Grumpy

Or maybe Sleepy.  Which ever dwarf I take after right now, I know that Happy is not among them.  I am exhausted and sick.  My children are sick.  I have gotten very little sleep the past couple of nights.  Last night was because of the furnace whose name is Hannah that kept me up most of the night after spending time in the ER.

The night before was because of Charlie and Bethany up until after 4:00 talking and laughing. 

I must say the ER doctor was really nice.  We actually saw him before seeing the nurse.  The triage nurse took the children's vitals, looked in their throat and said "looks like strep.  The doctor will have to double check, though."  I said something like "Oh, great.  And I've had a sore throat all day and have been feeling like crap."  Up until then, I had been brushing it off as being over tired and my body trying to tell me to rest.  (I'm very good and hearing what my body is saying and then promptly ignoring it.) 

Anyway, we get sent to a room and a few minutes later the doctor came in.  (Again, this was before we even saw the nurse.)  He examined the children, confirmed the strep, and said "I heard you've had a sore throat as well."  I said "Yeah, but I will be seeing my primary on Tuesday."  He got my first name and when he wrote a script for the children, he got one for me as well.  No file for me for separate billing and paperwork and all the other stuff.  The children's scripts were computerized.  Mine was hand written.  He could have ignored me or had me go through the whole ER check-in process and all the other stuff, but he didn't.  I was there with the same symptoms, just not as a patient and he was there for the children and took an extra two seconds to make sure I was taken care of.

That is what I call old time genuine care of people.  Something that is sadly lacking in too many places.  It's the small things that add up to really show the character of people and places. 

In other news, we saw a small copperhead the other day.  I went to let the goats loose and there was a copperhead in the path.  It was coiled and when I approached, it slithered off towards the goats.  I watched it go towards the goats and went in with them.  Bethany and I stood watching it for a few minutes and Husband came down with the other two and it moved again.  It went up on the back of Buttercup and rolled off.  The goat just laid there and looked back at it as it took off to another shady spot to lay in where there was less human traffic.  It was kind of neat just watching it all the while cautioning the children to stay back away from it and leave it alone. 

We also saw several large stick bugs and a few dozen baby ones.  We looked them up and found out that not only do they eat leaves (which we knew) but they love berry leaves such as blackberry and raspberry.  So, we are going to see if there are any of these berries around.  I know there is a ton of sweet sumac which I want to harvest next year.  Husband said he saw some berries around last week, but I was running errands and did not get to see them.

Anyway, that is a brief update on what is happening here.  The heat wave has slowed up down a bit.  Triple digit temperatures in the shade (not counting the actual heat index) makes for dangerous health conditions to be working in.  It is annoying.  We are going to have to stop working in the day and start working at night.