Refiner's Fire

Jasmine when she was young

When our children were young and complained about life's difficulties I always told them, "When the world hands you lemons, make lemonade. " But, what if the world is pelting you with them? Then what do you do?

I know what I want to do. I want to crawl in a hole and hide and I did on Monday, sort of. I sewed, which is in the laundry room in the basement and I sorted through canning jars putting them on the shelf according to the oldest to the newest. We use things up pretty good but I had boxes and boxes on the floor of new stuff waiting to find a home on the shelves. That took a while. 

It felt so.. good pretending the world didn't exist for I'm getting rather bruised and my bright sunny attitude is hard to maintain. One of the hardest blows has been the loss of our beautiful Jasmine. Saturday she died a horrible death at the breeders. The vet, torn between two diseases as to what it is, took blood work and we'll know in a few days the results.

Pray that the other yaks on the gentleman's place remain healthy. We sure didn't mean to bring him these woes. Neither disease is contagious as biting flies or spores are the culprits but still he was the one left holding the bag so to speak. 

When we pulled on to his place, he commented how healthy and large our girls were for their age. We had no clue this was around the corner. Our heads were filled with hopes of little yaks running around our place next spring.

I'm pretty upset as Jasmine was my girl. She had the best attitude and looks. Now how often does that happen? The other yak, Gracie was going to be eventually culled but she is all that's left. We only had the two. Now what? Yaks have to have have a mate.  

This and my poor health test results telling me that the medication treatment isn't working, have been the blows for this week. I won't even go into all the lemons thrown our way this past summer as it would go on forever. Well, I did tell you about the tires on our hay hauling trip but I'm trying not to complain too much as others have it worse than us.

Though I've been kind of quiet, which is what I do when I'm mad or just upset, I have been doing things. Today, I'm drying strawberry slices to try in a brain- ee-ack recipe. Not as in a really smart plan but as in a, I wonder if this will work one. You see a while back I bought Fig Newton cookies. The new ones out that are wafers. They had dried strawberries flakes in them and I had a 'aw haw' moment. What if I made my favorite grahmn crackers and rolled them out thin so they'd be crisp but I added strawberries flakes in them from home dried strawberries? Might be a month before I get to them as I'm waiting for the arrival of my new wheat grinder, yup one of a list of equipment that bit the dust, and because I have freezers yet to organize and a cazillion fall chores left but I'm going to be ready when time allows.

I also have thinly sliced green tomatoes sprinkled with salt and will sit overnight waiting to make relish tomorrow that will be canned for hamburgers and hot dogs. Not that I'm a big fan of hot dogs but the grand kids love them. I've then got a few more beans to shell and some small onions to dry and I'll be done with the garden. Whoo, hoo!!! I'm ready to turn my attention to cleaning windows and other fall chores. But first I'll share this recipe as it is yum delicious. I'm taking photos of the relish process, now that my camera is working again. Sorry, I told myself I could only whine a little but that one slipped out.

I would appreciate it if you happen to be speaking to the Lord, could you mention me and tell him I'm glowing red hot and about to melt. Could life please quit hammering on Holly and her hubby and let us catch our breath and rest for a time. I'm wearing mighty thin in the refiner's fire. Metaphorically of course because the hormone test shows there is no chance in ___ well, you know, that I could be physically thin with these results.