Prodical Blogger Returneth

And I'm back!

Did you miss me? I sure missed you. I had trouble concentrating, couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, couldn't compose operas. One day I even picked up the phone to call you but was afraid some other new blogger you were following would answer. How awkward would that have been? Breaking up-even temporarily-is hard to do. So glad we're back together.

But still..What a fabulous blog-cation. I am refreshed and recycled. Good as new. While I resisted the urge to blog and to read other blogs I did play around with the looks and layout of my blog. I even added pages at the top and dropped in several hundred different backgrounds before deciding on ...green.

And my novel? The whole reason for taking time off from blogging? It is done and query letters are on their way to prospective agents. What have I done?!?! Want to follow along with that drama? Check out my writing specific blog over there...to your right.

                                                             

Subtle Hint

I highly recommend the same type of vacation for all of you. Not that your blogs are stale or anything but mine sure was, worse than day old donuts out of a dumpster.

I should know. I've had my share.

So what else did I do with this time off?  In addition to my novel, and the O'Shaughnessy Writes blog I started TWO more blogs. Some women crochet, cook or run for office. I like to blog. The others are about my family genealogy and about material belongings. Both will serve as foundations for two other books I will self publish for my kids. I'll make them public later on. Since Blogger is still free, seemed like a great place to dump a large amount of data and photographs.

And just makes it that much easier for our government to snoop into my personal life. Because you know how interesting I am to them.

So how about some farm updates you ask ? There have been a few. They are in order of frustration.

1. Farm Sale. Our interested party is no longer interested. Yes, after four long months of conversations, financial sharing, employee training and business projections...he decided it was best for him not to invest in a farm at this time. We found out last week. BUT...from ashes come...dirty hair or something like that. Anyway another couple is interested and working to secure financing.
We remain hopeful. We're idiots that way.

2. January was a terrible month weather wise. The extreme cold proved too much for three of our older calves and we lost all of them in one night even though they had good bedding and adequate housing, At 5 months of age you don't expect such sudden deaths but then again this has been our worst winter in decades. We also lost a few piglets and a couple chickens. The farmers themselves, outside of several falls on the ice...persevere.

3. We discontinued our wholesale agreements with the four grocery stores we served. After 5 years of deliveries and meat juggling (do we sell the burger to Chicago ?, Peoria ? or keep it for next weeks lasagna? They were disappointed but understood. Even though we so enjoyed seeing our name in the grocery store aisles, we feel great relief and now our customers who come direct to our farm will have more meat to choose from. Sort of a Lose-Win-Win scenario.

4. After several years of fighting the good fight regarding raw milk regulations in Illinois, I resigned from the self-appointed leadership position of the raw milk farmers.  At the end of November IDPH pulled the plug on our group and told us Thanks for All Your Work but We Really Don't Need you Anymore. Now the proposed rules go up the chain of command. So it is  a good time for us to let another farmer or consumer lead the fight. We will continue to sell raw milk off of our farm until they drag us off.

I'm a big girl so hopefully they will go after the lightweight farmers first.

5. We continue to dream about The Poor Farm, see the specific page above that I've dedicated to this topic, but the new home plans are on hold now that the farm did not sell. In the meantime we use the 7 acres for target practice.


Enough updates for now. I have things to do...like get back on all YOUR blogs and see what trouble you've been stirring up.