Way out in the Middle of Nowhere

Ok, I'm not totally SURE that's the cold I have, but if it's not...it's pretending well. Last Tuesday night I went to bed feeling like I had a bad allergic reaction to something. It happens. I took a Benadry, Ibuprofen and Claritin and went to bed. I awoke feeling worse than I did before bed: Runny nose, all stuffed up, that feeling that you've been run over by a bus. Yeah, it was not fun. I took the day off from school, begged off my chores to Alex and just slept most of the day. A few days later I was better, but that cold has migrated to my lungs - my old, asthmatic lungs. I wake up, hork up some mucous, toke on my inhaler and get some coffee. So how does one cope with having a bad cold like this without having to go to the doctor? Well, over the counter meds and some good old-fashioned home remedies. OTC Meds: Mucinex DM - Well, any generic medicine containing Guaifenesin will work. My generic med has that and a decongestant. Now the caveat to taking G...

Last week, my shoulder decided it did not like shoveling loads of muck out of the mud pit. I had a grumpy arm that wouldn't allow me to move it without griping about the movement. Lovely, eh? It was my left shoulder as well, which makes it oh so much more challenging as a left-handed person. I had gotten the TENS unit that Icy Hot sells for Dave, as his back was hurting. It did wonders for him, but was fiddly: the buttons are on the unit itself and impossible to reach when attached to the back. I tried it on my shoulder. It made it worse. It got to the point where any movement on my upper body sent it to thralls of great pain. The pain itself reached a crescendo Friday night when we wrapped the shoulder. I ended up on the recliner to sleep and spent the next 2 nights there as well. There was just no way to sleep in bed without it hurting. At least in the recliner, I could prop it up and put the heating pad on it.  A regimen of 4 ibuprofen plus the heating pad helped out a lot....

Note: Ducklings will eat box elder bugs.  Apparently they do not know better.. We are over run with box elder bugs but not so much with ducks.  Out of the 5 expected, we have 2 living that hatched.  And wow, one of them had a journey! Duckling #2 pipped wrong.  Ok; Pipping: Using their beak to make a hole in their shell to let in air.  Once that is done, then they rotate in their shell and start 'zipping' or opening the top of the shell counter-clockwise.   This little one pipped upside down and way too early.  So on Friday I started to help out but it was entirely too early to even try.  The membranes of eggs are lined with blood vessels.  As they mature out of their egg, these vessels dry up and the blood enters the ducklings through their yolk attached to their umbilical. Now normally, the pipping is done close to hatching.  This ducky spent 3 days with his foot sticking out over his head in this opening of his shell. ...