. The aspirin wasn't helping her anymore and there was nothing the vet could do that wouldn't cost an absolute fortune. I couldn't afford to have her put down and disposed of by the vet and I regret that immensely. I would get another one in a heartbeat if I ever had country land again.

Next time: Dolly the wonder sheep

Bees part two

I mentioned how there is a certain noise the bees make on a good or a bad day. As I had said, the beekeeper told us we'd know the sound for 'do not disturb' when we heard it.

Well this one particular day we sure heard it. We had come home one day to find a hive had swarmed. We didn't lose the swarm as my hubby had clipped the queen's wings. That meant she could still function but couldn't fly. So most of the bees had made the decision to leave and took off out the front of the hive. Except the queen just sort of tumbled out the front and eventually all the swarm gathered around her.

Great!!! So we got a box and scraped the bees, carefully, into it. Then we closed it up and got another set of supers ready to put the bees into, blocked the door and voila another hive of bees. A swarm is very docile, because as previously stated, they have no home to protect.

What they DIDN'T tell us was that the bees left behind are not a happy hive. They are in a bit of disarray as they have lost their queen and a new one hasn't hatched yet. (They have started to make a few queens in anticipation of the swarming. If one queen hatches first she will kill the other queens in their nests and go off to mate. If two hatch at the same time they will fight to the death.) Anyway, we wanted to check to make sure there were queen cells for the old hive. Otherwise we would have to buy a queen.

My hubby put the bee hat on but didn't feel he needed the rest of the suit as it was such a nice day and perfect to look in the hive. Right??!!
WRONG!!! He starts to remove the lid and this noise starts up. I FROZE! SCARED TO DEATH! DIDN'T MOVE.

Unfortunately my hubby was the one lifting the top and he was moving, only slightly, but moving none the less. One, brave little bee stung him in the thigh. He flinched and swung at the bee and that was all it took. Bees react to movement and the arm swinging told them where to go. They poured out the top and went after him. I was still frozen. He took off and the made for the house. He took two laps around it before he was able to get inside.

I was still standing there and totally afraid to move, but I knew I had to see if he was okay. I very S L O W L Y inched away from the hive and caught up to him in the bathroom where there were bees still flying around him. They were all without stingers by now so no threat to me. I managed to get the stingers out by SCRAPING. (DO NOT try to pick them with your fingers as you will squeeze more venom in. Scrape the stinger out.)

He was pretty sore for a while, but he did put his suit on and go right back out and make sure the hive was okay. They were, and they had a queen when we checked them a couple of weeks later. We got a lot of honey that year and next time I'll tell you about the honey gathering and extracting.

TidBit: Bees can only sting once. They DO NOT BITE. When they get you the stinger stays in you and pulls out of them along with the muscles that keep pumping venom into the victim. They will die, but not right away. Another part of their defence is that they remain alive long enough to continue buzzing around the thing that is annoying them and being attacked. The stinger also exudes a pheromone that lets the other bees know where and what to attack.

Not bad for something that you'll need 2,086 of to make a pound!!

Bees

When we lived in the country we had six hives on our property, one owned by my brother and the other five owned by us. It was an interesting hobby and one I dearly miss now. We read a lot about what to do and we bought all the materials to make the supers (the sections of the hives that contain the combs). We decided they didn't need to be white and boring so we painted them a very pale green and then painted vines and flowers on the side in such a way that no matter which super you used the vines would line up and look like they were climbing the hive. I also painted a bee somewhere on each super. The trick was to find it.

When we received our first order of bees they came in tubes of about 4,000 to 6,000 bees with a queen and a few workers in a cage. The object was that you place the queen cage in a new hive between some of the frames (what they build the combs on). You then poured the tube of bees out into the hive and placed the lid on top. This was done in the morning and a bowl of sugar water was placed in the hive. The hive door was sealed with a small bit of grass or paper. The object was that the bees will eat the little wax stopper out of the queen cage releasing her into the hive. Once her scent is through the hive and they have fed a little they start working on clearing the door. This takes a day or two and they have now taken over the hive as their new home.

All pretty amazing really. Also the bees are quite docile while being installed as they don't have a 'home' to protect. Once they are established its a bit of a different story. Although, as long as you move slowly and its a nice sunny day, when they are busy working and therefore happy, you can go into the hive and do the chores. During these times when you remove the lid to the hive, after smoking them of course, there is a nice sounding hum issuing forth. If its a cloudy or cold day though, the sound can take on a roar. We had an experienced bee keeper tell us that you'll recognize the sound the second you hear it. And there was a time when I heard that sound and absolutely froze. My hubby didn't.

but that's a story for another day. :-)

Wow, my scarves are getting around

One of my fancy scarves made it out on a date!!! I am hoping to start selling these. They are quite fancy and come in several colours and can be made to order (within reason). I'll have better pictures once Miss Emme Rogers sends some to me.

I am asking $75.00 to start and they are on average three to four feet long and quite fluffy and glamorous. Think feather boa. You pay shipping costs. If I have the colour in stock they leave here on Monday's, other wise there is a two week turnaround time. Fell free to write and ask me questions.

The picture at left shows some of them before they were all sold. Sorry the picture isn't more detailed. I didn't think to make a close up of each scarf, but I will when some more are done.

Maybe you can be the second person in VanCity to own one of these gorgeous scarves???!!!!

Writing Void

Its going to be difficult, I think, coming up with things to write about now that one of my stars has left. I may change the flow of this a little by maybe adding some more of my life outside the store. Haven't decided yet. Let me know what you think.

I love hearing from followers of the blog and wouldn't mind too much if you wanted to sign up as a follower. There is a spot to the right of the postings.


Couldn't bring myself to go into the store last week on my day off, as I'm there so much anyway. So I went to the 'enemy over the highway' and checked out cereal. Now, I don't like this store at he best of times because they are too friggin big and don't really have that great of a selection. Oh, it looks impressive and all, but for example you go in there looking for peanut butter and they have lots of their own and maybe two small sizes in a name brand. Well, I want the big size as its more reasonable. I have found this in the case of most of the items I have looked for when I go there.

And speaking of reasonable, their cereal was 50 cents more and the whipping cream 30 cents more. Now they are a bigger set of stores than we are, but their prices are higher. I bought the stuff, (Stupid) because, as I said, I just didn't feel like going to my store. I wish I had.

By the way, neither our cheaper store chain nor theirs, carried the cereal that I wanted. Aggravating, really.

More farm stories

I've said previously how I had a small hobby farm and would love to do that again. I loved having chickens and this is the time of the year when it is the hardest for me. The new catalogue comes out and there are the old stand by breeds but sometimes some new ones are available.

This is when the new chicks would be ordered and the plans would start to be made for where they would go and how many of what kind. Also had to decide whether to get turkeys.

Anyway, what started this for me was having a shed type building and figuring out that I could make it into a chicken coop. We did the required fencing etc and bought a few chickens from someone that bred several varieties for show. My favourite was a beautiful Buff Orpington (pictured above) hen that was the colour of gold and oh so full feathered. She had a different personality than the other hens. She was like a puppy in that she followed me around, came when I called, and would let me pick her up any time I wanted. She didn't have a mean bone in her body.

She wanted to go broody (meaning she wanted to hatch some eggs) but didn’t have any available at the time. I had just bought 27 day-old meat chicks and brought then home and stepped out of the car with this box of little peeping fluff balls.


When hens go broody they make these particular noises that you have to hear to understand. They also sit in the nest box in a sort of daze waiting for the eggs to hatch. They shuffle around sometimes to turn the eggs and leave the box once or twice a day to relieve themselves and to grab something to eat.

I wondered what my Buff would think. I waited until evening-ish and tucked a couple under her. She made all the right noises so I gave her all of them. She fluffed out and had every single one under her. If she could have purred she would have. I remember lifting her chest off the ground slightly the first morning and seeing all those little feet. She raised them all up and it was so funny, because within three days they all didn’t fit.

Meat chicks grow very fast. It takes only 8 weeks before you can have a three pound dressed weight bird. So these didn't fit under her long. The chicks learned to follow her around. They thought she was Mom. I had done enough reading to know some of how this all works. I knew that the chicks would bond with whatever looked after them. I also knew that a hen will consider them hers if they first start out under her. She recognizes their voices as they do hers. (Chickens are neat in that if they have a mom to get attached to they will, but if they have to manage on their own they can as well.)

A few years later I had several hens with babies and they would be wandering around the yard with the chicks co-mingling. As the hen moved off though, the appropriate babies all went off with the correct hens. If a 'stranger' wandered too close the offending chick would get a subtle ding on top of his head saying "you're not mine, go home to your own mom."


Sometimes a hawk would fly over and the hen would sound the alarm. The chicks would scatter to the four corners so fast and then freeze. I think the idea was that one may be lost but a predator can't grab them all if they are spread apart.


But there is nothing so much fun for me as watching a hen with her chicks when she finds them a treat. They all come running and grab whatever she found for them. And then look at her like isn't she wonderful?!