How a girls still loves her horse!

It was 1998 and being in a different country (Canada), speaking a different language was not easy, but manageable. A bit harder to manage is riding 15 horses a day, cleaning stalls and look after the mommies and babies. But given there are 24 hours in a day, it is doable…


Nice thing about working with babies and mommies there are usually daddies too! And daddies make a difference! Since i was a little girl I had a soft spot for Walt Disney movies, you know the ones that always end right, the good guy gets the pretty girl and no animals die, ever, or the go to doggy heaven.

So being in a foreign county with all these beautiful horses was just fantastic! There was one in particular, a Morgan stallion named Fox Trim Classic. He was just like the Black Stallion, but sweeter! Basically he was just big pup, but nobody had the guts to compare a horse to a dog, so i just thought he was fantastic. I had the pleasure to ride him in a big show two weeks after i got to meet him and every day after that. I just loved the “big”  (only 15.2 which is really not that big) boy. 


I grew quite fond of his owner as well and I told her if I was EVER going to move to The States and if she EVER wanted to sell him for whatever reason I would take him! Off course being 19 years old and very optimistic and naive about live, I thought it was a reasonable suggestion...

And live goes on.


When we moved to the States in 2006 it never occurred to me that Classic, would still around. He had to be in his twenties and after a full life of breeding every mare presented to him, I didn’t think it was a possibility, of him being alive and kicking… 


I was wrong (in a very good way, wrong)!


In April of 2008 we got the earth shocking news that I had cancer. After that news I was very lost and lonely (even with all my loving family and friends surrounding me) and it was a hectic and stress full time. 


Two weeks after I received the shocking news I got another phone call. From the woman who had Classic!?! If I would be interested in having him, he was all retired and she needed a good home for him, she was getting a divorce and needed to find him a good new home.

After 12 years I said YES right away! It was just a gift from heaven, to let me know that I didn’t have to battle cancer all by myself …


So he came, a little more gray, being beautiful, understanding, sweet and powerful and during chemo, every time if I felt I just couldn’t do it no more I just had to look outside the window and see my black stallion and I know I could…

This all happened three years ago and i STILL look out the window every ten minutes to see if he is there. If we are at the farm and i know bad weather is coming, i will run home and make sure a he and his buddy Jones are ok. And yes, i will make Bastiaan go outside, right before we go to bed, and check up on him. Just in case... And i know Bastiaan doesn't mind...

I am also pretty sure that just like us, he's ready for round two and kick some cancer butt again. He sure is my Black Stallion!

This was one of my first posts from 2009 a little bit changed (no new pictures i just didn't have the time...), i hope you liked it (again)!


...
We got home from Chicago and it is decision making time. What doctor, which hospital and what treatment... All of these different decisions make my head spin... Though choices are never easy ;-)

Crazy Americans that I LOVE

Ok, so last Monday the 15th  I got this HUGE surprise!
Never in a million years i would have thought that this would happen! I feel extremely blessed and thankful and much, much stronger now too fight this thing even harder!

The sweet ladies from Real Farmwives of America put up a special Facebook page... for me!?!... called: Love for Leontien to give me an extra push in the right direction (as in keep fighting)! But if you have no facebook (yet) or just quit facebook because of all the (crazy) changes you can also visit the Real Farmwives of America blog and meet the ladies who were so incredibly sweet to get this whole crazy "Love Bombing" started! Well, and the Power to the Panties, Kick Cancer's Butt Movement of course... Hehe...

Just know we love you all for being soo good to me, everybody who commented, sent emails, sent cards, Facebooked, hyved, called us on the phone, texted, stopped by the house/farm and prayed for us AND being fantastic friends! We could not fight this fight without all of you!

At the moment were back in Chicago, tomorrow (hopefully) they can tell us what kind of treatment we are going to try...

It'll be alright.

...

And just in case you missed the first Crazy Americans and you are wondering what this crazy talk is about:

Crazy American's and Public Restrooms

 





Dog Whisperer

I have absolutely no idea what our Jones is thinking most of the time.

We tried to “teach” him stuff. And yes he knows; sit, down, come, zit (Dutch for sit), pootje (give me a paw in Dutch) and AF! (means stop it RIGHT NOW! in Dutch). But if we are walking over to my mom and dads house and I try to call him to come back to me, he all of a sudden looses all the hearing senses he had two minutes before and he will just look at me with this smarty pants grin and keeps on trotting along (from a distance... yes).

I am NOT a dog whisperer. Not even close…

Lately I have been having some trouble sleeping and because we don’t have central air we also don’t have air condition. So when it gets really really hot (like it did a couple of weeks ago) Bastiaan installed on of those air-conditioning things in the window of our bedroom. But, you might know, that thing is LOUD! And that doesn't improve sleeping, so we just had the window open… hoping for a nice breeze…

It was about 3 AM in the morning and I hear Jones barking, i just (almost) fell asleep and was NOT happy with this interruption. He sometimes barks, but normally he just goes on for 3 barks and then he is silent again. This time it just seemed he was barking his head off… for forever…

Really pissed and worried that Bastiaan would awake I climbed out of bed stumbled around in the dark to find a robe, couldn’t find one so I decided to run out of the bedroom half naked…  Hoping all along that Jones wasn’t barking at some killer on the loose, didn’t really want to make some killers day by showing up all naked!

I peeked true the window and didn’t see no killers, so I even got more pissed,  that crazy dog was probably barking because of some skunk and I would run into it and it would spray me all over with that stinky stuff…. while Jones would be running around with his stupid grin on its face… Great!

While I was running thru the house I kinda forgot that I brought a new friend for Classic the day before. The friend in question was a cute baby calf all white and gray instead of white and black, like “normal” Holstein cows are, that i took from the farm. I was sooo impressed with this baby calf I talked Bastiaan into keeping it. And thus I had made a little stall besides Classic’s stall and had put the baby calf, named her Stella, in there.

I was thinking about Jones, being such a pain in the buttocks and trying to find my slippers and a jacket, (better not to run outside naked, even if it is 3 AM in the morning and we are in the middle of nowhere) at the same time ripping the door open and start running towards the barn.

Jones is barking even more (if that was even possible) and anxious waiting for me to get in the barn…

I hit the light switch and Classic is standing there, blinking his eyes as if trying to waking up but not really succeeding at it, and Jones goes absolutely berserk!

I think, “O my gosh! What is up with this dog…, I think I might need to KILL HIM!!!”

And then I see it…

Stella’s newly improved stall door is open….

“OH MY GOSH!!!”

It is dark outside, and this little 4 day old baby calf got out and I have a major big stallion here that does NOT like baby calves!… What if he runs into the fence cause all the barn doors are wide open and he can go everywhere!…  What if the little baby calf gets lost!…. What if the little baby calf gets hit by a car!.... OH NO, I have to take care of ONE BABY CALF and I lost it the first day I have it at our house!….

Needles to say I was a little worried…

Jones decides to just sit in front of the open door and stops barking all together. And there in the corner of the stall I see something white and gray. And Jones looks up at me with this look in his face like, “Look mommy, the door was open so I decided to make A LOT of noise so you would wake up and make sure you lock that door so my new friend does not get out…”

I gave him three cookies.

 And a hug.

 And one more cookie.

And told him he was a good, good dog.

…

Bastiaan have come back from Chicago, we have no real news to share except that we have to go back to Chicago this Wednesday to talk to more Melanoma specialists... we wait, and wait and wait... No news is good news, right?

Ugly things...

Yep, this says it all...

And do you see those pieces of dust on its body???!!!

Good thing I'm not scared of ugly things (yeah, yeah except spiders...)!

Chicago here we come!


...
And for all your sweet ladies (and gentlemen) who wanted my address, here is the link to our website, Four Leaf Clover Dairy, (www.fourleafcloverdairy.com) and there you can find all our contact info! Thanks!!!

Arretjes Cake = Comfort Food

I wanted to do this for a long time so, here we go! Every gal or "though" guy needs his or her comfort food every now and then to keep on going, no matter what the doctor says!

A couple of sweet people who where brave enough try the pepper and ice cream… This recipe is  much less exciting, but still very very good and no oven needed! If you have been reading my stories for a while you might know that I love a Big Mac every now and then, but this cake is just right up there on the list… The only difference is that this is a “grandma used to teach us” authentic Dutch recipe.

I promise you if you finally have all the ingredients in house (which are not too complicated to get) this should NOT take more than 15 minutes… Oh well maybe 20, depends if you have your kids, nephews and nieces, friends, friend’s kids or grandma herself helping you with the “smashing”…

What you need:

·         A bag of animal crackers (you only need about half the bag but the rest you can eat while you are “cooking”)…

·         12 tablespoons of confectioners powdered sugar

·         1 egg

·         5 tablespoons of Nestle cocoa (I am firmly against everything Hershey….)

·         And butter,  about 12 tablespoons of it, as in normal Imperial  (at Walmart) sticks of butter

If you double everything you get a nice cake form full of yummy sweetness...

How to make it:
Break  (smashing is even more fun) all the animal crackers into two or three pieces. You don’t want to make them too small but if you keep them as a whole they are too big. Melt the butter into a fluid mass. You can do this in the microwave (use a lid) or gradually on your stove. Add the sugar, cocoa and egg to your melted butter. Whip until you have no more lumps. Then add the crackers into your mixture while it is still fluid.  Put the whole mix into a cake pan which you have lined with aluminum foil, to take the cake out more easily after its done. You need to use a LOT of crackers, remember every animal counts! Hehe…

You let this sit for a night, and yes this is the HARD part because if you are like me; a little (very much so) impatient you just can’t wait the 12 hours until the next morning…  Just wait about 5 hours and it will probably be fine…

The trick is to get it stiff/hard enough so you can slice the pieces like you would do a normal cake. But even if it is not very slice able it still looks pretty funny and it sure tastes good…

I know you are NOT supposed to count the calories in this cake, so I wouldn’t recommend to make it once a week… although it is very VERY addicting.

Now that I am a full time swimmer (we went twice in two days, whoohoo…) to build up my stamina and overall physique, to be better prepared to handle the side effects of the chemo (we probably are going to start soon) I think it is also very important to make sure you eat your comfort foods (yes, besides all the healthy stuff) soooo, what better way to do that with some authentic Dutch Arretjes Cake!

I hope you enjoy and please let me know the results of your Dutch "cooking"!

....

Rainbow colored basket case

My gosh!

I just can’t keep up! It is truly amazing what you guys are doing!

I feel simply overwhelmed with sweetness, kind thoughts and prayers and it sure is a good kind off “being overwhelmed” and yes I’m going to visit all of your blogs soon! I should have some “free” time coming up…

I was planning on a funny story… I have several…  But they don’t want to come out of my head. Last week has been a roller coaster and we haven’t seen the end yet. Since I posted last Monday I have not seen a doctor. Apparently it is really hard to figure out what is going in my breast on so they need some more time. In the mean time Bastiaan and the rest of the family have insisted I go get a second opinion, so I made some phone calls and maybe next week we are going on a little trip… to a special cancer center that is.

Which makes me very scared, because I like to stay here, in my own bed. With our own bathroom (that is getting really pretty by the way) and with our own animals. I don’t really want to be shipped off to a place where there are only sick people in a strange hospital in a strange bed without my wonderful stud and crazy Jones who keeps barking at coyotes in the middle of the night (which drives me absolutely NUTS…)! Last time we did this (the chemo thing) I was absolutely happy to go get “better” every other day to go and focus on the bookkeeping, talking to Colby about the girls, and minding my brothers business. So now I am scared that if I don’t have all these things to keep me busy, how in the world am I suppose to get better…

But…

Maybe being away from home makes me focus more on getting better, instead of worrying about the farm all the time (which is a common thing for farmers, and which comes like a second nature to me, I was after all the one with the “American dream” to milk cows in this amazing country)…. and actually GET BETTER?

Though choice…

Today (Thursday) we go to Dr Nala and hopefully we will find out about what the game plan is. And if she thinks that maybe we need to go to “a special place” I think I will pack our suitcase and stuff in full of “home”, get my scull pantie  (yes I really need some more of those) and hop on the plane with Bastiaan, see how windy the windy city really is…

In the mean time I’m gonna make one hundred mistakes a day at the farm (cause I just can’t focus), automatically knowing my sweet hubby, mom & dad and little brother are fixing them behind my back, continue being a little rainbow colored chameleon who changes color ever five minutes (just like my emotions, by the way, this sound WAY more romantic then it really is…) and just ENJOY and feeling incredibly BLESSED with reading your comments, suggestions and cyber hugs!

Cancer butt kicking is going to be a piece of cake with all of you by my side…

Bent

If I fall along the way

Pick me up and dust me off

And if I get too tired to make it

Be my breath so I can walk

If I need some other love

Give me more than I can stand

And when my smile gets old and faded

Wait around I’ll smile again

Shouldn’t be so complicated

Just hold me and then

Just hold me again

Can you help me I’m bent

I’m so scared that I’ll never

Get put back together

Both biopsies were positive

Dr Nala had no good news to share
And right now i do not know how or why this is happening...

Wednesday we have to go back and discuss treatment and surgery options.  Round two, here we come, ready or not...

I am a fighter but I seem to have lost my sword (and my scull panties for that matter) at the moment. But give me a couple of days and i'll find it back...


...
Bent - Matchbox Twenty

In the spotlight!

When your are a bit blue….

As in, waiting for biopsy results and because of that you simply can’t put a decent word on paper… 

You paint…

Well at least that is what I do…. But because my painting is like my drawing in kindergarten (all over the place)  and as you can see in the picture of our bathroom, i must have been color blind at that time (I blame it on the meds)... I won’t bore you with how MUCH the color is going to CHANGE and yes practice makes perfect so I keep practicing...

Yes this is pinkish and purple... What was i thinking...

But since my right side is still hurting and yes, literally a little bit blue too, BUT only 2 stitches (whoohoo), and i couldn't finish my painting job...  I decided to show you something really neat! We, as in you and I, made it into the Progressive Dairyman Magazine! 

Front page of Progressive Dairyman

The article! Yes you can enlarge and hopefully read...

Oh, so sweet!!!

Even more fantastic is that this magazine goes all over the US! And this makes me happy because i love to spread the word about how fantastic dairy farming, AND blogging is! So thank you all for making this happen i simply could not have done this without you all!

Hopefully tomorrow the waiting ends and i can tell you the good news that everything was negative and that i just have been an incredible stressed, emotional overwhelmed, silly girl! And i can go back to try to be a good wife, thoughtful family member, motivational employer and  good caretaker for all our girls (the cows)... yes i am a bit of a perfectionist, if you didn't already knew... ;-)

Dr Nala here we come!

Big hugs

...