Four Leaf Clover Tales

6 weeks and two days ago

2012-03-02T19:51:00.000-05:00

6 weeks and two days ago…

See… I have been trying to write.

Well, I have been trying in my head really really hardand it all sounded perfectly fine… Somehow it just didn't quite make it onto the paper, orwell, because we do live in the modern days, on my perfectly fine purplelaptop…

Now I have so much to tell you that I don’t know where tostart!

First: I missed you all very much!

Second: We got more news last Tuesday (six weeks ago), and yes myplan was to write this down all nice and fuzzy, reason being everything seemsmuch harsher on paper… like, if you tell a person that is sitting across fromyou, you can tone things down with good facial expressions or smile even morebright when you deliver sad news. When you write things down you can smile acomforting smile but no one is there to see, and thus… much harsher…

Not that it is really bad, it could be worse, but it wasnot what we have been hoping for either.

So, here we go: rib, breast, spine, lung and liver area arestill stable; this means nothing got bigger, and nothing got smaller. The spotin my small intestine got smaller, which is good news and this might indicatethat the IL-2 is working, but the spot around the ovary got a bit bigger, sowere back to square one, more or less. Because the scans don’t really indicate what it is they are seeing (theyjust see something there that should not be and is bigger than a month ago) weneed to do more testing next week.

New doctor, new procedures, new nurses, which I am sureare going to be wonderful (the doctors and nurses, I don’t know about theprocedures…), but still it is a bit scary. We were hoping the IL-2 just wouldhave done its job and made everything smaller (or made it disappear alltogether) but maybe it is just a bit slow and needs some more time.

And well, time is a bit of an issue

Not that I don’t have time, I have plenty (or so I liketo think) but this “giving it time” thing is really stressful!!! And thinking about being sick 24/7 doesn’treally make you feel better or makes you go back to work, writing, riding orrelaxing… So… it is even more stressfulto be stressful.

Trying to be stress free is hard work.

But my sweet friend told me in a very stern voiceyesterday, that I better get my act together and be a little selfish for achange, stop worrying about everything that I like to worry about and GETBETTER! She said; everybody would understand if I took a little break every nowand then to fight this nasty fight because if I didn’t, they (as in my familyand friends) would be a whole lot more upset if I didn’t take these littlebreaks and not be here not more because I wasn’t a bit more “selfish” and takethe time to heal and kill some nasty cells…

Oh well…. that was a bit of a rambling thing, but I thinkyou get the picture, right? Less stress, more cancer kicking in the butt andgetting to meet lovely new people (nurses in this case)… hehe...

Today it has been over six weeks since I wrote this post above...

I had to go into surgery the next day after writing this.

They took out my left ovary.

We did new scans.

All the tumors grew since January.

The IL-2 did not work.

This Monday, and yes with this Monday I mean Monday the 5^thof March 2012 we are going to start with the new drug, recently approved by theFDA, Zelboraf. And I am going to try myhardest to keep writing, just because I love it. Because I love life, andbecause I love you all. Yes this sounds a bit creepy, but it is meant well…

Third time is the charm, right?

...

Sometimes I wish

2011-12-19T16:26:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I wish

I wish that it was like it used to be, let’s say, 25 years ago…

No worries, playing with grandma what it would be when I was all grown up.

Well, I’m grown up all right, and it is absolutely nothing like I thought it was going to be.

Bastiaan and I went to the hospital last Friday to get the results of the scan we had the previous Monday.

The good news was that nothing really got any bigger, the doc did see some “new” spots but he thought they were already there last time, before we started the IL-2 treatment. They were new to us, so I just hope the doctor is right (and yes I trust him so I shouldn't worry too much…). The not so good news was, of course, that they didn't get any smaller either...

I know this all is actually good news and I know I should be really happy, the news that we got Friday was above all our (mine for sure, which is only proof that I still don’t know my body) expectations, but “happy” doesn’t seem to be on the menu lately.

I think that is why I’m having such a difficult time writing, I do not want to be negative (I always imagined my little stories to be positive and hopefully make people laugh) or write negative stories/blog posts, so I didn’t write at all for (what seems to me) a incredibly long time…

Sorry it took me so long

Your prayers, gifts, cards and above all love still give me inspiration every day. And if you can hang in there with me a little bit longer I am (almost) sure we are going to be oke and smile like that little girl again…

...

The C stands for ...

2011-11-28T11:09:00.001-05:00

When we were in the hospital something amazing happened!
Well... I think it was pretty amazing, anyway...

It is very uplifting/humbling to see your life story written down by somebody else, it sure makes you feel very blessed! I really hope you like Emily's article!

And i am sorry but you have to click the link in order to get to the article (maybe even open a new window)...

Chasing a Dream: One woman's fight for a Dairy farm life

...

Things are going well. Every new day is a better one then the day before. Hopefully we are going to see the girls today! And i am sure happy to be back here with all of you!

Round Two starts Today...

2011-11-14T08:59:00.000-05:00

OK, today is the day.
Bastiaan and I are heading back to Indy...

My little sister came back from The Netherlands again for a couple of weeks to support all of us and I am pretty sure my mom, dad and little brother are going to do an awesome job keeping the farm running. Making sure the boys (our employees) and our girls (our cows) are getting the best of everything.

Still incredibly scared but ready to fight again if the doctor says we are going to go for round two but since we are not quite sure what the doctor is going to say (probably "yes, let's do it") it is not only scary but also a bit nerve racking...

It might be a while before I see you all again. But I am gonna assume it will be not too long...

I'm gonna miss you!

In case we are a little bit longer gone... Bastiaan might have given an update on Love for Leontien

...

You got to be kidding?!?

2011-11-10T09:50:00.001-05:00

What I believed at some point as simply not possible, justcame with time... I can walk from one side of the house to the other,without toppling over from lack of breath… I can even walk to my mom and dad’s house (if I reallywanted), three quarters of a mile down the road!

Whoohhooo!

The stress test went well. Doc says I am ready for Round Two…

I don’t think I am ready for Round Two…

Last Thursday I was sleeping in a little bit, like I have been doing since I got back from thehospital and I was having this incredibly annoying, please, please go away,itch. One of the side effects is itchiness and for the last week, somehow itjust doesn’t wanna stop.

I rub myself with five different lotions but they allseem to work a couple of hours and then I have to undress and lather up allover again. But Bastiaan and I reason this to be a good thing, it just meansthat the chemo stuff is still doing its thing and thus Kill, Kill, Kill all thosenasty cells…

So while I lay in bed, scratching myself everywhere untilI am nice and red all over again, thinking by myself that I really need anotherbottle of lotion, right here besides my bed, I feel something (feeling something that wasn’t there before on your body is NOT agood thing)…

YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING!!!????

I jump out of bed towards the bathroom and check again.

It could be imagination, you know. Very common amongst patientsto feel things that are not really there just because they are scared thatsomething is there…

There was defiantly something there.

And then I got a little angry, well and then MAD and theneven MADDER (don’t know if that is a proper English word but my spelling checksays it’s ok…) and then I got REALLY REALLY upset.

How come that we are doing this immense-awful chemostuff, which almost killed me (and I thought the whole plan behind this chemothing was that I was NOT going to be dying any time soon) and now I am feeling alittle bump in my armpit…

Let me tell you this is NOT very uplifting, hopeful orencouraging while trying to Kick Cancer in the Butt.

I called IU in Indianapolis but they didn’t pick up thephone so I called my Dr Nala. She told me to come right away and she would havea look (did I tell you she and the nurses over there are just little angels???).Bastiaan and I rushed to the hospital and Dr Nala checked the little bump. Yesit was defiantly there and no I wasn’t just in my imagination (which I ofcourse new, but then again I have been wrong about my body in the past…). Dr Nalagot on the phone and checked with my doctor at IU and together they looked atmy CAT-scans and discussed the situation.

Their explanation: It had been there before, I just mightnot have felt it any sooner and/or because of the chemo it might have enlargeda bit or got closer to the surface of the skin and that is why I felt it now. BUTthat it did NOT mean that the chemo is not working and/or that we are not doingthe whole kill, kill, kill thing, so we shouldn’t (never ever) give up!

I am scared shitless.

(I promised myselfI wouldn’t curse in my blog… I am promising you now it won’t happen again)

...

Back in the land of the Living...

2011-11-01T11:07:00.001-04:00

My gosh…

Cancer Butt Kicking is HARD!!!

I remember the first day in the hospital

I remember the last day of being in the hospital

I remember it being so hard to breathe

I remember Bastiaan being there… always…

When you gain about 7 pounds in 3 days you look like atomato. And no I don’t mean a cute little tomato on a little green limb but a FAT, I do notfeel happy RED ( called the IL-2 tan) I’m almost falling of off my sticktomato! Being like a tomato is not a good thing. Especially when you keep tellingthe doctor you are feeling “peachy”…

I got 12 treatments in. They (the doctor and very sweetnurses) say this is a really good thing cause the total you can get is 14treatments in the first round. We started Monday the 17^th. Everyeight hours they would give me the Inter Leukin, but by Thursday I hadaccumulated so much fluid that my heart had a lot of trouble pumping all myblood to my organs.

A little birdie told me once that it is pretty importantto have your heart pump blood around too all your organs all the time...

So Dr Logan and his team stopped treatment and they focusedon “fixing me up” quick so my heart didn't get crazy ideas. Which I think was a super idea! We stayed in on the Intensive Care Unit untilTuesday the 25^th instead of Sunday the 23th (like normal IL-2patients) because they wanted to make sure I was all right, that my heart wasdoing fine, and the fluid was decreasing. Also I needed to get my strength backand get of off the oxygen, (like those little old ladies you see in the movies totingaround one of those oxygen tanks… although I didn't walk at all at that time…)and start breathing normally.

I don’t remember very much of being in the hospital, onlywhat my family tells me I did or didn’t do. But maybe that is better. It musthave been very hard on them though….

Today I have been home for a week. I can shower by myself(WHOOHOO!!!), I can breathe, read and write again (Oh Yeah Baby) and I can talkwalks outside and see Classic, Jones and the crazy cats. I have been to thefarm for the first time yesterday and seen our girls...

Life is good.

But this was only part one.

In order to do thefull Inter Leukin Treatment (and kill kill kill all those nasty cells) we haveto do another round off 5 days Intensive Care…

And, well… we are not sure my heart can take anotherround. So this week were going to fuel up, get strong, get stamina back andlearn to walk to the other side of the house and not be totally exhausted… (no,our house is NOT that big…) AND do a stress test. This stress test is to see ifmy heart can take another round. They are also going to draw some blood and weare going to see Dr Logan again.

In the mean time I just am overwhelmed (in a GOOD way)with your prayers, cards, gifts, presents, flowers, bears, cookies, socks, pirate games,monkeys in a jar, lollypops, crèmes and all the other goodies you guys sent meand continue to feel very much blessed and loved! You Crazy American’s reallydo things bigger and better!!! Haha!

THANK YOU!!!

...

I'll be back!

2011-10-16T22:44:00.005-04:00

OK...
I think I'm ready...

I will see you in a week or so...!!!
Well... Maybe sooner if you are up for a pajama party in the hospital.... ;-)

We will see how things go and I'll try to keep you updated! I hope you have a wonderful week and make sure you love every moment of it! And don't forget, I'll be thinking about you all!!!

Big hugs
Leontien

...

Who's afraid of heights?

2011-10-13T11:11:00.006-04:00

I am afraid of heights.

Not as much as I am afraid of spiders.

Well... maybe...

I went to Australia a couple of years ago, and it was anabsolute wonderful experience. The country is just gorgeous. What I liked thebest was the fact that about every two days we had a different scenery. One daywe would be at the shore looking at the sea and see the sun go down, the otherday we would be in the middle of a rain forest. Well at least I thought it wasa rain forest, it sure was hot and humid!

We saw mountains and we saw cows (of course) and veryvery disappointing, I have to admit, only ONE kangaroo, and I don’t even thinkit was a kangaroo but a walibi (big difference)! But we did see some koala’swhich made up for the lack of kangaroos.

Everything was just fantastic until the day we got the “genius”idea to do something different…

This something different was us scouting for fun things to do on ourway from one destination to the other, we needed some exercise as well and since we alreadywalked besides the shore (where we foundout we really needed good shoes, walking gear AND drinking water) and the desert (which was just HOT again with crazy amountsof flies, EVERYWHERE but at least we brought water that time) we were very pleased when we saw a sign that said “TreeTop Walks” and an explanation of what a three top walk was (which is a path in the top of the trees, man made, which meant the path was made out of metal with little see true holes in the bottom and attached with cables and/orlaying on TALL round posts and SWAYING) and... some stunning pictures.

Being a little naive and blown away by the great pictures(good advertisement on their part) I thought this would help me get over myfear of heights and so I said “Ok, let’s do it!”

I really should have known better.

The beginning was not so bad. The “path” started out at “ground level”, butquickly the dirt was not there anymore and we were up in the air. Yes, as longas I would look straight forward and went from tree to tree, it wasn’t so bad…But of course that was NOT the only thing I did.

Nooooo I had to look down, see how those cables whereattached to those trees, and because I saw the cables I saw us moving slowlyfrom the right to the left and back, and I did a little calculation that thoseposts on which this metal path WITH SEE TRUE HOLES was attached too was defiantly notstrong enough to keep us up there!!! Doing all this math is not a good thing when you are up 60 feet (i don't know how high we were, it was HIGH to me) in theair and afraid of heights….

Half way true the “walk” I decided I didn’t get no airanymore… “Well, and that I really was afraid and never ever should have attemptsomething as dumb as this”. But of course it was a bit too late for that and I hurriedon down the half mile path… pushingeverybody out of my way and yelling to keep following me!

Do you know how long half a mile is?

It's pretty far…

I got to the other end and just went on my knees andcried like a little baby. You should have seen the looks on the faces of the otherpeople that came of that path, they for sure thought I lost my mind, but I justcould not stop myself! And just as areminder, you shouldn’t believe the people who tell you you look lovely afterbawling your eyes out for 15 minutes either. Lucky for me the whole thing was a loop and soI didn’t have to go back over that path to get to the car and face more people.Which would have added more shame upon embarrassment…

We went for some more scenery seeing in the safety of our car… which was just fine with me! Ididn’t need no more exercise anyway that day…

I really love trees, love them in my yard, besides theroads, in forests, in pictures or paintings, with leafs or without leafs, but Iam never going to attempt to do a three top walk again, EVER!!! There are justsome things a girl sound not attempt twice…

...

Monday is coming closer and closer but I don’t quite knowif that is a good thing or a bad thing… Guess we will find out soon! I did do some fun things (laying in the yard watching the cats play, called a bunch of good friends and chatted, went pantie shopping with my little sister. I worked at the farm, my little brother is getting really good at cracking those numbers. And read a lot of beautiful blogs, and i am soaking up all the LOVING you guys give me... Everything is going to be just fine...

Problem or Opportunity

2011-10-10T18:11:00.002-04:00

I have a little problem…

I have one week…

One week before we start the huge battle…

One week before my life starts to look pretty grim(seeing a list of all the side effectsand hoping my body doesn't decidesomething that my mind doesn't want to admit could even happen) and now I don’tknow what to do until we get there…

Do I spent the week by doing all the things I normallydon’t do, or do I work like normal (or a little harder) and make sure thateverything is good to go when I will be in Indy?

Maybe I’ll do both?

...

Ready... Set... Go...

2011-10-06T14:07:00.000-04:00

Ok, you better all get your undies and toothbrush gathered cause you get to visit!!!

The Plan (and yes “The Plan” might change a bit when wemove closer to the "starting date") but we have decided on going to Indi. Yes I know this might come (a little bit) as a shock and truth to be told, Chicago was reallynice, the people were very sweet and the doctors very knowledgeable but we feltthat we wanted to be a bit closer to home...

I really need all of you, my family, my friends, my buddies (Classic, Jones and the cats) and girls (our cows) tobeat this thing with me and I thought I would feel kinda lonely in Chicago... And yes this may seem a bit silly... But i feel stronger this way and ready too fight, so Bastiaan and I thought this would be a good reason because we need to be as strong as possible. In Chicago they told us that we always could come back if necessary, which was a good and nice thing to know.

So, while we decided on where to go, more tests were done,more test results came back and all the treatment options werepresented to us. Out of the three options we have chosen for Inter leukin IL-2, this is a fancy smancy namefor a shitty (yes I said it) drug, that hopefully will boost my immune systemand knock all those nasty cells out of my body. And no, I am not a nurse ordoctor so I might not have used the perfect terms to describe it but I thinkyou get the whole picture if you click on the link (which you don't have to cause its no fun anyway).

The Plan in Indy is as follows: We are going to go to thehospital, I will get admitted to the Intensive Care Unit and I will stay therea whole week. They only do five days of treatment, every eight hours, but we'llneed the two extra days to recover. Then we will go home for a week, rest...And we will be back at the Intensive Care the following week and we'll do itall over again, if (and this is a big IF apparently) my body (and mind) canstand the treatment.

The side effects are pretty nasty, so I am not going toname them (The list is too long and a tiny bit depressing…). The good thing isthat we will have all day visiting rights!!! Whoohoo... Only two people at thesame time, but well… I was pretty happy about that!

Bastiaan and my family can stay most of the time and if they need to go home for a bit, (maybe to drive around in some tractors, look at the cows and talk to all the boys, which can be pretty relaxing after spending a lot of time in the IC) somebody else can come for a bit and stay with me...?

There you go, that is The Plan. Having a private partywhile doing some MAJOR cancer kicking in Indy while wearing our scull pantiesand new PJ’s!!! It sounds good to me…

…

Check, check, double check

2011-10-03T08:58:00.000-04:00

I have my horse. Check
I have my sword. Check
I have my skull panties. Check
I have my family and friends. Check
I have lot's of love and support. Check
I have lot's of wonderful people praying for me (THANK YOU!). Check

I seem to have all the check's in place. But for whatever reason i can't quite start fighting yet. Maybe this week is, "The Week" and we will stop waiting and start doing... I'm ready...

My new fighting buddies

"I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it." — Maya Angelou

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How a girls still loves her horse!

2011-09-26T11:25:00.000-04:00

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

2011-09-22T10:25:00.001-04:00

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

2011-09-19T11:02:00.001-04:00

I have absolutely no idea what our Jones is thinking mostof 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! (meansstop it RIGHT NOW! in Dutch). But if we are walking over to my mom and dadshouse and I try to call him to come back to me, he all of a sudden looses allthe hearing senses he had two minutes before and he will just look at me with thissmarty 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 andbecause we don’t have central air we also don’t have air condition. So when itgets really really hot (like it did a couple of weeks ago) Bastiaan installedon of those air-conditioning things in the window of our bedroom. But, youmight know, that thing is LOUD! And that doesn't improve sleeping, so we justhad 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 silentagain. This time it just seemed he was barking his head off… for forever…

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

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

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

I was thinking aboutJones, 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 arein the middle of nowhere) at the same time ripping the door open and start running towards thebarn.

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 mightneed 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 outand I have a major big stallion here that does NOT like baby calves!… What ifhe runs into the fence cause all the barn doors are wide open and he can goeverywhere!… What if the little babycalf 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 itat our house!….

Needles to say I was a little worried…

Jones decides to just sit in front of the open door andstops barking all together. And there in the corner of the stall I see somethingwhite and gray. And Jones looks up at me with this look in his face like, “Lookmommy, the door was open so I decided to make A LOT of noise so you would wakeup 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...

2011-09-15T09:47:00.000-04:00

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

2011-09-12T12:47:00.001-04:00

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 pepperand ice cream… This recipe is much less exciting, but still very very good and no oven needed! Ifyou have been reading my stories for a while you might know that I love a BigMac every now and then, but this cake is just right up there on the list… The onlydifference is that this is a “grandma used to teach us” authentic Dutch recipe.

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

What you need:

· A bag of animal crackers (you only need abouthalf 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 againsteverything Hershey….)

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

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

How to make it:
Break (smashing is even more fun) allthe animal crackers into two or three pieces. You don’t want to make them toosmall but if you keep them as a whole they are too big. Melt the butter into afluid mass. You can do this in the microwave (use a lid) or gradually on yourstove. Add the sugar, cocoa and egg to your melted butter. Whip until you haveno more lumps. Then add the crackers into your mixture while it is still fluid. Put the whole mix into a cake pan whichyou have lined with aluminum foil, to take the cake out more easily after its done. You need to usea LOT of crackers, remember every animal counts! Hehe…

You let this sit for a night, and yes this is the HARDpart because if you are like me; a little (very much so) impatient you just can’twait 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 slicethe 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 thiscake, 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 twodays, whoohoo…) to build up my stamina and overall physique, to be betterprepared to handle the side effects of the chemo (we probably are going tostart soon) I think it is also very important to make sure you eat your comfortfoods (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

2011-09-08T10:58:00.000-04:00

My gosh!

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

I feel simply overwhelmed with sweetness, kind thoughtsand prayers and it sure is a good kind off “being overwhelmed” and yes I’mgoing 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 postedlast Monday I have not seen a doctor. Apparently it is really hard to figureout what is going in my breast on so they need some more time. In the mean timeBastiaan and the rest of the family have insisted I go get a second opinion, soI made some phone calls and maybe next week we are going on a little trip… to aspecial 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 placewhere there are only sick people in a strange hospital in a strange bed withoutmy wonderful stud and crazy Jones who keeps barking at coyotes in the middle ofthe night (which drives me absolutely NUTS…)! Last time we did this (the chemothing) I was absolutely happy to go get “better” every other day to go andfocus on the bookkeeping, talking to Colby about the girls, and minding mybrothers business. So now I am scared that if I don’t have all these things tokeep me busy, how in the world am I suppose to get better…

But…

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

Though choice…

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

In the mean time I’m gonna make one hundred mistakes aday at the farm (cause I just can’t focus), automatically knowing my sweethubby, mom & dad and little brother are fixing them behind my back, continuebeing a little rainbow colored chameleon who changes color ever five minutes (justlike 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 withall of you by my side…

Bent

2011-09-05T10:00:00.000-04:00

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 myscull 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!

2011-09-01T08:55:00.001-04:00

When your are a bit blue….

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

You paint…

Well at least that is what I do…. But because my paintingis like my drawing in kindergarten (all over the place) and as you can see in the picture ofour 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 andyes 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, literallya little bit blue too, BUT only 2 stitches (whoohoo), and i couldn't finish my painting job... I decided to show yousomething really neat! We, as in you and I, made it into the ProgressiveDairyman 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

...

And who are you...???

2011-08-29T10:58:00.000-04:00

A mammogram, in my imagination was a terrible/the worst/incredible scary procedure…But was it really??? NOPE! What it was; it was pretty interesting, to be honest…

I hardly slept the two days before I went, and I have toadmit all these Stephen King, Dean Koontz and the other horror story writers Ilike to read didn’t help, but really, it wasn’t that frightening. Not like theawful, peeing in your pants feeling that you get with the CAT scan and not as SCARY as feeling like you’re the bad guy with themask in the Silence of the lambs movie, stuck in a tube that is way too small, SCARY!

Maybe it helps if you havesmaller breasts??? It really wasn’t that bad. Not that it was fun, but thenurse was really friendly, explained all my 200 questions per minute in a verypatient manner AND her hands were warm! Which I thought was a PLUS!

After we got done, she told me to sit and wait andprobably within 15 minutes I could go home.

Well, that did not happen.

They saw “something” high up, pretty much above my rightbreast and they needed to further “investigate”… So I followed another reallysweet nurse and unbuttoned. Good thing those fancy robes only have tree buttons(if you are trembling all over it is pretty hard to undo those little thingies)and she scanned my breast again. I have found out that the more you haveintimate parts uncovered amongst total strangers, it easier it gets…. (at leastthat is what I thought up to last Wednesday…) NOT that it is fun, but it isn’tas scary anymore as it was the first time and I think I had my heart rate undercontrol (for the most part anyway).

Again this didn’t go according to plan. After she tookseveral “pics” she left me by myself in that room. All kinds of interestingtools you got there, plus two computers but not the stuff that you want to playwith while the nurse is away… So I just fiddled with my robe and buttons.

She didn’t come back for what seemed like an ETERNITY (Ishould have asked Bastiaan to come but I wasn’t expecting to do all of this,blame the positive side of me) and when she did, it wasn’t just her, no shebrought her superior nurse lady…. “Hhhmmmm….”.

The “new” nurse who was even more skilled in readingultrasounds and mammograms told me that they had indeed found something “off”,but they weren’t sure what it was. And she wanted to look over herself. So I laiddown again. Got gooey stuff all over me and the ladies looked…

Inconclusive. Justmy luck…

BUT it is better to know for sure than to not knowexactly what it is and since I already had to go to a surgeon later last week,the sweet nurses told me not to worry (haha….) and talk to Dr. L on Wednesday.

I generally like ALL the nurses, nurse practitioners ANDdoctors (as you probably know). With that said my trip to the hospital onWednesday is one of my least favorite.

If you have female problems (whatever they might be) itis nice to have a female doctor. At least I like that… They know what you haveand what might be going on in or on your body, maybe a tinsy bit better thantheir male colleagues . So when I found out I had a man as the surgeon who wasgoing to check out my breasts I felt a little uneasy. But since I am no sissy and everybody deservesthe benefit of the doubt AND because I had seen Dr L. before, I thought Iwould though it out, get it over with, prove everybody that there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING wrong with me andgo home….

So past Wednesday, after being escorted to the examine room by a lovelynurse who said she recognized me from 2 years ago (which was very flattering),putting on a bright pink robe thingy, I sat and waited…

And waited…

And waited some more…

Until I got EXTREMELY upset with everybody andeverything! My heart rate went sky high, even higher than with the ultrasound(so yes it was beating almost out of my chest!)! I decided it was not worth thegetting upset about waiting part, the doc probably was very busy (it suredidn’t seem like that when I left my little brother in an almost empty waitingroom FORTY FIVE MINUTES earlier…) so I waited some more. I didn’t have theguts to go outside my little cubicle, in my paper pink almost fall apart robethingy anyway…

After almost a full hour of waiting and putting crazyideas in my head (which happen a lot lately) the doc walked in. WITH AN ASSISTANT…. And no they did NOT askme if it was all right that a 20 some year old BOY was gonna see my boobies and they DID NOT apologiesfor being an HOUR late!

I was in utter shock!

I come from Holland and in Holland we are pretty openabout all kinds’ sexuality stuff and yes I know doctors are students beforethey are doctors BUT I was NOT expecting this and I did not like it! NOT ONEBIT.

But since they did not ask me if it was all right for theboy to stay, and the doc did not explain to me why or what the boy was doingthere, I just laid down, zeroed myself to another planet and let them check mybreasts. I do think I said yes and no at the right moments and I was aware ofthe fact that it wasn't the good news I was hoping for but at least it was overin 5 minutes… tops…

You have to believe me, I am no sissy, and I dounderstand that young folks need to learn, and they can’t learn from booksonly. But at least they could have asked me if it was oke, for him to bethere…? Since I have been diagnosed 3and a half year ago I had never felt so vulnerable and like a number as last Wednesday, and you probably knew thatbecause I have been writing a LOT of funny hospital stories although they werenot always funny at that time. This was really not one of them.

And to make matters worse, Dr L. and the boy did not knowwhat “it” was so now we have to do a biopsy. This will be biopsy number twothis week. Which again is all right with me, because I rather know, then live withthe maybe’s…

So this Tuesday I will probably have a blue boobie andThursday Dr Nala will say… “YOU ARE ALL RIGHT!!!” See… those words are worth all the blue boobies, blueribs and young boys who need to learn!

...

My steel horse

2011-08-25T10:04:00.000-04:00

Since I was a little girl I wanted a shiny car. And yes, I waspretty sure what kind of shiny car that needed to be. I had no doubts, nobodycould talk me into something different and I wasn’t gonna change my mind.

Because I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 19 (inHolland you can’t get your license until you are 18) I was a little behind onthe majority of teens. I didn’t mind because I was still working hard and saving my money for mydream car. But because I had to drive something, my mom and dad got my sisterand I a little car to share. She was gonna take it one week and I the other.The weeks that we didn’t have the car we had to take the bus and train to getto school. The car was a good car and i was very grateful that my parents let my sister and i have one, but I wasn’t mine…

Finally after severalyears of working every weekend, every after schools hour and vacationperiod, I had enough money saved up and soI bought my first BMW! I was so happy! So proud and I felt so free! This babywas mine and I did it all myself!!!

The only problem with that car was, (and of COURSE I didn’tadmit that while I had it) that it was VERY fuel inefficient. And it wouldbreak. A lot! As in maybe, once every month…. Sometimes close to home, sometimesclose to school and sometimes right in the middle of where I was going to…

So on a sunny Friday afternoon D. and I were driving home.We had the music on, and we were happy that it was almost weekend. Not that I coulddo a lot of partying, because I had to work the whole weekend in order to payfor all the fuel and the latest gasket, oil filter or plug for my car… But we werehappy anyway and feeling on top of the world driving our own cool car!

In Holland the highways are crowded. And I don’t meancrowded like here, no, its crazy bumper to bumper three/ fourths of the wayhome. So while we were in the left lane, called the “fast” lane and creepingforward at about 5 miles an hour, smoke started coming out from under the hood….

I whispered to D., “D. this is not good!?!”, and it wasn’tgood at all… we had major overheating problems… Because the highway was so full of cars we couldn’tgo to the right lane and park in the grass besides the highway, nobody wouldlet us true anyway…

So after some more panicking we decided to park in themiddle part of the highway. And yes we know that this is STRICKTLY FORBIDDEN.But we didn’t know what to do and I wasn’t gonna let my car do any more damageto itself!!! I needed my baby!

So we park the car on the “wrong” side, open the hood andcheck. I don’t know much about cars but I thought it was some kind of hose thatwas busted. D. thought the same. While we were standing there lots of carshonked. Lots of “friendly” faces that were laughing AT us. BUT nobodystopped!!! So were standing there besides the highway, car smoking, twodesperate looking young girls, and NOBODY stopped…

After some 15 minutes of looking at the hose and getting moreand more frustrated by all these people not stopping to help us, finally atruck driver stops at the good (right) side of the road and comes over. Helooks in the car and concludes that it is indeed a hose… “Oh well, tough guy wealready knew that but thanks for stopping”.

And then things started to click... or so we thought…

While our truckdriverwas standing there staring at the hose, a police car stops right behind myparked car….

“YOU CAN’T STAND HERE!!!” he yells while exciting his copcar. I was trying to explain to him thatI knew that but that we didn’t have no other choice and I was a little bit surprisedthat he didn’t ask if we had an accident or something and if somebody was hurt. Nope, he didn’t ask anything at all, he just yelled that we weren’t supposedto be here! The bad thing was; the truck driver didn’t like the police…

And so he starts yelling (to the policeman!!!) that thosegirls (D. and I) had car trouble and that we could park anywhere we wanted! Sowhile D. and I thought that this couldn’t go any worse, it got worse!

The policeman and the “good Samaritan” are yelling and werejust standing there besides the highway and wondering what is going to happennext.

Finally the policeman had enough and tells the truck driverto go away or he is going to get a ticket. After some more cursing, screamingand yelling…!!! He finally left. In themean time the police man apparently called some other coppers and they arrive butinstead of HELPING US (or even asking us what the matter is) the block off thehighway….

Three lanes of highway completely blocked off by police cars…

The policeman yells (again) that we need to go to the otherside of the road…

So D. and I hop in the car, drive (really, really slowly, wereally felt like royalty too…) to the other side of the road and park it in thegrass. And before we even know what is going on, all 4 police cars left…. “What???!!!”

Within no time the traffic is bumper to bumper again, 5miles an hour and people politely smiling at us… Ohww, what a day!?

Then we realized that one of my housemates who was still atschool (in order to get home) needed to use the same highway, so we called himup. He was maybe 5 miles up the road stuck in the same traffic jam. He promisedus he would get there as soon as possible and help us out.

What seemed like forever we finally saw his car and hepulled over, got us hooked up behind hiscar (which was slightly smaller and less heavy) so the pulling didn’t go assmooth… But we were on our way again.After some CRAZY driving and towing our car we made it to his house. Changedthe troublemaker hose and put in a new hose. D. and I drove home, with all the windows open and the air at fullblast, because we were too afraid the car was going to overheat again…

I dropped D. of at the train station and got home at 9.45pm. We had left that same day at 1 pm and the drive normally takes us 2 hours….

D. and I have been in a lot of situations like this, but I neversold my car, well not until it was unsafe (as in really, really unsafe) to drive it anymore (I bought a newBMW)… and I never regret one day driving it. I felt on top of the world drivingthat car. And it made me realize that as long as you believe in yourself, work hard and long forsomething and you never give up, you will reach the top. Whatever that topmight be for you….

...

Enjoy Life

2011-08-22T08:00:00.000-04:00

Well the good news is; I didn't light up as a Christmas tree allnice and shiny. The bad news; more testing and thus more waiting.

The waiting is really the hard part. Once you know you can just goand fight the bastard. But as long as you don’t know, you don’t know what orhow to fight it. Even if you wear your best panties!

So last Friday when we went to Dr Nala she told us that althoughthe PET scan didn’t show a whole lot we needed to do more testing because therewere several spots that she didn’t trust.

So today (Monday) I will be going and will get my boobies squished,for real this time not like last time… Wednesday we have to go to get theresults and Friday we have to get a biopsy done. And then we wait. Next ThursdayDr Nala will give me the news. At least I hope. Any news is better than nonews...

Until then, since it is pretty hard focusing on anything at alllately (wonder why…?) and I have all these idea’s for things/stories I want to tell youin my head, but somehow they don’t make it onto the paper. That is why I’mgonna leave you with this great quote I found at my cyber friend Dolores’sblog: Moving forward with Alzheimer’s.

There are 5 things in lifeyou cannot recover:

A stone... After it'sthrown

A word... After it is said

An occasion... After it'smissed

The time... After it'sgone

A person... After they die

Life is short. Break therules. Kiss slowly. Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably. And never regret anythingthat made you smile, Enjoy Life…

So that is what I’m gonna do!

Enjoy all the sweet comments you left me in the last week,which made me feel so special, so loved and so much stronger. Enjoy mywonderful family who I can count on no matter how bad, cranky or desperate I feel.Enjoy my more than fantastic hubby, who makes me feel pretty even if Ilook like hell. Enjoy the farm where I am so incredibly proud off. And enjoy my friend for life, crazy blackstallion and give him a good rub!

And if Jones is a good boy maybe he can get a good rubtoo, he’ll enjoy that….

See ya Thursday!

...

Cancer Kicking and panties with sculls

2011-08-18T10:00:00.009-04:00

Ok, as you might have read in my previous post things aren't going so smoothly and because we still have no results… hopefully latertoday… and I can’t seem to muster the energy to bring you a nice “I’m a happy pumpkin in asunny pasture” post, I’m gonna leave you with a Golden Oldie.

I DID wear my panties with a scull yesterday to my PETscan and yes, I washed it last night AND I am wearing it today to Dr Nala,soooo IF something shows up all bright and shiny on my PET scan (which I am SURE will NOT happen…) I can hit the ground running and kick this cancer thingy in the buttocks. Call me crazy but i just feel a little bit stronger, walk a little taller and smile a LOT more wearing these dumb panties while hearing (sometimes life altering) PET/MRI scan results!

And, because we are talking about panties…. I dug up one of my first posts and it is one that I personally like a lot! I’mfairly sure (keep fingers crossed and/or say a little prayer) that next week I’ll be back with new stories and new HOPES and new DETERMINATION (whatever way it may go...)!

And If I haven’t done so already, THANK YOU SOOO MUCH forall your sweet comments on my Putting things in Perspective post, those help in so many more ways than you could ever imagine!

Mouse hunt in granny pants

I was almost asleep... You know, right at that point were you feel your entire body come at ease...

With a sudden shock i realise there is somebody besides MY BED! And no I'm not dreaming and YES i should be all alone. "O my gosh, there is somebody besides my bed..!"

And then realizing all in a couple of seconds, I'm defiantly not dreaming, i defiantly should start wearing granny pants and pj's (if there would be a crazy man besides my bed, it's less attracting to wear granny pants, i hope) and i defiantly hear something creepy but it's not a man! I turn over to turn on the light and there on my dresser is see a tiny mouse playing hide and seek with my clothes.

Ok, freak out time has officially started, although it's not a scary man but a little tiny mouse.

So I'm watching this little fluff ball running over my dresser back and forth, climbing up and down and trying to sneak under my bed; "I don't think so buddy!". I'm trying to think of a strategy to catch this little intruder, and as a real girl supposed to do, i call my husband and tell him we have a little problem in the bedroom, and ask him if we have some traps. Turned out we did, which is a good thing but that meant, me getting out of bed and putting on some clothes, which is a bad thing...

EVERYBODY knows if you have monsters in your bedroom, you stay IN BED! That way they can't catch/grab or attack you... (Read your Stephen King novels!)

So after some serious consideration i got out of bed, put on some granny pants and got the mouse trap. We had a little bit of left over sausage and i figured my little mouse would like that. So i set the trap, used some sausage as bait, crawled into bed and waited...

And oh my gosh, two feet away (maybe four feet, but it felt really close) comes my little mouse, so cute, and headed right for my trap!

Haha, got you you little bastard...

At the same time that i was hoping i would catch him, i was also hoping that that trap thing would snap really fast so he won't feel nothing, AND thinking that i really can't watch this because it is so MEAN!

The little mouse grabs my sausage and takes off to a safe place underneath the dresser. No snapping of the trap, no me freaking out about killing a little, really cute, mouse. Just utter amazement. That little bastard stole my sausage!

After Bastiaan got home we tried to catch him but no luck (which wasn't a surprise, he just had lunch) and we set some more traps the next day but so far we haven't caught him yet.

Hopefully he went to the neighbors, maybe he can score some more sausage there, cause he's not getting it from me no more!

...

Putting things in perspective

2011-08-15T11:00:00.002-04:00

I wrote this post in April 2010.
Sometimes i read it to try, to put things in perspective again. This last week has been a bit (read: a lot) of a challenge. Normally i can stay pretty positive and find a way to convince myself that I'm gonna be just fine. This is not one of those weeks.

What Cancer does to somebody like me...

One year, eleven months and somewhat days ago I got confronted with this awful disease. I can tell you, it wasn't and is not funny.

After several surgeries, lots of pain and fear I got 4 weeks of chemo treatment for 4 hours straight every day. When we were done with the IV's we did 48 weeks of chemo shots, 3 times a week, with one of the most terrible chemical substances that people have invented. Things lasted a bit longer because we had to quit a couple of times (weeks) because my body or mind couldn’t handle it too well...

Cancer does a lot to people... So does the treatment of cancer...

It makes you angry

Angry against the world, because every time you go to the hospital, the people that you meet are in their fifties. "Where are all the young people???" "Am I the only one?" Angry towards the people surrounding you. I doesn’t matter how hard they try, they can’t feel, understand or know what you feel. Even if they are by your side 24/7 in the hospital and at home, keep your hair up when you are puking your guts out in the toilet or when you do NOT want to say ANYTHING because you are to tired to the bone or when they hold you until the shaking has stopped…

Angry towards your friends, you thought they were there, but they are not. Angry towards you family, they do not deserve it, but to admit that to yourself only makes things worse. But most of all angry towards yourself. Because you just can’t understand why this had to happen. And if you could have changed it or prevented it. And of course I am MAD because I thought I could change or adapt to anything. I could do everything and I didn’t NEED anybody. Angry because it is not fair. Angry because it shouldn’t have to be this way. Angry because of all the hurt I caused other people...

It makes you scared
Scared that you never get off of the roller coaster of emotions, your sad, happy, angry and hurt, and all over again. Afraid that with every bump, every little thing that hurts, every little change or little mold, it is coming back... Scared that all the statistics are true. Scared because we have to go back to the hospital every 3 months the coming five years, and you NEVER know what “they” are going to say... Afraid you can never have any little kids, and even if you would, and you would die within two years, Bastiaan would be all alone with that little bundle of love... I can’t do that... Afraid that you can not give the people, who you love the most, what they deserve.

It makes you sad
Because live passed you by for the last two years and you can not get it back. Because you wanted to build friendships but didn’t have the energy to do so. Because you wanted to face the mistakes you made in the past, but that didn’t work out. Because this was supposed to be the new country with the new life and possibilities. Because we are shallow and you do not realize that until you have a hole of 3 by 2,5 inches on you leg and so many other scars on you body you do not even want to count them. Because you are hurting of the scars that mark your hart. Because I, like so many others want to put problems, subject and other things behind us.

You Learn
That if you do not have anything nice to say, it is better to stay quiet. You do not rule the world, even if you think you did. Things happen for a reason, it will not help you if you do not accept them. Sometimes you have to agree that choices other people make are for the best of you. You can not run from whatever it is you are hiding from. It will come and get you eventually.

You feel loved and blessed
Because no matter what happens (your yelling, crying, being silent and everything in between) your family is there for you. Because the boy who wanted to go with you (because you felt the need to milk cows in the USA) has to deal with all of this and STILL loves you. Because people that you hardly know came up to your house and gave you food, money, a friendly smile or other things that would comfort you. Because of the friends that did stay are the ones you need to love the most in return. Because ordinary people with ordinary lives felt the need to pray for YOU! And wished you the best and MEANT it...

Whenever you are sick, your mom, dad, husband, brother, sister, family, friends and all the other people that care for you are a little bit sick too. And if they can fight for you, you should fight for them.

It makes you happy
For every day that you can complain, yell or blabber to your family. That you can look to your husband and realise how much you really love him. That every morning you can get out of bed, and you do NOT have to stay in that stupid bed! Because you can go to your work, because it is a dream come true. Running a large family operated dairy is a gift and blessing, and i am so proud that we can. That I can make choices about who what and were. And that every day, is one day is that I can enjoy.

For the first time since April 2008 I feel like myself again, although it is a totally different me. After 5 terrible days, because yes, they put you on all the meds, but how do you get off of them again!!?? Without sleep, with lots and lot’s of pain, and feeling like a zombie who just like a drug addict is missing out on his shot, and doesn’t feel quite alive, I got out of the shower.

And I am glad to be here...

...

Every girl needs a brush!

2011-08-12T09:00:00.003-04:00

Yep, us girls need a good spa treatment every now and then! And this is not any different for our cows.

At our farm we have a hospital pen, this is the area/pen at our farm where our girls with special needs stay if they are feeling blue. Normally the ladies will only be in there for a week, but sometimes they stay longer, depending on how or what kind of issues they have.

Because we want to pamper these girls a bit, they already feel “left out” because they had to move to a different part of the barn and leave their girlies and BFF's, we had a big and I mean BIG automatic brush installed!

Cows like to groom. They want to feel clean, and this brush is the perfect way to do that. Whenever a cow pushes the brush it automatically starts to swirl. Not only does it swirl, it also goes up and down, to the left and to the right. It is pretty nifty! Sometimes they line up or are waiting in little groups until the ‘leading’ lady is done so they can take her place. And sometimes these silly girls go really nuts and while one will have her buttocks scratched, another one has her head up against it... at the same time...!

In the beginning we didn’t know if this brush was going work out. We had read about it but never seen it in action. But the brush is amazing! It seems that because of the cows curiosity always wins it over being scared of the big yellow thing, so every girl gives it a shot eventually... And they love it!

In the 3 years that we have the brush up and running, it never broke. And so a couple of weeks ago, when I was bragging to a real nice gentlemen about that the brush was, “Soooo GOOD and it NEVER broke! Next day… what did it do…. It broke! “Yeah I jinxed it!” So i am not gonna say that again!

It took us about 2 weeks to fix the thing and you should have seen the looks on our girls! They were NOT happy with us! After we put it back up we had not 3 or 4 girls waiting in line but 6 or 7! They were soooo content!

I wish we could have those brushes in every pen/group on the farm and so all the girls could groom themselves, that would be fantastic! But those brushes are worth almost as much as one and a half cow! So we are still dreaming about putting one in every pen… What we are doing now is putting a little brush in at the end of every pen. It is like two little brushes were you sweep the floor with, in an L shape, upside down (should have taken a picture…) and we hung it up at the right height.

Now the girls can still have a perfect shine on their coats, and feel mighty clean, even if they are not in the hospital pen!

...

Weels in Motion...

2011-08-10T09:54:00.000-04:00

Yes, this is a huge machine!

And yes, this is my little sister in the driver seat! The picture is a little foggy, but that is why it looks like she is racing over the feed alley...! But in fact, she is almost standing still...

I just thought this was a great picture for a Wordless Wednesday! And yes were doing a Linky Thingy at Pinke Post, please check it out (there are some amazing Wordless Wednesday's up!)

Huge machines are needed to feed all our girls! More about our girls in my next posts...

Hope you have a wonderful Wednesday!

....

Crazy Americans and yard obsessions

2011-08-08T11:22:00.001-04:00

Even before you actually enter the country you can see it from the skies… You don’t even have to look that closely, it is just beautiful and it is everywhere here in Indiana!

And yes of course you guessed right away that I am talking about YARDS...! And no, not any yards I am talking about American Yards and Lawns!

me mowing the lawn

I have NEVER ever seen such huge lawns with sooo much grass! Yes, I was used to yards and lawns with some grass, but overall it would be scrubs and trees and flowers. I was in for a big treat because here you have just lots and lots of grass and a couple of trees and scrubs… Found out later that it sometimes (depending on the year) that flowers and such might get too cold in the winter and to hot in the summer, so to keep your yard looking nice people pick plants that can survive this great climate change between summer and winter. Another thing i learned is that we only have 2 seasons here, summer and winter, no messing around with spring and fall...

Now, we were not used to all this grass and in 2006 when we had our first spring here you can image our surprise when we saw grandpa’s, grandma’s, men, women and teens cruzing around on their lawnmower with a big heavy “barrel” behind it…

We check and found out that it was to flatten the ground, so when the grass would finally start to grow the smoother your ride would be! Amazing! We never flattened out yard to get a smooth ride! We were always pushing and pushing our lawnmowers and if we were lucky we would run over the electric cable… (Oh, sorry daddy…) and could quit early!

Bastiaan mowing our yard

But the most fantastic thing about these smooth well maintained lawns is the fact that sometimes there are “things” in the yard. And yes “things” vary from, houses that not have been painted in 50 plus years, buses, cars, farm equipment in all stages of life, tires, toys, lots and lots of toys, shoes, scrap metal, barns that have not been occupied in this century and oh did I tell you, cars…sometimes with flowers, sometimes with all kinds of gorgeous weeds...

We would see these beautiful yards/lawns, mowed all the way to the neighbors property line, yes besides the road too (both sides!) and think oh my gosh! And then you would really look in the yard and you can see 3 different layers of paint on the house all coming off, or a vehicle that people have been mowing around for over 15 years…. And we would just stop and stare.

I know this is not very polite of us, but we just could not help it.

Americans spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on good looking lawn mow machinery, and gallons of gas to run that fine piece of equipment but they did not save up some money to buy some paint for the house they live in, so the house can match their beautiful yard? Or remove the truck where the snakes and other varmints live in out of their yard, so their kids can play safely? I can also think of smoother lines you can drive with your green grass eating monster then making circles around that old piece of junk?

Jan willem and Roxi mowing the yard

But then again, maybe I am just a new Duchie and should look at this a different way….

It is absolutely gorgeous to see all these beautiful lawns, and when we were back in Holland last year I must admit I was kind of disappointed to see grass as tall as my hips besides the roads. I also talked to Bastiaan and almost got him to OK the fact that I wanted to store my old BMW in the yard and make a flower bed out of it….

Yeah! getting closer to be a real American…. To bad Bastiaan isn't ready for some lawn ornaments!?!

...

If you want to catch up on some Crazy Americans;
Crazy Americans and public Restrooms
Crazy Americans, now where is it that you left your keys?
Crazy Americans smoking like a chimney

Oh Canada... Bambi Drama!

2011-08-04T10:00:00.001-04:00

Gentlemen.

Lovely little Bambi.

The wilderness called Canada.

A big truck and stupid boys.

Those are pretty much the ingredients you need for an absolutely TERRIFIYING story!

As you probably (hopefully) have read in my previous “Oh Canada” posts, my time was pretty amazing there. I worked hard, loved the family were I stayed with, made some great friends and adored the horses. But you can’t have all good things, sometimes there are some “not so swell” experiences that you have to deal with too…

We had a day off. It was the second time I spent at Touchstone Farm and we were going to go to Edmonton, visit some cultural places AND go shopping! Yes I was wearing my incredible high heels and we were feeling pretty girly and happy.

My sweet friend had a car, nothing fancy but it drove well, played good music and got us to where we needed to go. My friend was driving and I was enjoying the beautiful view of mountains, trees, valleys and… A DEER! A fawn I think is what they are called when they are not fully grown yet..? It had the same spots a Bambi had and just looked soooo elegant and cute standing beside the road.

She was on the right side of the road, still in the grass and we could tell she was thinking about crossing, I don’t know much about deer, we don’t have many in Holland and I was just surprised that it was there in the first place, right besides the road, but my friend was telling me that deer are a pretty common sight in that area. Because of us talking about the deer and thinking about what this fawn might do, my friend slows down. Behind us is another car and it slows down too.

But on the other side of the highway, a truck (with one of those HUGE bull bars) is speeding towards us. I look at my friend and we are wondering if he is going to slow down….

He isn’t…

The deer decides to cross the highway and we breathe a breath of relief when we see the little fluff ball safe on the other side of the road in the grass.

But then it stops and turns around…

It comes back towards us. But that truck hasn’t slowed down. And at this point the deer is at exactly the same “level” as us AND the truck. The truck hits the deer while it is trying to come back to our side of the highway. In slowmotion the truck with the HUGE bull bar hits the little animal…

I close my eyes

In matters of seconds, but what looks like minutes we get hit by an incredible BANG!!! And I see the deer sliding of the windshield over the hood on top of the highway. The truck hit Bambi. Because of the force and the speed of the truck and because we were almost NOT moving at all, the impact made the animal just catapult towards us and literally got DROPPED on top of our car…

We stopped, I started bawling and my friend started crying and she was the one that saw everything because she had her eyes open all the time! We got out but were actually too amazed by what happed to really LOOK at the deer. The car behind us stopped also and two older gentlemen rushed over to us and asked us if we were all right. NO, we were not, but seeing those friendly faces helped a lot. The two older gentlemen concluded that the deer was dead.

While we were trying to get ourselfs under control, the truck had stopped too… and two young men stepped out and walked casually towards us, yapping about their "hit"...

and LAUGHING…!!!

I was bawling all right but when I saw those guys smiling, I got SOOOOO MAD! And I wasn’t the only one! My friend was equally mad! But those stupid boys with their smirks on their faces even had the audacity to ask us where we were from, what we were doing and if we wanted to go out with them later that day!!! By that time the older gentlemen had dragged the dead deer towards the side of the road and got a little upset with the younger boys too. They friendly asked the boys to leave. Which after some hesitation they did… But not after commenting on the dead deer and possibilities to get our phone numbers…

When our tears had dried up, the sweet gentlemen had checked our car and we were capable of driving again we took off towards Edmonton. The guys had convinced us that we still needed to go, to take our minds of off things and that the dead deer and stupid boys should not ruin our day.

A half an hour later we found out that there was more wrong with the car then we thought and after hosing it down at some people’s house with water, there was a LOT of blood and fluff still stuck to the car, we decided to go home, we weren’t in the shopping mood anymore and we defiantly didn’t need some “new” boy attention…

I do remember going back to the Edmonton Mall a couple of weeks later, our hosts really thought we would have fun there once we GOT there. It was indeed a pretty place to visit. And yes, when I think back about this beautiful fluff ball and those STUPID boys, I still get a little (read; a lot) bit mad…. What a couple of LOOSERS!

I hope you never hit a deer, and if you already did, I hope the deer died quick and that you walked away fine! AND that you didn’t have any Canadian boys hitting on you because they thought it would be cool to pick up a girl after they killed Bambi.

…

We won! So... Kidnapping your husband guidelines!

2011-08-02T10:23:00.000-04:00

We won Whoohooo! Yes, i am talking about the Ice Cream Flavor Face off contest!!! So my present and THANK YOU gift, from me to you; Kidnapping Guidelines!!!

These are easy to follow and no, it doesn’t have to be your husband, it can also be your wife, best friend, girlfriend, boyfriend, (and yes it would be lovely if you can ask him or her to marry you on this trip…) or soon to be fiancee! It's always good to hit two flies with one swat, or so my grandma used to say...

Just make sure it is an (almost) adult and you HAVE TO FORGET about work, troubles, sickness, pain, worries, money, kids OR cows!

So you pick a date, call his or her boss to make sure they can leave for a while, but you also have to make sure the boss is in on it and don’t spoil the surprise. Grab some favorite jeans, pants, shirts, hiking boots and toiletries and stuff them in the back of your car the night before. Think of good excuses to give to him or her so they don’t find out that you have hidden them! Good excuses include, “It is in the laundry basket, yes it is been in there for over a week”,” The dog used it as a new playmate”, “Oh sorry honey I ruined it with the bleach, but I will get you a new one soon” and/or “The cat pied on it and now I need to wash it again”…

On the day of, put your designated “victim” in the car, take his or her keys, phone, blackberry, I-Pad, laptop and other play toys from them and put them in a zip lock bag and store them in your glove compartment of your car! Tell them to enjoy the ride/drive/flight! And no they can’t have their toys back until you get back in the car to drive home… I know this will be a little bit of a challenge for some of us, but trust me, it is worth it!

Arrive at the The Quail Ridge Inn in Sevierville and enjoy 2 or 3 days of relaxation with your loved one AND George and Anita! They are absolutely fabulous and they will make you feel at home in their beautiful log cabin and cook the most INCREDIBLE breakfasts AND (yes, I know it is almost too good to be true) desserts! There are NO tv’s in your room, you are in the middle of the mountains, right in front of the Smoky Mountains, and you have very BAD reception. So it is the perfect time to enjoy your loved one and the KING SIZE bed (o my gosh it is HUGE!!), the Jacuzzi, good food, trees, raccoons, butterflies, birds, deer, flowers and bears (who steal Anita and George’s peaches) and mountain views, rivers waterfalls and green meadows!

So you see it is not that hard…

I am so glad that we are blessed with a super mom, dad and little brother so we COULD go away like this last weekend and we enjoyed it too the fullest! Yesterday we came back and it was back to business and cows as usual but everything was a little better to bear because we were refreshed. Maybe sometimes you just need to be refreshed to do the best job possible…?

Besides the fact that we had a great time with each other and Anita & George …. IT IS OFFICIAL…. Because of all of your votes WE WON!!! I got this fantastic news on my blackberry, yes I snuck out, dug into the glove compartment of the BMW, opened the zip lock bag and checked all my messages and all of your comments on the “kidnap Bastiaan post”. “Don’t tell Bastiaan, though!”

So this great news was a little cherry on top of Anita’s great dessert!

I would like to thank each and every one who voted in all the rounds and yes if you want to read how we got to the top…
Vanilla Bean Ice Cream and Little Brothers!
Ice Cream and multi Colored Peppercorns
Kidnapping Bastiaan... and Vanilla Bean Ice Cream...

Or if you want to go give George and Anita the pleasure of your and your kidnapped person's company…
The Quail Ridge Inn Bed & Breakfast

Or if you want to learn some more about everything dairy and / or cows…
The Progressive Dairyman Yes, Whoohoo we won!!! Super article if i may say so myself! ;-)
The Proud to Dairy Website

THANK YOU SOOO MUCH and I told you before but I will tell you again… YOU’RE THE BEST!!!

Thursday (blogging life) will be back to normal! So we’ll probably do a new “Crazy American’s” then but now I am going to catch up on some work. We are going to have a big group of people coming to tour the dairy today, so that is going to be exiting enough! And yes tonight I will be off to go and read some of your fantastic posts that I haven’t been able to see in (what looks like) ages! Hehe…

...

Kidnapping Bastiaan…. And Vanilla Bean Ice Cream…

2011-07-28T09:00:00.001-04:00

Yep, I admit it!
I kidnapped my husband!
And I LIKED IT!

We don’t go out much. Our life pretty much evolves in and around the dairy. We don’t feel the need to go too far and away places, because when we were “young” (yes, this means in our teens and twenties) Bastiaan and I traveled the world. So now we are just happy to sit on our own couch in our own house enjoying each other’s company.

But sometimes you (well, I anyway) get this feeling and you just need to chance paces a bit to keep yourself and your relationship happy…

Soooo, I kidnapped my hubby!

Last year my sweetie turned 30 (such a young pup...)! And we needed to celebrate, but I am not very good at giving gifts and I am also ALWAYS forgetting his birthday day (yes I know, it is usually on the same date every year…) but somehow it always sneaks up on me! So to make up for all the years that I almost (or fully) forgot I planned a little get away trip.

He did not know ANYTHING! I just told him he needed to make sure to shower and shave and be ready at 11 am Thursday morning.

The night before I packed his favorite shirts and yeans, tossed some cologne and gel in a bag and put that with my girly girl stuff in the trunk of my car. At 11 am he was ready and was anxious to know where going…. Bastiaan is not very good with surprises or gifts; he just has this need to know what it is or what the surprise is…. But I was NOT going to tell him!

I had to be pretty crafty because after his shower and getting dressed, with me telling him “Sorry honey, that shirt of yours is still in the laundry basket…”, “Yeah I know it is been in there for over a week….”, “I’ll do it when we get back tonight…”. And sneaking back into the house, while he waited in the car, with a lousy excuse of having forgotten something, to get his toothbrush and shaving stuff, in two Walmart bags, so he couldn’t see what was in it... We finally got going.

No I didn’t need no handcuffs, and also I didn’t need a blindfold, but I had him in my car and I wasn’t gonna let him go!

After we drove for 4 hours he REALLY wanted to know where we were going. I told him, “surprise!” and kept driving. But of course I got a little hungry and he got a little grumpy after all this driving, so we pulled over at an exit close to Cincinnati. Bastiaan was all ready to hop out of the car and do some driving with race cars (that was what he thought we were going to do) but when we pulled into the parking lot of a Steak and Shake, he figured it out pretty quick! No racing cars, not today!

After we had a fabulous burger and a shake, YES some VANILLA BEAN (hehe), we hit the road again. And finally after driving a little over seven and a half hours we were there! By that time Bastiaan knew we weren’t going home that night, but he still did not know I booked us a Bed & Breakfast close to the Smokey Mountains and we were going to stay there for two nights. We ended up staying there for THREE nights, just us, our lovely hosts and some wonderful house guests. No phones, no TV, no computers and NO COWS! We did have long walks, amazing breakfasts and even more amazing desserts, some incredible views of the mountains and our own porch and Jacuzzi! It was fantastic!

And..., because of all of you, we made it into the final round of the Progressive Dairyman Ice Cream Face Off!!! AND because Bastiaan is going to be 31 this weekend and yes I am kidnapping him again today! But this time with his knowledge, I am gonna ask you ONE MORE TIME to please vote for Vanilla Bean! And I promise you, I will do my best to find the best ice cream place in DollyWood and eat some Vanilla Bean Ice Cream and let you know about it…. Well…. And if we won the contest of course!

A big THANK YOU SOOO MUCH to everybody who voted AND a big THANK YOU AND A BIG HUG for everybody who where brave enough to try my Ice Cream and multi colored Peppercorns recipe, and actually did LIKE it!

You guys are the best!!!

….

Withdrawals….

2011-07-25T13:28:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I watch tv.
Sometimes I even watch tv without really looking.
Sometimes I watch TV and I think by myself, “Why on earth am I watching this???”

I used to love Grey’s Anatomy. Bastiaan and I would sit down on Thursday evenings and watch it together. When I got diagnosed and the months after, during chemo, Thursday was the best day. As in that was the one evening where I would be almost completely “present” and without uncontrollably shaking or sweating, most of the times anyway... Normally Bastiaan likes other shows than I, but this was one of our “Let’s watch together shows” and try to forget about all the bad stuff going on in “real” life.

Until Izzy (one of the main characters of the show) got sick. Guess what she got???!!! Oh, was so mad.

She could have gotten ONE HUNDRED THOUSANDS kinds of cancer. But nope, she ended up with my kind, and that was besides the fact that she was almost the same age and blond too!!!

The ONE evening during the whole week were I would crawl into Bastiaan’s embrace and were we would try to forget for an hour about the fact that we had cancer and just moved to a new country…

They had her, get my cancer!
We stopped watching Grey’s that night.

Getting on chemo is not the hard part. Being on chemo is not too good as in really, really (here you can put your own curse words if you use them) NOT GOOD! But we were in for a real ride after we got OFF the chemo!

On my dad’s birthday, October 9th, 2009 after 64 weeks of chemo I got my last dose. It was a great day and we even had a cake to celebrate. All it wanted was a Big Mac, but the cake seemed more appropriate. In the following days I was under the impression that now that I was off the nasty stuff, life would go back to normal in a swiffy. A girl has to have hope, right?!

That first weekend I got a headache. But I still had some of those great pills from the doc so I could keep going, suppressing that headache. I wasn’t going to let a little headache going to ruin my fine “new” life after chemo!

The next day I still had a headache. I didn’t help that I already to 4 of those “special” pills were normally I would be happy as a pumpkin in a sunny pasture after a half of one of those pills…

BUT I was stubborn and we needed to go shopping, at Menards. After 6 pills and lots of begging, my dad took me home, but it became clear, that home wasn’t the best place to be at that moment. And after my mom, dad AND Bastiaan found out I had eaten my little stash of “special” pills it was time to go to the emergency room…

The Bluffton Emergency room wasn’t the best place either because after a CAT scan and a HUGE needle and syringe of some kind of pain reliever (in my buttocks!) they sent me home… and I was feeling like that fat happy pumpkin again!

The next day, the pain was back! FULL FORCE!!! We skipped the emergency room in Bluffton. We brought out the big guns and went to the big city emergency room! I am not sure but the doctors there were a bit puzzled too. After several scans, including CAT/PET and MRI’s they found nothing, but I was completely overcome by this terrible pain in my head. Finally they gave me a shot (and yes this was even worse than the buttocks shot the day before!) in my spine! I never had a shot in my spinal cord before, and let me tell you this IS NOT FUNNY!

What was even more disappointing was that the shot did not work. So as a last resort they finally gave me a little cocktail… they had checked out everything and anything and were still afraid to numb any symptoms and thus figuring out what was wrong, but they were even more worried about the pain that I was still having. And no that cocktail was not a stiff drink, but a cocktail of pain relievers, and yes some big names like valium and morphine drifted by. 5 minutes after I got that cocktail I wasn’t even a happy fat pumpkin anymore I was just… floating…

They kept me in the hospital for five days.

Three of those five days are a bit cloudy because of my “not to make at home” special cocktail. But the last two were pretty “good”. The oncologist told me that what probably happed was the withdrawal from all these weeks of chemo, had something to do with this headache of mine (I am not even sure if headache is the right word, but for a lack of better word…) Gradually things went better and during the day I would sleep and I had visitors who would come and cheer me up. In the evenings I would watch TV. Books were too much of a strain, but the TV would do the trick and take my mind of things.

I watched my first “after Izzy”, Grey’s Anatomy episode by myself in that hospital bed. The sweet girl was gone, I believe she survived her illness but they “cut” her out of the show by moving her to another town or something. I’m glad she didn’t die. And yes my mom told me when I was little that I shouldn’t believe everything I see on the ‘tellie’, but I was happy anyway. There were just too many resemblances and i thought if she can survive so can i....

When doctors tell you that you are sick, you are sick. Your brain tells you that you are sick and you need to get better. This is a given. When doctors tell you that you are better, your brain doesn't always tell you that you are better... Especially when you can not do all the things u used to do, or have the stamina you had before, or seeing the thirty plus scars on you body. Basically your brain and body are having withdrawals from cancer. And then there is the worry of getting sick again that sometimes is sooo overpowering that you "forget" that you are actually well.

I found it MUCH harder to be "better" than to be "sick". I know this sounds strange, but i can't describe it any other way.

I do not know this body of mine anymore. And i defiantly do not know this brain. Whatever those drugs did to get rid of the cancer, they, also "messed" ME (as in I ) up. I tell myself not to worry, I'll find "ME" again. It just will be a little bit of a different ME that i was 4 years ago...

...

Feeling hot hot HOT!

2011-07-21T10:28:00.002-04:00

You know that song....
"Feeling hot hot hot..."
It supposed to be a funny feel good summery song...

Our ladies (cows) don't think so!

Actually they are pretty disappointed that we (the humans) can't make this hot air that is going true the barn right now a little less hot.

Generally our ladies like it to be cool. Anywhere from 15 degrees Fahrenheit to 70 degrees Fahrenheit is fine with them. 95 Degrees Fahrenheit with a humidity of 85 percent does not make them happy cows.

We try to make our girls as comfortable as possible but with weather like this it is kinda hard and it gets a little depressing. I know that they have it better inside than if they would be standing outside in the FULL SUN! But still i feel bad that i can't do more. But let me tell you what we DID do too keep our girls cool:

We have BIG fans. The fans hang over our cows and if the temperature gets above 72 degrees, they kick on automatically. This way nobody can forget to turn them on or off and so the ladies will be a little more pleased. BUT because of this crazy weather about 3 weeks ago we decided to add more of those big fans. (Guess what we did last Saturday and Sunday...). We have 4 pens of 200 cows and those girls are our "high cows" this means that these ladies give the most milk on the whole farm. And these girls deserve some extra attention, so we installed 5 more fans in each pen. Also our "Close Up cows" this is the pen where the girls are who are gonna have a baby calf within 3 weeks, we put 5 more fans. We wanted to make these soon to be momma's as comfortable as possible, after all giving birth is hard enough if everything goes right, right???

We also have sprinklers. Yep, sprinklers are those things that make you feel like if you are on the beach!

If you are HOT, and your on the beach (or in your back yard) you will jump in the water and cool off. When you are cool enough you get out of the water, lay on your towel or stretcher until you get hot again so you jump in the water again. This is the same thing as what we tried to to for our cows. When they get into the "holding pen" this is the area before they are getting milked, the are closer together as in their walk/sleep/play area and the closer you are together the hotter you get. Since we don't want our girls hot, we installed sprinklers. Every 6 minutes they turn on for 3 minutes. So it's like the beach! We cool them down, and when they warm up again, we cool them down again. Generally the ladies are in and out of the holding pen and milking parlor (where they getting milked) within 45 minutes. We try to keep this time as short as possible, every girl needs her space!

Also we spray for flies! You might think, "What does this have to do with the heat?", but it is a LOT! Because of all these girls we also have quite a bit of poo. Flies just like poo. Well, and cows. And all kinds of other animals. So in the summer, like everybody else we get flies, but because our farm is a bit bigger, we are abt to have more flies. And i don't know if you noticed but lately those flies are getting MEAN! They bite! They don't bite just us, but they also bite our cows! And of course we can't have that! So two or three times a week my brother will drive with the tractor in and around all the barns and spray for flies. Last year we tried to do it with predator flies (so no chemicals) but that did not work very well. And once a week we will put a little fly control spray on our cows, so not only the living quarters of our ladies are fly free they also can't lay there nasty little eggs on our girls either! Because of all this fly control we have less flies with 2200 cows than at our own house with one horse, one baby calf and a dog and 2 cats! Which of course makes our girls feel pretty special and at least a little less grumpy in this "horrible" weather... hehe...

So if you have that song "Feeling hot hot hot" stuck in your head for the rest of the day (yes, you can listened to it because of the linky thing and blame me!) while eating your ice cream or drinking your milk i hope you think about our girls and the girls at another farmers ranch or farm close to you, and pray for some cooler weather! Just a insy tinsy little bit....

Thank you!

Car on Fire!?!

2011-07-18T09:58:00.000-04:00

Some women do know the difference between a car on fire and a car overheated...

YES THEY DO!

On a beautiful sunny afternoon, i drove home from work. I worked at a dairy about 45 minutes from where we were building our own dairy and because i wanted some experience i worked there with the cows as a herdsman (well, herds woman in my case)...

As i said the weather was beautiful, i had my window rolled down because my fancy smansy car didn't have air conditioning and i was puffing (yes, as in smoking) along and enjoying every single bit of the American landscape and my Dutch techno music.

All of a sudden i see this smoke stuff coming out from between my two front seats.... "Hmmm, that is not like it supposed to be..."

Ok, so here we have to do a little track back into the past to understand this whole thing a little bit better.

The car wasn't in it's best shape anymore. Me and my sweet aunt Wendy bought it 4 years before for a good price (as in cheap). It was a decent car and i only needed it for whenever me or my brother would be in the United States, so we could drive around and go and see things or work at places without being depended on somebody all the time. If we were not here, the car would be parked at my aunt's house. When in 2006 we finally moved to the United States, this car was running non stop, and really maybe that was a little to much for it.

Anyway, my sweet friend Johan came over to bring us a little visit, he had been in Wisconsin to study and had some time left and he didn't mind looking at my car. The last couple of weeks i had trouble starting the thing and i thought if Johan looks at it and maybe fixes it up a bit, we can run it another 4 years until i get my BMW!

Johan did "look" at it, he also "fixed" it. By building a little switch in between the two front seats. It was a little choke, so if i started my car it would get a little extra gas so instead of dying on me every time it would start up good. In theory this was a fine solution...

Now we go back to that sunny afternoon about a mile and a half from home.

I see all this smoke and i think, "This is not good!" I toss my cigarette out of the window (Yes, very bad behavior i know but i was in little bit of a pickle here), turn the music down and STARE at the smoke! "This is not good at all!" I stop the car grab my bag, my car papers, my drivers licence (Dutch drivers license....) And throw everything outside!

Of course we live in RURAL Indiana so there are not so many houses and while I'm standing besides my car i call our crop farmer. "Hi, euhhmm, i think my car is on fire...". "Oh, what does it do?" "Well there is smoke coming out." "You sure it is on fire???" "Well, yes I'm pretty sure...." Our crop farmer did not really believe me. He kept telling me that it was just overheating and that i should stay calm. I was besides the point of staying calm so i pretty much yelled at him (so much for being nice to somebody who is supposedly coming to save you) to come get me AND bring a fire extinguisher!

Because i needed to do something, i run over to the "closest" house to see if they had any water, and maybe a bucket so i could dump some of that water in my car. And in the meantime i was speed dialing my mom, dad and brother and of course NOBODY would answer the phone (happens all the time when your really, really need somebody quick)! What i didn't know was that they were busy in the yard and didn't hear the phone...

So i called the crop farmers mother instead. She said she was watching the grand kids but would come over with a fire extinguisher and see if she could help...

I RUN back to my car WITHOUT any water. Of course my luck to find a house with NO WATER OR A BUCKET what so ever on the outside of the house.... Actually maybe it did have a hydrant or such but i was just to much in 'panic mode' to see, let alone find it! When i got back to my car, the car was filled with black smoke. You could not see true one window and out the other one. The black smoke was everywhere.

The crop farmer arrives, jumps out of his car and yells at me (while laughing!) "JEHZZZ Leo, your car REALLY is on fire!?!" "Yep, i told you so....."

And no, the little itty bitty fire extinguisher that he brought didn't do the trick, nor did the little bigger fire extinguisher that his mom brought. She also brought the kids, who thought this was AWESOME and she flagged down my mom, brother and dad from the garden and took them too.

We called 911...

The police, the fire department, the sheriff and the ambulance came out. But we just let it burn, because by the time they arrived all four tires had popped, and there was just not much left anymore of my decent ugly brown car.

A week later my sweet friend John got me his red cabriolet for me to use while i was looking for a new car. It was a spunky little car and i had lot's of fun driving it! What was even more fun was that not much later i spotted my little red BMW. I had told everybody, first the cows and then the car, but well.... Let's just say there was a change of plans!

We never found out if it was the little choke thingy that did it, but something went wrong...
For Sure...

I did take pictures with my old Dutch phone, but i can't get them onto a computer. They really are 'awesome' pics though! And next time i ever have to call our crop farmer and tell him my car is on fire, i really think he's gonna bring the biggest fire extinguisher he's got...

...

Ice Cream and Multi Colored Peppercorns!

2011-07-14T10:02:00.003-04:00

If you look at those great chefs on television, they sometimes mix things together and in your head it just doesn’t make ANY sense…

Well, this is a post AND a recipe about Ice Cream that just does not makes sense! But the food (Ice Cream) will taste as if a little angel pied over your tongue…. (Yes, this is a Dutch quote but somehow it doesn’t sound as good in English as it does in Dutch…but i like it anyway)!

A couple of weeks ago I promised you another Ice Cream story if we would make it into round 3 of the Progressive Dairyman Flavor Face off 2011!!! Sooooo, guess what!?! We made it into round 3, and a promise is a promise so here is the story!

When I was about 20 years old, after working at several jobs in agriculture I decided that it was time to do something different. My school was taking up a lot of time and so I tried to find a job in the weekends and in the evenings. My little sister worked at a restaurant/party place/cafe/bar a couple of towns over and she had to change jobs because of her school. Because of her change of plans, I had the opportunity to take over her job. And so I became a waitress/bartender/ amateur cook (sounds pretty good, right?!)/ kitchen help…

The Viersprong (the restaurant’s name) was a the most perfect workplace I could of asked for. Being a waitress in Holland is a little different then here in the US or Canada. They don’t pay minimum wage, you get full pay but the waitresses don’t get tips in Holland. Also another HUGE difference is, there are NOT so many waitresses. Truly sometimes I just wonder why on earth there are some many waitresses in a single restaurant. We had to take care of 50 people all by ourselves and in the same time they do here! But this could be a great subject for one of our “Crazy Americans” series…

I would work there every Saturday and Sunday and at days that I didn’t have to go to school. I had the best coworkers you can think of and Gerard & Lieke (the bosses) were fantastic teachers! On how to deal with customers, on how to plan your day or hour as efficient as possible. On how too never walk or do more than necessary to get the job done as best as you possible could and how to look… As in REALLY look!

Before I worked at The Viersprong my mom would tell me to go into our basement and find something like a can of beans, and I could not find it! No matter how long, how hard or how good i checked every inch of the basement (and my mom had the best basement ever! Clean, good light and super organized!)! After some good lessons on LOOKING from Gerard and some extra lessons from my mom, I never have troubles anymore in finding things! I also learned to think and plan ahead. This is something that I am still grateful for everyday, because I use that a lot now that we have 21 employees ourselves at the dairy!

While working at the restaurant Lieke and Gerard started to make their own Ice Cream desserts. I was all “soft ijs” (the kind of Ice Cream that you get at Mc Donalds in a cone, “yes the soft, oh so good, yummy stuff!!!” With different kind of fruits, liquors (yes booze!), whipped cream, chocolate or other goodies! And people just loved them!

So for this special post I’m gonna give you a special taste of my home country and you can try it out. Of course AFTER you have voted for Vanilla Bean on the Progressive Dairyman Website…. Hehe…

Drive to the closest liquor store and get yourself a nice, little, bottle of Anisette… Then you hop over to Walmart, Krogers, or your local grocery store or farmers market and get some lovely strawberries. I assume you have some pepper in your house at all times but if not, grab some red/black and white pepper powder. Or just get the little "balls" and grind it in your pepper mill later. And last but not least you have to go to Mickey D’s and get yourself a large bowl of the soft Ice-cream, you can toss the cones! Maybe you have to take a cooler, because otherwise it melts before you get home being as hot as it is!

Ok, so when you are home you have, for 2 people:
- Ice cream
- Strawberries 4 or 5 per person depending on the size!
- Pepper
- Anisette

And yes if you want to fancy it up you can even get some heavy whipping cream to put on top of your Ice Cream.... But you need to do the whipping yourself no fake stuff here!

The steps of making a fabulous bowl of Ice Cream:
You divide the ice cream over 2 large bowls, cut the strawberries and divide them over the two bowls. Sprinkle a little bit of the Anisette over the Ice Cream and strawberries. Don’t throw a bus load over it, just a little to bring out the flavors. And then you grind some of the pepper over your bowl. Again not too much but enough to actual taste the pepper but it can’t be overpowering!

I know it sounds strange, Ice Cream, pepper, strawberries and LIQUOR but trust me it works! If you forget the liquor or the pepper it is not the same (and all of this coming from a NON alcoholic person, so it must be AWESOME) and yes it really, really is something GREAT!!!

I hope you give it a try and tell me if it was as good for you as it was for all those crazy Dutchies! And please, please, pretty please vote for Vanilla Bean in the Flavor Face Off!

If you want to see Gerard and Lieke’s gorgeous restaurant you can click on this link: The Viersprong, in Dutch but with great pictures (like the ones above!), or their BEAUTIFUL "Pluk de dag" (Seize the Day) website, yes this one is in English!!!

Have a wonderful rest of the week and THANK YOU for voting!!!

…

Crazy Americans! Smoking like a Chimney

2011-07-11T13:19:00.000-04:00

Oh how I loved smoking!
Really!

If I could smoke just ONE cigarette whenever I would feel blue (as in extremely stressed) and then quit smoking again, I would do it in a heartbeat! Hmmmmm, maybe not.....

I used to smoke... a lot.

I started this nasty habit when I was 16 years old. Yes, the age where you think you are invincible and you can take on the whole world. My friends were smoking and in The Netherlands there was no official law that you couldn’t, besides it wasn’t that hard to get cigarettes. It started with a couple of cigarettes a week. Mostly when we would go to a bar or a club, or after school in the school yard, hanging out with my girlies on our bicycles.

But soon, it got more and more. Life wasn’t easy (as for any teenager) and so when I was studying Agricultural Economics I was up to 1.5 packs of cigarettes a day. Yep, I did not drink but I did smoke A LOT!

That all changed on the first day of chemo. I figured I might as well quit the bad habit (read NASTY addiction to nicotine) while starting a much MUCH more harmful chemical “medicine” that would mess up my whole insides anyway. I thought of it as, “Well better stop with the smoking while they are pumping all this other stuff in my body. I can’t handle both!”

Of course that was just though talk! It isn’t as easy as it seems to quit a 13 year old habit/addiction that easily. Good thing was I had my chemo working for me!

Because of the side effects the Interferon had, smoking was ABSOLUTELY impossible! The first day after we started I could not even smoke half a cigarette without running (as in crawling, I didn’t have the energy) to the bathroom and throw up! Trust me; if you have to throw up every time you light up a smoke, you will STOP SMOKING, FAST!

But now you might be thinking what does all of this have to do with this week’s “Crazy Americans”? Well, actually a lot! Because as a former smoker I always look, see, find people who smoke. It is like a second nature. If I see somebody smoking, anywhere/anytime my sub consciousness automatically registers it!

And I must say living in America was not what I had expected it to be as far as being a smoker goes!

All over the world you used to see those amazing appealing commercials, big signs, in magazines of those though cowboys with a cigarette. Well in the “real America” that I have come to love, there is NO such thing as what those advertisements promise. You are not allowed to smoke in a club/pub/bar. You are not allowed to smoke in a restaurant and your are not allowed to smoke in any public building. And don’t get me wrong, I think this is good/fantastic for us human beings, but it is kinda disappointing as a smoker coming into this country!

Now to get to the root of my “Crazy Americans” post. Why is it that woman and normally I ONLY see WOMEN smoke while driving their cars???

YEP, it is the ladies that I see… everywhere!

Driving too town, driving too another state, driving around just to drive my car. I see ladies, girls (cause yes you can drive a car here at SIXTEEN!!!), older women, girlfriends and grandma’s behind the wheel, smoking like a chimney! What is up with that!? Maybe it is something that women do in the Midwest but I have no idea why? I don’t see them smoking on the street and of course I don’t see them smoking at home cause I don’t know them, but why???

Maybe it is much more fun driving and smoking in the own comfort of your car, or maybe they are not allowed to smoke at home, they sure are not allowed to smoke anywhere else so the car is the best option…? I don’t think so…. Smoking and driving isn’t the safest thing to do….

BUT as a former smoker and relatively new to America (Indiana) seeing women smoke whenever they drive their cars just makes me wonder. Is it something they grew up with or is it something new because society doesn’t allow them (the smoker) anywhere else anymore?

Do you see ladies smoke behind the wheel, or do you see as many guys as girls smoke while driving? Or haven’t your noticed this “smoking trend” at all and is it just me being "crazy"?

...
You can also enjoy:
Crazy Americans & public restrooms
and
Crazy Americans! Now where is it that you left your keys

New friends on the other side of the fence

2011-07-09T17:55:00.000-04:00

With new territory comes new friends, right???

Last year i wrote a post about How a Girl gets a Horse and i am HAPPY to say, my Fox Trim Classic is now 27 years old and alive and kicking!

And by kicking i mean: KICKING, showing of his manly hood, making lots and lots of noise and pretty much acting like a 5 year old, i just discovered myself, stallion!

A couple of months ago, my dad got 1.5 horse. Yes, 1.5 horse because one is really big and the other one is a really little little Shetland pony. And thus.... 1.5 horse...

My mom and dad have a nice old barn besides their house and we build some stalls. We also got them a pasture. Nothing fancy but nice, underneath the trees, and we thought it would be sufficient for them. The first 2 months those horses could not go outside... It rained and rained and rained.... But finally after 2 months they did and oh, they were some happy horses.

All this time Classic would sneak peeks to my mom and dad's place to see what was going on. The problem was they were a little to far away for him to get to know them a little bit better plus i don't think he sees really well long distances (being old and all) so "making new friends" wasn't an option, yet...

But that all changed last week. Because of the weather and the location of the pasture the grass is not growing as well as it should. And Classic has TONS and TONS of grass. His pasture is a bit bigger and no trees. (Yes some people call it spoiled)...

Soo, last week dad and i decided to move his 1.5 horse to Classics pasture, so half of the pasture could be used for them and the other half for Classic (Yes, there has to be a boss...). With of course a 10 foot barrier in between so Classic wouldn't jump in with Magic and Raisin (and yes Raisin would be the tiny one) and cause all sorts of trouble...

But making new friends is really really hard.

And i mean REALLY HARD! Because of the task we have given ourselves by starting our own large family farm and with me getting sick and going true chemo for almost 64 weeks there wasn't much time to make a lot of new friends. So seeing my super stud trying to make new friends is like, "Oh, I'm not the only one who has troubles doing this...".

In Holland i was blessed with good friends. Friends that have grown with me into the persons that we are now, friends who came later in life and which i experienced good, not so good and bad things with and friends that are friends for life.

BUT... I am here now. And they are there...

And telling your friends what you do in a new country with a different mentality with different customs and different views on life, just doesn't cut it all the time. Plus their lives go on too. They have new jobs, new adventures, get married, have cute little babies and i have no idea about what it is they are doing all day, every day... And that makes me miss them even more. Don't get me wrong, i don't want to go back to The Netherlands... i just wish they were here...

I think we, as in Classic and his new buddies and me, will be fine given time.

There are soo many nice, sweet, talented, good, friendly, smart, open minded people here, so it is only a matter of time before i meet some more of them. Because yes, i too have met some really fantastic people already, but friendships need to grow and i can't expect that all the friendships i had in Holland, build up over 28 years, are gonna be here at my doorsteps right NOW. Although i sure would want that! And i am a very impatient girl! So every second here in this beautiful country is another second in which i miss my friends back "home".

But i have good hope, and i have time... What more can a girl wish for...

And as far as my super stud goes... i checked him again just now. He's grazing happily on one side of the fence and Magic and Raisin on the other side looking at each other, sniffing the air and act dumb... I think they'll be all right!

...

Living my American Dream!

2011-07-04T10:15:00.001-04:00

Imagine a little blond girl, on her little pony with red wheels, cruising thru the kitchen. A strange man comes in and tells her about a spider.She has NO clue what he is talking about because she is Dutch…and Dutch people do not speak English. But she just KNOWS it is a scary thing, a big problem! "Spider" was the very first word she learned in the English language, and there were more to come...

Couple of years later when this little blond girl turned into a taller, skinny blond girl that man showed up again in the kitchen. He turned out to be her dad’s younger brother, and tells her about America…. About the endless roads, the proud mentality, the friendliness of the people, the green pastures and the horses he loves so much.

This blond girl knows what she wants, (read this as: she’s incredibly stubborn and hard headed), and she decided to go to the land of endless possibilities and discover it for herself. And she did, after three months
spending time on her aunt and uncle’s horse farm in Michigan; she came home to the Netherlands and told her mom and dad, “When I grow up I’m going to move to The States!!!

She went to high school, focusing on horses and cows. Went to College, focusing again on horses and cows and finally to University to study Agricultural Economics and to get her teaching degree. She visited America as much as she could during school breaks. Also during this time she worked to get the right papers so she would have a better shot at being able to come to this great country. Her mom was terribly sick, which made it very hard for her dad to run the family operated hog farm and to raise three “little” kids. The family held it together as good as they could but because of the “Swine Fever,” that went all through Europe in 1997, and which ended pig farming for her dad.

Her dad always dreamed of having a dairy farm. When he was a young man himself he wanted to milk cows, but after meeting and marrying her mom they took over the homestead. Her mom just loved her family so she said she would go where ever it would make them happy. Her brother also was very fond of milking cows and everything that had to do with agriculture. He followed his big sister and went to the U.S. to do some practical training sessions for College. The youngest sister in this story didn’t like America at ALL! Even the idea of visiting was outrageous no matter what kind of fairytale stories her big sister would tell…

But in 2003 after the blond girl graduated from University, madly in love with this boy from the northern part of the country, and who she told on the first date: “you better believe it, I’m moving to the States when I got my degree, even if you come or not!” The family and the handsome young man made the decision to sign

some papers with a well known Dutch/American organization, to move to the land where they would live their American dream and milk some cows!

Arghhhh, try to get into this country!!!!

It’s grueling!!! After several years (yes, YEARS) of trying to sell the farmstead, visa denials, moving from one friends to another with only the clothes on your back (because the container with the rest of you belongings is already packed and on a ship). And finally visa approvals, saying goodbye to friends, and the emotional rollercoaster that you are not a resident of you birth land any longer but not quite a resident in the other new land either.

We entered the United States of America on February the 14th of 2006, with our visas and hopes for a better and new future. Except for the younger sister and her boyfriend (of 12 years), they decided to stay in The Netherlands. But they did change their minds about visiting often and America!!!

Construction of the dairy started in November 2006 and on the 20th of November 2007 we milked our first cow, and oh my gosh, IT WAS INCREDIBLE!!! All the planning, hiring people, construction problems, start up problems, documents that needed signed, restrictions, Indiana Department of Environmental Management visits, convincing the public: we are NOT big corporation monsters, just a family who loves being here, was more than worth it!!!

We are truly BLESSED to milk 2200 cows and we love every single day of it!

I have grown up quite a bit. I love my family, friends and all the other people I know very much. I have learned problems are not problems, they are just challenges that you need to overcome. Without learning the word “spin” in English (spider), I would never have had the opportunity to live my American Dream.

Happy Fourth of July!!!
I hope you have a great day!!!

...

My bucket full of lists

2011-07-01T06:26:00.000-04:00

I used to have a Bucket List…
- Go to Montana
- Fly an airplane
- Be a pop star
- Have 500 alpaca’s

When we moved to the United States my one and only top priority “thing to do” on my list got a check mark behind it. I am living my American Dream!

But then I got sick, and my whole bucket list got twisted around. So now I don’t really have a bucket list anymore, because the one and only thing on there now is to NOT EVER get sick AGAIN!

That doesn’t mean I don’t have a LOT of little LISTS in a BUCKET!

As you might know we have a large dairy. We run our dairy will all the family members and we have 21 employees. My job on the farm is to keep all the employees happy and taken care of them and to do the bookkeeping. A day in my life consists of little lists. Usually in the form of a “post it” with little memo’s to myself. Those lists consist of the following things almost every day…

- Employees: The boys and girls work in three shifts, 5 people in a shift. Normally when I get to the farm I check if everybody is present and if there is anything they need or want. Then I go to our herdsman (cow expert) Colby and is assistant Adan. They are like a well oiled machine and they don’t really need help from me, but as the “boss” you got to know what is going on!

- LADIES: How are our ladies doing? Because we have so many it is very hard to look at every individual cow like you would do on a smaller farm. To make sure we don’t miss anything all our gals have an ankle bracelet. This bracelet records how much she walks, how much milk she gives and what the salt content is of the milk she is giving, three times a day. The computer will save all the info for 10 days. If one cow has a “off” day, she will show up automatically on (Colby’s list) but also on mine. And with these 3 bits of info, he (Colby and me too) knows if she is doing ok or if we need to see her, and give her some extra attention.

- Checks: As the bookkeeper at our dairy I am in charge of all the money traffic. This can be incredible stressful but also a lot of fun (when things go well).
- DFA website: On the website of our milk coop I can see how much milk all our ladies produce the day before and what our quality is. At our Four Leaf Clover Dairy we strive to the best quality we can produce. Every day we get quality results from our milk cooperation, so if there would be an issue with the temperature or quality of the milk we can make sure that it gets corrected really fast.

- Bastiaan, Mom, Dad and Jan Willem: WHAT is everybody doing and HOW is everybody doing. And what do I have on some other lists that includes them???
- Yesterday: what was on my list yesterday and I didn’t get to…

Sometimes I feel like a traffic controller, making sure everybody and everything moves in the right direction at the right time. After a full day of organizing and delegating I come home to our sweet Jones and my Super Stud Classic and unwind. Sometimes my little bucket doesn’t get empty at all that day and there will be no unwinding. The good thing is, tomorrow is a new day so we’ll have new chances to reach that little buckets bottom...

Do you have a bucket list or do you have a bucket full of lists?

If you don’t have a bucket I can tell you THIS is the best place to find your very own bucket!
You might want to check out the Red Hill General Store and/or hop over to the Real Farmwives of America & Friends they have a giveaway and one lucky reader will win his or her very own Galvanized Embossed Tub!!!

I know I know, you can start right now; writing down your very own lists and than by the time you won the bucket, you can fill it up and then start emptying it out doing all the things you need to do or do the things you WANT to do!!!

…

Disclaimer. While Red Hill General Store did provide me with a bucket to blog about for this post the pictures, ideas and opinions shared here are my own.

Too cute for words...

2011-06-29T09:00:00.000-04:00

Yep, this Wordless Wednesday is just too cute for words...

Thanks to Bastiaan's dad, Rinus Oostdijck who took these lovely pics!

Have a fantastic Wednesday!

...

Oh Canada! A rocky road...

2011-06-27T10:24:00.000-04:00

Ever hit a big rock?
On the highway?
Driving at least 50 miles per hour?

I would not recommend it…

I had a fantastic time in Canada. The horses, the people and the quietness of the country side were good medicine for the soul. We didn’t have much time off but after two months me and the other student Kate were allowed to take the bosses car and drive down to Calgary to go see a big International Jumping event. There even were some Dutch professionals coming to compete... whoohoo....

Chris (our boss) had arranged that we could stay at a friend’s place. We just had to drive down there on Friday go to the show on Saturday and Sunday and then drive back home so we could be back at work at Touchstone Farm on Monday.

Things went well…. Well, until we got in Calgary.

We were driving along the highway after having met our lovely host for the weekend and told her that Kate and I were going to see where exactly the show was going to be held so we wouldn’t be late the next morning. We also figured while we were in Calgary we should make the best of it and maybe even go to dinner and see a movie.

Because it was later in the afternoon the roads weren’t that crowded and we were driving smoothly on a well kept highway, having a good conversation and listning to some good music trying to figure out where we needed to go the next morning.

And then we see this big brown thing in the middle of the highway… We discuss the issue at hand and come to the conclusion, that it must be a carton box, maybe fallen off of a truck or something. Then we discussed if it would be possible to drive over it and what would happen if we did… we were feeling pretty gutsy and daring, driving 60 miles an hour…

BIG BLOND MOMENTS GOING ON RIGHT THERE AND THEN!

When we are about 50 feet from the “carton box” Kate yells at me “THAT IS NOT A CARTON BOX!!!” At exactly the same moment that she yells, I noticed the same thing! It is not a carton box it is a SOLID ROCK!!!

The moment we realize it is not a carton box of about 2 by 2 feet big, defiantly not something to drive over at 60 miles an hour, I yank the steering wheel over to avoid the thing, yelling back to to Kate that she "needs to hold on!!!"

We missed the rock… well, actually we didn’t, but the car was still going…. “Who on earth leaves a SOLID ROCK in the middle of a highway anyway!!!???”

Kate was pretty pale and I’m sure I was even paler, together we let out a breath of relief and I slowed down. We did a quick check, check, doulbe check: the car was still driving, we didn’t hear any crazy sounds and we almost didn’t hit anything, and we were still alive. But we felt incredibly stupid...

While recuperating we noticed a four dollar movie theater. Because we were pretty shaken up we figured, go eat something, go to the movies and go back to bed. We had enough excitement for one day...

I park the car and as I exit the car I hear this hissing noise… Kate heard the same hissing sound and we checked where it came from. And yes being girls with no “car mechanics background” it should have been real hard for us to figure out what was wrong. But it wasn’t…

It was pretty easy actually and that didn’t help the situation. There was a hole in the tire. And not only was there a hole in the tire, there was something wrong with the rim. A rim is supposed to be nice and round, and this one wasn’t. It was bent. And bent isn’t even the right word it was more like it had a 2 inch gap in the middle…

We looked around and noticed that on the other side of the road there was a garage (I know, we had a least 4 little angels sitting on our shoulders). We hopped in the car drove (really, really slowly) to the other side of the road and hurried inside, trying to find somebody who could help us.

It was five minutes to five on a Friday afternoon….

We did find a nice gentleman who tried to help us but because it was so late during the day and he did have a tire but NO rim, he could’t really do more. He gave us addresses of local scrap yards and told us we needed to find a new rim, and then he would put it on for us the next morning.

Feeling even dumber we went back to our lovely host. We told her that we had a “little bit” of an accident and that we needed to go find a new rim for Chris’s car the next day. That Saturday we spent THE WHOLE DAY looking for a rim and by 2 o clock in the afternoon we had found one. Brought it to the nice car mechanic and he said he needed the rest of the day to fix our car back up. At 6 o clock and a lot of Canadian dollars lighter we had our car back. And no, we didn’t see one horse at all that day…

That Sunday we didn’t really feel like going to the show, after all, all the good riders had already competed on Saturday so we decided to drive the four hours back to Touchstone Farm. We thanked our host and she promised us not to tell Chris.

We got home early that Sunday and told Chris we enjoyed the show. He never found out (or so we thought). At least not until I went back to Touchstone 5 years later and told him about that time that we got him a "free" new rim…

So for all of you miss smarty pants that have the feeling that they need to be brave and gutsy every now and then, NEVER get gutsy with a ROCK on a HIGHWAY… it’s just not worth it… trust me... i know...

...

Crazy Americans! Now where is it that you left your keys?

2011-06-23T11:05:00.002-04:00

OK, so this was in the local newspaper (or something really close to this) about a month after we immigrated here from The Netherlands.

“The Bluffton Sheriff’s department is asking all residents to take their keys out of the car and or close car windows while shopping at the local grocery store (Yes, this would be your local Walmart).”

And I just could NOT stop laughing, I really almost peed my pants while running over to mom and dad to show them this little article on page 4 of the local newspaper!

We really had a hard time believing what we just read so we read it again, and again...

We had already noticed a HUGE difference in “what people do” here, and with here I mean, local Indiana, in the middle of nowhere, county living, RURAL AREA, Indiana. They sure had different methods of leaving their keys somewhere else than what we were used to coming from the Netherlands.

In Holland you need to lock EVERYTHING. This includes: Cars; first of all, lock them with CLOSED windows! Second, hide your CD player, phone, I-pad, kids toys! And do not leave laptops or other important devices in your car because your car will be broken into or (worse) just be plain GONE! Bicycles; have at least two locks, and maybe an extra chain that you can put around your bike and wrap it around a lantern post. You probably will lose your bike anyway to some drunk person who couldn’t find his or her bike and just took yours. Good thing we have HUNDREDS of bikes in Holland… Your wallet; have a big HEAVY chain on it, chained to your jeans otherwise somebody else WILL TAKE IT!

Especially walking in a big city like Amsterdam it would be even smarter to keep your wallet close to your body under lot’s and lot’s of layers of clothes. It WILL be gone before you have even noticed it! Your tractor; yes, in these days even tractors are not safe anymore, they will take them and run them into a big semi and ship them off to different parts of Europe. And finally your house, never ever leave your house unlocked, not even for five minutes to borrow a cup of sugar at your sweet little old lady (that your barely know) neighbor! Your house will be empty by the time you drank her tea and eat the old stale cookies and got back!

Soooo now you know how it works in Holland. Well, this is how it worked in rural Indiana. And maybe you can understand our confusion. And my big “WHY?” Every time I would see something like a running or unlocked car.

People leave their cars running in the winter while they are shopping. “Why???” Because otherwise the car will be cold by the time they get back. People leave their cars running in the summer while they are shopping. “Why???” Because otherwise the car will be hot by the time they get back. To me this sounds like “LAZY” all over, but maybe I’m just looking at it wrong and should I look at it as “SMART”?!? But what if somebody would see you car and drive off with it...

People leave their cars windows down in the summer while they are shopping. “Why???” Because (normally these are the crappier/older cars) they have NO air condition and otherwise the car will get hot while they are shopping… I do have to admit having a older BMW with no air conditioner it was pretty tempting to leave the windows down… And then my CD collection of Matchbox Twenty kicked in and I walked back to my car after walking 10 steps away from it and closed the windows… What if somebody would take my Rob Thomas…

People leave their cars unlocked while shopping. “Why???” I have no idea…. Maybe because it is always a hassle to find your car keys when you are pushing a full cart…? That was the only reason I could think off…. Well... It is pretty annoying to dig out your keys while your cart strolls off into a empty neighboring car that DOES have the engine running…

People have their houses unlocked while they are going on a vacation for THREE WEEKS?!? “Why???” Because they forgot to lock it and they took their keys with them? Maybe? I really didn’t get this one but after a couple of nights laying awake pondering this I came to the conclusion that maybe grandma didn’t have a spare key…

So yes, crazy American’s. Right?!?

To be honest I am a bit torn on this one. One side of me says, “Who is the crazy now?” The Dutchies because they have come too such a sad society they cannot trust anybody anymore and have to lock everything everywhere… And the other side of me says; The “Crazy Americans”, who just leave everything out in the open and don’t lock a thing, anywhere, because they trust each other to leave the stuff that is yours, yours and the stuff that is mine, mine?!?

I kinda like the idea of not having to lock up your belongings all the time and that you have enough faith in your fellow earthlings that they don’t steal your stuff all the time….

But… I still lock my car…. And our house…. And I still hide my wallet in a special compartment in my handbag…

Crazy me?

...

If you missed the first "Crazy Americans" please check out Crazy Americans & Public Restrooms !

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream and little brothers

2011-06-20T14:36:00.003-04:00

We were raised in a good "old fashion" Dutch way. This meant we only had one glass of pop a day (normally this would be coca cola because we don’t have Mountain Dew in Holland). There would be a cookie waiting at us when we came home from school and on Saturday’s we had a private party because we got a little bowl of chips. And on Sunday some candy when we visited grandma… But that would be IT as far as the sweets went. An apple, a pear, a banana, as much or as many as we wanted BUT NO SWEETS!

In the summer sometimes my mom and little sister made popsicles out of water with usually a strawberry flavor. They were really tasty but if you would suck hard enough the strawberry flavor would be gone and all you had left was frozen water.

But sometimes my mom would buy some REAL ice cream! And yes this would be vanilla (hehe) and she would make us little bowls and then we could put sprinkles on them or wiped cream (my dad’s favorite). And if it was a real real special occasion we would have the popsicle faces with a gumball as a nose on it or those really fancy looking Magnums that were huge!

It was a beautiful day and we were all playing outside. We had some great swings and a sandbox behind our house in between the two pig barns. I vaguely remember it was a Saturday or Sunday and me and my sister were playing with our dolls and bears in the sandbox (yes I know, dirty dolls) and my little brother was driving around on his “skelter”. This is a little four wheeler but you have to paddle with your own two feet instead of having a little engine doing all the work for you…

Our mom came out and brought us an ice cream (so it defiantly must have been a Saturday or Sunday) and while my sister and I enjoyed our ice in the sandbox, Jan Willem was pretty content sitting on his skelter, licking and driving at the same time. After 10 minutes all of a sudden we hear a scream! Not the same kind of scream as when my little brother decided to see and FEEL what would happen if he peed on the electric fence .......... but similar…………………………….

My sister and I run over towards where our little brother had stranded and he was just holding his head and screaming his lungs out!?! We were is serious panic mode and while my little sister ran to fetch my mom i was holding my brother.

Mom hurried down and started to check all his vitals and trying to get him to come inside. After we got him inside and on the couch she called our doctor. The doctor asked all the standard questions but we really did not know what was wrong with him! Finally the doctor asked if he ate something. "Well", my mom said, "he just ate an ice cream not to long ago..." And that was IT! The doctor explained that he might have a 'Brain Freeze".

We had NO CLUE what that could be (and yes in Dutch Brain Freeze is still a Brain Freeze). So the doctor explained: It is caused by having something cold touch the roof of the mouth, and is believed to result from a nerve response causing rapid constriction and swelling of blood vessels and that results in you have pain going from the roof of you mouth to the top of your head. In this case my brothers head. The doctor also told my mom that he would be alright in a half hour...

And yes half and hour later, my little brother was paddling along on his "skelter" and me and my sister were playing with our dolls and my mom had recovered from her heart attack! Oh, those good old days, when little brothers could turn your world upside down...

My little brother still LOVES ice cream! And yes, so do I! So when i was asked to participate in the Ice Cream Flavor Face off by the Progressive Dairyman i was really excited! I didn't really know what to do, but i had to pick a good flavor of ice cream! My flavor is Vanilla Bean, and somehow i managed to get into the second voting round (totally unexpected i might add)!

Sooooo, now i would like to ask you.... please, please, pretty please... can you hop over to The Progressive Dairyman and cast your vote??? We are only in Round Two yet, so there are still some other flavors competing, but as long as you vote for VANILLA BEAN too... I will be the happiest girl in the world!

Thanks so much and if I get true into the next round, i promise, I'll try to write another funny story about ice cream...

THANKS!!!

...

How to become a pyromaniac

2011-06-14T21:50:00.030-04:00

Yep, you’re reading this right. I’m going to tell you the basic rules about becoming a pyromaniac.

First: you need a LOT of wood.
There is just no fun in burning down somebody’s house, barn or shed…Well OK, if it is a really really old barn or shed and there is nothing in it no more except spiders (burn baby burn) and it is a real sore to the eyes… maybe then you could… BUT you have to have permission from the owner…

Second: You need some fuel.
Yes I know with the fuel prices these days, you’re not gonna spill a whole gallon on a big fire, but trust me, you get GREAT satisfaction when you see that all the wood goes up in flames… well... if your still not convinced you can always use some used oil from tractors, lawnmowers, cars and scooters…

Third: You need a wheelbarrow, a shovel and a pitchfork.
In order to create a good fire that last a couple of hours you need the wheelbarrow to bring all the branches and wood to the fire. And you need the shovel and pitchfork to clean up the fire and make sure it doesn’t get too big or out of control (as in burning your house down).

And finally: You need supportive parents!
Well actually the parents are the REAL pyromaniacs but you can’t tell the neighbors, they might get scared!

In Holland you are not allowed to burn anything. We used too maybe 10 - 15 years ago but nowadays you can’t do anything anymore not even making a nice little fire in your back yard. You have to remember Holland is one third the size of Indiana and Indiana has 3.3 million people whereas Holland has 16 million. Yep…. That is why, no fires in The Netherlands…

When we finally got our visas and moved here in February of 2006. We were happily surprised that the weather was already 60 degrees Fahrenheit (the ONLY year that happend since we been here!). Me and my dad had spotted a great little house not far from where the dairy was going to be, a couple of months before we actually moved, and we had contacted the lady who owned it. She really didn’t want to rent it out but after we convinced her that we really were “nice” and “decent” people and our sweet crop farmer put in a good word for us she let us rent the house.

Now you all want to know what we did those first couple of days…. Right???

Well, we burned and burned and burned! All the leaves, all the old branches, entire threes, the half collapsed chicken coops (yes there were several) and after 2 weeks of burning stuff we had nothing to burn anymore. It was 40 acres of forest after all... took some time to clean up... The best thing was that my mom and dad had a smile on their faces from morning till evening because they felt so liberated! You could burn things here! No, the police would not show up. The neighbors wouldn’t call the fire department just because the smoke would come their way. No way! This is the land of the free!!!

Having a little fire every evening really made us feel happy and content with the huge decision of immigrating to this beautiful country. And yes every now and then we turn into little pyromaniacs again (especially when my little sister comes over from Holland), and we have ourselves a little bonfire and enjoy this immense country and eachothers company.

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Crazy Americans & public restrooms

2011-06-13T16:10:00.000-04:00

Ok…
American’s can be a tat crazy…
I know I know, Dutch people are cheap…
Belgium people are not so smart (or so they say)…
And French people just DON’T wanna talk English when you are on vacation in Euro Disney…

No typing and peeing!

We love to put people in small little boxes, so we can make ourselves feel better. This post is not about that! I love everybody, every ethnic group, every religion, every culture, every “we do it our way” and this post is just meant to be funny and make you think (a bit).

Since we immigrated to this beautiful country I have noticed some strange things and some of them make me lay awake at night and think and some just make me chuckle and turn my head. I would love to share these thoughts with you and hope you’ll enjoy and maybe get a chuckle out of it as well…

So here we go with my first “Crazy Americans!”

The things you see when you first come into this country are astonishing! EVERY THING IS BIG, OR BIGGER, well except for the public restrooms that is!

And i'm sorry to say but he people are truly bigger here too. (I see the difference getting smaller, USA versus Europe lately, but 15 years ago the difference was really shocking). My sweet aunt took me to a local grocery store and that is where I encountered my first “obese lady”. I can tell you my mouth and jaw almost reached the street, and I had to sneak behind her to watch again, and again, to make sure my brain was NOT playing tricks with me. She had a normal big size torso, normal big size legs but her butt was almost as big as the whole sliding door of the grocery store! I looked at my aunt and she just shook her head, as if to say, "keep your manners and don’t stare". But I just couldn’t help myself. I had seen nothing like this in my sixteen years being on this planet…

An American restroom...

A couple of weeks into my stay here we went to the movies. I think it was Star Wars but I could be wrong, and I desperately needed to go to the bathroom. I walk into the bathroom and the first thing I notice is that there is about ONE INCH AND A HALF of room between the door and the frame!

“WHAT’S THIS?!?”

“How am I suppose to pee, if anybody that walks by can just watch me sit there and do my business!!??” You feel embarrassed enough when the walls don’t go all the way up and if you pee everybody can hear you, but SEE you… Well that is a whole different dimension!

So while I’m sitting there figuring out how I can pee comfortable without anybody peeking in, I was thinking about how I came in this little restroom in the first place. The door opens INWARDS!!! “Hmmmm, why would that be….?”

Soo I finally got the peeing done with and was pretty proud of myself for not sounding too loud and I got up, try to open the door and to my amazement (what I didn’t “get” coming into the toilet) I almost had to sit back on the seat in order to open the door and get out! And you have to keep in mind at age 16 I weighed about 50 kilo’s…. uhmmm… 114 pounds...

Even in Moscow they have doors that open outwards!

From that moment on I have checked every public restroom (I know, I know, who’s crazy now…) But for every 20 public toilets there is only one that has a door opening OUTWARDS! So now we go back to that lady at the supermarket in 1995. If I already have so much trouble getting in an out a public restroom (and yes this includes, your Walmart, your rest areas, your restaurants, your movie theatres, your casino’s, your schools, your racetracks your airports, your public buildings, your hospitals, and so on and so on) besides the fact that it is just embarrassing to hear or SEE somebody pee (or worse), how on earth does the average American women who in most cases is slightly bigger than me, manage to get in and out of the restroom in a decent manner???

And no I haven’t had the guts to check the men’s restrooms, but I’m sure it can’t be that different from the ladies…

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Wordless Wednesday on Thursday...

2011-06-08T23:51:00.012-04:00

Yes, this pretty much sums it up for yesterday....

Good thing we have Calvin & Hobbes to put things in perspective!

Hope you have a WONDERFUL Thursday!!!

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Tractor Disaster! The big bang theory

2011-06-06T09:32:00.000-04:00

My best friend is one of those girls who has balls…

I know this doesn’t sound very lady like but let me explain. When we were in High school we had to go do a practical training period of one week at another school, usually in the northern part of Holland where we wouldn't sit in a classroom but drive tractors, milk cows and do stuff “for real”. This training would be one week long and when we finished that week we would return to our own school and get new theoretical things to study.

And because we went to a High school especially for the Agricultural sector there were a LOT of boys and not so many girls…

Kamie was awesome driving the tractor, not like me as you can read in Tractor Disaster & Tractor Disaster, Driving in Circles, but really really good! Of course the boys thought they were better and so it would be amazing to see her jump on the tractor with tanker, put it in reverse and back it up 500 feet true an overhead door, with no more than a couple of inches to spare on each side of the tanker, into a barn… You should see the faces of those boys when she would do that… pure jealousy, pure lust (after all it where teenage boys) and pure and utter disbelieve that a GIRL was capable of doing such a thing with a tractor!

I just stood by and watched ‘my girl’ do her thing…

In high school we also had to go to a local farmer and spent one day a week for half a year on their farm. This was believed good for your education because you could practice the things that you had learned in class on that farm and ask the teacher or farmer questions that might arise.

I went to a dairy farmer… can you believe it… and I would help him milk in the morning, feed the cows, clean the (free stalls) beds and helped the farmer with whatever needed to be done that day. I was pretty determined to do it right and after a couple of weeks; the farmer asked me if I could come in the weekends too. I thought this was a good idea, learn more about dairy farming and make some money, so one day I could buy my own BMW (hehe…)!

On a beautiful spring day, after milking was done, the farmer asked me if I could drive a tractor. I told him “yes, I can…”. I also explained to him that I didn’t do so well on my final exam but that I had been doing some practicing and that every day that went by I felt more comfortable, not as comfortable as my best friend (i told him about the boys and her driving) but comfortable enough...

Don’t tell me I didn’t warn him…

Soooo, long story short, he put me on the tractor to spread the grass he was cutting. My tractor had a machine (rake) behind it which you normally would use to make nice little rows (dunes) of cut grass, but instead of me making nice little dunes I needed to spread the grass around, this is called 'raking'. Imagine that the grass he cuts is laying in a nice little neat row, but no air can get underneath that pile of grass, so I needed to drive over it and “spread” it over the entire field so a lot of air can dry the grass quicker. If the grass is dry enough, you take the same machine, but adjust it a bit and make nice little rows (dunes) again, so the farmer can bale it. Some people make little bales (normally for horses) or big bales (for cows) and feed this to their animals.

He had cut all the grass and I was just driving around in circles over the fields spreading grass, having a good time. I made sure that my tires were good and i wasn't bleeding… yeah…. And that I didn’t drive true any holes and stuff.

After lunch I headed back to “my field” and started up again. There were some posts in the field… normally this is not a problem, but I didn’t see the post until I was already past it… Which is no good…

I stopped the tractor immediately and to my amazement one of the rakes went already past the post and the second rake was right after that. So you had rake, post, rake.

My blond and healthy farmers instinct said, “Ok, just put the tractor in reverse and the rakes will go backwards and just roll out of that post again. My theory: roll in, you can roll out again… right???

Well, in theory it should have worked, except I forgot the PTO… a PTO is that thing that goes round and round which makes the actual rake do what it’s supposed to do. And you should NEVER put a tractor with a rake behind it in REVERSE…

There was a HUGE BANG!!! No not a little bang, or crack, NO A BANG that you can hear 5 miles away and the PTO, the tractor and the rake stopped and things were FLYING!!! And really, all the blood that was running true my body just stopped running… “OH, OH, OH…. What have I DONE???" While I was recuperating, the farmer, who lived half a mile from where I was raking, came running up to me! Yes, Dejavu all over again…. PTO broke, rake broke, some wheels inside the rake broke.... disaster all over...

Important lesson to be learned here; NEVER EVER EVER put your tractor in reverse when your PTO is still on….

I was allowed to come back to the farm the next week. My school was called and their insurance was not happy with me… I brought the farmer a homemade pie…

...

Monday’s: Please can I have a pedicure???

2011-06-03T10:08:00.000-04:00

Our cows are getting pedicures! They get them about twice a year, and sometimes they even get another special treatment!

On our large dairy we milk 2200 cows and to make sure we give our ladies the best of pretty much everything we also have their feet trimmed! In the following weeks I will describe what generally happens on any given day of the week here at our farm. And what better day to start with is a Monday!

Every Monday our hoof trimmer Billy comes and he will trim our cow’s feet. He will do anywhere from 80 -100 cows a day. And If I say a day, that means 80 cows in 8 hours…

Billy comes from a different part of Indiana and he brings his own chute (this is a device where you put the cows in to get trimmed). This chute is pretty nifty because it will pick the cow up to "working level" (so our dear Billy doesn’t get to many problems with is back) and has “leg holders” to put the particular leg of the cow in so Billy can work on it. This holder will also bring the foot closer to Billy so he can have a good look at them. He will make an assessment and then he will trim and or treat.

Because our cows walk on concrete most of the time it is very important to take a good look at them regularly. We do have rubber mats in our parlor for the cows (we have a parallel parlor, this means our cows stand in the parlor side by side and get milked from behind) so every time they have to make a 90 degree turn, it doesn’t have such a bad impact on their feet or legs).

Sometimes Billy has an assistant who helps him get the cows into the chute and make sure that the cows aren’t getting too stressed out because it’s a “new” thing. It isn’t really new to them but our cows like consistency, and if you only have a pedicure once every half year, it might throw them off a bit. If you have two guys, you yourself don’t stress as much, and the ladies will stay calmer and feel more comfortable as well. If Billy finds a cow who has an problem or an "auwie" he’ll make sure it will go away and he will put a nice little wrap (bandage) on her feet so the medicine stays in place and the dirt (manure) and liquid (water and pee) stays out.

We give our cows their pedicures about halfway true their lactation, and right before they go to the other farm (where they will be running outside, stand in the mud and play in the sun while being 7 months pregnant). During the week we will check and make sure none of the ladies needs a special treatment besides from their regular treatment, if they do we just write them on a chalk board and she will see Billy the following Monday.

Besides the trimming which Billy does, we also have a foot bath every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. The ladies will walk true a foot bath which is prepared for them by our guys. We put copper sulfate and a special organic booster in this bath. This copper sulfate and organic booster will kill off the bacteria and will clean and dry out the hoofs.

Yep, those girls are pretty lucky… Their feet get way more attention than mine!

If you have any questions or would like to see or hear some other things that happen here at our farm, please write me a comment and i will try to work it in!

...

Wordless Wednesday

2011-06-01T08:31:00.000-04:00

Don't EVER eat your own earplugs... Trust me, they don't taste all that good...

If you want the story behind this picture...
CHEW ON THIS! I had some problems yesterday with the comment box but after i fixed it, some people left some fantastic comments! I would love to hear your stories about nightmares and sleepwalking!

But if you want to look at beautiful pics you can go visit the Real Farm Wives of America for all the ladies Wordless Wednesday posts!

Have a wonderful day!

...

Chew on this!

2011-05-31T10:21:00.000-04:00

I used to have terrible nightmares!

I started reading Stephen King novels when I was twelve or thirteen… Yes you have “R” rated movies (which I was NOT allowed to watch by my parents) BUT we had a “Riding Library” (the library was in a big bus who would go from school to school and every classroom would get half an hour to go in there pick or return your books. If all the grades had their books the bus would go to the "real library" and restock and drive off to the next school).

Nobody had ever heard of “R” rating the books. They had little pictures on the bottoms which would say if it was a horror book, a comedy book or a romantic book but that was about it. I had an extremely overactive imagination and the Stephen King books were exactly what my i needed, i thought... Nobody stopped me from reading them and so I read them all, my imagination getting wilder and wilder upon every new book. I won't say the books caused the nightmares but they sure didn’t help!

The worst nightmares where pretty much always the same. I would be in a closed off room. All the lights would be off so it would be extremely dark. And I would be trying to find the light switch… no scary monsters, no scary murders, no gore and blood everywhere but the dreams would “feel” so real, it would completely freak me out. And sometimes this literally meant that I would get out of bed and would start searching for the light switch or the door handle to find the light.

I remember one time; I had the same dream, moving around in the dark touching everything trying to find the light switch. I touched my desk, my dresser, my Ethan Hawke, Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix posters and finally I had reached a little shelf (and yes in Holland we build houses out of BRICK) and so this shelve was drilled in with bolds INTO the wall. Somehow I thought that was the door handle that would open the door to the light, and to safety. So I RIPPED THE WHOLE SHELF PLUS BOLTS FROM THE WALL!!! This sent my mom flying up the stairs (my parents slept right below me) and she would scream in panic thinking I was attacked by a burglar or maybe some strange ex boyfriend climbing into my bedroom (read: Boy Trouble)!!!

As soon as she would step into my room and would let the light from the hallway in, I would wake up, get my heart rate under control and crawl back into bed… well, after my mom did a check, check, double check… As soon as we started to put a little night light in my bedroom, the nightmares would turn into a little less of a nightmare, or at least I would stay in bed… big improvement I must say. Also less damaging on my own bedroom…

In 2006 we had sold our house and farm in Holland before our visa’s were approved to come to America and so we had to wait. We had nothing anymore and were pretty much living out of our suitcases (everything was on a boat towards the USA), we needed to live somewhere, so some of my parents (incredibly sweet) friends let us stay with them, until we would get our visa’s and start our American Dream. They had a little area in front of their hog barn which we transformed into a temporary home.

It was a little two bedroom “apartment” and my mom and dad had the bedroom and I slept behind the bookshelf in the living room/kitchen. We made this little area for me so I had a little “privacy”. The problem was that I could hear everything! As soon as my mom and dad would wake up I would wake up behind my bookshelf…. Not good.

So I decided to wear earplugs. You know those kinds that you push together so they get really small, you put them in your ears and they get bigger again and thus eliminate the sounds. They work great!

I was dreaming…

I was dreaming about cute boys…

I was dreaming about this unbelievable nice dinner with a chocolate dessert… It was sooooo real! And the chocolate tasted sooooo good!

Hmmm… Maybe the chocolate was not that good…..

I woke up and O MY GOSH what is that in my mouth!?! Instead of chewing feverishly on my chocolate, I was chewing on my earplug… Trust me… I RAN to the bathroom, spit out my so called chocolate and threw up!

And yes, mom woke up… asked me if I was all right and if my nightmares had returned because she saw me reading a Stephen King novel and I didn’t have a night light… I told her, “No it wasn’t a nightmare I was having, but it sure was a nightmare to wake up like this!”

I don’t wear earplugs anymore. I rather stay awake. And I don’t keep loose things on my bedside table. Who knows what else I might I stick into my mouth when I am asleep.

Do you have “bad” nightmares???

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Oh my, oh my... Awards...

2011-05-26T16:30:00.001-04:00

IT is MUCH better then the Grammy's! Much MUCH better then the MTV awards and defiantly MUCH better then the Emmy's...

I got me some Awards!!! WHOOHOOOHOOOOOOOOO

Thank you sooo much Debra from High heels & hot flashes for the "One Lovely Blog Award"!

And Texwisgirl from Run A Round Ranch Report AND Cindy from Yankee Texan Mom for the "Versatile Blogger Award"!

I feel incredibly honored to get these awards, although i must say i didn't really know how to implement them at first... I thought to put up a separate page and list them together with the blog hops i like to participate in but then i thought, "Oh well, let's just do it the "right" way" and have some fun!"

Sooooo, here we go, seven things you might not know about me... yet...

1. I love to sleep on my tummy. I thought that sleeping on my tummy would limit my boobies to grow when i was young, but i really could NOT sleep on my side or my back so i gave up the boobies...
2. I feel wayyyyyy better when my house is clean...
3. I wear my heels to feel girly. And yes sometimes i wear them just for myself at home...
4. I HATE spiders. As in screaming, climbing on a chair, getting hot flashes and a heart rate exceeding 300 beats per minute scared of spiders... So pure hate for those buggars!
5. I miss my friends and sister back home in Holland a LOT! Well, you might have know this one already...
6. Once a day i think about smoking. I quit smoking when i had to start chemo and not one day goes by that i don't think about "lighting one up". But i never do...
7. My boobies did eventually come...Yah for me... and yes, I'm still sleeping on my tummy!

Because in the last three months i have seen such fantastic blogs here in Bloggy Land, and if it was up to me i would give you all an award... But i have to pick so i would like to pass the Versatile Blogger Award on to the following ladies and gentlemen, and yes, PLEASE check them out:

Kymberly - Life out Loud... Oh so funny and sooo good!
Sandra - Madsnapper She is one of the sweetest bloggers i have "met"!
Farm girl - My field of dreams Young, fresh and yes a farm girl like me!
Lana - Walking the off beaten path If i needed a second moma, Lana would be it!
Clint - Lyrics of Love and Lore Mr gentleman! And soo sweet with the comments!

And the "One Lovely Blog Award" goes too:
Ria from It's Me Because of her wonderful colorful blog in Dutch and English!

I hope you check them all out and I would love to see you back here next Monday for a new story!

Have a wonderful rest of the week! And again, thank you (as in everybody) who takes the time to read my little "verhaaltjes"...
Leontien

...

Trading Places

2011-05-23T11:00:00.001-04:00

When I was 14 years old, life was so full of exciting things I almost didn’t know where to start...
Almost…

At that age I had already figured out that I wouldn’t be a good nun, boys where way to interesting to give up. I also knew that I did not want to be involved in anything that had to do with mathematics (go figure that 10 years later I got my masters in Agricultural Economics). I was defiantly not going to be a trucker, well not in Holland, the roads were just too small and there was too much traffic. And that I loved speed except on my horse, whenever he decided to take off!

What I did figure out however was that I wanted to get my motorcycle drivers license. I thought driving a car was for sissies, so I would be much cooler to drive a huge motorcycle. Not a Harley, no one of those fast ones. Maybe yellow or flashy green???

Of course I would talk about this a lot and it wasn’t long before one of my friends told me, “Well, Leontien, if you really want to ride a motorcycle, why don’t I come over to your house with my 250 cc (HUGE BIKE) and you can try it out?”

I wasn’t really sure if I wanted him to know how incredibly awesome I would be so I made him a counter offer. “I would ride his bike if he would ride my horse. Trade places for a bit and see where we end up?"

So for weeks he bragged to all his friends that he would ride my horse and be really really good at it, make him (the particular horse) do all the tricks those little girls (being me, riding dressage) would do. And me telling all my girlfriends that I would take that motorcycle and speed off into the sunset.

Ah well, being young and innocent can be such a blessing…

Finally the day had come. My friend came over with his motorcycle and parked it right behind our house. I had to do a “take, double take” because that bike was BIG!!! But of course I couldn’t tell him that, instead we went to the barn and I showed him my horse, Flicka (yes after the movie, My Friend Flicka). His name was really Flipper, but I didn’t agree with the fact that my horse was named after a dolphin, so Flicka it was.

To this day I’m still not sure what my friend thought of my horse but we decided to ride the bike first then the horse.

In order to ride the bike properly we went to the little alley besides our hog barn. He explained all the handles, the pedals, the gas and yes the brake. He drove up and down the alley and came back smiling like crazy. Yes, he was going REALLY FAST! According to him I needed to “get a feeling for it” and so I rode with him on the back and yes it was EVEN FASTER!!! Maybe i wasn't the speed devil i thought i would be..?

I wasn’t even sure if I could do this…

But it was my turn, and i couldn't back out. He again, explained all the handles, pedals, brakes and gas and I got on. Oh my Gosh, I was really gonna do this…

I drove 10 meters (maybe 30 feet give or take) and got myself into a tractor tire rud (more like a gully), and the damn thing (the bike) was just too heavy for me, so next thing you know, because yes, I was also driving 1.5 miles an hour, the bike tips over!!! I fall on my side and the bike falls half on top of me and my friend has to run over (luckily not that far) to come and rescue me! I didn’t get hurt, well, not fiscally but my ego got a HUGE DENT! This was not how I imagined it to be, I was going to fly into the sunset, not get toppled over after 30 feet!

After I recovered from my embarrassment it was my friends turn to ride my horse. He was still chuckling over the fact I did so poorly and I’m sure if we had cell phones with Internet access it would have been sent to EVERYBODY!

So we saddle up Flicka and got him into the riding pen. I explain to my friend with what foot he needs to stand in the stirrup, how to use his reins and what to do to make Flicka go forward or stop. Did I mention I rode DRESSAGE??? He puts the left foot in the stirrup and with a little push from me, the literally falls onto the saddle…

Yes, boys are anatomically different build then girls…
So when you fall onto a saddle like that, something is going to hurt. BIG TIME!!! He didn’t only turn blue, no he turned GREEN! And he whimpered instead of screamed. Which made it even worse.

He got off Flicka, with again a little help from me and sat on the ground for at least 15 minutes. By then the color in his face had returned and I had put the horse in its stall.

We decide to tell everybody that “it just wasn’t our cup of tea…” and left it at that.

My appetite for being cool and riding a motorcycle went away that day. Now I’m just cool driving my car with the air conditioning on high…

...

I’m a monster!

2011-05-19T16:00:00.001-04:00

No…! I’m a vampire… oh well, maybe a vampiry monster… who’s to know…

It was another round of tests in 2009. We just found out that the Interferon (chemo) did something with my eye sight and it needed testing.

It was extremely frustrating for me to accept that when you (yes, you) get a little “auwie” (pain) somewhere, the doctor, husband, wife, kids, tell you to not be such a puss and get over it, where as I whenever I had a little “auwie”, little pain, rash, concern, or imaginative problem, I needed to be checked out completely, by different doctors multiple times!

So when I told the doctor that i thought my vision was getting a little blurry, guess what she told me to do…. Yep, get my buttocks into the best eye doctor’s office and have me checked out.

I had NEVER been to an eye doctor before. I didn’t need it. My vision was perfect and there was absolutely no reason to go there. So I was very surprised to see all the “tools”, huge chair and several interesting bottles on the desk. The eye doctor was a very sweet young man and asked me what the problem was. I told him about the cancer, chemo and blurry vision.

First we started with the eye test. Looking true a funny tool thingy and read the letters or numbers. I thought I did pretty good. Then he started to put my face in some kind of a cup holder and I needed to look true several little discs with holes in them and read some more numbers and letters. After the readings and me still thinking that I did pretty good, we started with the (incredibly nasty) light in the eyes.

While he was shinning that bright light in my eyes I needed to look up , down, right, left and again with the other eye… I figured this was gonna be it and he would tell me I would be fine and that I needed to be a little though and not be such a puss and then I would go home.

Well, the fun just started after that!

He put some drops of stuff out of those little bottles, in my eyes…. Red and yellow stuff and made me look true the little discs again. But this time it hurt! I did NOT sign up for this, yep the little puss came out!

The last drops were something “special”…

He put them in my eyes and told me to sit and wait until they had enlarged my pupils so he could look into the back of my eyes. “Okiedokie…”

About 15 minutes later I could NOT SEE ANYTHING up close anymore and only a little bit far off and the LIGHT! O MY GOSH, THAT LIGHT… I was pretty scared but apparently that‘s normal. He looked at the back of my eyes and found some “disturbing” things. Which was not funny but it was what we (as in the oncologist) found out later was expected to be a side effect of the chemo.

What was funny though was the fact that I was so HIGH AS A KITE of all the drugs they gave me and the fact that I had these HUGE pupils only made my mood even BETTER! We had to go to the hospital right after we got done at the eye doctor for chemo treatment and i really thought this was my day...

To every nurse, and yes I mean every nurse, doctor, patient, or whomever wanted to listen at the hospital I literally yelled; “I’M A MONSTER, I’M A MONSTER!!!”

And no, they didn’t get it… well, until they saw my eyes and understood my joke…

And then there were the ones that just thought I lost my mind, even after seeing my eyes…

And there was Bastiaan, pretty embarrassed to walk beside me, to make sure I didn’t run into any doors or walls…

Oh, it was a great day and I had one of the best chemo treatments ever! I’m pretty sure I fell asleep halfway true the treatment because of all the excitement and yelling but my gosh it was fun!

...

Wordless Wednesday

2011-05-18T11:46:00.000-04:00

"Mommy...
Why are my nostrils black but am I'm I almost white???"

"Cause you are a little package from Heaven..."

Ahwww, Brown Swiss baby calves are soooooo sweet!

Have a wonderful Wednesday and I hope to see you tomorrow, right here, to read a new blog post!

"Oh! before I forget!" You can find more pictures at our Farm's website:
Four Leaf Clover Dairy

Three times is the charm saga! Anniversary day TODAY!!!

2011-05-15T13:57:00.000-04:00

Today is the day! Our One Year Anniversary for our third wedding!!!
Whoohoo....

And because Bastiaan and i went to the Netherlands and i haven't been in full "blogging" mode yet i thought what better way to celebrate our wedding day with the Three times is the Charm Saga!!! Yep, all three stories in one with new pictures! Hope you enjoy, and yes this Thursday were back with new "life experiences"...

Wedding number one;

Some people get married once
Some people get married twice
Some people get married three times to THE SAME guy… and yes this would be me...

How do you get married three times, well, it isn’t because I really wanted too but sometimes life throws you a little curve ball and you just have to go with it…

Bastiaan proposed to me in November of 2007. In a really nice restaurant in Fort Wayne, we had been together for over 6 years and he figured it was time, and so did I, so I said “YES!” (And we got a free dessert from the people sitting next to us in the restaurant which made it extra nice).

We set our date to be on July 5th 2008 so our family and friends would have enough time to come over and book a flight from the Netherlands, Canada or Australia. At that date we would have the party and our church wedding. Of course we just started milking on the 20th of November and everything was still very hectic, exciting and stressful but also an immense adventure and we were loving every moment of it!

Because Bastiaan’s visa was going to expire in February we needed too make sure he would be "safe" and we decided to get married in the Courthouse in Bluffton, just to get the paperwork done. Go to Holland make sure the visa’s were in order and then get “really” married in July. For us this “wedding” was a necessity. We would of preferred to have done it on the same day as our church wedding but if you have so many people coming from abroad you need to give them proper time to make arrangements and plan flights. Telling them in November you are going to get married in February is not enough time, we figured.

We were already flabbergasted when we went to the courthouse to get a marriage license. Question one; ‘Have you been married before?’, ‘ No…’. Question two; ‘Do you have any children?’, ‘No…’ Question three; ‘Do you have mental problems?' ‘HU? NO!!!’. Those questions plus the actual license cost us $9.00 which was shocking (Yes, the price as well as the questions)! They told us now that we had the license we should get our witnesses and we would be ready to go…

On January 18th it was COLD!!! As in we (Dutchies) are not used to this kinda weather! But because I wanted to make sure this was at least a little special, it was our wedding after all, I wore a skirt (never mind the fact that an hour before I was still running around in coveralls on the farm trying to get things in order and Bastiaan was working on fixing a tractor!) and Bastiaan got a nice new shirt and my mom & dad and brother were coming, all dressed up too after running around on the farm all morning. Because of the dairy start up we hadn’t really had the opportunity to meet a lot of new people who could stand in as our witnesses and so my parents were going to be our witnesses.

We agreed with Bastiaan’s parents and my little sister that we would put them on speaker phone when it was time to do the ceremony so they would listen to us say our 'I do’s'. We did not want them to feel left out, but we also didn’t want them to travel two times, after all the June wedding was going to be our “official” wedding, and we rater had them there at that time!

So on this cold day we went to the Bluffton Courthouse and which was another SHOCKER where out of the courthouse and married for the very first time WITHIN 15 (if it lasted that long) MINUTES!
Before Bastiaan and I knew what was going on we were officially married! The only thing I really remember was the major saying those things that we only hear on TV or in the movies, now for real right in front of us which was pretty amazing! And naturally my new husband being very sweet and handsome was amazing too!

After we got out off the courthouse we went to the Mexican restaurant to celebrate and got a great lunch, after that it was pretty much back to business as usual…

Soon after our “Court Wedding” Bastiaan and I picked the venue and the church and met with the priest, picked what we wanted to eat and who we would love to have at our special day and THAT was pretty much the extend of what he wanted and needed to do… (Being a boy and planning weddings apparently doesn’t go together…).

Me and a friend on the other hand decided on getting organized and we got a Marta Steward planning guide (haha, yep) and the next months we were extremely busy getting everything done and ready. In the beginning of April 2008 the first wedding invitations went to our 200 guests all over the world…

On April 15th I got a phone call.
‘Sorry, but you got cancer…’.

Within 5 minutes our whole world as we knew it changed.

Four weeks after getting “the news”, being true several surgeries and debating different types off chemo, we canceled the wedding...

Together we decided to fight this beast first, make sure we were healthy and yes then we would get married, for Real. But at that time we really did not know or realize how bad it was going to be...

Wedding number two;

I had my wedding dress…
It was gorgeous…
It didn’t fit anymore… I was too skinny.

We were done with the first full month of chemo and into our three times a week for 48 weeks "period", and yes, I had survived so far. I also survived the surgeries and yes, I even survived the fact that we cut my hair (all that was left of it) and I found out that I was more vain then I ever thought I was going to be about the whole hair thing.

Apparently losing your hair doesn’t seem too bad until it is gone… And yes, every Sunday Bastiaan would drive me to the farm so I could do the payroll for our boys who so desperately with him, my parents and my brother were trying to run the dairy…

We didn’t even think about the wedding that we were supposed to have in July… We were in FULL SURVIVOR mode.

Our Catholic priest was also in full survivor mode.

On our way to Ohio is a beautiful church. Exactly like we have them in Holland (big, old and tall) and as soon as Bastiaan had asked me to marry him I told him I would love to get married in that particular church. We only had one little problem…. Bastiaan was not raised Catholic…

We met with the priest and explained that we would love to get married in his church and join his parochial. He told us getting married there would be all right if we went to a “marriage session” and he had to ask the bishop. Of course we also would have to go to church every Sunday and raise our “soon to be” kids Catholic… The session is a whole blog post on its own, trust me…

We went to church, went to the session and got to know the priest a bit better. After we got the "news" he came over to our house and we had an ointment for the sick and he told us he would be back and check up on me.

On a particular Tuesday, don’t ask me what Tuesday cause I really don’t know, he told us he would come by and we needed to have my mom and dad present. I had no idea what he was coming to do. I just knew I had to keep my Big Mac down that I had the day before after my nice shot of chemo, and focusing on keeping my body still (from trembling uncontrollably) and try not to fall asleep. That was all I could focus on.

I asked Bastiaan what the priest was coming to do, but he had no idea either. We finally came to the conclusion maybe he wanted to do another ointment of the sick???

But that was not what he came to do…
He arrived with a briefcase, candles, ointment and a booklet. It just didn’t make sense to us.

I was wearing my oldest, and I mean OLDEST, sweater and maybe (I cant be completely sure) I wasn’t even wearing a bra!?! Bastiaan was wearing his favorite (I don’t wanna come out, cow poopie stained) jeans on and mom a dad just arrived from the dairy so they didn’t think about dressing up either. The priest looked a bit confused by our appearances but didn’t say a word.

We all sat down on our couch and he took out all his instruments, lighted the candles and put on his nice “thingy that he wears around his neck” cloak dress. Bastiaan was just looking at my mom and dad and I was just in THE "chemo" zone…

He preformed the ointment for the sick and steamed, and yes I mean STEAMED, like a STEAMBOAT that can’t stop, into: “do you Bastiaan Meeuwis Oostdijck take Leontien Martina Francina Wilhelmina Maria van de Laar to be your wife?”

“WHAT???!!!”
“Oh no no NO…. You can’t marry us in these clothes, on our couch, without anybody knowing, in poopie stained jeans, without family and friends, ON OUR COUCH!!!”

Bastiaan said “I do”. And so did I. My mom and dad signed the papers he had brought.
I puked and went to bed.
Bastiaan let the priest out.

Mom and dad called my brother (it was too late to call my sister and Bastiaan’s parents in The Netherlands) and went to work at the farm.

Bastiaan and I talked about that day a lot. We figured the priest thought I was in such bad shape (and yes he probably was right), I might join the Good Lord soon, so he better marry us while he could so at least we would be joined together in front of God.

But what this priest did not know is that I am stubborn. As in very, very stubborn. And I wanted to marry my love the right way. In a church. In a white dress that I already had for 6 months. In front of our family. In the presence of our friends. And defiantly DEFIANTLY NOT on our own couch! Bastiaan and I decided to kick this whole cancer thing even harder in the butt so we could do it the proper way.

But with another priest.
All we had to do was fix me…

Wedding number three;

Ever heard of a Rose Ceremony? And NO I’m not talking about the Rose Ceremony at The Bachelor… What about a Hand Fastening Ceremony? No??? Me neither, well until I met our new minister that is!

Being sick sometimes means you meet new people… I know sounds a bit strange but let me tell you how that goes.

My mom and dad had to go to Cleveland to renew their passport. At the Dutch Embassy the met a very sweet gentleman named Arnie. My mom and dad started chatting with Arnie about dairy farming, and ended up talking about me. You have to remember this was in 2008 and emotions of me being sick and undergoing chemo were at the tip's of everybody’s tongues.

Arnie told my mom and dad that he had a dear friend, Mr. John Regan and John was a cancer survivor himself and helping others when or wherever needed. He told them, “If I needed somebody to talk to, I should just call his friend John”.

Well, not long after I decided to give this Mr. John a call. And it was great! Not great because the subject (cancer is NOT a funny subject) of our discussions where so good but because I could relate and he was a very VERY positive and good humored man. I had never seen John, never met him or even knew where he lived, but 'it' and the talking to him felt good.

Soon after we got done with all the chemo in 2009 I asked John, who happened to be a minister, if he would mind coming up to Indiana and marry Bastiaan and me for REAL this time in a little church in front of our family and friends. Luckily he said yes.

A couple of months into planning this wedding John asked me what kind of ceremony we wanted. “We didn’t know, just a nice one would be fine with us”… John suggested two things; a rose ceremony or a hand fastening ceremony??? In the mean time our relationship (John’s and mine) evolved from calling on the phone to writing emails and when I read “Rose Ceremony” I did a double take and thought “OH NO! Anything else then whatever it is that reminds me of the SLIMY BACHELOR (and yes i watched EVERY week...) from TV!!!” So we decided to go with the Hand Fastening Ceremony…

My next email to John was: “And what is the hand fastening thing exactly, do I need to bring a piece of rope?” (yes pretty blunt...)

His answer: “This is a slightly different type of wedding ceremony which is called hand fasting and it is of ancient Celtic origin and it is where we in the USA got the expression "Tying the knot" from, to mean someone is getting married. I have a beautiful white and gold-trim piece of rope specifically designed for use in this ceremony. I drape it over the hands of the bride and groom as you make your vows, then TIE THE KNOT. It is loose enough so you slip your hands out after the vows and I hand it to the best man or maid of honor.”

I think he kinda knew that I had this strange idea in my head about hand fastening after reading all those disturbing Stephen King novels…

I talked to Bastiaan about it, and he thought it would be just fine.

Between October 2009 and May 2010 we had sent new invitations, made a new guest list (because all the great new people we had met running in and out hospitals and operating a large dairy), dusted off my wedding gown that had been moved back and forth between our house and my mom’s house for two years in order for Bastiaan not to see it, did major remodeling to make sure all our friends would have a place to sleep…. Well, I just wanted a new bathroom but I had to give Bastiaan a good excuse… and planned the wedding of our dreams.

On May 15th of 2010 Bastiaan and I stood in front of Mr. John (who we met for the very first time in the flesh that day) and he wed us. The ceremony was beyond beautiful. The little church was full of loved ones, flowers and laughter. The Hand Fastening Ceremony was new to almost 95% of all the people that were there, so very interesting and humbling for most of us. There was some crying, some laughing some praying and some "just being happy". You could feel it in the air...

Just like how I got my horse this wedding was a gift from above.
If you ever where a little girl… trust me… this was the wedding you had wished for. After surviving this awful disease, after loving each other was made into a very hard thing to do, moving to a different continent, doing something you have never done before (dairying), we stood in front all our family and friends and felt as one.

Our first time getting married was good, because Bastiaan and I already knew we belonged together.
The second time getting married was tough, because Bastiaan and I were tested to no end in our love, our strength and our determination.
Our third time was perfect, because we overcame and had all the people who we love with us to celebrate.

It was a good day.

...

It's a post... NO! It's an Interview!!!

2011-05-05T11:48:00.001-04:00

Right at this moment i'm sitting in Bastiaan's mom and dads SUNNY garden in THE NETHERLANDS and thus have left my mom and dad & brother at the dairy, probably in the rain...

Since all this blogging addiction really started two months ago i have met some really great, sweet and inspirational people, on of those is Patrice from Everyday Ruralty and she asked me if she could interview me for her blog Everyday Ruralty and Farm Chicks who Blog.

And of course I felt really honored and said "Yes"!

Below is the link to her blog, I hope you have fun reading, and maybe find out something about me that you didn't know yet... ;-)

Barn Chicks who blog - With Leontien of Four Leaf Clover Dairy

I hope to do a post on Monday like usual, but i can't promise anything! Have to spent some quality time with my little sister, Bastiaans parents and grandma and lot's of friends! Oh, and do some dancing, go looking at things that have changed in the last 5 years, and EAT! EAT LOT'S of DUTCH FOOD!!!

Hope to see you all soon again probably plus 10 pounds...
Leontien

Three times is the Charm... I DO!

2011-05-02T14:25:00.000-04:00

Ever heard of a Rose Ceremony? And NO I’m not talking about the Rose Ceremony at The Bachelor… What about a Hand Fastening Ceremony? No??? Me neither, well until I met our new minister that is!

Being sick sometimes means you meet new people… I know sounds a bit strange but let me tell you how that goes.

My mom and dad had to go to Cleveland to renew their passport. At the Dutch Embassy the met a very sweet gentleman named Arnie. My mom and dad started chatting with Arnie about dairy farming, and ended up talking about me. You have to remember this was in 2008 and emotions of me being sick and undergoing chemo were at the tip's of everybody’s tongues.

Arnie told my mom and dad that he had a dear friend, Mr. John Regan and John was a cancer survivor himself and helping others when or wherever needed. He told them, “If I needed somebody to talk to, I should just call his friend John”. Well, not long after I decided to give this Mr. John a call. And it was great! Not great because the subject (cancer is NOT a funny subject) of our discussions where so good but because I could relate and he was a very VERY positive and good humored man. I had never seen John, never met him or even knew where he lived, but 'it' and the talking to him felt good.

Soon after we got done with all the chemo in 2009 I asked John, who happened to be a minister, if he would mind coming up to Indiana and marry Bastiaan and me for REAL this time in a little church in front of our family and friends. Luckily he said yes.

A couple of months into planning this wedding John asked me what kind of ceremony we wanted. “We didn’t know, just a nice one would be fine with us”… John suggested two things; a rose ceremony or a hand fastening ceremony??? In the mean time our relationship (John’s and mine) evolved from calling on the phone to writing emails and when I read “Rose Ceremony” I did a double take and thought “OH NO! Anything else then whatever it is that reminds me of the SLIMY BACHOLOR (and yes i watched EVERY week...) from TV!!!” So we decided to go with the Hand Fastening Ceremony…

My next email to John was: “And what is the hand fastening thing exactly, do I need to bring a piece of rope?” (yes pretty blunt...)
His answer: “This is a slightly different type of wedding ceremony which is called hand fasting and it is of ancient Celtic origin and it is where we in the USA got the expression "Tying the knot" from, to mean someone is getting married. I have a beautiful white and gold-trim piece of rope specifically designed for use in this ceremony. I drape it over the hands of the bride and groom as you make your vows, then TIE THE KNOT. It is loose enough so you slip your hands out after the vows and I hand it to the best man or maid of honor.”

I think he kinda knew that I had this strange idea in my head about hand fastening after reading all those disturbing Stephen King novels…

I talked to Bastiaan about it, and he thought it would be just fine.

Between October 2009 and May 2010 we had sent new invitations, made a new guest list (because all the great new people we had met running in and out hospitals and operating a large dairy), dusted off my wedding gown that had been moved back and forth between our house and my mom’s house for two years in order for Bastiaan not to see it, did major remodeling to make sure all our friends would have a place to sleep…. Well, I just wanted a new bathroom but I had to give Bastiaan a good excuse… and planned the wedding of our dreams.

On May 15th of 2010 Bastiaan and I stood in front of Mr. John (who we met for the very first time in the flesh that day) and he wed us. The ceremony was beyond beautiful. The little church was full of loved ones, flowers and laughter. The Hand Fastening Ceremony was new to almost 95% of all the people that were there, so very interesting and humbling for most of us. There was some crying, some laughing some praying and some "just being happy". You could feel it in the air...

Just like how I got my horse this wedding was a gift from above.

If you ever where a little girl… trust me… this was the wedding you had wished for. After surviving this awful disease, after loving each other was made into a very hard thing to do, moving to a different continent, doing something you have never done before (dairying), we stood in front all our family and friends and felt as one.

Our first time getting married was good, because Bastiaan and I already knew we belonged together.
The second time getting married was tough, because Bastiaan and I were tested to no end in our love, our strength and our determination.
Our third time was perfect, because we overcame and had all the people who we love with us to celebrate.

It was a good day.

…

And no! This is not the end! The love story continues… I sure hope you'd stick with me!

And I just want to say thank you all for so many lovely, encouraging, humor full, sweet, fantastic, empowering and just absolutely WONDERFUL comments! For everybody who has read my blog in the last two months, if I would see you in person I would give you a huge kiss and hug and say THANK YOU for bringing me so much joy!

Three times is the Charm! Getting Married # 2

2011-04-28T15:03:00.000-04:00

I had my wedding dress…
It was gorgeous…
It didn’t fit anymore… I was too skinny.

We were done with the first full month of chemo and into our three times a week for 48 weeks "period", and yes, I had survived so far. I also survived the surgeries and yes, I even survived the fact that we cut my hair (all that was left of it) and I found out that I was more vain then I ever thought I was going to be about the whole hair thing.

Apparently losing your hair doesn’t seem too bad until it is gone… And yes, every Sunday Bastiaan would drive me to the farm so I could do the payroll for our boys who so desperately with him, my parents and my brother were trying to run the dairy…

We didn’t even think about the wedding that we were supposed to have in July…We were in FULL SURVIVOR mode.

Our Catholic priest was also in full survivor mode.

On our way to Ohio is a beautiful church. Exactly like we have them in Holland (big, old and tall) and as soon as Bastiaan had asked me to marry him I told him I would love to get married in that particular church. We only had one little problem…. Bastiaan was not raised Catholic…

We met with the priest and explained that we would love to get married in his church and join his parochial. He told us getting married there would be all right if we went to a “marriage session” and he had to ask the bishop. Of course we also would have to go to church every Sunday and raise our “soon to be” kids Catholic… The session is a whole blog post on its own, trust me…

We went to church, went to the session and got to know the priest a bit better. After we got the "news" he came over to our house and we had an ointment for the sick and he told us he would be back and check up on me.

On a particular Tuesday, don’t ask me what Tuesday cause I really don’t know, he told us he would come by and we needed to have my mom and dad present. I had no idea what he was coming to do. I just knew I had to keep my Big Mac down that I had the day before after my nice shot of chemo, and focussing on keeping my body still (from trembling uncontrollably) and try not to fall asleep. That was all I could focus on. I asked Bastiaan what the priest was coming to do, but he had no idea either. We finally came to the conclusion maybe he wanted to do another ointment of the sick???

But that was not what he came to do…

He arrived with a briefcase, candles, ointment and a booklet. It just didn’t make sense to us.

I was wearing my oldest, and I mean OLDEST, sweater and maybe (I cant be completely sure) I wasn’t even wearing a bra!?! Bastiaan was wearing his favorite (I don’t wanna come out, cow poopie stained) jeans on and mom a dad just arrived from the dairy so they didn’t think about dressing up either. The priest looked a bit confused by our appearances but didn’t say a word.

We all sat down on our couch and he took out all his instruments, lighted the candles and put on his nice “thingy that he wears around his neck” cloak dress. Bastiaan was just looking at my mom and dad and I was just in THE "chemo" zone…

He preformed the ointment for the sick and steamed, and yes I mean STEAMED, like a STEAMBOAT that can’t stop, into: “do you Bastiaan Meewis Oostdijck take Leontien Martina Francina Wilhelmina Maria van de Laar to be your wife?”

“WHAT???!!!”

“Oh no no NO…. You can’t marry us in these clothes, on our couch, without anybody knowing, in poopie stained jeans, without family and friends, ON OUR COUCH!!!”

Bastiaan said “I do”. And so did I. My mom and dad signed the papers he had brought.

I puked and went to bed.
Bastiaan let the priest out.
Mom and dad called my brother (it was too late to call my sister and Bastiaan’s parents in The Netherlands) and went to work at the farm.

Bastiaan and I talked about that day a lot. We figured the priest thought I was in such bad shape (and yes he probably was right), I might join the Good Lord soon, so he better marry us while he could so at least we would be joined together in front of God.

But what this priest did not know is that I am stubborn. As in very, very stubborn. And I wanted to marry my love the right way. In a church. In a white dress that I already had for 6 months. In front of our family. In the presence of our friends. And defiantly DEFINATLY NOT on our own couch!

Bastiaan and I decided to kick this whole cancer thing even harder in the butt so we could do it the proper way.

But with another priest.

All we had to do was fix me…

Next Monday, Yes, THE THIRTH TIME IS THE CHARM!!!

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Three times is the Charm... Getting Married # 1

2011-04-25T10:00:00.001-04:00

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Some people get married once
Some people get married twice
Some people get married three times to THE SAME guy… and yes this would be me…

How do you get married three times, well, it isn’t because I really wanted too but sometimes life throws you a little curve ball and you just have to go with it…

Bastiaan proposed to me in November of 2007. In a really nice restaurant in Fort Wayne, we had been together for over 6 years and he figured it was time, and so did I, so I said “YES!” (And we got a free dessert from the people sitting next to us in the restaurant which made it extra nice).

We set our date to be on July 5th 2008 so our family and friends would have enough time to come over and book a flight from the Netherlands, Canada or Australia. At that date we would have the party and our church wedding. Of course we just started milking on the 20th of November and everything was still very hectic, exciting and stressful but also an immense adventure and we were loving every moment of it!

Because Bastiaan’s visa was going to expire in February we needed too make sure he would be "safe" and we decided to get married in the Courthouse in Bluffton, just to get the paperwork done. Go to Holland make sure the visa’s were in order and then get “really” married in July. For us this “wedding” was a necessity. We would of preferred to have done it on the same day as our church wedding but if you have so many people coming from abroad you need to give them proper time to make arrangements and plan flights. Telling them in November you are going to get married in February is not enough time, we figured.

I do, # 1...
We were already flabbergasted when we went to the courthouse to get a marriage license. Question one; ‘Have you been married before?’, ‘ No…’. Question two; ‘Do you have any children?’, ‘No…’ Question three; ‘Do you have mental problems?' ‘HU? NO!!!’. Those questions plus the actual license cost us $9.00 which was shocking (Yes, the price as well as the questions)! They told us now that we had the license we should get our witnesses and we would be ready to go…

On January 18th it was COLD!!! As in we (Dutchies) are not used to this kinda weather! But because I wanted to make sure this was at least a little special, it was our wedding after all, I wore a skirt (never mind the fact that an hour before I was still running around in coveralls on the farm trying to get things in order and Bastiaan was working on fixing a tractor!) and Bastiaan got a nice new shirt and my mom & dad and brother were coming, all dressed up too after running around on the farm all morning. Because of the dairy start up we hadn’t really had the opportunity to meet a lot of new people who could stand in as our witnesses and so my parents were going to be our witnesses.

We agreed with Bastiaan’s parents and my little sister that we would put them on speaker phone when it was time to do the ceremony so they would listen to us say our 'I do’s'. We did not want them to feel left out, but we also didn’t want them to travel two times, after all the June wedding was going to be our “official” wedding, and we rater had them there at that time!

So on this cold day we went to the Bluffton Courthouse and which was another SHOCKER where out of the courthouse and married for the very first time WITHIN 15 (if it lasted that long) MINUTES!

Before Bastiaan and I knew what was going on we were officially married! The only thing I really remember was the major saying those things that we only hear on TV or in the movies, now for real right in front of us which was pretty amazing! And naturally my new husband being very sweet and handsome!

After we got out off the courthouse we went to the Mexican restaurant to celebrate and got a great lunch, after that it was pretty much back to business as usual…

Soon after our “Court Wedding” Bastiaan and I picked the venue and the church and met with the priest, picked what we wanted to eat and who we would love to have at our special day and THAT was pretty much the extend of what he wanted and needed to do… (Being a boy and planning weddings apparently doesn’t go together…).

How to end up with my perfect guy...

2011-04-21T16:04:00.000-04:00

There is no such thing as the perfect guy, right??? WRONG!

This past Monday I told you about our Bar in School (Bar 6-) and this cute guy that walked in while I was doing my weekly shift of bartending…. Yes, on a weeknight...

Bastiaan, was his name.

I figured this was a good, solid name and I quickly checked his hands (pretty important for a farmer) and checked his teeth (pretty important for a farm girl). They were both fine so we started chatting.

He just came back from Australia where he spent 8 months working at a cotton farm a sheep farm and doing some backpacking. That sounded like music to my ears because I already had traveled 3 times to The States, once to Canada, several times to Sicily (all by myself!) so I was pretty content with the fact that I found somebody who traveled (by himself) too and wasn't afraid to see the world.

We talked a hole in the night. Of course I was too busy talking to notice the time and D finally told me, “Hey Leo, shouldn’t you close the bar?” Oh yeah, close the bar... Bastiaan helped us close the bar (which included cleaning the whole place, clean the toilets and the outside so the next morning “normal” students could go to school) without finding left overs from the previous night and we did this same thing the next night and the next…

Although I told him the second night, “You have to know, when I grow up, I’m gonna live in The States!”, that didn’t scare him off. He just laughed and asked if maybe I wanted to come to Australia instead.

“NO WAY!” … Yes, yes determined ~~stubborn~~ is something that some people would label me with…

On our 4th night he walked me back to my car. We also had dorms on the school property and the first year they recommend you staying in the dorms (to get adjusted to the life, as in, don’t drink and drive but just crawl home...) but because I was already in my third year I “upgraded” my bottom into a real student house (in the suburbs of the town). Bastiaan had his room in the dorm (after all he was brand spanking new), but I had to drive to my house every evening.

While walking "home"/to my car from the Bar listening to a Belgium band, Lasgo with their hit song Something, Bastiaan kissed me! And yes this was one of our OPENING SONGS at our wedding (our THIRD wedding, but I’ll tell you all about that later) and yes he is about 1.5 years younger but he also knew how to take charge... hehe…

The music was great, the weather was great, the evening went really well and I was in the best company a girl could wish for. When I got home I woke up all my roommates and told them we had kissed! Of course they were very happy for me and asked me what my plan was next. I hadn’t been in a serious relationship for a while and I told them, "we would see where it would lead us". To D I said, “I don’t know, he is awfully young, maybe it will last 3 months and then something else will come along for him”…

This year we are together 10 years with LOTS of ups and downs; as in: break up’s, get together’s, emigration to a different part of the world, battling cancer, starting a large dairy together with MY mom, dad and brother, leaving his family for me, leaving his friends for me and try to find new friends, putting his dreams away on a shelf so i can chase my crazy American Dream, going true a truly awful time financially and mentally with our dairy so soon after we started up, learning to love cows while actually he is a crop farmer and no, crop farmers are not dairy farmers..., hoping that one day he can become a daddy, that is if my body and mind is ready to have little ones... and oh, did I mention BATTLING cancer with me…?

I really KNOW i found my perfect match. He’s quiet, I’m blabbing all the time, he’s understanding, I’m wondering AND worrying about everything everywhere, he thinks things true, I’m a spur of the moment kindda girl, he’s perfect , I’m far from….

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Wordless Wednesday...

2011-04-19T21:38:00.000-04:00

Yep... That's me...

And yes, that is a BIG cat!
And yes, those are pig poopies!

Have a fantastic Wednesday, do some bloghopping and don't forget about my love story here at Four Leaf Clover Tales tomorrow (Thursday)!

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How do you end up with the most perfect guy?

2011-04-18T11:00:00.000-04:00

You don’t…

There is no such thing as the perfect guy. Same as you can never be the most perfect wife! Sometimes you just mess up dinner, sometimes you forget to do the laundry and SOMETIMES you just don’t feel like doing the hanky panky thing.

But for all of you out there who ARE believers, here’s a little love story...

Jared Leto, maybe not perfect but definatly HOT!

When I was 22 I was in my second year of University. I was studying Agricultural Economics and trying to get my teaching degree and I was struggling! I had 5 classmates (all boys, cause who on earth wants to be an agricultural economics teacher these days) who helped me every single day. Besides school I had a pretty active social life (maybe that was why I had to struggle so much IN school). I was pretty much in every after school’s activity and one of those activities was being vice president of our bar. And yes I mean bar as in a place where you can buy drinks and get drunk. IN SCHOOL!

The bar is called Bar 6- because as you all know The Netherlands is 6 meters below sea level…

It was run by students; you had a president, vice president, head bartender, head supply and so on. You would get credits for running the bar and it looked good on your resume and all the money that we’d make went to improvements of the school or set on an account to do renovations to the bar OR throw more parties. I loved this bar, I loved the people in it, loved the people who I had the pleasure to try to run it with and I loved the daily lessons that we got there (and believe me there were a LOT of life lessons to be learned).

Besides our weekly meetings everybody had to take a night shift of actual bartending. One day a week we would be the main bartender and close up shop whenever we felt it was time (officially we needed to close the bar at 1 am but sometimes we just had to much fun and the bar stayed open till 5 or 6 am…).

Bar 6- in Holland

At one of those days in 2001 it was my shift and I was stoked. I had the music planned out, the kegs ready and was ready to pull off a great evening with one of my friends tending the bar with me. The bar was getting nice and full and it promised to be a good evening. It was always a challenge to see who would draw the most people in.

And in he walks…. One of the MOST gorgeous boy I had seen. All nice bronze looking (farmers tan I found out later), tall, skinny, cute haircut, eyebrow piercing (Yeah I know?!?) and just SEXY!

I turned to my friend and told her “WOW that just might be the sexiest guy I have seen in a long time!” She snickered and said that I should go for it…

And I didn’t!!! I was way to insecure and pretended to be really busy with bartending and I didn’t see anybody that I knew that knew him to start a conversation with and that way I could get to know him.

A couple of evenings later, and yes I would be at the bar every single night, planning myself in, in order to get a chance to see him again. Finally after scouting out the whole school grounds during the day and being at the bar all evening, he came back into the bar.

And heaven be hold, he came in with somebody I KNEW!!!

My guy...

So this was my chance…. Told my sweet friend D that I was on a man hunt and she needed to watch my back. I went around the bar and sat down on a stool besides this gorgeous male specimen and his friend and asked how they were doing. Yes very lame, I know. The friend that I knew pretty much got it really quick and introduced me to his friend, Bastiaan…

Thursday this love story will continue and you will know all about MY perfect guy.

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Friends and side effects

2011-04-14T14:00:00.007-04:00

Cancer, chemo and side effects go hand in hand. My chemo was Interferon… A nasty drug which I had to take for 52 weeks…. 4 weeks of 5 days a week, IV’s in the arm and 48 weeks of shots, 3 shots a week... It didn't last 52 weeks, it lasted longer...

I was done with the first month of treatment, the IV’s and we had started with the first week of the shots, my dear friend Niels and housemate in our student home in The Netherlands and his girlfriend Moniek came to give me some moral support and see the country. And what is more fun & comforting than seeing the country by going to the hospital together with your “sick” friend???

Usually my mom, dad, Bastiaan’s mom and dad (they came over for 5 weeks from Holland),Bastiaan, Hanneke (my sister), Jan Willem (my brother) or other friends would come with me but now they all had a day off too. Niels and Moniek were more than happy to come with me and I would normally be awake the whole ride home (about one hour long) and then fall asleep in my own bed, before the real side effects would start, as in shaking, trembling, throwing up, running a fever, not be able to go to the bathroom or going all the time, and did I mention the shaking and trembling???

So, we got to the hospital, I get my shot (the second one that week, it was Wednesday) chat with all the nurses, have lot’s of fun and show Niels and Moniek the differences between hospitals in Holland and the USA. And introduced them to all the fantastic nurses and doctors in Fort Wayne.

We get the car I sit down and I’m just rambling feeling GREAT! I would get some anti nausea medicine, some flu resisting medicine, sleep medicine and some good pain killers together with the Interferon. And somehow this time the little cocktail was doing its work fantastically! I noticed that halfway home I’m slurring a bit… not too much…. Just a little bit, or so I thought. Niels and Moniek who never had been in the company of someone who is on chemo didn’t know what to expect so they figured it was normal.

But it wasn’t…

They put me to bed, which apparently wasn’t that easy. On really bad days Bastiaan would escort me out of the car, in the house and in bed. Niels and Moniek had the privilege this time. And all the time I was mumbling, speaking in slurred sentences and not making any sense in whatever I was trying to say.

They put me to bed and I slept…

In the evening the side effects started again, like clockwork, and that Thursday Niels and Moniek went home. My dad’s turn was that next day, on Friday, and we went to the hospital. Before they hooked me up to all the proper machinery and gave me my shot I told them about my strange drive home and that if was feeling so woozy and that I had problems making normal sentences.

And then all hell broke loose!

My fantastic oncologist, a colleague oncology doctor, and 5 nurses were standing by my chair, asking me questions, taking blood and arranging MRI’s and CAT scan’s…

They came to the conclusion the nausea medicine they had given me for the last month was only supposed to be given to me for one week (or given once every 3/4 weeks like you have with more often used chemo). Not five weeks in a row every single day…

Luckily there were no long lasting effects, but they gave me 2 weeks “off”, as a breather and recover from the buildup of medicine. After those two weeks we continued with the interferon but I can never have any nausea medicine again.
But that’s all right with me; I wasn’t planning on getting sick no more anyway…

And yes, now I know…
• Sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body
• Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding
• Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes
• Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination
• Sudden, severe headache with no known cause

... Means get YOUR BUTT back INTO the hospital, chemo or not!

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Oh Canada! Feeling like a girl…

2011-04-11T11:00:00.016-04:00

Being in Canada was very different from everything I was used too! (And yes If you haven’t read “Oh Canada, part one, I would recommend you do that now…)

The first day I arrived I got a bit of a culture shock but Mavis, Chris and Wendy were so sweet that I didn’t feel completely as an alien, and yes the hundred horses and the beautiful landscape helped too! With me arriving there were 3 students on the farm and one girl’s was there a week, and she did not look happy, i thought.

Oh my, my heels...

Within another week she decided to go home. This was pretty eye opening to me, because I still had a hard time with the loneliness of the country and the lack of other people besides the family and us, but I was determined I wouldn’t fly half across the world and then wimp out because I felt home sick!

And of course there was Fox Trim Classic, the MOST BEAUTIFUL stallion in the world (how a girl get’s a horse), even prettier than the horse in the movie the “Black Stallion”, and Kate (the other student) and the family. Our days were pretty full and long. On breeding days we would start with “finding” the horses out in the pastures. Try to locate the head mare and lead them back. We had to do this on foot, and it was always a long, long walk to find them and a long but little shorter RUN back to keep up with all these mares and fillies. Yes, at that age I had really good stamina…

The Mares going back to their pasture

One of us would start helping Chris with the breeding and the other girl together with barn manager Barb, would start cleaning out the stalls, after we were done with chores and breeding we would ride the horses that needed training. This could be anywhere from 5 to 10 horses a day. And as a cherry on the cake I got to ride Fox Trim Classic. After two weeks I started to feel pretty happy being here; Great people, great animals, I got lot’s and lot’s of mail (hehe, the good old days) from home and in the evenings I had time to relax and think about my life (which is very good for the inner self).

Kate and I got along really well and on Saturdays we would get Chris’s truck and we would drive 20 miles to the closest town and eat at the local hamburger joint. NO, they did not have a Mac Donald’s so you can imagine how “big” that town was… Being from the Netherlands I still had the need to dress up every now and then, and with dress up I mean, put on my short skirt and my high heels…

Yes, THE truck....

Kate would tell me I was nuts, but I felt it was important to feel like a girl every now and then to keep centered. This was my center piece, 13 cm or 5.1 inches, heels! And yes it would take some time to get in that huge truck (being used to all the "little" cars in Holland), but if Kate would give me a push it would work out great! It didn’t help I just got my drivers license a couple of weeks before and the truck would be popping out of its gear, like, every 10 minutes… So besides getting in, driving it was equally as hard…

Getting out was the easy part… you just slide out… but you had to make sure your skirt doesn’t ride all the way up over your buttocks…

So we would drive to town, slide out of the truck with as much grace as possible, eat a burger and watch cute Canadian boys in their trucks drive up and down Main Street….

We tried to enter a bar once but I can’t remember clearly how that went so I assume we didn’t get far (being only 19 and all…).

Those boys diving up and down Main street were! And I honestly think, they had never seen a crazy Dutch girl with crazy high heels in their town, and all I can say I NEVER seen teenagers driving UP AND DOWN the street ALL EVENING for fun!?! I asked Kate what was up with that and she explained that that was what the teens would do because it beat sitting at home and they were not allowed to go out to a pub, club or bar, like we did in Holland. I have to say it was pretty funny to see the same faces checking you and the rest of the town out, turn around at the end of the street and drive by again. And this would happen every 10 minutes for hours!?! Kate and I could not stop laughing and we had a really good time.

I know... I know...

We didn’t stay for hours but long enough to enjoy and after a little push and pull I was back in Chris’s truck, we would drive our assigned route, up and down Main street, and headed back to the safety of the farm and watched Austin Powers on the VCR with Chris, which by the way I did NOT get the first 2 times watching…

Life was good in Canada

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