We don't have a lot of money, we live pretty much paycheck to paycheck and are not driving new cars or have a nice house by any means. We're on a shoestring. For a time last year three of our neighbors were on disability. One of them is a Vietnam vet and had been short-changed on his disability pay for thirty years-he came home stone deaf and worked his tail off supporting his family until a smart young lady figured out he had only been getting a fraction of his pay. He is generous with it now, still works hard and helps people out. Another neighbor was on post-traumatic disability from the Coast Guard. He voluntarily joined the Coast Guard, ended up helping to recover the body of a drowned person and got PTSD (he was on deck when they pulled the body up-he was actually the cook on the ship). He no longer worked at all, just lived on his disability. His disability pay was twice my husband's paycheck. He had a new truck, spent money like water, and spent all day drinking whiskey. Another neighbor is PTSD from the Gulf war... neither he or his wife work. He has a new big house, three large new vehicles, four new four-wheelers, and spends all day hunting and fishing all year long. This past spring he got busted for doing drugs and abusing his kids. I'm all for helping people out and I do when and what I can but good heavens, a working man trying to raise a family can only do so much with his share of the taxes. Our taxes were going up and so was all the disability pay they were getting. I would gladly pay more in taxes if I trusted the people spending it. I would gladly pull scads of money out of the system and use it to provide healthcare for everyone. I care more about health care for people than I do high pay checks for elected officials and fringe research studies and wasteful spending. But we can't get there from here. I also am starting to believe this country is too divided.

My son destroyed his thumb nail last winter-treatment was to wrap it loosely in DRY gauze and let it air out as much as possible. Don't use triple antibiotic/ointments/ect. It needs to dry out and scab over to prevent infection. DS might just have to learn to leave the bandaid on; it's the best thing for it. Agreed on the no peroxide-it is caustic to tissue.

I have been known to go sit in the car in the driveway and read...or listen to a book... or call DH or a friend... or just listen to music and maybe take a short nap. My son is loud too-we sometimes call him Foghorn! lol Love him to bits but my ears can only take so much. They sometimes call me from the house phone to my cell phone in the car to ask questions... it works well except for when it's really cold out. :)

It's basically sensible eating-very easy to follow if you can manage portions. Look at www.lowcarbfriends.com

Honestly, I think your anger and "seething" feeling is your frustration at your financial stress and powerless more so than anything that you can take up with this pony person. She is a perfect target for your anger, frustration and energy but it's not worth doing. She doesn't care-she's replaced you with this other family and has moved on. You're better off to spend the energy finding another situation and move on yourself without burning any bridges or indulging in a fuss. Take the high road and force yourself to move on instead of thrash around in this already-done situation.

Our evenings are busy. My kids are 14/11... DH gets home around 5 on a typical evening. He usually will come in the house and talk with me for a few minutes and then usually has some plan for the evening and sets off to work on it-fencing or moving cows or irrigation or any variety of things. He always has the kids help him with his projects-they learn a lot from him and he likes the company. DS14 is his right hand man-they do everything together and they both enjoy it. DD runs swing, between the house and outside. Late in the evening they do chores which takes about an hour and THEN we have dinner, which I've usually been cooking while all that is going on. I hang out with them outside or do what I want while they all keep busy. We have a very late dinner which is a pain for me but I can't get anyone to eat earlier and get it over with. On a slow night we might have an earlier meal then DH will play some xbox with DD14 or we'll all watch TV or mill around. We don't have a routine at all and DH and I usually only have a few minutes that we talk one on one in the evenings, when he first gets home.

I'd remind her of the devastation she could cause with her children. I think the kids are probably the only thing that will make her stop and think if she's already gone this far.

Our water system was derived from the $1000 plan at http://homepower.com/basics/hotwater/ but even more simple. We had a ton of black plastic irrigation pipe (approximately 100 feet? maybe more?) so we just plumbed it into the water system-it's like having the hot water holding tank and solar heater all in one. Basically if you think of the hot water in your garden hose after it's been out in the sun? We plumbed that into our hot water system. DH handled the plumbing work and could explain it in more detail if I asked him. Note I didn't say it was an ATTRACTIVE water system. But it works really well. We had bought the pipe at an auction so I'm not sure how much that would cost new but the rest of the supplies were about $20-30 I think?

You can make anything in that! Chicken and dumplings, stews, soups, roasts, lasagna, blueberry buckle, chocolate cake, pineapple upside down cake, endless possibilities! Enjoy it!

Mrs. Lastname.

He looks like he's mixed with something else-is he a purebred?

Aw she's beautiful! I miss having a baby kitteh-ours are three years old already!

Just to contradict myself (Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. Walt Whitman) I have a horse trainer friend that works with this rescue a lot-they seem to be a reliable, not overly invasive, responsible rescue. Just to give you some dogs to look at and think about the possibilities! http://www.herdofwy.com/availabledogs.html

If you look into PET or COMPANION lines with an Aussie you should be fine. They are breeding lines of them for agility and companionship and they are a different dog than the working lines. My Aussie was a mix of both but took after the companion lines and she's not a high energy dog by any means. I like heelers too but I haven't wanted to deal with the heeling aspect with kids/livestock around-they don't all do it and it's in differing degrees but I've just tended to avoid. They're great protectors and loyal dogs though-we call them "truck dogs" around here b/c if you leave one in your truck nobody will ever be able to break into it!

I must spend too much time camping-it doesn't bother me at all to fish the moth out and keep going. My grandma always says "He won't eat much!" lol

Absolutely I would adopt from our shelters-in fact I decided my next one will be just to balance out my karma after daring to raise puppies! :D I like to raise a pup-you can get a good older dog but puppies are hard-wired to try to fit in with their surroundings and you get a good jump on training and socialization. Plus they're fun and cute. :) I have a lot of dog experience and feel confident in recognizing breeds mixed with breeds and behaviors and predicting an outcome. If you feel like you can do that or have a resource to help you (like a trainer, vet person or knowledgable friend, not the shelter employees) I would definitely start at the shelter. I am leery of rescues after having seen and experienced some real stinkers so I can't recommend a rescue too much. Proceed with caution there. I think you should read all these posts, think of what you want in a dog and picture this dog in your life. Is he jogging five miles with DH in the morning or is he sleeping on the couch all day? Is he going camping and guarding the porch, playing fetch, or is he a little guy that gets carried around a lot? Long hair on the couch or sleek short hair? High energy/low energy, size, dogginess or no. Some dogs are farting drooling shedding machines-is that cute to you or something to avoid? lol Do you want to put in a lot of training time or do you want a dog that easily blends? There are ways to stack the deck in your favor and pick the right dog but do it before you go looking and fall for a sad story and a cute face! I would miss the mountains if we moved away-we spend all summer in them with the dogs, kids and horses!

My pound dog was three months old when I got her-she was the last pick of 11 puppies born in the shelter! She was raised outside at the shelter and they spayed her when she was six weeks old. For some reason, maybe one of those, she has been our worst to housebreak and will still sneak off occasionally into a back room in the middle of the night. The rest of them have been very easy though and honestly it seems like when they reach a developmental stage at around 10 weeks old they just do it themselves. I have older dogs to teach the youngers though. I raised the aussie and the younger BMC myself, got the older BMC at 7 weeks old and the GP and pound dog were three months old when I got them. I think I figured out how to attach thumbnails, let's hope.

I'm not a prepper either, more of a throwback! :D All I prep for is not having a lot of money and that's been happening for a long time. We like doing for ourselves with our food though. We did a very simple solar hot water system-it's not good through the winter here at -30 temps so we disconnect it but for half the year it supplements the system so we use about a third of the gas for the water heater that we do in the winter. It's basically black irrigation pipe plumbed in to the water heater-so the sun is preheating the water and so the water heater doesn't kick on. This winter we hope to plumb in the water jacket on the cook stove to be our winter hot water supply.

We've had very similar dogs! I got lucky with our Aussie; she was a puppy the year we had to move away from our ranch and she ended up having not a bit of "work" in her. Her father was a driven cow dog and he would have gone crazy without cows but she couldn't care less. Our GP came from a breeder that also had a Akbash and I have wondered if he had a whiff of that in him too but as he's grown up I don't think so. He's a good family dog by day but a coyote killer at night. :)

I have five right now. The best family dog is probably the Aussie, Carbon. She's out of working and pet lines and she took after the pet/companion lines. She doesn't have any work in her but she is the sweetest, smartest, most loyal and protective little dog. She adores the kids and the highlight of her day is when she gets to wake them up in the morning. She just sits and looks at us as if she just can't believe how lucky she is to be our dog. :001_smile: I also have two Blackmouth Curs and they're great family dogs, very similar to a lab without any of the health problems and slightly more protective, they're a great all around dog. Active when you want to be and quiet when you don't. They're smart, sweet, athletic and with a fun goofy personality that keeps us laughing. We have a Great Pyrenees and he's another favorite, sweet and gentle with the family and protective of the property all night long. He's mainly here to protect us from the coyotes and skunks in the chicken coop but he's a loving sweet beautiful big family dog. Devoted to us-but big and loud so probably not the dog for everyone! Last and not least, I have a 12 year old pound puppy, probably an Aussie/Golden cross with maybe some GSD or heeler mixed in. She's my dog, loyal to me no matter what though she has been very protective of the kids. She once bit an adult neighbor during a particularily exciting chase during a game of tag when she thought the neighbor was inappropriately chasing my screaming flailing young son! LOL That was the worst thing she ever did, for twelve years she's been under the radar just being a good dog and keeping track of me. I dread losing her.

Ask at the butcher shops for tallow-or pig fat, I use that to render lard. I'd like to learn more about tanning hides and spinning wool. ETA not thinking clearly when I first wrote this, I meant to say more clearly at the processor-the guy that actually does the slaughtering. Those fats are often trimmed off immediately and thrown away. I get ours from a small local animal processor.

Mac n cheese or nachos... DH hates them both and the rest of us love them!

Dinner leftovers here too.

Oh gads I'd so much rather be here surrounded by farmers and ranchers and people with their own gardens and chickens and experience in living in the country. Most of my inlaws and neighbors have machinery and equipment that are now antiques decorating their yards/kitchens but could easily be put back to work. And they know how to use them; know how to work together. They have large stores of food and fuel b/c we live so far from town, we don't just go to the store for things. If our power went out now for a month we would be fine except for the computer withdrawals. Remember Katrina? Not everyone got what they needed then...

It's a little goofy thing that my husband made, modeled after a gadget that my MIL got in the 70's. All I remember about it is that it's small and round and in the cellar... I'll get more details. :)