Life hasn’t slowed down at all. I spent the weekend with my youngest niece while her parents flew to California for a vacation. She is beautiful inside and out. Great laugh.

Update! Update! Get Your Cancer Update!

Tuesday we had our first appointment with the oncologist. Great guy. He has been a doctor for 40 years.  Michael has Stage 2B non-seminoma testicular cancer. I believe the stage 2B is because the lymph node that has cancer in it is larger than 2 cm. The non-seminoma has to do with the fact that he has a mixture of all four of the testicular cancers.

He will begin chemotherapy on 8/14. They will be using BEP which is a combination of different chemo therapies.He will have 3 rounds of chemo, each round is a week long with treatment each day. This is followed by two weeks of rest. Then repeat. Each day it will take up 5 or 6 hours. Treatment will be completed before the end of September. The CURE rate is 98%. I’m so grateful this cancer responds nicely to the chemo.

Please pray for minimal side effects. All of our hope is in Jesus and we trust him completely.

On a side note, his oncologist ran for Governor here in Oregon in 2016.

A New Gate

Michael has been mulling over an easier way to breed the goats. He decided to divide the pasture and put the does we want to breed with Woody in one pasture and the does we want to breed with Joe in the other.

In order to do that, we needed to add a gate to the boys outside area.

Michael is so good with anything related to fencing.

We all  helped him in various ways. We already had a T-post in the ground and that needed to come out. The tractor is good for that.

A New Gate, Pretty Flowers, and Cancer

We haven’t had rain for a while so the ground is pretty dry.

This tool is a Tamper. One end is flat and round. The other side is pointed. Michael is using the pointed end to break up the soil.

A New Gate, Pretty Flowers, and Cancer

Out comes the post hole digger. This is a lot of work. Michael makes it look easy. I’ve used the post hole digger to plant tomato plants. It makes the perfect sized hole.

A New Gate, Pretty Flowers, and Cancer

Almost done with this one. At this point he puts the post in to make sure the it is straight. He adds dirt back in and tamps it down around the post.

A New Gate, Pretty Flowers, and Cancer

Can anyone identify what is in the bottom of this hole? It’s the water line to the barn. When we first moved here, Michael cut the line when he was putting the T-posts in for the bucks outside pen. We thought we had an idea where the line was and tried to stay away from the water line. I’m just thankful he didn’t cut it this time. We had the move the post about six inches from the original location to avoid the water line.

A New Gate, Pretty Flowers, and Cancer

Here are the two posts on which the gate will hang.

A New Gate, Pretty Flowers, and Cancer

The new gate hung and the cattle panels put back up.

A New Gate, Pretty Flowers, and Cancer

The next part of the project is to use cattle panels to separate the pastures.

The goats like to be outside if we are outside, unless of course it is raining.

A New Gate, Pretty Flowers, and Cancer

Flowers Add Beauty to Life

The previous owners made a lot of flower beds. Mostly using bulbs. Spring is gorgeous here.

We decided we wanted more shrubs and more colorful flowers.

Here is what we added:

We planted multiple of the Huckleberries. We used to rent a yurt at Cape Lookout every September and the boys loved picking huckleberries. We now have three Huckleberry plants. Michael has always loved the Barberries so we have three of those as well. We bought two of the Crazy Russian Blue Sage. I like some blue flowers in a garden.

We’ve been spreading bark-dust whenever we get the time.

Thanx for continuing to follow our attempts at some self sustainability.

Karen

Ps: Happy birthday to my sister 🙂