lysdexia is no joek

I am goint to write this post just the way i would if there wasn’t spell check.  It will drive Lilli crazy.  she is a freind of mine that is a good speller, which really bugs me because she is Swiss and shold’t be such a good speller in english, but she is.  she reads my blog every day and tells me when I have missed a word. she will have a spazz after she gets through this.

computors didn’t realy come in to my shcool scene much before my senior year in collage.  Even then, there was a comptuer lab that we had to sign up to use and there wasn’t spell check. Spell check is great if you get the work spelled wrong, but if you manage to put the wrong word in and you spell it right, then you are hosed.  you don’t knwo you put it in wrong.

I got throughth high school by paying the scoool scretatry to proff my papers and fix the typos and spelling erros.  It worked but was expensive.  In college I did the same thing.  I wrote the dang things, but then paied throught the nose to have it edited.

I graduated 2nd in my class with a 3.98 gpa.   go figgure.  I still cant spell, and here is the proof.

I am really dyslexic, which means that my brain is organized a bit differtently then most peolpe.  As wyou can see I can misspell basic words.  I am pretty articulate and gregarious, so people who don’t really know me think that I normal.  What they don’t see is how much I struggle to get the words right when I wright.  When I thell folks that I am dyslexic thay ask if I have problems reading.  I dont’.  I read all of the time, several book are stacked by my bed and I swithch off.   Right now I am reading the holly bibble,  genisis again.  I try to read throght it every couple of years.   I am also reading an american tragidy and the registrer fof the vermont merino association, published in 1879.   it is stacked ontop of my copy of womens work the first 20 thousand years and the prasie of folly and other papers by bliss perry.

Bliss was a step great grandfather.  he was the editor of the Atlantic and wrote a ton of books.  There are a bunch of wrtiters in my family,  cousin Krissy is really anne stuart, the romance novel writer.  my othre cuousin audrey has wrtitten a bunch of boodks about authors.  She teaches down in atlanta. both my mother and step father were teachers.   my step grandfather was teh headmaster at milton academy.   I couln’t cut it there acadmeically.  I went to academy  andover nh.  best thing that ever happend to me.

there they tought us how to think.  why waist time in trying to fix something that was ntever broken, just configured differetly.  use your time to get the end product correct in the best manner.  I am able to come off as confident in speaking to folks becuase it is an adaptation to not being able to spell.   I pracitce at writing all the tiem, but speeling is a flook.  i spell my name wrong alll of the time.   so it had nothing to do with if I know the word or knot, it has to do with the connection between my symbolic memory and my fine muscle recall and my ablitiy to recognize the error in print.    it is ot jeok.   it is no joke.  this is really how i write.

I have gooten used to it.  the sheep don’t care.

Evening Walk with Moses

Moses was born in April of last year.  He is polled, which means that he naturally does not have horns.  He was a bit timid as a lamb and has grown to be a mellow  yearling.  His voice has dropped and his blatting sounds like a rams now.  He is really lovely.

Moses follows me around in the pasture, mostly to my right.   He is the first to follow me to the pasture up the road and walks close by my side on the way back to the barn.  I call him, and he comes.  He is one of the few sheep that comes to his name.  With Cory gone, I am his alpha, his leader.

Tonight we did a pasture walk, the sheep and I.  There are several flowering shrubs and saplings.  Pulling the branches down gives the sheep a nice treat.  Moses likes maple and the new shoots from spruce.  Most of the flock roamed around and snacked on grasses and new shoots. Moses and I went searching for flowering shrubs.  Maybe a bit more then a hour, Moses and I moused around.  There were stumps and boulders to rest on and a chance to scratch Moses under his neck.  Mostly he just put his head down against my leg or my arm and stood there.

I like the way the sheep smell, clean and woolly and now with a bit of pine.  A ram has a stronger sent then a ewe.  Moses is getting a bit rammy as he gets into adulthood.  It generally takes a good 2-3 years for a Vermont style merino to mature.  They can sire as early as 9 months, but take a while to get full growth.

Moses has turned into a really nice mellow ram.  I have been talking with a potential buyer and it is bitter sweet to be selling him in the next few months.  Keeping him would be for emotional reasons and not business reasons.  It seems that the best ones go.  I will enjoy him am much as I can while he is here.

Sore Mouth

This year we have a lamb with sore mouth. The photo is one that I took off the internet to show it. We haven’t had it on the farm for about 4 years and it was a bit surprising to see who got it and who didn’t. Here is a site for the technical information

http://animalscience.ag.utk.edu/sheep/soremouth_in_sheep.htm

The first time we saw it, we didn’t really understand how to keep it at bay and Emilie picked it up. It took a while for it to run it’s course. Turns out that one of the new twins has it while her the other twin doesn’t. A little treatment with iodine and glycerin will do the trick. It won’t be able to get rid of the virus, but the treatment might reduce the sore a little sooner. Bit of a bummer, but I would rather have the lamb go through this then have the flock get lice or some other bug.

The only effect that is causes now, besides the little lamb having it, is that I will not let a lamb off the property while there is active infection. It generally runs a couple of weeks and it started about 2 weeks ago, so we are half way there. Once a sheep has sore mouth it generally won’t get it again. It builds up antibodies to it and passes those to it’s offspring. We brought in Ohio Dawn and it is possible that she brought in this strain. There is no real way of knowing. Sore mouth is a pox virus and runs it course. You can vaccinate for it, but in the larger Western states, getting the vaccine has been a real issue. Seems to me, like the Chicken pox, you would be best served by letting it run its course.

Friday night

Friday night. End of a week and beginning of a weekend. Jigger and Brutus have had a busy week and are winding down. Bub had gotten a bit soft in his old age, letting them on the bed. Jigger snores almost as badly as Bub and I find it amusing when he awakes from the rumble. Brutus needs to go out. He generally begins to knock things around and cause a fuss at 3 am. He has a job to do and must work for his supper. He is the head mouse getter.

Jigger works hard at being a general  watch dog. She barks at anyone who walks by, if we are home. I am told that she doesn’t bark at folks when we are not here. She is getting old and deaf and doesn’t mind very well.

When she was a little puppy, we told her hips were bad and that we could return her and get a different dog. The girls were pretty little then. There wasn’t an option to replace without teaching the girls poor lessons, so she stays.

Emilie wants to take Brutus to college with her in the fall. Fat chance. Emilie will grow up and get a yellow lab named Tucker. I have been informed of this for several years now. I believe when Emilie was three she made the decision on this. Our fist lab was a chocolate male named Aiko. He was mother’s best dog. Jigger is pretty good, but I still call her Aiko sometimes. I don’t think I will get another dog after Jigger.

Lulu likes the animals, but not with the same passion as Em. Lu is the fashion diva and sports hound. She is playing soccer and running track this spring. She always tucks her thumbs into the palm of her hands when she runs.

She tripped over the hurdle last week and took a wicked digger, both knees, shoulder, elbow and head all got smacked. She got back at it the next day and practiced her paces, then raced the day after. She called to say she had a PR ( personal record ) in the hurtle that day. She is at a dance tonight and a track meet tomorrow.

“Don’t come Mum, meets are boring for people who are not in them” She is right. Thank you Lulu. Although Bub and I went down to see her run and jump last week. She was awesome. I forgot to bring her the Brooks Brother’s purse I got her in Washington. “Thats OK Mum”

I have broken the rule about talking about what is going on with lulu, but I think she is getting used to this format and she will know how proud I am of her.

Bub is now snoring along with Jigger. Brutus awakes from the sticatto beat, he wants to go out now.

Sue and Judith

This is Sue holding the lamb we named after her. Sue is 81 and a retired Nun. I go to her when I am having issues in understanding scripture. She is very helpful and makes me laugh. She has also been helpful with the naming lambs.

She thought Susanna would be a good name for a lamb and gave me a copy of the story from a Catholic text she had. I guess the story was good enough to be recognized as inspired by god, but not good enough to be added to the regular bible.

So Sue wanted a lamb to be named Susanna and when the twins came we chose the names Sue and Judith.

Judith lives with Sue and loves lambs as well. Judith plays the organ, which is a bit of an understatement. She was the choir director for the National Children’s Choir at the National Cathedral in Washington DC. She directs a choir here in town, Voices for all Seasons. My hay maven Diane sings with the choir. That is how I met these two.

Diane sells me hay. She has the best hay in the county and has raised goats, but really is more of a horse lady. Diane also has Candy Lite parties and Logan-burgen-berry-basket parties of which I get the invites. Gotta go, that is the etiquette. She and Judith get the invites as well, and that is how I met them. They tried to get me to join the choir, and I went to practice a few times, but didn’t have the time to do it. Yet they still liked me and love the sheep, so I go over to their house quite a bit.

We all had dinner the other night. Sue can eat half of a large double cheese pizza. Amazing. The thing about hanging out with women who are older and wiser then you is that you can learn from them. These two women are amazing and we laugh to the point I am in tears.