Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

 It has been over a year now that we closed down the dairy.  I am sure I have written this before elsewhere about this, but I shall repeat it again:  I don't miss it. Oh, certainly there are aspects of it that I miss; the calves mostly.  The calves and their slobbery faces, the cows and their amusing antics, the smell of alfalfa in late summer or early fall when we had our hay supply laid in for winter; those are all things I remember fondly.  But let's be completely honest.  I love sleep more. Much more. Sleeping in until 5 AM is nice.  Most people I speak to opine that 5 AM isn't sleeping in, and I might agree with them some mornings, but arising early has its advantages.  On school days Ellen gets up around 5:30 AM.  Well, that is when she sets her alarm, but we'll just brush past this and say that maybe intentions do count for something.  By 5:30 AM I can get Gary's breakfast out of the way, get Ellen up and going and then have my Bi...

For those of you who are self-employed I am sure you can relate to the whole insurance headache. My husband has a second part time job which insures us, but when our baby was born 7 months ago we decided to get her coverage from a different source. Then, since it worked so well, we decided to get it for me as well. Here is the abbreviated story on how THAT has gone: The fun began in June of this year. When he talked to the agent on phone to get a quote he, my Dear Husband, made me 2 inches taller than I am and got a quote for the Premium plan which was $236 p/mo. When I filled out the form I put my real height. Well, the agent calls back a couple days later and says when he turned the application in they had to adjust it because I am four pounds too fat for my height (well, he didn't say that, but that's what it comes down to; 4 lousy pounds) to qualify for the low rate Premium plan, and to keep it would be $262 p/ mo. DH didn't want that rate so he called in and said we wa...