Getting on with Life!

Once again I'm cancer free for the time being. After a month of glowing in the dark, I can be around people and animals again. I have a whole body CT next week to find out whether it has spread. So technically, I'm not out of the woods yet. This makes the third time I've had my throat cut. Twice because of cancer and once by a rapist. I never want to go through that again.

To celebrate this week, I'm going to paint the wood for the new quail hutches. Actually they are not new. They were the old outdoor rabbit hutches. I started dismantling them before my surgery and left the remainder of the quad-plex of rabbit hutches that were against one side of the house for Mel to finish.

While I spent so much time waiting on my cancer surgery (since May), I started research raising quail for our homestead for several reasons. Quail is fairly lean and all dark meat unlike chicken and other poultry. We are huge dark meat fans here. A 6-8oz bird once

dressed and cooked provides one serving of 3 to 4 ounces of meat. The perfect serving size. They are small and easy to butcher one-handed.

Quail eggs provide extra health benefits. Chock full of vitamin B for nerve health and promotes a healthy gut. Vitamin D and phosphor for bone growth and strength, and boosts immunities. Vitamin A for boosting immunities. Vitamin K to promote clotting (not so good for stroke survivors), but this vitamin also helps with calcium absorbancy. The yolks contain luthein and zeaksantin for your retinas, it's a little bit lower than carrots. The eggs help stabilize cholesterol numbers. They contain choline which improves the memory function in the brain.

For the same space it took to raise four rabbits, I can raise 288 quail! Not that I plan to raise that many at once. Quail are fully grown and will start laying eggs in as little as 6 to7 weeks old instead of 6 to 7 months for chickens. Granted it takes 3 quail eggs to make 1 large chicken egg, but they make better economic sense. I'll be starting with twenty-five birds and hatch out more until we have about, at most, 100 birds to sell, breed, or eat.

My PT was put on hold for the past month. I'm looking forward to that starting back up later this month. My left arm strength was increased to where I could lift a thirty pound bag of cat food with little or no trouble. I was even more stable walking again. I didn't feel like I had to touch furniture as I walked by to keep my balance. I could walk down the ramps and walk into the bunny/chicken hoop barn again without the use of my cane. My stamina was increasing almost to the point of before my two-week hospitalization in mid summer. I'm hoping to get more stronger and have even greater balance by the end of the year with my return to PT.

With the sloped terrain on our property, my steps per day get an extra punch. Even walking on the semi flat 1/4 acre part of the property is still a fairly good chunks of steps each day as I tend to the animals (not to mention bending and lifting), feeding, watering and grooming. Raking and turning the compost in place deep litter barn straw. Picking up kindling (sticks and branches) for the wood stove. Carrying splits of wood inside to burn in the wood stove.  Added to my PT/OT exercises twice a day (Yes, I still do them to the best of my ability), I get quite a work out. I don't need to pay for no stinking gym membership.

 I easily hit my daily step goal of 25k-50k.  I had even thought of going back to my previous daily goal of 75k-100k steps. It'll be easier to do when Mel starts her chicken farm operation on the lower 1/4 acre orchard terraces. The plan includes concrete block stairs for easier access. For now, I use the yard tractor to get below the first tier, because the sloped access is too steep for me to traverse safely. I'd really hate falling and rolling down that twenty-foot slope, trying to get up at the bottom, and making my way back up the terraced orchard levels.

It's the stuff of nightmares. One every impaired person fears. Each tier is 14' wide and drops 7' on each level except the 8' wide track which allows tractor or truck access on either side that slopes downward. We designed it this way keeping in mind that as the dwarf trees grew, they'd have ample light and space for ladders and half bushel baskets. On the two lowest tiers, we've planted pecan and walnut trees. This is also where we grow orchard grass/hay for our livestock. Currently, we only have (2 each) the nut trees, apple, cherry, plum, planted. Our trellised raspberry, grapes, and blueberries take up most of the first 75' upper tier. With fig and peach trees going in this year. There's still about thirty feet on each tier left unplanted. This is where Mel plans to put her chicken operation.

I want to try growing upland rice in a  10'x10' patch this spring. Just a trial patch as an experiment and for seed for a larger patch the following year. If this is successful, it'll be another item I can check off my self sustainable check list. We love our rice. So I've spent the past month researching and planning. I couldn't do much else. I know from experience, when battling cancer, the depression and what-ifs can really bring me down. This makes my fifth time battling this.

The key is planning what to do next after the battle is over and you've won. There's time enough to worry/pray/cry about inevitable outcomes if the CT shows mets. If I have to side step from the path because of additional surgeries or treatments so be it. I'll still have a plan for when I win this battle and I plan on winning. The alternative is that cancer kills me, but I'll still win because I'll be where I ultimately want to be too.

Nothing is impossible.