Visit From The Vet

 

Visit from the Vet

The Farmer and the vet from Crawford County Veterinary Clinic

 

We worked the cattle on Saturday, but today we had a visit from the vet. He was here to do a preg check on all the fall breeding cows. As each one went through the chute, the vet would tell us if they were pregnant and give as an approximate point of how far along they are.

 

We had 16 cows that needed to be preg checked. Unfortunately, two were open (not pregnant) and one of them was #11, the crazy cow that jumped the fence on Saturday. She jumped it again today. So we don't know if she is bred or not.The Farmer is not happy. :(  And well he shouldn’t be. This cow knows exactly what to do to get out, and she’s not soon to forget it. Our choices are to build a higher fence, give her lead poison, or wait until she’s too old to jump. We can’t afford to build higher and lead is too scarce, so I guess we’ll just have to wait until she gets too old.

 

 

Mid-morning Snack

Week 4-Day 3

 

I just sat down to eat my mid-morning snack and update my status. I can’t believe I’m in week 4 of The Fast Metabolism Diet. I’ve been on other diets this long, but not with this much zeal. I again flipped through the food list that Pomroy has in her book, and marveled at everything I get to eat. There have been no feelings of deprivation during this whole time.

 

(Once again, I feel like I’m eating too much, but last week I thought one of the reasons I didn’t lose weight is because I didn’t eat enough, so this week I’m trying to do better.)

 

Looking at my list, I decided to eat nitrate-free roast beef lunchmeat. The app that I have (yes, there’s an app!) informs me that I need to eat 6 oz. of beef. Of course the package has the roast beef listed in grams. Do you know how many grams are in an ounce? Neither did I. Usually I get out the scales and weigh my food, but it’s such a hassle. The scales take a 9-volt battery and the only 9-volt battery in the house is in the Farmer’s alarm clock. So I have to take it out of the alarm clock, put it into the scales, weigh the meat or other food, take it out of the scales, and put it back into the alarm clock. The problem always seems to be the last part…putting it back. So I’d thought I would just figure it out mathematically.

 

So being the quick math expert that I am, I googled “how many grams are in an ounce”? There are 28.3495 grams in 1 ounce. The rest of the math I did on the calculator and figured out how may slices of roast beef I could have. I took the first bite and remembered that I could have sugar-free pickles, so I wrapped the remaining beef slices around pickle spears…delicious and very doable!

 

Here’s the math problem, see if you can figure out how many slices I could eat:

 

Cindra went on The Fast Metabolism Diet to lose 100 pounds. On Wednesday, 5/29, she went to the refrigerator to get her 10:30 AM snack. When she opened the second drawer in the right side of her 2-door refrigerator, she pulled out 1 box of Sara Lee’s nitrate-free roast beef. She opened 1 of the 2 packages of vacuumed packed lunch meat to discover that each serving contained 2 slices of roast beef and that there were 5 servings per container. If 1 serving equals 45 grams, how many slices of roast beef should Cindra take out if she were going to eat 6 ounces of nitrate-free roast beef?

Circle one:

A)    4 slices

B)    7 slices

C)    My teacher told me to always choose “C”

D)    I don’t care, I’m not in school any more

 

 

Now if I could just master drinking enough water.

 

 

 

 

Disappointed But Not Discouraged

Week 4-Day 1

 

Okay, this is the start of my 4th week, and I am disappointed but not discouraged. This is my official weigh in day, and when I looked down at the scales I was up 2 lbs.! Well, in my prospective at least. I am suppose to weigh once a week, on Mondays, but because my scales are sitting in my bathroom, it's very easy for me to just step on them every day, several times a day. So Friday, at one point, I weighed myself and had lost 3 lbs. So I was going around telling everyone I had lost 9 lbs. so far and 5 inches around my waist.

 

I got pats on the back, congratulations, and big bright encouraging smiles. And now as I climb off the scales, crawl into the sitting room, throw open the computer to record all my successes failures, I have to access my past week and see where I messed up.

 

What happened! 

 

What I did wrong:

I ate less than I was suppose to

I skipped a couple of snacks

I ate breakfast late on a couple of days

I didn't drink as much water as I was suppose to

I ate a strawberry cream pie from McD's

 

I realize that these things separately will not cause me to gain weight, but like so many other things in life, all the little things together can make a big difference.

 

What Now!

 

Restart. I am very disappointed but not discouraged. I have been doing this diet for 3 weeks and I can see a change in my body. The weight is not the only way to record my success, I also feel my clothes fitting a little better and I don't have the stuffed feeling that I usually have throughout the day. (even when I'm eating ALL the foods I'm suppose to).

 

And as I record the weekly stats, it's not really as horrible as I had first assumed.

 

Date	Weight	Weekly Lost	Total lbs. to date
Starting wt.	230
Week 1	225	-5	5
Week 2	224	-1	6
Week 3	223	-1	7

 

 

And to finish it off, I have lost 6 inches around my waist instead of 5. So...on to week 4!

 

...and I'm setting another goal of 5 lbs. for this week. :)

 
 

 

 

Working Cattle

Working cattle is always a learning experience, and this year when we worked our herd we learned a lot!

We learned that it pays to be prepared and organized.

As each cow or calf comes through the alley, we have to be
prepared with what we are going to do to them. They are all given a fly tag (to ward off flies), treated for lice, grubs and other unwanted parasites, vaccinated against pink eye, and various other infectious viruses, and then weighed. Our calves also get a shot to prevent respiratory problems and blackleg, which can actually wipe out a whole year of calves. Fortunately this disease is preventable with vaccination. So these shots and tags all have to be kept separated and organized.

 

We learned that sometimes it takes several hands to do one job.

Although the Farmer is very proficient in what he does, he just can’t be in three places at one time. As the cattle go through the alley way someone has to encourage them along, and someone else has to open the sliding gate and shut it behind each cow or calf, and then the Farmer shuts the head chute at just the right moment.

 

We learned that a 13 year-old farmer’s daughter is not a big enough threat to keep a 1500 lb. cow from going over the fence.

Usually a cow’s moo is worse than their bite, so we had daughter #5 standing at the top of the gate to ward off any wayward cow that
may have gotten a crazy idea of trying an escape while they were in the holding pen. And it worked. Although we had a crazy cow escape (#11), she didn’t go through the gate; she jumped over the fence! Well, she jumped on the fence, it broke, and then she went over. But still the same result. Several years ago we had a similar incident in a sort of make-shift lot that we used to work our cattle
in. So when we built our existing lot, we purposefully built it high enough so a cow could not go over (or so we thought until this year). The crazy thing jumped a couple of times and then finally busted through the boards and went right over, like she was a trained horse or something. Whatever…she didn’t get a fly tag so I hope she gets bitten by a great big horse fly!

 

And the final thing we learned this year is working cattle in the rain is no fun at all!

Although the day started out a little nippy, the sun soon came out and we were plenty warm about a half hour into the process. Unfortunately, the sun was overtaken by some ominous looking rain clouds and it began to pour. It didn’t take long before we were all soaked and covered in mud, which wasn't too bad because it washed away some of the manure that we were all covered in from working the silly cattle in the first place. They are so uncouth.

Son #4 setting up the scales so we can weigh the cattle. Our largest cow weighed 1550 lbs. and our largest fall calf weighed 732 lbs.

 

Daughter #5 still holding her post after the rain had let up a little.

Notice she's staring down one of the mama cows

 

If you look closely, you can see Son #1 and the Farmer separating

the spring cows and their babies from the fall calves.

 

All the cows and calves have been separated and will soon be back on the pasture.

 

 

 

 

Eating Too Much

Week 3-day 2

The first week on The Fast Metabolism Diet was a learning experience. I’ve been on several diets, but this is the first one that I’ve ever gotten tired of eating. I had to set a timer to remind myself that it was time for a meal or a snack.

 

According to the plan, the more you have to lose the more you are supposed to eat. Of course, you only eat specific foods in order to ignite your metabolism to burn the fat, but you do eat larger portions of healthy foods.

 

Although two foods that are near and dear to my heart are excluded in this diet (coffee and sugar), it was fairly easy to give them up. I did experience intense headaches and fatigue, but this was totally gone by the second week. There were really no sugar cravings, I assume because I was eating fruit, and definitely no time to drink or miss drinking coffee, because I had to drink so much water!

 

The book, The Fast Metabolism Diet (by Haylie Pomroy), is filled with recipes, suggested foods, food substitutes, and even a master food list to help you plan out your meals. I wanted to be faithful in doing this diet so I followed the letter of the law the first week and quickly lost 5 pounds. But like every other diet I’ve been on, I let down my guard and cheated a few times in week two—and it showed. At the end of week two I had lost only 1 pound. But that’s okay, it’s still one more pound that I didn’t gain, and I lost 5 inches in my waist!

 

So onto week three, which I started yesterday with renewed vitality. I may not be able to do this every week, but my goal for week three is to lose 5 pounds. Yesterday went well, even though my girls (dd#4 and dd#5) left their left over lunch (pizza) setting out on the counter all afternoon!

 

Here are some pics of the foods I’ve been having since I’ve been on this diet:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seriously, I’m really not able to eat all the portions that I’m allowed, so sometimes I cut back and eat the rest at my snack time…not sure that’s what I’m suppose to do…maybe I should look that up…hmm :?

I Want To Be A Loser

Not many people want to be a loser, but in the world of weight loss, that is always our goal. I read somewhere that weight gain in America leveled off in 2010, which is good, but obesity is still a big problem.



Higher medical costs and lower quality of life are two of the main talking points of those who are trying to encourage weight loss, which I never really understood because I didn’t feel that either one of those reasons affected me.



Higher Medical Bills

I very seldom go to the doctor so I didn’t think higher medical costs was a factor to my obesity, but then I ran across a chart from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that lists all the diseases associated with obesity.

• Sleep apnea and snoring—have it


• Lung disease


• Liver disease


• Gallstones—had it


• Cancer


• Stroke


• Heart disease


• Pancreatitis


• Female disorders—had it


• Arthritis


• Inflamed veins


• Gout

Well it sounds like all diseases can be blamed on obesity, but reading through this list makes me realize that yeah, maybe it does hinder my health.

Lower Quality of Life

If you had asked me if I thought my quality of life had beenlowered because I am overweight, I would have answered…no. But on further consideration I can see ways that it has. Outside activities, amusement park rides, climbing a swimming pool ladder (phew!), whitewater rafting. I’m not saying I would do those things if I lost weight, but it would make it a lot easier. Actually, there are two things I would do if I lost all the weight I needed to lose—parachuting and whitewater rafting. …maybe :)

So I guess I’m pretty normal in the struggle with weight loss and weight control, so starting here I am making a commitment to myself to just do it.

The Program

I saw a post on one of my friend’s Facebook wall the other day. She just mentioned the diet she had been on and so I took a look at it, it’s called The Fast Metabolism Diet, by Haylie Pomroy. I don’t remember why I decided to buy it, but I went on Amazon and purchased the Kindle edition.

When I got it, I remember three things she stated very strongly:

1. Read through the book before you start


2. Change the way you think about the word diet


3. You will be eating more on this program
   than any other

Well, I didn’t read through it completely (although, I was also advised to by my friend), but you should if you start it, her mnemonics for the word diet is, Did I Eat Today, and the statement I read about the more you have to lose the more you should eat was too great of a concept for me to pass up!

The Progress

The program lasts 28 days and has 3 phases that you go through each week. I’m on week two and finding it very easy to do. The initial planning and the cost of the food is the most difficult part of the plan. But Pomroy makes it very easy to get started by listing several recipes in her book.

The first week I used only her recipes, but in week two I’m finding it quite easy to adapt my own versions. My biggest complaint…I’m tired of eating! My friend noticed immediately the weight loss in her face, which I can understand, because all you do is chew!

Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten this much in all my life, especially not while I was supposed to be dieting. But I’ve traded my soft foods like chocolate, yogurts, chips, and desserts, for good nutritional food like lean meats, carrots, almonds, and spinach.

So to the proverbial proof in the pudding:

Date	Weight	Weekly Lost	Total lbs. to date
Starting wt.	230
Week 1	225	-5	5
Week 2	224	-1	6

What Defines a Mother?

 

A Mother, although it seems to be such a simple word to define, is actually a very complex term. Of course, a mother is a woman that gives birth to a child, but giving birth alone does not really make one a true mother.

 

A Mother is a caretaker, caring for all the needs of a child—emotionally and physically.

A Mother is an instructor, giving instruction to her child from the moment she hears the first sound come from his lips to the final step he takes out the door to begin his own life.

A Mother is a teacher, teaching lessons of life from the experience she has gained.

A Mother is a disciplinarian, using correction to benefit her child, because of her love.

A Mother is a protector, whether the danger comes from outside the home or from inside the child.

A Mother loves without being told how and gives without asking how much.

A Mother takes a child and cares for him through the millions of moments in his life, whether they be joyful, peaceful, and carefree, or worrisome, troublesome, and heart breaking.



 

What defines a Mother?

A Mother is a woman that sacrificially loves the child in her care. The relationship with the child defines the mother; that’s why so many people can look to more than one woman in their life and say, “She was a mother to me.”

 

A Mother “…looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed…Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.” Proverbs 31:27, 28, 31

 

The moment a woman accepts the position of Mother her life is changed forever.

 

 

 

Guilty Motivation

That Mom-in-law!

That Mom-in-law!

I do not like to walk at all!

Would you, could you walk each day?

Would you walk a mile half way?

Would you walk if I ask nice?

Would you walk if I ask twice?

I could not, would not walk each day.

I could not, would not walk…no way!

Could you, would you, we’ll have fun

Come on, come on, we won’t run!

I could not, would not have much fun.

But call me over when you are done.

We’ll work on the computer or make a card,

But walking two miles is way too hard!

Okay, well that’s my introduction to what I’m writing about, with a nod to my favorite author, Dr. Suess.



For years, my Mother-in-law has been walking 2+ miles a day. No matter what the temperature is outside, she is usually walking—Monday thru Friday. She is very determined to live a long and healthy life, and so far she has succeeded…she was fourscore and six in February.

I, on the other hand, do not consider exercise to be my friend—and it shows. So why would I want to get off my couch, tug on my tennis shoes, go out to walk up and down the road for 2 miles every day?

…because it’s the right thing to do.

The Bible says (eww! I hate it when I find Scripture that points to my sin)…
“To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” James 1:17



There are many good reasons why I should be walking:

• It’s good for my circulation


• It makes my heart stronger


• It increase my lung capacity


• I need the discipline


• Because my Mother-in-law needs a walking partner


• I need to lose weight


• To encourage others (maybe)

So these are my motivators. These things give me good reason to tug on my tennis shoes, and walk out the door, and go up and down the road. And these things are important, but I must say, I believe my biggest driving factor is knowing that my walking partner is 30 years my senior, (Oh my! When I write it out it’s even more startling then when I think it!) and if she can do it, then I should be able to…probably…right?

Enloe Farms Is Going Green

Well we didn't make it for Earth Day, but we're still going GREEN!

We’re trading in our blues and we’re going green. That’s right, for over 50 years the only tractor that’s been on this farm has been a Ford or a New Holland  (the company that bought out Ford).

But now we are going John Deere green!

 

What do you think of the Farmer's new toy (oh, I mean necessary farming equipment). :)

 

The Farmer Going Green

Saying Goodbye to a Tradition

Going Green Looks Pretty Good!

Got a great deal from Schweissguth Bros. in Dutzow

But they did too...

>>Click Here to see more pics of the tractor