We intended to stay there for only a handful of weeks, but due to a lot of things out of our control (and mostly in Fannie Mae’s lack-of-control) it took half of eternity to close on and move into our (fabulous) new house. But we did; one fine Saturday, while I was off playing with friends and bands (and bands who are friends) in Idaho, Geek Husband and Geek Brother-in-law moved everything into my new house. It was the perfect set-up: everything got moved in and I didn’t have to lift a finger.

But moving in and unpacking are two very different things, and I was left with the unpacking. Seriously, how did we acquire so much stuff? I thought I would never finish unpacking. But then, miraculously, I did. Kinda. There were still boxes to be unpacked in the soon-to-be-a-library bonus room (or FROG, for those in the know). But all the living areas were unpacked, organized, and livable.

Finally, things were settling down. Forget the herd of alpacas and two very large puppies we just added to our lives; never mind the new (fabulous, wonderful, amazing) editor job I just took at Month 9; ignore the fact that Geek Husband and I are positioning ourselves to launch a new business. Yes, all those things added more responsibility to my life and took away more of my time. But my house was finally in order so I was able to carve away time for writing – I thing I can’t seem to make myself do when I can see all that needs done around the house.

Hurray! It’d been way too long.

Then, this morning, this happened:

That wonderful black stuff all over the stairs, my intrepid readers, is glaze. More specifically it is the glaze I bought to finish of the old stereo cabinet I painted a fabulous shade of yellow just before we moved. It’s the glaze I have been looking for ever since we got into this house.

Baby Caveman found it before I did. And Baby Caveman has an obsession with trowing things down the stairs to watch them go boom. You do the math.

The good new is: we were planning on pulling the carpeting off the stair anyway. I want finished platforms with painted risers. And when we pull the stairway carpet, we’ll pull the carpet in the future library as well. Without carpeting in that room, we no longer have anything stopping us from constructing our built-in bookshelves and window seat. And while I’m at it, I better go ahead and paint all the surrounding walls, because I would hate to do so after finishing the stairs only to have a paint mishap while doing it.

Baby Caveman threw the canister of glaze that launched a total remodel.

Now I’m back to having a ton of things around the house pulling at my attention. And back to having said things fighting for my writing time. As I told the empty staircase, however, I wasn’t going to let it keep my completely from my writing. Because, let’s face it: when one starts talking to the stairs, it’s time for one to get to the computer and release the psychosis into a novel.

I started my rewrite of 99 Days of Laney McGuire last week, and I am determined to finish it (I considered joining Pam and Quita in their quest to have a new WIP – or in my case, a new version of an old WIP – completed by the end of May, but I also have some major edits for Month 9 this month, so that’s not a feasible goal). I find myself carving time out of the day whenever I can find it: between chores during Baby Caveman’s nap, in the wee hours of the morning before I have to trudge out to feed alpacas, late into the evening after even the cat’s stopped being annoying, in spare moments between tasks when making dinner . . .

Okay, that’s a lie. The cat’s never not annoying. But you get what I’m saying.

Life never really slows down. If anything, it gets busier and busier, despite the number of things you cross off your to-do list. There’s no waiting for it to calm down enough to write, because that day will never come. Search the time out, find it in the dark corners, and steal it away from lesser pursuits. That’s what I’m doing.

But I’ve got it back and am excited about my blog again, so YAY! To make up for missing so many letters in the A-Z Challenge, I am going to hit on all the letters today by filling out this fun alphabet meme I found. It’s from the YA Book Club group on Goodreads so it’s largely, though not entirely book-centric. Enjoy – and fill one out on your blog for me to read!

A Author you love? Oh man, there are SO many. I’ll only name authors who are still living and producing work so I don’t ramble forever. Here we go: Sarah Dessen, Jackson Pearce, John Green, Maureen Johnson, Stephanie Perkins, JK Rowling, Jessi Kirby, Aprilynne Pike, Ally Condie, the list goes on and on. Lots of love over here.

B Best Friend Geek Husband and Baby Caveman, natch.

C Can’t live without? My family. Don’t want to live without? Books, movies, camera, computer, cookie dough, sweet tea.

D Dream destination? So many. Mostly Russia and Cambodia.

E Embrassing Monment? It’s pretty hard to embarrass me, I won’t lie. There was this one time at drill team practice where I was yelling at the other girls about their boobs (unknowingly) in front of the really hot volleyball coach. It wasn’t terribly embarrassing, actually, but it’s the first thing that came to mind when I got to this one.

F Favorite Food? Sushi and ice cream and fruit smoothies. Not all together.

G Greatest Achievement? Having Baby Caveman.

H Hometown? Great Falls, Montana

I Innermost Fear? Failure.

J Just finished reading? Sweetly by Jackson Pearce. Well, actually a submission for work, but that doesn’t count.

k Kindle? Nope.

L Love to Read? Duh.

M Makes You Laugh? Almost everything. I really like dry humor, especially British humor.

N Nook? Love it, love it, LOVE IT!

O One Wish? That Baby Caveman will have all the happiness he wants and deserves in life.

P Pizza Topping? Pepperoni, sausage, and mushrooms. But only for thin crust.

Q Quote that describes you? “To me, the greatest act of courage is being the one who kisses first.” ~Janeane Garofalo (okay, maybe it doesn’t really DESCRIBE me . . . but I love it.)

R Reading Now? Destined by Aprilynne Pike. She mentioned at her signing last year that Illusions has a cliff-hanger ending, so I put off reading that one until earlier this week. I’m so glad I did, because if I read it right when it came out and then had to wait a year for this one, I would’ve gone crazy!

S Siblings? Okay, are you ready for this? I have one full-blood sister. I have three step-brothers. One of them is also my cousin. I have two step-sisters. They are also my cousins. And I have one adopted sister. She is also my cousin. And the half-sister to my step-brother and step-sisters. By blood, she is exactly as related to me as the other 3 are, but less related to them than they are to each other. Have I confused you yet?

Maybe I should have just said 7.

T Texted Last? Um . . . my mom, I think? Baby Caveman might have dropped my phone behind my headboard and I’ve yet to dig it out, so I can’t check for sure.

U Understands you best? Does that person exist? Sometimes I don’t even understand myself.

V Vanilla or Chocolate? Vanilla.

W Worst Habit Picking at my skin.

X X-rays you’ve have? Too many to count. I had one when I fell off the trampoline when I was ten and broke my humerus in two. They had to pin me back together, and – no joke – the reception on my grandma’s TV changed when I raised and lowered my arm. Then I had one on my wrist in 7th grade after I slipped and fell on the ice – just a sprain. One not too long after that when we discovered I had an extra bone in my foot. One when I broke my shoulder playing ultimate frisbee. One when I broke two bones in my foot at a table at work. A bajillion and a half on my shoulder (including one really long dye-injected x-ray (which involved a 9-inch needle)) when they were trying to figure out what the crap was wrong with me. And of course, a ton on my teeth throughout the years.

Probably I’ve forgotten a few.

Y Your Favorite book? Crime & Punishment, not that that’s a surprise to anyone here.

Z Zodiac Sign Taurus. I’m stubborn.

(All pictures link to Goodreads, so follow them over to check the books out!)

J is for Jackson Pearce!

K is for Kirby, Jessi Kirby!

L is for Lisa M Basso!

M is for Meadows – of the Jodi variety! (yes, I know it’s already out, but I’m still anticipating reading it)

N is for Nova Ren Suma! (again…it’s already out, and I’m just behind. Whatevs.)

O is for Oliver, Lauren!

P is for (aprilynne) Pike!

2. F is for Farming. ALPACAS!

Enough said.

3. G is for Gorgeous. The weather was SO nice today I actually had to go buy some summer clothes for Baby Caveman so he wouldn’t melt in his long pants. I know better than to get my hopes up that spring has finally completely hit Wyoming (it’s supposed to snow later this week), but it sure was nice to enjoy the sun today!

4. H is for Hunger Games. Geek Husband and I finally got out to see the movie last week, and I was so impressed with it. I’ll admit, when they first announced it, I was totally wary – not because I thought they would change the book, or the casting wouldn’t be what I imagined (um, the casting? spot on), but because I didn’t have much faith in the studio. Sorry, Lionsgate! It’s not you, it’s me…it’s just that your typical Lionsgate movie is so not my kind of movie and I was afraid they were going to turn The Hunger Games into a typical Lionsgate movie. They didn’t, and it was fan-freakin’-tastic.

5. I is for In The Woods. I recently finished reading this book, and I can’t even begin to describe how I can be simultaneously totally absorbed by a book and want to punch it in the face. This book irritated me to no end – I actually screamed in frustration twice – but I still want to read the next in the series. It’s been about four days and I can’t decide whether I loved it or hated it.

Okay, y’all, I can finally start to tell you why I’ve been so absentee lately. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve gotten hints at this already, but it’s finally becoming a reality:

Tomorrow afternoon I am having 23 alpacas delivered to my farm! We have been working like crazy to make this happen and I’ve been spending every bit of time I can find working on fences, researching, making sure paddocks are ready to go, and…

Training my two livestock guardian dogs puppies.

These are my new Turkish Kangal pups (Turkish what? you ask…don’t worry, you’re not the only one who has never heard of them. )

They are about 8 weeks old in that picture and already weigh 20-25 pounds each. The breed has been bred for thousands of years as shepherd’s dogs in Turkey, brought up to live among and protect flocks of sheep. These two guys will be living with the alpacas and put in charge of making sure no nefarious beastie gets at my livestock.

Turkish Kangals are one of the lesser known livestock guardian dog breeds (with the more popular ones being: Great Pyrenees, Maremma, Anatolian Shepherd [a cross-breed of a Kangal and an Akbash which somehow became registered as a pure-breed in America], Akbash, and Tibetan Mastiff). After a ton of research, I chose Kangals for four primary reasons:

1. They are very people-friendly. They bond not only to the livestock they are in charge of, but also to humans. They love human interaction and are eager to please. While they will growl and intimidate a stranger – who knows, the human might be trying to harm an alpaca – they are easy to socialize and will readily accept anyone who enters the pasture with their master.
2. They are a very docile dog. This is a great trait to have in a dog that can easily weigh 140-160 pounds full grown. Once they are taught who’s boss (which is why I’ve been gone training them so much), they defer to that human. But, they are not wimps; if a threat is posed to them, their humans, or their livestock charges, they go all Jekyll-Hyde and take that threat down immediately.
3. They are homebodies. A lot of the livestock guardian breeds have a tendency to wander – anything they can see is their territory to protect. This is why the leading cause of death for LDGs is not from predators. It’s from being hit by cars when they wander onto the highway. Kangals attach themselves to their area nearly as much as they do to their charges, so they are not prone to wandering. It’s important to me to 1) have a dog that will stay with the alpacas like it should, 2) not have my dog splattered on the highway, and 3) not have it try to protect the cattle of my crotchety neighbor who likes to shoot dogs when they go on his property (he’s not REAL close, since we have a bit of land, luckily).
4. They are FAST. This means is a predator does show up, they won’t have to chase it for far (like, onto mean neighbor’s land, or across the highway) before they catch – and kill – it.

And this is Raskolnikov (Rascal). He is 5 days older than Kiral and weighs 29.3 pounds. o_O

Okay, time for more pictures of the cuteness!

This is Kiral (it's Turkish for Supreme Chief). He's 9.5 weeks old (8 in the picture) and 26.1 pounds.

Which is really just my lame way to say: I FINALLY got out to see The Hunger Games movie tonight. I’ll say more later, but the gist is: I loved it, they did a great job, I’m tired and can’t think properly, m’kay bye-bye.

Remember back in the day (the one which I am too short on time to look for the post) when I gushed and gushed about how much I adored Moonglass, Jessi Kirby’s debut novel?

Well, her second title, In Honor, is coming out soon, and to celebrate, she’s holding the best giveaway EVER on her blog. She’s giving a Book Club in a Bag prize pack to one lucky book club. It includes:

• 10 hardcover copies of In Honor
• An annotated playlist
• Map of Honor & Rusty’s route
• Book discussion questions and special “Behind the Book” extras
• An author visit, either in person or by Skype, depending on location

All of that, contained (except for the actual author, of course) in a cute canvas bag.

Words cannot describe how badly I want to win this, you guys!

If you have a book club that loves to read contemporary YA, head to Jessi’s blog to enter the contest. (And if you don’t, enter it anyway, and if you win give it to ME I’ll make you an honorary member of my YA book club!)

Which means I’m taking part in the Blogging A-Z Challenge again. To learn more about the challenge (and sign up for yourself, if you want), click the banner below:

REPLICATION
Written by: Jill Williamson
eBook: 304 pages
Publisher: Zonderkidz
December 2011
Genre: Young Adult
How I Got the Book: NetGalley

(Synopsis from Zondervan.com)

When Your Life Is Not Your Own

Martyr—otherwise known as Jason 3:3—is one of hundreds of clones kept in a remote facility called Jason Farms. Told that he has been created to save humanity, Martyr has just one wish before he is scheduled to “expire” in less than a month. To see the sky.

Abby Goyer may have just moved to Alaska, but she has a feeling something strange is going on at the farm where her father works. But even this smart, confident girl could never have imagined what lies beneath a simple barn. Or what would happen when a mysterious boy shows up at her door, asking about the stars.

As the reality of the Jason Experiment comes to light, Martyr is caught between two futures—the one for which he was produced and the one Abby believes God created him to have. Time is running out, and Martyr must decide if a life with Abby is worth leaving everything he’s ever known.

Cover: This cover is nice and clean, not a lot going on. It’s eye catching and simple and does a good job giving an idea of what the book is about. That said, if I passed it in the store, I don’t know that I would pick it up to learn more. Not sure why. Who knows? Maybe I would.

The Book: Imagine human cloning had been (nearly) perfected. Now imagine you are one of those clones. You’ve been raised for 17+ years with one goal in mind: to die. You know your job is to live to be 18 and then expire, becoming one of many clones who died for the greater good of helping others survive in the toxic air of the world.

Now imagine you find out your whole life is a lie and the air isn’t toxic at all.

That’s Replication (The Jason Experiment). Sure, there’s a story about a girl and her moral high ground and blah, blah, blah, but really the story is about Martyr and his life being more than he ever imagined.

What I Loved: Jill Williamson did a great job creating the world of Jason Farms. Through Martyr’s first-person narration, we get a view of  how different things are for the clones. Martyr’s thoughts are like that of a small child. He is unaware of the outside world and the day-to-day things we take for granted. An early scene where he sees a vivid orange neck tie (which he calls a napkin because he has never seen a tie before) illustrates this perfectly.

As we follow Martyr, he learns more of the world and his narrative matures rapidly. The author did a great job growing the Martyr character as he experienced more of life.

The adventure was strong and I enjoyed the main plot of the book – it kept me glued to my nook until I was done.

What Needed Work: Abby Goyer. Oh my sigh. Her character drove me bat-shit insane. First there is her holier than though attitude. Now, I get that Zondervan is a Christian-focused publisher, so there will be religious themes and whatnot. I can handle that. But the Abby character seemed to be there to beat the other characters (and therefore the reader) over the head with her super-Christian beliefs. It was a good thing her narrative was interspersed with Martyr’s or I might have found myself at a good old-fashioned Bible burning just to escape her character.

And as long as I’m griping about Abby, let’s talk JD, the hot boy from school who’s interested in her. Maybe he’s only interested in her because she’s the new girl in a small town, but whatever. It’s not his interest I’m concerned with, but her response to it. She seems to HATE him and the fact that he’s interested. Sure, the further we get in the book, the more douchy he becomes, but at the beginning, Abby hates him for ZERO reason other than to hate him. As a reader it seemed to me that the author was trying so hard to not have her character fall for the cute boy that it just made for an (even more) annoying character.

Pretty much, I just wasn’t a huge fan of Abby.

Recommended For: Fans of sci-fi that isn’t too sci-fi-y (cause that makes sense, right?). If you don’t mind having a Christian agenda pushed at you, give it a read – it has a good plot and definitely raises some interesting questions. If you bristle at religious themes in novels, steer clear, because they are not subtle in this one.

I was thinking about that this morning and realized that isn’t so much the case anymore – I haven’t been put in a cast for a really really long time. I’m not a walking liability anymore. Yay!

But then I got thinking that I’m kinda a walking contradiction instead. Case in point:

• I love the ocean nearly as much as I love Baby Caveman and Geek Husband. I could live in the ocean (for serious, I once had – and still harbor – dreams of refurbishing and living on an old houseboat…basing at some marina, probably in the Carolinas, and traveling up and down the eastern seaboard when I got restless). Mass amounts of love for the ocean. I live in the mountains. In Wyoming.
• If I could, I would go barefoot every day, all day long. Yet, as I was putting my shoes away the other day I discovered that I own 47 pairs of shoes. I guess if I have to wear shoes I should at least have choices…
• Same deal with clothes, y’all. If it were socially acceptable, I would just go naked (maybe I should join a nudist colony…on the beach! Except I don’t want to see other people naked, necessarily), but I have a ton of clothes. I got rid of a whole bunch of stuff right before we moved, but it still felt like I was unpacking and hanging clothes for eons. Again, if forced, I want choices.
• I’m a writer. I don’t care for caffeine. Or chocolate.

2. I’ve missed blogging and being so in touch online. But at the same time, the break was nice. There is something kinda freeing about having to be away from the internet for a period of time. Remember back in the day when we weren’t constantly connected? Times were simpler then. Though, I’m forced to wonder if that was because we weren’t so technologically-minded or because I was just younger and more carefree.

3. Speaking of, one of my biggest pet peeves in the whole world? When someone applies causality to a situation where there is none. Just because there is a situation and then something happens does not mean that situation caused it to happen. Think things through, people!

4. I’m working on something SO SO SO SO SO exciting and also SO nothing to do with writing. As soon as things get rolling along (not too long now), I promise I’ll post about it – complete with FUN pictures.

5. I’ve missed writing. Like deep down to the center of my bones, pining like a teenager in love, missed it. You see, these last several months, we’ve been living in Geek Husband’s grandmother’s house (she was living elsewhere) biding our time until we could move in here. It was awesome to have a space of our own. But…well, it still had all of Geek Grandmother’s stuff in it, and it was impossible to baby-proof. And Baby Caveman? He’s a super active, super curious, whirlwind of a little boy. So basically my days for the past few months have been spent doing nothing but watching him. Don’t get my wrong: I adore playing with Baby Caveman (and watching him play when he would rather just play by himself), but I also have other things to get done during the day. Like writing. Oh man, oh man, oh man like writing. Now that I have a house that is set up and Baby Caveman-ready, I’m able to get down to business and write without constantly worrying that my son is going to destroy someone else’s stuff…or himself! Computer, I hope you’re ready, because you’re gonna be getting a lot of lovin’!

(Monday Massage will return next week with petrissage. It’s been a while…brush up by reading my first two MM posts…)

I’ll be back soon with more Monday Massage and other wonderful goodness.

Today we are talking about EFFLEURAGE.

Effleurage is a french word that means, essentially, to skim or to touch lightly. In massage therapy we open our massages, close our massages, and often transition between other strokes by using effleurage. It is used to spread cream or oil and to warm the tissue in order to prepare for deeper strokes. It is what I like to call the Jack of all trades of massage strokes; an entire massage could be given using nothing but effleurage*. It wouldn’t be the most dynamic of massages, but it could be done.

Alrighty, are you ready to learn? Grab your oil**, grab your partner, and let’s get rubbing.

Effleurage is performed with with relaxed, open-palmed hands. (Variations can be performed with knuckles, forearms, and only fingers, but we’re going for basics here.) Make sure you are contacting with your full hand – palm and fingers – uniformly. You don’t want excess pressure coming from any one spot. If you are finding uniform pressure to be difficult, err on the side of putting extra pressure on your fingers, as they lead the stroke.

Keep your strokes long and rhythmic (and get your minds out of the gutter, you little Dirties). Effleurage feels the best when it encompasses the entire length of the muscle. If you’re not an anatomy buff and therefore don’t know where muscles begin and end, just try to stroke the entire length joint-to-joint while working on arms and legs or as much of the back as you can in one stroke. Even better than that, once you get the hang of how to move around during a massage and can do so without making your strokes choppy, is to massage the entire length of a limb in a single stroke. And, yes, this means if you are working the back of the leg, you will massage all the way from the foot to the TOP of the butt. No being shy here, people. Just think of the butt as an extension of the leg. (Point of note: the back of the thigh and butt is the BEST place on the body to practice effleurage.)

Whenever possible keep contact with your massagee. Nothing makes a massage feel disjointed and awkward quite like a therapist whose hands keep leaving your body and then returning all willy-nilly. It’s easy to keep contact, so just do it, m’kay. But – and this is important – while you should keep contact always, only put strong pressure behind strokes that are directed toward the center of the body. On the return stroke you can just glide lightly on the skin. (This is for limbs…on the back, do whatever works best for you – generally using pressure for strokes going away from you and not so much on the return.)

Alright, kids. There’s a lot more that can be said for effleurage, but we’re going for basic here. This is enough for you to give a great massage to your Valentine tomorrow. Come back next week to learn about petrissage!

*This is assuming you are massaging skin-0n-skin. Effleurage is fantastic for a skin massage, but kinda fails hardcore if you are trying to massage through clothing.

**If you don’t have massage oil, lotion will work just fine. Or, if you are able to shower afterward, olive oil. It is fantastic for the skin and provides great lubrication. Just don’t go out without showing after because, while it doesn’t have a bad smell, it does have a very distinct one.

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

But I know it’s not practical for most of us to head to the massage therapist first thing on a Monday morning (or really much at all unfortunately), so I decided to help y’all out. Welcome to my newest blog feature:

Monday Massage

Each Monday I’ll be teaching you all a little something about massage. So grab a friend (or lover, no judgement here!) and warm your hands up. It’s time to get rubbing!

(For the record: I’m not just some crazy lady who likes touching people and stuff – I am actually a trained and nationally certified massage therapist. So while, like always, you shouldn’t take what I am saying as the gospel truth, I do actually know what I am talking about.)

Today we’re going to have a quick primer to Swedish Massage so you are ready for what’s coming in future weeks.

Swedish Massage is what you are thinking of when you are thinking of a basic, full-body massage. In fact, only English and Dutch-speaking countries recognize the term Swedish Massage; in other areas of the world it’s simply known as classic massage. So if you were hoping for something all exotic and Swedish, I’m sorry. But you need to learn the basics before you can get all fancy, right?

Right.

Swedish Massage has seven basic strokes (some sources will say four or five because certain strokes can be considered variations on others, but we are going with seven). They are:

• Effleurage (stroking)
• Petrissage (kneading)
• Friction (deep, often cross-fiber rubbing)
• Vibration (just what it sounds like )
• Gymnastics (range of motion work)
• Tapotement (percussion)
• Nerve Strokes (superficial stroking)

As you are learning, the strokes should be performed in the order I listed them to make sure you have properly prepped the tissue before digging in too deep. Once you have a bit of practice behind you and you feel more comfortable with the different strokes you are free to change things up a bit…though not too much – you should always start with Effleurage to sufficiently warm the tissue (and to spread the oil if you are using it).

(Need help remembering the order? Remember: Every Perfect Fool Vaults Gracefully To Nirvana!)

Okay, just like the first day of school, I have nothing cool for you to do this week. Next week we’ll jump into Effleurage (and talk about draping so you’re not letting your little massage-ee hang out in the wind), but for this week, just work on remembering the strokes so you don’t feel completely lost while reading future posts.

Oh, and grab some putty or a stress ball and get squeezing – those itty bitty hand muscles get tired fast if you don’t work them out!

(Any particular massage techniques you want to learn? Have any burning questions about massage therapy? Leave them in the comments and I will answer them in future posts!

Last month I read a book that set loose the dichotomy of emotions in me more than ever before.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is all at once beautiful and ugly. Funny and Heartbreaking. The story of Hazel and Augustus is one plagued by inevitable heartbreak, yet it is a love so fresh and new that one can’t help but to cheer them on. This book is a one-sitting kind of book; you’ll be loathe to set it down at all.

Go get this book, y’all. Read it. Love it. You won’t regret it.

Just be sure to have a box of tissues handy, because the laugh-to-cry ratio in The Fault in Our Stars is pretty much 50:50

(This is part of YA Highway’s Road Trip Wednesday, a weekly blog carnival where this week they are asking: What’s the best book you read in January?)

Bull plop.

I’m not even going to get into the idea of organic farming when it comes to non-use of pesticides and the such. (Okay, I lie. I will say: buying organic from a small local farm is fantastic, but giant farming operations have to use such large quantities of organic “pesticides” to have the same effect as a small (read: safe) amount of chemical pesticide that it is actually harder on the Earth, and possibly our bodies as well.)

What I am going to talk about it running an organic dairy. Even those who are huge proponents of organic milk will admit freely that there is no difference in the milk coming from an organic dairy when compared to a non-organic one. The difference comes in the treatment of animals.

So you see the fancy-pants organic badge on a carton of milk and you know the cows are being treated better, right?

Wrong.

Dairy cows are treated like kings.* (Or queens, as is more the case.) They are fed high-quality food, given wonderful places to live, helped to give birth (because, my goodness, cows would be extinct without farmers – they can hardly give birth on their own and when they do they do stupid things like stepping on their brand new calf), and generally coddled. Sometimes, they get sick. Sometimes, they get mastitis, which is a really nasty infection in the udders. And when that happens, the farmer gives them antibiotics (injected with a wide-nozzle syringe directly into the udder).

When a cow is on antibiotics, they are milked into a bucket instead of into the main holding tank like the non-medicated cows. The milk from the medicated cow is dumped out. It is not sold or consumed by anyone. (Lest you wonder why farmers still milk a sick cow, ask a nursing mother what it’s like when their kid decides not to eat for an abnormally long amount of time.) After the cow is better and the antibiotic is completely out of her system, she gets milked into the bulk tank just like the rest.

But an organic dairy cannot use antibiotics. So what happens when a cow gets mastitis? It still gets milked into a bucket and has its milk dumped. Why do that when there’s no antibiotic contamination? Because now there is not just milk going into the bucket but the blood that is coming out of the udder because the poor cow has an untreated infection. Not only is that cruel to the animal, but chances are she will also dry up and the farmer will lose that income.

How among you, if you had a painful, easily treatable infection, would turn away the (proven safe and effective) treatment and just hope it rides it course out? I prefer not to take any drugs, even legal medications. But you better believe if I got mastitis, I would be on a round of antibiotics. It’s not fair for those animals to be denied treatments and forced to suffer in pain in order to earn a shiny organic badge. It’s bad business sense at best and animal cruelty at worst.

Think about that next time you insist your milk be organic.

*I’m talking about family dairies here. I know that some scary things can happen at huge corporate ventures.

All I can say is, What the hell are these women thinking?!

Okay, I know that a wedding is primarily the woman’s show, but pre-planning without regard to your (future) man’s personality and style is just stupid. A wedding is not something you can plan to only your specifications and then slide into the program whatever man comes along to marry you.

Ladies, I know your future wedding is a big deal and you probably want things a certain way. Daydream away. But please, don’t actually plan anything until you have a man to plan with. 

Baby Caveman is one today
His party was last Saturday
Such a fun little boy
got all kinds of toys
And so all day long we’ll play

Jamie mentioned on her blog today that she’d read years ago about picking a word at the beginning of each year and making that word yours for the year. Of course, you should probably pick a word with some meaning behind it, because, well, if you don’t then the exercise is pretty pointless.

After reading Jamie’s post this morning, I sat and thought for a while (and chased Baby Caveman a lot, but that’s nothing new). And after tossing a few words around – and, I won’t lie, seriously considering using her word as well – I finally came across what will be my word for 2012:

Achieve

2012 will be the year I achieve. This doesn’t mean I expect to get all the things I want by the end of the year, nor do I expect that I will reach all my goals by then, because many of them are more long-term than that. But in 2012 I will keep my focus on achieving and make sure my daily actions reflect that.

Thanks for a wonderful idea, Jamie!

Welcome to the farm!

Geek Father-in-law was, in fact, not a geek at all. He was a farmer. His grandfather raised sheep here in Star Valley; his father raised sheep for a time, but eventually switched to dairy farming instead. Geek Father-in-law eventually bought the farm, and ran it until this past April. This summer and fall friends, neighbors, and family all pitched in to make sure cows were milked and the ground taken care of. Things did not slow down on the farm, even if Geek Father-in-law’s body slowed him down.

Now Geek Husband and I are in the valley, and we find ourselves as farmers. We are learning the ropes, figuring out how everything is supposed to work. Luckily Geek Husband grew up on the farm, so he knows the basics, and we have a great support system of people to help us get through the first few years until we know exactly what we’re doing. Even more lucky is the fact that we will be running the land, but will not be milking cows. I value my sanity too much to milk cows. We are also very fortunate that Geek Husband’s two brothers (one older and one younger), though they live far away, are able to come down and help out when it is needed.

Amid all this change and turmoil, Geek Husband and I are trying to buy a home. Right now we are living in his Grandmother’s home (she is with an aunt in Idaho for the winter), and we are incredibly fortunate to have a place of our own in the interim. Still, it’s not really a place of our own; we are living on a suitcase of clothes between the two of us, with a small additional one for Baby Caveman. We have no internet access. Geek Husband is still working as a computer programmer half-time; he works out of his parents’ den because he can’t connect at our place (luckily the two homes are close to each other). Our web design studio has been put on hold, because so much of what I need to do to launch it is internet-based. (Don’t worry to anyone who is waiting for a design – those are being done still, we’re just not taking on new projects at the moment.) Really I just want to be in our own house so we can be completely set up and back to a semi-normal life. And so I can baby-proof a home because Baby Caveman is in everything. For the love of commas, Fannie Mae (ugh, why does the house I love have to be owned by Fannie Mae?!) needs to get their ducks in a row already.

So, that is life for me now. I live in a beautiful place and I have a wonderful family. Is this where I thought I would be? Never in a million years. Many people romanticize farming (let me assure you that the reality is a lot of dirt and hard work, and while it’s a good honest living, it is not romantic), but I never did. Never, never, never (one more time: never) did I imagine I would be a farmer. But two nights ago, as I simultaneously nursed a baby and drove a tractor on the way to feed calves, I realized that’s exactly what I am now.

I am a farmer.