Old Hands...

My hands look like the hands of an 80 year old lady

My hands hurt like the hands of an 80 year old lady

I sometimes feel like a lady who has lived 80 years, just by looking at my hands…

And yes, this might have to do with the fact that we were in the emergency room for over ten hours… Well… and the fact that they used my hands as a (several) pin cushion(s)… And, maybe, the fact that we had to stay in the hospital (again) for over 10 days because I had an unexplained fever… Oh… and the pneumonia that we didn't know I had…

Good thing I that I can open my own bottle of water again, with these old hands, it is kind of a bother to keep asking people to open up bottles of water when you are supposed to keep hydrated... (Thank You Mommy, Daddy, Hanneke, Jan Willem, Megan and of course my everything: Bastiaan!!).

It is also a good thing too that I am home. I like being home. Bastiaan and I have been throwing this idea around to rent a big camper and to go “see” places (you know, normally we would do this when we would be 70+), but plans have to be adjusted sometimes... I like to be home for now.

Besides opening water bottles it is also a nice thing to be able to “do” things again. Like (and this keeps repeating itself for some strange reason…) going to the bathroom by myself without falling of the “pot”, putting socks on (I like my socks and I have not one pair of toe slipper thingies so, I need socks…), playing with my new phone, getting in our lovely bathtub, and more important, getting out of the bathtub… and typing new blog posts and doing the “Facebook thing”, gosh, I hope they don’t drop the “timeline” disaster on me any time soon…

I can’t vacuum the house yet, but I’m not sure if that is a good thing or a “bad” thing. Hehe…

We are having a hard time (not that it was not hard before) but we got quite a shock from the horrible hospital experience two weeks ago, don’t get me wrong, the nurses and (most) of the doctors were really nice, it was just the overall experience of being a test bunny that got to me and Bastiaan & the family (and the pain). I do not mind being a test bunny if it will help other people with this grueling disease but… just don’t let me FEEL like a hurting test bunny…

And to be completely honest, I do not know how many times I can crawl out of a 10 meter deep hole (hmmm that would be 33 feet…) again…

Yes, we had to stop the Zelboraf treatment because of the pneumonia & fever (which they never really figured out after giving me 7 different antibiotics; "which one did the trick...?", and yes the docs really like me to start again as soon as possible, but… I just don’t feel ready yet…

Maybe if my hands look like my hands again instead of the hands of a 80 year old lady and more important they don’t hurt anymore, and I have seen me some cute looking girls (almost as good as seeing a beautiful black stallion ;-)) at the dairy, we’ll be ready to do round number four…

Maybe. 

I just love being home right now.

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Tractor Disaster! The big bang theory

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…



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I am a Ladybug killer...

Freely translated from Dutch –Lieveheersbeestjes – The Good Lord’s little beasts
Freely translated from English – Ladybugs – The lady got bugs

And my gosh I had bugs all right!

At one of the best dairy practical training practices I have even been, I had a close encounter with ladybugs and that changed my mind about them forever.

I was spending 3 months with a fantastic family and they were teaching me pretty much everything they knew about dairy farming in America. I would eat, sleep and work with the family and things were going great. They had converted their basement into a cozy bedroom for me, so I had my own space after hard day learning and working (read working as looking and absorbing on how they worked) and every night I would go to bed, feeling pretty happy about what I had seen and learned.

And then it started to warm up in America…

I was laying in my bed, reading my book, I can’t remember what particular book but the chances are great that it was a Stephen King novel and I didn’t have a little bedside lamp so I had the “big” ceiling light on. You see, this was pretty much a bulb with a wire sticking out of a plastic (not finished) ceiling. Which was all right by me, the house was pretty old and it gave it all a pretty comfy (in a strange way) feeling.

My book was very good but felt sleepy so I decided to go to sleep and i turned the light off…

Nothing is more scary than reading a Stephen King novel and then hearing creepy little noises from above you, after you turned off the light… TRUST ME, I KNOW…

So finally I got the nerve to sit up and pull on the little cord which would turn the light on. And what do I see…Like FIFTY ladybugs crawling out of the plastic besides the light bulb… O my Gosh! They were piling on top of each other trying to get out and dropping down on MY bed!

You see I am not a sissy, but I did NOT like that at all! It would have sent me flying if it were spiders but after all, it where just ladybugs, right???

So I decided to talk action, I couldn’t just lie there and pretend to sleep. So I got out my cigarette box (yes I know, the good old days…) took all my cigarettes out and decided to stuff them (as in the Ladybugs) in there, to let them go in the real world tomorrow morning. One by one I caught them and stuck them in my box. After I got them all crammed in (or so I thought), I put them beside me on the table and watched the box for a while.

Those stupid little buggars crawled so much that eventually they came out of the box! So I put my lighter on the box to seal it off, that’ll teach them!!!

Pretty content with myself but all awake again after my “hunting” I picked up my novel and read some more. Feeling pretty sleepy again I turned off the light…. And YES, the sound of hundreds of little feet started crawling above my head AGAIN…



This repeated itself three times! I would stuff Ladybugs in my box, try to sleep, get fustrated, stuff more ladybugs in the box, try to sleep...

At one point I knew I couldn’t stuff more Ladybugs in my little box, it was already crowded as it was, so I decided to do two things: you might know (if you read "Mouse hunt in granny pants") I normally sleep without peejees but on this occasion I thought It would be better to put on a t-shirt and to build myself a little cocoon of blankets and just hoped they wouldn’t crawl underneath the blankets…

I think I killed HUNDREDS of Lady Bugs in those months… and I can’t say I’m sorry…


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Memories of the old days

I love farming!

Love farming 2000 years ago
(at least all the info I have read about that time and farming)
Love farming 200 years ago
(my grandparents, grandparents did a wonderful job)
Love farming 20 years ago
(my dad was, and is, the best)
Did NOT love farming 2 years ago
(2009 was just a shitty year, for all farmers)

And yes, although farming under the circumstances there days
is though, I still love it.

Since I started with the whole blogging, facebook, website (and don't
forget Twitter) thing, I looked up all our old and new pictures to use for
future blogs/posts and I came across some, I think, beautiful pictures
from Bastiaan's family.  And it brings me back  to the time my grandpa
and grandma were still alive and I was very little and loved the way they
farmed. How they operated their machinery, used horses and were
all day every day. And everybody had 2 cows, 2 pigs, chickens and
a horse...

Don't get me wrong I don't want to go back to that time but it is
amazing to me how far we have come and makes me appreciate more
and more about what it takes from those 2% of farmers that is left in
America to feed the world.

And I love the fact that we have beautiful pictures to enjoy and
remember those good old days!

I hope you enjoy!

Living my American Dream...

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! This was the
very first word she learned in the English
language.

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. 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, the farm ended. ..

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 9 years), they decided to stay in The
Netherlands. But they did change their minds
about visiting 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.

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 in a row every day. After that 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 rollercoaster 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 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 dammed bed! Because you can go to your work (the dairy), because it is a dream come true
Running a large family operated dairy is a gift and blessing, and i am so dammed proud that i can. I can make choices about who what and were. And that every day, 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...

Leontien