PHARMACY FRIDAY - There's a FLEA in my EAR! ! !

Rover

 Yes, this post is for humans, as well as animals. So why am I doing a Pharmacy post about fleas? So you don't end up to the point that you have to have any pharmacy items for this issue. . . . . So what can be a simple fix, doesn't end up being a major infection.

When we have furry pets, they will have fleas, from time to time. Try as you might to keep them totally flea free, occasionally one or more are going to find them. Then, too, there are also places where fleas abound, even if pets aren't in the area.

Have you or your fur baby ever gotten a flea in your ear? If your pet has, you probably vividly remember them frantically clawing, scratching, digging, shaking their ear, and pathetically whimpering as they try to get it out. If  YOU have ever gotten a flea in YOUR ear, you will completely understand what your furry loved one was going through and how LOUD and ANNOYING that teensy little thing roaming around inside your ear was!

If that little sucker stays in an ear too long, it can lead to a serious ear infection, which can lead to needing all kinds of costly medications and medical care. So what is a person to do to get that ornery little devil of a bug out? ! ? !

SHINE A FLASHLIGHT IN YOUR EAR! Yes! It IS that simple! That little flea will immediately start heading for the light and come right on out of your ear. It sure does tickle, but. . . . what a relief! Problem instantly solved with just a little beam of light. This should also work for insects as well, if you are unfortunate enough to have anything else decide to check out the dark cavern of your ear canal. Now, don't you wish that every little annoying problem in life was this simple to remedy? ! ? ! I certainly do!

Note: This post represents my own opinions and experiences. I am not a licensed medical professional and my advice is not to be used as a substitute for proper medical care.

Thank you for reading my post!

(D♥A) FACEBOOK KIDNAPPED US!

Bubba

 Yep, sorry to say, we have fallen into the Facebook / Social Media trap and it has badly pulled us away from our blog. Network, they tell you. . . . it will build up your blog. . . . it will build up your business . . . . it will . . . it will . . . it will . . .
Then before you know it, you are JUST networking on social media and let yourself get totally pulled away from where you actually started, and from the direction you intended to go in the beginning.

Then there are the "groups" on Facebook. Anna, here, got far too carried away with those. I have created quite a few "selling" groups, and they honestly DO help a LOT of people that need to earn some income, but they do get to be very time consuming. Actually, most of mine go very smoothly, but one or two of them seem to be in a pocket  that requires considerable monitoring.

How about you all? Our readers? How many of you find yourselves getting on Facebook (or any other social networking site) with the full intention of "just popping on for a minute", then find yourself still on there 3 hours later?! I have no doubt but that that is what they intend. I mean, the longer you are on there, the more they make off of advertising, right?

But we truly miss all of our friends over here on blogger, from this blog and all of our others. We miss your comments, we miss interacting with you, and we miss reading all of your posts! We are going to make every effort possible to find a much better balance and get back here more often. In today's world, Social Media, such as Facebook, DOES seem to be of some importance in the circle of things, but too much of it is certainly NOT a good thing! Too much could actually work against all of your efforts.

Dave and I have some enormous struggles going on right now. We are about to drop from exhaustion, but it is only going to grow worse over the next several weeks. But once we get through all of this, life should begin to turn uphill for us. We really, REALLY want to share this journey with you ..... going from what may be our worst and toughest point, to our clearing and uphill road. So in the midst of all of this, we are going to try extra, extra hard to post more often again on here, even if it is just a few sentences, so that at the end of this current battle, you can share our joy as we head into what will hopefully be our "clearing".

So for now, we would GREATLY APPRECIATE all of your prayers, positive thoughts, positive energies, healing, and anything else helpful that you do, that you can do from where you are, to help us along through this extremely difficult time. After this post, we will explain all of it in a series of posts, along with our progress. But for now, Dave is almost here at Anna's Farm and we need to jump in and get to work. We both have had some recent injuries and are in some pain, but we have to set that aside and get through this right now.
Thank you so very much for reading this post and continuing to follow our blog, even though we haven't been posting much, lately. Have a truly FANTASTIC day!

(AF) MUSHROOMS, MY NEW FASCINATION!

Ear Mushroom

 Ever since I was a little girl, I was absolutely fascinated with mushrooms. I LOVED the mushrooms we occasionally splurged on at the store, both fresh and canned. I loved them so much I could have eaten them every day!

Then I started noticing mushrooms growing around the yard during wet spells. I would ask my parents about them, eagerly hoping I could eat some of them. I was always told that some could be eaten, but some were deadly poisonous, so unless you were an expert, you had to leave them all alone or you would end up dying. Well, as a little kid, that was enough for me! But I was still fascinated by them so I just admired them at an arms length distance.

As I got older, I became more curious. I started thinking I might want to try learning about them. Not become an expert, but at least maybe learn about one or two that I could identify easily and eat. Then I saw an article on the news where a man just walking along had kicked a mushroom and the spores that flew up were so toxic that he died from breathing them in. So that turned me back off of my mushroom interest and even instilled yet more intense fear of mushrooms in me.

But last year, we had a much damper year than usual (following a long drought) and mushrooms of all kinds were popping up everywhere! Many of them were absolutely fascinating! Last Fall, after two HUGE flushes of yummy looking mushrooms on a couple of my trees, just outside my office window, I decided I HAD to know what they were! Another flush came out and I ran out and took pictures from every angle I could. Then I joined a mushroom identifying group and soon learned that they were Oyster Mushrooms!! Oh, how yummy they were! I cooked them in everything and even made mushrooms chips out of them.

I am still kicking myself for missing those first two ENORMOUS flushes on those 2 trees. They were enough to have probably lasted 3 families an entire year. But, on the other hand, I do know now, and it was those mushrooms that gave me the push to actively start learning about wild mushrooms and trying some of them.

Now, I seemed to have turned into a Mushroom Maniac! Seems I can't walk across the yard without looking for mushrooms. I find myself looking over every stick before I toss it in the fire. And right now, it has been such a wet Spring that pretty much every stick you pick up has mushrooms on it.

My latest adventure in mushrooms is to determine if a bunch of these that are prolific right now are Turkey Tail mushrooms. I am really anxious to find out! If you have a clue or idea as to what type the mushrooms in the banner pic (at the top of the page) are, we would love to hear from you.  No, we won't use it as an absolute positive ID, but we would love to hear what your opinions on the  variety are.

Thank you for reading our blog and have a fantastic day!

(D♥A) A NEW YEAR BEGINS!

♥  HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!  ♥

Dave and I would like to wish you and all of yours the BEST Year possible!

 May it be a year filled with beautiful blessings, love and cheerfulness.

And may it be a truly prosperous year, both monetary and personal. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!!!

TIGHTWAD TUESDAY - Peppermint Candy Cane Uses

  Christmas is over and many of you have lots of those Peppermint Candy Canes left. Then there are those of us that find them on Super Clearance right after Christmas and like to buy up lots of them because they cost nearly nothing. But what do you do with all of them? We certainly don't want to throw them away, and they don't always hold over to the next year very well.

My personal favorite is to break them up into my Hot Chocolate throughout the Winter. You don't have to break them up very small, just 3 or 4 pieces is good. They dissolve very quickly and add such a wonderful, warm, minty flavor to your hot chocolate.

For you coffee drinkers that like some extra flavor in your coffee, they are also very good in your coffee. Try adding some vanilla creamer with a broken up candy cane to your coffee. Yum!

It amazes me how one flavor can be both warming and cooling. Peppermint in warm/hot beverages seems to make them even more warming. But in the summer, when added to chilled drinks, peppermint can be very cooling. Crush up some Peppermint Candy Canes and add them to your sun tea jar, or your steeping tea pot to dissolve before making into iced tea. You can also do this with your homemade lemonade. Such a cooling summer treat!

Crushed up candy canes are great added with your chocolate chips in Chocolate Chip Cookies. To crush your candy canes, simply place in a zipper freezer bag and roll over them with a rolling pin a few times until they are crushed to your desired size.

Crushed candy canes also make a fantastic ice cream sprinkle in summer! For us tightwads that usually stick to the less expensive ice creams, that usually means chocolate, vanilla and strawberry most often. A sprinkle of crushed candy canes over the top of a bowl of chocolate ice cream can quickly turn it into Mint Chocolate Ice Cream in an instant, for far less than it would cost to buy that flavor, which is usually found in the more expensive brands of ice cream.

When you really start to think of all you can do with those beautiful, minty Peppermint Candy Canes that are on clearance right now for nearly nothing in most stores, the uses seem nearly unlimited!

What do you like to do with your left over Peppermint Candy Canes? or any other flavor of Candy Canes?